TABLE of CONTENTS

THE DRONE

DWELLERS IN THE MIRAGE

THE FACE IN THE ABYSS

THE FOX WOMAN

THE PEOPLE OF THE PIT

THE POOL OF THE STONE GOD

SEVEN FOOTPRINTS TO SATAN

THE SHIP OF ISHTAR

THREE LINES OF OLD FRENCH

THROUGH THE DRAGON GLASS

THE WOMEN OF THE WOOD

THE DRONE

FOUR MEN SAT AT A TABLE of the Explorers' Cluewitt, just in from two years botanical research in Abyssinia; Caranac, the ethnologist; MacLeod, poet first, and second the learned curator of the Asiatic Museum; Winston, the archeologist, who, with Kosloff the Russian, had worked over the ruins of Khara-Kora, the City of the Black Stones in the northern Gobi, once capital of the Empire of Genghis Khan.

The talk had veered to werewolves, vampires, fox-women, and similar superstitions. Directed thence by a cabled report of measures to be taken against the Leopard Society, the murderous fanatics who drew on the skins of leopards, crouched like them on the boughs of trees, then launched themselves down upon their victims tearing their throats with talons of steel. That, and another report of a "hex-murder" in Pennsylvania where a woman had been beaten to death because it was thought she could assume the shape of a cat and cast evil spells upon those into whose houses, as cat, she crept.

Caranac said: "It is a deep-rooted belief, an immeasurably ancient, that a man or woman may assume the shape of an animal, a serpent, a bird, even an insect. It was believed of old everywhere, and everywhere it is still believed by somox-men and fox-women of China and Japan, wolf-people, the badger and bird people of our own Indians. Always there has been the idea that there is a borderland between the worlds of consciousness of man and of beas borderland where shapes can be changed and man merge into beast or beast into man."

MacLeod said: "The Egyptians had some good reason for equipping their deities with the heads of birds and beasts and insects. Why did they portray Khepher the Oldest God with the head of a beetle? Why give Anubis, the Psychopomp, Guide of the Dead, the head of a jackal? Or Thoth, the God of Wisdom, the head of an ibis; and Horus, the Divine son of Isis and Osiris, the head of a hawk? Set, God of Evil, a crocodile's and the Goddess Bast a cat's? There was a reason for all of that. But about it one can only guess."

Caranac said: "I think there's something in that borderland, or borderline, idea. There's more or less of the beast, the reptile, the bird, the insect in everybody. I've known men who looked like rats and had the souls of rats. I've known women who belonged to the horse family, and showed it in face and voice. Distinctly there are bird peoplawk-faced, eagle-faceredatory. The owl people seem to be mostly men and the wren people women. There are quite as distinct wolf and serpent types. Suppose some of these have their animal element so strongly developed that they can cross this borderlinecome at times the animal? There you have the explanation of the werewolf, the snake-woman, and all the others. What could be more simple?"

Winston asked: "But you're not serious, Caranac?"

Caranac laughed. "At least half serious. Once I had a friend with an uncannily acute perception of these animal qualities in the human. He saw people less in terms of humanity than in terms of beast or bird. Animal consciousness that either shared the throne of human consciousness or sat above it or below it in varying degrees. It was an uncomfortable gift. He was like a doctor who has the faculty of visual diagnosis so highly developed that he constantly sees men and women and children not as they are but as diseases. Ordinarily he could control the faculty. But sometimes, as he would describe it, when he was in the Subway, or on a bus, or in the theatrr even sitting tete-a-tete with a pretty woman, there would be a swift haze and when it had cleared he was among rats and foxes, wolves and serpents, cats and tigers and birds, all dressed in human garb but with nothing else at all human about them. The clear-cut picture lasted only for a momenut it was a highly disconcerting moment."

Winston said, incredulously: "Do you mean to suggest that in an instant the musculature and skeleton of a man can become the musculature and skeleton of a wolf? The skin sprout fur? Or in the matter of your bird people, feathers? In an instant grow wings and the specialized muscles to use them? Sprout fangs...noses become snouts..."

Caranac grinned. "No, I don't mean anything of the sort. What I do suggest is that under certain conditions the animal part of this dual nature of man may submerge the human part to such a degree that a sensitive observer will think he sees the very creature which is its type. Just as in the case of the friend whose similar sensitivity I have described."

Winston raised his hands in mock admiration. "Ah, at last modern science explains the legend of Circe! Circe the enchantress who gave men a drink that changed them into beasts. Her potion intensified whatever animal or what-not soul that was within them so that the human form no longer registered upon the eyes and brains of those who looked upon them. I agree with you, Caranahat could be more simple? But I do not use the word simple in the same sense you did."

Caranac answered, amused: "Yet, why not? Potions of one sort or another, rites of one sort or another, usually accompany such transformations in the stories. I've seen drinks and drugs that did pretty nearly the same thing and with no magic or sorcery about theid it almost to the line of the visual illusion."

Winston began heatedly: "But--"

Hewitt interrupted him: "Will the opposing counsel kindly shut up and listen to expert testimony. Caranac, I'm grateful to you. You've given me courage to tell of something which never in God's world would I have told if it were not for what you've been saying. I don't know whether you're right or not, but maou've knocked a hag off my shoulders who's been riding them for months! The thing happened about four months before I left Abyssinia. I was returning to Addis Ababa. With my bearers I was in the western jungles. We came to a village and camped. That night my headman came to me. He was in a state of nerves. He begged that we would go from there at dawn. I wanted to rest for a day or two, and asked why. He said the village had a priest who was a great wizard. On the nights of the full moon the priest turned himself into a hyena and went hunting. For human food, the headman whispered. The villagers were safe, because he protected them. But others weren't. And the next night was the first of the full moon. The men were frightened. Would I depart at dawn?

"I didn't laugh at him. Ridiculing the beliefs of the bush gets you less than nowhere. I listened gravely, and then assured him that my magic was greater than the wizard's. He wasn't satisfied, but he shut up. Next day I went looking for the priest. When I found him I thought I knew how he'd been able to get that fine story started and keep the natives believing it. If any man ever looked like a hyena he did. Also, he wore over his shoulders the skin of one of the biggest of the beasts I'd ever seen, its head grinning at you over his head. You could hardly tell its teeth and his apart. I suspected he had filed his teeth to make 'em match. And he smelled like a hyena. It makes my stomach turn even now. It was the hide of coursr so I thought then.

"Well, I squatted down in front of him and we looked at each other for quite a while. He said nothing, and the more I looked at him the less he was like a man and more like the beast around his shoulders. I didn't like i'm frank to say I didn't. It sort of got under my skin. I was the first to weaken. I stood up and tapped my rifle. I said, 'I do not like hyenas. You understand me.' And I tapped my rifle again. If he was thinking of putting over some similar kind of hocus-pocus that would frighten my men still more, I wanted to nip it in the bud. He made no answer, only kept looking at me. I walked away.

"The men were pretty jittery all day, and they got worse when night began to fall. I noted there was not the usual cheerful twilight bustle that characterizes the native village. The people went into their huts early. Half an hour after dark, it was as though deserted. My camp was in a clearing just within the stockade. My bearers gathered close together around their fire. I sat on a pile of boxes where I could look over the whole clearing. I had one rifle on my knee and another beside me. Whether it was the fear that crept out from the men around the fire like an exhalation, or whether it had been that queer suggestion of shift of shape from man to beast while I was squatting in front of the priest I don't knout the fact remained that I felt mighty uneasy. The headman crouched beside, long knife in hand.

"After a while the moon rose up from behind the trees and shone down on the clearing. Then, abruptly, at its edge, not a hundred feet away I saw the priest. There was something disconcerting about the abruptness with which he had appeared. One moment there had been nothing, thehere he was. The moon gleamed on the teeth of the hyena's head and upon his. Except for that skin he was stark naked and his teeth glistened as though oiled. I felt the headman shivering against me like a frightened dog and I heard his teeth chattering.

"And then there was a swift hazhat was what struck me so forcibly in what you told of your sensitive friend, Caranac. It cleared as swiftly and there wasn't any priest. No. But there was a big hyena standing where he had beetanding on its hind feet like a man and looking at me. I could see its hairy body. It held its forelegs over its shaggy chest as though crossed. And the reek of it came to mhick. I didn't reach for my gu never thought of it, my mind in the grip of some incredulous fascination.

"The beast opened its jaws. It grinned at me. Then it walkealked is exactly the worix paces, dropped upon all fours, trotted leisurely into the bush, and vanished there.

"I managed to shake off the spell that had held me, took my flash and gun and went over to where the brute had been. The ground was soft and wet. There were prints of a man's feet and hands. As though the man had crawled from the bush on all fours. There were the prints of two feet close together, as though he had stood there erect. And thehere were the prints of the paws of a hyena.

"Six of them, evenly spaced, as though the beast had walked six paces upon its hind legs. And after that only the spoor of the hyena trotting with its unmistakable sidewise slinking gait upon all four legs. There were no further marks of man's feeor were marks of human feet going back from where the priest had stood."

Hewitt stopped. Winston asked: "And is that all?"

Hewitt said, as though he had not heard him: "Now, Caranac, would you say that the animal soul in this wizard was a hyena? And that I had seen that animal soul? Or that when I had sat with him that afternoon he had implanted in my mind the suggestion that at such a place I would see him as a hyena? And that I did?"

Caranac answered: "Either is an explanation. I rather hold to the first."

Hewitt asked: "Then how do you explain the change of the human foot marks into those of the beast?"

Winston asked: "Did anyone but you see those prints?"

Hewitt said: "No. For obvious reasons I did not show them to the headman."

Winston said: "I hold then to the hypnotism theory. The foot marks were a part of the same illusion."

Hewitt said: "You asked if that was all. Well, it wasn't. When dawn came and there was a muster of men, one was missing. We found hihat was left of hi quarter mile away in the bush. Some animal had crept into the cameatly crushed his throat and dragged him away without awakening anybody. Without even me knowing ind I had not slept. Around his body were the tracks of an unusually big hyena. Without doubt that was what had killed and partly eaten him."

"Coincidence," muttered Winston.

"We followed the tracks of the brute," went on Hewitt. "We found a pool at which it had drunk. We traced the tracks to the edge of the pool. But--"

He hesitated. Winston asked, impatiently: "But?"

"But we didn't find them going back. There were the marks of a naked human foot going back. But there were no marks of human feet pointing toward the pool. Also, the prints of the human feet were exactly those which had ended in the spoor of the hyena at the edge of the clearing. I know that because the left big toe was off."

Caranac asked: "And then what did you do?"

"Nothing. Took up our packs and beat it. The headman and the others had seen the footprints. There was no holding them after that. So your idea of hypnotism hardly holds here, Winston. I doubt whether a half dozen or less had seen the priest. But they all saw the tracks."

"Mass hallucination. Faulty observation. A dozen rational explanations," said Winston.

MacLeod spoke, the precise diction of the distinguished curator submerged under the Gaelic burr and idioms that came to the surface always when he was deeply moved:

"And is it so, Martin Hewitt? Well, now I will be telling you a story. A thing that I saw with my own eyes. I hold with you, Alan Caranac, but I go further. You say that man's consciousness may share the brain with other consciousneseast or bird or what not. I say it may be that all life is one. A single force, but a thinking and conscious force of which the trees, the beasts, the flowers, germs and man and everything living are parts, just as the billions of living cells in a man are parts of him. And that under certain conditions the parts may be interchangeable. And that this may be the source of the ancient tales of the dryads and the nymphs, the harpies and the werewolves and their kind as well.

"Now, listen. My people came from the Hebrides where they know more of some things than books can teach. When I was eighteen I entered a little mid-west college. My roommate was a lad nameell, I'll just be calling him Ferguson. There was a professor with ideas you would not expect to find out there.

"'Tell me how a fox feels that is being hunted by the hounds,' he would say. 'Or the rabbit that is stalked by the fox. Or give me a worm's eye view of a garden. Get out of yourselves. Imagination is the greatest gift of the gods,' he said, 'and it is also their greatest curse. But blessing or curse it is good to have. Stretch your consciousness and write for me what you see and feel.'

"Ferguson took to that job like a fly to sugar. What he wrote was not a man telling of a fox or hare or hawt was fox and hare and hawk speaking through a man's hand. It was not only the emotions of the creatures he described. It was what they saw and heard and smelt and how they saw and heard and smelt it. And what thehought.

"The class would laugh, or be spellbound. But the professor didn't laugh. No. After a while he began to look worried and he would have long talks in private with Ferguson. And I would say to him: 'In God's name how do you do it, Ferg? You make it all seem so damned real.'

"'It is real,' he told me. 'I chase with the hounds and I run with the hare. I set my mind on some animal and after a bit I am one with it. Inside it. Literally. As though I had slipped outside myself. And when I slip back inside mysel remember.'

"'Don't tell me you think you change into one of these beasts!' I said. He hesitated. 'Not my body,' he answered at last. 'But I know my mind...soul...spirit...whatever you choose to call iust.'

"He wouldn't argue the matter. And I know he didn't tell me all he knew. And suddenly the professor stopped those peculiar activities, without explanation. A few weeks later I left college.

"That was over thirty years ago. About ten years ago, I was sitting in my office when my secretary told me that a man named Ferguson who said he was an old schoolmate was asking to see me. I remembered him at once and had him in. I blinked at him when he entered. The Ferguson I'd known had been a lean, wiry, dark, square-chinned, and clean-cut chap. This man wasn't like that at all. His hair was a curious golden, and extremely finlmost a fuzz. His face was oval and flattish with receding chin. He wore oversized dark glasses and they gave the suggestion of a pair of fly's eyes seen under a microscope. Or rathe thought suddenlf a bee's. But I felt a real shock when I grasped his hand. It felt less like a man's hand than the foot of some insect, and as I looked down at it I saw that it also was covered with the fine yellow fuzz of hair. He said:

"'Hello, MacLeod, I was afraid you wouldn't remember me.'

"It was Ferguson's voice as I remembered it, and yet it wasn't. There was a queer, muffled humming and buzzing running through it.

"But it was Ferguson all right. He soon proved that. He did more talking than I, because that odd inhuman quality of the voice in some way distressed me, and I couldn't take my eyes off his hands with their yellow fuzz, nor the spectacled, eyes and the fine yellow hair. It appeared that he had bought a farm over in New Jersey. Not so much for farming as for a place for his apiary. He had gone in for bee keeping. He said: 'I've tried all sorts of animals. In fact I've tried more than animals. You see Mahere's nothing in being human. Nothing but sorrow. And the animals aren't so happy. So I'm concentrating on the bee. A drone, Mac. A short life but an exceedingly merry one.'

"I said: 'What in the hell are you talking about?'

"He laughed, a buzzing, droning laugh. 'You know damned well. You were always interested in my little excursions, Mac. Intelligently interested. I never told you a hundredth of the truth about them. But come and see next Wednesday and maybe your curiosity will be satisfied. I think you'll find it worth while.'

"Well, there was a bit more talk and he went out. He'd given me minute directions how to get to his place. As he walked to the door I had the utterly incredulous idea that around him was a droning and humming like an enormous bagpipe, muted.

"My curiosity, or something deeper, was tremendously aroused. That Wednesday I drove to his place. A lovely spoll flowers and blossom-trees. There were a couple of hundred skips of bees set out in a broad orchard. Ferguson met me. He looked fuzzier and yellower than before. Also, the drone and hum of his voice seemed stronger. He took me into his house. It was an odd enough place. All one high room, and what windows there were had been shutterell except one. There was a dim golden-white light suffusing it. Nor was its door the ordinary door. It was low and broad. All at once it came to me that it was like the inside of a hive. The unshuttered window looks out upon the hives. It was screened.

"He brought me food and drinoney and honeymead, cakes sweet with honey, and fruit. He said: 'I do not eat meat.'

"He began to talk. About the life of the bee. Of the utter happiness of the drone, darting through the sun, sipping at what flowers it would, fed by its sisters, drinking of the honey cups in the hive...free and careless and its nights and days only a smooth clicking of rapturous seconds...

"'What if they do kill you at the end?' he said. 'You have livevery fraction of a second of time. And then the rapture of the nuptial flight. Drone upon drone winging through the air on the track of the virgin! Life pouring stronger and stronger into you with each stroke of the wing! And at last...the flaming ecstasy...the flaming ecstasy of the fiery inner core of life...cheating death. True, death strikes when you are at the tip of the flame...but he strikes too late. You diut what of that? You have cheated death. You do not know it is death that strikes. You die in the heart of the ecstasy....'

"He stopped. From outside came a faint sustained roaring that steadily grew stronger. The beating of thousands upon thousands of bee wings...the roaring of hundreds of thousands of tiny planes...

"Ferguson leaped to the window.

"'The swarms! The swarms!' he cried. A tremor shook him, another and anotheore and more rapidly...became a rhythm pulsing faster and faster. His arms, outstretched, quivered...began to beat up and down, ever more rapidly until they were like the blur of the hummingbird's wings...like the blur of a bee's wings. His voice came to me...buzzing, humming...'And tomorrow the virgins fly...the nuptial flight...I must be there...must...mzzz...mzzzb...bzzz...bzzzzzzz...zzzzmmmm....'

"For an instant there was no man there at the window. No. There was only a great drone buzzing and humming...striving to break through the screen...go free...

"And then Ferguson toppled backward. Fell. The thick glasses were torn away by his fall. Two immense black eyes, not human eyes but the multiple eyes of the bee stared up at me.

"I bent down closer, closer, I listened for his heart beat. There was none. He was dead.

"Then slowly, slowly the dead mouth opened.

"Through the lips came the questing head of a drone...antennae wavering...eyes regarding me. It crawled out from between the lips. A handsome drone...a strong drone. It rested for a breath on the lips, then its wings began to vibrate...faster, faster...

"It flew from the lips of Ferguson and circled my head once and twice and thrice. It flashed to the window and clung to the screen, buzzing, crawling, beating its wings against it...

"There was a knife on the table. I took it and ripped the screen. The drone darted ound was gone---

"I turned and looked down at Ferguson. His eyes stared up at me. Dead eyes. But no longer black...blue as I had known them of old. And human. His hair was no longer the fine golden fuzz of the bet was black as it had been when I had first known him. And his hands were white and sinewy anairless."

THE END

TABLE of CONTENTS

BOOK OF KHALK'RU

CHAPTER I—SOUNDS IN THE NIGHT

CHAPTER II—RING OF THE KRAKEN

CHAPTER III—RITUAL OF KHALK'RU

CHAPTER IV—TENTACLE OF KHALK'RU

CHAPTER V—THE MIRAGE

CHAPTER VI—THE SHADOWED-LAND

CHAPTER VII—THE LITTLE PEOPLE

CHAPTER VIII—EVALIE

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X—IF A MAN COULD USE ALL HIS BRAIN

CHAPTER XI—DRUMS OF THE LITTLE PEOPLE

CHAPTER XII—ON NANSUR BRIDGE

BOOK OF THE WITCH-WOMAN

CHAPTER XIII—KARAK

CHAPTER XIV—IN THE BLACK CITADEL

CHAPTER XV—THE LAKE OF THE GHOSTS

CHAPTER XVI—KISSES OF LUR

BOOK OF DWAYANU

CHAPTER XVII—ORDEAL BY KHALK'RU

CHAPTER XVIII—WOLVES OF LUR

CHAPTER XIX—THE TAKING OF SIRK

CHAPTER XX—"TSANTAWU-FAREWELL!"

BOOK OF LEIF

CHAPTER XXI—RETURN TO KARAK

CHAPTER XXII—GATE OF KHALK'RU

CHAPTER XXIII—IN KHALK'RU'S TEMPLE

BOOK OF KHALK'RU

CHAPTER I
SOUNDS IN THE NIGHT

I raised my head, listening,--not only with my ears but with every square inch of my skin, waiting for recurrence of the sound that had awakened me. There was silence, utter silence. No soughing in the boughs of the spruces clustered around the little camp. No stirring of furtive life in the underbrush. Through the spires of the spruces the stars shone wanly in the short sunset to sunrise twilight of the early Alaskan summer.

A sudden wind bent the spruce tops, carrying again the sounhe clangour of a beaten anvil.

I slipped out of my blanket, and round the dim embers of the fire toward Jim. His voice halted me.

"All right, Leif. I hear it."

The wind sighed and died, and with it died the humming aftertones of the anvil stroke. Before we could speak, the wind arose. It bore the after-hum of the anvil strokaint and far away. And again the wind died, and with it the sound.

"An anvil, Leif!"

"Listen!"

A stronger gust swayed the spruces. It carried a distant chanting; voices of many women and men singing a strange, minor theme. The chant ended on a wailing chord, archaic, dissonant.

There was a long roll of drums, rising in a swift crescendo, ending abruptly. After it a thin and clamorous confusion.

It was smothered by a low, sustained rumbling, like thunder, muted by miles. In it defiance, challenge.

We waited, listening. The spruces were motionless. The wind did not return.

"Queer sort of sounds, Jim." I tried to speak casually. He sat up. A stick flared up in the dying fire. Its light etched his face against the darkneshin, and brown and hawk-profiled. He did not look at me.

"Every feathered forefather for the last twenty centuries is awake and shouting! Better call me Tsantawu, Leif. Tsi' Tsa'lag am a Cherokee! Right noll Indian."

He smiled, but still he did not look at me, and I was glad of that.

"It was an anvil," I said. "A hell of a big anvil. And hundreds of people singing...and how could that be in this wilderness...they didn't sound like Indians..."

"The drums weren't Indian." He squatted by the fire, staring into it. "When they turned loose, something played a pizzicato with icicles up and down my back."

"They got me, tohose drums!" I thought my voice was steady, but he looked up at me sharply; and now it was I who averted my eyes and stared at the embers. "They reminded me of something I heard...and thought I saw...in Mongolia. So did the singing. Damn it, Jim, why do you look at me like that?"

I threw a stick on the fire. For the life of me I couldn't help searching the shadows as the stick flamed. Then I met his gaze squarely.

"Pretty bad place, was it, Leif?" he asked, quietly. I said nothing. Jim got up and walked over to the packs. He came back with some water and threw it over the fire. He kicked earth on the hissing coals. If he saw me wince as the shadows rushed in upon us, he did not show it.

"That wind came from the north," he said. "So that's the way the sounds came. Therefore, whatever made the sounds is north of us. That being shich way do we travel to-morrow?"

"North," I said.

My throat dried as I said it.

Jim laughed. He dropped upon his blanket, and rolled it around him. I propped myself against the bole of one of the spruces, and sat staring toward the north.

"The ancestors are vociferous, Leif. Promising a lodge of sorrow, I gathef we go north...'Bad Medicine!' say the ancestors... 'Bad Medicine for you, Tsantawu! You go to Usunhi'yi, the Darkening-land, Tsantawu!...Into Tsusgina'i, the ghost country! Beware! Turn from the north, Tsantawu!'"

"Oh, go to sleep, you hag-ridden redskin!"

"All right, I'm just telling you."

Then a little later:

"'And heard ancestral voices prophesying war'--it's worse than war these ancestors of mine are prophesying, Leif."

"Damn it, will you shut up!"

A chuckle from the darkness; thereafter silence.

I leaned against the tree trunk. The sounds, or rather the evil memory they had evoked, had shaken me more than I was willing to admit, even to myself. The thing I had carried for two years in the buckskin bag at the end of the chain around my neck had seemed to stir; turn cold. I wondered how much Jim had divined of what I had tried to cover...

Why had he put out the fire? Because he had known I was afraid? To force me to face my fear and conquer it?...Or had it been the Indian instinct to seek cover in darkness?...By his own admission, chant and drum-roll had played on his nerves as they had on mine...

Afraid! Of course it had been fear that had wet the palms of my hands, and had tightened my throat so my heart had beaten in my ears like drums.

Like drums...yes!

But...not like those drums whose beat had been borne to us by the north wind. They had been like the cadence of the feet of men and women, youths and maids and children, running ever more rapidly up the side of a hollow world to dive swiftly into the void...dissolving into the nothingness...fading as they fell...dissolving... eaten up by the nothingness...

Like that accursed drum-roll I had heard in the secret temple of the Gobi oasis two years ago!

Neither then nor now had it been fear alone. Fear it was, in truth, but fear shot through with defiance...defiance of life against its negation...upsurging, roaring, vital rage...frantic revolt of the drowning against the strangling water, rage of the candle-flame against the hovering extinguisher...

Was it as hopeless as that? If what I suspected to be true was true, to think so was to be beaten at the beginning!

But there was Jim! How to keep him out of it? In my heart, I had never laughed at those subconscious perceptions, whatever they were. that he called the voices of his ancestors. When he had spoken of Usunhi'yi, the Darkening-land, a chill had crept down my spine. For had not the old Uighur priest spoken of the Shadow-land? And it was as though I had heard the echo of his words.

I looked over to where he lay. He had been more akin to me than my own brothers. I smiled at that, for they had never been akin to me. To all but my soft-voiced, deep-bosomed, Norse mother I had been a stranger in that severely conventional old house where I had been born.

The youngest son, and an unwelcome intruder; a changeling. It had been no fault of mine that I had come into the world a throw-back to my mother's yellow-haired, blue-eyed, strong-thewed Viking forefathers. Not at all a Langdon. The Langdon men were dark and slender, thin-lipped and saturnine, stamped out by the same die for generations. They looked down at me, the changeling, from the family portraits with faintly amused, supercilious hostility. Precisely as my father and my four brothers, true Langdons, each of them, looked at me when I awkwardly disposed of my bulk at their table.

It had brought me unhappiness, but it had made my mother wrap her heart around me. I wondered, as I had wondered many times, how she had come to give herself to that dark, self-centred man my fatheith the blood of the sea-rovers singing in her veins. It was she who had named me Leis incongruous a name to tack on a Langdon as was my birth among them.

Jim and I had entered Dartmouth on the same day. I saw him as he was thehe tall, brown lad with his hawk face and inscrutable black eyes. pure blood of the Cherokees, of the clan from which had come the great Sequoiah, a clan which had produced through many centuries wisest councillors, warriors strong in cunning.

On the college roster his name was written James T. Eagles, but on the rolls of the Cherokee Nation it was written Two Eagles and his mother had called him Tsantawu. From the first we had recognized spiritual kinship. By the ancient rites of his people we had become blood-brothers, and he had given me my secret name, known only to the pair of us, Degatagne who stands so close to another that the two are one.

My one gift, besides my strength, is an aptness at languages. Soon I spoke the Cherokee as though I had been born in the Nation. Those years in college were the happiest I had ever known. It was during the last of them that America entered the World War. Together we had left Dartmouth, gone into training camp, sailed for France on the same transport.

Sitting there, under the slow-growing Alaskan dawn, my mind leaped over the years between...my mother's death on Armistice Day...my return to New York to a frankly hostile home...Jim's recall to his clan...the finishing of my course in mining engineering...my wanderings in Asia...my second return to America and my search for Jim...this expedition of ours to Alaska, more for comradeship and the wilderness peace than for the gold we were supposed to be seeking--

A long trail since the Wahe happiest for me these last two months of it. It had led us from Nome over the quaking tundras, and then to the Koyukuk, and at last to this little camp among the spruces, somewhere between the headwaters of the Koyukuk and the Chandalar in the foothills of the unexplored Endicott Range. A long trail...I had the feeling that it was here the real trail of my life began.

A ray of the rising sun struck through the trees. Jim sat up, looked over at me, and grinned.

"Didn't get much sleep after the concert, did you?"

"What did you do to the ancestors? They didn't seem to keep you awake long."

He said, too carelessly: "Oh, they quieted down." His face and eyes were expressionless. He was veiling his mind from me. The ancestors had not quieted down. He had lain awake while I had thought him sleeping. I made a swift decision. We would go south as we had planned. I would go with him as far as Circle. I would find some pretext to leave him there.

I said: "We're not going north. I've changed my mind."

"Yes. why?"

"I'll tell you after we've had breakfast," I sai'm not so quick in thinking up lies. "Rustle up a fire, Jim. I'll go down to the stream and get some water."

"Degataga!"

I started. It was only in moments of rare sympathy or in time of peril that he used the secret name.

"Degataga, you go north! You go if I have to march ahead of you to make you follow..." he dropped into the Cherokee..."It is to save your spirit, Degataga. Do we march togethelood-brothers? Or do you creep after mike a shivering dog at the heels of the hunter?"

The blood pounded in my temples, my hand went out toward him. He stepped back, and laughed.

"That's better, Leif."

The quick rage left me, my hand fell.

"All right, Tsantawu. We gorth. But it wasn't wasn't because of myself that I told you I'd changed my mind."

"I know damned well it wasn't!"

He busied himself with the fire. I went after the water. We drank the strong black tea, and ate what was left of the little brown storks they call Alaskan turkeys which we had shot the day before. When we were through I began to talk.

CHAPTER II
RING OF THE KRAKEN

Three years ago, so I began my story, I went into Mongolia with the Fairchild expedition. Part of its work was a mineral survey for certain British interests, part of it ethnographic and archeological research for the British Museum and the University of Pennsylvania.

I never had a chance to prove my value as a mining engineer. At once I became good-will representative, camp entertainer, liaison agent between us and the tribes. My height, my yellow hair, blue eyes and freakish strength, and my facility in picking up languages were of never-ending interest to them. Tartars, Mongols, Buriats, Kirghihey would watch while I bent horseshoes, twisted iron bars over my knees and performed what my father used to call contemptuously my circus tricks.

Well, that's exactly what I was to the one-man circus. And yet I was more than thahey liked me. Old Fairchild would laugh when I complained that I had no time for technical work. He would tell me that I was worth a dozen mining engineers, that I was the expedition's insurance, and that as long as I could keep up my act they wouldn't be bothered by any trouble makers. And it is a fact that they weren't. It was the only expedition of its kind I ever knew where you could leave your stuff unwatched and return to find it still there. Also we were singularly free from graft and shake-downs.

In no time I had picked up half a dozen of the dialects and could chatter and chaff with the tribesmen in their own tongues. It made a prodigious bit with them. And now and then a Mongol delegation would arrive with a couple of their wrestlers, big fellows with chests like barrels, to pit against me. I learned their tricks, and taught them ours. We had pony lifting contests, and some of my Manchu friends taught me how to fight with the two broadsword sword in each hand.

Fairchild had planned on a year, but so smoothly did the days go by that he decided to prolong our stay. My act, he told me in his sardonic fashion, was undoubtedly of perennial vitality; never again would science have such an opportunity in this regionless I made up my mind to remain and rule. He didn't know how close he came to prophecy.

In the early summer of the following year we shifted our camp about a hundred miles north. This was Uighur country. They are a strange people, the Uighurs. They say of themselves that they are descendants of a great race which ruled the Gobi when it was no desert but an earthly Paradise, with flowing rivers and many lakes and teeming cities. It is a fact that they are apart from all the other tribes, and while those others cheerfully kill them when they can, still they go in fear of them. Or rather, of the sorcery of their priests.

Seldom had Uighurs appeared at the old camp. When they did, they kept at a distance. We had been at the new camp less than a week when a band of twenty rode in. I was sitting in the shade of my tent. They dismounted and came straight to me. They paid no attention to anyone else. They halted a dozen feet from me. Three walked close up and stood, studying me. The eyes of these three were a peculiar grey-blue; those of the one who seemed to be their captain singularly cold. They were bigger, taller men than the others.

I did not know the Uighur. I gave them polite salutations in the Kirghiz. They did not answer, maintaining their close scrutiny. Finally they spoke among themselves, nodding as though they had come to some decision.

The leader then addressed me. As I stood up, I saw that he was not many inches under my own six feet four. I told him, again in the Kirghiz, that I did not know his tongue. He gave an order to his men. They surrounded my tent, standing like guards, spears at rest beside them, their wicked long-swords drawn.

At this my temper began to rise, but before I could protest the leader began to speak to me in the Kirghiz. He assured me, with deference, that their visit was entirely peaceful, only they did not wish their contact with me to be disturbed by any of my companions. He asked if I would show him my hands. I held them out. He and his two comrades bent over the palms, examining them minutely, pointing to a mark or a crossing of lines. This inspection ended, the leader touched his forehead with my right hand.

And then to my complete astonishment, he launched without explanation into what was a highly intelligent lesson in the Uighur tongue. He took the Kirghiz for the comparative language. He did not seem to be surprized at the ease with which I assimilated the tuition; indeed, I had a puzzled idea that he regarded it as something to be expected. I mean that his manner was less that of teaching me a new language, than of recalling to me one I had forgotten. The lesson lasted for a full hour. He then touched his forehead again with my hand, and gave a command to the ring of guards. The whole party walked to their horses and galloped off.

There had been something disquieting about the whole experience. Most disquieting was my own vague feeling that my tutor, if I had read correctly his manner, had been righhat I was not learning a new tongue but one I had forgotten. Certainly I never picked up any language with such rapidity and ease as I did the Uighur.

The rest of my party had been perplexed and apprehensive, naturally. I went immediately to them, and talked the matter over. Our ethnologist was the famous Professor David Barr, of Oxford. Fairchild was inclined to take it as a joke, but Barr was greatly disturbed. He said that the Uighur tradition was that their forefathers had been a fair race, yellow-haired and blue-eyed, big men of great strength. In short, men like myself. A few ancient Uighur wall paintings had been found which had portrayed exactly this type, so there was evidence of the correctness of the tradition. However, if the Uighurs of the present were actually the descendants of this race, the ancient blood must have been mixed and diluted almost to the point of extinction.

I asked what this had to do with me, and he replied that quite conceivably my visitors might regard me as of the pure blood of the ancient race. In fact, he saw no other explanation of their conduct. He was of the opinion that their study of my palms, and their manifest approval of what they had discovered there, clinched the matter.

Old Fairchild asked him, satirically, if he was trying to convert us to palmistry. Barr said, coldly, that he was a scientist. As a scientist, he was aware that certain physical resemblances can be carried on by hereditary factors through many generations. Certain peculiarities in the arrangement of the lines of the palms might persist through centuries. They could reappear in cases of atavism, such as I clearly represented.

By this time, I was getting a bit dizzy. But Barr had a few shots left that made me more so. By now his temper was well up, and he went on to say that the Uighurs might even be entirely correct in what he deduced was their opinion of me. I was a throwback to the ancient Norse. Very well. It was quite certain that the Aesir, the old Norse gods and goddessedin and Thor, Frigga and Freya, Frey and Loki of the Fire and all the otherad once been real people. Without question they had been leaders in some long and perilous migration. After they had died, they had been deified, as numerous other similar heroes and heroines had been by other tribes and races. Ethnologists were agreed that the original Norse stock had come into North-eastern Europe from Asia, like other Aryans. Their migration might have occurred anywhere from 1000 B.C. to 5000 B.C. And there was no scientific reason why they should not have come from the region now called the Gobi, nor why they should not have been the blond race these present-day Uighurs called their forefathers.

No one, he went on to say, knew exactly when the Gobi had become deseror what were the causes that had changed it into desert. Parts of the Gobi and all the Little Gobi might have been fertile as late as two thousand years ago. Whatever it had been, whatever its causes, and whether operating slowly or quickly, the change gave a perfect reason for the migration led by Odin and the other Aesir which had ended in the colonization of the Scandinavian Peninsula. Admittedly I was a throwback to my mother's stock of a thousand years ago. There was no reason why I should not also be a throwback in other recognizable ways to the ancient Uighurf they actually were the original Norse.

But the practical consideration was that I was headed for trouble. So was every other member of our party. He urgently advised going back to the old camp where we would be among friendly tribes. In conclusion he pointed out that, since we had come to this site, not a single Mongol, Tartar or any other tribesman with whom I had established such pleasant relations had come near us. He sat down with a glare at Fairchild, observing that this was no palmist's advice but that of a recognized scientist.

Well, Fairchild apologized, of course, but he over-ruled Barr on returning; we could safely wait a few days longer and see what developed. Barr remarked morosely that as a prophet Fairchild was probably a total loss, but it was also probable that we were being closely watched and would not be allowed to retreat, and therefore it did not matter.

That night we heard drums beating far away, drumming between varying intervals of silence almost until dawn, reporting and answering questions of drums still further off.

The next day, at the same hour, along came the same troop. Their leader made straight for me, ignoring, as before, the others in the camp. He saluted me almost with humility. We walked back together to my tent. Again the cordon was thrown round it, and my second lesson abruptly began. It continued for two hours or more. Thereafter, day after day, for three weeks, the same performance was repeated. There was no desultory conversation, no extraneous questioning, no explanations. These men were there for one definite purpose: to teach me their tongue. They stuck to that admirably. Filled with curiosity, eager to reach the end and learn what it all meant, I interposed no obstacles, stuck as rigorously as they to the matter in hand. This, too, they seemed to take as something expected of me. In three weeks I could carry on a conversation in the Uigher as well as I can in English.

Barr's uneasiness kept growing. "They're grooming you for something!" he would say. "I'd give five years of my life to be in your shoes. But I don't like it. I'm afraid for you. I'm damned afraid!"

One night at the end of this third week, the signalling drums beat until dawn. The next day my instructors did not appear, nor the next day, nor the day after. But our men reported that there were Uighurs all around us, picketing the camp. They were in fear, and no work could be got out of them.

On the afternoon of the fourth day we saw a cloud of dust drifting rapidly down upon us from the north. Soon we heard the sound of the Uighur drums. Then out of the dust emerged a troop of horsemen. There were two or three hundred of them, spears glinting, many of them with good rifles. They drew up in a wide semi-circle before the camp. The cold-eyed leader who had been my chief instructor dismounted and came forward leading a magnificent black stallion. A big horse, a strong horse, unlike the rangy horses that carried them; a horse that could bear my weight with ease.

The Uighur dropped on one knee, handing me the stallion's reins, I took them, automatically. The horse looked me over, sniffed at me, and rested its nose on my shoulder. At once the troop raised their spears, shouting some word I could not catch, then dropped from their mounts and stood waiting.

The leader arose. He drew from his tunic a small cube of ancient jade. He sank again upon his knee, handed me the cube. It seemed solid, but as I pressed it flew open. Within, was a ring. It was of heavy gold, thick and wide. Set in it was a yellow, translucent stone about an inch and a half square. And within this stone was the shape of a black octopus.

Its tentacles spread out fan-wise from its body. They had the effect of reaching forward through the yellow stone. I could even see upon their nearer tips the sucking discs. The body was not so clearly defined. It was nebulous, seeming to reach into far distance. The black octopus had not been cut upon the jewel. It was within it.

I was aware of a curious mingling of feelingepulsion and a peculiar sense of familiarity, like the trick of the mind that causes what we call double memory, the sensation of having experienced the same thing before. Without thinking. I slipped the ring over my thumb which it fitted perfectly, and held it up to the sun to catch the light through the stone. Instantly every man of the troop threw himself down upon his belly, prostrating himself before it.

The Uighur captain spoke to me. I had been subconsciously aware that from the moment of handing me the jade he had been watching me closely. I thought that now there was awe in his eyes.

"Your horse is ready--" again he used the unfamiliar word with which the troop had saluted me. "Show me what you wish to take with you, and your men shall carry it."

"Where do we gnd for how long?" I asked.

"To a holy man of your people," he answered. "For how lone alone can answer."

I felt a momentary irritation at the casualness with which I was being disposed of. Also I wondered why he spoke of his men and his people as mine.

"Why does he not come to me?" I asked.

"He is old," he answered. "He could not make the journey."

I looked at the troop, now standing up beside their horses. If I refused to go, it would undoubtedly mean the wiping out of the camp if my companions attempted, as they would, to resist my taking. Besides, I was on fire with curiosity.

"I must speak to my comrades before I go," I said.

"If it please Dwayanu"--this time I caught the word--"to bid farewell to his dogs, let him." There was a nicker of contempt in his eyes as he looked at old Fairchild and the others.

Definitely I did not like what he had said, nor his manner.

"Await me here," I told him curtly, and walked over to Fairchild. I drew him into his tent, Barr and the others of the expedition at our heels. I told them what was happening. Barr took my hand, and scrutinized the ring. He whistled softly.

"Don't you know what this is?" he asked me. "It's the Krakehat super-wise, malignant and mythical sea-monster of the old Norsemen. See, its tentacles are not eight but twelve. Never was it pictured with less than ten. It symbolized the principle that is inimical to Lifot Death precisely, more accurately annihilation. The Krakend here in Mongolia!"

"See here, Chief," I spoke to Fairchild. "There's only one way you can help mf I need help. And that's to get back quick as you can to the old camp. Get hold of the Mongols and send word to that chief who kept bringing in the big wrestlerhey'll know whom I mean. Persuade or hire him to get as many able fighting men at the camp as you can. I'll be back, but I'll probably come back running. Outside of that, you're all in danger. Not at the moment, maybe, but things may develop which will make these people think it better to wipe you out. I know what I'm talking about, Chief. I ask you to do this for my sake, if not for your own."

"But they watch the camp--" he began to object.

"They won'fter I've gone. Not for a little while at least. Everyone of them will be streaking away with me." I spoke with complete certainty, and Barr nodded acquiescence.

"The King returns to his Kingdom," he said. "All his loyal subjects with him. He's in no dangehile he's with them. Buod, if I could only go with you, Leif! The Kraken! And the ancient legend of the South Seas told of the Great Octopus, dozing on and biding his time till he felt like destroying the world and all its life. And three miles up in the air the Black Octopus is cut into the cliffs of the Andes! Norsemend the South Sea Islandernd the Andeans! And the same symboere!"

"Please promise?" I asked Fairchild. "My life may depend on it."

"It's like abandoning you. I don't like it!"

"Chief, this crowd could wipe you out in a minute. Go back, and get the Mongols. The Tartars will help. They hate the Uighurs. I'll come back, don't fear. But I'd bet everything that this whole crowd, and more, will be at my heels. When I come, I want a wall to duck behind."

"We'll go," he said.

I went out of that tent, and over to my own. The odd-eyed Uighur followed me. I took my rifle and an automatic, stuffed a toothbrush and a shaving-kit in my pocket, and turned to go.

"Is there nothing else?" There was surprise in his question.

"If there is, I'll come back for it," I answered.

"Not after you havemembered," he said, enigmatically.

Side by side we walked to the black stallion. I lifted myself to his back.

The troop wheeled in behind us. Their spears a barrier between me and the camp, we galloped south.

CHAPTER III
RITUAL OF KHALK'RU

The stallion settled down to a steady, swinging lope. He carried my weight easily. About an hour from dusk we were over the edge of the desert. At our right loomed a low range of red sandstone hills. Close ahead was a defile. We rode into it, and picked our way through it. In about half an hour we emerged into a boulder-strewn region, upon what had once been a wide road. The road stretched straight ahead of us to the north-east, toward another and higher range of red sandstone, perhaps five miles away. This we reached just as night began, and here my guide halted, saying that we would encamp until dawn. Some twenty of the troop dismounted; the rest rode on.

Those who remained waited, looking at me, plainly expectant. I wondered what I was supposed to do; then, noticing that the stallion had been sweating, I called for something to rub him down, and for food and water for him. This, apparently, was what had been looked for. The captain himself brought me the cloths, grain and water while the men whispered. After the horse was cooled down, I fed him. I then asked for blankets to put on him, for the nights were cold. When I had finished I found that supper had been prepared. I sat beside a fire with the leader. I was hungry, and, as usual when it was possible, I ate voraciously. I asked few questions, and most of these were answered so evasively, with such obvious reluctance, that I soon asked none. When the supper was over, I was sleepy. I said so. I was given blankets, and walked over to the stallion. I spread my blankets beside him, dropped, and rolled myself up.

The stallion bent his head, nosed me gently, blew a long breath down my neck, and lay down carefully beside me. I shifted so that I could rest my head on his neck. I heard excited whispering among the Uighurs. I went to sleep.

At dawn I was awakened. Breakfast was ready. We set out again on the ancient road. It ran along the hills, skirting the bed of what had long ago been a large river. For some time the eastern hills protected us from the sun. When it began to strike directly down upon us, we rested under the shadow of some immense rocks. By mid-afternoon we were once more on our way. Shortly before sun-down, we crossed the dry river bed over what had once been a massive bridge. We passed into another defile through which the long-gone stream had flowed, and just at dusk reached its end.

Each side of the end of the shallow gorge was commanded by stone forts. They were manned by dozens of the Uighurs. They shouted as we drew near, and again I heard the word "Dwayanu" repeated again and again.

The heavy gates of the right-hand fort swung open. We went through, into a passage under the thick wall. We trotted across a wide enclosure. We passed out of it through similar gates.

I looked upon an oasis hemmed in by the bare mountains. It had once been the site of a fair-sized city, for ruins dotted it everywhere. What had possibly been the sources of the river had dwindled to a brook which sunk into the sands not far from where I stood. At the right of this brook there was vegetation and trees; to the left of it was a desolation. The road passed through the oasis and ran on across this barren. It stopped at, or entered, a huge square-cut opening in the rock wall more than a mile away, an opening that was like a door in that mountain, or like the entrance to some gigantic Egyptian tomb.

We rode straight down into the fertile side. There were hundreds of the ancient stone buildings here, and fair attempts had been made to keep some in repair. Even so, their ancientness struck against my nerves. There were tents among the trees also. And out of the buildings and tents were pouring Uighurs, men, women and children. There must have been a thousand of the warriors alone. Unlike the men at the guardhouses, these watched me in awed silence as I passed.

We halted in front of a time-bitten pile that might have been a palacive thousand years or twice that ago. Or a temple. A colonnade of squat, square columns ran across its front. Heavier ones stood at its entrance. Here we dismounted. The stallion and my guide's horse were taken by our escort. Bowing low at the threshold, my guide invited me to enter.

I stepped into a wide corridor, lined with spearsmen and lighted by torches of some resinous wood. The Uighur leader walked beside me. The corridor led into a huge rooigh-ceilinged, so wide and long that the flambeaux on the walls made its centre seem the darker. At the far end of this place was a low dais, and upon it a stone table, and seated at this table were a number of hooded men.

As I drew nearer, I felt the eyes of these hooded men intent upon me, and saw that they were thirteeix upon each side and one seated in a larger chair at the table's end. High cressets of metal stood about them in which burned some substance that gave out a steady, clear white light. I came close, and halted. My guide did not speak. Nor did these others.

Suddenly, the light glinted upon the ring on my thumb.

The hooded man at the table's end stood up, gripping its edge with trembling hands that were like withered claws. I heard him whisper--"Dwayanu!"

The hood slipped back from his head. I saw an old, old face in which were eyes almost as blue as my own, and they were filled with stark wonder and avid hope. It touched me, for it was the look of a man long lost to despair who sees a saviour appear.

Now the others arose, slipped back their hoods. They were old men, all of them, but not so old as he who had whispered. Their eyes of cold blue-grey weighed me. The high priest, for that I so guessed him and such he turned out to be, spoke again:

"They told mut I could not believe! Will you come to me?"

I jumped on the dais and walked to him. He drew his old face close to mine, searching my eyes. He touched my hair. He thrust his hand within my shirt and laid it on my heart. He said:

"Let me see your hands."

I placed them, palms upward, on the table. He gave them the same minute scrutiny as had the Uighur leader. The twelve others clustered round, following his fingers as he pointed to this marking and to that. He lifted from his neck a chain of golden links, drawing from beneath his robe a large, flat square of jade. He opened this. Within it was a yellow stone, larger than that in my ring, but otherwise precisely similar, the black octopur the Krakerithing from its depths. Beside it was a small phial of jade and a small, lancet-like jade knife. He took my right hand, and brought the wrist over the yellow stone. He looked at me and at the others with eyes in which was agony.

"The last test," he whispered. "The blood!"

He nicked a vein of my wrist with the knife. Blood fell, slow drop by drop upon the stone; I saw then that it was slightly concave. As the blood dripped, it spread like a thin film from bottom to lip. The old priest lifted the phial of jade, unstoppered it, and by what was plainly violent exercise of his will, held it steadily over the yellow stone. One drop of colourless fluid fell and mingled with my blood.

The room was now utterly silent, high priest and his ministers seemed not to breathe, staring at the stone. I shot a glance at the Uighur leader, and he was glaring at me, fanatic fires in his eyes.

There was an exclamation from the high priest, echoed by the others. I looked down at the stone. The pinkish film was changing colour. A curious sparkle ran through it; it changed into a film of clear, luminous green.

"Dwayanu!" gasped the high priest, and sank back into his chair, covering his face with shaking hands. The others stared at me and back at the stone and at me again as though they beheld some miracle. I looked at the Uighur leader. He lay flat upon his face at the base of the dais.

The high priest uncovered his face. It seemed to me that he had become incredibly younger, transformed; his eyes were no longer hopeless, agonized; they were filled with eagerness. He arose from his chair, and sat me in it.

"Dwayanu," he said, "what do you remember?"

I shook my head, puzzled; it was an echo of the Uighur's remark at the camp.

"What should I remember?" I asked.

His gaze withdrew from me, sought the faces of the others, questioningly; as though he had spoken to them, they looked at one another, then nodded. He shut the jade case and thrust it into his breast. He took my hand, twisted the bezel of the ring behind my thumb and closed my hand on it.

"Do you remember--" his voice sank to the faintest of whispers--"Khalk'ru?"

Again the stillness dropped upon the great chambehis time like a tangible thing. I sat, considering. There was something familiar about that name. I had an irritated feeling that I ought to know it; that if I tried hard enough, I could remember it; that memory of it wasfirst over the border of consciousness. Also I had the feeling that it meant something rather dreadful. Something better forgotten. I felt vague stirrings of repulsion, coupled with sharp resentment.

"No," I answered.

I heard the sound of sharply exhaled breaths. The old priest walked behind me and placed his hands over my eyes.

"Do you remembehis?"

My mind seemed to blur, and then I saw a picture as clearly as though I were looking at it with my open eyes. I was galloping through the oasis straight to the great doorway in the mountain. Only now it was no oasis. It was a city with gardens, and a river ran sparkling through it. The ranges were not barren red sandstone, but green with trees. There were others with me, galloping behind men and women like myself, fair and strong. Now I was close to the doorway. There were immense square stone columns flanking it...and now I had dismounted from my horse...a great black stallion...I was entering...

I would not enter! If I entered, I would remembehalk'ru! I thrust myself back...and out...I felt hands over my eyes...I reached and tore them away...the old priest's hands. I jumped from the chair, quivering with anger. I faced him. His face was benign, his voice gentle.

"Soon," he said, "you will remember more!"

I did not answer, struggling to control my inexplicable rage. Of course, the old priest had tried to hypnotize me; what I had seen was what he had willed me to see. Not without reason had the priests of the Uighurs gained their reputation as sorcerers. But it was not that which had stirred this wrath that took all my will to keep from turning berserk. No, it had been something about that name of Khalk'ru. Something that lay behind the doorway in the mountain through which I had almost been forced.

"Are you hungry?" The abrupt transition to the practical in the old priest's question brought me back to normal. I laughed outright, and told him that I was, indeed. And getting sleepy. I had feared that such an important personage as I had apparently become would have to dine with the high priest. I was relieved when he gave me in charge of the Uighur captain. The Uighur followed me out like a dog, he kept his eyes upon me like a dog upon its master, and he waited on me like a servant while I ate. I told him I would rather sleep in a tent than in one of the stone houses. His eyes flashed at that, and for the first time he spoke other than in respectful monosyllables.

"Still a warrior!" he grunted approvingly. A tent was set up for me. Before I went to sleep I peered through the flap. The Uighur leader was squatting at the opening, and a double ring of spearsmen stood shoulder to shoulder on guard.

Early next morning, a delegation of the lesser priests called for me. We went into the same building, but to a much smaller room, bare of all furnishings. The high priest and the rest of the lesser priests were awaiting me. I had expected many questions. He asked me none; he had, apparently, no curiosity as to my origin, where I had come from, nor how I had happened to be in Mongolia. It seemed to be enough that they had proved me to be who they had hoped me to bhoever that was. Furthermore, I had the strongest impression that they were anxious to hasten on to the consummation of a plan that had begun with my lessons. The high priest west straight to the point.

"Dwayanu," he said, "we would recall to your memory a certain ritual. Listen carefully, watch carefully, repeat faithfully each inflection, each gesture."

"To what purpose?" I asked.

"That you shall learn--" he began, then interrupted himself fiercely. "No! I will tell you now! So that this which is desert shall once more become fertile. That the Uighurs shall recover their greatness. That the ancient sacrilege against Khalk'ru, whose fruit was the desert, shall be expiated!"

"What have I, a stranger, to do with all this?" I asked.

"We to whom you have come," he answered, "have not enough of the ancient blood to bring this about. You are no stranger. You are Dwayanhe Releaser. You are of the pure blood. Because of that, only yowayanan lift the doom."

I thought how delighted Barr would be to hear that explanation; how he would crow over Fairchild. I bowed to the old priest, and told him I was ready. He took from my thumb the ring, lifted the chain and its pendent jade from his neck, and told me to strip. While I was doing so, he divested himself of his own robes, and the others followed suit. A priest carried the things away, quickly returning. I looked at the shrunken shapes of the old men standing mother-naked round me, and suddenly lost all desire to laugh. The proceedings were being touched by the sinister. The lesson began.

It was not a ritual; it was an invocatioather, it was an evocation of a Being, Power, Force, named Khalk'ru. It was exceedingly curious, and so were the gestures that accompanied it. It was clearly couched in the archaic form of the Uighur. There were many words I did not understand. Obviously, it had been passed down from high priest to high priest from remote antiquity. Even an indifferent churchman would have considered it blasphemous to the point of damnation. I was too much interested to think much of that phase of it. I had the same odd sense of familiarity with it that I had felt at the first naming of Khalk'ru. I felt none of the repulsion, however. I felt strongly in earnest. How much this was due to the force of the united wills of the twelve priests who never took their eyes off me, I do not know.

I won't repeat it, except to give the gist of it. Khalk'ru was the Beginning-without-Beginning, as he would be the End-without-End. He was the Lightless Timeless Void. The Destroyer. The Eater-up of Life. The Annihilator. The Dissolver. He was not Deateath was only a part of him. He was alive, very much so, but his quality of living was the antithesis of Life as we know it. Life was an invader, troubling Khalk'ru's ageless calm. Gods and man, animals and birds and all creatures, vegetation and water and air and fire, sun and stars and mooll were his to dissolve into Himself, the Living Nothingness, if he so willed. But let them go on a little longer. Why should Khalk'ru care when in the end there would be onlhalk'ru! Let him withdraw from the barren places so life could enter and cause them to blossom again; let him touch only those who were the enemies of his worshippers, so that his worshippers would be great and powerful, evidence that Khalk'ru was the All in All. It was only for a breath in the span of his eternity. Let Khalk'ru make himself manifest in the form of his symbol and take what was offered him as evidence he had listened and consented.

There was more, much more, but that was the gist of it. A dreadful prayer, but I felt no dreahen.

Three times, and I was letter-perfect. The high priest gave me one more rehearsal and nodded to the priest who had taken away the clothing. He went out and returned with the robeut not my clothes. Instead, he produced a long white mantle and a pair of sandals. I asked for my own clothes and was told by the old priest that I no longer needed them, that hereafter I would be dressed as befitted me. I agreed that this was desirable, but said I would like to have them so I could look at them once in a while. To this he acquiesced.

They took me to another room. Faded, ragged tapestries hung on its walls. They were threaded with scenes of the hunt and of war. There were oddly shaped stools and chairs of some metal that might have been copper but also might have been gold, a wide and low divan, in one corner spears, a bow and two swords, a shield and a cap-shaped bronze helmet. Everything, except the rugs spread over the stone floor, had the appearance of great antiquity. Here I was washed and carefully shaved and my long hair trimme ceremonial cleansing accompanied by rites of purification which, at times, were somewhat startling.

These ended, I was given a cotton undergarment which sheathed me from toes to neck. After this, a pair of long, loose, girdled trousers that seemed spun of threads of gold reduced by some process to the softness of silk. I noticed with amusement that they had been carefully repaired and patched. I wondered how many centuries the man who had first worn them had been dead. There was a long, blouse-like coat of the same material, and my feet were slipped into cothurms, or high buskins, whose elaborate embroidery was a bit ragged.

The old priest placed the ring on my thumb, and stood back, staring at me raptly. Quite evidently he saw nothing of the ravages of time upon my garments.

I was to him the splendid figure from the past that he thought me.

"So did you appear when our race was great," he said. "And soon, when it has recovered a little of its greatness, we shall bring back those who still dwell in the Shadow-land."

"The Shadow-land?" I asked.

"It is far to the East, over the Great Water," he said. "But we know they dwell there, those of Khalk'ru who fled at the time of the great sacrilege which changed fecund Uighuriand into desert. They will be of the pure blood like yourself, Dwayanu, and you shall find mates among the women. And in time, we of the thinned blood shall pass away, and Uighuriand again be peopled by its ancient race."

He walked abruptly away, the lesser priests following. At the door he turned.

"Wait here," he said, "until the word comes from me."

CHAPTER IV
TENTACLE OF KHALK'RU

I waited for an hour, examining the curious contents of the room, and amusing myself with shadow-fencing with the two swords. I swung round to find the Uighur captain watching me from the doorway, pale eyes glowing.

"By Zarda!" he said. "Whatever you have forgotten, it is not your sword play! A warrior you left us, a warrior you have returned!"

He dropped upon a knee, bent his head: "Pardon, Dwayanu! I have been sent for you. It is time to go."

A heady exaltation began to take me. I dropped the swords, and clapped him on the shoulder. He took it like an accolade. We passed through the corridor of the spearsmen and over the threshold of the great doorway. There was a thunderous shout.

"Dwayanu!"

And then a blaring of trumpets, a mighty roll of drums and the clashing of cymbals.

Drawn up in front of the palace was a hollow square of Uighur horsemen, a full five hundred of them, spears glinting, pennons flying from their shafts. Within the square, in ordered ranks, were as many more. But now I saw that these were both men and women, clothed in garments as ancient as those I wore, and shimmering in the strong sunlight like a vast multicoloured rug of metal threads. Banners and bannerets, torn and tattered and bearing strange symbols, fluttered from them. At the far edge of the square I recognized the old priest, his lesser priests flanking him, mounted and clad in the yellow. Above them streamed a yellow banner, and as the wind whipped it straight, black upon it appeared the shape of the Kraken. Beyond the square of horsemen, hundreds of the Uighurs pressed for a glimpse of me. As I stood there, blinking, another shout mingled with the roll of the Uighur drums.

"The King returns to his people!" Barr had said. Well, it was like that.

A soft nose nudged me. Beside me was the black stallion. I mounted him. The Uighur captain at my heels, we trotted down the open way between the ordered ranks. I looked at them as I went by. All of them, men and women, had the pale blue-grey eyes; each of them was larger than the run of the race. I thought that these were the nobles, the pick of the ancient families, those in whom the ancient blood was strongest. Their tattered banners bore the markings of their clans. There was exultation in the eyes of the men. Before I had reached the priests. I had read terror in the eyes of many of the women.

I reached the old priest. The line of horsemen ahead of us parted. We two rode through the gap, side by side. The lesser priests fell in behind us. The nobles followed them. A long thin line upon each side of the cavalcade, the Uighur horsemen trotteith the Uighur trumpets blaring, the Uighur kettle-drums and long-drums beating, the Uighur cymbals crashing, in wild triumphal rhythms.

"The King returns--"

I would to heaven that something had sent me then straight upon the Uighur spears!

We trotted through the green of the oasis. We crossed a wide bridge which had spanned the little stream when it had been a mighty river. We set our horses' feet upon the ancient road that led straight to the mountain's doorway a mile or more away. The heady exultation grew within me. I looked back at my company. And suddenly I remembered the repairs and patches on my breeches and my blouse. And my following was touched with the same shabbiness. It made me feel less a king, but it also made me pitiful. I saw them as men and women driven by hungry ghosts in their thinned blood, ghosts of strong ancestors growing weak as the ancient blood weakened, starving at it weakened, but still strong enough to clamour against extinction, still strong enough to command their brains and wills and drive them toward something the ghosts believed would feed their hunger, make them strong again.

Yes, I pitied them. It was nonsense to think I could appease the hunger of their ghosts, but there was one thing I could do for them. I could give them a damned good show! I went over in my mind the ritual the old priest had taught me, rehearsed each gesture.

I looked up to find we were at the threshold of the mountain door. It was wide enough for twenty horsemen to ride through abreast. The squat columns I had seen, under the touch of the old priest's hands, lay shattered beside it. I felt no repulsion, no revolt against entering, as I then had. I was eager to be in and to be done with it.

The spearsmen trotted up, and formed a guard beside the opening. I dismounted, and handed one of them the stallion's rein. The old priest beside me, the lesser ones behind us, we passed over the threshold of the mined doorway, and into the mountain. The passage, or vestibule, was lighted by wall cressets in which burned the clear, white flame. A hundred paces from the entrance, another passage opened, piercing inward at an angle of about fifteen degrees to the wider one. Into this the old priest turned. I glanced back. The nobles had not yet entered; I could see them dismounting at the entrance. We went along this passage in silence for perhaps a thousand feet. It opened into a small square chamber, cut in the red sandstone, at whose side was another door, covered with heavy tapestries. In this chamber was nothing except a number of stone coffers of various sizes ranged along its walls.

The old priest opened one of these. Within it was a wooden box, grey with age. He lifted its lid, and took from it two yellow garments. He slipped one of these garments over my head. It was like a smock, falling to my knees. I glanced down; woven within it, its tentacles encircling me, was the black octopus.

The other he drew over his own head. It, too, bore the octopus, but only on the breast, the tentacles did not embrace him. He bent and took from the coffer a golden staff, across the end of which ran bars. From these fell loops of small golden bells.

From the other coffers the lesser priests had taken drums, queerly shaped oval instruments some three feet long, with sides of sullen red metal. They sat, rolling the drumheads under their thumbs, tightening them here and there while the old priest gently shook his staff of bells, testing their chiming. They were for all the world like an orchestra tuning up. I again felt a desire to laugh;

I did not then know how the commonplace can intensify the terrible.

There were sounds outside the tapestried doorway, rustlings. There were three clangorous strokes like a hammer upon an anvil. Then silence. The twelve priests walked through the doorway with their drums in their arms. The high priest beckoned me to follow him, and we passed through after them.

I looked out upon an immense cavern, cut from the living rock by the hands of men dust now for thousands of years. It told its immemorial antiquity as clearly as though the rocks had tongue. It was more than ancient; it was primeval. It was dimly lighted, so dimly that hardly could I see the Uighur nobles. They were standing, the banners of their clans above them, their faces turned up to me, upon the stone floor, a hundred yards or so away, and ten feet below me. Beyond them and behind them the cavern extended, vanishing in darkness. I saw that in front of them was a curving trough, widike the trough between two long wavend that like a wave it swept upward from the hither side of the trough, curving, its lip crested, as though that wave of sculptured stone were a gigantic comber rushing back upon them. This lip formed the edge of the raised place on which I stood.

The high priest touched my arm. I turned my head to him, and followed his eyes. A hundred feet away from me stood a girl. She was naked. She had not long entered womanhood and quite plainly was soon to be a mother. Her eyes were as blue as those of the old priest, her hair was reddish brown, touched with gold, her skin was palest olive. The blood of the old fair race was strong within her. For all she held herself so bravely, there was terror in her eyes, and the rapid rise and fall of her rounded breasts further revealed that terror.

She stood in a small hollow. Around her waist was a golden ring, and from that ring dropped three golden chains fastened to the rock floor. I recognized their purpose. She could not run, and if she dropped or fell, she could not writhe away, out of the cup. But run, or writhe away from what? Certainly not from me! I looked at her and smiled. Her eyes searched mine. The terror suddenly fled from them. She smiled back at me, trustingly.

God forgive m smiled at her and she trusted me! I looked beyond her, from whence had come a glitter of yellow like a flash from a huge topaz. Up from the rock a hundred yards behind the girl jutted an immense fragment of the same yellow translucent stone that formed the jewel in my ring. It was like the fragment of a gigantic shattered pane. Its shape was roughly triangular. Black within it was a tentacle of the Kraken. The tentacle swung down within the yellow stone, broken from the monstrous body when the stone had been broken. It was all of fifty feet long. Its inner side was turned toward me, and plain upon all its length clustered the hideous sucking discs.

Well, it was ugly enougut nothing to be afraid of, I thought. I smiled again at the chained girl, and met once more her look of utter trust.

The old priest had been watching me closely. We walked forward until we were half-way between the edge and the girl. At the lip squatted the twelve lesser priests, their drums on their laps.

The old priest and I faced the girl and the broken tentacle. He raised his staff of golden bells and shook them. From the darkness of the cavern began a low chanting, a chant upon three minor themes, repeated and repeated, and intermingled.

It was as primeval as the cavern; it was the voice of the cavern itself.

The girl never took her eyes from me.

The chanting ended. I raised my hands and made the curious gestures of salutation I had been taught. I began the ritual to Khalk'ru...

With the first words, the odd feeling of recognition swept over mith something added. The words, the gestures, were automatic. I did not have to exert any effort of memory; they remembered themselves. I no longer saw the chained girl. All I saw was the black tentacle in the shattered stone.

On swept the ritual and on...was the yellow stone dissolving from around the tentacle...was the tentacle swaying?

Desperately I tried to halt the words, the gesturing. I could not!

Something stronger than myself possessed me, moving my muscles, speaking from my throat. I had a sense of inhuman power. On to the climax of the evil evocationd how I knew how utterly evil it wahe ritual rushed, while I seemed to stand apart, helpless to check it.

It ended.

And the tentacle quivered...it writhed...it reached outward to the chained girl...

There was a devil's roll of drums, rushing up fast and ever faster to a thunderous crescendo...

The girl was still looking at me...but the trust was gone from her eyes...her face reflected the horror stamped upon my own.

The black tentacle swung up and out!

I had a swift vision of a vast cloudy body from which other cloudy tentacles writhed. A breath that had in it the cold of outer space touched me.

The black tentacle coiled round the girl...

She screamenhumanly...she faded...she dissolved...her screaming faded...her screaming became a small shrill agonized piping...a sigh.

I heard the dash of metal from where the girl had stood. The clashing of the golden chains and girdle that had held her, falling empty on the rock.

The girl was gone!

I stood, nightmare horror such as I had never known in worst of nightmares paralysing me--

The child had trusted me...I had smiled at her, and she had trusted me...and I had summoned the Kraken to destroy her!

Searing remorse, white hot rage, broke the chains that held me. I saw the fragment of yellow stone in its place, the black tentacle inert within it. At my feet lay the old priest, flat on his face, his withered body shaking; his withered hands clawing at the rock. Beside their drums lay the lesser priests, and flat upon the floor of the cavern were the noblerostrate, abased, blind and deaf in stunned worship of that dread Thing I had summoned.

I ran to the tapestried doorway. I had but one desiro get out of the temple of Khalk'ru. Out of the lair of the Kraken. To get far and far away from it. To get back...back to the camp-home. I ran through the little room, through the passages and, still running, reached the entrance to the temple. I stood there for an instant, dazzled by the sunlight.

There was a roaring shout from hundreds of throathen silence. My sight cleared. They lay there, in the dust, prostrate before mhe troops of the Uighur spearsmen.

I looked for the black stallion. He was close beside me. I sprang upon his back, gave him the reins. He shot forward like a black thunderbolt through the prostrate ranks, and down the road to the oasis. We raced through the oasis. I had vague glimpses of running crowds, shouting. None tried to stop me. None could have stayed the rush of that great horse.

And now I was close to the inner gates of the stone fort through which we had passed on the yesterday. They were open. Their guards stood gaping at me. Drums began to beat, peremptorily, from the temple. I looked back. There was a confusion at its entrance, a chaotic milling. The Uighur spearsmen were streaming down the wide road.

The gates began to close. I shot the stallion forward, bowling over the guards, and was inside the fort. I reached the further gates. They were closed. Louder beat the drums, threatening, commanding.

Something of sanity returned to me. I ordered the guards to open. They stood, trembling, staring at me. But they did not obey. I leaped from the stallion and ran to them. I raised my hand. The ring of Khalk'ru glittered. They threw themselves on the ground before mut they did not open the gates.

I saw upon the wall goatskins full of water. I snatched one of these and a sack of grain. Upon the floor was a huge slab of stone. I lifted it as though it had been a pebble, and hurled it at the gates where the two halves met. They burst asunder. I threw the skin of water and sack of grain over the high saddle, and rode through the broken gates.

The great horse skimmed through the ravine like a swallow. And now we were over the crumbling bridge and thundering down the ancient road.

We came to the end of the far ravine. I knew it by the fall of rock. I looked back. There was no sign of pursuit. But I could hear the faint throb of the drums.

It was now well past mid-afternoon. We picked our way through the ravine and came out at the edge of the sandstone range. It was cruel to force the stallion, but I could not afford to spare him. By nightfall we had readied semi-arid country. The stallion was reeking with sweat, and tired. Never once had he slackened or turned surly. He had a great heart, that horse. I made up my mind that he should rest, come what might.

I found a sheltered place behind some high boulders. Suddenly I realized that I was still wearing the yellow ceremonial smock. I tore it off with sick loathing. I rubbed the horse down with it. I watered him and gave him some of the grain. I realized, too, that I was ravenously hungry and had eaten nothing since morning. I chewed some of the grain and washed it down with the tepid water. As yet, there were no signs of pursuit, and the drums were silent. I wondered uneasily whether the Uighurs knew of a shorter road and were outflanking me. I threw the smock over the stallion and stretched myself on the ground. I did not intend to sleep. But I did go to sleep.

I awakened abruptly. Dawn was breaking. Looking down upon me were the old priest and the cold-eyed Uighur captain. My hiding place was ringed with spearsmen. The old priest spoke, gently.

"We mean you no harm, Dwayanu. If it is your will to leave us, we cannot stay you. He whose call Khalk'ru has answered has nothing to fear from us. His will is our will."

I did not answer. Looking at him, I saw agaiould only sehat which I had seen in the cavern. He sighed.

"It is your will to leave us! So shall it be!"

The Uighur captain did not speak.

"We have brought your clothing, Dwayanu, thinking that you might wish to go from us as you came," said the old priest.

I stripped and dressed in my old clothes. The old priest took my faded finery. He lifted the octopus robe from the stallion. The captain spoke:

"Why do you leave us, Dwayanu? You have made our peace with Khalk'ru. You have unlocked the gates. Soon the desert will blossom as of old. Why will you not remain and lead us on our march to greatness?"

I shook my head. The old priest sighed again.

"It is his will! So shall it be! But remember, Dwayane whose call Khalk'ru has answered must answer when Khalk'ru calls him. And soon or lathalk'ru will call him!"

He touched my hair with his trembling old hands, touched my heart, and turned. A troop of spearsmen wheeled round him. They rode away.

The Uighur captain said:

"We wait to guard Dwayanu on his journey."

I mounted the stallion. We reached the expedition's new camp. It was deserted. We rode on, toward the old camp. Late that afternoon we saw ahead of us a caravan. As we came nearer they halted, made hasty preparations for defence. It was the expeditiotill on the march. I waved my hands to them and shouted.

I dropped off the black stallion, and handed the reins to the Uighur.

"Take him," I said. His face lost its sombre sternness, brightened.

"He shall be ready for you when you return to us, Dwayanu. He or his sons," he said. He touched my hand to his forehead, knelt. "So shall we all be, Dwayaneady for you, we or our sons. When you return."

He mounted his horse. He faced me with his troop. They raised their spears. There was one crashing shout--

"Dwayanu!"

They raced away.

I walked to where Fairchild and the others awaited me.

As soon as I could arrange it, I was on my way back to America. I wanted only one thino put as many miles as possible between myself and Khalk'ru's temple.

I stopped. Involuntarily my hand sought the buckskin bag on my breast.

"But now," I said, "it appears that it is not so easy to escape him. By anvil stroke, by chant and drumhalk'ru calls me '"

CHAPTER V
THE MIRAGE

Jim had sat silent, watching me, but now and again I had seen the Indian stoicism drop from his face. He leaned over and put a hand on my shoulder.

"Leif," he said quietly, "how could I have known? For the first time, I saw you afrait hurt me. I did not know..."

From Tsantawu, the Cherokee, this was much. "It's all right, Indian. Snap back," I said roughly. He sat for a while not speaking, throwing little twigs on the fire.

"What did you friend Barr say about it?" he asked abruptly.

"He gave me hell," I said. "He gave me hell with the tears streaming down his cheeks. He said that never had anyone betrayed science as I had since Judas kissed Christ. He was keen on mixed metaphors that got under your skin. That went deep under mine, for it was precisely what I was thinking of myselot as to science but as to the girl. I had given her the kiss of Judas all right. Barr said that I had been handed the finest opportunity man ever had given him. I could have solved the whole mystery of the Gobi and its lost civilization. I had run away like a child from a bugaboo. I was not only atavistic in body, I was atavistic in brain. I was a blond savage cowering before my mumbo-jumbos. He said that if he had been given my chance he would have let himself be crucified to have learned the truth. He would have, too. He was not lying."

"Admirably scientific," said Jim. "But what did he say about what you saw?"

"That is was nothing but hypnotic suggestion by the old priest. I had seen what he had willed me to seust as before, under his will, I had seen myself riding to the temple. The girl hadn't dissolved. She had probably been standing in the wings laughing at me. But if everything that my ignorant mind had accepted as true had been true then my conduct was even more unforgivable. I should have remained, studied the phenomena and brought back the results for science to examine. What I had told him of the ritual of Khalk'ru was nothing but the second law of thermo-dynamics expressed in terms of anthropomorphism. Life was an intrusion upon Chaos, using that word to describe the unformed, primal state of the universe. An invasion. An accident. In time all energy would be changed to static heat, impotent to give birth to any life whatsoever. The dead universes would float lifelessly in the illimitable void. The void was eternal, life was not. Therefore the void would absorb it. Suns, worlds, gods, men, an things animate, would return to the void. Go back to Chaos. Back to Nothingness. Back to Khalk'ru. Or if my atavistic brain preferred the terack to the Kraken. He was bitter."

"But the others saw the girl taken, you say. How did he explain that?"

"Oh, easily. That was mass hypnotisike the Angels of Mons, the ghostly bowmen of Crecy and other collective hallucinations of the War. I had been a catalyzer. My likeness to the traditional ancient race, my completeness as a throwback, my mastery at Khalk'ru's ritual, the faith the Uighurs had in mll this had been the necessary element in bringing about the collective hallucination of the tentacle. Obviously the priests had long been trying to make work a drug in which an essential chemical was lacking. I, for some reason, was the missing chemicahe catalyzer. That was all." Again he sat thinking, breaking the little twigs.

"It's a reasonable explanation. But you weren't convinced?"

"No, I wasn't convince saw the girl's face when the tentacle touched her." He arose, stood staring toward the north.

"Leif," he asked suddenly, "what did you do with the ring?"

I drew out the little buckskin pouch, opened it and handed the ring to him. He examined it closely, returned it to me.

"Why did you keep it, Leif?"

"I don't know." I slipped the ring over my thumb. "I didn't give it back to the old priest; he didn't ask for it. Oh, hel'll tell you why I kept ior the same reason Coleridge's Ancient Mariner had the albatross tied round his neck. So I couldn't forget I'm a murderer."

I put the ring back in the buckskin bag, and dropped it down my neck. Faintly from the north came a roll of drums. It did not seem to travel with the wind this time. It seemed to travel underground, and died out deep beneath us.

"Khalk'ru!" I said.

"Well. don't let's keep the old gentleman waiting," said Jim cheerfully.

He busied himself with the packs, whistling. Suddenly he turned to me.

"Listen, Leif. Barr's theories sound good to me. I'm not saying that if I'd been in your place I would have accepted them. Maybe you're right. But I'm with Barntil events, if-when-and-how they occur, prove him wrong."

"Fine!" I said heartily, and entirely without sarcasm.

"May your optimism endure until we get back to New Yorf-when-and-how."

We shouldered the packs, and took up our rifles and started northward.

It was not hard going, but it was an almost constant climb. The country sloped upward, sometimes at a breathtaking pitch. The forest, unusually thick and high for the latitude, began to thin. It grew steadily cooler. After we had covered about fifteen miles we entered a region of sparse and stunted trees. Five miles ahead was a thousand-feet-high range of bare rocks. Beyond this range was a jumble of mountains four to five thousand feet higher, treeless, their peaks covered with snow and ice, and cut by numerous ravines which stood out glistening white like miniature glaciers. Between us and the nearer range stretched a plain, all grown over with dwarfed thickets of wild roses, blueberries and squawbemes, and dressed in the brilliant reds and blues and greens of the brief Alaskan summer.

"If we camp at the base of those hills, we'll be out of that wind," said Jim. "It's five o'clock. We ought to make it in an hour."

We set off. Bursts of willow ptarmigans shot up around us from the berry thickets like brown rockets; golden plovers and curlews were whistling on all sides; within rifle shot a small herd of caribou was feeding, and the little brown cranes were stalking everywhere. No one could starve in that country, and after we had set up camp we dined very well.

There were no sounds that nighr if there were we slept too deeply to hear them.

The next morning we debated our trail. The low range stood directly in our path north. It continued, increasing in height, both east and west. It presented no great difficulties from where we were, at least so far as we could see. We determined to climb it, taking it leisurely. It was more difficult than it had appeared; it took us two hours to wind our way to the top.

We tramped across the top toward a line of huge boulders that stretched like a wall before us. We squeezed between two of these, and drew hastily back. We were standing at the edge of a precipice that dropped hundreds of feet sheer to the floor of a singular valley. The jumble of snow-and-ice-mantled mountains clustered around it. At its far end, perhaps twenty miles away, was a pyramidal-shaped peak.

Down its centre, from tip to the floor of the valley, ran a glittering white streak, without question a glacier filling a chasm which split the mountain as evenly as though it had been made by a single sword stroke. The valley was not wide, not more than five miles, I estimated, at its widest point. A long and narrow valley, its far end stoppered by the glacier-cleft giant, its sides the walls of the other mountains, dropping, except here and there where there had been falls of rock, as precipitously into it as the cliff under us.

But it was the floor of the valley itself that riveted our attention. It seemed nothing but a tremendous level field covered with rocky rubble. At the far end, the glacier ran through this rubble for half the length of the valley. There was no trace of vegetation among the littered rocks. There was no hint of green upon the surrounding mountains; only the bare black cliffs with their ice and snow-filled gashes. It was a valley of desolation.

"It's cold here, Leif." Jim shivered.

It was col cold of a curious quality, a still and breathless cold. It seemed to press out upon us from the valley, as though to force us away.

"It's going to be a job getting down there," I said.

"And hard going when we do," said Jim. "Where the hell did all those rocks come from, and what spread them out so flat?"

"Probably dropped by that glacier when it shrunk," I said. "It looks like a terminal moraine. In fact this whole place looks as though it had been scooped out by the ice."

"Hold on to my feet, Leif, I'll take a look." He lay on his belly and wriggled his body over the edge. In a minute or two I heard him call, and pulled him back.

"There's a slide about a quarter of a mile over there to the left," he said. "I couldn't tell whether it goes all the way to the top. We'll go see. Leif, how far down do you think that valley is?"

"Oh, a few hundred feet."

"It's all of a thousand if it's an inch. The cliff goes down and down. I don't understand what makes the bottom seem so much closer here. It's a queer place, this."

We picked up the packs and marched off behind the walike rim of boulders. In a little while we came across a big gouge in the top, running far back. Here frost and ice had bitten out the rock along some fault. The shattered debris ran down the middle of the gouge like giant stepping-stones clear to the floor of the valley.

"We'll have to take the packs off to negotiate that," said Jim. "What shall be deave them here while we explore, or drop them along with us as we go?"

"Take them with us. There must be an outlet off there at the base of the big mountain."

We began the descent. I was scrambling over one of the rocks about a third of the way when I heard his sharp exclamation.

Gone was the glacier that had thrust its white tongue in among the rubble. Gone was the rubble. Toward its far end, the valley's floor was covered with scores of pyramidal black stones, each marked down its centre with a streak of glistening white. They stood in ranks, spaced regularly, like the dolmens of the Druids. They marched half-down the valley. Here and there between them arose wisps of white steam, like smokes of sacrifices.

Between them and us, lapping at the black cliffs, was a blue and rippling lake! It filled the lower valley from side to side. It rippled over the edges of the shattered rocks still far below us.

Then something about the marshalled ranks of black stones struck me.

"Jim! Those pyramid-shaped rocks. Each and every one of them is a tiny duplicate of the mountain behind them! Even to the white streak!"

As I spoke, the blue lake quivered. It flowed among the black pyramids, half-submerging them, quenching the sacrificial smokes. It covered the pyramids. Again it quivered. It was gone. Where the lake had been was once more the rubble-covered floor of the valley.

There had been an odd touch of legerdemain about the transformations, like the swift work of a master magician. And it had been magif a kind. But I had watched nature perform that magic before.

"Hell!" I said. "It's a mirage!"

Jim did not answer. He was staring at the valley with a singular expression.

"What's the matter with you, Tsantawu? Listening to the ancestors again? It's only a mirage."

"Yes?" he said. "But which one? The lakr the rocks?"

I studied the valley's floor. It looked real enough. The theory of a glacial moraine accounted for its oddly level appearanchat and our height above it. When we reached it we would find that distribution of boulders uncomfortably uneven enough, I would swear.

"Why, the lake of course."

"No," he said, "I think the stones are the mirage."

"Nonsense. There's a layer of warm air down there. The stones radiate the sun's heat. This cold air presses on it. It's one of the conditions that produces mirages, and it has just done it for us. That's all."

"No," he said, "it isn't all."

He leaned against the rock.

"Leif, the ancestors had a few things more to say last night than I told you."

"I know damned well they did."

"They spoke of Ataga'hi. Does that mean anything to you."

"Not a thing."

"It didn't to mhen. It does now. Ataga'hi was an enchanted lake, in the wildest part of the Great Smokies, westward from the headwaters of the Ocana-luftee. It was the medicine lake of the animals and birds. All the Cherokee knew it was there, though few had seen it. If a stray hunter came close, all he saw was a stony flat, without blade of grass, forbidding. But by prayer and fasting and an all-night vigil, he could sharpen his spiritual sight. He would then behold at daybreak a wide shallow sheet of purple water, fed by springs, spouting from the high cliffs around. And in the water all kinds of fish and reptiles, flocks of ducks and geese and other birds flying about, and around the lake the tracks of animals. They came to Ataga'hi to be cured of wounds or sickness. The Great Spirit had placed an island in the middle of the lake. The wounded, the sick animals and birds swam to it. When they had reached ihe waters of Ataga'hi had cured them. They came up on its shorehole once more. Over Ataga'hi ruled the peace of God. All creatures were friends."

"Listen, Indian, are you trying to tell me this is your medicine lake?"

"I didn't say that at all. I said the name of Ataga'hi kept coming into my mind. It was a place that appeared to be a stony flat, without blade of grass, forbidding. So does this place. But under that illusion wa lake. We saw a lake. It's a queer coincidence, that's all. Perhaps the stony flat of Ataga'hi was a mirage--" He hesitated: "Well, if some other things the ancestors mentioned turn up, I'll shift sides and take your version of that Gobi affair."

"That lake was the mirage. I'm telling you."

He shook his head, stubbornly.

"Maybe. But maybe what we see down there now is mirage, too. Maybe both are mirage. And if so, then, how deep is the real floor, and can we make our way over it?"

He stood staring silently at the valley. He shivered, and again I was aware of the curiously intense quality of the cold. I stooped and caught hold of my pack. My hands were numb.

"Well, whatever it iet's find out."

A quiver ran through the valley floor. Abruptly it became again the shimmering blue lake. And as abruptly turned again to nibbled rock.

But not before I had seemed to see within that lake of illusiof illusion it wer gigantic shadowy shape, huge black tentacles stretching out from a vast and nebulous body...a body which seemed to vanish back into immeasurable distances...vanishing into the void... as the Kraken of the Gobi cavern had seemed to vanish into the void... into that void which wahalk'ru!

We crept between, scrambled over and slid down the huge broken fragments. The further down we went, the more intense became the cold. It had a still and creeping quality that seeped into the marrow. Sometimes we dropped the packs ahead of us, sometimes dragged them after us. And ever more savagely the cold bit into our bones.

By the frequent glimpses of the valley floor, I was more and more assured of its reality. Every mirage I had ever behelnd in Mongolia I had seen manad retreated, changed form, or vanished as I drew near. The valley floor did none of these things. It was true that the stones seemed to be squatter as we came closer; but I attributed that to the different angle of vision.

We were about a hundred feet above the end of the slide when I began to be less sure. The travelling had become peculiarly difficult. The slide had narrowed. At our left the rock was clean swept, stretching down to the valley as smoothly as though it had been brushed by some titantic broom. Probably an immense fragment had broken loose at this point, shattering into the boulders that lay heaped at its termination. We veered to the right, where there was a ridge of rocks, pushed to the side by that same besom of stone. Down this ridge we picked our way.

Because of my greater strength, I was carrying both our rifles, swung by a thong over my left shoulder. Also I was handling the heavier pack. We came upon an extremely awkward place. The stone upon which I was standing suddenly tipped beneath my weight. It threw me sideways. The pack slipped from my hands, toppled, and fell over on the smooth rock. Automatically I threw myself forward, catching at it. The thong holding the two rifles broke. They went slithering after the escaping pack.

It was one of those combinations of circumstances that makes one believe in a God of Mischance. The thing might have happened anywhere else on our journey without any result whatever. And even at that moment I didn't think it mattered.

"Well," I said, cheerfully, "that saves me carrying them. We can pick them up when we get to the bottom."

"That is," said Jim, "if there is a bottom."

I cocked my eye down the slide. The rifles had caught up with the pack and the three were now moving fast.

"There they stop," I said. They were almost on the rubble at the end.

"The hell they do," said Jim. "There they go!"

I rubbed my eyes, and looked and looked again. The pack and the pushing rifles should have been checked by that barrier at the slide's end. But they had not been. They had vanished.

CHAPTER VI
THE SHADOWED-LAND

There had been a queer quivering when rifles and pack had touched the upthrust of rock. Then they had seemed to melt into it.

"I'd say they dropped into the lake," said Jim.

"There's no lake. They dropped into some break in the rock. Come on--"

He gripped my shoulder.

"Wait, Leif. Go slow."

I followed his pointing finger. The barrier of stones had vanished. Where they had been, the slide ran, a smooth tongue of stone, far out into the valley.

"Come on," I said.

We went down, testing every step. With each halt, the nibbled plain became flatter and flatter, the boulders squatted lower and lower. A cloud drifted over the sun. There were no boulders. The valley floor stretched below us, a level slate-grey waste!

The slide ended abruptly at the edge of this waste. The rocks ended as abruptly, about fifty feet ahead. They stood at the edge with the queer effect of stones set in place when the edge had been viscous. Nor did the waste appear solid; it, too, gave the impression of viscosity; through it ran a slight but constant tremor, like waves of heat over a sun-baked roaet with every step downward the bitter, still cold increased until it was scarcely to be borne.

There was a narrow passage between the shattered rocks and the cliff at our right. We crept through it. We stood upon an immense flat stone at the very edge of the strange plain. It was neither water nor rock; more than anything, it had the appearance of a thin opaque liquid glass, or a gas that had been turned semi-liquid.

I stretched myself out on the slab, and reached out to touch it. I did touch ihere was no resistance; I felt nothing. I let my hand sink slowly in. I saw my hand for a moment as though reflected in a distorting mirror, and then I could not see it at all. But it was pleasantly warm down there where my hand had disappeared. The chilled blood began to tingle in my numbed fingers. I leaned far over the stone and plunged both arms in almost to the shoulders. It felt damned good.

Jim dropped beside me and thrust in his arms.

"It's air," he said.

"Feels like it--" I began, and then a sudden realization came to me--"the rifles and the pack! If we don't get them we're out of luck!"

He said: "If Khalk'ru iuns aren't going to get us away from him."

"You think this--" I stopped, memory of the shadowy shape in the lake of illusion coming back to me.

"Usunhi'yi, the Darkening-land. The Shadowed-land your old priest called it, didn't he? I'd say this fits either description."

I lay quiet; no matter what the certainty of a coming ordeal a man may carry in his soul, he can't help a certain shrinking when he knows his foot is at the threshold of it. And now quite clearly and certainly I knew just that. All the long trail between Khalk'ru's Gobi temple and this place of mirage was wiped out. I was stepping from that focus of Khalk'ru's power into this onhere what had been begun in the Gobi must be ended. The old haunting horror began to creep over me. I fought it.

I would take up the challenge. Nothing on earth could stop me now from going on. And with that determination, I felt the horror sullenly retreat, leave me. For the first time in years I was wholly free of it.

"I'm going to see what's down there." Jim drew up his arms. "Hold on to my feet, Leif, and I'll slip over the edge of the stone. I felt along its edge and it seems to go on a bit further."

"I'll go first." I said. "After all, it's my party."

"And a fine chance I'd have to pull you up if you fell over, you human elephant. Here goeatch hold."

I had just time to grip his ankles as he wriggled over the stone, and his head and shoulders passed from sight. On he went, slowly writhing along the slanting rock until my hands and arms were hidden to the shoulders. He pausend then from the mysterious opacity in which he had vanished came a roar of crazy laughter.

I felt him twist and try to jerk his feet away from me. I pulled him, fighting against me every inch of the way, out upon the stone. He came out roaring that same mad laughter. His face was red, and his eyes were shining drunkenly; he had in fact all the symptoms of a laughing drunk. But the rapidity of his respiration told me what had happened.

"Breathe slowly," I shouted in his ear. "Breathe slowly, I tell you."

And then, as his laughter continued and his struggles to tear loose did not abate, I held him down with one arm and closed his nose and mouth with my hand. In a moment or two he relaxed. I released him; and he sat up groggily.

"Funniest things," he said, thickly. "Saw funniest faces..."

He shook his head, took a deep breath or two, and lay back on the stone.

"What the hell happened to me, Leif?"

"You had an oxygen burn, Indian," I said. "A nice cheap jag on air loaded with carbon-dioxide. And that explains a lot of things about this place. You came up breathing three to the second, which is what carbon-dioxide does to you. Works on the respiratory centres of the brain and speeds up respiration. You took in more oxygen than you could use, and you got drunk on it. What did you see before the world became so funny?"

"I saw you," he said. "And the sky. It was like looking up out of water. I looked down and around. A little below me was something like a floor of pale green mist. I couldn't see through it. It's warm in there, good and plenty warm, and it smells like trees and flowers. That's all I managed to grasp before I went goofy. Oh, yes, this rock fall keeps right on going down. Maybe we can get to the bottom of if we don't laugh ourselves off. I'm going right out and sit in that mirage up to my necy God, Leif, I'm freezing!"

I looked at him with concern. His lips were blue, his teeth chattering. The transition from the warmth to the bitter cold was having its effect, and a dangerous one.

"All right," I said, rising. "I'll go first. Breathe slowly, take deep, long breaths as slowly as you can, and breathe out just as slowly. You'll soon get used to it. Come on."

I slung the remaining pack over my back, craw-fished over the side of the stone, felt solid rock under my feet, and drew myself down within the mirage.

It was warm enough; almost as warm as the steam-room of a Turkish bath. I looked up and saw the sky above me like a circle of blue, misty at its edges. Then I saw Jim's legs dropping down toward me, his body bent back from them at an impossible angle. I was seeing him, in fact, about as a fish does an angler wading in its pool. His body seemed to telescope and he was squatting beside me.

"God, but this feels good!"

"Don't talk," I told him. "Just sit here and practise that slow breathing. Watch me."

We sat there, silently, for all of half an hour. No sound broke the stillness around us. It smelled of the jungle, of fast-growing vigorous green life, and green life falling as swiftly into decay; and there were elusive, alien fragrances. All I could see was the circle of blue sky above, and perhaps a hundred feet below us the pale green mist of which Jim had spoken. It was like a level floor of cloud, impenetrable to the vision. The rock-fall entered it and was lost to sight. I felt no discomfort, but both of us were dripping with sweat. I watched with satisfaction Jim's deep, unhurried breathing.

"Having any trouble?" I asked at last.

"Not much. Now and then I have to put the pedal down. But I think I'm getting the trick."

"All right," I said. "Soon we'll be moving. I don't believe it will get any worse as we go down."

"You talk like an old-timer. What's your idea of this place anyway, Leif?"

"Simple enough. Although the combination hasn't a chance in millions to be duplicated. Here is a wide, deep valley entirely hemmed in by precipitous cliffs. It is, in effect, a pit. The mountains enclosing it are seamed with glaciers and ice streams and there is a constant flow of cold air into this pit, even in summer. There is probably volcanic activity close beneath the valley's floor, boiling springs and the like. It may be a miniature of the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes over to the west. All this produces an excess of carbon-dioxide. There is most probably a lush vegetation which adds to the product. What we are going into is likely to be a little left-over fragment of the Carboniferous Agbout ten million years out of its time. The warm, heavy air fills the pit until it reaches the layer of cold air we've just come from. The mirage is produced where the two meet, by approximately the same causes which produce every mirage. How long it's been this way, God alone knows. Parts of Alaska never had a Glacial Aghe ice for some reason or another didn't cover them. When what is New York was under a thousand feet of ice, the Yukon Flats were an oasis filled with all sorts of animal and plant life. If this valley existed then, we're due to see some strange survivals. If it's comparatively recent, we'll probably run across some equally interesting adaptations. That's about all, except there must be an outlet of some kind somewhere at about this level, otherwise the warm air would fill the whole valley to the top, as gas does a tank. Let's be going."

"I begin to hope we find the guns," said Jim, thoughtfully.

"As you pointed out, they'd be no good against Khalk'rhat, who, if and where he is," I said. "But they'd be handy against his attendant devils. Keep an eye out for the mean the guns."

We started down the rock-fall, toward the floor of green mist. The going was not very difficult. We reached the mist without having seen anything of rifles or packs. The mist looked like a heavy fog. We entered it, and that was precisely what it was. It closed around us, thick and warm. The rocks were reeking wet and slippery, and we had to feel for every foot of the way. Twice I thought our numbers were up. How deep that mist was, I could not tell, perhaps two or three hundred fee condensation brought about by the peculiar atmospheric conditions that produced the mirage.

The mist began to lighten. It maintained its curious green tint, but I had the idea that this was due to reflection from below. Suddenly it thinned to nothing. We came out of it upon a breast where the falling rocks had met some obstruction and had piled up into a barrier about thrice my height. We climbed that barrier.

We looked upon the valley beneath the mirage.

It lay a full thousand feet beneath us. It was filled with pale green light like that in a deep forest glade. That light was both lucent and vaporous, lucent where we stood, but hiding the distance with misty curtains of pallid emerald. To the north and on each side as far as I could see, and melting into the vaporous emerald curtains, was a vast carpet of trees. Their breath came pulsing up to me, jungle-strong, laden with the unfamiliar fragrances. At left and right, the black cliffs fell sheer to the forest edge.

"Listen!" Jim caught my arm.

At first only a faint tapping, then louder and louder, we heard from far away the beating of drums, scores of drums, in a strange staccato rhythhrill, mocking, jeering! But they were no drums of Khalk'ru! In them was nothing of that dreadful trampling of racing feet upon a hollow world.

They ceased. As though in answer, and from an entirely different direction, there was a fanfarade of trumpets, menacing, warlike. If brazen notes could curse, these did. Again the drums broke forth, still mocking, taunting, defiant.

"Little drums," Jim was whispering. "Drums of--" He dropped down from the rocks, and I followed. The barrier led to the east, dipping steadily downward. We followed its base. It stood like a great wall between us and the valley, barring our vision. We heard the drums no more. We descended five hundred feet at least before the barrier ended. At its end was another rock slide like that down which the rifles and pack had fallen.

We stood studying it. It descended at an angle of about forty-five degrees, and while not so smooth as the other, it had few enough foot-holds.

The air had steadily grown warmer. It was not an uncomfortable heat; there was a queer tingling life about it, an exhalation of the crowding forest or of the valley itself, I thought. It gave me a feeling of rampant, reckless life, a heady exaltation. The pack had grown tiresome. If we were to negotiate the slide, and there seemed nothing else to do, I couldn't very well carry it. I unslung it.

"Letter of introduction" I said, and sent it slithering down the rock.

"Breathe deep and slow, you poor ass," said Jim, and laughed.

His eyes were bright; he looked happy, like a man from whom some burden of fear and doubt has fallen. He looked, in fact, as I had felt when I had taken up that challenge of the unknown not so long before. And I wondered.

The slithering pack gave a little leap, and dropped completely out of sight. Evidently the slide did not go all the way to the valley floor, or, if so, it continued at a sharper angle at the point of the pack's disappearance.

I let myself over cautiously, and began to worm down the slide flat on my belly, Jim following. We had negotiated about three-quarters of it when I heard him shout. Then his falling body struck me. I caught him with one hand, but it broke my own precarious hold. We went rolling down the slide and dropped into space. I felt a jarring shock, and abruptly went completely out.

CHAPTER VII
THE LITTLE PEOPLE

I came to myself to find Jim pumping the breath back into me. I was lying on something soft. I moved my legs gingerly, and sat up. I looked around. We were on a bank of mosn it, rather, for the tops of the moss were a foot or more above my head. It was an exceedingly overgrown moss, I thought, staring at it stupidly. I had never seen moss as big as this. Had I shrunk, or was it really so overgrown? Above me was a hundred feet of almost sheer cliff. Said Jim:

"Well, we're here."

"How did we get here?" I asked, dazed. He pointed to the cliff.

"We fell down that. We struck a ledge. You did, rather. I was on top. It bumped us right out on this nice big moss mattress. I was still on top. That's why I've been pumping breath back into you for the last five minutes. Sorry, Leif, but if it had been the other way about, you'd certainly have had to proceed on your pilgrimage alone. I haven't your resilience."

He laughed. I stood up, and looked about us. The bed of giant moss on which we had landed formed a mound between us and the forest. At the base of the cliff was piled the debris of the fall that had made the slide. I looked at these rocks and shivered. If we had struck them we would have been a jumble of broken bones and mangled flesh. I felt myself over. I was intact.

"Everything, Indian," I said piously, "is always for the best."

"God, Leif! You had me worried for awhile!" He turned abruptly. "Look at the forest."

The mound of moss was a huge and high oval, hemmed almost to the base of the cliffs by gigantic trees. They were somewhat like the sequoias of California, and quite as high. Their crowns towered; their enormous boles were columns carved by Titans. Beneath them grew graceful ferns, tall as palm trees, and curious conifers with trunks thin as bamboos, scaled red and yellow. Over them, hanging from the boles and branches of the trees, were vines and dusters of flowers of every shape and colour; there were cressets of orchids, and chandeliers of lilies; strange symmetrical trees, the tips of whose leafless branches held up flower cups as though they were candelabra; chimes of flower bells swayed from boughs and there were long ropes and garlands of small starry flowers, white and crimson and in all the blues of the tropic seas. Bees dipped into them. There was a constant flashing of great dragon-flies all in lacquered mail of green and scarlet. And mysterious shadows drifted through the forest, like the shadows of the wings of hovering unseen guardians.

It was no forest of the Carboniferous Age, at least none such as I had ever seen reconstructed by science. It was a forest of enchantment. Out of it came heady fragrances. Nor was it, for all its strangeness, in the least sinister, or forbidding. It was very beautiful.

Jim said:

"The woods of the gods! Anything might live in a place like that. Anything that is lovely--"

Ah, Tsantawu, my brothead that but been true!

All I said was:

"It's going to be damned hard to get through."

"I was thinking that," he answered. "Maybe the best thing is to skirt the cliffs. We may run across easier going farther on. Which waight or left?"

We tossed a coin. The coin spun right. I saw the pack not far away, and walked over to retrieve it. The moss was as unsteady as a double spring-mattress. I wondered how it came to be there; thought that probably a few of the giant trees had been felled by the rock fall and the moss had fed upon their decay. I slung the pack over my shoulders, and we tramped, waist-deep in the spongy growth, to the cliffs.

We skirted the cliffs for about a mile. Sometimes the forest pressed so closely that we had trouble clinging to the rock. Then it began to change. The giant trees retreated. We entered a brake of the immense ferns. Except for the bees and the lacquered dragon-flies, there was no sign of life amid the riotous vegetation. We passed out of the ferns and into a most singular small meadow. It was almost like a clearing. At each side were the ferns; the forest formed a palisade at one end; at the other was a sheer cliff whose black face was spangled with large cup-shaped white flowers which hung from short, reddish, rather repellantly snake-like vines whose roots I supposed were fixed in crevices in the rock.

No trees or ferns of any kind grew in the meadow. It was carpeted by a lacy grass upon whose tips were minute blue flowerlets. From the base of the cliff arose a thin veil of steam which streamed up softly high in the air, bathing the cup-shaped white blossoms.

A boiling spring, we decided. We drew closer to examine it.

We heard a wailinespairing, agonized...Like the wail of a heart-broken, tortured child, yet neither quite human nor quite animal. It had come from the cliff, from somewhere behind the veils of steam. We stopped short, listening. The wailing began again, within it something that stirred the very depths of pity, and it did not cease. We ran toward the cliff. The steam curtain at its base was dense. We skirted it and reached its farther end.

At the base of the cliff was a long and narrow pool, like a small closed stream. Its water was black and bubbling, and from these bubbles came the steam. From end to end of the boiling pool, across the face of the black rock, ran a yard-wide ledge. Above it, spaced at regular intervals, were niches cut within the cliff, small as cradles.

In two of these niches, half-within them and half-upon the ledge, lay what at first glance seemed two children. They were outstretched upon their backs, their tiny hands and feet fastened to the stone by staples of bronze. Their hair streamed down their sides; their bodies were stark naked.

And now I saw that they were not children. They were matur little man and a little woman. The woman had twisted her head and was staring at the other pygmy. It was she who was wailing. She did not see us. Her eyes were intent upon him. He lay rigid, his eyes closed. Upon his breast, over his heart, was a black corrosion, as though acid had been dropped upon it.

There was a movement on the cliff above him. One of the cup-shaped white flowers was there. Could it have been that which had moved? It hung a foot above the little man's breast, and on its scarlet pistils was a slowly gathering drop which I took for nectar.

It had been the flower whose movement had caught my eye! As I looked the reddish vine trembled. It writhed like a sluggish worm an inch down the rock. The flower shook its cup as though it were a mouth trying to shake loose the gathering drop. And the flower mouth was directly over the little man's heart and the black corrosion on his breast.

I stepped out upon the narrow path, reached up and grasped the vine and tore it loose. It squirmed in my hand like a snake. Its roots dug to my fingers, and like a snake's head the flower raised itself as though to strike. Its rim was thick and fleshy, like a round white mouth. The drop of nectar fell upon my hand and a fiery agony bit into it, running up my arm like a flame. I hurled the squirming thing into the boiling pool.

Close above the little woman was another of the crawling vines. I tore it loose as I had the other. It, too, strove to strike me with its head of flower, but either there was none of that dreadful nectar in its cup, or it missed me. I threw it after the other.

I bent over the little man. His eyes were open; he was glaring up at me. Like his skin, his eyes were yellow, tilted, Mongolian. They seemed to have no pupils, and they were not wholly human; no more than had been the wailing of his woman. There was agony in them, and there was bitter hatred. His gaze wandered to my hair, and I saw amazement banish the hatred.

The flaming torment of my hand and arm was almost intolerable. By it, I knew what the pygmy must be suffering. I tore away the staples that fettered him. I lifted the little man, and passed him over to Jim. He weighed no more than a baby.

I snapped the staples from the slab on which lay the little woman. There was no fear nor hatred in her eyes. They were filled with wonder and unmistakable gratitude. I carried her over and set her beside her man.

I looked back, up the face of the black cliff. There was movement all over it; the reddish ropes of the vines writhing, the white flowers swaying, raising and lowering their cups.

It was rather hideous...

The little man lay quietly, yellow eyes turning from me to Jim and back to me again. The woman spoke, in trilling, bird-like syllables. She darted away across the meadow, into the forest.

Jim was staring down upon the golden pygmy like a man in a dream. I heard him whisper:

"The Yunwi Tsundi! The Little People! It was all true then! All true!"

The little woman came running out of the fern brake. Her hands were full of thick, heavily veined leaves. She darted a look at me, as of apology. She bent over her man. She squeezed some of the leaves over his breast. A milky sap streamed through her fingers and dropped upon the black, corroded spot. It spread over the spot like a film. The little man stiffened and groaned, relaxed and lay still.

The little woman took my hand. Where the nectar had touched, the skin had turned black. She squeezed the juice of the leaves upon it. A pang, to which all the torment that had gone before was nothing, ran through hand and arm. Then, almost instantly, there was no pain.

I looked at the little man's breast. The black corrosion had disappeared. There was a wound like an old burn, red and normal. I looked at my hand. It was inflamed, but the blackness was no longer there.

The little woman bowed before me. The little man arose. He looked at my eyes and ran his gaze along my bulk. I watched suspicion grow, and the return of bitter hate. He spoke to his woman. She answered at some length, pointing to the cliff, to my inflamed hand, and to the ankles and wrists of both of them. The little man beckoned to me; by gesture asked me to bend down to him. I did, and he touched my yellow hair; he ran it through his tiny fingers. He laid his hand on my heart... then laid his head on my heart, listening to its beat.

He struck me with his small hand across my mouth. It was no blow; I knew it for a caress.

The little man smiled at me, and trilled. I could not understand, and shook my head helplessly. He looked up at Jim and trilled another question. Jim tried him in the Cherokee. This time it was the little man who shook his head. He spoke again to his woman. Clearly I caught the word ev-ah-lee in the bird-like sounds. She nodded.

Motioning us to follow, they ran across the meadow, toward the further brake of fern. How little they werardly to my thighs. They were beautifully formed. Their long hair was chestnut brown, fine and silky. Their hair floated behind them like cobwebs.

They ran like small deer. We were hard put to keep up with them. They entered the fern brake toward which we had been heading, and here they slowed their pace. On and on we went through the giant ferns. I could see no path, but the golden pygmies knew their way.

We came out of the ferns. Before us was a wide sward covered with the flowerets whose blue carpet ran to the banks of a wide river, to the banks of a strange river, a river all milky white, over whose placid surface hovered swirls of opalescent mist. Through the swirls I caught glimpses of green, level plains upon the white river's further side, and of green scarps.

The little man halted. He bent his ear to the ground. He leaped back into the brake, motioning us to follow. In a few minutes we came across a half-ruined watch tower. Its entrance gaped open. The pygmies slipped within it, beckoning.

Inside the tower was a crumbling flight of stones leading to its top. The little man and woman danced up them, with us close behind them. There was a small chamber at the tower's top through the chinks of whose stones the green light streamed. I peered through one of the crevices, down upon the blue sward and the white river. I heard the faint trampling of horses' feet and the low chanting of women; closer they drew, and closer.

A woman came riding down the blue sward. She was astride a great black mare. She wore, like a hood, the head of a white wolf. Its pelt covered her shoulders and back. Over that silvery pelt her hair fell in two thick braids of flaming red. Her high, round breasts were bare, and beneath them the paws of the white wolf were clasped like a girdle. Her eyes were blue as the cornflower and set wide apart under a broad, low forehead. Her skin was milky-white flushed with soft rose. Her mouth was full-lipped, crimson, and both amorous and cruel.

She was a strong woman, tall almost as I. She was like a Valkyrie, and like those messengers of Odin she carried on her saddle before her, held by one arm, a body. But it was no soul of a slain warrior snatched up for flight to Valhalla. It was a girl. A girl whose arms were bound to her sides by stout thongs, with head bent hopelessly on her breast. I could not see her face; it was hidden under the veil of her hair. But the hair was russet red and her skin as fair as that of the woman who held her.

Over the Wolf-woman's head flew a snow-white falcon, dipping and circling and keeping pace with her as she rode.

Behind her rode a half-score other women, young and strong-thewed, pink-skinned and blue-eyed, their hair of copper-red, rust-red, bronzy-red, plaited around their heads or hanging in long braids down their shoulders. They were bare-breasted, kirtled and buskined. They carried long, slender spears and small round targes. And they, too, were like Valkyries, each of them a shield-maiden of the Aesir. As they rode, they sang, softly, muted, a strange chant.

The Wolf-woman and her captive passed around a bend of the sward and out of sight. The chanting women followed and were hidden.

There was a gleam of silver from the white falcon's wing as it circled and dropped, circled and dropped. Then it, too, was gone.

CHAPTER VIII
EVALIE

The golden pygmies hissed; their yellow eyes were molten with hatred.

The little man touched my hand, talking in the rapid trilling syllables, and pointing over the white river. Clearly he was telling me we must cross it. He stopped, listening. The little woman ran down the broken stairs. The little man twittered angrily, darted to Jim, beat at his legs with his fists as though to arouse him, then shot after the woman.

"Snap out of it, Indian!" I said, impatiently. "They want us to hurry."

He shook his head, like a man shaking away the last cobwebs of some dream.

We sped down the broken steps. The little man was waiting for us; or at least he had not run away, for, if waiting for us, he was doing so, in a most singular manner. He was dancing in a small circle, waving his arms and hands oddly, and trilling a weird melody upon four notes, repeated over and over in varying progressions. The woman was nowhere in sight.

A wolf howled. It was answered by other wolves farther away in the flowered foresike a hunting pack whose leader has found the scent.

The little woman came racing through the fern brake; the little man stopped dancing. Her hands were filled with small purplish fruits resembling fox-grapes. The little man pointed toward the white river, and they set off through the screening brake of ferns. We followed.

We came out of the brake, crossed the blue sward and stood on the bank of the river.

The howl of the wolf sounded again, answered by the others, and closer.

The little man leaped upon me, twittering frantically; he twined his legs about my waist and strove to tear my shirt from me. The woman was trilling at Jim, waving in her hands the bunches of purple fruit.

"They want us to take off our clothes," said Jim. "They want us to be quick about it."

We stripped, hastily. There was a crevice in the bank into which I pushed the pack. Quickly we rolled up our clothes and boots, and threw a strap around them and slung them over our shoulders.

The little woman threw a handful of the purple fruit to her man. She motioned Jim to bend, and as he did so she squeezed the berries over his head and hands, his breasts and thighs and feet. The little man was doing the same for me. The fruit had an oddly pungent odour that made my eyes water.

I straightened up and looked out over the white river.

The head of a serpent broke through its milky surface; then another and another. Their heads were as large as those of the anaconda, and were scaled in vivid emerald. They were crested by brilliant green spines which continued along their backs and were revealed as they swirled and twisted in the white water. Quite definitely, I did not like plunging into that water, but now I thought I knew the purpose of our anointing, and that most certainly the golden pygmies intended us no harm. And just as certainly, I assumed, they knew what they were about.

The howling of the wolves came once more, not only much nearer, but from the direction along which had gone the troop of women.

The little man dived into the water, motioning me to follow. I obeyed, and heard the small splash of the woman and the louder one of Jim. The little man glanced back at me, nodded, and began to swim across like an eel, at a speed that I found difficult to emulate.

The crested serpents did not molest us. Once I felt the slither of scales across my loins; once I shook the water from my eyes to find one of them swimming beside me, matching in play my speed, or so it seemed; racing me.

The water was warm, as warm as the milk it resembled, and curiously buoyant. The river at this point was about a thousand feet wide. I had covered half of it when I heard a shrill shriek and felt the buffeting of wings about my head. I rolled over, beating up with my hands to drive off whatever it was that had attacked me.

It was the white falcon of the Wolf-woman, hovering, dropping, rising again, threshing me with its pinions!

I heard a cry from the bank, a bell-like contralto, vibrant, imperioun archaic Uighur:

"Come back! Come back. Yellow-hair!"

I swung round to see. The falcon ceased its bufferings. Upon the farther bank was the Wolf-woman upon her great black mare, the captive girl still clasped in her ann. The Wolf-woman's eyes were like sapphire stars, her free hand was raised in summons.

And all around her, heads lowered, glaring at me with eyes as green as hers were blue, was a pack of snow-white wolves!

"Come back!" she cried again.

She was very beautifuhe Wolf-woman. It would not have been hard to have obeyed. But nhe was not a Wolf-woman! What was she? Into my mind came a Uighur word, an ancient word that I had not blown I knew. She was the Salur'dhe Witch-woman. And with it came angry resentment of her summons. Who was shhe Salur'do command me! Me, Dwayanu, who in olden time long forgot would have had her whipped with scorpions for such insolence!

I raised myself high above the white water.

"Back to your den, Salur'da!" I shouted. "Does Dwayanu come to your call? When I summon you, then see that you obey!"

She stared at me, stark amazement in her eyes; the strong arm that held the girl relaxed so that the captive almost dropped from the mare's high pommel. I struck out across the water to the farther shore.

I heard the Witch-woman whistle. The falcon circling round my head screamed, and flew. I heard the white wolves snarling; I heard the thud of the black mare's hoofs racing over the blue sward. I reached the bank and climbed it. Only then did I turn. Witch-woman, falcon and white wolvell of them were gone.

Across my wake the emerald-headed, emerald-crested serpents swam and swirled and dived.

The golden pygmies had climbed upon the bank.

Jim asked:

"What did you say to her?"

"The Witch-woman comes to my calot I to hers," I answered, and wondered as I did so what it was that compelled the words.

"Still very mucwayanu, aren't you, Leif? What touched the trigger on you this time?"

"I don't know." The inexplicable resentment against the woman was still strong, and, because I could not understand it, irritating to a degree. "She ordered me to come back, and a little fire-cracker went off in my brain. Then seemed to know her for what she is, and that her command was rank insolence. I told her so. She was no more surprised by what I said than I am. It was like someone else speaking. It was like--" I hesitated--"well, it was like when I started that cursed ritual and couldn't stop."

He nodded, then began to put on his clothes. I followed suit. They were soaking wet. The pygmies watched us wriggle into them with frank amazement. I noticed that the angry red around the wound on the little man's breast had paled, and that while the wound itself was raw, it was not deep and had already begun to heal. I looked at my own hand; the red had almost disappeared, and only a slight tenderness betrayed where the nectar had touched it.

When we had laced our boots, the golden pygmies trotted off, away from the river toward a line of cliffs about a mile ahead. The vaporous green light half hid them, as it had wholly hidden our view to the north when we had first looked over the valley. For half the distance the ground was level and covered with the blue-flowered grass. Then ferns began, steadily growing higher. We came upon a trail little wider than a deer path which threaded into a greater brake. Into this we turned.

We had eaten nothing since early morning, and I thought regretfully of the pack I had left behind. However, it is my training to eat heartily when I can, and philosophically go without when I must. So I tightened my belt and glanced back at Jim, close upon my heels.

"Hungry?" I asked.

"No. Too busy thinking."

"Indiahat brought the red-headed beauty back?"

"The wolves. Didn't you hear them howling after her? They found our track and gave her the signal."

"I thought sut it's incredible! Helhen she is a Witch-woman."

"Not because of that. You're forgetting your Mowgli and the Grey Companions. Wolves aren't hard to train. But she's a Witch-woman, nevertheless. Don't hold back Dwayanu when you deal with her, Leif."

The little drums again began to beat. At first only a few, then steadily more and more until there were scores of them. This time the cadences were lilting, gay, tapping out a dancing rhythm that lifted all weariness. They did not seem far away. But now the ferns were high over our heads and impenetrable to the sight, and the narrow path wove in and out among them like a meandering stream

The pygmies hastened their pace. Suddenly the trail came out of the ferns, and the pair halted. In front of us the ground sloped sharply upward for three or four hundred feet. The slope, except where the path ran, was covered from bottom to top with a tangle of thick green vines studded along all their lengths with wicked three-inch thorns; a living chevaux-de-frise which no living creature would penetrate. At the end of the path was a squat tower of stone, and from this came the glint of spear-heads.

In the tower a shrill-voiced drum chattered an unmistakable alarm. Instantly the lilting drums were silent. The same shrill chatter was taken up and repeated from point to point, diminishing in the far distance; and now I saw that the slope was like an immense circular fortification, curving far out toward the unbroken palisade of the giant ferns, and retreating at our right toward the sheer wall of black cliff, far away. Everywhere upon it was the thicket of thorn.

The little man twittered to his woman, and walked up the trail toward the tower. He was met by other pygmies streaming out of it. The little woman stayed with us, nodding and smiling and patting our knees reassuringly.

Another drum, or a trio of them, began to beat from the tower. I thought there were three because their burden was on three different notes, soft, caressing, yet far-carrying. They sang a word, a name, those drums, as plainly as though they had lips, the name I had heard in the trilling of the pygmies...

Ev-ah-lee... Ev-ah-lee...Ev-ah-lee...Over and over and over. The drums in the other towers were silent.

The little man beckoned us. We went forward, avoiding with difficulty the thorns. We came to the top of the path beside the small tower. A score of the little men stepped out and barred our way. None was taller than the one I had saved from the white flowers. All had the same golden skin, the same half-animal yellow eyes; like his, their hair was long and silky, floating almost to their tiny feet, They wore twisted loin-cloths of what appeared to be cotton; around their waists were broad girdles of silver, pierced like lace-work in intricate designs. Their spears were wicked weapons for all their apparent frailty, long-handled, hafted in some black wood, and with foot-deep points of red metal, and barbed like a muskalonge hook from tip to base. Swung on their backs were black bows with long arrows barbed in similar manner; and in their metal girdles were slender sickle-shaped knives of the red metal, like scimitars of gnomes.

They stood staring at us, like small children. They made me feel as Gulliver must have felt among the Liliputians. Also, there was that about them which gave me no desire to tempt them to use their weapons. They looked at Jim with curiosity and interest and with no trace of unfriendliness. They looked at me with little faces that grew hard and fierce. Only when their eyes roved to my yellow hair did I see wonder and doubt lighten suspiciout they never dropped the points of the spears turned toward me.

Ev-ah-lee...Ev-ah-lee...Ev-ah-lee...sang the drums.

There was an answering roll from beyond, and they were silent.

I heard a sweet, low-pitched voice at the other side of the tower trilling the bird-like syllables of the Little Peoplnd the saw Evalie.

Have you watched a willow bough swaying in spring above some clear sylvan pool, or a slender birch dancing with the wind in a secret woodland and covert, or the flitting green shadows in a deep forest glade which are dryads half-tempted to reveal themselves? I thought of them as she came toward us.

She was a dark girl, and a tall girl. Her eyes were brown under long black lashes, the clear brown of the mountain brook in autumn; her hair was black, the jetty hair that in a certain light has a sheen of darkest blue. Her face was small, her features certainly neither classic nor regulahe brows almost meeting in two level lines above her small, straight nose; her mouth was large but finely cut, and sensitive. Over her broad, low forehead the blue-black hair was braided like a coronal. Her skin was clear amber. Like polished fine amber it shone under the loose, yet clinging, garment that clothed her, knee-long, silvery, cobweb fine and transparent. Around her hips was the white loin-cloth of the Little People. Unlike them, her feet were sandalled.

But it was the grace of her that made the breath catch in your throat as you looked at her, the long flowing line from ankle to shoulder, delicate and mobile as the curve of water flowing over some smooth breast of rock, a liquid grace of line that changed with every movement.

It was thand the life that burned in her like the green flame of the virgin forest when the kisses of spring are being changed for the warmer caresses of summer. I knew now why the old Greeks had believed in the dryads, the naiads, the nereidhe woman souls of trees, of brooks and waterfalls and fountains, and of the waves.

I could not tell how old she waers was the pagan beauty which knows no age.

She examined me, my clothes and boots, in manifest perplexity; she glanced at Jim, nodded, as though to say there was nothing in him to be disturbed about; then turned back to me, studying me. The small soldiers ringed her, their spears ready.

The little man and his woman had stepped forward. They were both talking at once, pointing to his breast, to my hand, to my yellow hair. The girl laughed, drew the little woman to her and covered her lips with a hand. The little man went on trilling and twittering.

Jim had been listening with a puzzled intensity whenever the girl had done the talking. He caught my arm.

"It's Cherokee they're speaking! Or something like iisten...there was a word...it sounded like 'Yun'-wini'giski'...it means 'Man-eaters.' Literally, 'They eat people'...if that's what it was... and look...he's showing how the vines crawled down the cliffs..."

The girl began speaking again. I listened intently. The rapid enunciation and the trilling made understanding difficult, but I caught sounds that seemed familiand now I heard a combination that I certainly knew.

"It's some kind of Mongolian tongue, Jim. I got a word just then that means 'serpent-water' in a dozen different dialects."

"I knohe called the snake 'aha'nada' and the Cherokees say 'inadu'--but it's Indian, not Mongolian."

"It might be both. The Indian dialects are Mongolian. Maybe it's the ancient mother-tongue. If we could only get her to speak slower, and tune down on the trills."

"It might be that. The Cherokees called themselves 'the oldest people' and their language 'the first speech'--wait--"

He stepped forward, hand upraised; he spoke the word which in the Cherokee means, equally, friend or one who comes with good intentions. He said it several times. Wonder and comprehension crept into the girl's eyes. She repeated it as he had spoken it, then turned to the pygmies, passing the word on to thend I could distinguish it now plainly within the trills and pipings. The pygmies came closer, staring up at Jim.

He said, slowly: "We come from outside. We know nothing of this place. We know none within it."

Several times he had to repeat this before she caught it. She looked gravely at him, and at me doubtfullet as one who would like to believe. She answered haltingly.

"But Sri"--she pointed to the little man--"has said that in the water he spoke the tongue of evil."

"He speaks many tongues," said Jihen to me:

"Talk to her. Don't stand there like a dummy, admiring her. This girl can thinnd we're in a jam. Your looks make no hit with the dwarfs, Leif, in spite of what you did."

"Is it any stranger that I should have spoken that tongue than that I now speak yours, Evalie?" I said. And asked the same question in two of the oldest dialects of the Mongolian that I knew. She studied me, thoughtfully.

"No," she said at last--"no; for I, too, know something of it, yet that does not make me evil."

And suddenly she smiled, and trilled some command to the guards. They lowered their spears, regarding me with something of the friendly interest they had showed toward Jim. Within the tower, the drums began to roll a cheerful tattoo. As at a signal, the other unseen drums which the shrill alarm had silenced, resumed their lilting rhythm.

The girl beckoned us. We walked behind her, the little soldiers ringing us, between a portcullis of thorn and the tower.

We passed over the threshold of the Land of the Little People and of Evalie.

CHAPTER IX

The green light that filled the Shadowed-land was darkening. As the green forest darkens at dusk. The sun must long since have dipped beneath the peaks circling that illusory floor which was the sky of the Shadowed-land. Yet here the glow faded slowly, as though it were not wholly dependent upon the sun, as though the place had some luminosity of its own.

We sat beside the tent of Evalie. It was pitched on a rounded knoll not far from the entrance of her lair within the cliff. All along the base of the cliff were the lairs of the Little People, tiny openings through which none larger than they could creep into the caves that were their homes, their laboratories, their workshops, their storehouses and granaries, their impregnable fortresses.

It had been hours since we had followed her over the plain between the watch-tower and her tent. The golden pygmies had swarmed from every side, curious as children, chattering and trilling, questioning Evalie, twittering her answers to those on the outskirts of the crowd. Even now there was a ring of them around the base of the knoll, dozens of little men and little women, staring up at us with their yellow eyes, chirping and laughing. In the arms of the women were babies like tiniest dolls, and like larger dolls were the older children who clustered at their knees.

Child-like, their curiosity was soon satisfied; they went back to their occupations and their play. Others, curiosity not yet quenched, took their places.

I watched them dancing upon the smooth grass. They danced in circling measures to the lilting rhythm of their drums. There were other knolls upon the plain, larger and smaller than that on which we were, and all of them as rounded and as symmetrical. Around and over them the golden pygmies danced to the throbbing of the little drums.

They had brought us little loaves of bread, and oddly sweet but palatable milk and cheese, and unfamiliar delicious fruits and melons. I was ashamed of the number of platters I had cleaned. The little people had only watched, and laughed, and urged the women to bring me more.

Jim said, laughingly:"It's the food of the Yunwi Tsundsi you're eating. Fairy food, Leif! You can never eat mortal food again."

I looked at Evalie, and at the wine and amber beauty of her. Well, I could believe Evalie had been brought up on something more than mortal food.

I studied the plain for the hundredth time. The slope on which stood the squat towers was an immense semi-circle, the ends of whose arcs met the black cliffs. It must enclose, I thought, some twenty square miles. Beyond the thorned vines were the brakes of the giant fern; beyond them, on the other side of the river, I could glimpse the great trees. If there were forests on this side, I could not tell. Nor what else there might be of living things. There was something to be guarded against, certainly, else why the fortification, the defences?

Whatever else it might be, this guarded land of the golden pygmies was a small Paradise, with its stands of grain, its orchards, its vines and berries and its green fields.

I thought over what Evalie had told us of herself, carefully and slowly tuning down the trilling syllables of the little people into vocables we could understand. It was an ancient tongue she spokne whose roots struck far deeper down in the soil of Time than any I knew, unless it were the archaic Uighur itself. Minute by minute I found myself mastering it with ever greater ease, but not so rapidly as Jim. He had even essayed a few trills, to the pygmies' delight. More than that, however, they had understood him. Each of us could follow Evalie's thought better than she could ours.

Whence had the Little People come into the Shadowed-land? And where had they learned that ancient tongue? I asked myself that, and answered that as well ask how it came that the Sumerians, whose great city the Bible calls Ur of the Chaldees, spoke a Mongolian language. They, too, were a dwarfish race, masters of strange sorceries, students of the stars. And no man knows whence they came into Mesopotamia with their science full-blown. Asia is the Ancient Mother, and to how many races she has given birth and watched blown away in dust none can say.

The transformation of the tongue into the bird-like speech of the Little People, I thought I understood. Obviously, the smaller the throat, the higher are the sounds produced. Unless by some freak, one never hears a child with a bass voice. The tallest of the Little People was no bigger than a six-year-old child. They could not, perforce, sound the gutturals and deeper tones; so they had to substitute other sounds. The natural thing, when you cannot strike a note in a lower octave, is to strike that same note in a higher. And so they had, and in time this had developed into the overlying pattern of trills and pipings, beneath which, however, the essential structure persisted.

She remembered, Evalie had told us, a great stone house. She thought she remembered a great water. She remembered a land of trees which had become "white and cold". There had been a man and a woman...then there was only the man...and it was all like mist. All she truly remembered was the Little People...she had forgotten there had ever been anything else... until we had come. She remembered when she had been no bigger than the Little People...and how frightened she was when she began to be bigger than they. The Little People, the Rrrllyt is the closest I can come to the triloved her; they did as she told them to do. They had fed and clothed and taught her, especially the mother of Sri, whose life I had saved from the Death Flower. Taught her what? She looked at us oddly, and only repeated--"taught me." Sometimes she danced with the Little People and sometimes she danced for thegain the oddly secretive, half-amused glance. That was all. How long ago had she been as small as the Little People? She did not knoong and long ago. Who had named her Evalie? She did not know.

I studied her, covertly. There was not one thing about her to give a clue to her race. Foundling, I knew, she must have been, the vague man and woman her father and mother. But what had they beef what country? No more than could her lips, did her eyes or hair, colouring or body hint at answer.

She was more changeling than I. A changeling of the mirage! Nurtured on food from Goblin Market!

I wondered whether she would change back again into everyday woman if I carried her out of the Shadowed-land.

I felt the ring touch my breast with the touch of ice.

Carry her away! There was Khalk'ru to meet firsnd the Witch-woman!

The green twilight deepened; great fire-flies began to flash lanterns of pale topaz through the flowering trees; a little breeze stole over the fern brakes, laden with the fragrances of the far forest. Evalie sighed.

"You will not leave me, Tsantawu?"

If he heard her, he did not answer. She turned to me.

"You will not leave meif?"

"No!" I said...and seemed to hear the drums of Khalk'ru beating down the lilting tambours of the Little People like far-away mocking laughter.

The green twilight had deepened into darkness, a luminous darkness, as though a full moon were shining behind a cloud-veiled sky. The golden pygmies had stilled their lilting drums; they were passing into their cliff lairs. From the distant towers came the tap-tap-tap of the drums of the guards, whispering to each other across the thorn-covered slopes. The fire-flies' lights were like the lanterns of a goblin watch; great moths floated by on luminous silvery wings, like elfin planes.

"Evalie," Jim spoke. "The Yunwi Tsundshe Little Peoplow long have they dwelt here?"

"Always, Tsantawr so they say."

"And those otherhe red-haired women?"

We had asked her of those women before, and she had not answered, had tranquilly ignored the matter, but now she replied without hesitation.

"They are of the Ayjit was Lur the Sorceress who wore the wolfskin. She rules the Ayjir with Yodin the High Priest and Tibur-Tibur the Laugher, Tibur the Smith. He is not so tall as you, Leif, but he is broader of shoulder and girth, and he is strontrong! I will tell you of the Ayjir. Before it was as though a hand were clasped over my lipr was it my heart? But now the hand is gone.

"The Little People say the Ayjir came riding here long and long and long ago. Then the Rrrllya held the land on each side of the river. There were many of the Ayjind many. Far more than now, many men and women where now are mainly women and few men. They came as though in haste from far away, or so the little people say their fathers told them. They were led by y have no word! It has a name, but that name I will not speao, not even within me! Yet it has a shape...I have seen it on the banners that float from the towers of Karak...and it is on the breasts of Lur and Tibur when they..."

She shivered and was silent. A silver-winged moth dropped upon her hand, lifting and dropping its shining wings; gently she raised it to her lips, wafted it away.

"All this the Rrrllyhom you call the Little Peoplid not then know. The Ayjir rested. They began to build Karak, and to cut within the cliff their temple to what had led them here. They built quickly at first, as though they feared pursuit; but when none came, they built more slowly. They would have made my little ones their servants, their slaves. The Rrrllya would not have it so. There was war. The Little Ones lay in wait around Karak, and when the Ayjir came forth, they killed them; for the Little Ones know all thhe life of the plants, and so they know how to make their spears and arrows slay at once those whom they only touch. And so, many of the Ayjir died.

"At last a truce was made, and not because the Little People were being beaten, for they were not. But for another reason. The Ayjir were cunning; they laid traps for the little ones, and caught a number. Then this they dihey carried them to the temple and sacrificed them to that which had led them here. By sevens they took them to the temple, and one out of each seven they made watch that sacrifice, then released him to carry to the Rrrllya the tale of what he had seen.

"The first they would not believe, so dreadful was the story of that sacrificut then came the second and third and fourth with the same story. And a great dread and loathing and horror fell upon the Little People. They made a covenant. They would dwell upon this side of the river; the Ayjir should have the other. In return the Ayjir swore by what had led them that never more should one of the Little People be given in sacrifice to it. If one were caught in Ayjirland, he would be killeut not by the Sacrifice. And if any of the Ayjir should flee Karak, seek refuge among the Rrrllya, they must kill that fugitive. To all of this, because of that great horror, the Little People agreed. Nansur was broken, so none could crosansur, that spanned Nanbu, the white river, was broken. All boats both of the Ayjir and the Rrrllya were destroyed, and it was agreed no more should be built. Then, as further guard, the Little People took the dalan'usa and set them in Nanbu, so none could cross by its waters. And so it has beeor long and long and long."

"Dalan'usa, Evaliou mean the serpents?"

"Tlanu'she leech," said Jim.

"The serpenthey are harmless. I think you would not have stopped to talk to Lur had you seen one of the dalan'usa, Leif," said Evalie, half-maliciously.

I filed that enigma for further reference.

"Those two we found beneath the death flowers. They had broken the truce?"

"Not broken it. They knew what to expect if found, and were ready to pay. There are plants that grow on the farther side of white Nanbnd other things the Little Ones need, and they are not to be found on this side. And so they swim Nanbu to get thehe dalan'usa are their friendnd not often are they caught there. But this day Lur was hunting a runaway who was trying to make her way to Sirk, and she crossed their trail and ran them down, and laid them beneath the Death Flowers."

"But what had the girl donhe was one of them?"

"She had been set apart for the Sacrifice. Did you not sehe was taluli...with child...ripening for...for..."

Her voice trailed into silence. A chill touched me.

"But, of course, you know nothing of that," she said. "Nor will I speak of iow. If Sri and Sra had found the girl before they, themselves, had been discovered, they would have guided her past the dalan'uss they guided you; and here she would have dwelt until the time came that she must pass-out of herself. She would have passed in sleep, in peace, without pain...and when she awakened it would have been far from here...perhaps with no memory of it...free. So it is that the Little People who love life send forth those who must be sent."

She said it tranquilly, with clear eyes, untroubled.

"And are many sent forth so?"

"Not many, since few may pass the dalan'uset many try."

"Both men and women, Evalie?"

"Can men bear children?"

"What do you mean by that?" I asked, roughly enough; there had been something in the question that somehow touched me in the raw.

"Not now," she answered. "Besides, men are few in Karak, as I told you. Of children born, not one in twenty is a man child. Do not ask me why, for I do not know."

She arose, stood looking at us dreamily.

"Enough for to-night. You shall sleep in my tent. On the morrow you shall have one of your own, and the Little People will cut you a lair in the cliff next mine. And you shall look on Karak, standing on broken Nansund you shall see Tibur the Laugher, since he always comes to Nansur's other side when I am there. You shall see it all...on the morrow...or the morrow after...or on another morrow. What does it matter, since every morrow shall be ours, together. Is it not so?"

And again Jim made no answer.

"It is so, Evalie," I said.

She smiled at us, sleepily. She turned from us and floated toward the darker shadow on the cliff which was the door to her cave. She merged into the shadow, and was gone.

CHAPTER X
IF A MAN COULD USE ALL HIS BRAIN

The drums of the sentinel dwarfs beat on softly, talking to one another along the miles of circling scarp. And suddenly I had a desperate longing for the Gobi. I don't know why, but its barren and burning, wind-swept and sand-swept body was more desirable than any woman's. It was like strong homesickness. I found it hard to shake it off. I spoke at last in sheer desperation. "You've been acting damned queer, Indian." "Tsi Tsa'lag told yo'm all Cherokee." "Tsantawt is I, Degata, who speaks to you now." I had dropped into the Cherokee; he answered:

"What is it my brother desires to know?"

"What it was the voices of the dead whispered that night we slept beneath the spruces? What it was you knew to be truth by the three signs they gave you. I did not hear the voices, brotheet by the blood rite they are my ancestors as they are yours; and I have the right to know their words."

He said: "Is it not better to let the future unroll itself without giving heed to the thin voices of the dead? Who can tell whether the voices of ghosts speak truth?"

"Tsantawu points his arrow in one direction while his eyes look the other. Once he called me dog slinking behind the heels of the hunter. Since it is plain he still thinks me that..."

"No, no, Lief," he broke in, dropping the tribal tongue. "I only mean I don't know whether it's truth. I know what Barr would call iatural apprehensions put subconsciously in terms of racial superstitions. The voicee'll call them that, anywaaid great danger lay north. The Spirit that was north would destroy them for ever and for ever if I fell in its hands. They and I would be 'as though we never had been.' There was some enormous difference between ordinary death and this peculiar death that I couldn't understand. But the voices did. I would know by three signs that they spoke truth, by Ataga'hi, by Usunhi'yi and by the Yunwi Tsundi. I could meet the first two and still go back. But if I went on to the thirt would be too late. They begged me not this was peculiarly interesting, Leiot to let them bissolved."

"Dissolved!" I exclaimed. "Buhat's the same word I used. And it was hours after!"

"Yes, that's why I felt creepy when I heard you. You can't blame me for being a little preoccupied when we came across the stony flat that was like Ataga'hi, and more so when we struck the coincidence of the Shadowed-land, which is pretty much the same as Usunhi'yi, the Darkening-land. It's why I said if we ran across the third, the Yunwi Tsundi, I'd take your interpretation rather than Barr's. We did strike it. And if you think all those things aren't a good reason for acting damned queer, as you put it, welhat would you think a good one?"

Jim in the golden chains...Jim with the tentacle of that Dark Power creeping, creeping toward him...my lips were dry and stiff...

"Why didn't you tell me all that! I'd never have let you go on!"

"I know it. But you'd have come back, wouldn't you, old-timer?"

I did not answer; he laughed.

"How could I be sure until I saw all the signs?"

"But they didn't say you would bissolved," I clutched at the straw. "They only said there was the danger."

"That's all."

"And what would I be doing? Ji'd kill you with my own hand before I'd let what I saw happen in the Gobi happen to you."

"If you could," he said, and I saw he was sorry he had said it.

"If I could? What did they say about mhose damned ancestors?"

"Not a damned thing," he answered, cheerfully. "I never said they did. I simply reasoned that if we went on, and I was in danger, so would you be. That's all."

"Jit isn't all. What are you keeping back?"

He arose, and stood over me.

"All right. They said that even if the Spirit didn't get me, I'd never get out. Now you have the whole works."

"Well," I said, a burden rolling off me, "that's not so bad. And, as for getting ouhat may be as may be. One thing's surf you stay, so do I."

He nodded, absently. I went on to something else that had been puzzling me.

"The Yunwi Tsundi, Jim, what were they? You never told me anything about them that I remember. What's the legend?"

"Ohe Little People," he squatted beside me, chuckling, wide awake from his abstraction. "They were in Cherokee-land when the Cherokees got there. They were a pygmy race, like those in Africa and Australia to-day. Only they weren't blacks. These small folk fit their description. Of course, the tribes did some embroidering. They had them copper-coloured and only two feet high. These are golden-skinned and average three feet. At that, they may have faded some here and put on height. Otherwise they square with the accountong hair, perfect shape, drums and all."

He went on to tell of the Little People. They had lived in caves, mostly in the region now Tennessee and Kentucky. They were earth-folk, worshippers of life; and as such at times outrageously Rabelaisian. They were friendly toward the Cherokees, but kept rigorously to themselves and seldom were seen. They frequently aided those who had got lost in the mountains, especially children. If they helped anyone, and took him into their caves, they warned him he mustn't tell where the caves were, or he would die. And, ran the legends, if he told, he did die. If anyone ate their food he had to be very careful when he returned to his tribe, and resume his old diet slowly, or he would also die.

The Little People were touchy. If anyone followed them in the woods, they cast a spell on him so that for days he had no sense of location. They were expert wood and metal workers, and if a hunter found in the forest a knife or arrow-head or any kind of trinket, before he picked it up he had to say: "Little People, I want to take this." If he didn't ask, he never killed any more game and another misfortune came upon him. One which distressed his wife.

They were gay, the Little People, and they spent half their time in dancing and drumming. They had every kind of drurums that would make trees fall, drums that brought sleep, drums that drove to madness, drums that talked and thunder drums. The thunder drums sounded just like thunder, and when the Little People beat on them soon there was a real thunderstorm, because they sounded so much like the actuality that it woke up the thunderstorms, and one or more storms was sure to come poking around to gossip with what it supposed a wandering member of the family...

I remembered the roll of thunder that followed the chanting; I wondered whether that had been the Little People's defiance to Khalk'ru...

"I've a question or two for you, Leif."

"Go right ahead, Indian."

"Just how much do you remember owayanu?"

I didn't answer at once; it was the question I had been dreading ever since I had cried out to the Witch-woman on the white river's bank.

"If you're thinking it over, all right. If you're thinking of a way to stall, all wrong. I'm asking for a straight answer."

"Is it your idea that I'm that ancient Uighur, re-born? If it is, maybe you have a theory as to where I've been during the thousands of years between this time and now."

"Oh, so the same idea has been worrying you, has it? No, reincarnation isn't what I had in mind. Although at that, we know so damned little I wouldn't rule it out. But there may be a more reasonable explanation. That's why I ashat do you remember of Dwayanu?"

I determined to make a clean breast of it.

"All right, Jim," I said. "That same question has been riding my mind right behind Khalk'ru for three years. And if I can't find the answer here, I'll go back to the Gobi for if I can get out. When I was in that room of the oasis waiting the old priest's call, I remembered perfectly well it had been Dwayanu's. I knew the bed, and I knew the armour and the weapons. I stood looking at one of the metal caps and I remembered that Dwayanr ad got a terrific clout with a mace when wearing it. I took it down, and there was a dent in it precisely where I remembered it had been struck. I remembered the swords, and recalled that Dwayanr ad the habit of using a heavier one in the left hand than in the right. Well, one of them was much heavier than the other. Also, in a fight I use my left hand better than I do my right. These memories, or whatever they were, came in flashes. For a moment I would be Dwayanu, plus myself, looking with amused interest on old familiar thingnd the next moment I would be only myself and wondering, with no amusement, what it all meant."

"Yes, what else?"

"Well, I wasn't entirely frank about the ritual matter," I said, miserably. "I told you it was as though another person had taken charge of my mind and gone on with it. That was true, in a waut God help me, I knew all the time that other person wayself! It was like being two people and one at the same time. It's hard to make clear...you know how you can be saying one thing and thinking another. Suppose you could be saying one thing and thinking two things at once. It was like that. One part of me was in revolt, horror-stricken, terrified. The other part was none of those things; it knew it had power and was enjoying exercising that powend it had control of my will. But both wer. Unequivocally, unmistakabl. Hell, maf I'd really believed it was somebody, something, besides myself, do you suppose I'd feel the remorse I do? No, it's because I knew it was he same part of me that knew the helm and the swords, that I've gone hag-ridden ever since."

"Anything else?"

"Yes. Dreams."

He leaned over, and spoke sharply.

"What dreams?"

"Dreams of battlereams of feasts...a dream of war against yellow men, and of a battlefield beside a river and of arrows flying overhead in clouds...of hand-to-hand fights in which I wield a weapon like a huge hammer against big yellow-haired men I know are like myself... dreams of towered cities through which I pass and where white, blue-eyed women toss garlands down for my horse to trample...When I wake the dreams are vague, soon lost. But always I know that while I dreamed them, they were clear, sharp-cueal as life..."

"Is that how you knew the Witch-woman was Witch-womahrough those dreams?"

"If so, I don't remember. I only knew that suddenly I recognized her for what she war that other self did."

He sat for a while in silence.

"Leif," he asked, "in those dreams do you ever take any part in the service of Khalk'ru? Have anything at all to do with his worship?"

"I'm sure I don't. I'd remember that, by God! I don't even dream of the temple in the Gobi!"

He nodded, as though I had confirmed some thought in his own mind; then was quiet for so long that I became jumpy.

"Well, Old Medicine Man of the Tsalagi', what's the diagnosis? Reincarnation, demonic possession, or just crazy?"

"Leif, you never had any of those dreams before the Gobi?"

"I did not."

"Wel've been trying to think as Barr would, and squaring it with my own grey matter. Here's the result. I think that everything you've told me is the doing of your old priest. He had you under his control when you saw yourself riding to the Temple of Khalk'rnd wouldn't go in. You don't know what else he might have suggested at that time, and have commanded you to forget consciously when you came to yourself. That's a simple matter of hypnotism. But he had another chance at you. When you were asleep that night. How do you know he didn't come in and do some more suggesting? Obviously, he wanted to believe you were Dwayanu. He. wanted you to 'remember'--but having had one lesson, he didn't want you to remember what went on with Khalk'ru. That would explain why you dreamed about the pomp and glory and the pleasant things, but not the unpleasant. He was a wise old gentlemaou say that yourself. He knew enough of your psychology to foresee you would balk at a stage of the ritual. So you diut he had tied you well up. Instantly the post-hypnotic command to the subconscious operated. You couldn't help going on. Although your conscious self was wide-awake, fully aware, it had no control over your will. I think that's what Barr would say. And I'd agree with him. Hell, there are drugs that do all that to you. You don't have to go into migrations of the soul, or demons, or any medieval matter to account for it."

"Yes," I said, hopefully but doubtfully. "And how about the Witch-woman?"

"Somebody like her in your dreams, but forgotten. I think the explanation is what I've said. If it is, Leif, it worries me."

"I don't follow you there," I said.

"No? Well, think this over. If all these things that puzzle you come from suggestions the old priest madhat else did he suggest? Clearly, he knew something of this place. Suppose he foresaw the possibility of your finding it. What would he want you to do when you did find it? Whatever it was, you can bet your chances of getting out that he planted it deep in your subconscious. All righhat being a reasonable deduction, what is it you will do when you come in closer contact with those red-headed ladies we saw, and with the happy few gentlemen who share their Paradise? I haven't the slightest ideor have you. And if that isn't something to worry about, tell me what is. Come oet's go to bed."

We went into the tent. We had been in it before with Evalie. It had been empty then except for a pile of soft pelts and silken stuffs at one side. Now there were two such piles. We shed our clothes in the pale green darkness and turned in. I looked at my watch.

"Ten o'clock," I said. "How many months since morning?"

"At least six. If you keep me awake I'll murder you. I'm tired."

So was I; but I lay long, thinking. I was not so convinced by Jim's argument, plausible as it was. Not that I believed I had been lying dormant in some extra-spatial limbo for centuries. Nor that I had ever been this ancient Dwayanu. There was a third explanation, although I didn't like it a bit better than that of reincarnation; and it had just as many unpleasant possibilities as that of Jim's.

Not long ago an eminent American physician and psychologist had said he had discovered that the average man used only about one-tenth of his brain; and scientists generally agreed he was right. The ablest thinkers, all-round geniuses, such as Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo were, might use a tenth more. Any man who could use all his brain could rule the worlut probably wouldn't want to. In the human skull was a world only one-fifth explored at the most.

What was in the terra incognita of the braihe unexplored eight-tenths?

Well, for one thing there might be a storehouse of ancestral memories, memories reaching back to those of the hairy, ape-like ancestors who preceded man, reaching beyond them even to those of the flippered creatures who crawled out of the ancient seas to begin their march to mend further back to their ancestors who had battled and bred in the steaming oceans when the continents were being born.

Millions upon millions of years of memories! What a reservoir of knowledge if man's consciousness could but tap it!

There was nothing more unbelievable in this than that the physical memory of the race could be contained in the two single cells which start the cycle of birth. In them are all the complexities of the human bodrain and nerves, muscles, bone and blood. In them, too, are those traits we call hereditaramily resemblances, resemblances not only of face and body but of thought, habits, emotions, reactions to environment: grandfather's nose, great-grandmother's eyes, great-great-grandfather's irascibility, moodiness or what not. If all this can be carried in those seven and forty, and eight and forty, microscopic rods within the birth cells which biologists call the chromosomes, tiny mysterious gods of birth who determine from the beginning what blend of ancestors a boy or girl shall be, why could they not carry, too, the accumulated experiences, the memories of those ancestors?

Somewhere in the human brain might be a section of records, each neatly graven with lines of memories, waiting only for the needle of consciousness to run over them to make them articulate.

Maybe the consciousness did now and then touch and read them. Maybe there were a few people who by some freak had a limited power of tapping their contents.

If that were true, it would explain many mysteries. Jim's ghostly voices, for example. My own uncanny ability of picking up languages.

Suppose that I had come straight down from this Dwayanu. And that in this unknown world of my brain, my consciousness, that which now was I, could and did reach in and touch those memories that had been Dwayanu. Or that those memories stirred and reached my consciousness? When that happenewayanu would awaken and live. And I would be both Dwayanu and Leif Langdon!

Might it not be that the old priest had known something of this? By words and rites and by suggestion, even as Jim had said, had reached into that terra incognita and wakened these memories that werwayanu?

They were stronhose memories. They had not been wholly asleep; else I would not have learned so quickly the Uighur...nor experienced those strange, reluctant flashes of recognition before ever I met the old priest...

Yes, Dwayanu was strong. And in some way I knew he was ruthless. I was afraid of Dwayanf those memories that once had been Dwayanu. I had no power to arouse them, and I had no power to control them. Twice they had seized my will, had pushed me aside.

What if they grew stronger?

What if they becamll of me?

CHAPTER XI
DRUMS OF THE LITTLE PEOPLE

Six times the green light of the Shadowed-land had darkened into the pale dusk that was its night, and I had heard nothing, seen nothing of the Witch-woman or of any of those who dwelt on the far side of the white river. They had been six days and nights of curious interest. We had gone with Evalie among the golden pygmies over all their guarded plain; and we had gone at will among them, alone.

We had watched them at their work and at their play, listened to their drumming and looked on in wonder at their danceances so intricate, so extraordinary, that they were more like complex choral harmonies than steps and gestures. Sometimes the Little People danced in small groups of a dozen or so, and then it was like some simple song. But sometimes they were dancing by the hundreds, interlaced, over a score of the smooth-turfed dancing greens; and then it was like symphonies translated into choreographic measures.

They danced always to the music of their drums; they had no other music, nor did they need any. The drums of the Little People were of many shapes and sizes, in range covering all of ten octaves, and producing not only the semitones of our own familiar scale, but quarter and eighth-tones and even finer gradations that oddly affect the listenet least, they did me. They ranged in pitch from the pipe organ's deepest bass to a high staccato soprano. Some, the pygmies played with thumbs and fingers, and some with palms of their hands, and some with sticks. There were drums that whispered, drums that hummed, drums that laughed, and drums that sang.

Dances and drums, but especially the drums, were evocative of strange thoughts, strange pictures; the drums beat at the doors of another worlnd now and then opened them wide enough to give a glimpse of fleeting, weirdly beautiful, weirdly disturbing, images.

There must have been between four and five thousand of the Little People in the approximately twenty square miles of cultivated, fertile plain enclosed by their wall; how many outside of it, I had no means of knowing. There were a score or more of small colonies, Evalie told us. These were like hunting or mining posts from which came the pelts, the metals and other things the horde fashioned to their uses. At Nansur Bridge was a strong warrior post. Some balance of nature, so far as I could learn from her, kept them at about the same constant; they grew quickly into maturity and their lives were not long.

She told us of Sirk, the city of those who had fled from the Sacrifice. From her description an impregnable place, built against the cliffs; walled; boiling springs welling up at the base of its battlements and forming an impassable moat. There was constant warfare between the people of Sirk and the white wolves of Lur, lurking in the encompassing forest, keeping watch to intercept those fleeing to it from Karak. I had the feeling that there was furtive intercourse between Sirk and the golden pygmies, that perhaps the horror of the Sacrifice which both shared, and the revolt of those in Sirk against the worshippers of Khalk'ru was a bond. And that when they could, the Little People helped them, and would even join hands with them, were it not for the deep ancient fear of what might follow should they break the compact their forefathers had made with the Ayjir.

It was a thing Evalie said that made me think that.

"If you had turned the other way, Leind if you had escaped the wolves of Luou would have come to Sirk. And a great change might have grown from that, for Sirk would have welcomed you, and who knows what might have followed, with you as their leader. Nor would my Little People then..."

She stopped there, nor would she complete the sentence, for all my urging. So I told her there were too many ifs about the matter, and I was content that the dice had fallen as they had. It pleased her.

I had one experience not shared by Jim. Its significance I did not then recognize. The Little People were as I have saiorshippers of life. That was their whole creed and faith. Here and there about the plain were small cairns, altars in fact, upon which, cut from wood or stone or fossil ivory, were the ancient symbols of fertility; sometimes singly, sometimes in pairs, and sometimes in a form curiously like that same symbol of the old Egyptianhe looped cross, the crux ansata which Osiris, God of the Resurrection, carried in his hand and touched, in the Hall of the Dead, those souls which had passed all tests and had earned immortality.

It happened on the third day. Evalie bade me go with her, and alone. We walked along the well-kept path that ran along the base of the cliffs in which the pygmies had their lairs. The tiny golden-eyed women peeped out at us and trilled to their dolls of children as we passed. Groups of elders, both men and women, came dancing toward us and fell in behind us as we went on. Each and all carried drums of a type I had not yet seen. They did not beat them, nor did they talk; group by group they dropped in behind us, silently.

After awhile I noticed that there were no more lairs. At the end of half an hour we turned a bastion of the dins. We were at the edge of a small meadow carpeted with moss, fine and soft as the pile of a silken carpet. The meadow was perhaps five hundred feet wide and about as many feet deep. Opposite me was another bastion. It was as though a rounded chisel had been thrust down, cutting out a semicircle in the precipice. At the far end of the meadow was what, at first glance, I thought a huge domed building, and then saw was an excrescence from the cliff itself.

In this rounded rock was an oval entrance, not much larger than an average door. As I stood, wondering, Evalie took my hand and led me toward it. We went through it.

The domed rock was hollow.

It was a temple of the Little Peopl knew that, of course, as soon as I had crossed the threshold. Its walls of some cool, green stone curved smoothly up. It was not dark within the temple. The rocky dome had been pierced as though by the needle of a lace-maker, and through hundreds of the frets light streamed. The walls caught it, and dispersed it from thousands of crystalline angles within the stone. The floor was carpeted with the thick, soft moss, and this was faintly luminous, adding to the strange pellucid light; it must have covered at least two acres.

Evalie drew me forward. In the exact centre of the floor was a depression, like an immense bowl. Between it and me stood one of the looped-cross symbols, thrice the height of a tall man. It was polished, and glimmered as though cut from some enormous amethystine crystal. I glanced behind me. The pygmies who had followed us were pouring through the oval doorway.

They crowded close behind us as Evalie again took my hand and led me toward the cross. She pointed, and I peered down into the bowl.

I looked upon the Kraken!

There it lay, sprawled out within the bowl, black tentacles spread fanwise from its bloated body, its huge black eyes staring inscrutably up into mine!

Resurgence of the old horror swept me. I jumped back with an oath.

The pygmies were crowding around my knees, staring up at me intently. I knew that my horror was written plain upon my face. They began an excited trilling, nodding to one another, gesticulating. Evalie watched them gravely, and then I saw her own face lighten as though with relief.

She smiled at me, and pointed again to the bowl. I forced myself to look. And now I saw that the shape within it had been cunningly carved. The dreadful, inscrutable eyes were of jet-like jewel. Through the end of each of the fifty-foot-long tentacles had been driven one of the crux ansatas, pinioning it like a spike; and through the monstrous body had been driven a larger one. I read the meaning: life fettering the enemy of life; rendering it impotent; prisoning it with the secret, ancient and holy symbol of that very thing it was bent upon destroying. And the great looped-cross abovatching and guarding like the god of life.

I heard a rippling and rustling and rushing from the drums. On and on it went in quickly increasing tempo. There was triumph in ihe triumph of onrushing conquering waves, the triumph of the free rushing wind; and there was peace and surety of peace in iike the rippling song of little waterfalls chanting their faith that "they will go on and on for ever," the rippling of little waves among the sedges of the river-bank, and the rustling of the rain bringing life to all the green things of earth.

Round the amethystine cross Evalie began to dance, circling it slowly to the rippling, the rustling and the rushing music of the drums. And she was the spirit of that song they sang, and the spirit of all those things of which they sang.

Three times she circled it. She came dancing to me, took my hand once more and led me away, out through the portal. From behind us, as we passed through, there came a sustained rolling of the little drums, no longer rippling, rustling, rushinefiant now, triumphal.

But of that ceremony, or of its reasons, or of the temple itself she would speak no word thereafter, question her as I might.

And we still had to stand upon Nansur Bridge and look on towered Karak.

"On the morrow," she would say; and when the morrow came, again she would say--"on the morrow." When she answered me, she would drop long lashes over the clear brown eyes and glance at me from beneath them, strangely; or touch my hair and say that there were many morrows and what did it matter on which of them we went, since Nansur would not run away. There was some reluctance I could not fathom. And day by day her sweetness and her beauty wound a web around my heart until I began to wonder whether it might become a shield against the touch of what I carried on my breast.

But the Little People still had their doubts about me, temple ceremony or none; that was plain enough. Jim, they had taken to their hearts; they twittered and trilled and laughed with him as though he were one of them. They were polite and friendly enough to me, but they watched me. Jim could take up the tiny doll-like children and play with them. The mothers didn't like me to do that and showed it very clearly. I received direct confirmation of how they felt about me that morning.

"I'm going to leave you for two or three days, Leif," he told me when we had finished breakfasting. Evalie had floated away on some call from her small folk.

"Going to leave me!" I gaped at him in astonishment. "What do you mean? Where are you going?"

He laughed.

"Going to look at the tlanushat Evalie calls the dalanushe big leeches. The river guards she told us the pygmies put on the job when the bridge was broken."

She had not spoken about them again, and I had forgotten all about them.

"What are they, Indian?"

"That's what I'm going to find out. They sound like the great leech of Tianusi'yi. The tribes said it was red with white stripes and as big as a house. The Little People don't go that far. They only say they're as big as you are."

"Listen, India'm going along."

"Oh, no, you're not."

"I'd like to know why not."

"Because the Little People won't let you. Now listen to me, old-timehe plain fact is that they're not entirely satisfied about you. They're polite, and they wouldn't hurt Evalie's feelings for the world, buhey'd much rather be without you."

"You're telling me nothing new," I said.

"No, but here is something new. A party that's been on a hunting trip down the other end of the valley came in yesterday. One of them remembered his grandfather had told him that when the Ayjir came riding into this place they all had yellow hair like yours. Not the red they have now. It's upset them."

"I thought they'd been watching me pretty damned close the last twenty-four hours," I said. "So that's the reason, is it?"

"That's the reason, Leif. It's upset them. It's also the reason for this expedition to the tianusi. They're going to increase the river guard. It involves some sort of ceremony, I gather. They want me to go along. I think it better that I do."

"Does Evalie know all this?"

"Sure she does. And she wouldn't let you go, even if the pygmies would."

Jim left with a party of about a hundred of the pygmies about noon. I bade him a cheerful good-bye. If it puzzled Evalie that I took his departure so calmly, and asked her no questions she did not show it. But she was very quiet that day, speaking mostly in monosyllables abstractedly. Once or twice I caught her looking at me with a curious wonder in her eyes. And once I had taken her hand, and she had quivered and leaned toward me, and then snatched it away, half-angrily. And once when she had forgotten her moodiness and had rested against my shoulder, I had fought hard against taking her in my arms.

The worst of it was that I could find no cogent argument why I shouldn't take her. A voice within my mind was whispering that if I so desired, why should I not? And there were other things besides that whisper which sapped my resistance. It had been a queer day even for this queer place. The air was heavy, as though a storm brooded. The heady fragrances from the far forest were stronger, clinging amorously, confusing. The vaporous veils that hid the distances had thickened; at the north they were almost smoke colour, and they marched slowly but steadily nearer.

We sat, Evalie and I, beside her tent. She broke a long silence.

"You are sorrowful, Leind why?"

"Not sorrowful, Evaliust wondering."

"I, too, am wondering. Is it what you wonder?"

"How do I knoho know nothing of your mind?"

She stood up, abruptly.

"You like to watch the smiths. Let us go to them."

I looked at her, struck by the anger in her voice. She frowned down upon me, brows drawn to a straight line over bright, half-contemptuous eyes.

"Why are you angry, Evalie? What have I done?"

"I am not angry. And you have done nothing." She stamped her foot. "I say you have donothing! Let us watch the smiths."

She walked away. I sprang up, and followed her. What was the matter with her? I had done something to irritate her, that was certain. But what? Well, I'd know, sooner or later. And I did like to watch the smiths. They stood beside their small anvils beating out the sickled knives, the spear and arrowheads, shaping the earrings and bracelets of gold for their tiny women.

Tink-a-tink, tink-a-clink, cling-clang, clink-a-tink went their little hammers.

They stood beside their anvils like gnomes, except that there was no deformity about them. Miniature men they were, perfectly shaped, gleaming golden in the darkening light, long hair coiled about their heads, yellow eyes intent upon their forgings. I forgot Evalie and her wrath, watching them as ever, fascinated.

Tink-a-tink! Cling-clang! Clink--

The little hammers hung suspended in air; the little smiths stood frozen. Speeding from the north came the horn of a great gong, a brazen stroke that seemed to break overhead. It was followed by another and another and another. A wind wailed over the plain; the air grew darker, the vaporous smoky veils quivered and marched closer.

The clangour of the gongs gave way to a strong chanting, the singing of many people; the chanting advanced and retreated, rose and waned as the wind rose and fell, rose and fell in rhythmic pulse. From all the walls the drums of the guards roared warning.

The little smiths dropped their hammers and raced to the lairs. Over all the plain there was turmoil, movement of the golden pygmies racing to the cliffs and to the circling slope to swell the garrisons there.

Through the strong chanting came the beat of other drums. I knew thehe throb of the Uighur kettle-drums, the war drums. And I knew the chant was the war song, the battle song of the Uighurs. Not the Uighurs, not the patched and paltry people I had led from the oasis! War song of the ancient race! The great rache Ayjir!

The old race! My people! I knew the sonell did I know it! Often and often had I heard it in the olden days...when I had gone forth to battle...By Zarda of the Thirsty Spears...by Zarda God of Warriors, but it was like drink to a parched throat to hear it again!

My blood drummed in my ears...I opened my throat to roar that song... "Leif! Leif! What is the matter?" Evalie's hands were on my shoulders, shaking me! I glared at her, uncomprehending for a moment. I felt a strange, angry bafflement. Who was this dark girl that checked me on my way to war? And abruptly the obsession left me. It left me trembling, shaken at though by some brief wild tempest of the mind. I put my own hands upon those on my shoulders, drew reality from the touch. I saw that there was amazement in Evalie's eyes, and something of fear. And around us was a ring of the Little People, staring up at me. I shook my head, gasping for breath, "Leif! What is the matter?" Before I could answer, chanting and drums were drowned in a bellow of thunder. Peal upon peal of thunder roared and echoed over the plain, beating back, beating down the sounds from the nortoaring over them, rolling over them, sweeping them back.

I stared stupidly around me. All along the cliffs were the golden pygmies, scores of them, beating upon great drums high as their waists. From those drums came the pealing of thunder, claps and shattering strokes of the bolt's swift fall, and the shouting reverberations that follow it.

The Thunder Drums of the Little People!

On and on roared the drums, yet through their rolling diapason beat ever the battle chant and those other drums...like thrusts of lances... like trampling of horses and of marching men...by Zarda, but the old race still was strong...

A ring of the Little People was dancing around me. Another ring joined them. Beyond them I saw Evalie, watching me with wide, astonished eyes. And around her was another ring of the golden pygmies, arrows at readiness, sickled knives in hand.

Why was she watching me...why were the arms of the Little People turned against me...and why were they dancing? That was a strange dance...it made you sleepy to look at it...what was this lethargy creeping over me...God, but I was sleepy! So sleepy that my dull ears could hardly hear the Thunder Drums...so sleepy I could hear nothing else...so sleepy...I knew, dimly, that I had dropped to my knees, then had fallen prone upon the soft turf...then slept.

I awakened, every sense alert. The drums were throbbing all around me. Not the Thunder Drums, but drums that sang, drums that throbbed and sang to some strange lilting rhythm that set the blood racing through me in tune and in time with its joyousness. The throbbing, singing notes were like tiny, warm, vital blows that whipped my blood into ecstasy of life.

I leaped to my feet. I stood upon a high knoll, round as a woman's breast. Over all the plain were lights, small fires burning, ringing the little altars of the pygmies. And around the fires the Little People were dancing to the throbbing drums. Around the fires and the altars they danced and leaped like little golden flames of life made animate.

Circling the knoll on which I stood was a triple ring of the dwarfs, women and men, weaving, twining, swaying.

They and the burden of the drums were one.

A soft and scented wind was blowing over the knoll. It hummed as it streamed bnd its humming was akin to dance and drum.

In and out, and round about and out and in and back again, the golden pygmies danced around the knoll. And round and round and back again they circled the fire-ringed altars.

I heard a sweet low voice singininging to the cadence, singing the song of the drums, singing the dancing of the Little People.

Close by was another knoll like that on which I waike a pair of woman's high breasts they stood above the plain. It, too, was circled by the dancing dwarfs.

On it sang and danced Evalie.

Her singing was the soul of drum song and dancer dancing was the sublimation of both. She danced upon the knolobweb veils and girdle gone, clothed only in the silken, rippling cloak of her blue-black hair.

She beckoned, and she called to m high-pitched, sweet call.

The fragrant, rushing wind pushed me toward her as I ran down the mound.

The dancing pygmies parted to let me through. The throbbing of the drums grew swifter; their song swept into a higher octave.

Evalie came dancing down to meet me...she was beside me, her arms round my neck, her lips pressed to mine...The drums beat faster. My pulses matched them.

The two rings of little yellow living flames of life joined. They became one swirling circle that drove us forward. Round and round and round us they swirled, driving us on and on to the pulse of the drums. I ceased to thinrum-throb, drum-song, dance-song were all of me.

Yet still I knew that the fragrant wind thrust us on and on, caressing, murmuring, laughing.

We were beside an oval doorway. The silken, scented tresses of Evalie streamed in the wind and kissed me. Beyond and behind us sang the drums. And ever the wind pressed us on...

Drums and wind drove us through the portal of the domed rock.

They drove us into the temple of the Little People...

The soft moss glimmered...the amethystine cross gleamed...

Evalie's arms were around my neck . I held her close...the touch of her lips to mine was like the sweet, secret fire of life...

It was silent in the temple of the Little People. Their drums were silent. The glow of the looped cross above the pit of the Kraken was dim.

Evalie stirred, and cried out in her sleep. I touched her lips and she awoke.

"What is the matter, Evalie?"

"Leif, belove dreamed a white falcon tried to dip its beak into my heart!"

"It was but a dream, Evalie."

She shuddered; she raised her head and bent over me so that her hair covered our faces.

"You drove the falcon awaut then a white wolf came...and leaped upon me."

"It was only a dream, Evaliright flame of my heart."

She bent closer to me under the tent of her hair, lips close to mine.

"You drove the wolf away. And I would have kissed you...but a face came between ours..."

"A face, Evalie?"

She whispered:

"The face of Lur! She laughed at me...and then you were gone... with her...and I was alone..."

"It was a lying dream, that! Sleep, beloved."

She sighed. There was a long silence; then drowsily:

"What is it you carry round your neck, Leif? Something from some woman that you treasure?"

"Nothing of woman, Evalie. That is truth."

She kissed mnd slept.

Fool that I was not to have told her then, under the shadow of the ancient symbol...Fool that I wa did not!

CHAPTER XII
ON NANSUR BRIDGE

When we went out of the temple into the morning there were half a hundred of the elders, men and women, patiently awaiting our appearance. I thought they were the same who had followed into the domed rock when I had first entered it.

The little women clustered around Evalie. They had brought wraps and swathed her from head to feet. She walked off among them with never a glance nor a word for me. There was something quite ceremonial about it all; she looked for all the world like a bride being led away by somewhat mature elfin bridesmaids.

The little men clustered around me. Sri was there. I was glad of that, for, whatever the doubts of the others about me, I knew he had none. They bade me go with them, and I obeyed without question.

It was raining, and it was both jungle-wet and jungle-warm. The wind was blowing in the regular, rhythmic gusts of the night before. The rain seemed less to fall than to condense in great drops from the air about, except when the wind blew and then the rain drove by in almost level lines. The air was like fragrant wine. I felt like singing and dancing. There was thunder all arounot the drums, but real thunder.

I had been wearing only my shirt and my trousers. I had discarded my knee-high boots for sandals. It was only a minute or two before I was soaking wet. We came to a steaming pool. and there we halted. Sri told me to strip and plunge in.

The pool was hot and invigorating and as I splashed around in it I kept feeling better and better. I reflected that whatever had been in the minds of the Little People when they had driven Evalie and me into the temple, their fear of me had been exorciseor the time at any rate. But I thought I knew what had been in their minds. They suspected that Khalk'ru had some hold on me, as over the people I resembled. Not much of a hold maybut still it was not to be ignored. Very welhe remedy, since they couldn't kill me without breaking Evalie's heart, was to spike me down as they had the Kraken which was Khalk'ru's symbol. So they had spiked me down with Evalie.

I climbed out of the pool, more thoughtful than I had gone into it. They wrapped a loin cloth around me, in curious folds and knots. Then they trilled and twittered and laughed, and danced.

Sri had my clothes and belt. I didn't want to lose them, so when we started off I kept close behind him. Soon we stoppen front of Evalie's lair.

After a while there was a great commotion, singing and beating of drums, and along came Evalie with a crowd of the little women dancing around her. They led her to where I was waiting. Then all of them danced away.

That was all there was to it. The ceremony, if ceremony it was, was finished. But, somehow, I felt very much married.

I looked down at Evalie. She looked up at me, demurely. Her hair was no longer free, but braided cunningly around head and ears and neck. The swathings were gone. She wore the little apron of the pygmy matrons and the silvery cobweb veils. She laughed, and took my hand, and we went into the lair.

Next day, late in the afternoon, we heard a fanfare of trumpets that sounded rather close. They blew long and loudly, as though summoning someone. We stepped out into the rain, to listen better. I noted that the wind had changed from north to west, and was blowing steadily and strongly. By this time I knew that the acoustics of the land under the mirage were peculiar and that there was no way of telling just how close the trumpets were. They were on the far side of the river bank of course, but how far away the pygmies' guarded slope was from the river, I did not know. There was some bustling on the wall, but no excitement.

There came a final trumpet blast, raucous and derisive. It was followed by a roar of laughter more irritatingly mocking because of its human quality. It brought me out of my indifference with a jump. It made me see red.

"That," said Evalie, "was Tibur. I suppose he has been hunting with Lur. I think he was laughing aou, Leif."

Her delicate nose was turned up disdainfully, but there was a smile at the corner of her lips as she watched my quick anger flare up.

"See here, Evalie, just who is this Tibur?"

"I told you. He is Tibur the Smith, and he rules the Ayjir with Lur. Always does he come when I stand on Nansur. We have talked togetheften. He is very stronh, strong."

"Yes?" I said, still more irritated. "And why does Tibur come when you are there?"

"Why, because he desires me, of course," she said tranquilly.

My dislike for Tilbur the Laugher increased.

"He'll not laugh if I ever get an opening at him," I muttered.

"What did you say?" she asked. I translated, as best t could. She nodded and began to speand then I saw her eyes open wide and stark terror fill them. I heard a whirring over my head.

Out of the mists had flown a great bird. It hovered fifty feet over us, glaring down with baleful yellow eyes. A great bir white bird...

The white falcon of the Witch-woman!

I thrust Evalie back into the lair, and watched it. Thrice it circled over me, and then, screaming, hurtled up into the mists and vanished.

I went in to Evalie. She was crouched on the couch of skins. She had undone her hair and it streamed over her head and shoulders, hiding her like a cloak. I bent over her, and parted it. She was crying. She put her arms around my neck, and held me close, close. I felt her heart beating like a drum against mine.

"Evalie, belovehere's nothing to be afraid of."

"Thhite falcon, Leif!"

"It is only a bird."

"Nur sent it."

"Nonsense, dark sweetheart. A bird flies where it wills. It was huntinr it had lost its way in the mists."

She shook her head.

"But, Leif, reamed of a white falcon..."

I held her tight, and after a while she pushed me away and smiled at me. But there was little of gaiety the remainder of that day. And that night her dreams were troubled, and she held me close to her, and cried and murmured in her sleep.

The next day Jim came back. I had been feeling a bit uncomfortable about his return. What would he think of me? I needn't have worried. He showed no surprise at all when I laid the cards before him. And then I realized that of course the pygmies must have been talking to one another by their drums, and that they would have gone over matters with him.

"Good enough," said Jim, when I had finished. "If you don't get out, it's the best thing for both of you. If you do get out, you'll take Evalie with yor won't you?"

That stung me.

"Listen, India don't like the way you're talking! I love her."

"All right. I'll put it another way. Does Dwayanu love her?"

That question was like a slap on my mouth. While I struggled for an answer, Evalie ran out. She went over to Jim and kissed him. He patted her shoulder and hugged her like a big brother. She glanced at me, and came to me, and drew my head down to her and kissed me too, but not exactly the way she had kissed him.

I glanced over her head at Jim. Suddenly I noticed that he looked tired and haggard.

"You're, feeling all right, Jim?"

"Sure. Only a bit weary. I'veen things."

"What do you mean?"

"Well," he hesitated, "welhe tlanushe big leecheor one thing. I'd never have believed it if I hadn't seen them, and if I had seen them before we dived into the river, I'd have picked the wolves as cooing doves in comparison."

He told me they had camped at the far end of the plain that night.

"This place is bigger than we thought, Leif. It must be, because I've gone more miles than would be possible if it were only as large as it looked before we went through the mirage. Probably the mirage foreshortened ionfused us."

The next day they had gone through forest and jungle and cane-brake and marsh. They had come at last to a steaming swamp. A raised path ran across it. They had taken that path, and eventually came to another transecting it. Where the two causeways met, there was a wide, circular and gently rounded mound rising from the swamp. Here the pygmies had halted. They had made fires of fagots and leaves. The fires sent up a dense and scented smoke which spread slowly out from the mound over the swamp. When the fires were going well, the pygmies began drummin queerly syncopated beat. In a few moments he had seen a movement in the swamp, close by the mound.

"There was a ring of pygmies between me and the edge," he said, "and when I saw the thing that crawled out I was glad of it. First there was an upheaval of the mud, and then up came the back of what I thought was an enormous red slug. The slug raised itself, and crept out on land. It was a leech all right, and that was all it waut it made me more than a bit sick. It was its size that did that. It must have been seven feet long, and it lay there, blind and palpitating, its mouth gaping, listening to the drums and luxuriating in that scented smoke. Then another and another came out. After a while there were a hundred of the things grouped around in a semi-circle, eyeless heads all turned to uucking in the smoke, palpitating to the drums.

"Some of the pygmies got up, took burning sticks from the fire and started off on the intersecting causeway, drumming as they went. The others quenched the fires. The leeches writhed along after the torch-bearers. The other pygmies fell in behind, herding them. I stuck in the rear. We went along until we came to the bank of the river. Those in the lead stopped drumming. They threw their smoking, blazing sticks into the water, and they cast into it handfuls of crushed berrieot the ones Sri and Sra rubbed on us. Red berries. The big leeches went writhing over the bank and into the river, following, I suppose, the smoke and the scent of the berries. Anyway, they went iach and all of them.

"We went back, and out of the marsh. We camped on its edge. All that night they talked with the drums.

"They had talked the night before, and were uneasy; but I took it that it was the same worry they had when we started. They must have known what was going on, but they didn't tell me then. Yesterday morning, though, they were happy and care-free. I knew something must have happenehat they must have got good news in the night. They were so good-natured that they told me why they were. Not just as you havut the sense was the same--"

He chuckled.

"That morning we herded up a couple of hundred more of the tianusi and put them where the Little People think they'll do the most good. Then we started bacnd here I am."

"Yes," I asked suspiciously. "And is that all?"

"All for to-night, anyway," he said. "I'm sleepy. I'm going to turn in. You go with Evalie and leave me strictly alone till to-morrow."

I left him to sleep, determined to find out in the morning what he was holding back; I didn't think it was entirely the journey and the leeches that accounted for his haggardness.

But in the morning I forgot all about it.

In the first place, when I awoke, Evalie was missing. I went over to the tent, looking for Jim. He was not there. The Little People had long since poured out of the cliffs, and were at work; they always worked in the morninfternoons and nights they played and drummed and danced. They said Evalie and Tsantawu had gone into council with the elders. I went back to the tent.

In a little while Evalie and Jim came up. Evalie's face was white and her eyes were haunted. Also they were misty with tears. Also, she was madder than hell. Jim was doing his best to be cheerful.

"What's the matter?" I asked.

"You're due for a little trip," said Jim. "You've been wanting to see Nansur Bridge, haven't you?"

"Yes." I said.

"Well," said Jim. "That's where we're going. Better put on your travelling clothes and your boots. If the trail is anything like what I've just gone over, you'll need them. The Little People can slip through thingut we're built different."

I studied them, puzzled. Of course I'd wanted to see Nansur Bridgut why should the fact we were to go there make them behave so oddly? I went to Evalie, and turned her face up to mine.

"You've been crying, Evalie. What's wrong?"

She shook her head, slipped out of my arms and into the lair. I followed her. She was bending over a coffer, taking yards and yards of veils out of it. I swung her away from it and lifted her until her eyes were level with mine.

"What's wrong, Evalie?"

A thought struck me. I lowered her to her feet.

"Who suggested going to Nansur Bridge?"

"The Little People...the elders...I fought against it...I don't want you to go...they say you must..."

"I must go?" The thought grew clearer. "Then you need not gor Tsantawu. Unless you choose?"

"Let them try to keep me from going with you." She stamped a foot furiously.

The thought was crystal clear, and I began to feel a bit irritated by the Little People. They were thorough to the point of annoyance. I now understood perfectly why I was to go to Nansur Bridge. The pygmies were not certain that their magincluding Evaliad thoroughly taken. Therefore I was to look upon the home of the enemnd be watched for my reactions. Well, that was fair enough, at that. Maybe the Witch-woman would be there. Maybe Tibuibur who desired Evaliibur who had laughed at me. Suddenly I was keen for going to Nansur Bridge. I began to put on my old clothes. As I was tying the high shoes, I glanced over at Evalie. She had coiled her hair and covered it with a cap; she had swathed her body from neck to knees in the veils and she was lacing high sandals that covered her feet and legs as completely as my boots did mine. She smiled faintly at my look of wonder.

"I do not like Tibur to look on mot now!" she said.

I bent over her and took her in my arms. She set her lips to mine in a kiss that bruised them...When we came out, Jim and about fifty of the pygmies were waiting.

We struck diagonally across the plain away from the cliffs, heading north toward the river. We went over the slope, past one of the towers, and put feet on a narrow path like that which we had trod when coming into the land of the Little People. It wound through a precisely similar fern-brake. We went along it single file, and, perforce, in silence. We came out of it into a forest of close-growing, coniferous trees, through which the trail wound tortuously. We went through this for an hour or more, without once resting, the pygmies trotting along tirelessly. I looked at my watch. We had been going for four hours and had covered, I calculated, about twelve miles. There was no sign of bird or animal life.

Evalie seemed deep in thought and Jim had fallen into one of his fits of Indian taciturnity. I didn't feel much like talking. It was a silent journey; not even the golden pygmies chattered, as was their habit. We came to a sparkling spring, and drank. One of the dwarfs swung a small cylindrical drum in front of him and began to tap out some message. It was answered at length from far ahead by other tappings.

We swung into our way once more. The conifers began to thin. At our left and far below us I began to catch glimpses of the white river and of the dense forest on its opposite bank. The conifers ceased and we came out upon a rocky waste. Just ahead of us was an outthrust of cliff along whose base streamed the white river. The outthrust cut off our view of what lay beyond. Here the pygmies halted and sent another drum message. The answer was startlingly close. Then around the edge of the cliff, half-way up, spear tips glinted. A group of little warriors stood there, scrutinizing us. They signalled, and we marched forward, over the waste.

There was a broad road up the side of the cliff, wide enough for six horses abreast. We climbed it. We came to the top, and I looked on Nansur Bridge and towered Karak.

Once, thousands or hundreds of thousands of years ago, there had been a small mountain here, rising from the valley floor. Nanbu, the white river, had eaten it awall except a vein of black adamantine rock.

Nanbu had fallen, fallen, steadily gnawing at the softer stone until at last it was spanned by a bridge that was like a rainbow of jet. That gigantic bow of black rock winged over the abyss with the curved flight of an arrow.

Its base, on each side, was a mesculptured as Nansur had been from the original mount.

The mesa, at whose threshold I stood, was flat-topped. But on the opposite side of the river, thrusting up from the mesa-top, was a huge, quadrangular pile of the same black rock as the bow of Nansur. It looked less built from than cut out of that rock. It covered I judged about half a square mile. Towers and turrets both square and round sprang up from it. It was walled.

There was something about that immense ebon citadel that struck me with the same sense of fore-knowledge that I had felt when I had ridden into the ruins of the Gobi oasis. Also I thought it looked like that city of Dis which Dante glimpsed in Hades. And its antiquity hung over it like a sable garment.

Then I saw that Nansur was broken. Between the arch that winged from the side on which we stood and the arch that swept up and out from the side of the black citadel, there was a gap. It was as though a gigantic hammer had been swung down on the soaring bow, shattering it at its centre. I thought of Bifrost Bridge over which the Valkyries rode, bearing the souls of the warriors to Valhalla; and I thought it had been as great a blasphemy to have broken Nansur Bridge as it would have been to have broken Bifrost.

Around the citadel were other buildings, hundreds of them outside its walluildings of grey and brown stone, with gardens; they stretched over acres. And on each side of this city were fertile fields and flowering groves. There was a wide road stretching far, far away to cliffs shrouded in the green veils. I thought I saw the black mouth of a cavern at its end.

"Karak!" whispered Evalie. "And Nansur Bridge! And Oh, Leif, beloved...but my heart is heavy...so heavy!"

I hardly heard her, looking at Karak. Stealthy memories had begun to stir. I trod on them, and put my arm around Evalie. We went on, and now I saw why Karak had been built where it was, for on the far side the black citadel commanded both ends of the valley, and when Nansur had been unbroken, it had commanded this approach as well.

Suddenly I felt a feverish eagerness to run out upon Nansur and look down on Karak from the broken end. I was restive at the slowness of the pygmies. I started forward. The garrison came crowding around me, staring up at me, whispering to one another, studying me with their yellow eyes. Drums began to beat.

They were answered by trumpets from the citadel.

I walked ever more rapidly toward Nansur. The fever of eagerness had become consuming. I wanted to run. I pushed the golden pygmies aside impatiently. Jim's voice came to me, warningly:

"Steady, Leiteady!"

I paid no heed. I went out upon Nansur. Vaguely, I realized that it was wide and that low parapets guarded its edges, and that the stone was ramped for the tread of horses and the tread of marching men. And that if the white river had shaped it, the hands of men had finished its carving.

I reached the broken end. A hundred feet below me the white river raced smoothly. There were no serpents. A dull red body, slug-like, monstrous, lifted above the milky current; then another and another, round mouths gapinhe leeches of the Little People, on guard.

There was a broad plaza between the walls of the dark citadel and the end of the bridge. It was empty. Set in the walls were massive gates of bronze. I felt a curious quivering inside me, a choking in my throat. I forgot Evalie; I forgot Jim; I forgot everything in watching those gates.

There was a louder blaring of the trumpets, a clanging of bars, and the gates swung open. Through them galloped a company, led by two riders, one on a great black horse, the other upon a white. They raced across the plaza, dropped from their mounts and came walking over the bridge. They stood facing me across the fifty-foot gap.

The one who had ridden the black horse was the Witch-woman, and the other I knew for Tibur the Smitibur the Laugher. I had no eyes just then for the Witch-woman or her followers. I had eyes only for Tibur.

He was a head shorter than I, but strength great or greater than mine spoke from the immense shoulders, the thick body. His red hair hung sleekly straight to his shoulders. He was red-bearded. His eyes were violet-blue and lines of laughter crinkled at their corners; and the wide, loose mouth was a laughing mouth. But the laughter which had graven those lines on Tibur's face was not the kind to make the bearer merry.

He wore a coat of mail. At his left side hung a huge war hammer. He looked me over from head to foot and back again with narrowed, mocking eyes. If I had hated Tibur before I had seen him, it was nothing to what I felt now.

I looked from him to the Witch-woman. Her cornflower-blue eyes were drinking me in; absorbed, wonderinmused. She, too, wore a coat of mail, over which streamed her red braids. Those who were clustered behind Tibur and the Witch-woman were only a blur to me.

Tibur leaned forward.

"Welcomwayanu!" he jeered. "What has brought you out of your skulking place? My challenge?"

"Was it you I heard baying yesterday?" I said. "Haou picked a safe distance ere you began to howl, red dog!"

There was a laugh from the group around the Witch-woman, and I saw that they were women, fair and red-haired like herself, and that there were two tall men with Tibur. But the Witch-woman said nothing, still drinking me in, a curious speculation in her eyes.

Tibur's face grew dark. One of the men leaned, and whispered to him. Tibur nodded, and swaggered forward. He called out to me:

"Have you grown soft during your wanderings, Dwayanu? By the ancient custom, by the ancient test, we must learn that before we acknowledge yoreat Dwayanu. Stand fast--"

His hand dropped to the battle-hammer at his side. He hurled it at me.

The hammer was hurtling through the air at me with the speed of a bulleet it seemed to come slowly. I could even see the thong that held it to Tibur's arm slowly lengthening as it flew...

Little doors were opening in my brain...the ancient test... Hai! but I knew that play...I waited motionless as the ancient custom prescribed...but they should have given me a shield...no matter...how slowly the great sledge seemed to come...and it seemed to me that the hand I thrust out to catch it moved as slowly...

I caught it. Its weight was all of twenty pounds, yet I caught it squarely, effortlessly, by its metal shaft. Hai! but did I not know the trick of that?...The little doors were opening faster now...and I knew another. With my other hand I gripped the thong that held the battle-hammer to Tibur's arm and jerked him toward me.

The laugh was frozen on Tibur's face. He tottered on Nansur's broken edge. I heard behind me the piping shout of the pygmies...

The Witch-woman sliced down a knife and severed the thong. She jerked Tibur back from the verge. Rage swept me...that was not in the play...by the ancient test it was challenger and challenged alone...I swung the great hammer around my head and around, and hurled it back at Tibur; it whistled as it flew and the severed thong streamed rigid in its wake. He threw himself aside, but not quickly enough. The sledge struck him on a shoulder. A glancing blow, but it dropped him.

And now I laughed across the gulf.

The Witch-woman leaned forward, incredulity flooding the speculation in her eyes. She was no longer amused. No! And Tibur jerked himself up on one knee, glaring at me, his laughter lines twisted into nothing like mirth of any kind.

Still other doors, tiny doors, opening in my brain...They wouldn't believe I was Dwayanu...Hai! I would show them. I dipped into the pocket of my belt. Ripped open the buckskin pouch. Drew out the ring of Khalk'ru. I held it up. The green light glinted on it. The yellow stone seemed to expand. The black octopus to grow...

"Am I Dwayanu? Look on this! Am I Dwayanu?"

I heard a woman screa knew that voice. And I heard a man calling, shouting to mnd that voice I knew too. The little doors clicked shut, the memories that had slipped through them darted back before they closed...

Why, it was Evalie who was screaming! And Jim who was shouting at me! What was the matter with them? Evalie was facing me, arms outstretched. And there was stark unbelief and horrond loathinn the brown eyes fastened on me. And rank upon rank, the Little People were closing around the pair of thearring me from them. Their spears and arrows were levelled at me. They were hissing like a horde of golden snakes, their faces distorted with hatred, their eyes fastened on the ring of Khalk'ru still held high above my head.

And now I saw that hatred reflected upon the face of Evalind the loathing deepen in her eyes.

"Evalie!" I cried, and would have leaped toward her...Back went the hands of the pygmies for the throwing cast; the arrows trembled in their bows.

"Don't move, Leif! I'm coming!" Jim jumped forward. Instantly the pygmies swarmed round and upon him. He swayed and went down under them.

"Evalie!" I cried again.

I saw the loathing fade, and heart-break come into her face. She called some command.

A score of pygmies shot by her, on each side, casting down their bows and spears as they raced toward me. Stupidly, I watched them come; among them I saw Sri.

They struck me like little living battering rams. I was thrust backward. My foot struck air--

The pygmies clinging to my legs, harrying me like terriers, I toppled over the edge of Nansur.

BOOK OF THE WITCH-WOMAN

CHAPTER XIII
KARAK

I had sense enough to throw my hands up over my head, and so I went down feet first. The pygmies hanging to my legs helped that, too. When I struck the water I sank deep and deep. The old idea is that when a man drowns his whole past life runs through his mind in a few seconds, like a reversed cinema reel. I don't know about that, but I do know that in my progress into Nanbu's depths and up again I thought faster than ever before in my life.

In the first place I realized that Evalie had ordered me thrown off the bridge. That made me white-hot mad. Why hadn't she waited and given me a chance to explain the ring! Then I thought of how many chances I'd had to explaind hadn't taken one of them. Also that the pygmies had been in no mood for waiting, and that Evalie had held back their spears and arrows and given me a run for my life, even though it might be a brief one. Then I thought of my utter folly in flashing the ring at that particular moment, and I couldn't blame the Little People for thinking me an emissary of Khalk'ru. And I saw again the heart-break in Evalie's eyes, and my rage vanished in a touch of heart-break of my own.

After that, quite academically, the idea came to me that Tibur's hammer-play explained old God Thor of the Norse and his hammer Mjolnir, the Smasher, which always returned to his hand after he had thrown it-- to make it more miraculous the skalds had left out that practical detail of the thong; here was still another link between the Uighur or Ayjir and the Aesi'd talk to

Jim about it. And then I knew I couldn't get back to Jim to talk to him about that or anything else because the pygmies would certainly be waiting for me, and would quite as certainly drive me back among the leeches, even if I managed to get as far as their side of Nanbu. At that thought, if a man entirely immersed in water can break into a cold sweat I did it. I would much rather pass out by way of the Little People's spears and darts or even Tibur's smasher than be drained dry by those sucking mouths.

Just then I broke through the surface of Nanbu, trod water for a moment, clearing my eyes, and saw the red-slug back of a leech gliding toward me not twenty feet away. I cast a despairing glance around me. The current was swift and had borne me several hundred yards below the bridge. Also it had carried me toward the Karak side, which seemed about five hundred feet away. I turned to face the leech. It came slowly, as though sure of me. I planned to dive under it and try to make for the shore...inly there were no others...

I heard a chattering shout. Sri shot past me. He raised an arm and pointed at Karak. Clearly he was telling me to get there as quickly as I could. I had forgotten all about him, except for a momentary flash of wrath that he had joined my assailants. Now I saw what an injustice I had done him. He swam straight to the big leech and slapped it alongside its mouth. The creature bent toward him, actually it nuzzled him. I waited to see no more, but struck out as fast as my boots would let me for the river bank.

That was no pleasant swim, no! The place was thick with the gliding red backs. Without question it was only Sri that saved me from them. He came scuttering back, and he circled round and round me as I ploughed on; he drove the leeches away. I touched bottom, and scrambled over rocks to the safety of the bank. The golden pygmy sent one last call to me. What he said I could not hear. I stood there, gasping for breath, and saw him shooting across the white water like a yellow flying fish, a half-dozen of the red slug-backs gliding in his wake.

I looked up at Nansur Bridge. The Little People's end of it and the parapets were crowded with pygmies, watching me. The other side was empty. I looked around me. I was in the shadow of the walls of the black citadel. They arose, smooth, impregnable, for a hundred feet. Between me and them was a wide plaza, similar to that over which Tibur and the Witch-woman had ridden from the bronze gates. It was bordered with squat, one-storied houses of stone; there were many small flowering trees. Beyond the bordering houses were others, larger, more pretentious, set farther apart. Not so far away and covering part of the plaza was an everyday, open-air market.

From the bordering houses and from the market, scores of people were pouring down upon me. They came swiftly, but they came silently, not calling to one another, not signalling nor summoninntent upon me. I felt for my automatic and swore, remembering that I had not worn it for days. Something flashed on my hand...

The ring of Khalk'ru! I must have slipped it on my thumb when the pygmies had rushed me. Well, the ring had brought me here. Surely its effect would not be less upon these people, than it had been upon those who had faced me from the far side of the broken bridge. At any rate, it was all I had. I turned it so that the stone was hidden in my hand.

They were close now, and mostly women and girls and girl children. They all wore much the same kind of garment, a smock that came down to their knees and which left the right breast bare. Without exception, they were red-haired and blue-eyed, their skins creamy-white and delicate rose, and they were tall and strong and beautifully formed. They might have been Viking maids and mothers come to welcome home some dragon-ship from its sea-faring. The children were little blue-eyed angels. I took note of the men; there were not many of them, a dozen perhaps. They, too, had the red polls and blue eyes. The older wore short beards, the younger were clean-shaven. They were not so tall by several inches as the run of the women. None, men nor women, came within half a head of my height. They bore no weapons.

They halted a few yards from me, looking at me in silence. Their eyes ran over me and stopped at my yellow hair, and rested there.

There was a bustle at the edge of the crowd. A dozen women pushed through and walked toward me. They wore short kirtles; there were short swords in their girdles and they carried javelins in their hands; unlike the others, their breasts were covered. They ringed me, javelins raised, so close that the tips almost touched me.

The leader's bright blue eyes were bold, more soldier's than woman's.

"The yellow-haired stranger! Luka has smiled on us this day!"

The woman beside her leaned and whispered, but I caught the words:

"Tibur would give us more for him than Lur."

The leader shook her head.

"Too dangerous. We'll enjoy Lur's reward longer."

She looked me over, quite frankly.

"It's a shame to waste him," she said.

"Lur won't," the other answered, cynically.

The leader gave me a prod of her javelin, and motioned toward the citadel wall.

"Onward, Yellow Hair," she said. "It's a pity you can't understand me. Or I'd tell you something for your own goot a price, of course."

She smiled at me, and prodded me again. I felt like grinning back at her; she was so much like a hard-boiled sergeant I'd known in the War. I spoke, instead, sternly:

"Summon Lur to me with fitting escort, O! woman whose tongue rivals the drum stick."

She gaped at me, her javelin dropping from her hand. Quite evidently, although an alarm had been sounded for me, the fact that I could speak the Uighur had not been told.

"Summon Lur at once," I said. "Or, by Khalk'ru--"

I did not complete the sentence. I turned the ring and held up my hand.

There was a gasp of terror from the crowd. They went down on their knees, heads bent low. The soldier-woman's face whitened, and she and the others dropped before me. And then there was a grating of bars. An immense block opened in the wall of the citadel not far away.

Out of the opening, as though my words had summoned them, rode the Witch-woman with Tibur beside her, and at their heels the little troop who had watched me from Nansur Bridge.

They waited, staring at the kneeling crowd. Then Tibur spurred his horse; the Witch-woman thrust out a hand and stayed him, and they spoke together. The soldier touched my foot.

"Let us rise,. Lord," she said. I nodded, and she jumped up with a word to her women. Again they ringed me. I read the fear in the leader's eyes, and appeal. I smiled at her.

"Don't fear. I heard nothing," I whispered.

"Then you have a friend in Dara," she muttered. "By Lukhey would boil us for what we said!"

"I heard nothing," I repeated.

"A gift for a gift," she breathed. "Watch Tibur's left hand should you fight him."

The little troop was in motion; they came riding slowly toward me. As they drew near I could see that Tibur's face was dark, and that he was holding in his temper with an effort. He halted his horse at the edge of the crowd. His rage fell upon them; for a moment I thought he was going to ride them down.

"Up, you swine!" he roared. "Since when has Karak knelt to any but its rulers?"

They arose, huddled together with frightened faces as the troop rode through them. I looked up at the Witch-woman and the Laugher.

Tibur glowered down on me, his hand fumbling at his hammer; the two big men who had flanked him on the bridge edged close to me, long swords in hand. The Witch-woman said nothing, studying me intently yet with a certain cynical impersonality I found disquieting; evidently she still had not made up her mind about me and was waiting for some word or move of mine to guide her. I didn't like the situation very much. If it came to a dog fight I would have little chance with three mounted men, to say nothing of the women. I had the feeling that the Witch-woman did not want me killed out-of-hand, but then she might be a bit late in succouring mnd beyond that I had no slightest wish to be beaten up, trussed up, carried into Karak a prisoner.

Also I began to feel a hot and unreasoning resentment against these people who dared bar my way, dared hold me back from whatever way I chose to go, an awakening arroganc stirring of those mysterious memories that had cursed me ever since I had carried the ring of Khalk'ru...

Well, those memories had served me on Nansur Bridge when Tibur cast the hammer at me...and what was it Jim had said?...to let Dwayanu ride when I faced the Witch-woman...well, let him...it was the only way...the bold way...the olden way...It was as though I heard the words! I threw my mind wide open to the memories, or twayanu.

There was a tiny tingling shock in my brain, and then something like the surging up of a wave toward that consciousness which was Leif Langton. I managed to thrust it back before it had entirely submerged that consciousness. It retreated, but sullenlor did it retreat far. No matter, so long as it did not roll over me...I pushed the soldiers aside and walked to Tibur. Something of what had occurred must have stamped itself on my face, changed me. Doubt crept into the Witch-woman's eyes. Tibur's hand fell from his hammer, and he backed his horse away. I spoke, and my wrathful voice fell strangely on my own ears.

"Where is my horse? Where are my arms? Where are my standard and my spearsmen? Why are the drums and the trumpets silent? Is it thus Dwayanu is greeted when he comes to a city of the Ayjir! By Zarda, but this is not to be home!"

Now the Witch-woman spoke, mockery in the clear, deep bell-toned voice, and I felt that whatever hold I had gained over her had in some way slipped.

"Hold your hand, Tibur! I will speak twayanu. And yof you are Dwayancarcely can hold us to blame. It has been long and long since human eyes rested on yond never in this land. So how could we know you? And when first we saw you, the little yellow dogs ran you away from us. And when next we saw you, the little yellow dogs ran you to us. If we have not received you as Dwayanu has a right to expect from a city of the Ayjir, equally is it true that no city of the Ayjir has ever before been so visited by Dwayanu."

Well, that was true enough, admirable reasoning, lucid and all of that. The part of me that was Lief Langdon, and engaged in rather desperate struggle to retain control, recognized it. Yet the unreasoning anger grew. I held up the ring of Khalk'ru.

"You may not know Dwayanut you know this."

"I know you have it," she said, levelly. "But I do not know how you came by it. In itself it proves nothing."

Tibur leaned forward, grinning.

"Tell us where you did come from. Are you by-blow of Sirk?"

There was a murmur from the crowd. The Witch-woman leaned forward, frowning. I heard her murmur, half-contemptuously:

"Your strength was never in your head, Tibur!"

Nevertheless, I answered him.

"I come," I said bleakly, "from the Mother-land of the Ayjir. From the land that vomited your shivering forefathers, red toad!"

I shot a glance at the Witch-woman. That had jolted her all right. I saw her body stiffen, her cornflower eyes distend and darken, her red lips part; and her women bent to each other, whispering, while the murmur of the crowd swelled.

"You lie!" roared Tibur. "There is no life in the Mother-land. There is no life elsewhere than here. Khalk'ru has sucked earth dry of Life. Except here. You lie!"

His hand dropped to his hammer.

And suddenly I saw red; all the world dissolved in a mist of red. The horse of the man closest to me was a noble animal. I had been watching i roan stallion, strong as the black stallion that had carried me from the Gobi oasis. I reached up, caught at its jaw, and pulled it down to its knees. Taken unaware, its rider toppled forward, somersaulted over its head and fell at my feet. He was up again like a cat, sword athrust at me. I caught his arm before he could strike and swung up my left fist. It cracked on his jaw; his head snapped back, and he dropped. I snatched up the sword, and swung myself on the rising horse's back. Before Tibur could move I had the point of the sword at his throat.

"Stop! I grant you Dwayanu! Hold your hand!" It was the Witch-woman's voice, low, almost whispering.

I laughed. I pressed the point of the sword deeper into Tiber's throat.

"Am I Dwayanu? Or by-blow of Sirk?"

"You arwayanu!" he groaned.

I laughed again.

"I am Dwayanu! Then guide me into Karak to make amends for your insolence, Tibur!"

I drew the sword away from his throat.

Yes, I drew it bacnd by all the mad mixed gods of that mad mixed mind of mine at that moment I would that I had thrust it through his throat!

But I did not, and so that chance passed. I spoke to the Witch-woman:

"Ride at my right hand. Let Tibur ride before."

The man I had struck down was on his feet, swaying unsteadily. Lur spoke to one of her women. She slipped from her horse, and with Tibur's other follower helped him upon it.

We rode across the plaza, and through the walls of the black citadel.

CHAPTER XIV
IN THE BLACK CITADEL

The bars that held the gate crashed down behind us. The passage through the walls was wide and long and lined with soldiers, most of them women. They stared at me; their discipline was good, for they were silent, saluting us with upraised swords.

We came out of the walls into an immense square, bounded by the towering black stone of the citadel. It was stone-paved and bare, and there must have been half a thousand soldiers in it, again mostly women and one and all of the strong-bodied, blue-eyed, red-haired type. It was a full quarter-mile to the sidhe square. Opposite where we entered, there was a group of people on horses, of the same class as those who rode with us, or so I judged. They were clustered about a portal in the farther walls, and toward these we trotted.

About a third of the way over, we passed a circular pit a hundred feet wide in which water boiled and bubbled and from which steam arose. A hot spring, I supposed; I could feel its breath. Around it were slender stone pillars from each of which an arm jutted like that of a gallows, and from the ends of them dangled thin chains. It was, indefinably, an unpleasant and ominous place. I didn't like the look of it at all. Something of this must have shown on my face, for Tibur spoke, blandly.

"Our cooking pot."

"No easy one from which to ladle broth," I said. I thought him jesting.

"Aut the meat we cook there is not the kind we eat," he answered, still more blandly. And his laughter roared out.

I felt a little sick as his meaning reached me. It was tortured human flesh which those chains were designed to hold, lowering it slowly inch by inch into that devil's cauldron. But I only nodded indifferently, and rode on.

The Witch-woman had paid no attention to us; her russet head bent, she went on deep in thought, though now and then I caught her oblique glance at me. We drew near the portal. She signalled those who awaited there, a score of the red-haired maids and women and a half-dozen men; they dismounted. The Witch-woman leaned to me and whispered:

"Turn the ring so its seal will be covered."

I obeyed her, asking no question.

We arrived at the portal. I looked at the group there. The women wore the breast-revealing upper garment; their legs were covered with loose baggy trousers tied in at the ankles; they had wide girdles in which were two swords, one long and one short. The men were clothed in loose blouses, and the same baggy trousers; in their girdles beside the swordr rather, hanging from their girdleere hammers like that of the Smith, but smaller. The women who had gathered around me after I had climbed out of Nanbu had been fair enough, but these were far more attractive, finer, with a stamp of breeding the others had not had. They stared at me as frankly, as appraisingly, as had the soldier woman and her lieutenant; their eyes rested upon my yellow hair and stopped there, as though fascinated. On all their faces was that suggestion of cruelty latent in the amorous mouth of Lur.

"We dismount here," said the Witch-woman, "to go where we may becometter acquainted."

I nodded as before, indifferently. I had been thinking that it was a foolhardy thing I had done, thus to thrust myself alone among these people; but I had been thinking, too, that I could have done nothing else except have gone to Sirk, and where that was I did not know; and that if I had tried I would have been a hunted outlaw on this side of white Nanbu, as I would be on the other. The part of me that was Leif Langdon was thinking thaut the part of me that was Dwayanu was not thinking like that at all. It was fanning the fire of recklessness, the arrogance, that had carried me thus far in safety; whispering that none among the Ayjir had the right to question me or to bar my way, whispering with increasing insistence that I should have been met by dipping standards and roll of drums and fanfare of trumpets. The part that was Leif Langdon answered that there was nothing else to do but continue as I had been doing, that it was the game to play, the line to take, the only way. And that other part, ancient memories, awakening of Dwayanu, post-hypnotic suggestion of the old Gobi priest, impatiently asked why I should question even myself, urging that it was no gamut truth! And that it would brook little more insolence from these degenerate dogs of the Great Racnd little more cowardice from me!

So I flung myself from my horse, and stood looking arrogantly down upon the faces turned to me, literally looking down, for I was four inches or more taller than the tallest of them. Lur touched my arm. Between her and Tibur I strode through the portal and into the black citadel.

It was a vast vestibule through which we passed, and dimly lighted by slits far up in the polished rock. We went by groups of silently saluting soldier-women; we went by many transverse passages. We came at last to a great guarded door, and here Lur and Tibur dismissed their escorts. The door rolled slowly open; we entered and it rolled shut behind us.

The first thing I saw was the Kraken.

It sprawled over one wall of the chamber into which we had come. My heart leaped as I saw it, and for an instant I had an almost ungovernable impulse to turn and run. And now I saw that the figure of the Kraken was a mosaic set in the black stone. Or rather, that the yellow field in which it lay was a mosaic and that the Black Octopus had been cut from the stone of the wall itself. Its unfathomable eyes of jet regarded me with that suggestion of lurking malignity the yellow pygmies had managed to imitate so perfectly in their fettered symbol inside the hollow rock.

Something stirred beneath the Kraken. A face looked out on me from under a hood of black. At first I thought it the old priest of the Gobi himself, and then I saw that this man was not so old, and that his eyes were clear deep blue and that his face was unwrinkled, and cold and white and expressionless as though carved from marble. Then I remembered what Evalie had told me, and knew this must be Yodin the High Priest. He sat upon a throne-like chair behind a long low table on which were rolls like the papyrus rolls of the Egyptians, and cylinders of red metal which were, I supposed, their containers. On each side of him was another of the thrones.

He lifted a thin white hand and beckoned me.

"Come to mou who call yourself Dwayanu."

The voice was cold and passionless as the face, but courteous. I seemed to hear again the old priest when he had called me to him. I walked over, more as one who humours another a little less than equal than as though obeying a summons. And that was precisely the way I felt. He must have read my thought, for I saw a shadow of anger pass over his face. His eyes searched me.

"You have a certain ring, I am told."

With the same feeling of humouring one slightly inferior, I turned the bevel of the Kraken ring and held my hand out toward him. He looked at the ring, and the white face lost its immobility. He thrust a hand into his girdle, and drew from it a box, and out of it another ring, and placed it beside mine. I saw that it was not so large, and that the setting was not precisely the same. He studied the two rings, and then with a hissing intake of breath he snatched my hands and turned them over, scanning the palms. He dropped them and leaned back in his chair.

"Why do you come to us?" he asked.

A surge of irritation swept me.

"Does Dwayanu stand like a common messenger to be questioned?" I said harshly.

I walked around the table and dropped into one of the chairs beside him.

"Let drink be brought, for I am thirsty. Until my thirst is quenched, I will not talk."

A faint flush stained the white face; there was a growl from Tibur. He was glaring at me with reddened face; the Witch-woman stood, gaze intent upon me, no mockery in it now; the speculative interest was intensified. It came to me that the throne I had usurped was Tibur's. I laughed.

"Beware, Tibur," I said. "This may be an omen!"

The High Priest intervened, smoothly.

"If he be indeed Dwayanu, Tibur, then no honour is too great for him. See that wine is brought."

The look that the Smith shot at Yodin seemed to me to hold a question. Perhaps the Witch-woman thought so too. She spoke quickly.

"I will see to it."

She walked to the door, opened it and gave an order to a guard. She waited; there was silence among us while she waited. I thought many things. I thought, for example, that I did not like the look that had passed between Yodin and Tibur, and that while I might trust Lur for the presentill she would drink first when the wine came. And I thought that I would tell them little of how I came to the Shadowed-land. And I thought of Jind I thought of Evalie. It made my heart ache so that I felt the loneliness of nightmare; and then I felt the fierce contempt of that other part of me, and felt it strain against the fetters I had put on it. Then the wine came.

The Witch-woman carried ewer and goblet over to the table and set them before me. She poured yellow wine into the goblet and handed it to me. I smiled at her.

"The cup-bearer drinks first," I said. "So it was in the olden days, Lur. And the olden customs are dear to me."

Tibur gnawed his lip and tugged at his beard at that, but Lur took up the goblet and drained it. I refilled it, and raised it to Tibur. I had a malicious desire to bait the Smith.

"Would you have done that had you been the cup-bearer, Tibur?" I asked him and drank.

That was good wine! It tingled through me, and I felt the heady recklessness leap up under it as though lashed. I filled the goblet again and tossed it off.

"Come up, Lur, and sit with us," I said. "Tibur, join us."

The Witch-woman quietly took the third throne. Tibur was watching me, and I saw a new look in his eyes, something of that furtive speculation I had surprised in Lur's. The white-faced priest's gaze was far away. It occurred to me that the three of them were extremely busy with their own thoughts, and that Tibur at least, was becoming a bit uneasy. When he answered me his voice had lost all truculency.

"Well and goowayanu!" he said, and, lifting a bench, carried it to the table, and set it where he could watch our faces.

"I answer your question," I turned to Yodin. "I came here at the summons of Khalk'ru."

"It is strange," he said, "that I, who am High Priest of Khalk'ru, knew nothing of any summons."

"The reasons for that I do not know," I said, casually. "Ask them of him you serve."

He pondered over that.

"Dwayanu lived long and long and long ago," he said. "Before--"

"Before the Sacrilege. True." I took another drink of the wine. "Ye am here."

For the first time his voice lost its steadiness.

"Yoou know of the Sacrilege!" His fingers clutched my wrist. "Mahoever you arrom whence do you come?"

"I come," I answered, "from the Mother-land."

His fingers tightened around my wrist. He echoed Tibur.

"The Mother-land is a dead land. Khalk'ru in his anger destroyed its life. There is no life save here, where Khalk'ru hears his servants and lets life be."

He did not believe that; I could tell it by the involuntary glance he had given the Witch-woman and the Smith. Nor did they.

"The Mother-land," I said, "is bleached bones. Its cities lie covered in shrouds of sand. Its rivers are waterless, and all that runs within their banks is sand driven by the arid winds. Yet still is there life in the Mother-land, and although the ancient blood is thinnetill it runs. And still is Khalk'ru worshipped and feared in the place from whence I camnd still in other lands the earth spawns life as always she has done."

I poured some more wine. It was good wine, that.

Under it I felt my recklessness increase...under it Dwayanu was stronger...well, this was a tight box I was in, so let him be...

"Show me the place from whence you came," the High Priest spoke swiftly. He gave me a tablet of wax and a stylus. I traced the outline of Northern Asia upon it and of Alaska. I indicated the Gobi and approximately the location of the oasis, and also the position of the Shadowed-land.

Tibur got up to look at it; their three heads bent over it. The priest fumbled among the rolls, picked one, and they compared it with the tablet. It appeared like a map, but if so the northern coast line was all wrong. There was a line traced on it that seemed to be a route of some sort. It was overscored and underscored with symbols. I wondered whether it might not be the record of the trek those of the Old Race had made when they had fled from the Gobi.

They looked up at last; there was perturbation in the priest's eyes, angry apprehension in Tibur's, but the eyes of the Witch-woman were clear and untroubles though she had made up her mind about something and knew precisely what she was going to do.

"It is the Mother-land!" the priest said. "Tell mid the black-haired stranger who fled with you across the river and who watched you hurled from Nansur come also from there?"

There was sheer malice in that question. I began to dislike Yodin.

"No," I answered. "He comes from an old land of the Rrrllya."

That brought the priest up standing; Tibur swore incredulously; and even the Witch-woman was shaken from her serenity.

"Another lanf the Rrrllya! But that cannot be!" whispered Yodin.

"Nevertheless it is so," I said.

He sank back, and thought for a while.

"He is your friend?"

"My brother by the ancient blood rite of his people."

"He would join you here?"

"He would if I sent for him. But that I will not do. Not yet. He is well off where he is."

I was sorry I had said that the moment I had spoken. Wh did not know. But I would have given much to have recalled the words.

Again the priest was silent.

"These are strange things you tell us," he said at last. "And you have come to us strangely fowayanu. You will not mind if for a little we take counsel?"

I looked in the ewer. It was still half-full. I liked that winost of all because it dulled my sorrow over Evalie.

"Speak as long as you please," I answered, graciously. They went off to a comer of the room. I poured myself another drink, and another. I forgot about Evalie. I began to feel I was having a good time. I wished Jim was with me, but I wished I hadn't said he would come if I sent for him. And then I took another drink and forgot about Jim. Yes, I was having a damned good time...well, wait till I let Dwayanu loose a bit more! I'd have a better one...I was sleepy...I wondered what old Barr would say if he could be here with me...

I came to myself with a start. The High Priest was standing at my side, talking. I had a vague idea he had been talking to me for some time but I couldn't remember what about. I also had the idea that someone had been fumbling with my thumb. It was clenched stubbornly in my palm, so tightly that the stone had bruised the flesh. The effect of the wine had entirely worn off I looked around the room. Tibur and the Witch-woman were gone. Why hadn't I seen them go? Had I been asleep? I studied Yodin's face. There was a look of strain about it, of bafflement; and yet I sensed some deep satisfaction. It was a queer composite of expression. And I didn't like it.

"The others have gone to prepare a fitting reception for you," he said. "To make ready a place for you and fitting apparel."

I arose and stood beside him.

"As Dwayanu?" I asked.

"Not as yet," he answered urbanely. "But as an honoured guest. The other is too serious a matter to decide without further proof."

"And that proof?"

He looked at me a long moment before answering.

"That Khalk'ru will appear at your prayer!"

A little shudder went through me at that. He was watching me so closely that he must have seen it.

"Curb your impatience," his voice was cold honey. "You will not have long to wait. Until then I probably shall not see you. In the meantim have a request to make."

"What is it?" I asked.

"That you will not wear the ring of Khalk'ru openlxcept, of course, at such times as may seem necessary to you."

It was the same thing Lur had asked me. Yet scores had seen me with the rinore must know I had it. He read my indecision.

"It is a holy thing," he said. "I did not know another existed until word was brought me that you had shown it on Nansur. It is not well to cheapen holy things. I do not wear mine except when I think iecessary."

I wondered under what circumstances he considered iecessary. And I wished fervently I knew under what circumstances it would be helpful to me. His eyes were searching me, and I hoped he had not read that thought.

"I see no reason to deny that request," I said. I slipped the ring off my thumb and into my belt pocket.

"I was sure you would not," he murmured.

A gong sounded lightly. He pressed the side of the table, and the door opened. Three youths clothed in the smocks of the people entered and stood humbly waiting.

"They are your servants. They will take you to your place," Yodin said. He bent his head. I went out with the three young Ayjirs. At the door was a guard of a dozen women with a bold-eyed young captain. They saluted me smartly. We marched down the corridor and at length turned into another. I looked back.

I was just in time to see the Witch-woman slipping into the High Priest's chamber.

We came to another guarded door. It was thrown open and into it I was ushered, followed by the three youths.

"We are also your servants. Lord," the bold-eyed captain spoke. "If there is anything you wish, summon me by this. We shall be at the door."

She handed me a small gong of jade, saluted again and marched out.

The room had an odd aspect of familiarity. Then I realized it was much like that to which I had been taken in the oasis. There were the same oddly shaped stools, and chairs of metal, the same wide, low divan bed, the tapestried walls, the rugs upon the floor. Only here there were no signs of decay. True, some of the tapestries were time-faded, but exquisitely so; there were no rags or tatters in them. The others were beautifully woven but fresh as though just from the loom. The ancient hangings were threaded with the same scenes of the hunt and war as the haggard drapings of the oasis; the newer ones bore scenes of the land under the mirage. Nansur Bridge sprang unbroken over one, on another was a battle with the pygmies, on another a scene of the fantastically lovely foresith the white wolves of Lur slinking through the trees. Something struck me as wrong. I looked and looked before I knew what it was. The arms of its olden master had been in the chamber of the oasis, his swords and spears, helmet and shield; in this one there was not a weapon. I remembered that I had carried the sword of Tibur's man into the chamber of the High Priest. I did not have it now.

A disquietude began to creep over me. I turned to the three young Ayjirs, and began to unbutton my shirt. They came forward silently, and started to strip me. And suddenly I felt a consuming thirst.

"Bring me water," I said to one of the youths. He paid not the slightest attention to me.

"Bring me water," I said again, thinking he had not heard. "I am thirsty."

He continued tranquilly taking off a boot. I touched him on the shoulder.

"Bring me water to drink," I said, emphatically.

He smiled up at me, opened his mouth and pointed. He had no tongue. He pointed to his ears. I understood that he was telling me he was both dumb and deaf. I pointed to his two comrades. He nodded.

My disquietude went up a point or two. Was this a general custom of the rulers of Karak; had this trio been especially adapted not only for silent service but unhearing service on special guests? Guests or-- prisoners?

I tapped the gong with a finger. At once the door opened, and the young captain stood there, saluting.

"I am thirsty," I said. "Bring water."

For answer she crossed the room and pulled aside one of the hangings. Behind it was a wide, deep alcove.

Within the floor was a shallow pool through which clean water was flowing, and close beside it was a basin of porphyry from which sprang a jet like a tiny fountain, She took a goblet from a niche, filled it under the jet and handed it to me. It was cold and sparkling.

"Is there anything more, Lord?" she asked. I shook my head, and she marched out.

I went back to the ministrations of the three deaf-mutes. They took off the rest of my clothes and began to massage me, with some light, volatile oil. While they were doing it, my mind began to function rather actively. In the first place, the sore spot in my palm kept reminding me of that impression someone had been trying to get the ring off my thumb. In the second place, the harder I thought the more I was sure that before I awakened or had come out of my abstraction or drink or whatever it was, the white-faced priest had been talking, talking, talking to me, questioning me, probing into my dulled mind. And in the third place, I had lost almost entirely all the fine carelessness of consequences that had been so successful in putting me where I wan fact, I was far too much Leif Langdon and too little Dwayanu. What had the priest been at with his talking, talking, questioninnd what had I said?

I jumped out of the hands of my masseurs, ran over to my trousers and dived into my belt. The ring was there right enough. I searched for my old pouch. It was gone. I rang the gong. The captain answered. I was mother-naked, but I hadn't the slightest sense of her being a woman.

"Hear me," I said. "Bring me wine. And bring with it a safe, strong case big enough to hold a ring. Bring with that a strong chain with which I can hang the case around my neck. Do you understand?"

"Done at once, Lord," she said. She was not long in returning. She set down the ewer she was carrying and reached into her blouse. She brought out a locket suspended from a metal chain. She snapped it open.

"Will this do, Lord?"

I turned from her, and put the ring of Khalk'ru into the locket. It held it admirably.

"Most excellently," I told her, "but I have nothing to give you in return."

She laughed.

"Reward enough to have beheld you, Lord," she said, not at all ambiguously, and marched away. I hung the locket round my neck. I poured a drink and then another. I went back to my masseurs and began to feel better. I drank while they were bathing me, and I drank while they were trimming my hair and shaving me. And the more I drank the more Dwayanu came up, coldly wrathful and resentful.

My dislike for Yodin grew. It did not lessen while the trio were dressing me. They put on me a silken under-vest. They covered it with a gorgeous tunic of yellow shot through with metallic threads of blue; they covered my long legs with the baggy trousers of the same stuff; they buckled around my waist a broad, gem-studded girdle, and they strapped upon my feet sandals of soft golden leather. They had shaved me, and now they brushed and dressed my hair which they had shorn to the nape of my neck.

By the time they were through with me, the wine was done. I was a little drunk, willing to be more so, and in no mood to be played with. I rang the gong for the captain. I wanted some more wine, and I wanted to know when, where and how I was going to eat. The door opened, but it was not the captain who came in.

It was the Witch-woman.

CHAPTER XV
THE LAKE OF THE GHOSTS

Lur paused, red lips parted, regarding me. Plainly she was startled by the difference the Ayjir trappings and the ministrations of the mutes had made in the dripping, bedraggled figure that had scrambled out of the river not long before. Her eyes glowed, and a deeper rose stained her cheeks. She came. close.

"Dwayanou will go with me?"

I looked at her, and laughed.

"Why not, Luut also, why?"

She whispered:

"You are in dangehether you are Dwayanu or whether you are not. I have persuaded Yodin to let you remain with me until you go to the temple. With me you shall be safntil then."

"And why did you do this for me, Lur?"

She made no answenly set one hand upon my shoulder and looked at me with blue eyes grown soft; and though common sense told me there were other reasons for her solicitude than any quick passion for me, still at that touch and look the blood raced through my veins, and it was hard to master my voice and speak.

"I will go with you, Lur."

She went to the door, opened it.

"Ouarda, the cloak and cap." She came back to me with a black cloak which she threw over my shoulders and fastened round my neck; she pulled down over my yellow hair a close-fitting cap shaped like the Phyrgian and she tucked my hair into it. Except for my height it made me like any other Ayjir in Karak.

"There is need for haste, Dwayanu."

"I am ready. Wait--"

I went over to where my old clothes lay, and rolled them up around my boots. After al might need them. The Witch-woman made no comment, opened the door and we went out. The captain and her guard were in the corridor, also a half-dozen of Lur's women, and handsome creatures they were. Then I noticed that each of them wore the light coat of mail and, besides the two swords, carried throwing hammers. So did Lur. Evidently they were ready for trouble, whether with me or with someone else; and whichever way it was, I didn't like it.

"Give me your sword," I said abruptly to the captain. She hesitated.

"Give it to him," said Lur.

I weighed the weapon in my hand; not so heavy as I would have liked, but still a sword. I thrust it into my girdle, and bunched the bundle of my old clothes beneath my left arm, under the cloak. We set off down the corridor, leaving the guard at the door.

We went only a hundred yards, and then into a small bare chamber. We had met no one. Lur drew a breath of relief, walked over to a side, and a slab of stone slid open, revealing a passage. We went into that and the slab closed, leaving us in pitch-darkness. There was a spark, produced I don't know how, and the place sprang into light from torches in the hands of two of the women. They burned with a clear, steady and silvery flame. The torch-bearers marched ahead of us. After a while we came to the end of that passage, the torches were extinguished, another stone slid away and we stepped out. I heard whispering, and after the glare of the flambeaux had worn away, I saw that we were at the base of one of the walls of the black citadel, and that close by were half a dozen more of Lur's women, with horses. One of them led forward a big grey stallion.

"Mount, and ride beside me," said Lur.

I fixed my bundle on the pommel of the high saddle, and straddled the grey. We set off silently. It was never wholly dark at night in the land under the mirage; there was always a faint green luminescence, but to-night it was brighter than I had ever seen it. I wondered whether there was a full moon shining down over the peaks of the valley. I wondered if we had far to go. I was not as drunk as I had been when Lur had come in on me, but in a way I was drunker. I had a queer, light-headed feeling that was decidedly pleasant, a carefree irresponsibility. I wanted to keep on feeling that way. I hoped that Lur had plenty of wine wherever she was taking me. I wished I had a drink right now.

We were going through the city beyond the citadel, and we went fast. The broad street we were on was well paved. There were lights in the houses and in the gardens and people singing and drums and pipes playing. Sinister the black citadel might be, but it did not seem to cast any shadow on the people of Karak. Or so I thought then.

We passed out of the city into a smooth road running between thick vegetation. The luminous moths like fairy planes were flitting about, and for a moment I felt a pang of memory, and Evalie's face floated up before me. It didn't last a second. The grey went sweetly and I began to sing an old Kirghiz song about a lover who rode in the moonlight to his maid and what he found when he got there. Lur laughed, and put her hand over my mouth.

"Quiet, Dwayanu! There still is danger." Then I realized that I hadn't been singing the Kirghiz at all, but the Uighur, which was probably where the Kirghiz got it from. And then it occurred to me that I had never heard the song in the Uighur. It started the old problem going in my minnd that lasted no longer than the memory of Evalie.

Now and then I caught a glimpse of the white river. And then we went over a long stretch where the road narrowed so that we rode single file between verdure-covered cliffs. When we came out of them, the road forked. One part of it ran right on, the other turned sharply to the left. We rode along this for three or four miles, apparently directly through the heart of the strange forest. The great trees spread their arms out far overhead; the candelabras and cressets and swaying ropes of blooms gleamed like ghosts of flowers in the pallid light; the scaled trees were like men-at-arms on watch. And the heady fragrances, the oddly stimulating exhalations were strontrong. They throbbed from the forest, rhythmically, as though they were the pulse of its life-drunken heart.

And as we came to the end of that road and I looked down upon the Lake of the Ghosts.

Never, I think, in all the world was there such a place of breath-taking, soul-piercing, unearthly beauty as that lake beneath the mirage in which Lur the Witch-woman had her home. And had she not been Witch-woman before she dwelt there, it must have made her so.

It was shaped like an arrow-head, its longer shores not more than a mile in length. It was enclosed by low hills whose sides were covered with the tree-ferns; their feathery fronds clothed them as though they were the breasts of gigantic birds of Paradise; threw themselves up from them like fountains; soared over them like vast virescent wings. The colour of its water was pale emerald, and like an emerald it gleamed, placid, untroubled. But beneath that untroubled surface there was movemenuminous circles of silvery green that spread swiftly and vanished, rays that laced and interlaced in fantastic yet ordered, geometric forms; luminous spirallings, none of which ever came quite to the surface to disturb its serenity. And here and there were clusters of soft lights, like vaporous rubies, misted sapphires and opals and glimmering pearlitch-lights. The luminous lilies of the Lake of the Ghosts.

Where the point of the arrow-head touched, there were no ferns. A broad waterfall spread itself like a veil over the face of the cliff, whispering as it fell. Mists rose there, mingling with the falling water, dancing slowly with the falling water, swaying toward it and reaching up with ghostly hands as though to greet it. And from the shores of the lake, other wraiths of mist would rise, and glide swiftly over the emerald floor and join those other dancing, welcoming wraiths of the waterfall. Thus first I saw the Lake of the Ghosts under the night of the mirage, and it was no less beautiful in the mirage day.

The road ran out into the lake like the shaft of an arrow. At its end was what once, I supposed, had been a small island. It lay two-thirds of the way across. Over its trees were the turrets of a small castle.

We walked our horses down the steep to the narrowing of the road where it became the shaft of the arrow. Here there were no ferns to hide the approach; they had been cleared away and the breast of the hill was covered with the blue flowerets. As we reached the narrow part, I saw that it was a causeway, built of stone. The place to which we were going was still an island. We came to the end of the causeway, and there was a forty-foot gap between it and a pier on the opposite shore. Lur drew from her girdle a small horn and sounded it. A drawbridge began to creak, and to drop down over the gap. We rode across that and into a garrison of her women. We cantered up a winding road, and I heard the creak of the lifting bridge as we went. We drew up before the house of the Witch-woman.

I looked at it with interest, not because it was unfamiliar, for it was not, but I was thinking I had never seen a castle of its sort built of that peculiar green stone nor with so many turrets. Yes, I knew them well. "Lady castles," we had called them; lana'rada, bowers for favourite women, a place to rest, a place to love after war or when weary of statecraft.

Women came and took the horses. Wide doors of polished wood swung open. Lur led me over the threshold.

Girls came forward with wine. I drank thirstily. The queer light-headedness, and the sense of detachment were growing. I seemed to have awakened from a long, long sleep, and was not thoroughly awake and troubled by memories of dreams. But I was sure that they had not all been dreams. That old priest who had awakened me in the desert which once had been fertile Ayjirlane had been no dream. Yet the people among whom I had awakened had not been Ayjirs. This was not Ayjirland, yet the people were of the ancient breed! How had I gotten here? I must have fallen asleep again in the temple afteftey Zarda, but I must feel my way a bit! Be cautious. Then would follow a surge of recklessness that swept away all thought of caution, a roaring relish of life, a wild freedom as of one who, long in prison, sees suddenly the bars broken and before him the table of life spread with all he has been denied, to take as he wills. And on its heels a flash of recognition that I was Leif Langdon and knew perfectly well how I came to be in this place and must some way, somehow, get back to Evalie and to Jim. Swift as the lightning were those latter flashes, and as brief.

I became aware that I was no longer in the castle's hall but in a smaller chamber, octagonal, casemented, tapestried. There was a wide, low bed. There was a table glistening with gold and crystal; tall candles burned upon it. My blouse was gone, and in its place a light silken tunic. The casements were open and the fragrant air sighed through them. I leaned from one.

Below me were the lesser turrets and the roof of the castle. Far below was the lake. I looked through another. The waterfall with its beckoning wraiths whispered and murmured not a thousand feet away.

I felt the touch of a hand on my head; it slipped down to my shoulder; I swung round. The Witch-woman was beside me.

For the first time I seemed to be realizing her beauty, seemed for the first time to be seeing her clearly. Her russet hair was braided in a thick coronal; it shone like reddest gold, and within it was twisted a strand of sapphires. Her eyes outshone them. Her scanty robe of gossamer blue revealed every lovely, sensuous line of her. White shoulders and one of the exquisite breasts were bare. Her full red lips promisenything, and even the subtle cruelty stamped upon them, lured.

There had been a dark girl...who had she been...Evahe name eluded me...no matter...she was like a wraith beside this woman...like one of the mist wraiths swaying at the feet of the waterfall...

The Witch-woman read what was in my eyes. Her hand slipped from my shoulder and rested on my heart. She bent closer, blue eyes languorouet strangely intent.

"And are you truly Dwayanu?"

"I am hone else, Lur."

"Who was Dwayanong and long and long ago?"

"I cannot tell you that, Lu who have been long asleep and in sleep forgotten much. Ye am he."

"Then loond remember."

Her hand left my heart and rested on my head; she pointed to the waterfall. Slowly its whispering changed. It became the beat of drums, the trample of horses, the tread of marching men. Louder and louder they grew. The waterfall quivered, and spread across the black cliff like a gigantic curtain. From every side the mist wraiths were hurrying, melting into it. Clearer and nearer sounded the drums. And suddenly the waterfall vanished. In its place was a great walled city. Two armies were fighting there and I knew that the forces which were attacking the city were being borne back. I heard the thunder of the hoofs of hundreds of horses. Down upon the defenders raced a river of mounted men. Their leader was clothed in shining mail. He was helmetless, and his yellow hair streamed behind him as he rode. He turned his face. And that face was my own! I heard a roaring shout of "Dwayanu!" The charge struck like a river in spate, rolled over the defenders, submerged them.

I saw an army in rout, and smashed by companies with the throwing hammers.

I rode with the yellow-haired leader into the conquered city. And I sat with him on a conquered throne while ruthlessly, mercilessly, he dealt death to men and women dragged before him, and smiled at the voices of rapine and pillage rising from without. I rode and sat with him, I say, for now it was no longer as though I were in the Witch-woman's chamber but was with this yellow-haired man who was my twin, seeing as he did, hearing as he dies, and thinking as he thought.

Battle upon battle, tourneys and feasts and triumphs, hunts with the falcons and hunts with great dogs in fair Ayjirland, hammer-play and anvil-pla saw them, standing always beside Dwayanu like an unseen shadow. I went with him to the temples when he served the gods. I went with him to the Temple of the Dissolvelack Khalk'ru, the Greater-than-Godnd he wore the ring which rested on my breast. But when he passed within Khalk'ru's temple, I held back. The same deep, stubborn resistance which had halted me when I had visioned the portal of the oasis temple halted me now. I listened to two voices. One urged me to enter with Dwayanu.

The other whispered that I must not. And that voice I could not disobey.

And then, abruptly, Ayjirland was no more! I was staring out at the waterfall and gliding mist wraiths. Bu was Dwayanu!

I was all Dwayanu! Leif Langdon had ceased to exist!

Yet he had left memorieemories which were like half-remembered dreams, memories whose source I could not fathom but realized that, even if only dreams, were true ones. They told me the Ayjirland I had ruled had vanished as utterly as had the phantom Ayjirland of the waterfall, that dusty century upon century had passed since them, that other empires had risen and fallen, that here was an alien land with only a dying fragment of the ancient glory.

Warrior-king and warrior-priest I had been, holding in my hands empire and the lives and destinies of a race.

And noo more!

CHAPTER XVI
KISSES OF LUR

Black sorrow and the bitter ashes were in my heart when I turned from the window. I looked at Lur. From long slim feet to shining head I looked at her, and the black sorrow lightened and the bitter ashes blew away.

I put my hands on her shoulders and laughed. Luka had spun her wheel and sent my empire flying off its rim like dust from the potter's. But she had left me something. In all old Ayjirland there had been few women like this.

Praise Luka! A sacrifice to her next morning if this woman proves what I think her!

My vanished empire! What of it? I would build another. Enough that I was alive!

Again I laughed. I put my hand under Lur's chin, raised her face to mine, set my lips against hers. She thrust me from her. There was anger in her eyeut there was doubt under the anger.

"You bade me remember. Well, I have remembered. Why did you open the gates of memory. Witch-woman, unless you had made up your mind to abide by what came forth? Or did you know less of Dwayanu than you pretended?"

She took a step back; she said, furiously:

"I give my kisses. None takes them."

I caught her in my arms, crushed her mouth to mine, then released her.

"I take them."

I struck down at her right wrist. There was a dagger in her hand. I was amused, wondering where she had hidden it. I wrenched it from her grip and slipped it my girdle.

"And draw the stings from those I kiss. Thus did Dwayanu in the days of old and thus he does to-day."

She stepped back and back, eyes dilated. Ai! but I could read her! She had thought me other than I was, thought me hare-brain, imposter, trickster. And it had been in her mind to trick me, to bend me to her will. To beguile me. Mwayanu, who knew women as I knew war! And yet--

She was very beautiful...and she was all I had in this alien land to begin the building of my rule. I summed her up as she stood staring at me. I spoke, and my words were as cold as my thoughts.

"Play no more with daggeror with me. Call your servants. I am hungry and I thirst. When I have eaten and drunk we will talk."

She hesitated, then clapped her hands. Women came in with steaming dishes, with ewers of wine, with fruits. I ate ravenously. I drank deeply. I ate and drank, thinking little of Luut thinking much of what her sorcery had made me see, drawing together what I remembered from desert oasis until now. It was little enough. I ate and drank silently. I felt her eyes upon me. I looked into them and smiled. "You thought to make me slave to your will, Lur. Never think it again!"

She dropped her head between her hands and gazed at me across the table.

"Dwayanu died long and long ago. Can the leaf that has withered grow green?"

"I am he, Lur."

She did not answer.

"What was in your thought when you brought me here, Lur?"

"I am weary of Tibur, weary of his laughter, weary of his stupidity."

"What else?"

"I tire of Yodin. You and lonould rule Karak, if--"

"That 'if’ is the heart of it. Witch-woman. What is it?"

She arose, leaned toward me.

"If you can summon Khalk'ru!"

"And if I cannot?"

She shrugged her white shoulders, dropped back into her chair. I laughed.

"In which case Tibur will not be so wearisome, and Yodin may be tolerated. Now listen to me, Lur. Was it your voice I heard urging me to enter Khalk'ru's temples? Did you see as I was seeing? You need not answer. I read you, Lur. You would be rid of Tibur. Well, perhaps I can kill him. You would be rid of Yodin. Well, no matter who I am, if I can summon the Greater-than-Gods, there is no need of Yodin. Tibur and Yodin gone, there would be only you and me. You think you could rule me. You could not, Lur."

She had listened quietly, and quietly now she answered.

"All that is true--"

She hesitated; her eyes glowed; a rosy flush swept over bosom and cheeks.

"Yehere might be another reason why I took you--"

I did not ask her what that other reason might be; women had tried to snare me with that ruse before. Her gaze dropped from me, the cruelty on the red mouth stood out for an instant, naked.

"What did you promise Yodin, Witch-woman?"

She arose, held out her arms to me, her voice trembled--

"Are you less than mahat you can speak to me so! Have I not offered you power, to share with me? Am I not beautifum I not desirable?"

"Very beautiful, very desirable. But always I learned the traps my city concealed before I took it."

Her eyes shot blue fires at that. She took a swift step toward the door. I was swifter. I held her, caught the hand she raised to strike me.

"What did you promise the High-priest, Lur?"

I put the point of the dagger at her throat. Her eyes blazed at me, unafraid. Lukurn your wheel so I need not slay this woman!

Her straining body relaxed; she laughed.

"Put away the dagger, I will tell you."

I released her, and walked back to my chair. She studied me from her place across the table; she said, half incredulously:

"You would have killed me!"

"Yes," I told her.

"I believe you. Whoever you may be. Yellow-haihere is no man like you here."

"Whoever I may bitch?"

She stirred impatiently.

"No further need for pretence between us." There was anger in her voice. "I am done with lieetter for both if you be done with them too. Whoever you arou are not Dwayanu. I say again that the withered leaf cannot turn green nor the dead return."

"If I am not he, then whence came those memories you watched with me not long ago? Did they pass from your mind to mine. Witch-womar from my mind to yours?"

She shook her head, and again I saw a furtive doubt cloud her eyes.

"I saw nothing. I meant you to seomething. You eluded me. Whatever it was you sa had no part in it. Nor could I bend you to my will. I saw nothing."

"I saw the ancient land, Lur."

She said, sullenly:

"I could go no farther than its portal."

"What was it you sent me into Ayjirland to find for Yodin, Witch-woman?"

"Khalk'ru," she answered evenly.

"And why?"

"Because then I would have known surely, beyond all doubt, whether you could summon him. That was what I promised Yodin to discover."

"And if I could summon him?"

"Then you were to be slain before you had opportunity."

"And if I could not?"

"Then you would be offered to him in the temple."

"By Zarda!" I swore. "Dwayanu's welcome is not like what he had of old when he went visitinr, if you prefer it, the hospitality you offer a stranger is no thing to encourage travellers. Now do I see eye to eye with you in this matter of eliminating Tibur and the priest. But why should I not begin with you, Witch?"

She leaned back, smiling.

"Firsecause it would do you no good. Yellow-hair. Look."

She beckoned me to one of the windows. From it I could see the causeway and the smooth hill upon which we had emerged from the forest. There were soldiers all along the causeway and the top of the hill held a company of them. I felt that she was quite righven I could not get through them unscathed. The old cold rage began to rise within me. She watched me, with mockery in her eyes.

"And second--" she said. "And seconell, hear me. Yellow-hair."

I poured wine, raised the goblet to her, and drank. She said:

"Life is pleasant in this land. Pleasant at least for those of us who rule it. I have no desire to change ixcept in the matter of Tibur and Yodin. And another matter of which we can talk later. I know the world has altered since long and long ago our ancestors fled from Ayjirland. I know there is life outside this sheltered place to which Khalk'ru led those ancestors. Yodin and Tibur know it, and some few more. Others guess it. But none of us desires to leave this pleasant placor do we desire it invaded. Particularly have we no desire to have our people go from it. And this many would attempt if they knew there were green fields and woods and running water and a teeming world of men beyond us. For through the uncounted years they have been taught that in all the world there is no life save here. That Khalk'ru, angered by the Great Sacrilege when Ayjirland rose in revolt and destroyed his temples, then destroyed all life except here, and that only by Khalk'ru's sufferance does it here exisnd shall persist only so long as he is offered the ancient Sacrifice. You follow me, Yellow-hair?"

I nodded.

"The prophecy of Dwayanu is an ancient one. He was the greatest of the Ayjir kings. He lived a hundred years or more before the Ayjirs began to turn their faces from Khalk'ru, to resist the Sacrificnd the desert in punishment began to waste the land. And as the unrest grew, and the great war which was to destroy the Ayjirs brewed, the prophecy was born. That he would return to restore the ancient glory. No new story. Yellow-hair. Others have had their Dwayanuhe Redeemer, the Liberator, the Loosener of Fatr so I have read in those rolls our ancestors carried with them when they fled. I do not believe these stories; new Dwayanus may arise, but the old ones do not return. Yet the people know the prophecy, and the people will believe anything that promises them freedom from something they do not like. And it is from the people that the sacrifices to Khalk'ru are takend they do not like the Sacrifice. But because they fear what might come if there were no more sacrificehey endure them.

"And now. Yellow-haie come to you. When first I saw you, heard you shouting that you were Dwayanu, I took council with Yodin and Tibur. I thought you then from Sirk. Soon I knew that could not be. There was another with you--"

"Another?" I asked, in genuine surprise.

She looked at me, suspiciously.

"You have no memory of him?"

"No. I remember seeing you. You had a white falcon. There were other women with you. I saw you from the river."

She leaned forward, gaze intent.

"You remember the Rrrllyhe Little People? A dark girl who calls herself Evalie?"

Little Peopl dark girvalie? Yes, I did remember something of theut vaguely. They had been in those dreams I had forgotten, perhaps. Nhey had been real...or had they?

"Faintly, I seem to remember something of them, Lur. Nothing clearly."

She stared at me, a curious exultation in her eyes.

"No matter," she said. "Do not try to think of them. You were nowake. Later we will speak of them. They are enemies. No matteollow me now. If you were from Sirk, posing as Dwayanu, you might be a rallying point for our discontented. Perhaps even the leader they needed. If you were from outsidou were still more dangerous, since you could prove us liars. Not only the people, but the soldiers might rally to you. And probably would. What was there for us to do but to kill you?"

"Nothing," I answered. "I wonder now you did not when you had the chance."

"You had complicated matters," she said. "You had shown the ring. Many had seen it, many had heard you call yourself Dwayanu--"

Ah, yes! I remember no had come up from the river. How had I gotten into the river? The bridgansuomething had happened there...it was all misty, nothing clear-cut...the Little People...yes, I remembered something of them...they were afraid of me...but I had nothing against them...vainly I tried to sort the vague visions into some pattern. Lur's voice recalled my wandering thoughts.

"And so," she was saying, "I made Yodin see that it was not well to slay you outright. It would have been known, and caused too much unrestrengthened Sirk for one thing. Caused unrest among the soldiers. Whawayanu had come and we had slain him! 'I will take him,' I told Yodin. 'I do not trust Tibur who, in his stupidity and arrogance, might easily destroy us all. There is a better way. Let Khalk'ru eat him and so prove us right and him the liar and braggart. Then not soon will another come shouting that he is Dwayanu'!"

"So the High-priest does not think me Dwayanu, either?"

"Less even than I do. Yellow-hair," she said, smiling. "Nor Tibur. But who you are, and whence you came, and how and whhat puzzles them as it does me. You look like the Ayjit means nothing. You have the ancient marks upon your handell, granted you are of the ancient blood. So has Tibund he is no Redeemer," again her laughter rang like little bells, "You have the ring. Where did you find it. Yellow-hair? For you know little of its use. Yodin found that out. When you were in sleep. And Yodin saw you turn colour and half turn to flee when first you saw Khalk'ru in his chamber. Deny it not. Yellow-hair. I saw it myself. Ah, nodin has little fear of a rival with the Dissolver. Yet-he is not wholly certain. There is the faintest shadow of doubt. I played on that. And sou are here."

I looked at her with frankest admiration, again raised the goblet and drank to her. I clapped my hands, and the serving girls entered.

"Clear the table. Bring wine."

They came with fresh ewers and goblets. When they had gone out I went over to the door. There was a heavy bar that closed it. I thrust it down. I picked up one of the ewers and half emptied it.

"I can summon the Dissolver, Witch-woman."

She drew in her breath, sharply; her body trembled; the blue fires of her eyes were brighright.

"Shall I show you?"

I took the ring from the locket, slipped it on my thumb, raised my hands in the beginning of the salutation--

A cold breath seemed to breathe through the room. The Witch-woman sprang to me, dragged down my hand. Her lips were white.

"No!--No! I believwayanu!"

I laughed. The strange cold withdrew, stealthily.

"And now. Witch, what will you tell the priest?"

The blood was slowly coming back into her lips and face. She lifted the ewer and drained it. Her hand was steady. An admirable womahis Lur!

She said:

"I will tell him that you are powerless."

I said:

"I will summon the Dissolver. I will kill Tibur. I will kill Yodihat else is there?"

She came to me, stood with breast touching mine.

"Destroy Sirk. Sweep the dwarfs away. Then you and I shall rullone."

I drank more wine.

"I will summon Khalk'ru; I will eliminate Tibur and the priest; I will sack Sirk and I will war against the dwarff--"

She looked into my eyes, long and long; her arm stole round my shoulder...I thrust out a hand and swept away the candles. The green darkness of the mirage night seeped through the casements. The whispering of the waterfall was soft laughter.

"I take my pay in advance," I said. "Such was Dwayanu's way of olnd am I not Dwayanu?"

"Yes!" whispered the Witch-woman.

She took the strand of sapphires from her hair, she unbraided her coronal and shook loose its russet-gold. Her arms went round my neck. Her lips sought mine and clung to them.

There was the beat of horses' hoofs on the causeway. A distant challenge. A knocking at the door. The Witch-woman awakened, sat sleepily up under the silken tent of her hair.

"Is it you, Ouarda?"

"Yes, mistress. A messenger from Tibur."

I laughed.

"Tell him you are busy with your gods, Lur."

She bent her head over mine so that the silken tent of it covered us both.

"Tell him I am busy with the gods, Ouarda. He may stay till morninr return to Tibur with the message."

She sank back, pressed her lips to mine--

By Zarda! But it was as it was of olnemies to slay, a city to sack, a nation to war with and a woman's soft arms around me.

I was well content!

BOOK OF DWAYANU

CHAPTER XVII
ORDEAL BY KHALK'RU

Twice the green night had filled the bowl of the land beneath the mirage while I feasted and drank with Lur and her women. Sword-play there had been, and the hammer-play and wrestling. They were warriorhese women! Tempered steel under silken skins, they pressed me hard now and agaitrong as I was, quick as I might be. If Sirk were soldiered by such as these, it would be no easy conquest.

By the looks they gave me and by soft whispered words I knew I need not be lonely if Lur rode off to Karak. But she did not; she was ever at my side, and no more messengers came from Tibur; or if they did I did not know it. She had sent secret word to the High-priest that he had been righ had no power to summon the Greater-than-Godhat I was either imposter or mad. Or so she told me. Whether she had lied to him or, lied now to me I did not know and did not greatly care. I was too busiving.

Yet no more did she call me Yellow-hair. Always it was Dwayanu. And every art of love of hernd she was no novice, the Witch-womahe used to bind me tighter to her.

It was early dawn of the third day; I was leaning from the casement, watching the misty jewel-fires of the luminous lilies fade, the mist wraiths that were the slaves of the waterfall rise slowly and more slowly. I thought Lur asleep. I heard her stir, and turned. She was sitting up, peering at me through the red veils of her hair. She looked all Witch-woman then...

"A messenger came to me last night from Yodin. To-day you pray to Khalk'ru."

A thrill went through me; the blood sang in my ears. Always had I felt so when I must evoke the Dissolve feeling of power that surpassed even that of victory. Differen sense of inhuman power and pride. And with it a deep anger, revolt against this Being which was Life's enemy. This demon that fed on Ayjirland's flesh and bloond soul. She was watching me. "Are you afraid, Dwayanu?" I sat beside her, parted the veils of her hair. "Was that why your kisses were doubled last night, Lur? Why they were sender? Tenderness, Witch-woman, becomes yout it sits strangely on you. Were you afraid? For me? You soften me, Lur!" Her eyes flashed, her face flushed at my laughter.

"You do not believe I love you, Dwayanu?"

"Not so much as you love power. Witch-woman."

"You love me?"

"Not so much as I love power. Witch-woman," I answered, and laughed again.

She studied me with narrowed eyes. She said:

"There is much talk in Karak of you. It grows menacing. Yodin regrets that he did not kill you when he could havut knows full well the case might be worse if he had. Tibur regrets he did not kill you when you came up from the riverges that no more time be lost in doing so. Yodin has declared you a false prophet and has promised that the Greater-than-Gods will prove you so. He believes what I have told yor perhaps he has a hidden sword. You"--faint mockery crept into her voice--"you, who can read me so easily, surely can read him and guard against it! The people murmur; there are nobles who demand you be brought forth; and the soldiers would follow Dwayanu eagerlf they believed you truly he. They are restless. Tales spread. You have grown exceedinglnconvenient. So you face Khalk'ru to-day."

"If all that be true," I said, "it occurs to me that I may not have to evoke the Dissolver to gain rule."

She smiled.

"It was not your old cunning which sent that thought. You will be closely guarded. You would be slain before you could rally a dozen round you. Why noince there would then be nothing to lose by killing you? And perhaps something to be gained. Besidehat of your promises to me?"

I thrust my arm around her shoulders, lifted and kissed her.

"As for being slaiell, I would have a thing to say to that. But I was jesting, Lur. I keep my promises."

There was the galloping of horses on the causeway, the jangle of accoutrement, the rattle of kettle-drums. I went over to the window. Lur sprang from the bed and stood beside me. Over the causeway was coming a troop of a hundred or more horsemen. From their spears floated yellow pennons bearing the black symbol of Khalk'ru. They paused at the open drawbridge. At their head I recognized Tibur, his great shoulders covered by a yellow cloak, and on his breast the Kraken.

"They come to take you to the temple. I must let them pass."

"Why not?" I asked, indifferently. "But I'll go to no temple until I've broken my fast."

I looked again toward Tibur.

"And if I ride beside the Smith, I would you had a coat of mail to fit me."

"You ride beside me," she said. "And as for weapons, you shall have your pick. Yet there is nothing to fear on the way to the templt is within it that danger dwells."

"You speak too much of fear, Witch-woman," I said, frowning. "Sound the horn. Tibur may think I am loath to meet him. And that I would not have him believe."

She sounded the signal to the garrison at the bridge. I heard it creaking as I bathed. And soon the horses were trampling before the door of the castle. Lur's tire-woman entered, and with her she slipped away.

I dressed leisurely. On my way to the great hall I stopped at the chamber of weapons. There was a sword there I had seen and liked. It was of the weight to which I was accustomed, and long and curved and of metal excellent as any I had ever known in Ayjirland. I weighed it in my left hand and took a lighter one for my right. I recalled that someone had told me to beware of Tibur's left hand...ah, yes, the woman soldier. I laugheell, let Tibur beware of mine. I took a hammer, not so heavy as the Smith's...that was his vanity... there was more control to the lighter sledges...I fastened to my forearm the strong strap that held its thong. Then I went down to meet Tibur.

There were a dozen of the Ayjir nobles in the hall, mostly men. Lur was with them. I noticed she had posted her soldiers at various vantage points, and that they were fully armed. I took that for evidence of her good faith, although it somewhat belied her assurance to me that I need fear no danger until I had reached the temple. I had no fault to find in Tibur's greeting. Nor with those of the others. Except one. There was a man beside the Smith almost as tall as myself. He had cold blue eyes and in them the singular expressionless stare that marks the born killer of men. There was a scar running from left temple to chin, and his nose had been broken. The kind of man, I reflected, whom in the olden days I would have set over some peculiarly rebellious tribe. There was an arrogance about him that irritated me, but I held it down. It was not in my thoughts to provoke any conflict at this moment. I desired to raise no suspicions in the mind of the Smith. My greetings to him and to the others might be said to have had almost a touch of apprehension, of conciliation.

I maintained that attitude while we broke fast and drank. Once it was difficult. Tibur leaned toward the scar-face, laughing.

"I told you he was taller than you, Rascha. The grey stallion is mine!"

The blue eyes ran over me, and my gorge rose.

"The stallion is yours."

Tibur leaned toward me.

"Rascha the Back-breaker, he is named. Next to me, the strongest in Karak. Too bad you must meet the Greater-than-Gods so quickly. A match between you two would be worth the seeing."

Now my rage swelled up at this, and my hand dropped to my sword, but I managed to check it, and answered with a touch of eagerness.

"True enougerhaps that meeting may be deferred..."

Lur frowned and stared at me, but Tibur snapped at the bait, his eyes gleaming with malice.

"Nhere is one that may not be kept waiting. But afteerhaps..."

His laughter shook the table. The others joined in it. The scar-face grinned. By Zarda, but this is not to be borne! Careful, Dwayanu, thus you tricked them in the olden daynd thus you shall trick them now. I drained my goblet, and another. I joined them in their laughtes though I wondered why they laughed. But I sealed their faces in my memory. We rode over the causeway with Lur at my right and a close half-circle of her picked women covering us.

Ahead of us went Tibur and the Back-breaker with a dozen of Tibur's strongest. Behind us came the troop with the yellow pennons, and behind them another troop of the Witch-woman's guards.

I rode with just the proper touch of dejection. Now and then the Smith and his familiars looked back at me. And I would hear their laughter. The Witch-woman rode as silently as I. She glanced at me askance, and when that happened I dropped my head a little lower.

The black citadel loomed ahead of us. We entered the city. By that time the puzzlement in Lur's eyes had changed almost to contempt, the laughter of the Smith become derisive.

The streets were crowded with the people of Karak. And now I sighed, and seemed to strive to arouse myself from my dejection, but still rode listlessly. And Lur bit her lip, and drew close to me, frowning.

"Have you tricked me, Yellow-hair? You go like a dog already beaten!"

I turned my head from her that she might not see my face. By Luka, but it was hard to stifle my own laughter!

There were whisperings, murmurings, among the crowd. There were no shouts, no greetings. Everywhere were the soldiers, sworded and armed with the hammers, spears and pikes ready. There were archers. The High-priest was taking no chances.

Nor was I.

It was no intention of mine to precipitate a massacre. None to give Tibur slightest excuse to do away with me, turn spears and arrow storm upon me. Lur had thought my danger not on my way to the temple, but when within it. I knew the truth was the exact opposite.

So it was no conquering hero, no redeemer, no splendid warrior from the past who rode through Karak that day. It was a man not sure of himselr better, too sure of what was in store for him. The people who had waited and watched for Dwayanu felt thand murmured, or were silent. That well pleased the Smith. And it well pleased me, who by now was as eager to meet Khalk'ru as any bridegroom his bride. And was taking no risks of being stopped by sword or hammer, spear or arrow before I could.

And ever the frown on the face of the Witch-woman grew darker, and stronger the contempt and fury in her eyes.

We skirted the citadel, and took a broad road leading back to the cliffs. We galloped along this, pennons flying, drums rolling. We came to a gigantic doorway in the clifany times had I gone through such a door as that! I dismounted, hesitatingly. Half-reluctantly, I let myself be led through it by Tibur and Lur and into a small rock-hewn chamber.

They left me, without a word. I glanced about. Here were the chests that held the sacrificial garments, the font of purification, the vessels for the anointing of the evoker of Khalk'ru.

The door opened. I looked into the face of Yodin.

There was vindictive triumph in it, and I knew he had met the Smith and Witch-woman, and that they had told him how I had ridden. As a victim to the Sacrifice! Well, Lur could tell him honestly what he hoped was the truth. If she had the thought to betray mad betrayed mhe now believed me liar and braggart with quite as good reason as Tibur and the others. If she had not betrayed me, I had backed her lie to Yodin.

Twelve lesser priests filed in behind him, dressed in the sacred robes. The High-priest wore the yellow smock with the tentacles entwined round him. The ring of Khalk'ru shone on his thumb.

"The Greater-than-Gods awaits your prayer, Dwayanu," he said. "But first you must undergo purification."

I nodded. They busied themselves with the necessary rites. I submitted to them awkwardly, like one not familiar with them, but as one who plainly wished to be thought so. The malice in Yodin's eyes increased.

The rites were finished. Yodin took a smock like his own from a chest and draped it on me. I waited.

"Your ring," he reminded me, sardonically. "Have you forgotten you must wear the ring!"

I fumbled at the chain around my neck, opened the locket and slipped the ring over my thumb. The lesser priests passed from the chamber with their drums. I followed, the High-priest beside me. I heard the clang of a hammer striking a great anvil. And knew it for the voice of Tubalka, the oldest god, who had taught man to wed fire and metal. Tubalka's recognition of, his salutation and his homage thalk'ru!

The olden exaltation, the ecstasy of dark power, was pouring through me. Hard it was not to betray it. We came out of the passage and into the temple.

Hai! But they had done well by the Greater-than-Gods in this far shrine! Vaster temple I had never beheld in Ayjirland. Cut from the mountain's heart, as all Khalk'ru's abodes must be, the huge pillars which bordered the amphitheatre struck up to a ceiling lost in darkness. There were cressets of twisted metal and out of them sprang smooth spirals of wan yellow flame. They burned steadily and soundlessly; by their wan light I could see the pillars marching, marching away as though into the void itself.

Faces were staring up at me from the amphitheatrundreds of them. Women's faces under pennons and bannerets broidered with devices of clans whose men had fought beside and behind me in many a bloody battle. Godow few the men were here! They stared up at me, these women faces...women-nobles, women-knights, women-soldiers... They stared up at me by the hundreds...blue eyes ruthless...nor was there pity nor any softness of woman in their faces...warriors they were...Good! Then not as women but as warriors would I treat them.

And now I saw that archers were posted on the borders of the amphitheatre, bows in readiness, arrows at rest but poised, and the bow-strings lined toward me.

Tibur's doings? Or the priest'atchful lest I should attempt escape? I had no liking for that, but there was no help for it. Luka, Lovely Goddesurn your wheel so no arrow flies before I begin the ritual!

I turned and looked for the mystic screen which was Khalk'ru's doorway from the Void. It was a full hundred paces away from me, so broad and deep was the platform of rock. Here the cavern had been shaped into a funnel. The mystic screen was a gigantic disk, a score of times the height of a tall man. Not the square of lucent yellow through which, in the temples of the Mother-land, Khalk'ru had become corporeal. For the first time I felt a doubas this Being the same? Was there other reason for the High-priest's malignant confidence than his disbelief in me?

But there in the yellow field floated the symbol of the Greater-than-Gods; his vast black body lay as though suspended in a bubble-ocean of yellow space; his tentacles spread like monstrous rays of black stars and his dreadful eyes brooded on the temple as though, as always, they saw all and saw nothing. The symbol was unchanged. The tide of conscious, dark power in my mind, checked for that instant, resumed its upward flow.

And now I saw between me and the screen a semi-circle of women. Young they were, scarce blossomed out of girlhoout already in fruit. Twelve of them I counted, each standing in the shallow hollowed cup of sacrifice, the golden girdles of the sacrifice around their waists. Over white shoulders, over young breasts, fell the veils of their ruddy hair, and through those veils they looked at me with blue eyes in which horror lurked. Yet though they could not hide that horror in their eyes from me who was so close, they hid it from those who watched us from beyond. They stood within the cups, erect, proudly, defiant. Ai! but they were bravhose women of Karak! I felt the olden pity for them; stirring of the olden revolt.

In the centre of the semi-circle of women swung a thirteenth ring, held by strong golden chains dropping from the temple's roof. It was empty, the clasps of the heavy girdle open--

The thirteenth ring! The ring of the Warrior's Sacrifice! Open foe!

I looked at the High-priest. He stood beside his priests squatting at their drums. His gaze was upon me. Tibur stood at the edge of the platform beside the anvil of Tubalka, in his hands the great sledge, on his face reflection of the gloating on that of the High-priest. The Witch-woman I could not see.

The High-priest stepped forward. He spoke into the dark vastness of the temple where was the congregation of the nobles.

"Here stands one who comes to us calling himselwayanu. If he be Dwayanu, then will the Greater-than-Gods, mighty Khalk'ru, hear his prayer and accept the Sacrifices. But if Khalk'ru be deaf to hie is proven cheat and liar. And Khalk'ru will not be deaf to me who have served him faithfully. Then this cheat and liar swings within the Warrior's Ring for Khalk'ru to punish as he wills. Hear me! Is it just? Answer!"

From the depths of the temple came the voices of the witnesses.

"We hear! It is just!"

The High-priest turned to me as if to speak. But if that had been his mind, he changed it. Thrice he raised his staff of golden bells and shook them. Thrice Tibur raised the hammer and smote the anvil of Tubalka.

Out of the depths of the temple came the ancient chant, the ancient supplication which Khalk'ru had taught our forefathers when he chose us from all the peoples of earth, forgotten age upon forgotten age ago. I listened to it as to a nursery song. And Tibur's eyes never left me, his hand on hammer in readiness to hurl and cripple if I tried to flee; nor did Yodin's gaze leave me.

The chant ended.

Swiftly I raised my hands in the ancient sign, and I did with the ring what the ancient ritual orderend through the temple swept that first breath of cold that was presage of the coming of Khalk'ru!

Hai! The faces of Yodin and Tibur when they felt that breath! Would that I could look on them! Laugh now, Tibur! Hai! but they could not stop me now! Not even the Smith would dare hurl hammer nor raise hand to loose arrow storm upon me! Not even Yodin would dare halt m forgot all that. I forgot Yodin and Tibur. I forgot, as ever I forgot, the Sacrifices in the dark exultation of the ritual.

The yellow stone wavered, was shot through with tremblings. It became thin as air. It vanished.

Where it had been, black tentacles quivering, black body hovering, vanishing into immeasurable space, was Khalk'ru!

Faster, louder, beat the drums.

The black tentacles writhed forward. The women did not see them. Their eyes clung to me...as though...as though I held for them some hope that flamed through their despair! I...who had summoned their destroyer...

The tentacles touched them. I saw the hope fade and die. The tentacles coiled round their shoulders. They slid across their breasts. Embraced them. Slipped down their thighs and touched their feet. The drums began their swift upward flight into the crescendo of the Sacrifice's culmination.

The wailing of the women was shrill above the drums. Their white bodies became grey mist. They became shadows. They were gonone before the sound of their wailing had died. The golden girdles fell clashing to the rock--

What was wrong? The ritual was ended. The Sacrifice accepted. Yet Khalk'ru still hovered!

And the lifeless cold was creeping round me, was rising round me...

A tentacle swayed and writhed forward. Slowly, slowly, it passed the Warrior's Riname closeloser--

It was reaching for me!

I heard a voice intoning. Intoning words more ancient than I had ever known. Words? They were not words! They were sounds whose roots struck back and back into a time before ever man drew breath.

It was Yodiodin speaking in a tongue that might have been Khalk'ru's own before ever life was!

Drawing Khalk'ru upon me by it! Sending me along the road the Sacrifices had travelled!

I leaped upon Yodin. I caught him in my arms and thrust him between me and the questing tentacle. I raised Yodin in my arms as though he had been a doll and flung him to Khalk'ru. He went through the tentacle as though it had been cloud. He struck the chains that held the Warrior's Ring. He swung in them, entangled. He slithered down upon the golden girdle.

Hands upraised, I heard myself crying to Khalk'ru those same unhuman syllables. I did not know their meaning then, and do not know them noor from whence knowledge of them came to me...

I know they were sounds the throats and lips of men were never meant to utter!

But Khalk'ru hearnd heeded! He hesitated. His eyes stared at me, unfathomabltared at and through me.

And then the tentacle curled back. It encircled Yodin. A thin screechinnd Yodin was gone!

The living Khalk'ru was gone. Lucent yellow, the bubble-ocean gleamed where he had beehe black shape floated inert within it.

I heard a tinkle upon the rock, the ring of Yodin rolling down the side of the cup. I leaped forward and picked it up.

Tibur, hammer half raised, stood glaring at me beside the anvil. I snatched the sledge from his hand, gave him a blow that sent him reeling.

I raised the hammer and crushed the ring of Yodin on the anvil!

From the temple came a thunderous shout--

"Dwayanu!"

CHAPTER XVIII
WOLVES OF LUR

I rode through the forest with the Witch-woman. The white falcon perched on her gauntleted wrist and cursed me with unwinking golden eyes. It did not like mur's falcon. A score of her women rode behind us. A picked dozen of my own were shield for my back. They rode close. So it was of old. I liked my back covered. It was my sensitive part, whether with friends or foes.

The armourers had fashioned me a jacket of the light chain-mail. I wore it; Lur and our little troop wore them; and each was as fully armed as I with the two swords, the long dagger and the thonged hammer. We were on our way to reconnoitre Sirk.

For five days I had sat on the throne of the High-priest, ruling Karak with the Witch-woman and Tibur. Lur had come to menitent in her own fierce fashion. Tibur, all arrogance and insolence evaporated, had bent the knee, proffering me allegiance, protesting, reasonably enough, that his doubts had been but natural. I accepted his allegiance, with reservations. Sooner or later I would have to kill Tibuven if I had not promised Lur his death. But why kill him before he ceased to be useful? He was a sharp-edged tool? Well, if he cut me in my handling of him, it would be only my fault. Better a crooked sharp knife than a straight dull one.

As for Luhe was sweet woman flesh, and subtle. But did she greatly matter? Not greatlust then. There was a lethargy upon me, a lassitude, as I rode beside her through the fragrant forest.

Yet I had received from Karak homage and acclaim more than enough to soothe any wounded pride. I was the idol of the soldiers. I rode through the streets to the shouts of the people, and mothers held their babes up to look on me. But there were many who were silent when I passed, averting their heads, or glancing at me askance with eyes shadowed by furtive hatred and fear.

Dara, the bold-eyed captain who had warned me of Tibur, and Naral, the swaggering girl who had given me her locket, I had taken for my own and had made them officers of my personal guard. They were devoted and amusing. I had spoken to Dara only that morning of those who looked askance at me, asking why.

"You want straight answer, Lord?"

"Always that, Dara."

She said bluntly:

"They are the ones who looked for a Deliverer. One who would break chains. Open doors. Bring freedom. They say Dwayanu is only another feeder of Khalk'ru. His butcher. Like Yodin. No worse, maybe. No better certainly."

I thought of that strange hope I had seen strangled in the eyes of the sacrifices. They too had hoped me Deliverer, instead of...

"What do you think, Dara?"

"I think as you think, Lord," she answered. "Onlt would not break my heart to see the golden girdles broken."

And I was thinking of that as I rode along with Lur, her falcon hating me with its unwinking glare. What wahalk'ru? Often and often, long and long and long ago, I had wondered that. Could the illimitable cast itself into such a shape as that which came to the call of the wearer of the ring? Or ratheould it? My empire had been widespreander sun and moon and stars. Yet it was a mote in the sun-ray compared to the empire of the Spirit of the Void. Would one so great be content to shrink himself within the mote?

Ai! but there was no doubt that the Enemy of Life was! But was that which came to the summons of the rinhe Enemy of Life? And if nohen was this dark worship worth its cost?

A wolf howled. The Witch-woman threw back her head and answered it. The falcon stretched its wings, screaming. We rode from the forest into an open glade, moss-carpeted. She halted, sent again from her throat the wolf cry.

Suddenly around us was a ring of wolves. White wolves whose glowing green eyes were fixed on Lur. They ringed us, red tongues lolling, fangs glistening. A patter of pads, and as suddenly the circle of wolves was doubled. And others slipped through the trees until the circle was three-fold, four-fold...until it was a wide belt of living white flecked by scarlet flames of wolf-tongues, studded with glinting emeralds of wolf-eyes...

My horse trembled; I smelled its sweat.

Lur drove her knees into the sides of her mount and rode forward. Slowly she paced it round the inner circle of the white wolves. She raised her hand; something she said. A great dog-wolf arose from its haunches and came toward her. Like a dog, it put its paws upon her saddle. She reached down, caught its jowls in her hands. She whispered to it. The wolf seemed to listen. It slipped back to the circle and squatted, watching her. I laughed.

"Are you womar wolf, Lur?"

She said:

"I, too, have my followers, Dwayanu. You could not easily win these from me."

Something in her tone made me look at her sharply. It was the first time that she had shown resentment, or at least chagrin, at my popularity. She did not meet my gaze.

The big dog-wolf lifted its throat and howled. The circles broke. They spread out, padding swiftly ahead of us like scouts. They melted into the green shadows.

The forest thinned. Giant ferns took the place of the trees. I began to hear a curious hissing. Also it grew steadily warmer, and the air filled with moisture, and mist wreaths floated over the ferns. I could see no tracks, yet Lur rode steadily as though upon a well-marked road.

We came to a huge clump of ferns. Lur dropped from her horse.

"We go on foot here, Dwayanu. It is but a little way."

I joined her. The troop drew up but did not alight. The Witch-woman and I slipped through the ferns for a score of paces. The dog-wolf stalked just ahead of her. She parted the fronds. Sirk lay before me.

At right arose a bastion of perpendicular cliff, dripping with moisture, little of green upon it except small ferns clinging to precarious root-holds. At left, perhaps four arrow flights away, was a similar bastion, soaring into the haze. Between these bastions was a level platform of black rock. Its smooth and glistening foundations dropped into a moat as wide as two strong throws of a javelin. The platform curved outward, and from cliff to cliff it was lipped with one unbroken line of fortress.

Hai! But that was a moat! Out from under the right-hand cliff gushed a torrent. It hissed and bubbled as it shot forth, and the steam from it wavered over the cliff face like a great veil and fell upon us in a fine warm spray. It raced boiling along the rock base of the fortress, and jets of steam broke through it and immense bubbles rose and burst, scattering showers of scalding spray.

The fortress itself was not high. It was squat and solidly built, its front unbroken except for arrow slits close to the top. There was a parapet across the top. Upon it I could see the glint of spears and the heads of the guards. In only one part was there anything like towers. These were close to the centre where the boiling moat narrowed. Opposite them, on the farther bank, was a pier for a drawbridge. I could see the bridge, a narrow one, raised and protruding from between the two towers like a tongue.

Behind the fortress, the cliffs swept inward. They did not touch. Between them was a gap about a third as wide as the platform of the fortress. In front of us, on our side of the boiling stream, the sloping ground had been cleared both of trees and ferns. It gave no cover.

They had picked their spot well, these outlaws of Sirk. No besiegers could swim that moat with its hissing jets of live steam and bursting bubbles rising continually from the geysers at its bottom. No stones nor trees could dam it, making a causeway over which to march to batter at the fortress's walls. There was no taking of Sirk from this side. That was clear. Yet there must be more of Sirk than this.

Lur had been following my eyes, reading my thoughts.

"Sirk itself lies beyond those gates," she pointed to the gap between the cliffs. "It is a valley wherein is the city, the fields, the herds. And there is no way into it except through those gates."

I nodded, absently. I was studying the cliffs behind the fortress. I saw that these, unlike the bastions in whose embrace the platform lay, were not smooth. There had been falls of rock, and these rocks had formed rough terraces. If one could get to those terracenseen...

"Can we get closer to the cliff from which the torrent comes, Lur?"

She caught my wrist, her eyes bright.

"What do you see, Dwayanu?"

"I do not know as yet, Witch-woman. Perhaps nothing. Can we get closer to the torrent?"

"Come."

We slipped out of the ferns, skirted them, the dog-wolf walking stiff-legged in the lead, eyes and ears alert. The air grew hotter, vapour-filled, hard to breathe. The hissing became louder. We crept through the ferns, wet to the skins. Another step and I looked straight down upon the boiling torrent. I saw now that it did not come directly from the cliff. It shot up from beneath it, and its heat and its exhalations made me giddy. I tore a strip from my tunic and wrapped it around mouth and nose. I studied the cliff above it, foot by foot. Long I studied it and lonnd then I turned.

"We can go back, Lur."

"What have you seen, Dwayanu?"

What I had seen might be the end of Sirut I did not tell her so. The thought was not yet fully born. It had never been my way to admit others into half-formed plans. It is too dangerous. The bud is more delicate than the flower and should be left to develop free from prying hands or treacherous or even well-meant meddling. Mature your plan and test it; then you can weigh with clear judgment any changes. Nor was I ever strong for counsel; too many pebbles thrown into the spring muddy it. That was one reason I wawayanu. I said to Lur:

"I do not know. I have a thought. But I must weigh it."

She said, angrily:

"I am not stupid. I know was I know love. I could help you."--

I said, impatiently:

"Not yet. When I have made my plan I will tell it to you."

She did not speak again until we were within sight of the waiting women; then she turned to me. Her voice was low, and very sweet:

"Will you not tell me? Are we not equal, Dwayanu?"

"No," I answered, and left her to decide whether that was answer to the first question or both.

She mounted her horse, and we rode back through the forest.

I was thinking, thinking over what I had seen, and what it might mean, when I heard again the howling of the wolves. It was a steady, insistent howling. Summoning. The Witch-woman raised her head, listened, then spurred her horse forward. I shot my own after her. The white falcon fluttered, and beat up into the air, screeching.

We raced out of the forest and upon a flower-covered meadow. In the meadow stood a little man. The wolves surrounded him, weaving around and around one another in a witch-ring. The instant they caught sight of Lur, they ceased their crquatted on their haunches. Lur checked her horse and rode slowly toward them. I caught a glimpse of her face, and it was hard and fierce.

I looked at the little man. Little enough he was, hardly above one of my knees, yet perfectly formed. A little golden man with hair streaming down almost to his feet. One of the Rrrlly had studied the woven pictures of them on the tapestries, but this was the first living one I had seer was it? I had a vague idea that once I had been in closer contact with them than the tapestries.

The white falcon was circling round his head, darting down upon him, striking at him with claws and beak. The little man held an arm before his eyes, while the other was trying to beat the bird away. The Witch-woman sent a shrill call to the falcon. It flew to her, and the little man dropped his arms. His eyes fell upon me.

He cried out to me, held his arms out to me, like a child.

There was appeal in cry and gesture. Hope, too, and confidence. It was like a frightened child calling to one whom it knew and trusted. In his eyes I saw again the hope that I had watched die in the eyes of the Sacrifices. Well, I would not watch it die in the eyes of the little man!

I thrust my horse past Lur's, and lifted it over the barrier of the wolves. Leaning from the saddle, I caught the little man up in my arms. He clung to me, whispering in strange trilling sounds.

I looked back at Lur. She had halted her horse beyond the wolves.

She cried:

"Bring him to me!"

The little man clutched me tight, and broke into a rapid babble of the strange sounds. Quite evidently he had understood, and quite as evidently he was imploring me to do anything other than turn him over to the Witch-woman.

I laughed, and shook my head at her. I saw her eyes blaze with quick, uncontrollable fury. Let her rage! The little man should go safe! I put my heels to the horse and leaped the far ring of wolves. I saw not far away the gleam of the river, and turned my horse toward it.

The Witch-woman gave one wild, fierce cry. And then there was the whirr of wings around my head, and the buffeting of wings about my ears. I threw up a hand. I felt it strike the falcon, and I heard it shriek with rage and pain. The little man shrank closer to me.

A white body shot up and clung for a moment to the pommel of my saddle, green eyes glaring into mine, red mouth slavering. I took a quick glance back. The wolf pack was rushing down upon me, Lur at their heels. Again the wolf leaped. But by this time I had drawn my sword. I thrust it through the white wolf's throat. Another leaped, tearing a strip from my tunic. I held the little man high up in one arm and thrust again.

Now the river was close. And now I was on its bank. I lifted the little man in both hands and hurled him far out into the water.

I turned, both swords in hand, to meet the charge of the wolves.

I heard another cry from Lur. The wolves stopped in their rush, so suddenly that the foremost of them slid and rolled. I looked over the river. Far out on it was the head of the little man, long hair floating behind him, streaking for the opposite shore.

Lur rode up to me. Her face was white, and her eyes were hard as blue jewels. She said in a strangled voice:

"Why did you save him?"

I considered that, gravely. I said:

"Because not twice would I see hope die in the eyes of one who trusts me."

She watched me, steadily; and the white-hot anger did not abate.

"You have broken the wings of my falcon, Dwayanu."

"Which do you love best. Witch-womats wing or my eyes?"

"You have killed two of my wolves."

"Two wolver my throat, Lur?"

She did not answer. She rode slowly back to her women. But I had seen tears in her eyes before she turned. They might have been of ragr they might not. But it was the first time I had ever seen Lur weep.

With never a word to each other we rode back to Karahe nursing the wounded falcon, I thinking over what I had seen on the cliffs of Sirk.

We did not stop at Karak. I had a longing for the quiet and beauty of the Lake of the Ghosts. I told Lur that. She assented indifferently, so we went straight on and came to it just as the twilight was thickening. With the women, we dined together in the great hall. Lur had shaken off her moodiness. If she still felt wrath toward me, she hid it well. We were merry and I drank much wine. The more I drank the clearer became my plan for the taking of Sirk. It was a good plan. After awhile, I went up with Lur to her tower and watched the waterfall and the beckoning mist wraiths, and the plan became clearer still.

Then my mind turned back to that matter of Khalk'ru. And I thought over that a long while. I looked up and found Lur's gaze intent upon me.

"What are you thinking, Dwayanu?"

"I am thinking that never again will I summon Khalk'ru."

She said, slowly, incredulously:

"You cannot mean that, Dwayanu!"

"I do mean it."

Her face whitened. She said:

"If Khalk'ru is not offered his Sacrifice, he will withdraw life from this land. It will become desert, as did the Mother-land when the Sacrifices were ended."

I said:

"Will it? That is what I have ceased to believe. Nor do I think you believe it, Lur. In the olden days there was land upon land which did not acknowledge Khalk'ru, whose people did not sacrifice to Khalk'ret they were not desert. And I know, even though I do not know how I know, that there is land upon land to-day where Khalk'ru is not worshippeet life teems in them. Even herhe Rrrllya, the Little People, do not worship him. They hate hir so you have told met the land over Nanbu is no less fertile than here."

She said:

"That was the whisper that went through the Mother-land, long and long and long ago. It became loudend the Mother-land became desert."

"There might have been other reasons than Khalk'ru's wrath for that, Lur."

"What were they?"

"I do not know," I said. "But you have never seen the sun and moon and stars. I have seen them. And a wise old man once told me that beyond sun and moon were other suns with other earths circling them, and upon theife. The Spirit of the Void in which burn these suns should be too vast to shrink itself to such littleness as that which, in a little temple in this little comer of all earth, makes itself manifest to us."

She answered:

"Khalk'ru is! Khalk'ru is everywhere. He is in the tree that withers, the spring that dries. Every heart is open to him. He touches ind there comes weariness of life, hatred of life, desire for eternal death. He touches earth and there is sterile sand where meadows grew; the flocks grow barren. Khalk'ru is."

I thought over that, and I thought it was true enough. But there was a flaw in her argument.

"Nor do I deny that, Lur," I answered. "The Enemy of Life is. But is what comes to the ritual of the rinhalk'ru?"

"What else? So it has been taught from ancient days."

"I do not know what else. And many things have been taught from ancient days which would not stand the test. But I do not believe that which comes is Khalk'ru, Soul of the Void, He-to-Whom-All-Life-Must-Return and all the rest of his titles. Nor do I believe that if we end the Sacrifices life will end here with them."

She said, very quietly:

"Hear me, Dwayanu. Whether that which comes to the Sacrifices be Khalk'ru or another matters not at all to me. All that matters is this: I do not want to leave this land, and I would keep it unchanged. I have been happy here. I have seen the sun and moon and stars. I have seen the outer earth in my waterfall yonder. I would not go into it. Where would I find a place so lovely as this my Lake of the Ghosts? If the Sacrifices end, they whom only fear keeps here will go. They will be followed by more and more. The old life I love ends with the Sacrificeurely. For if desolation comes, we shall be forced to go. And if it does not come, the people will know that they have been taught lies, and will go to see whether what is beyond be not fairer, happier, than here. So it has always been. I say to you, Dwayant shall not be here!"

She waited for me to answer. I did not answer.

"If you do not wish to summon Khalk'ru, then why not choose another in your place?"

I looked at her sharply. I was not ready to go quite that far as yet. Give up the ring, with all its power!

"There is another reason, Dwayanu, than those you have given me. What is it?"

I said, bluntly:

"There are many who call me feeder of Khalk'ru. Butcher for him. I do not like that. Nor do I like to sehat I sen the eyes of the women I feed him."

"So that is it," she said, contemptuously. "Sleep has made you soft, Dwayanu! Better tell me your plan to take Sirk and let me carry it out! You have grown too tender-hearted for war, I think!"

That stung me, swept all my compunctions away. I jumped up, knocking away the chair, half-raised my hand to strike her. She faced me, boldly, no trace of fear in her eyes. I dropped my hand.

"But not so soft that you can mould me to your will, Witch," I said. "Nor do I go back on my bargains. I have given you Yodin. I shall give you Sirk, and all else I have promised. Till theet this matter of the Sacrifices rest. When shall I give you Tibur?"

She put her hands on my shoulders and smiled into my angry eyes. She clasped her hands around my neck and brought my lips down to her warm red ones.

"Now," she whispered, "you are Dwayanu! Now the one I lovh, Dwayanu, if you but loved me as I love you!"

Well, as for that, I loved her as much as I could any woman... After all, there was none like her. I swung her up and held her tight, and the old recklessness, the old love of life poured through me.

"You shall have Sirk! And Tibur when you will."

She seemed to consider.

"Not yet," she said. "He is strong, and he has his followers. He will be useful at Sirk, Dwayanu. Not before theurely."

"It was precisely what I was thinking," I said. "On one thing at least we agree."

"Let us have wine upon our peace," she said, and called to her serving-women.

"But there is another thing also upon which we agree." She looked at me strangely.

"What is it?" I asked.

"You yourself have said it," she answerend more than that I could not get her to say. It was long before I knew what she had meant, and then it was too late...

It was good wine. I drank more than I should have. But clearer and clearer grew my plan for the taking of Sirk.

It was late next morning when I awoke. Lur was gone. I had slept as though drugged. I had the vaguest memory of what had occurred the night before, except that Lur and I had violently disagreed about something. I thought of Khalk'ru not at all. I asked Ouarda where Lur had gone. She said that word had been brought early that two women set apart for the next Sacrifice had managed to escape. Lur thought they were making their way to Sirk. She was hunting them with the wolves. I felt irritated that she had not roused me and taken me with her. I thought that I would like to see those white brutes of hers in action. They were like the great dogs we had used in Ayjirland to track similar fugitives.

I did not go into Karak. I spent the day at sword-play and wrestling, and swimming in the Lake of the Ghostfter my headache had worn off.

Close toward nightfall Lur returned.

"Did you catch them?" I asked.

"No," she said. "They got to Sirk safely. We were just in time to see them half-across the drawbridge."

I thought she was rather indifferent about it, but gave the matter no further thought. And that night she was gand most tender toward me. Sometimes so tender that I seemed to detect another emotion in her kisses. It seemed to me that they weregretful. And I gave that no thought then either.

CHAPTER XIX
THE TAKING OF SIRK

Again I rode through the forest toward Sirk, with Lur at my left hand and Tibur beside her. At my back were my two captains, Dara and Naral. Close at our heels came Ouarda, with twelve slim, strong girls, fair skins stained strangely green and black, and naked except for a narrow belt around their waists. Behind these rode four score of the nobles with Tibur's friend Rascha at their head. And behind them marched silently a full thousand of Karak's finest fighting women.

It was night. It was essential to reach the edge of the forest before the last third of the stretch between midnight and dawn. The hoofs of the horses were muffled so that no sharp ears might hear their distant tread, and the soldiers marched in open formation, noiselessly. Five days had passed since I had first looked on the fortress.

They had been five days of secret, careful preparation. Only the Witch-woman and the Smith knew what I had in mind. Secret as we had been, the rumour had spread that we were preparing for a sortie against the Rrrllya. I was well content with that. Not until we had gathered to start did even Rascha, or so I believed, know that we were headed toward Sirk. This so no word might be carried there to put them on guard, for I knew well that those we menaced had many friends in Karaight have them among the ranks that slipped along behind us. Surprise was the essence of my plan. Therefore the muffling of the horses' hoofs. Therefore the march by night. Therefore the silence as we passed through the forest. And therefore it was that when we heard the first howling of Lur's wolves the Witch-woman slipped from her horse and disappeared in the luminous green darkness.

We halted, awaiting her return. None spoke; the howls were stilled; she came from the trees and remounted. Like well-trained dogs the white wolves spread ahead of us, nosing over the ground we still must travel, ruthless scouts which no spy nor chance wanderer, whether from or to Sirk, could escape.

I had desired to strike sooner than this, had chafed at the delay, had been reluctant to lay bare my plan to Tibur. But Lur had pointed out that if the Smith were to be useful at Sirk's taking he would have to be trusted, and that he would be less dangerous if informed and eager than if uninformed and suspicious. Well, that was true. And Tibur was a first-class fighting man with strong friends.

So I had taken him into my confidence and told him what I had observed when first I had stood with Lur beside Sirk's boiling moahe vigorously growing clumps of ferns which extended in an almost unbroken, irregular line high up and across the black cliff, from the forest on the hither side and over the geyser-spring, and over the parapets. It betrayed, I believed, a slipping or cracking of the rock which had formed a ledge. Along that ledge, steady-nerved, sure-footed climbers might creep, and make their way unseen into the fortresnd there do for us what I had in mind.

Tibur's eyes had sparkled, and he had laughed as I had not heard him laugh since my ordeal by Khalk'ru. He had made only one comment.

"The first link of your chain is the weakest, Dwayanu."

"True enough. But it is forged where Sirk's chain of defence is weakest."

"Nevertheles would not care to be the first to test that link."

For all my lack of trust, I had warmed to him for that touch of frankness.

"Thank the gods for your weight then, Anvil-smiter," I had said. "I cannot see those feet of yours competing for toe-holds with ferns. Otherwise I might have picked you."

I had looked down at the sketch I had drawn to make the matter clearer.

"We must strike quickly. How long before we can be in readiness, Lur?"

I had raised my eyes in time to see a swift glance pass between the two. Whatever suspicion I may have felt had been fleeting. Lur had answered, quickly.

"So far as the soldiers are concerned, we could start to-night. How long it will take to pick the climbers, I cannot tell. Then I must test them. All that will take time."

"How long, Lur? We must be swift."

"Three dayive day will be swift as may be. Beyond that I will not promise."

With that I had been forced to be content. And now, five nights later, we marched on Sirk. It was neither dark nor light in the forest; a strange dimness floated over us; the glimmer of the flowers was our torch. All the fragrances were of life. But it was death whose errand we were on.

The weapons of the soldiers were covered so that there could be no betraying glints; spear-heads darkeneo shining of metal upon any of us. On the tunics of the soldiers was the Wheel of Luka, so that friend would not be mistaken for foe once we were behind the walls of Sirk. Lur had wanted the Black Symbol of Khalk'ru.

I would not have it. We reached the spot where we had decided to leave the horses. And here in silence our force separated. Under leadership of Tibur and Rascha, the others crept through wood and fern-brake to the edge of the clearing opposite the drawbridge.

With the Witch-woman and myself went a scant dozen of the nobles, Ouarda with the naked girls, a hundred of the soldiers. Each of these had bow and quiver in well-protected cases on their backs. They carried the short battleaxe, long sword and dagger. They bore the long, wide rope ladder I had caused to be made, like those I had used long and long ago to meet problems similar to this of Sirut none with its peculiarly forbidding aspects. They carried another ladder, long and flexible and of wood. I was armed only with battleaxe and long sword, Lur and the nobles with the throwing hammers and swords.

We stole toward the torrent whose hissing became louder with each step.

Suddenly I halted, drew Lur to me.

"Witch-woman, can you truly talk to your wolves?"

"Truly, Dwayanu."

"I am thinking it would be no bad plan to draw eyes and ears from this end of the parapet. If some of your wolves would fight and howl and dance a bit there at the far bastion for the amusement of the guards, it might help us here."

She sent a low call, like the whimper of a she-wolf. Almost instantly the head of the great dog-wolf which had greeted her on our first ride lifted beside her. Its hackles bristled as it glared at me. But it made no sound. The Witch-woman dropped to her knees beside it, took its head in her arms, whispering. They seemed to whisper together. And then as suddenly as it had appeared, it was gone. Lur arose, in her eyes something of the green fire of the wolf's.

"The guards shall have their amusement."

I felt a little shiver along my back, for this was true witchcraft. But I said nothing and we went on. We came to that place from which I had scanned the cliff. We parted the ferns and peered out upon the fortress.

Thus it was. At our right, a score of paces away, soared the sheer wall of the cliff which, continuing over the boiling torrent, formed this nearer bastion. The cover in which we lurked ran up to it, was thrown back like a green wave from its base. Between our cover and the moat was a space not more than a dozen paces across, made barren by the hot spray that fell on it. Here, the walls of the fortress were not more than a javelin cast distant. The wall and the parapet touched the cliff, but hardly could they be seen through the thick veils of steam. And this was what I had meant when I had said that our weakest link would be forged where Sirk's defences were weakest. For no sentinels stood at this corner. With the heat and steam and exhalations from the geyser, there was no neer so they thought. How, here at its hottest source, could the torrent be crossed? Who could scale that smooth and dripping cliff? Of all the defences, this spot was the impregnable one, unnecessary to guarr so they thought. Therefore it was the exact point to attacf it could be done.

I studied it. Not for full two hundred paces was there a single sentinel. From somewhere behind the fortress came the glare of a fire. It cast flickering shadows on the terraces of fallen rock beyond the bastioning cliffs; and that was good, since if we gained their shelter, we, too, would seem but flickering shadows. I beckoned Ouarda, and pointed to the rocks which were to be the goal of the naked girls. They were close to the cliff where it curved inward beyond the parapet, and they were about the height of twenty tall men above where we hid. She drew the girls to her and instructed them. They nodded, their eyes dropping swiftly to the cauldron of the moat, then turning to the glistening precipice. I saw some of them shudder. Well, I could not hold that against them, no!

We crept back and found the base of the cliff. Here were enough and to spare of rock holds for the grapnels of the ladder. We unwound the rope ladder. We set the wooden ladder against the cliff. I pointed out the ledge that might be the key to Sirk, counselled the climbers as best I could. I knew that the ledge could not be much wider than the span of a hand. Yet above it and below it were small crevices, pockets, where fingers and toes could grip, for clumps of ferns sprouted there.

Hai! But they had courage, those slim girls. We fastened to their belts long strong cords which would slip through our hands as they crept along. And they looked at one another's stained faces and bodies and laughed. The first went up the ladder like a squirrel, got foothold and handhold and began to edge across. In an instant she had vanished, the green and black with which her body was stained merging into the dim green and black of the cliff. Slowly, slowly, the first cord slipped through my fingers.

Another followed her, and another, until I held six cords. And now the others climbed up and crept out on the perilous path, their leashes held in the strong hands of the Witch-woman.

Hai! But that was queer fishing! With will strained toward keeping these girl-fish out of water! Slowlods, but how slowlhe cords crept through my fingers! Through the fingers of the Witch-woman... slowly...slowly...but ever on and on.

Now that first slim girl must be over the cauldron...I had swift vision of her clinging to the streaming rock, the steam of the cauldron clothing her...

That line slackened in my hand. It slackened, then ran out so swiftly that it cut the skin...slackened again...a tug upon it as of a great fish racing away...I felt the line snap. The girl had fallen! Was now dissolving flesh in the cauldron!

The second cord slackened and tugged and snapped...and the third...Three of them gone! I whispered to Lur:

"Three are gone!"

"And two!" she said. I saw that her eyes were tightly closed, but the hands that clutched the cords were steady.

Five of those slim girls! Only seven left! Lukpin your wheel!

On and on, slowly, with many a halt, the remaining cords crept through my fingers. Now the fourth girl must be over the moat...must be over the parapet...must be well on her way to the rocks...my heart beat in my throat, half-strangling me...Godhe sixth had fallen! "Another!" I groaned to Lur. "And another!" she whispered, and cast the end of a cord from her hand.

Five left...only five now...Luka, a temple to you in Karall your own, sweet goddess!

What was that? A pull upon a cord, and twice repeated! The signal! One had crossed! Honour and wealth to you, slim girl...

"All gone but one, Dwayanu!" whispered the Witch-woman.

I groaned again, and glared at her...Again the twitchepon my fifth cord! Another safe! "My last is over!" whispered Lur. Three safe! Three hidden among the rocks. The fishing was done. Sirk had stolen three-fourths of my bait.

But Sirk was hooked!

Weakness like none I had known melted bones and muscles. Lur's face was white as chalk, black shadows under staring eyes.

Well, now it was our turn. The slim maids who had fallen might soon have company!

I took the cord from Lur. Sent the signal. Felt it answered.

We cut the cords, and knotted their ends to heavier strands. And when they had run out we knotted to their ends a stronger, slender rope.

It crept awand awand away--

And now for the laddehe bridge over which we must go.

It was light but strong, that ladder. Woven cunningly in a way thought out long and long ago. It had claws at each end which, once they had gripped, were not easily opened.

We fastened that ladder's end to the slender rope. It slipped away from us...over the ferns...out into the hot breath of the cauldron...through it.

Invisible within that breath...invisible against the green dusk of the cliff...on and on it crept...

The three maids had it! They were making it fast. Under my hands it straightened and stiffened. We drew it taut from our end. We fastened our grapnels.

The road to Sirk was open!

I turned to the Witch-woman. She stood, her gaze far and far away. In her eyes was the green fire of her wolves. And suddenly over the hissing of the torrent, I heard the howling of her wolvear and far away.

She relaxed; her head dropped; she smiled at me--"Yeruly can I talk to my wolves, Dwayanu!"

I walked to the ladder, tested it. It was strong, secure.

"I go first, Lur. Let none follow me until I have crossed. Then do you, Dara and Naral, climb to guard my back."

Lur's eyes blazed.

"I follow you. Your captains come after me."

I considered that. Welet it be.

"As you say, Lur. But do not follow until I have crossed. Then let Ouarda send the soldiers. Ouardot more than ten may be on the ladder at a time. Bind cloths over their mouths and nostrils before they start. Count thirtlowly, like thiefore each sets forth behind the other. Fasten axe and sword between my shoulders, Lur. See to it that all bear their weapons so. Watch now, how I use my hands and feet."

I swung upon the ladder, arms and legs opened wide. I began to climb it. Like a spider. Slowly, so they could learn. The ladder swayed but little; its angle was a good one.

And now I was above the fern-brake. And now I was at the edge of the torrent. Above it. The stream swirled round me. It hid me. The hot breath of the geyser shrivelled me. Nor could I see anything of the ladder except the strands beneath me...

Thank Luka for that! If what was before me was hiddeo was I hidden from what was before me!

I was through the steam. I had passed the cliff. I was above the parapet. I dropped from the ladder, among the rocknseen. I shook the ladder. There was a quivering response. There was weight upon it... more weight...and more...

I unstrapped axe and sword--

"Dwayanu--"

I turned. There were the three maids. I began to praise theolding back laughter. Green and black had run and combined under bath of steam into grotesque pattern.

"Nobles you are, maids! From this moment! Green and black your colours. What you have done this night will long be a tale in Karak."

I looked toward the battlements. Between us and them was a smooth floor of rock and sand, less than half a bow-shot wide. A score of soldiers stood around the fire. There was a larger group on the parapet close to the towers of the bridge. There were more at the farther end of the parapet, looking at the wolves.

The towers of the drawbridge ran straight down to the rocky floor. The tower at the left was blank wall. The tower at the right had a wide gate. The gate was open, unguarded, unless the soldiers about the fire were its guards. Down from between the towers dropped a wide ramp, the approach to the bridge-head.

There was a touch on my arm. Lur was beside me. And close after her came my two captains. After them, one by one, the soldiers. I bade them string bows, set arrows. One by one they melted out of the green darkness, slipped by me. They made ready in the shadow of the rocks.

One scorwo score...a shriek cut like an arrow through the hissing of the torrent! The ladder trembled. It shoond twisted...Again the despairing cry...the ladder fell slack!

"Dwayanhe ladder is broken? Auarda--"

"Quiet, Lur! They may have heard that shrieking. The ladder could not break..."

"Draw it in, Dwayanraw it in!"

Together we pulled upon it. It was heavy. We drew it in like a net, and swiftly. And suddenly it was of no weight at all. It rushed into our hands--

Its ends were severed as though by knife slash or axe blow.

"Treachery!" I said.

"But treachery...how...with Ouarda on guard."

I crept, crouching, behind the shadow of the rocks.

"Darpread out the soldiers. Tell Naral to slip to the farther end. On the signal, let them loose their arrows. Three flights only. The first at those around the fire. The second and the third at those on the walls closest to the towers. Then follow me. You understand me?"

"It is understood, Lord."

The word went along the line; I heard the bowstrings whisper.

"We are fewer than I like, Luet nothing for us but to go through with it. No way out of Sirk now but the way of the sword."

"I know. It is of Ouarda I am thinking..." Her voice trembled.

"She is safe. If treachery had been wide-spread, we would have heard sounds of fighting. No more talking, Lur. We must move swiftly. After the third arrow flight, we rush the tower gate."

I gave the signal. Up rose the archers. Straight upon those around the fire flew their shafts. They left few alive. Instantly upon those around the towers of the bridge whistled a second arrow storm.

Hai! But that was straight shooting! See them fall! Once more--

Whistle of feathered shaft! Song of the bow-string! Godut this is to live again!

I dropped down the rocks, Lur beside me. The soldier women poured after us. Straight to the tower door we sped. We were half-way there before those upon the long parapet awakened.

Shouts rang. Trumpets blared, and the air was filled with the brazen clangour of a great gong bellowing the alarm to Sirk asleep behind the gap. We sped on. Javelins dropped among us, arrows whistled. From other gates along the inner walls guards began to emerge, racing to intercept us.

We were at the door of the bridge towernd through it!

But not all. A third had fallen under javelin and arrow. We swung the stout door shut. We dropped across it the massive bars that secured it. And not an instant too soon. Upon the door began to beat the sledges of the tricked guards.

The chamber was of stone, huge and bare. Except for the door through which we had come, there was no opening. I saw the reason for thaever had Sirk expected to be attacked from within. There were arrow slits high up, looking over the moat, and platforms for archers. At one side were cogs and levers which raised and lowered the bridge.

All this I took in at one swift glance. I leaped over to the levers, began to manipulate them. The cogs revolved.

The bridge was falling!

The Witch-woman ran up to the platform of the archers; she peered out; set horn to lips; she sent a long call through the arrow sliummoning signal for Tibur and his host.

The hammering against the door had ceased. The blows against it were stronger, more regular-timed. The battering of a ram. The stout wood trembled under them; the bars groaned, Lur called to me:

"The bridge is down, Dwayanu! Tibur is rushing upon it. It grows lighter. Dawn is breaking. They have brought their horses!"

I cursed.

"Luka, sent him wit not to pound across that bridge on horse!"

"He is doing it...he and Rascha and a handful of others only... the rest are dismounting..."

"Hahey are shooting at them from the arrow slits...the javelins rain among them...Sirk takes toll..."

There was a thunderous crash against the door. The wood split...

A roaring tumult. Shouts and battle cries. Ring of sword upon sword and the swish of arrows. And over it all the laughter of Tibur.

No longer was the ram battering at the door.

I threw up the bars, raised axe in readiness, opened the great gate a finger's breadth and peered out.

The soldiers of Karak were pouring down the ramp from the bridge-head.

I opened the door wider. The dead of the fortress lay thick around tower base and bridge-head.

I stepped through the door. The soldiers saw me.

"Dwayanu!" rang their shout.

From the fortress still came the clamour of the great gonarning Sirk.

Siro longer sleeping!

CHAPTER XX
"TSANTAWU-FAREWELL!"

There was a humming as of a disturbed gigantic hive beyond Sirk's gap. Trumpet blasts and the roll of drums. Clang of brazen gongs answering that lonely one which beat from the secret heart of the raped fortress. And ever Karak's women-warriors poured over the bridge until the space behind the fortress filled with them.

The Smith wheeled his steeaced me. "Godibur! But that was well done!"

"Never done but for you, Dwayanu! You saw, you kneou did. Ours the least part."

Well, that was true. But I was close to liking Tibur then. Life of my blood! It had been no play to lead that charge against the bridge end. The Smith was a soldier! Let him be only half loyal to mnd Khalk'ru take the Witch-woman!

"Sweep the fortress clean, Anvil-smiter. We want no arrows at our backs."

"It is being swept, Dwayanu."

By brooms of sword and spear, by javelin and arrow, the fortress was swept dean.

The clamour of the brazen gong died on a part stroke.

My stallion rested his nose on my shoulder, blew softly against my ear.

"You did not forget my horse! My hand to you, Tibur!"

"You lead the charge, Dwayanu!" I leaped upon the stallion. Battleaxe held high I wheeled and galloped toward the gap. Like the point of a spear I sped, Tibur at my left, the Witch-woman at my right, the nobles behind us, the soldiers sweeping after us.

We hurled ourselves through the cliffed portal of Sirk.

A living wave lifted itself to throw us back. Hammers flew, axes hewed, javelins and spears and feathered shafts sleeted us. My horse tottered and dropped, screaming, his hinder hocks cut through. I felt a hand upon my shoulder, dragging me to my feet. The Witch-woman smiled at me. She sliced with her sword the arm drawing me down among the dead. With axe and sword we cleared a ring around us. I threw myself on the back of a grey from which a noble had fallen, bristling with arrows.

We thrust forward against the living wave. It gave, curling round us.

On and on! Cut sword and hew axe! Cut and slash and batter through!

The curling wave that tore at us was beaten down. We were through the gap. Sirk lay before us.

I reined in my horse. Sirk lay before uut too invitingly!

The city nestled in a hollow between sheer, unscalable black walls. The lip of the gap was higher than the roof of the houses. They began an arrow flight away. It was a fair city. There was no citadel nor forts; there were no temples nor palaces. Only houses of stone, perhaps a thousand of them, flat roofed, set wide apart, gardens around them, a wide street straying among them, tree-bordered. There were many lanes. Beyond the city fertile field upon field, and flowering orchards.

And no battle ranks arrayed against us. The way open.

Too open!

I caught the glint of arms on the housetops. There was the noise of axes above the blaring of trumpets and the roll of the kettle-drums.

Hai! They were barricading the wide street with their trees, preparing a hundred ambushes for us, expecting us to roll down in force.

Spreading the net in the sight of Dwayanu!

Yet they were good tactics. The best defence I had met with it in many a war against the barbarians. It meant we must fight for every step, with every house a fort, with arrows searching for us from every window and roof. They had a leader here in Sirk, to arrange such reception on such brief notice! I had respect for that leader, whoever he might be. He had picked the only possible way to victornless those against whom he fought knew the countermove.

And that, hard earned, I did know.

How long could this leader keep Sirk within its thousand forts? There, always, lay the danger in this defence. The overpowering impulse of a pierced city is to swarm out upon its invaders as ants and bees do from their hills and nests. Not often is there a leader strong enough to hold them back. If each house of Sirk could remain linked to the other, each ever an active part of the wholhen Sirk might be unconquerable. But how, when they began to be cut off, one by one? Isolated? The leader's will severed?

Hai! Then it is that despair creeps through every chink! They are drawn out by fury and despair as though by ropes. They pour ouo kill or to be killed. The cliff crumbles, stone by stone. The cake is eaten by the attackers, crumb by crumb.

I divided our soldiers, and sent the first part against Sirk in small squads, with orders to spread and to take advantage of all cover. They were to take the outer fringe of houses, at all costs, shooting their arrows up in the high curved flight against the defenders while others hammered their way into those houses. Still others were to attack farther on, but never getting too far from their comrades nor from the broad way running through the city.

I was casting a net over Sirk and did not want its meshes broken.

By now it was broad daylight.

The soldiers moved forward. I saw the arrows stream up and down, twisting among each other like serpents...I heard the axe-blows on the doors...By Luka! There floats a banner of Karak from one of the roofs! And another.

The hum of Sirk shot higher, became louder, in it a note of madness. Hai! I knew they could not long stand this nibbling! And I knew that sound! Soon it would rise to frenzy. Drone from that into despair!

Hai! Not long now before they came tumbling out...

Tibur was cursing at my elbow. I looked at Lur, and she was trembling. The soldiers were murmuring, straining at the leash, mad to join battle. I looked at their blue eyes, hard and cold; their faces beneath the helmet-caps were not those of women but of young warriors...those who sought in them for woman's mercy would have rude awakening!

"By Zarda! But the fight will be done before we can dip blade!" I laughed.

"Patience, Tibur! Patience is our strong weapon. Sirk's strongesf they but knew it. Let them be first to lose that weapon."

The turmoil grew louder. At the head of the street appeared half a hundred of Karak's soldiers, struggling against more than equal number which steadily, swiftly, was swelled by others of Sirk pouring from side lanes and dropping from roofs and windows of the beleaguered houses.

It was the moment for which I had waited!

I gave the command. I raised the battle-cry. We drove down upon them. Our skirmishers opened to let us through, melting into the shouting ranks behind. We ripped into the defenders of Sirk. Down they went, but as they fell they fought, and many a saddle of the nobles was empty, and many were the steeds lost before we won to the first barricade.

Hai! But how they fought us there from behind the hastily felled treeomen and men and children hardly big enough to bend the bow or wield the knife!

Now the soldiers of Karak began to harry them from the sides; the soldiers of Karak shot into them from the tops of the houses they had abandoned; we fought Sirk as it had planned to fight us. And those who fought against us soon broke and fled, and we were over the barricade. Battling, we reached the heart of Sirk, a great and lovely square in which fountains played and flowers blossomed. The spray of the fountains was crimson and there were no flowers when we left that square.

We paid heavy toll there. Full half of the nobles were slain. A spear had struck my helmet and well-nigh dropped me. Bare-headed, blood-flecked I rode, shouting, sword dripping red. Naral and Dara both bore wounds, but still guarded my back. The Witch-woman, and the Smith and his scarred familiar fought on, untouched.

There was a thunder of hoofs. Down upon us swept a wave of horsemen. We raced toward them. We struck like two combers. Surged up. Mingled. Flash swords! Hammers smite! Axes cleave! Hai! But now it was hand-to-hand in the way I knew best and best loved!

We swirled in a mad whirlpool. I glanced at right and saw the Witch-woman had been separated from me. Tibur, too, was gone. Well, they were giving good account of themselves no doubherever they were.

I swung to right and to left with my sword. In the front of those who fought us, over the caps of Karak which had swirled between us, was a dark face...a dark face whose black eyes looked steadily into minteadily...steadily. At the shoulder of that man was a slighter figure whose clear, brown eyes stared at me...steadily...steadily. In the black eyes was understanding and sorrow. The brown eyes were filled with hate.

Black eyes and brown eyes touched something deep and deep within me...They were rousing that something...calling to it...something that had been sleeping.

I heard my own voice shouting command to cease fighting, and at that shout abruptly all sound of battle close by was stilled. Sirk and Karak alike stood silent, amazed, staring at me. I thrust my horse through the press of bodies, looked deep into the black eyes.

And wondered why I had dropped my sword...why I stood thus...and why the sorrow in those eyes racked my heart...The dark-faced man spokwo words--

"Leif!...Degataga!"

That something which had been asleep was wide awake, rushing up through me...rocking my brain...tearing at it...shaking every nerve...

I heard a crhe voice of the Witch-woman.

A horse burst through the ring of the soldiers. Upon it was Rascha, lips drawn back over his teeth, cold eyes glaring into mine. His arm came up. His dagger gleamed, and was hidden in the back of the man who had called megataga!

Had called me--

Gout I knew him!

Tsantawu! Jim!

The sleeping thing that had awakened was all awake...it had my brain...it was myself...Dwayanu forgotten!

I threw my horse forward.

Rascha's arm was up for second strokhe brown-eyed rider was swinging at him with sword, and Jim was falling, settling over his horse's mane.

I caught Rascha's arm before the dagger could descend again. I caught his arm, bent it back, and heard the bone snap. He howleike a wolf.

A hammer hummed by my head, missing it by a hair. I saw Tibur drawing it back by its thong.

I leaned and lifted Rascha from his saddle. His sound arm swept up, hand clutching at my throat. I caught the wrist and twisted that arm back. I snapped it as I had the other.

My horse swerved. With one hand at Rascha's throat, the other arm holding him, I toppled from the saddle bearing him down with me. I fell upon him. I twisted, and threw him over the bar of my knee. My hand slipped from his throat to his chest. My right leg locked over his.

A swift downward thrus sound like the breaking of a faggot. The Back-breaker would break no more backs. His own was broken.

I leaped to my feet. Looked up into the face of the brown-eyed rider...Evalie!...

I cried out to her--"Evalie!"

Abruptly, all about me the battle broke out afresh. Evalie turned to meet the charge. I saw Tibur's great shoulders rise behind her... saw him snatch her from her horse...saw from his left hand a flash of light...It sped toward me...I was hurled aside. None too sooot soon enough--

Something caught me a glancing blow upon the side of my head. I went down upon my knees and hands, blind and dizzy. I heard Tibur laughing; I strove to conquer blind dizziness and nausea, felt blood streaming down my face.

And crouching, swaying on knees and hands, heard the tide of battle sweep around and over and past me.

My head steadied. The blindness was passing. I was still on my hands and knees. Under me was the body of a ma man whose black eyes were fixed on mine with understandinith love!

I felt a touch on my shoulder; with difficulty I looked up. It was Dara.

"A hair between life and death. Lord. Drink this."

She put a phial to my lips. The bitter, fiery liquid coursed through me, brought steadiness, brought strength. I could see there was a ring of soldier-women around me, guarding meyond them a ring of others, on horses.

"Can you hear me, Leif?...I haven't much time..."

I lurched aside and knelt.

"Jim! Jim! Oh, Gohy did you come here? Take this sword and kill me!"

He reached for my hand, held it tight.

"Don't be a damned fool, Leif! You couldn't help it...but you've got to save Evalie!"

"I've got to save you, Tsantawet you out of here--"

"Shut up and listen. I've got mine, Leif, and I know it. That blade went through the mail right into the lungs...I'm trickling ounside...hell, Leion't take it so hard...It might have been in the war...It might have been any time...It's not your fault..."

A sob shook me, tears mingled with the blood upon my face.

"But I killed him, Ji killed him!"

"I know, Leif...a neat job...I saw you...but there's something I've got to tell you..." his voice faltered.

I put the phial to his lipt brought him back.

"Just now...Evalie...hates you! You have to save her...Leif ... whether she does or not. Listen. Word came to us from Sirk through the Little People that you wanted us to meet you there. You were pretending to be Dwayanu...pretending to remember nothing but Dwayanu...to allay suspicion and to gain power. You were going to slip away...come to Sirk, and lead it against Karak. You needed me to stand beside you...needed Evalie to persuade the pygmies..."

"I sent you no message, Jim!" I groaned.

"I know you didn'ow...But we believed it...You saved Sri from the wolves and defied the Witch-woman--"

"Jiow long was it after Sri's escape that the lying message came?"

"Two days...What does it matter? I'd told Evalie what waronith you...gone over your story again and again. She didn't understand...but she took me on faith...Some more of that stuff, Leif...I'm going..."

Again the fiery draught revived him.

"We reached Sirk...two days ago...across the river with Sri and twenty pygmies...it was easy...too easy...not a wolf howled, although I knew the beasts were watching us...stalking us...and the others did, too. We waited...then came the attack...and then I knew we had been trapped...How did you get over those geysers...Big Fellow...never mind...but...Evalie believes you sent the message...you...black treachery..."

His eyes closed. Cold, cold were his hands.

"Tsantawrotheou do not believe! Tsantawome back...speak to me..."

His eyes opened, but hardly could I hear him speak--

"You're not Dwayaneif? Not nor ever again?"

"No, Tsantawu...don't leave me!"

"Bend...your head...closer, Leif...keep fighting...save Evalie."

Fainter grew his voice:

"Good-bye...Degataga...not your fault..."

A ghost of the old sardonic smile passed over the white face.

"You didn't pick your...damned...ancestors!...Worse luck...We've had...hell of good times...together... Save...Evalie..."

There was a gush of blood from his mouth.

Jim was dead...was dead.

Tsantawo more!

BOOK OF LEIF

CHAPTER XXI
RETURN TO KARAK

I leaned over Jim and kissed his forehead. I arose. I was numb with sorrow. But under that numbness seethed a tortured rage, a tortured horror. Deadly rage against the Witch-woman and the Smitorror of myself, of what I had been...horror owayanu!

I must find Tibur and the Witch-womaut first there was something else to be done. They and Evalie could wait.

"Darave them lift him. Carry him into one of the houses."

I followed on foot as they bore Jim away. There was fighting still going on, but far from us. Here were only the dead. I guessed that Sirk was making its last stand at the end of the valley.

Dara, Naral and I and half-dozen more passed through the broken doors of what yesterday had been a pleasant home. In its centre was a little columned hall. The other soldiers clustered round the broken doors, guarding entrance. I ordered chairs and beds and whatever else would burn brought into the little hall and heaped into a pyre. Dara said:

"Lord, let me bathe your wound."

I dropped upon a stool, sat thinking while she washed the gash upon my head with stinging wine. Beyond the strange numbness, my mind was very clear. I was Leif Langdon. Dwayanu was no longer master of my minor ever again would be. Yet he lived. He lived within as part oyself. It was as though the shock of recognition of Jim had dissolved Dwayanu within Leif Langdon.

As though two opposing currents had merged into one; as though two drops had melted into each other; as though two antagonistic metals had fused.

Crystal clear was every memory of what I had heard and seen, said and done and thought from the time I had been hurled from Nansur Bridge. And crystal clear, agonizingly clear, was all that had gone before. Dwayanu was not dead, no! But part of me, and I was by far the stronger. I could use him, his strength, his wisdout he could not use mine. I was in control. I was the master.

And I thought, sitting there, that if I were to save Evalif I were to do another thing that now I knew, I would do or die in the doing, I must still outwardly be all Dwayanu. There lay my power. Not easily could such transmutation as I had undergone be explained to my soldiers. They believed in me and followed me as Dwayanu. If Evalie, who had known me as Leif, who had loved me as Leif, who had listened to Jim, could not understanow much less could these? No, they must see no change.

I touched my head. The cut was deep and long; apparently only the toughness of my skull had saved it from being split.

"Darou saw who made this wound?"

"It was Tibur, Lord."

"He tried to kill me...Why did he not finish?"

"Never yet has Tibur's left hand failed to deal death. He thinks it cannot fail. He saw you fale thought you dead."

"And death missed me by a hair's-breadth. And would not, had not someone hurled me aside. Was that you, Dara?"

"It was I, Dwayanu. I saw his hand dip into his girdle, knew what was coming. I threw myself at your kneeo he could not see me."

"Why, because you fear Tibur?"

"Necause I wanted him to believe he did not miss."

"Why?"

"So that you would have better chance to kill Tibur, Lord. Your strength was ebbing with your friend's life."

I looked sharply at this bold-eyed captain of mine. How much did she know? Well, time later to find that out. I looked at the pyre. It was nearly complete.

"What was it he threw, Dara?"

She drew from her girdle a curious weapon, one whose like I had never seen. Its end was top-shaped, pointed like a dagger and with four razor-edged ribs on its sides. It had an eight-inch metal haft, round, like the haft of a diminutive javelin. It weighed about five pounds. It was of some metal I did not recognizenser, harder than the finest of tempered steel. It was, in effect, a casting knife. But no mail could turn aside that adamantine point when hurled with the strength of one like the Smith. Dara took it from me, and pulled the short shaft. Instantly the edged ribs flew open, like flanges. The end of each was shaped like an inverted barb. A devilish tool, if I ever saw one. Once embedded, there was no way to get it out except cutting, and any pull would release the flanges, hooking them at the same time into the flesh. I took it back from Dara, and placed it in my own girdle. If I had had any doubts about what I was going to do to Tibu had none now.

The pyre was finished. I walked over to Jim, and laid him on it. I kissed him on the eyes, and put a sword in his dead hand. I stripped the room of its rich tapestries and draped them over him. I struck flint and set flame to the pyre. The wood was dry and resinous, and burned swiftly. I watched the flames creep up and up until smoke and fire made a canopy over him.

Then dry-eyed, but with death in my heart. I walked out of that house and among my soldiers.

Sirk had fallen and its sack was on. Smoke was rising everywhere from the looted homes. A detachment of soldiers marched by, herding along some two-score prisoneromen, all of them, and little children; some bore the marks of wounds. And then I saw that among those whom I had taken for children were a handful of the golden pygmies. At sight of me the soldiers halted, stood rigid, staring at me unbelievingly.

Suddenly one cried out..."Dwayanu! Dwayanu lives!"...They raised their swords in salute, and from them came a shout..."Dwayanu!"

I beckoned their captain.

"Did you think Dwayanu dead then?"

"So ran the tale among us, Lord."

"And did this tale also tell how I was slain?"

She hesitated.

"There were some who said it was by the Lord Tibur...by accident... that he had made cast at Sirk's leader who was menacing you...and that you were struck instead...and that your body had been borne away by those of Sirk...I do not know..."

"Enough, soldier. Go on to Karak with the captives. Do not loiter, and do not speak of seeing me. It is a command. For a while I let the tale stand."

They glanced at each other, oddly, saluted, and went on. The yellow eyes of the pygmies, filled with a venomous hatred, never left me until they had passed out of range. I waited, thinking. So that was to be the story! Hai! But they had fear at their elbows or they would not have troubled to spread that tale of accident! Suddenly I made decision. No use to wander over Sirk searching for Tibur. Folly to be seen, and have the counter-tale that Dwayanu lived be borne to the ears of Tibur and Lur! They should come to mnknowing.

There was only one way out of Sirk, and that by the bridge. It was there I would await them. I turned to Dara.

"We go to the bridge, but not by this road. We take the lanes until we reach the cliffs."

They wheeled their horses, and for the first time I realized that all this little troop of mine were mounted. And for the first time I realized that all were of my own guard, and that many of them had been foot-soldiers, yet these, too, were riding, and that upon a score of saddles were the colours of nobles who had followed me and the Witch-woman and Tibur through the gap of Sirk. It was Naral who, reading my perplexity, spoke, half-impudently as always:

"These are your most faithful, Dwayanu! The horses were idlr a few we made so. For your better shield should Tibuake mistake again."

I said nothing to that until we had gone around the burning house and were under cover of one of the lanes. Then I spoke to them:

"Naraaret us talk apart for a moment."

And when we had drawn a little away from the others, I said:

"To you two I owe my lifost of all to you, Dara. All that I can give you is yours for the asking. All I ask of you iruth."

"Dwayanou shall have it."

"Why did Tibur want to kill me?"

Naral said, dryly:

"The Smith was not the only one who wanted you killed, Dwayanu."

I knew that, but I wanted to hear it from them.

"Who else, Naral?"

"Lund most of the nobles."

"But why? Had I not opened Sirk for them?"

"You were becoming too strong, Dwayanu. It is not in Lur or Tibur to take second placr third...or maybe no place."

"But they had opportunity before--"

"But you had not taken Sirk for them," said Dara.

Naral said, resentfully:

"Dwayanu, you play with us. You know as well as wettehat the reason was. You came here with that friend we have just left on his fire couch. All knew it. If you were to dio must he die. He must not live, perhaps to escape and bring others into this placor I know, as some others do, that there is life beyond here and that Khalk'ru does not reign supreme, as the nobles tell us. Welere together are you and this friend of yours. And not only you two, but also the dark girl of the Rrrllya, whose death or capture might break the spirit of the little folk and put them under Karak's yoke. The three of yoogether! Why, Dwayant was the one place and the one time to strike! And Lur and Tibur dind killed your friend, and think they have killed you, and have taken the dark girl."

"And if I kill Tibur, Naral?"

"Then there will be fighting. And you must guard yourself well, for the nobles hate you, Dwayanu. They have been told you are against the old customean to debase them, and raise the people. Intend even to end the Sacrifices..."

She glanced at me, slyly.

"And if that were true?"

"You have most of the soldiers with you now, Dwayanu. If it were true you would also have most of the people. But Tibur has his friendven among the soldiers. And Lur is no weakling."

She twitched up her horse's head, viciously.

"Better kill Lur, too, while you're in the mood, Dwayanu!"

I made no answer to that. We trotted through the lanes, not speaking again. Everywhere were dead, and gutted houses. We came out of the city, and rode over the narrow plain to the gap between the cliffs. There happened to be none on the open road just then; so we entered the gap unnoticed. We passed through it out into the square behind the fortress. There were soldiers here, in plenty, and groups of captives. I rode in the centre of my troop, bent over the neck of my horse. Dara had roughly bandaged my head. The bandages and cap-helmet I had picked up hid my yellow hair. There was much confusion, and I passed through unnoticed. I rode straight to the door of the tower behind which we had lurked when Karak stormed the bridge. I slipped in with my horse, half-closed the door. My women grouped themselves outside. They were not likely to be challenged. I settled down to wait for Tibur.

It was hard waiting, that! Jim's face over the camp-fire. Jim's face grinning at me in the trenches. Jim's face above mine when I lay on the moss bank of the threshold of the miragim's face under mine on the street of Sirk...

Tsantawu! Aisantawu! And you thought that only beauty could come from the forest I

Evalie? I cared nothing for Evalie then, caught in that limbo which at once was ice and candent core of rage.

"Save...Evalie!" Jim had bade. Well, I would save Evalie! Beyond that she mattered no more than did the Witch-woman...yes, a little more...I had a score to satisfy with the Witch-woman...I had none with Evalie...

The face of Jim...always the face of Jim...floating before me. ...

I heard a whisper--

"Dwayanibur comes!"

"Is Lur with him, Dara?"

"N group of the nobles. He is laughing. He carries the dark girl on his saddle-bow."

"How far away is he, Dara?"

"Perhaps a bow-shot. He rides slowly."

"When I ride out, close in behind me. The fight will be between me and Tibur. I do not think those with him will dare attack me. If they do..."

Naral laughed.

"If they do, we shall be at their throats, Dwayanu. There are one or two of Tibur's friends I would like to settle accounts with. We ask you only this: waste neither words nor time on Tibur. Kill him quickly. For by the gods, if he kills you, it will be the boiling pot and the knives of the flayers for all of us he captures."

"I will kill him, Naral."

Slowly I opened the great door. Now I could see Tibur, his horse pacing toward the bridge-end. Upon the pommel of his saddle was Evalie. Her body drooped; the hair of blue-black was loosened and covered her face like a veil. Her hands were tied behind her back, and gripped in one of Tibur's. There were a score of his followers around and behind him, noblend the majority of them men. I had noticed that although the Witch-woman had few men among her guards and garrisons, the Smith showed a preference for them among his friends and personal escort. His head was turned toward them, his voice, roaring with triumph, and his laughter came plainly to me. By now the enclosure was almost empty of soldiers and captives. There was none between us. I wondered where the Witch-woman was.

Closer came Tibur, and closer.

"Ready Dararal?"

"Ready, Lord!"

I flung open the gate. I raced toward Tibur, head bent low, my little troop behind me. I swung against him with head uplifted, thrust my face close to his.

Tibur's whole body grew rigid, his eyes glared into mine, his jaw dropped. I knew that those who followed him were held in that same incredulous stupefaction. Before the Smith could recover from his paralysis, I had snatched Evalie up from his saddle, had passed her to Dara.

I lifted my sword to slash at Tibur's throat. I gave him no warning. It was no time for chivalry. Twice he had tried treacherously to kill me. I would make quick end.

Swift as had been my stroke, the Smith was swifter. He threw himself back, slipped off his horse, and landed like a cat at its heels. I was down from mine before his great sledge was half-raised to hurl. I thrust my blade forward to pierce his throat. He parried it with the sledge. Then berserk rage claimed him. The hammer fell clanging on the rock. He threw himself on me, howling. His arms circled me, fettering mine to my sides, like living bands of steel. His legs felt for mine, striving to throw me. His lips were drawn back like a mad wolf's, and he bored his head into the pit of my neck, trying to tear my throat with his teeth.

My ribs cracked under the tightening vice of Tibur's arms. My lungs were labouring, sight dimming. I writhed and twisted in the effort to escape the muzzling of that hot mouth and the searching fangs.

I heard shouting around me, heard and dimly saw milling of the horses. The clutching fingers of my left hand touched my girdllosed on something theromething like the shaft of a javelin--

Tibur's hell-forged dart!

Suddenly I went limp in Tibur's grip. His laughter bellowed, hoarse with triumph. And for a split-second his grip relaxed.

That split-second was enough. I summoned all my strength and broke his grip. Before he could clench me again, my hand had swept down into the girdle and clutched the dart.

I brought it up and drove it into Tibur's throat just beneath his jaw. I jerked the haft. The opened, razor-edged flanges sliced through arteries and muscles. The bellowing laughter of Tibur changed to a hideous gurgling. His hands sought the haft, dragged at iore it ound the blood spurted from Tibur's mangled throat; Tibur's knees buckled beneath him, and he lurched and fell at my feet...choking...his hands still feebly groping to clutch me...

I stood there, dazed, gasping for breath, the pulse roaring in my ears.

"Drink this, Lord!"

I looked up at Dara. She was holding a wine-skin to me. I took it with trembling hands, and drank deep. The good wine whipped through me. Suddenly I took it from my lips.

"The dark girl of the Rrrllyvalie. She is not with you."

"There she is. I set her on another horse. There was fighting, Lord."

I stared into Evalie's face. She looked back at me, brown eyes cold, implacable.

"Better use the rest of the wine to wash your face, Lord. You are no sight for any tender maid."

I passed my hand over my face, drew it away wet with blood.

"Tibur's blood, Dwayanu, thank the gods!"

She brought my horse forward. I felt better when I was in its saddle. I glanced down at Tibur. His fingers were still faintly twitching. I looked about me. There was a shattered company of Karak's archers at the bridge-end. They raised their bows in salute.

"Dwayanu! Live Dwayanu!"

My troop seemed strangely shrunken. I called--"Naral!"

"Dead, Dwayanu. I told you there had been fighting."

"Who killed her?"

"Never mind. I slew him. And those left of Tibur's escort have fled. And now what. Lord?"

"We wait for Lur."

"Not long shall we have to linger then, for here she comes."

There was the blast of a horn. I turned to see the Witch-woman come galloping over the square. Her red braids were loose, her sword was red, and she was nigh as battle-stained as I. With her rode a scant dozen of her women, half as many of her nobles.

I awaited her. She reined up before me, searching me with wild bright eyes.

I should have killed her as I had Tibur. I should have been hating her. But I found I was not hating her at all. All of hate I had held seemed to have poured out upon Tibur. No, I was not hating her.

She smiled faintly:

"You are hard to kill, Yellow-hair!"

"Dwayanitch."

She glanced at me, half-contemptuously.

"You are no longer Dwayanu!"

"Try to convince these soldiers of that, Lur.”

"Oh, I know," she said, and stared down at Tibur. "So you killed the Smith. Well, at least you are still a man."

"Killed him for you, Lur!" I jeered. "Did I not promise you?"

She did not answer, only asked, as Dara had before her:

"And now what?"

"We wait here until Sirk is emptied. Then we ride to Karak, you beside me. I do not like you at my back, Witch-woman."

She spoke quietly to her women, then sat, head bent, thinking, with never another word for me.

I whispered to Dara:

"Can we trust the archers?"

She nodded.

"Bid them wait and march with us. Let them drag the body of Tibur into some corner."

For half an hour the soldiers came by, with prisoners, with horses, with cattle and other booty. Small troops of the nobles and their supporters galloped up, halted, and spoke, but, at my word and Lur's nod, passed on over the bridge. Most of the nobles showed dismayed astonishment at my resurrection; the soldiers gave me glad salute.

The last skeleton company came through the gap. I had been watching for Sri, but he was not with them, and I concluded that he had been taken to Karak with the earliest prisoners or had been killed.

"Come," I said to the Witch-woman. "Let your women go before us."

I rode over to Evalie, lifted her from her saddle and set her on my pommel. She made no resistance, but I felt her shrink from me. I knew she was thinking that she had but exchanged Tibur for another master, that to me she was only spoil of war. If my mind had not been so weary I suppose that would have hurt. But my mind was too weary to care.

We passed over the bridge, through the curling mists of steam. We were halfway to the forest when the Witch-woman threw back her head and sent forth a long, wailing call. The white wolves burst from the ferns. I gave command to the archers to set arrows. Lur shook her head.

"No need to harm them. They go to Sirk. They have earned their pay."

The white wolves coursed over the barren to the bridge-end, streamed over it, vanished. I heard them howling among the dead.

"I, too, keep my promises," said the Witch-woman.

We rode on, into the forest, back to Karak.

CHAPTER XXII
GATE OF KHALK'RU

We were close to Karak when the drums of the Little People began beating.

The leaden weariness pressed down upon me increasingly. I struggled to keep awake. Tibur's stroke on my head had something to do with that, but I had taken other blows and eaten nothing since long before dawn. I could not think, much less plan what I was going to do after I had got back to Karak.

The drums of the Little People drove away my lethargy, brought me up wide-awake. They crashed out at first like a thunderburst across the white river. After that they settled down into a slow, measured rhythm filled with implacable menace. It was like Death standing on hollow graves and stamping on them before he marched.

At the first crash Evalie straightened, then sat listening with every nerve. I reined up my horse, and saw that the Witch-woman had also halted and was listening with all of Evalie's intentness. There was something inexplicably disturbing in that monotonous drumming. Something that reached beyond and outside of human experiencr reached before it. It was like thousands of bared hearts beating in unison, in one unalterable rhythm, not to be still till the hearts themselves stopped...inexorable...and increasing in steadily widening area...spreading, spreading...until they beat from all the land across white Nanbu.

I spoke to Lur.

"I am thinking that here is the last of my promises, Witch-woman. I killed Yodin, gave you Sirk, I slew Tibund here is your war with the Rrrllya."

I had not thought of how that might sound to Evalie! She turned and gave me one long level look of scorn; she said to the Witch-woman, coldly, in halting Uighur:

"It is war. Was that not what you expected when you dared to take me? It will be war until my people have me again. Best be careful how you use me."

The Witch-woman's control broke at that, all the long pent-up fires of her wrath bursting forth.

"Good! Now we shall wipe out your yellow dogs for once and all. And you shall be flayed, or bathed in the cauldror given to Khalk'ru. Win or loshere will be little of you for your dogs to fight over. You shall be used as I choose."

"No," I said, "as I choose, Lur."

The blue eyes flamed on me at that. And the brown eyes met mine as scornfully as before.

"Give me a horse to ride. I do not like the touch of yowayanu.''

"Nevertheless, you ride with me, Evalie."

We passed into Karak. The drums beat now loud, now low. But always with that unchanging, inexorable rhythm. They swelled and fell, swelled and fell. Like Death still stamping on the hollow graveow fiercelnd now lightly.

There were many people in the streets. They stared at Evalie, and whispered. There were no shouts of welcome, no cheering. They seemed sullen, frightened. Then I knew they were listening so closely to the drums that they hardly knew we were passing. The drums were closer. I could hear them talking from point to point along the far bank of the river. The tongues of the talking drums rose plain above the others. And through their talking, repeated and repeated:

"Ev-ah-lee! Ev-ah-lee!"

We rode over the open square to the gate of the black citadel. There I

stopped.

"A truce, Lur."

She sent a mocking glance at Evalie.

"A truce! What need of a truce between you and mwayanu?"

I said, quietly:

"I am tired of bloodshed. Among the captives are some of the Rrrllya. Let us bring them where they can talk with Evalie and with us two. We will then release a part of them, and send them across Nanbu with the message that no harm is intended Evalie. That we ask the Rrrllya to send us on the morrow an embassy empowered to arrange a lasting peace. And that when that peace is arranged they shall take Evalie back with them unharmed."

She said, smiling:

"Swayanears the dwarfs!"

I repeated:

"I am tired of bloodshed."

"Ah, me," she sighed. "And did I not once hear Dwayanu boast that he kept his promisend was thereby persuaded to give him payment for them in advance! Ah, mut Dwayanu is changed!"

She stung me there, but I managed to master my anger; I said:

"If you will not agree to this, Lur, then I myself will give the orders. But then we shall be a beleaguered city which is at its own throat. And easy prey for the enemy."

She considered this.

"So you want no war with the little yellow dogs? And it is your thought that if the girl is returned to them, there will be none? Then why wait? Why not send her back at once with the captives? Take them up to Nansur, parley with the dwarfs there. Drum talk would settle the matter in a little whilf you are right. Then we can sleep this night without the drums disturbing you."

That was true enough, but I read the malice in it. The truth was that I did not want Evalie sent back just then. If she were, then never, I knew, might I have a chance to justify myself with her, break down her distrusave her again accept me as the Leif whom she had loved. But given a little tim might. And the Witch-woman knew this.

"Not so quickly should it be done, Lur," I said, suavely. "That would be to make them think we fear thes the proposal made you think I feared them. We need more than hasty drum talk to seal such treaty. No, we hold the girl as hostage until we make our terms."

She bent her head, thinking, then looked at me with clear eyes, and smiled.

"You are right, Dwayanu. I will send for the captives after I have rid myself of these stains of Sirk. They will be brought to your chamber. And in the meantime I will do more. I will order that word be sent the Rrrllya on Nansur that soon their captured fellows will be among them with a message. At the least it will give us time. And we need time, Dwayanoth of us."

I looked at her sharply. She laughed, and gave her horse the spurs. I rode behind her through the gate and into the great enclosed square. It was crowded with soldiers and captives. Here the drumming was magnified. The drums seemed to be within the place itself, invisible and beaten by invisible drummers. The soldiers were plainly uneasy, the prisoners excited, and curiously defiant.

Passing into the citadel I called various officers who had not taken part in the attack on Sirk and gave orders that the garrison on the walls facing Nansur Bridge be increased. Also that an alarm should be sounded which would bring in the soldiers and people from the outer-lying posts and farms. I ordered the guard upon the river walls to be strengthened, and the people of the city be told that those who wished to seek shelter in the citadel could come, but must be in by dusk. It was a scant hour before nightfall. There would be little trouble in caring for them in that immense place. And all this I did in event of the message failing. If it failed, I had no desire to be part of a massacre in Karak, which would stand a siege until I could convince the Little People of my good faith. Or convince Evalie of it, and have her bring about a peace.

This done, I took Evalie to my own chambers, not those of the High-priest where the Black Octopus hovered over the three thrones, but a chain of comfortable rooms in another part of the citadel. The little troop, which had stood by me through the sack of Sirk and after, followed us. There I turned Evalie over to Dara. I was bathed, my wound dressed and bandaged, and clothed. Here the windows looked out over the river, and the drums beat through them maddeningly. I ordered food brought, and wine, and summoned Evalie. Dara brought her. She had been well cared for, but she would not eat with me. She said to me:

"I fear my people will have but scant faith in any messages you send, Dwayanu."

"Later we will talk of that other message, Evalie. I did not send it. And Tsantawu, dying in my arms, believed me when I told him I had not."

"I heard you say to Lur that you had promised her Sirk. You did not lie to her, Dwayanor Sirk is eaten. How can I believe you?"

I said: "You shall have proof that I speak truth, Evalie, Now, since you will not eat with me, go with Dara."

She had no fault to find with Dara. Dara was no lying traitor, but a soldier, and fighting in Sirk or elsewhere was part of her trade. She went with her.

I ate sparingly and drank heavily. The wine put new life in me, drove away what was left of weariness. I put sorrow for Jim resolutely aside for the moment, thinking of what I intended to do, and how best to do it. And then there was a challenge at the door, and the Witch-woman entered.

Her red braids crowned her and in them shone the sapphires. She bore not the slightest mark of the struggles of the day, nor sign of fatigue. Her eyes were bright and clear, her red lips smiling. Her low, sweet voice, her touch upon my arm, brought back memories I had thought gone with Dwayanu.

She called, and through the door came a file of soldiers, and with them a score of the Little People, unbound, hatred in their yellow eyes as they saw me, curiosity too. I spoke to them, gently. I sent for Evalie. She came, and the golden pygmies ran to her, threw themselves upon her like a crowd of children, twittering and trilling, stroking her hair, touching her feet and hands.

She laughed, called them one by one by name, then spoke rapidly. I could get little of what she said; by the shadow on Lur's face I knew she had understood nothing at all. I repeated to Evalie precisely what I had told Lund which, at least in part, she knew, for she had betrayed that she understood the Uighur, or the Ayjir, better than she had admitted. I translated from the tongue of the dwarfs for Lur.

The pact was speedily made. Half of the pygmies were to make their way at once over Nanbu to the garrison on the far side of the bridge. By the talking drums they would send our message to the stronghold of the Little People. If they accepted it, the beating of the war drums would cease. I said to Evalie:

"When they talk on their drums, let them say that nothing will be asked of them that was not contained in the old trucnd that death will no longer lie in wait for them when they cross the river."

The Witch-woman said:

"Just what does that mean, Dwayanu?"

"Now Sirk is done, there is no longer much need for that penalty, Lur. Let them gather their herbs and metals as they will; that is all."

"There is more in your mind than that--" Her eyes narrowed.

"They understood me, Evaliut do you also tell them."

The Little People trilled among themselves; then ten of them stepped forward, those chosen to take the message. As they were moving away, I stopped them.

"If Sri escaped, let him come with the embassy. Better stilet him come before them. Send word through the drums that he may come as soon as he can. He has my safe-conduct, and shall stay with Evalie until all is settled."

They chattered over that, assented. The Witch-woman made no comment. For the first time I saw Evalie's eyes soften as she looked at me.

When the pygmies were gone, Lur walked to the door, and beckoned. Ouarda entered.

"Ouarda!"

I liked Ouarda. It was good to know she was alive. I went to her with outstretched hands. She took them.

"It was two of the soldiers, Lord. They had sisters in Sirk. They cut the ladder before we could stop them. They were slain," she said.

Would to God they had cut it before any could, have followed me!

Before I could speak, one of my captains knocked and entered.

"It is long after dusk and the gates are closed, Lord. All those who would come are behind them."

"Were there many, soldier?"

"No, Lorot more than a hundred or so. The others refused."

"And did they say why they refused?"

"Is the question an order, Lord?"

"It is an order."

"They said they were safer where they were. That the Rrrllya had no quarrel with them, who were but meat for Khalk'ru."

"Enough, soldier!" The Witch-woman's voice was harsh. "Go! Take the Rrrllya with you."

The captain saluted, turned smartly and was gone with the dwarfs. I laughed.

"Soldiers cut our ladder for sympathy of those who fled Khalk'ru. The people fear the enemies of Khalk'ru less than they do their own kind who are his butchers! We do well to make peace with the Rrrllya, Lur."

I watched her face pale, then redden and saw the knuckles of her hands whiten as she clenched them. She smiled, poured herself wine, lifted it with a steady hand.

"I drink to your wisdowayanu!"

A strong souhe Witch-woman's! A warrior's heart. Somewhat lacking in feminine softness, it was true. But it was no wonder that Dwayanu had loved hen his way and as much as he could love a woman.

A silence dropped upon the chamber, intensified in some odd fashion by the steady beating of the drums. How long we sat in that silence I do not know. But suddenly the beat of the drums became fainter.

And then all at once the drums ceased entirely. The quiet brought a sense of unreality. I could feel the tense nerves loosening like springs long held taut. The abrupt silence made ears ache, slowed heart-beat.

"They have the message. They have accepted it," Evalie spoke.

The Witch-woman arose.

"You keep the girl beside you to-night, Dwayanu?"

"She sleeps in one of these rooms, Lur. She will be under guard. No one can reach her without passing through my room here," I looked at her, significantly. "And I sleep lightly. You need have no fear of her escape."

"I am glad the drums will not disturb your sleewayanu."

She gave me a mocking salute, and, with Ouarda, left me.

And suddenly the weariness dropped upon me again. I turned to Evalie, watching me with eyes in which I thought doubt of her own deep doubt had crept. Certainly there was no scorn, nor loathing in them. Well, now I had her where all this manoeuvring had been meant to bring her. Alone with me. And looking at her I felt that in the face of all she had seen of me, all she had undergone because of mords were useless things. Nor could I muster them as I wanted. No, there would be plenty of time...in the morning, perhaps, when I had slept...or after I had done what I had to do...then she must believe...

"Sleep, Evalie. Sleep without fear...and believe that all that has been wrong is now becoming right. Go with Dara. You shall be well guarded. None can come to you except through this room, and here I will be. Sleep and fear nothing."

I called Dara, gave her instructions, and Evalie went with her. At the curtains masking the entrance to the next room she hesitated, half turned as though to speak, but did not. And not long after Dara returned. She said:

"She is already asleep, Dwayanu."

"As you should be, friend," I told her. "And all those others who stood by me this day. I think there is nothing to fear to-night. Select those whom you can trust and have them guard the corridor and my door. Where have you put her?"

"In the chamber next this, Lord."

"It would be better if you and the others slept here, Dara. There are half a dozen rooms for you. Have wine and food brought for yolenty of it."

She laughed.

"Do you expect a siege, Dwayanu?"

"One never knows."

"You do not greatly trust Lur, Lord?"

"I trust her not at all, Dara."

She nodded, turned to go. Upon the impulse I said:

"Dara, would it make you sleep better to-night and those with you, and would it help you in picking your guard if I told you this: there will be no more sacrifices to Khalk'ru while I live?"

She started; her face lightened, softened. She thrust out her hand to me:

"Dwayan had a sister who was given to Khalk'ru. Do you mean this?"

"By the life of my blood! By all the living gods! I mean it!"

"Sleep well, Lord!" Her voice was choked. She walked away, through the curtain, but not before I had seen the tears on her cheeks.

Well, a woman had a right to weeven if she was a soldier. I myself had wept to-day.

I poured myself wine, sat thinking as I drank. Mainly my thoughts revolved around the enigma of Khalk'ru. And there was a good reason for that.

What was Khalk'ru?

I slipped the chain from round my neck, opened the locket and studied the ring. I closed it, and threw it on the table. Somehow I felt that it was better there than over my heart while I was doing this thinking.

Dwayanu had had his doubts about that dread Thing being any Spirit of the Void, and I, who now was Leif Langdon and a passive Dwayanu, had no doubts whatever that it was not. Yet I could not accept Barr's theory of mass hypnotisnd trickery was out of the question.

Whatever Khalk'ru might be, Khalk'rs the Witch-woman had saias. Or at least that Shape which became material through ritual, ring and screeas.

I thought that I might have put the experience in the temple of the oasis down as hallucination if it had not been repeated here in the Shadowed-land. But there could be no possible doubt about the reality of the sacrifice I had conducted; no possible doubt as to the destructiobsorptioissolvemenf the twelve girls. And none of Yodin's complete belief in the power of the tentacle to remove me, and none of his complete effacement. And I thought that if the sacrifices and Yodin were standing in the wings laughing at me, as Barr had put ihen it was in the wings of a theatre in some other world than this. And there was the deep horror of the Little People, the horror of so many of the Ayjind there was the revolt in ancient Ayjirland born of this same horror, which had destroyed Ayjirland by civil war.

No, whatever the Thing was, no matter how repugnant to science its recognition as a reality might btill it was Atavism, superstitioall it what Barr woul knew the Thing was real! Not of this earto, most certainly not of this earth. Not even supernatural. Or rather, supernatural only insofar as it might come from another dimension or even another world which our five senses could not encompass.

And I reflected, now, that science and religion are really blood brothers, which is largely why they hate each other so, that scientists and religionists are quite alike in their dogmatism, their intolerance, and that every bitter battle of religion over some interpretation of creed or cult has its parallel in battles of science over a bone or rock.

Yet just as there are men in the churches whose minds have not become religiously fossilized, so there are men in the laboratories whose minds have not become scientifically fossilized...Einstein, who dared challenge all conceptions of space and time with his four dimensional space in which time itself was a dimension, and who followed that with proof of five dimensional space instead of the four which are all our senses can apprehend, and which apprehends one of them wrongly...the possibility of a dozen worlds spinning interlocked with this one...in the same space...the energy which we call matter of each of them keyed to the different vibration, and each utterly unaware of the other...and utterly overturning the old axiom that two bodies cannot occupy the same place at the same time.

And I thoughhat if far and far back in time, a scientist of that day, one of the Ayjir people, had discovered all that! Had discovered the fifth dimension beyond length, breadth, thickness and time. Or had discovered one of those interlocking worlds whose matter streams through the interstices of the matter of ours. And discovering dimension or world, had found the way to make dwellers in that dimension or that other world both aware of and manifest to those of this. By sound and gesture, by ring and screen, had made a gateway through which such dwellers could comr at least, appear! And then what a weapon this discoverer hahat a weapon the inevitable priests of that Thing would have! And did have ages gone, just as they had here in Karak.

If so, was it one dweller or many who lurked in those gateways for its drink of life? The memories bequeathed me by Dwayanu told me there had been other temples in Ayjirland besides that one of the oasis. Was it the same Being that appeared in each? Was the Shape that came from the shattered stone of the oasis the same that had fed in the temple of the mirage? Or were there many of thewellers in other dimension or other worlvidly answering the summons? Nor was it necessarily true that in their own place these Things had the form of the Kraken. That might be the shape, through purely natural laws, which entrance into this world forced upon them.

I thought over that for quite awhile. It seemed to me the best explanation of Khalk'ru. And if it was, then the way to be rid of Khalk'ru was to destroy his means of entrance. And that, I reflected, was precisely how the ancient Ayjirs had argued.

But it did not explain why only those of the old blood could summon--

I heard a low voice at the door. I walked softly over to it, listened. I opened the door and there was Lur, talking to the guards.

"What is it you are seeking, Lur?"

"To speak with you. I will keep you only a little time, Dwayanu."

I studied the Witch-woman. She stood, very quietly, in her eyes nothing of defiance nor resentment nor subtle calculationly appeal. Her red braids fell over her white shoulders; she was without weapon or ornament. She looked younger than ever I had seen her, and somewhat forlorn. I felt no desire to mock her nor to deny her. I felt instead the stirrings of a deep pity.

"Enter, Lund say all that is in your mind."

I closed the door behind her. She walked over to the window, looked out into the dim greenly glimmering night. I went to her.

"Speak softly, Lur. The girl is asleep there in the next chamber. Let her rest."

She said, tonelessly:

"I wish you had never come here, Yellow-hair." I thought of Jim, and I answered:

"I wish that too, Witch-woman. But here I am." She leaned towards me, put her hand over my heart. "Why do you hate me so greatly?"

"I do not hate you, Lur. I have no hate left in mxcept for one thing."

"And that--?"

Involuntarily I looked at the table. One candle shone there and its light fell on the locket that held the ring. Her glance followed mine. She said:

"What do you mean to do? Throw Karak open to the dwarfs? Mend Nansur? Rule here over Karak and the Rrrllya with their dark girl at your side? Is it that...and if it is thahat is to become of Lur? Answer me. I have the right to know. There is a bond between us...I loved you when you were Dwayanu...you know how well..."

"And would have killed me while I was still Dwayanu," I said, sombrely.

"Because I saw Dwayanu dying as you looked into the eyes of the stranger," she answered. "You whom Dwayanu had mastered was killing Dwayanu. I loved Dwayanu. Why should I not avenge him?"

"If you believe I am no longer Dwayanu, then I am the man whose friend you trapped and murderehe man whose love you trapped and would have destroyed. And if that be shat claim have you upon me, Lur?"

She did not answer for moments; then she said:

"I have some justice on my side. I tell you I loved Dwayanu. Something I knew of your case from the first, Yellow-hair. But I saw Dwayanu awaken within you. And I knew it was truly he! I knew, too, that as long as that friend of yours and the dark girl lived there was danger for Dwayanu. That was why I plotted to bring them into Sirk. I threw the dice upon the chance of killing them before you had seen them. Then, I thought, all would be well. There would be none left to rouse that in you which Dwayanu had mastered. I lost. I knew I had lost when by whim of Luka she threw you three together. And rage and sorrow caught mnd I did...what I did."

"Lur," I said, "answer me truly. That day you returned to the Lake of the Ghosts after pursuit of the two womeere they not your spies who bore that lying message into Sirk? And did you not wait until you learned my friend and Evalie were in the trap before you gave me word to march? And was it not in your thought that you would thef I opened the way into Sirid yourself not only of those two but of Dwayanu? For remembeou may have loved Dwayanu, but as he told you, you loved power better than he. And Dwayanu threatened your power. Answer me truly."

For the second time I saw tears in the eyes of the Witch-woman. She said, brokenly:

"I sent the spies, yes. I waited until the two were in the trap. But I never meant harm to Dwayanu!"

I did not believe her. But still I felt no anger, no hate. The pity grew.

"Lur, now I will tell you truth. It is not in my mind to rule with Evalie over Karak and the Rrrllya. I have no more desire for power. That went with Dwayanu. In the peace I make with the dwarfs, you shall rule over Karaf that be your desire. The dark girl shall go back with them. She will not desire to remain in Karak. Nor do I..."

"You cannot go with her," she interrupted me. "Never would the yellow dogs trust you. Their arrows would be ever pointed at you."

I noddehat thought had occurred to me long before.

"All that must adjust itself," I said. "But there shall be no more sacrifices. The gate of Khalk'ru shall be closed against him for ever. And I will close it."

Her eyes dilated.

"You mean--"

"I mean that I will shut Khalk'ru for ever from Karanless Khalk'ru proves stronger than I."

She wrung her hands, helplessly.

"What use rule over Karak to me then...how could I hold the people?"

"Nevertheles will destroy the gate of Khalk'ru."

She whispered:

"Godf I had Yodin's ring..."

I smiled at that.

"Witch-woman, you know as well as I that Khalk'ru comes to no woman's call."

The witch-lights flickered in her eyes; a flash of green shone through them.

"There is an ancient prophecy, Yellow-hair, that Dwayanu did not knor had forgotten. It says that when Khalk'ru comes to a woman's call, htays! That was the reason no woman in ancient Ayjilrand might be priestess at the sacrifice."

I laughed at that.

"A fine pet, Luo add to your wolves."

She walked toward the door, paused.

"What if I could love yos I loved Dwayanu? Could make you love me as Dwayanu loved me? And more! Send the dark girl to join her people and take the ban of death from them on this side of Nanbu. Would you let things be as they arule with me over Karak?"

I opened the door for her.

"I told you I no longer care for power, Lur."

She walked away.

I went back to the window, drew a chair to it, and sat thinking. Suddenly from somewhere close to the citadel I heard a wolf cry. Thrice it howled, then thrice again.

"Leif!"

I jumped to my feet. Evalie was beside me. She peered at me through the veils of her hair; her clear eyes shone upon mo longer doubting, hating, fearing. They were as they were of old.

"Evalie!"

My arms went round her; my lips found hers.

"I listened, Leif!"

"You believe, Evalie!"

She kissed me, held me tight.

"But she was righeif. You could not go with me again into the land of the Little People. Never, never would they understand. And I would not dwell in Karak."

"Will you go with me, Evalio my own land? After I have done what I must do...and if I am not destroyed in its doing?"

"I will go with you, Leif!"

And she wept awhile, and after another while she fell asleep in my arms. And I lifted her, and carried her into her chamber and covered her with the sleep silks. Nor did she awaken.

I returned to my own room. As I passed the table I picked up the locket, started to put it round my neck. I threw it back. Never would I wear that chain again, I dropped upon the bed, sword at hand. I slept.

CHAPTER XXIII
IN KHALK'RU'S TEMPLE

Twice I awakened. The first time it was the howling of the wolves that aroused me. It was as though they were beneath my window. I listened drowsily, and sank back to sleep.

The second time I came wide awake from a troubled dream. Some sound in the chamber had roused me, of that I was sure. My hand dropped to my sword lying on the floor beside my bed. I had the feeling that there was someone in the room. I could see nothing in the green darkness that filled the chamber. I called, softly:

"Evalie! Is that you?"

There was no answer, no sound.

I sat up in the bed, even thrust a leg out to rise. And then I remembered the guards at my door, and Dara and her soldiers beyond, and I told myself that it had been only my troubled dream that had awakened me. Yet for a time I lay awake listening, sword in hand. And then the silence lulled me back to sleep.

There was a knocking upon my door, and I struggled out of that sleep. I saw that it was well after dawn. I went to the door softly so that I might not awaken Evalie. I opened it, and there with the guards was Sri. The little man had come well armed, with spear and sickle-sword and between his shoulders one of the small, surprisingly resonant talking drums. He looked at me in the friendliest fashion. I patted his hand and pointed to the curtains.

"Evalie is there, Sri. Go waken her."

He trotted past me. I gave greeting to the guards, and turned to follow Sri. He stood at the curtains, looking at me with eyes in which was now no friendliness at all. He said:

"Evalie is not there."

I stared at him, incredulously, brushed by him and into that chamber. It was empty. I crossed to the pile of silks and cushions on which Evalie had slept, touched them. There was no warmth. I went, Sri at my heels, into the next room. Dara and a half dozen of the women lay there, asleep. Evalie was not among them. I touched Dara on the shoulder. She sat up, yawning.

"Darhe girl is gone!"

"Gone!" she stared at me as incredulously as I had at the golden pygmy. She leaped to her feet, ran to the empty room, then with me through the other chambers. There lay the soldier women, asleep, but not Evalie.

I ran back to my own room, and to its door. A bitter rage began to possess me. Swiftly, harshly, I questioned the guards. They had seen no one. None had entered; none had gone forth. The golden pygmy listened, his eyes never leaving me.

I turned toward Evalie's room. I passed the table on which I had thrown the locket. My hand fell on it, lifted it; it was curiously light...I opened it...The ring of Khalk'ru was not there! I glared at the empty lockend like a torturing flame realization of what its emptiness and the vanishment of Evalie might signify came to me. I groaned, leaned against the table to keep from falling.

"Drum, Sri! Call your people! Bid them come quickly! There may yet be time!"

The golden pygmy hissed; his eyes became little pools of yellow fire. He could not have known all the horror of my thoughtut he read enough. He leaped to the window, swung his drum and sent forth call upon caleremptory, raging, vicious. At once he was answerenswered from Nansur, and then from all the river and beyond it the drums of the Little People roared out.

Would Lur hear them? She could not help but hear them...but would she heed...would their threat stop her...it would tell her that I was awake and that the Little People knew of their betrayal...and Evalie's.

God! If she did heaas it in time to save Evalie?

"Quick, Lord!" Dara called from the curtains. The dwarf and I ran through. She pointed to the side of the wall. There, where one of the carved stones jointed another, hung a strip of silk.

"A door there, Dwayanu! That is how they took her. They went hurriedly. The cloth caught when the stone closed."

I looked for something to batter at the stone. But Dara was pressing here and there. The stone swung open. Sri darted past and into the black passage it had masked. I stumbled after him, Dara at my heels, the others following. It was a narrow passage, and not long. Its end was a solid wall of stone. And here Dara pressed again until that wall opened.

We burst into the chamber of the High-priest. The eyes of the Kraken stared at me and through me with their inscrutable malignancy. Yet it seemed to me that in them now was challenge.

All my senseless fury, all blind threshing of my rage, fell from me. A cold deliberation, an ordered purpose that had in it nothing of haste took its place...Is it too late to save Evalie?...It is not too late to destroy you, my enemy...

"Daret horses for us. Gather quickly as many as you can trust. Take only the strongest. Have them ready at the gate of the road to the temple...We go to end Khalk'ru. Tell them that."

I spoke to the golden pygmy.

"I do not know if I can help Evalie. But I go to put an end to Khalk'ru. Do you wait for your peoplr do you go with me?"

"I go with you."

I knew where the Witch-woman dwelt in the black citadel, and it was not far away. I knew I would not find her there, but I must be sure. And she might have taken Evalie to the Lake of the Ghosts, I was thinking as I went on, past groups of silent, uneasy, perplexed and saluting soldiers. But deep in me I knew she had not. Deep within me I knew that it had been Lur who had awakened me in the night. Lur, who had stolen through the curtains to take the ring of Khalk'ru. And there was only one reason why she should have done that. No, she would not be at the Lake of the Ghosts.

Yet, if she had come into my roohy had she not slain me? Or had she meant to do this, and had my awakening and calling out to Evalie stayed her? Had she feared to go further? Or had she deliberately spared me?

I reached her rooms. She was not there. None of her women was there. The place was empty, not even soldiers on guard.

I broke into a run. The golden pygmy followed me, shrilling, javelins in left hand, sickle-sword in right. We came to the gate to the temple road.

There were three or four hundred soldiers awaiting me. Mountend every one a woman. I threw myself on a horse Dara held for me, swung Sri up on the saddle. We raced toward the temple.

We were half-way there when out from the trees that bordered the temple road poured the white wolves. They sprang from the sides like a white torrent, threw themselves upon the riders. They checked our rush, our horses stumbled, falling over those the fangs of the wolves had dropped in that swift, unexpected ambuscade; soldiers falling with them, ripped and torn by the wolves before they could struggle to their feet. We milled among theorses and men and wolves in a whirling, crimson-flecked ring.

Straight at my throat leaped the great dog-wolf, leader of Lur's pack, green eyes naming. I had no time for sword thrust. I caught its throat in my left hand, lifted it and flung it over my back. Even so, its fangs had struck and gashed me.

We were through the wolves. What was left of them came coursing behind us. But they had taken toll of my troop.

I heard the clang of an anvil...thrice stricken...the anvil of Tubalka!

God! It was true...Lur in the temple...and Evalie...and Khalk'ru!

We swept up to the door of the temple. I heard voices raised in the ancient chant. The entrance swarmed...It bristled with swords of the nobles, women and men.

"Ride through them, Dara! Ride them down!"

We swept through them like a ram. Sword against sword, hammers and battleaxes beating at them, horses trampling them.

The shrill song of Sri never ceased. His javelin thrust, his sickle-sword slashed.

We burst into Khalk'ru's temple. The chanting stopped. The chanters arose against us; they struck with sword and axe and hammer at us; they stabbed and hacked our horses; pulled us down. The amphitheatre was a raging cauldron of death...

The lip of the platform was before me. I spurred my horse to it, stood upon its back and leaped upon the platform. Close to my right was the anvil of Tubalka; beside it, hammer raised to smite, was Ouarda. I heard the roll of drums, the drums of Khalk'ru's evocation. The backs of the priests were bent over them.

In front of the priests, the ring of Khalk'ru raised high, stood Lur.

And between her and the bubble ocean of yellow stone that was the gate of Khalk'ru, fettered dwarfs swung two by two in the golden girdles...

Within the warrior's rinvalie!

The Witch-woman never looked at me; she never looked behind her at the roaring cauldron of the amphitheatre where the soldiers and nobles battled.

She launched into the ritual!

Shouting, I rushed on Ouarda. I wrested the great sledge from her hands. I hurled it straight at the yellow screen...straight at the head of Khalk'ru. With every ounce of my strength I hurled that great hammer.

The screen cracked! The hammer was thrown back from it...fell.

The Witch-woman's voice went on...and on...never faltering.

There was a wavering in the cracked screen. The Kraken floating in the bubble ocean seemed to draw back...to thrust forward...

I ran toward it...to the hammer.

An instant I halted beside Evalie. I thrust my hands through the golden girdle, broke it as though it had been wood. I dropped my sword at her feet.

"Guard yourself, Evalie!"

I picked up the hammer. I raised it. The eyes of Khalk'ru moved... they glared at me, were aware of me...the tentacles stirred! And the paralysing cold began to creep round me...I threw all my will against it.

I smashed the sledge of Tubalka against the yellow stone...again... and again--

The tentacles of Khalk'ru stretched toward me!

There was a crystalline crashing, like a lightning bolt striking close. The yellow stone of the screen shattered. It rained round me like sleet driven by an icy hurricane. There was an earthquake trembling. The temple rocked. My arms fell, paralysed. The hammer of Tubalka dropped from hands that could no longer feel it. The icy cold swirled about me ... higher...higher...there was a shrill and dreadful shrieking...

For an instant the shape of the Kraken hovered where the screen had been. Then it shrank. It seemed to be sucked away into immeasurable distances. It vanished.

And life rushed back into me!

There were jagged streamers of the yellow stone upon the rocky floor...black of the Kraken within them...I beat them into dust...

"Leif!"

Evalie's voice, shrill, agonized. I swung round. Lur was rushing upon me, sword raised. Before I could move Evalie had darted between us, flung herself in front of the Witch-woman, struck at her with my own sword.

The blade of Lur parried the stroke, swept in...bit deep...and Evalie fell...Lur leaped toward me...I watched her come, not moving, not caring...there was blood upon her sword...Evalie's blood...

Something like a flash of light touched her breast. She halted as though a hand had thrust her back. Slowly, she dropped to her knees. She sank to the rock.

Over the rim of the platform leaped the dog-wolf, howling as it ran. It hurled itself straight at me. There was another flash of light. The dog-wolf somersaulted and feln mid-leap.

I saw Sri, crouching. One of his javelins was in Lur's breast, the mate to it in the dog-wolf's throat...I saw the golden pygmy running to Evalie...saw her rise, holding a hand to a shoulder from which streamed blood...

I walked toward Lur, stiffly, like an automaton. The white wolf tried to stagger to its feet, then crawled to the Witch-woman, dragging itself on its belly. It reached her before I did. It dropped its head upon her breast. It turned its head, and lay glaring at me, dying.

The Witch-woman looked up at me. Her eyes were soft and her mouth had lost all cruelty. It was tender. She smiled at me.

"I wish you had never come here, Yellow-hair!"

And then--

"Ani! My Lake of the Ghosts!"

Her hand crept up, and dropped on the head of the dying wolf, caressingly. She sighed--

The Witch-woman was dead.

I looked into the awed faces of Evalie and Dara. "Evaliour wound--"

"Not deep, Leif...Soon it will heal...it does not matter..."

Dara said:

"Haiwayanu! It is a great thing you have done this day!"

She dropped on her knees, kissed my hand. And now I saw that those of mine who had survived the battle in the temple had come up on the platform, and were kneelino me. And that Ouarda lay beside Tubalka's anvil, and that Sri too was on his knees, staring at me, eyes filled with worship.

I heard the tumult of the drums of the Little People...no longer on Nanbu's far side...in Karak...and closer.

Dara spoke again:

"Let us be going back to Karak, Lord. It is now all yours to rule."

I said to Sri:

"Sound your drum, Sri. Tell them that Evalie lives. That Lur is dead. That the gate of Khalk'ru is closed forever. Let there be no more killing."

Sri answered:

"What you have done has wiped out all war between my people and Karak. Evalie and you we will obey. I will tell them what you have done."

He swung the little drum, raised his hands to beat it I stopped him.

"Wait, Sri, I shall not be here to obey."

Dara cried: "Dwayanou will not leave us!"

"Yes, Dara...I go now to that place whence I came...I do not return to Karak. I am done with the Little People, Sri."

Evalie spoke, breathlessly:

"What of meif?"

I put my hands on her shoulders, looked into her eyes:

"Last night you whispered that you would go with me, Evalie. I release you from that promise...I am thinking you would be happier here with your small folk..."

She said, steadily:

"I know where happiness lies for me. I hold to my promise...unless you do not want me..."

"I do want yoark girl!"

She turned to Sri: "Carry my love to my people, Sri. I shall not see them again."

The little man clung to her, cast himself down before her, wailed and wept while she talked to him. At last he squatted on his haunches, and stared long at the shattered gate of the Kraken. I saw the secret knowledge touch him. He came to me, held up his arms for me to lift him. He raised my lids and looked deep into my eyes. He thrust his hand in my breast, and placed his head on my breast, and listened to the beating of my heart. He dropped, bent Evalie's head to his, whispering.

Dara said: "Dwayanu's will is our will. Yet it is hard to understand why he will not stay with us."

"Sri knows...more than I do. I cannot, Dara."

Evalie came to me. Her eyes were bright with unshed tears.

"Sri says we must go now, Leif...quickly. My people musot see me. He will tell them a tale upon his drum...there will be no fighting...and henceforth there will be peace."

The golden pygmy began to beat the talking drum. At the first strokes the hosts of other drums were silent. When he had ended they began again...jubilant, triumphant...until in them crept a note of questioning. Once more he beat a message...the answer camngry, peremptorn some queer fashion, incredulous.

Sri said to me: "Haste! Haste!"

Dara said: "We stay with you, Dwayanu, until the last."

I nodded, and looked at Lur. Upon her hand the ring of Khalk'ru sent out a sudden gleam. I went to her, lifted the dead hand and took from it the ring. I smashed it on the anvil of Tubalka as I had the ring of Yodin.

Evalie said: "Sri knows a way that will lead us out into your world, Leif. It lies at the head of Nanbu. He will take us."

"Is the way past the Lake of Ghosts, Evalie?"

"I will ask him...yes, it passes there."

"That is good. We go into a country where the clothing I wear would be hardly fitting. And some provision must be made for you."

We rode from the temple with Sri on my saddle, and Evalie and Dara on either side. The drums were very close. They were muted when we emerged from the forest upon the road. We went swiftly. It was mid-afternoon when we reached the Lake of the Ghosts. The drawbridge was down. There was no one in the garrison. The Witch-woman's castle was empty. I searched, and found my roll of clothes; I stripped the finery of Dwayanu from me. I took a battle-ax, thrust a short sword in my belt, picked javelins for Evalie and myself. They would help us win through, would be all we had to depend upon to get us food later on. We took food with us from Lur's castle, and skins to clothe Evalie when she passed from the Mirage.

I did not go up into the chamber of the Witch-woman. I heard the whispering of the waterfalnd did not dare to look upon it.

All the rest of that afternoon we galloped along the white river's banks. The drums of the Little People followed us...searching... questioning...calling..."Ev-ah-lee...Ev-ah-lee... Ev-ah-lee..."

By nightfall we had come to the cliffs at the far end of the valley. Here Nanbu poured forth in a mighty torrent from some subterranean source. We picked our way across. Sri led us far into a ravine running steeply upward, and here we camped.

And that night I sat thinking long of what Evalie must meet in that new world awaiting her beyond the Miraghe world of sun and stars and wind and cold. I thought long of what must be done to shield her until she could adjust herself to that world. And I listened to the drums of the Little People calling her, and I watched her while she slept, and wept and smiled in dream.

She must be taught to breathe. I knew that when she emerged from this atmosphere in which she had lived since babyhood, she would cease instantly to breatheprivation of the accustomed stimulus of the carbon-dioxide would bring that about at once. She must will herself to breathe until the reflexes again became automatic and she need give them no conscious thought. And at night, when she slept, this would be trebly difficult. I would have to remain awake, watch beside her.

And she must enter this new world with eyes bandaged, blind, until the nerves accustomed to the green luminosity of the Mirage could endure the stronger light. Warm clothing we could contrive from the skins and furs. But the foohat was it Jim had said in the long and long aghat those who had eaten the food of the Little People would die if they ate other. Well, that was true in part. Yet, only in part could be managed.

With dawn came a sudden memorhe pack I had hidden on Nanbu's bank when we had plunged into the white river with the wolves at our heels. If that could be found, it would help solve the problem of Evalie's clothing at least. I told Dara about it. And she and Sri set out to find it. And while they were gone the soldier-women foraged for food and I instructed Evalie upon what she must do to cross in safety that bridge which lay, perilous, between her world and mine.

Two days they were gonut they had found the pack. They brought word of peace between the Ayjir and the Little People. As for me--

Dwayanu the Deliverer had come even as the prophecy had promised... had come and freed them from the ancient doom...and had gone back as was his right to that place from which, answering the prophecy, he had come...and had taken with him Evalie as was also his right. Sri had spread the tale.

And next morning when the light showed that the sun had risen over the peaks that girdled the Valley of the Mirage, we set fortvalie like a slim boy beside me.

We climbed until we were within the green mists. And here we bade farewell, Sri clinging to Evalie, kissing her hands and feet, weeping. And Dara clasped my shoulders:

"You will come back to us, Dwayanu? We will be waiting!"

It was like the echo of the Uighur captain's voicong and long ago...

I turned and began to climb, Evalie following. I thought that so might Euridice have followed her lover up from the Land of Shades in another long and long ago.

The figures of Sri and the watching women became dim. They were hidden under the green mists...

I felt the bitter cold touch my face. I caught Evalie up in my armnd climbed up and ond staggered at last out into the sun-lit warmth of the slopes beyond the pit of the precipices.

The day dawned when we had won the long, hard fight for Evalie's life. Not easily was the grip of the Mirage loosed. We turned our faces to the South and set our feet upon the Southward trail.

And yet...

Ai! Luitch-woman! I see you lying there, smiling with lips grown tendehhite wolf's head upon your breast! And Dwayanu still lives within me!

THE END

TABLE of CONTENTS

CHAPTER I—Suarra

CHAPTER II—The Unseen Watchers

CHAPTER III—The White Llama

CHAPTER IV—The Thing That Fled

CHAPTER V—The Elfin Horns

CHAPTER VI—The Face in the Abyss

CHAPTER VII—The Guarded Frontier

CHAPTER VIII—The Lizard Men

CHAPTER IX—In the Lair of Huon

CHAPTER X—Outlaws of Yu-Atlanchi

CHAPTER XI—The Deathless People

CHAPTER XII—The Secret Ancient City

CHAPTER XIV—Shadow of the Lizard Mask

CHAPTER XV—"Lend Me Your Body, Graydon!"

CHAPTER XVI—The Painted Chamber

CHAPTER XVII—Taking of Huon's Lair

CHAPTER XVIII—The Arena of the Dinosaurs

CHAPTER XIX—The Snake Mother

CHAPTER XX—Wisdom of the Serpent Mother

CHAPTER XXI—The Cavern of the Lost Wisdom

CHAPTER XXII—The Feast of the Dream Makers

CHAPTER XXIII—The Taking of Suarra

CHAPTER XXIV—Bride of the Lizard-Man

CHAPTER XXV—The Collar of Nimir

CHAPTER XXVI—Ragnarok in Yu-Atlanchi

CHAPTER XXVII—Farewell of the Snake Mother

CHAPTER I—Suarra

Nicholas Graydon ran into Starrett in Quito. Rather, Starrett sought him out there. Graydon had often heard of the big West Coast adventurer, but their trails had never crossed. It was with lively curiosity that he opened his door to his visitor.

Starrett came to the point at once. Graydon had heard the legend of the treasure train bringing to Pizarro the ransom of the Inca Atahualpa? And that its leaders, learning of the murder of their monarch by the butcher-boy Conquistador, had turned aside and hidden the treasure somewhere in the Andean wilderness?

Graydon had heard it, hundreds of times; had even considered hunting for it. He said so. Starrett nodded.

"I know where it is," he said.

Graydon laughed.

In the end Starrett convinced him; convinced him, at least, that he had something worth looking into.

Graydon rather liked the big man. There was a bluff directness that made him overlook the hint of cruelty in eyes and jaw. There were two others with him, Starrett said, both old companions. Graydon asked why they had picked him out. Starrett bluntly told hiecause they knew he could afford to pay the expenses of the expedition. They would all share equally in the treasure. If they didn't find it, Graydon was a first-class mining engineer, and the region they were going into was rich in minerals. He was practically sure of making some valuable discovery on which they could cash in.

Graydon considered. There were no calls upon him. He had just passed his thirty-fourth birthday, and since he had been graduated from the Harvard School of Mines eleven years ago he had never had a real holiday. He could well afford the cost. There would be some excitement, if nothing else.

After he had looked over Starrett's two comradeoames, a lanky, saturnine, hard-bitten Yankee, and Dancret, a cynical, amusing little Frenchmahey had drawn up an agreement and he had signed it.

They went down by rail to Cerro de Pasco for their outfit, that being the town of any size closest to where their trek into the wilderness would begin. A week later with eight burros and six arrieros, or packmen, they were within the welter of peaks through which, Starrett's map indicated, lay their road.

It had been the map which had persuaded Graydon. It was no parchment, but a sheet of thin gold quite as flexible. Starrett drew it out of a small golden tube of ancient workmanship, and unrolled it. Graydon examined it and was unable to see any map upon ir anything else. Starrett held it at a peculiar anglnd the markings upon it became plain.

It was a beautiful piece of cartography. It was, in fact, less a map than a picture. Here and there were curious symbols which Starrett said were signs cut upon the rocks along the way; guiding marks for those of the old race who would set forth to recover the treasure when the Spaniards had been swept from the land.

Whether it was clew to Atahualpa's ransom hoard or to something elsraydon did not know. Starrett said it was. But Graydon did not believe his story of how the golden sheet had come into his possession. Nevertheless, there had been purpose in the making of the map, and stranger purpose in the cunning with which the markings had been concealed. Something interesting lay at the end of that trail.

They found the signs cut in the rocks exactly as the sheet of gold had indicated. Gay, spirits high with anticipation, three of them spending in advance their share of the booty, they followed the symbols. Steadily they were led into the uncharted wilderness.

At last the arrieros began to murmur. They were approaching, they said, a region that was accursed, the Cordillera de Carabaya, where only demons dwelt. Promises of more money, threats, pleadings, took them along a little further. One morning the four awakened to find the arrieros gone, and with them half the burros and the major portion of their supplies.

They pressed on. Then the signs failed them. Either they had lost the trail, or the map which had led them truthfully so far had lied at the last.

The country into which they had penetrated was a curiously lonely one. There had been no sign of Indians since more than a fortnight before, when they had stopped at a Quicha village and Starrett had gotten mad drunk on the fiery spirit the Quichas distill. Food was hard to find. There were few animals and fewer birds.

Worst of all was the change which had come over Graydon's companions. As high as they had been lifted by their certitude of success, just so deep were they in depression. Starrett kept himself at steady level of drunkenness, alternately quarrelsome and noisy, or brooding in sullen rage.

Dancret was silent and irritable. Soames seemed to have come to the conclusion that Starrett, Graydon and Dancret had combined against him; that they had either deliberately missed the trail or had erased the signs. Only when the pair of them joined Starrett and drank with him the Quicha brew with which they had laden one of the burros did the three relax. At such times Graydon had the uneasy feeling that all were holding the failure against him, and that his life might be hanging on a thin thread.

The day that Graydon's great adventure really began, he was on his way back to the camp. He had been hunting since morning. Dancret and Soames had gone off together on another desperate search for the missing marks.

Cut off in mid-flight, the girl's cry came to him as the answer to all his apprehensions; materialization of the menace toward which his vague fears had been groping since he had left Starrett alone at the camp, hours ago. He had sensed some culminating misfortune closnd here it was! He broke into a run, stumbling up the slope to the group of gray-green algarrobas, where the tent was pitched.

He crashed through the thick undergrowth to the clearing.

Why didn't the girl cry out again? he wondered. A chuckle reached him, thick, satyr-toned.

Half crouching, Starrett was holding the girl bow fashion over one knee. A thick arm was clenched about her neck, the fingers clutching her mouth brutally, silencing her; his right hand fettered her wrists; her knees were caught in the vise of his bent right leg.

Graydon caught him by the hair, and locked his arm under his chin. He drew his head sharply back.

"Drop her!" he ordered.

Half paralyzed, Starrett relaxee writhed, then twisted to his feet.

"What the hell are you butting in for?"

His hand struck down toward his pistol. Graydon's fist caught him on the point of the jaw. The half-drawn gun slipped to the ground and Starrett toppled over.

The girl leaped up, and away.

Graydon did not look after her. She had gone, no doubt, to bring down upon them her people, some tribe of the fierce Aymara whom even the Incas of old had never quite conquered. And who would avenge her in ways that Graydon did not like to visualize.

He bent over Starrett. Between the blow and the drink he would probably be out for some time. Graydon picked up the pistol. He wished that Dancret and Soames would get back soon to camp. The three of them could put up a good fight at any rate...might even have a chance to escape...but they would have to get back quickly...the girl would soon return with her avengers...was probably at that moment telling them of her wrongs. He turned--

She stood there, looking at him.

Drinking in her loveliness, Graydon forgot the man at his feeorgot all else.

Her skin was palest ivory. It gleamed through the rents of the soft amber fabric, like thickest silk, which swathed her. Her eyes were oval, a little tilted, Egyptian in the wide midnight of her pupils. Her nose was small and straight; her brows level and black, almost meeting. Her hair was cloudy, jet, misty and shadowed. A narrow fillet of gold bound her low broad forehead. In it was entwined a sable and silver feather of the caraquenquhat bird whose plumage in lost centuries was sacred to the princesses of the Incas alone.

Above her elbows were golden bracelets, reaching almost to the slender shoulders. Her little high-arched feet were shod with high buskins of deerskin. She was lithe and slender as the Willow Maid who waits on Kwannon when she passes through the World of Trees pouring into them new fire of green life.

She was no Indian...nor daughter of ancient Incas...nor was she Spanish...she was of no race that he knew. There were bruises on her cheekhe marks of Starrett's fingers. Her long, slim hands touched them. She spokn the Aymara tongue.

"Is he dead?"

"No," Graydon answered.

In the depths of her eyes a small, hot flame flared; he could have sworn it was of gladness.

"That is well! I would not have him die--" her voice became meditative--"at leasot this way."

Starrett groaned. The girl again touched the bruises on her cheek.

"He is very strong," she murmured.

Graydon thought there was admiration in her whisper; wondered whether all her beauty was, after all, only a mask for primitive woman worshiping brute strength. "Who are you?" he asked.

She looked at him for a long, long moment.

"I auarra," she answered, at last.

"But where do you come from? What are you?" he asked again. She did not choose to answer these questions.

"Is he your enemy?"

"No," he said. "We travel together."

"Then why--" she pointed again to the outstretched figure--"why did you do this to him? Why did you not let him have his way with me?"

Graydon flushed. The question, with all its subtle implications, cut.

"What do you think I am?" he answered, hotly. "No man lets a thing like that go on!"

She looked at him, curiously. Her face softened. She took a step closer to him. She touched once more the bruises on her cheek.

"Do you not wonder," she said, "now do you not wonder why I do not call my people to deal him the punishment he has earned?"

"I do wonder," Graydon's perplexity was frank. "I wonder indeed. Why do you not call thef they are close enough to hear?"

"And what would you do were they to come?"

"I would not let them have hilive," he answered. "Nor me."

"Perhaps," she said, slowly--"perhaps that is why I do not call."

Suddenly she smiled upon him. He took a swift step toward her. She thrust out a warning hand. "I auarra," she said. "And I aeath!" A chill passed through Graydon. Again he realized the alien beauty of her. Could there be truth in these legends of the haunted Cordillera? He had never doubted that there was something real behind the terror of the Indians, the desertion of the arrieros. Was she one of its spirits, one of itemons? For an instant the fantasy seemed no fantasy. Then reason returned. This girl a demon! He laughed.

"Do not laugh," she said. "The death I mean is not such as you who live beyond the high rim of our hidden land know. Your body may live oet it is death and more than death, since it is changed ireadfuays. And that which tenants your body, that which speaks through your lips, is changen ways more dreadful still!...I would not have that death come to you."

Strange as were her words, Graydon hardly heard them: certainly did not then realize their meaning, lost as he was in wonder at her beauty.

"How you came by the Messengers, I do not know. How you could have passed unseen by them, I cannot understand. Nor how you came so far into this forbidden land. Tell mhy came you here at all?"

"We came from afar," he told her, "on the track of a great treasure of gold and gems; the treasure of Atahualpa, the Inca. There were certain signs that led us. We lost them. We found that we, too, were lost. And we wandered here."

"Of Atahualpa or of Incas," the girl said, "I know nothing. Whoever they were, they could not have come to this place. And their treasure, no matter how great, would have meant nothing to uo us of Yu-Atlanchi, where treasures are as rocks in the bed of a stream. A grain of sand it would have been, among many--" she paused, then went on, perplexedly, as though voicing her thoughts to herself--"But it is why the Messengers did not see them that I cannot understand...the Mother must know of this...I must go quickly to the Mother..."

"The Mother?" asked Graydon.

"The Snake Mother!" her gaze returned to him; she touched a bracelet on her right wrist. Graydon, drawing close, saw that this bracelet held a disk on which was carved in bas-relief a serpent with a woman's head and woman's breast and arms. It lay coiled upon what appeared to be a great bowl held high on the paws of four beasts. The shapes of these creatures did not at once register upon his consciousness, so absorbed was he in his study of that coiled figure. He stared closnd closer. And now he realized that the head reared upon the coils was not really that of a woman. No! It was reptilian.

Snake-liket so strongly had the artist feminized it, so great was the suggestion of womanhood modeled into every line of it, that constantly one saw it as woman, forgetting all that was of the serpent.

The eyes were of some intensely glittering purple stone. Graydon felt that those eyes were alivhat far, far away some living thing was looking at him through them. That they were, in fact, prolongations of some one'ome thing'ision.

The girl touched one of the beasts that held up the bowl. "The Xinii," she said. Graydon's bewilderment increased. He knew what those animals were. Knowing, he also knew that he looked upon the incredible.

They were dinosaurs! The monstrous saurians that ruled earth millions upon millions of years ago, and, but for whose extinction, so he had been taught, man could never have developed.

Who in this Andean wilderness could know or could have known the dinosaurs? Who here could have carved the monsters with such life-like detail as these possessed? Why, it was only yesterday that science had learned what really were their huge bones, buried so long that the rocks had molded themselves around them in adamantine matrix. And laboriously, with every modern resource, haltingly and laboriously, science had set those bones together as a perplexed child would a picture puzzle, and put forth what it believed to be reconstructions of these longvanished chimera of earth's nightmare youth.

Yet here, far from all science it must surely be, some one had modeled those same monsters for a woman's bracelet. Why thet followed that whoever had done this must have had before him the living forms from which to work. Or, if not, had copies of those forms set down by ancient men who had seen them. And either or both these things were incredible, Who were the people to whom she belonged? There had been a namu-Atlanchi.

"Suarra," he said, "where is Yu-Atlanchi? Is it this place?"

"This?" She laughed. "No! Yu-Atlanchi is the Ancient Land. The Hidden Land where the six Lords and the Lords of Lords once ruled. And where now rules only the Snake Mother annother. This place Yu-Atlanchi!" Again she laughed. "Now and then I hunt here withe--" she hesitated, looking at him oddly--"So it was that he who lies there caught me. I was hunting. I had slipped away from my followers, for sometimes it pleases me to hunt alone. I came through these trees and saw your tetuane, your lodge. I came face to face witim. And I was amazeoo amazed to strike with one of these." She pointed to a low knoll a few feet away. "Before I could conquer that amaze he had caught me. Then you came."

Graydon looked where she had pointed. Upon the ground lay three slender, shining spears. Their slim shafts were of gold; the arrow-shaped heads of two of them were of fine opal The thirhe third was a single emerald, translucent and flawless, all of six inches long and three at its widest, ground to keenest point and cutting edge.

There it lay, a priceless jewel tipping a spear of golnd a swift panic shook Graydon. He had forgotten Soames and Dancret. Suppose they should return while this girl was there. This girl with her ornaments of gold, her gem-tipped spearnd her beauty!

"Suarra," he said, "you must go, and go quickly. This man and I are not all. There are two more, and even now they may be close. Take your spears, and go quickly. Else I may not be able to save you."

"You think I am--"

"I tell you to go," he interrupted. "Whoever you are, whatever you are, go now and keep away from this place. To-morrow I will try to lead them away. If you have people to fight for yoell, let them come and fight if you so desire. But take your spears and go."

She crossed to the little knoll and picked up the spears. She held one out to him, the one that bore the emerald point.

"This," she said, "to remembeuarra."

"No," he thrust it back. "Go!"

If the others saw that jewel, never, he knew, would he be able to start them on the back traif they could find it. Starrett had seen it, of course, but he might be able to convince them that Starrett's story was only a drunken dream.

The girl studied hi quickened interest in her eyes.

She slipped the bracelets from her arms, held them out to him with the three spears.

"Will you take thesnd leave your comrades?" she asked. "Here are gold and gems. They are treasure. They are what you have been seeking. Take them. Take them and go, leaving that man here. Consennd I will show you a way out of this forbidden land."

Graydon hesitated. The emerald alone was worth a fortune. What loyalty did he owe the three, after all? And Starrett had brought this thing upon himself. Nevertheleshey were his comrades. Open-eyed he had gone into this venture with them. He had a vision of himself skulking away with the glittering booty, creeping off to safety while he left the three unwarned, unprepared, to meehat?

He did not like that picture.

"No," he said. "These men are of my race, my comrades. Whatever is to com will meet it with them and help them fight it."

"Yet you would have fought them for my sakndeed, did fight," she said. "Why then do you cling to them when you can save yourself, and go free, with treasure? And why, if you will not do this, do you let me go, knowing that if you kept me prisoner, oilled me, I could not bring my people down upon you?"

Graydon laughed.

"I couldn't let them hurt you, of course," he said. "And I'm afraid to make you prisoner, because I might not be able to keep you free from hurt. And I won't run away. So talk no more, but go!"

She thrust the gleaming spears into the ground, slipped the golden bracelets back on her arms, held white hands out to him.

"Now," she whispered, "now, by the Wisdom of the Mother, I will save yof I can."

There was the sound of a horn, far away and high in the air it seemed. It was answered by others closer by; mellow, questing noteith weirdly alien beat in them.

"They come," the girl said. "My followers. Light your fire to-night. Sleep without fear. But do not wander beyond these trees."

"Suarra--" he began.

"Quiet now," she warned. "Quientil I am gone."

The mellow horns sounded closer. She sprang from his side and darted away through the trees. From the ridge above the camp he heard her voice raised in one clear shout There was a tumult of the horns about helfin and troubling. Then silence.

Graydon stood listening. The sun touched the high snowfields of the majestic peaks toward which he faced, touched them and turned them into robes of molten gold. The amethyst shadows that draped their sides thickened, wavered and marched swiftly forward.

Still he listened, hardly breathing.

Far, far away the horns sounded again; faint echoings of the tumult that had swept about the giraint, faint and fairy sweet.

The sun dropped behind the peaks; the edges of their frozen mantles glittered as though sewn with diamonds; darkened into a fringe of gleaming rubies. The golden fields dulled, grew amber and then blushed forth a glowing rose. They changed to pearl and faded into a ghostly silver, shining like cloud wraiths in the highest heavens. Down upon the algarroba clump the quick Andean dusk fell.

Not till then did Graydon, shivering with sudden, inexplicable dread, realize that beyond the calling horns and the girl's clear shouting he had heard no other souno noise either of man or beast, no sweeping through of brush or grass, no fall of running feet.

Nothing but that mellow chorus of the horns.

CHAPTER II—The Unseen Watchers

Starrett had drifted out of the paralysis of the blow into a drunken stupor. Graydon dragged him over to the tent, thrust a knapsack under his head, and threw a blanket over him. Then he went out and built up the fire. There was a trampling through the underbrush. Soames and Dancret came up through the trees.

"Find any signs?" he asked.

"Signs? Helo!" snarled the New Englander. "Say, Graydon, did you hear somethin' like a lot of horns? Damned queer horns, too. They seemed to be over here."

Graydon nodded, he realized that he must tell these men what had happened so that they could prepare some defense. But how much could he tell?

Tell them of Suarra's beauty, of her golden ornaments and her gem-tipped spears of gold? Tell them what she had said of Atahualpa's treasure?

If he did, there would be no further reasoning with them. They would go berserk with greed. Yet something of it he must tell them if they were to be ready for the attack which he was certain would come with the dawn.

And of the girl they would learn soon enough from Starrett.

He heard an exclamation from Dancret who had passed on into the tent; heard him come out; stood up and faced the wiry little Frenchman.

"What's the matter wit' Starrett, eh?" Dancret snapped. "First I t'ought he's drunk. Then I see he's scratched like wildcat and wit' a lump on his jaw as big as one orange. What you do to Starrett, eh?"

Graydon had made up his mind, and was ready to answer.

"Dancret," he said, "Soamee're in a bad box. I came in from hunting less than an hour ago, and found Starrett wrestling with a girl. That's bad medicine down herhe worst, and you two know it. I had to knock Starrett out before I could get the girl away from him. Her people will probably be after us in the morning. There's no use trying to get away. We don't know a thing about this wilderness. Here is as good as any other place to meet them. We'd better spend the night getting it ready so we can put up a good scrap, if we have to."

"A girl, eh?" said Dancret. "What she look like? Where she come from? How she get away?"

Graydon chose the last question to answer.

"I let her go," he said.

"You let her go!" snarled Soames. "What the hell did you do that for? Why didn't you tie her up? We could have held her as a hostage, Graydoad somethin' to do some tradin' with when her damned bunch of Indians came."

"She wasn't an Indian, Soames," said Graydon, then hesitated.

"You mean she was whitpanish?" broke in Dancret, incredulously.

"No, not Spanish either. She was white. Yes, white as any of us. I don't know what she was."

The pair stared at him, then at each other.

"There's somethin' damned funny about this," growled Soames, at last "But what I want to know is why you let her ghatever the hell she was?"

"Because I thought we'd have a better chance if I did than if I didn't." Graydon's own wrath was rising. "I tell you that we're up against something none of us knows anything about. And we've got just one chance of getting out of the mess. If I'd kept her there, we wouldn't have even that chance."

Dancret stooped, and picked up something from the ground, something that gleamed yellow in the firelight.

"Somet'ing funny is right, Soames," he said. "Look at this!"

He handed the gleaming object over. It was a golden bracelet, and as Soames turned it over in his hand there was the green glitter of emeralds. It had been torn from Suarra's arm, undoubtedly, in her struggle with Starrett.

"What that girl give you to let her go, Graydon, eh?" Dancret spat. "What she tell you, eh?"

Soames's hand dropped to his automatic.

"She gave me nothing. I took nothing," answered Graydon.

"I t'ink you damned liar," said Dancret, viciously. "We get Starrett awake," he turned to Soames. "We get him awake quick. I t'ink he tell us more about this, oui. A girl who wears stuff like thind he lets her go! Lets her go when he knows there must be more where this come froh, Soames! Damned funny is right, eh? Come now, we see what Starrett tell us."

Graydon watched them go into the tent. Soon Soames came out, went to a spring that bubbled up from among the trees; returned, with water.

Well, let them waken Starrett; let him tell them whatever he would. They would not kill him that night, of that he was sure. They believed that he knew too much. And in the morning--

What was hidden in the morning for them all?

That even now they were prisoners, Graydon was sure. Suarra's warning not to leave the camp had been explicit. Since that tumult of the elfin horns, her swift vanishing and the silence that had followed, he no longer doubted that they had strayed, as she had said, within the grasp of some power as formidable as it was mysterious.

The silence? Suddenly it came to him that the night had become strangely still. There was no sound either of insect or bird, nor any stirring of the familiar after-twilight life of the wilderness.

The camp was besieged by silence!

He walked away through the algarrobas. There was a scant score of the trees. They stood like a little leafy island peak within the brush-covered savanna. They were great trees, every one of them, and set with a curious regularity; as though they had not sprung up by chance; as though indeed they had been carefully planted.

Graydon reached the last of them, rested a hand against a bole that was like myriads of tiny grubs turned to soft brown wood. He peered out. The slope that lay before him was flooded with moonlight; the yellow blooms of the chiica shrubs that pressed to the very feet of the trees shone wanly in the silver flood. The faintly aromatic fragrance of the quenuar stole around him. Movement or sign of life there was none.

And yet--

The spaces seemed filled with watchers. He felt their gaze upon him. He knew that some hidden host girdled the camp. He scanned every bush and shadond saw nothing. The certainty of a hidden, unseen multitude persisted. A wave of nervous irritation passed through him. He would force them, whatever they were, to show themselves.

He stepped out boldly into the full moonlight.

On the instant the silence intensified. It seemed to draw taut, to lift itself up whole octaves of stillnesses. It became alert, expectans though poised to spring upon him should he take one step further.

A coldness wrapped him, and he shuddered. He drew swiftly back to the shadow of the trees; stood there, his heart beating furiously. The silence lost its poignancy, drooped back upon its hauncheatchful.

What had frightened him? What was there in that tightening of the stillness that had touched him with the finger of nightmare terror? He groped back, foot by foot, afraid to turn his face from the silence. Behind him the fire flared. His fear dropped from him.

His reaction from his panic was a heady recklessness. He threw a log upon the fire and laughed as the sparks shot up among the leaves. Soames, coming out of the tent for more water, stopped as he heard that laughter and scowled at him malevolently.

"Laugh," he said. "Laugh while you can. Maybe you'll laugh on the other side of your mouth when we get Starrett up and he tells us what he knows."

"That was a sound sleep I gave him, anyway," jeered Graydon.

"There are sounder sleeps. Don't forget it," Dancret's voice, cold and menacing came from the tent.

Graydon turned his back to the tent, and deliberately faced that silence from which he had just fled. He seated himself, and after a while he dozed.

He awakened with a jump. Half-way between him and the tent Starrett was charging on him like a madman, bellowing.

Graydon leaped to his feet, but before he could defend himself the giant was upon him. The next moment he was down, overborne by sheer weight. The big adventurer crunched a knee into his arm and gripped his throat.

"Let her go, did you!" he roared. "Knocked me out and then let her go! Here's where you go, too, damn you!"

Graydon tried to break the grip on his throat. His lungs labored; there was a deafening roaring in his ears, and flecks of crimson began to dance across his vision. Starrett was strangling him. Through fast dimming sight he saw two black shadows leap through the firelight and clutch the strangling hands.

The fingers relaxed. Graydon staggered up. A dozen paces away stood Starrett. Dancret, arms around his knees, was hanging to him like a little terrier. Beside him was Soames, the barrel of his automatic pressed against his stomach.

"Why don't you let me kill him!" raved Starrett. "Didn't I tell you the girl had enough green ice on her to set us up the rest of our lives? There's more where it came from! And he let her go! Let her go, the--"

Again his curses flowed.

"Now look here, Starrett," Soames's voice was deliberate. "You be quiet, or I'll do for you. We ain't goin' to let this thing get by us, me and Dancret. We ain't goin' to let this double-crossin' louse do us, and we ain't goin' to let you spill the beans by killin' him. We've struck somethin' big. All right, we're goin' to cash in on it. We're goin' to sit down peaceable, and Mister Graydon is goin' to tell us what happened after he put you out, what dicker he made with the girl and all of that. If he won't do it peaceable, then Mister Graydon is goin' to have things done to him that'll make him give up. That's all. Danc', let go his legs. Starrett, if you kick up any more trouble until I give the word I'm goin' to shoot you. From now on I boss this crowe and Danc'. You get me, Starrett?"

Graydon, head once more clear, slid a cautious hand down toward the pistol holster. It was empty. Soames grinned, sardonically.

"We got it, Graydon," he said. "Yours, too, Starrett. Fair enough. Sit down everybody."

He squatted by the fire, still keeping Starrett covered. And after a moment the latter, grumbling, followed suit. Dancret dropped beside him.

"Come over here, Graydon," said Soames. "Come over here and cough up. What're you holdin' out on us? Did you make a date with her to meet you after you got rid of us? If so, where is iecause we'll all go together."

"Where'd you hide those gold spears?" growled Starrett "You never let her get away with them, that's sure."

"Shut up, Starrett," ordered Soames. "I'm holdin' this inquest. Stilhere's something in that. Was that it, Graydon? Did she give you the spears and her jewelry to let her go?"

"I've told you," answered Graydon. "I asked for nothing, and took nothing. Starrett's drunken folly had put us all in jeopardy. Letting the girl go free was the first vital step toward our own safety. I thought it was the best thing to do. I still think so."

"Yeah?" sneered the lank New Englander, "is that so? Well, I'll tell you, Graydon, if she'd been an Indian maybe I'd agree with you. But not when she was the kind of lady Starrett says she was. No, sir, it ain't natural. You know damned well that if you'd been straight you'd have kept her here till Danc' and me got back. Then we could all have got together and figured what was the best thing to do. Hold her until her folks came along and paid up to get her back undamaged. Or give her the third degree until she gave up where all that gold and stuff she was carrying came from. That's what you would have done, Graydof you weren't a dirty, lyin', double-crossin' hound."

Graydon's anger flared up. |

"All right, Soames," he said. "I'll tell you. What I've said about freeing her for our own safety is true. But outside of that I would as soon have thought of trusting a child to a bunch of hyenas as I would of trusting that girl to you three. I let her go a damned sight more for her sake than I did for our own. Does that satisfy you?"

"Aha!" jeered Dancret. "Now I see! Here is this strange lady of so much wealth and beauty. She is too pure and good for us to behold. He tell her so and bid her fly. 'My hero!' she say, 'take all I have and give up this bad company.' 'No, no,' he tell her, t'inking all the time if he play his cards right he get much more, and us out of the way so he need not divide, 'no, no,' he tell her. 'But long as these bad men stay here you will not be safe.' 'My hero,' she say. 'I will go and bring back my family and they shall dispose of your bad company. But you they shall reward, my hero, oui!' Aha, so that is what it was!"

Graydon flushed; the little Frenchman's malicious travesty had shot uncomfortably close. After all, Suarra's unasked promise to save him could be construed as Dancret had suggested. Suppose he told them he had warned her that whatever the fate in store for them he was determined to share it, and would stand by them to the last? They would not believe him.

Soames had been watching him, closely.

"By God, Danc'," he said, "I guess you hit it He changed color. He's sold us out."

He raised his automatic, held it on Graydohen lowered it.

"No," he said, deliberately. "This is too big a thing to let slip by bein' too quick on the trigger. If your dope is right, Danc', and I guess it is, the lady was mighty grateful. All righe ain't got her, but we have got him. As I figure it, bein' grateful, she won't want him to get killed. She'll be back. Well, we'll trade him for what they got that we want. Tie him up."

He pointed the pistol at Graydon. Unresisting, Graydon let Starrett and Dancret bind his wrists. They pushed him over to one of the trees and sat him on the ground with his back against its bole. They passed a rope under his arms and hitched it securely around the trunk; they tied his feet.

"Now," said Soames, "if her gang show up in the morning, well let 'em see you, and find out how much you're worth. They won't rush us. There's bound to be a palaver. And if they don't come to termell, Graydon, the first bullet out of this gun goes through your guts. That'll give you time to see what we do to her before you die."

Graydon did not answer him. He knew that nothing he might say would change them from their purpose. He made himself as comfortable as possible, and closed his eyes. Once or twice he opened them, and looked at the others. They sat beside the fire, heads close together, talking in whispers, their faces tense, and eyes feverish with the treasure lust. After a while Graydon's head dropped forward. He slept.

CHAPTER III—The White Llama

IT WAS DAWN when Graydon awakened.

Some one had thrown a blanket over him during the night, but he was, nevertheless, cold and stiff. He drew his legs up and down painfully, trying to start the sluggish blood. He heard the others stirring in the tent. He wondered which of them had thought of the blanket, and why he had been moved to that kindness.

Starrett lifted the tent flap, passed by him without a word and went on to the spring. He returned and busied himself, furtively, about the fire. Now and then he looked at the prisoner, but seemingly with neither anger nor resentment. He slipped at last to the tent, listened, then trod softly over to Graydon.

"Sorry about this," he muttered. "But I can't do anything with Soames and Dancret. Had a hard time persuading 'em even to let you have that blanket. Take a drink of this."

He pressed a flask to Graydon's lips. He took a liberal swallow; it warmed him.

"Sh-h," warned Starrett. "Don't bear any grudge. Drunk last night. I'll help you, if--" He broke off, abruptly; busied himself with the burning logs. Out of the tent came Soames.

"I'm goin' to give you one last chance, Graydon," he began, without preliminary. "Come through clean with us on your dicker with the girl, and we'll take you back with us, and all work together and all share together. You had the edge on us yesterday, and I don't know that I blame you. But it's three to one now and the plain truth is you can't get away with it. So why not be reasonable?"

"What's the use of going over all that again, Soames?" Graydon asked, wearily. "I've told you everything. If you're wise, you'll let me loose, give me my guns and I'll fight for you when the trouble comes. For trouble is coming, man, surig trouble."

"Yeah!" snarled the New Englander. "Tryin' to scare us, are you? All righhere's a nice little trick of drivin' a wedge under each of your finger nails and a-keepin' drivin' 'em in. It makes 'most anybody talk after awhile. And if it don't, there's the good old fire dodge. Rollin' your feet up to it, closer and closer and closer. Yeah, anybody'll talk when their toes begin to crisp up and toast."

Suddenly he bent over and sniffed at Graydon's lips.

"So that's it!" he faced Starrett, tense, gun leveled from his hip pocket. "Been feedin' him liquor, have you? Been talkin' to him, have you? After we'd settled it last night that I was to do all the talkin'. All right, that settles you, Starrett. Dancret! Danc'! Come here, quick!" he roared.

The Frenchman came running out of the tent.

"Tie him up," Soames nodded toward Starrett. "Another damned double-crosser in the camp. Gave him liquor. Got their heads together while we were inside. Tie him."

"But, Soames," the Frenchman hesitated, "if we have to fight, it is not well to have half of us helpless, non. Perhaps Starrett he did nothing--"

"If we have to fight, two men will do as well as three," said Soames. "I ain't goin' to let this thing slip through my fingers, Danc'. I don't think we'll have to do any fightin'. If they come, I think it's goin' to be a tradin' job. Starrett's turnin' traitor, too. Tie him, I say."

"Well, I don't like it--" began Dancret; Soames made an impatient motion with his automatic; the little Frenchman went to the tent, returned with a coil of rope, and sidled up to Starrett.

"Put up your hands," ordered Soames. Starrett swung them up. But in mid-swing they closed on Dancret, lifted him like a doll and held him between himself and the gaunt New Englander.

"Now shoot, damn you!" he cried, and bore down on Soames, meeting every move of his pistol arm with Dancret's wriggling body. His own right hand swept down to the Frenchman's belt, drew from the holster his automatic, leveled it over the twisting shoulder at Soames.

"Drop your gun, Yank," grinned Starrett, triumphantly. "Or shoot if you want. But before your bullet's half through Dancret here, by Christ, I'll have you drilled clean."

There was a momentary, sinister silenct was broken by a sudden pealing of tiny golden bells.

Their chiming cleft through the murk of murder that had fallen on the camp; lightened it; dissolved it as the sunshine does a cloud. Soames' pistol dropped; Starrett's iron grip upon Dancret relaxed.

Through the trees, not a hundred yards away, came Suarra.

A cloak of green covered the girl from neck almost to slender feet. In her hair gleamed a twisted string of emeralds. Bandlets of gold studded with the same gems circled her wrists and ankles. Behind her a snow-white llama paced, sedately. There was a broad golden collar around its neck from which dropped strands of little golden bells. At each of its silvery sides a pannier hung, woven it seemed from shining yellow rushes.

And there was no warrior host around her. She had brought neither avengers nor executioners. At the llama's side was a single attendant. Swathed in a voluminous robe of red and yellow, the hood of which covered his face. His only weapon was a long staff, vermilion. He was bent, and he fluttered and danced as he came on, taking little steps backward and forwarovements that carried the suggestion that his robes clothed less a human being than some huge bird. They drew closer, and Graydon saw that the hand that clutched the staff was thin and white with the transparent pallor of old, old age.

He strained at his bonds, a sick horror at his heart. Why had she come bacike this? Without strong men to guard her? With none but this one ancient? And decked in jewels and gold? He had warned her; she could not be ignorant of what threatened her. It was as though she had come thus deliberatelo fan the lusts from which she had most to fear.

"Diable!" whispered Dancret--"the emeralds!"

"Gohat a girl!" muttered Starrett, thick nostrils distended, a red flicker in his eyes.

Soames said nothing, perplexity and suspicion replacing the astonishment with which he had watched the approach. Nor did he speak as the girl and her attendants halted close beside him. But the doubt in his eyes grew, and he scanned the path along which they had come, searching every tree, every bush. There was no sign of movement, no sound.

"Suarra!" cried Graydon, despairingly, "Suarra, why did you return?"

She stepped over to him, and drew a dagger from beneath her cloak. She cut the thongs binding him to the tree. She slipped the blade beneath the cords that fettered his wrists and ankles; freed him. He staggered to his feet.

"Was it not well for you that I did come?" she asked, sweetly.

Before he could answer, Soames strode forward. And Graydon saw that he had come to some decision, had resolved upon some course of action. He made a low, awkward, mocking bow to the girl; then spoke to Graydon.

"All right," he said, "you can stay looss long as you do what I want you to. The girl's back and that's the main thing. She seems to favor you a lot, Graydon. I reckon that gives us a way to persuade her to answer our questions. Yes, sir, and you favor her. That's useful, too. I reckon you won't want to be tied up an' watch certain things happen to her, eh--" he leered at Graydon. "But there's just one thing you've got to do if you want things to go along peaceable. Don't do any talkin' to her when I ain't close by. Remember, I know the Aymara as well as you do. And I want to be right alongside listenin' in all the time, do you see? That's all."

He turned to Suarra.

"Your visit has brought great happiness, maiden," he spoke in the Aymara. "It will not be a short one, if we have our wand I think we will have our way--" There was covert menace in the phrase, yet if she noted it she gave no heed. "You are strange to us, as we must be to you. There is much for us each to learn, one of the other."

"That is true," she answered, tranquilly. "I think though that your desire to learn of me is much greater than mine to learn of yoince, as you surely know, I have had one not too pleasant lesson." She glanced at Starrett.

"The lessons," he said, "shall be pleasanr not pleasant, as you choose."

This time there was no mistaking the menace in the words, nor did Suarra again let it pass. Her eyes blazed sudden wrath.

"Better not to threaten!" she warned. "I, Suarra, am not used to threatnd if you will take my counsel you will keep them to yourself hereafter!"

"Yeah, is that so?" Soames took a step toward her, face grown grim and ugly. There came a dry chuckling from the hooded figure in red and yellow. Suarra started; her wrath vanished, she became friendly once more.

"I was hasty," she said to Soames. "Nevertheless, it is never wise to threaten unless you know the strength of what it is you menace. And remembef me you know nothing. Yet I know all that you wish to learn. You wish to know how I came by thind thind this--" she touched her coronal, her bracelet, her anklets. "You wish to know where they came from, and if there are more of them there, and if so, how you may possess yourself of as much as you can carry away. Well, you shall know all that. I have come to tell you."

At this announcement, so frank and open, all the doubt and suspicion returned to Soames. Again his eyes narrowed and he searched the trail up which Suarra had come.

"Soames," Dancret gripped his arm, and his voice and hand were both shaking, "the baskets on the llama. They're not rushehey're gold, pure gold, pure soft gold, woven like straw! Diable! Soames, what have we struck!"

Soames's eyes glittered.

"Better go over and watch where they came up, Danc'," he answered. "I don't quite get this. It looks too cursed easy to be right. Take your rifle and squint out from the edge of the trees while I try to get down to what's what."

"There is nothing to fear," said the girl, as though she had understood the words, "no harm will come to you from me. If there is any evil in store for you, you yourselves will summon iot we. I have come to show you the way to treasure. Only that. Come with me and you shall see where jewels like these"--she touched the gems meshed in her hair--"grow like flowers in a garden. You shall see the gold come streaming forth, living, from--" she hesitated; then went on as though reciting some lesson--"come streaming forth like water. You may bathe in that stream, drink from it if you will, carry away all that you can bear. Or if it causes you too much sorrow to leave it, whou may stay with it forever; nay, become a part of it, even. Men of gold."

She turned from them, and walked toward the llama.

They stared at her and at each other; on the faces of three, greed and suspicion; bewilderment on Graydon's.

"It is a long journey," she faced them, one hand on the llama's head. "You are my guestn a sense. Therefore, I have brought something for your entertainment before we start."

She began to unbuckle the panniers. Graydon was aware that this attendant of hers was a strange servanf servant he was. He made no move to help her. Silent he stood, and motionless, face covered.

Graydon stepped forward to help the girl. She smiled up at him, half shyly. In the depths of her eyes was a glow warmer than friendliness; his hands leaped to touch hers.

Instantly Soames stepped between them.

"Better remember what I told you," he snapped.

"Help me," said Suarra. Graydon lifted the basket and set it down beside her. She slipped a hasp, bent back the soft metal withes, and drew out a shimmering packet She shook it and it floated out on the dawn wind, a cloth of silver. It lay upon the ground like a web of gossamer spun by silver spiders.

Then from the hamper she brought forth cups of gold, and deep, boat-shaped golden dishes, two tall ewers whose handles were winged serpents, their scales made, it seemed, from molten rubies. After them small golden-withed baskets. She set the silver cloth with the dishes and the cups. She opened the little baskets. In them were unfamiliar, fragrant fruits and loaves and oddly colored cakes. All these Suarra placed upon the plates. She dropped to her knees at the head of the cloth, took up one of the ewers, snapped open its lid and from it poured into the cups clear amber wine.

She raised her eyes to them; waved a white hand, graciously.

"Sit," she said. "Eat and drink."

She beckoned to Graydon; pointed to the place beside her. Silently, gaze fixed upon the glittering hoard, Starrett and Dancret and Soames squatted before the other plates. Soames thrust out a hand, took up one and weighed it, scattering what it held upon the cloth.

"Gold!" he breathed.

Starrett laughed, crazily, and raised his wine-filled goblet to his lips.

"Wait!" Dancret caught his wrist 'Eat and drink,' she said, eh? "Eat, drink and be merror to-morrow we die, es that it?"

Soames started, his face once more dark with suspicion.

"You think it's poisoned?" he snarled.

"Maybe naybe so," the little Frenchman shrugged. "Anyway I t'ink it better we say 'After you' to her."

The girl looked at them, then at Graydon, inquiringly. "They are afraid. They think it ihat you have--" Graydon stumbled. "That I have put sleer death in it? And you?" she asked.

For answer, Graydon raised his cup and drank.

"Yet it is natural," she turned to Soames. "Yes, it is natural that you three should fear this, sincs it not st is what you would do if you were we, and we were you? But you are wrong. I tell you again that what there may be to fear is only that which is in yourselves."

She poured wine into her own cup and drank it; broke off a bit of Starrett's bread and ate it; took a cake from Dancret's plate and ate that; set white teeth in one of the fruits.

"Are you satisfied?" she asked them. "Oh, be very sure that if it is in my wish to bring death to you, it is in no such shape as this."

For a moment Soames glared at her. He jumped to his feet strode over to the hooded figure and snatched aside the cowl. The uncovered face was like old ivory. It was seamed with scores of fine lines. It was a face stamped with an incredible ancientnesut the eyes were as bright and as youthful as their setting was ancient.

It stared at Soames, inscrutably. For a dozen heartbeats the gaunt New Englander stared back. Then, slowly, he let the hood drop. He returned to the silver cloth. As he passed, Graydon saw that all color had drained from his cheeks. He threw himself down at his place, and drank deep of the wine, the hand that raised the goblet shaking.

He drank, and drank again from the flagon. And soon, whatever the terror he had felt, the wine drowned it The first ewer and a second, drawn by Suarra from the llama's panniers, were emptied by the three before Soames lurched to his feet.

"You're all right, sister," he said, half-drunkenly. "Just keep on treatin' us like this, and we'll end by all bein' little pals together."

"What does he say?" asked Suarra of Graydon.

"He approves of yountertainment," answered Graydon, dryly.

"Good," Suarra, too, arose. "Then let us be going."

"We're going, sister, never fear," grinned Soames. "Danc', you stay right here and watch things. Come on, Bill--" he slapped Starrett on the back. "Everything's just fine. Come on, Graydoygones is bygones."

Starrett scrambled up. He linked his arm in the New Englander's. They staggered over to the tent. Dancret, upon whom the wine seemed to have had little effect, settled down on a bowlder just beyond the fire and began his watch, rifle at readiness.

Graydon lingered. Soames had forgotten him, for a time at least. He meant to make the best of that time with this strange maid whose beauty and sweetness had touched him as no other woman's ever had. He drew so close that the fragrance of her cloudy hair rocked him; so close that her touching shoulder sent a flame through him.

"Suarra--" he began. She turned, and silenced him with slender fingers on his lips.

"Not now--" she whispered. "Not noell me nothing now of what is in your hearot noor, it may be, ever! I promised that I would save yof I could. Of that promise was born another--" her glance turned to the silent figure, meaningly. "So speak to me not again," she went on hurriedly, "or if you must speaet it be oommonplace things."

She began packing the golden cups and dishes. He set about helping her. He thought, ruefully, that this was a commonplace thing enough to satisfy her. She accepted his aid without comment, looked at him no more.

When the last shining cup was in the pannier, he turned and went toward the tent to get together his duffle, pack his burro. The voices of Starrett and Soames came to him.

"But she's not Indian, Soames," Starrett was speaking. "She's whiter than you and me. What are they? And the girhrist!"

"What they are we'll find out, never fear," and Soames.

"To hell with the girake her if you want her. But I'd go through a dozen hells to get to the place where that stuff they're carryin' samples of comes from. Maith what we could carry out on the burros and the llama and come back foan, we could buy the world."

"Yenless there's a trap somewhere," said Starrett, dubiously.

"We've got the cards in our hands," the wine was wearing off Soames. "What's against us? An old dummy and a girl. Now, I'll tell you what I think. I don't know who or what they are, but whoever or whatever, you can bet there ain't many of 'em. If there was, they'd be landing on us hard. Nhey're damned anxious to get us away and they're willin' to let us get out with what we can to get us away. They want to get rid of us, quick and cheap as possible. Yeahat's what they want. Whecause they damn well know the three of us could wipe 'em all out."

"Three of us?" echoed Starrett. "Four, you mean. There's Graydon."

"Graydon don't counhe louse! Thought he'd sold us out, didn't he? All righe'll fix Mister Graydon when the time comes. Just now he's useful to us on account of the girl. She's stuck on him. But when the time comes to dividhere'll be only three of us. And there'll only be two of uf you do anything like you did this morning."

"Cut it out, Soames," growled Starrett. "I told you it was the hooch. I'm through with that, now that we've seen this stuff. I'm with you to the limit Do what you want with Graydon. Bu want the girl. I'd be willing to make a bargain with yoive up a part of my share."

"Oh, hell," drawled Soames. "We've been together a good many years. Bill. There's enough and plenty for the three of us. You can have the girl for nothing."

Little flecks of red danced before Graydon's eyes. Hand stretched to tear open the tent flap, he checked himself.

That was no way to help Suarra. Unarmed, what could he do? In some way, he must get his guns. And the danger was not imminenhey would do nothing before they reached that place of treasure to which Suarra had promised to lead them.

He stole back a dozen paces, waited for a moment or two; then went noisily to the tent. He thrust aside the flap and entered.

"Been a long time comin'," snarled Soames. "Been talkin'--after what I told you?"

"Not a word," lied Graydon, cheerfulle busied himself with his belongings. "By the way, Soames, don't you think it's time to stop this nonsense and give me back my guns?"

Soames made no answer.

"Oh, all right then," said Graydon. "I only thought that they would come in handy when the pinch comes. But if you only want me to look on while you do the scrappinell, I don't mind."

"You'd better mind," said Soames. "You'd better mind, Graydon! If the pinch comee're takin' no chances of a bullet in our backs. That's why you've got no guns. And if the pinch does comell, we'll take no chances on you, anyway. Do you get me?"

Graydon shrugged. In silence the packing was completed; the tent struck; the burros loaded.

Suarra stood awaiting them at the side of the white llama. Soames walked up to her, drew from its holster his automatic, balanced it in outstretched hand.

"You know what this is?" he asked her.

"Why, yes," she answered. "It is the death weapon of your kind."

"Right," said Soames. "And it deals death quickly, quicker than spears or arrows--" He raised his voice so there could be no doubt that her silent attendant must also hear--"Now, I and these two men here carry these and others still more deadly. This man's we have taken from him. Your words may be clearest truth. I hope they aror your sake and this man's and his who came with you. You understand me?" he asked, and grinned like a hungry wolf.

"I understand." Suarra's eyes and face were calm. "You need fear nothing from us."

"We don't," said Soames. "But you have much to fearom us." Another moment he regarded her, menacingly; then shoved his pistol back into his holster.

"You go first," he ordered. "Your man behind you. And then him--" he pointed to Graydon. "We three march in the reaeath-weapons ready."

In that order they passed through the giant algarrobas, and out into the oddly park-like spaces beyond.

CHAPTER IV—The Thing That Fled

They had traveled over the savanna for perhaps an hour when Suarra turned to the left, entering the forest that covered the flanks of a great mountain. The trees closed on them. Graydon could see no trail, yet she went on without pause. Another hour went by and the way began to climb, the shade to deepen. Deeper it became and deeper, until the girl was but a flitting shadow.

Once or twice Graydon had glanced at the three men behind him. The darkness was making them more and more uneasy. They walked close together, eyes and ears strained to catch the first faint stirrings of ambush. And now, as the green gloom grew denser still, Soames ordered him to join Dancret and Starrett. He hesitated, read murder in the New Englander's eyes, realized the futility of resistance and dropped back. Soames pressed forward until he was close behind the cowled figure. Dancret drew Graydon between himself and Starrett, grinning.

"Soames has changed his plan," he whispered. "If there is trouble, he shoot the old deviuick. He keep the girl to make trade wit' her people. He keep you to make trade wit' the girl. How you likh?"

Graydon did not answer. When the Frenchman had pressed close to him, he had felt an automatic in his side pocket. If an attack did come, he could leap upon Dancret, snatch the pistol and gain for himself a fighting chance. He would shoot Soames down as remorselessly as he knew Soames would shoot him.

Darker grew the woods until the figures in front were only a moving blur. Then the gloom began to lighten. They had been passing through some ravine, some gorge whose unseen walls had been pressing in upon them, and had now begun to retreat.

A few minutes longer, and ahead of them loomed a prodigious doorway, a cleft whose sides reached up for thousands of feet. Beyond was a flood of sunshine. Suarra stopped at the rocky threshold with a gesture of warning, peered through, and beckoned them on.

Blinking, Graydon walked through the portal. He looked out over a grass-covered plain strewn with huge, isolated rocks rising from the green like menhirs of the Druids. There were no trees. The plain was dish-shaped; an enormous oval as symmetrical as though it had been molded by the thumb of some Cyclopean potter. Straight across it, three miles or more away, the forests began again. They clothed the base of another gigantic mountain whose walls arose, perpendicularly, a mile at least in the air. The smooth scarps described an arc of a tremendous circlound as Fujiyama's sacred cone, but many times its girth.

They were on a wide ledge that bordered this vast bowl This shelf was a full hundred feet higher than the bottom of the valley whose side sloped up to it like the side of a saucer. And, again carrying out that suggestion of a huge dish, the ledge jutted out like a rim. Graydon guessed that there was a concavity under his feet, and that if one should fall over the side it would be well-nigh impossible to climb back because of the overhang. The surface was about twelve feet wide, and more like a road carefully leveled by human hands than work of nature. On one side was the curving bowl of the valley with its weird monoliths and the circular scarp of the mysterious mountain; on the other the wooded cliffs, unscalable.

They set forth along the rim-like way. Noon came, and in another ravine that opened upon the strange road they had snatched from saddle bags a hasty lunch. They did not waste time in unpacking the burros. There was a little brook singing in the pass, and from it they refilled their canteens, then watered the animals. This time Suarra did not join them.

By mid-afternoon they were nearing the northern end of the bowl. All through the day the circular mountain across the plain had unrolled its vast arc of cliff. A wind had arisen, sweeping from the distant forest and bending the tall heads of the grass far below them.

Suddenly, deep within the wind, Graydon heard a faint, far-off clamor, a shrill hissing, as of some on-rushing army of serpents. The girl halted, face turned toward the sound. It came againd louder. Her face whitened, but when she spoke her voice was steady.

"There is danger," she said. "Deadly danger for you. It may pass ant may not. Until we know what to expect you must hide. Take your animals and tether them in the underbrush there--" she pointed to the mountainside which here was broken enough for cover--"the four of you take trees and hide behind them. Tie the mouths of your animals so that they can make no noise."

"So!" snarled Soames. "So here's the trap, is it! All right, sister, you know what I told you. We'll go into the trees, buou go with us where we can keep our hands on you."

"I will go with you," she answered, gravely.

Soames glared at her, then turned abruptly.

"Danc'," he ordered, "Starretet the burros in. And Graydoou'll stay with the burros and see they make no noise. We'll be right closith the guns. And we'll have the giron't forget that."

Again the hissing shrilled down the wind.

"Be quick," the girl commanded.

When the trees and underbrush had closed in upon them it flashed on Graydon, crouching behind the burros, that he had not seen the cloaked famulus of Suarra join the retreat and seek the shelter of the woods. He parted the bushes, and peered cautiously through them. There was no one upon the path.

A sudden gust of wind tore at the trees. It brought with it a burst of the hissing, closer and more strident, and in it an undertone that thrilled him with unfamiliar terror.

A thing of vivid scarlet streaked out from the trees which here were not more than a half a mile away. It scuttled over the plain until it reached the base of one of the monoliths. It swarmed up its side to the top. There it paused, apparently scanning the forest from which it had come. He caught the impression of some immense insect, but touched with a monstrous, an incredible suggestion of humanness.

The scarlet thing slipped down the monolith, and raced through the grasses toward him. Out of the forest burst what at first glance he took for a pack of huge hunting doghen realized that whatever they might be, dogs they certainly were not. They came forward leaping like kangaroos, and as they leaped they glittered green and blue in the sunlight, as though armored in mail of emeralds and sapphires. Nor did ever dogs give tongue as they did. From them came the hellish hissing.

The scarlet thing darted to right, to left, frantically; then crouched at the base of another monolith, motionless.

From the trees emerged another monstrous shape. Like the questing creatures, it glittereut as though its body were cased in polished jet. Its bulk was that of a giant draft-horse. Its neck was long and reptilian. At the base of its neck, astride it, was a man.

Graydon cautiously raised his field glasses and focused them on the pack. Directly in his line of vision was one of the creatures which had come to gaze. It stood rigid, its side toward him, pointing like a hunting dog.

It was a dinosaur!

Dwarfed to the size of a Great Dane, still there was no mistaking it. He could see its blunt and spade-shaped tail which with its powerful, pillar-like hind legs made a tripod upon which it squatted. Its body was nearly erect. Its short forelegs were muscled as powerfully as it's others. It held these forelegs half curved at its breast, as though ready to clutch. They ended in four long talons, chisel shaped. One of which thrust outward like a huge thumb.

And what he had taken for mail of sapphire and emerald were scales. They overlapped like those of the armadillo. From their burnished surfaces and edges the sun struck out the jewel glints.

The creature turned its head upon its short, bull neck. It seemed to stare straight at Graydon. He saw fiery red eyes set in a sloping, bony arch of broad forehead. Its muzzle was that of a crocodile, but smaller and blunted. The jaws were studded with yellow, pointed fangs.

The rider drew up beside it. Like the others, the creature he rode was a true dinosaur. It was black scaled and longer tailed, with serpentine neck thicker than the central coil of the giant python.

The rider was a man of Suarra's own race. There was the same ivory whiteness of skin, the more than classic regularity of feature. But his face was stamped with arrogance, indifferent cruelty. He wore a close-fitting suit of green that clung to him like a glove, and his hair was a shining golden. He sat upon a light saddle fastened at the base of the long neck of his steed. Heavy reins ran up to the jaws of the jetty dinosaur's small, snake-like head.

Graydon's glasses dropped from his shaking hand. What manner of man was this who hunted with dinosaurs for dogs and a dinosaur for steed!

He looked toward the base of the monolith where the scarlet thing had crouched. It was no longer there. He caught a gleam of scarlet in the high grass not a thousand feet away. The thing was scuttering toward the rim--

There was a shrieking clamor like a thousand hissing fumaroles. The pack had found the scent, were leaping forward like a glittering green and blue comber.

The scarlet thing jumped up out of the grasses. It swayed upon four long and stilt-like legs, its head a full twelve feet above the ground. High on these stilts of legs was its body, almost round and no bigger than a halfgrown boy's. From the sides of the body stretched two sinewy armike human arms pulled out to twice their normal length. Body, arms and legs were covered with fine scarlet hair. Its face, turned toward its pursuers, Graydon could not see.

The pack rushed upon it. The thing hurled itself like a thunderbolt straight toward the rim.

Graydon heard beneath him a frantic scrambling and scratching. Gray hands came over the edge of the road, gripping the rock with foot-long fingers like blunt needles of bone. They clutched and drew forward. Behind them appeared spindling, scarlet-haired arms.

Over the edge peered a face, gray as the hands. Within it were two great unwinking round and golden eyes.

A man's facnd not a man's!

A face such as he had never seen upon any living creature...yet there could be no mistaking the humanness of it...the humanness which lay over the incredible visage like a veil.

He thought he saw a red rod dart out of air and touch the fache red rod of Suarra's motley-garbed attendant Whether he saw it or not, the clutching claws opened and slid away. The gray face vanished.

Up from the hidden slope arose a wailing, agonized shriek, and a triumphant hissing. Then out into the range of his vision bounded the black dinosaur, its golden-haired rider shouting. Behind it leaped the pack. They crossed the plain like a thunder cloud pursued by emerald and sapphire lightnings. They passed into the forest, and were gone.

Suarra stepped out of the tree shadows, the three adventurers close behind her, white-faced and shaking. She stood looking where the dinosaurs had disappeared, and her face was set, and her eyes filled with loathing.

"Suarra!" gasped Graydon. "That thinhe thing that rahat was it? Got had the face of a man!"

"It was no man," she shook her head. "It was eaver. Perhaps he had tried to escape. Or perhaps Lantlu opened a way for him that he might be tempted to escape. For Lantlu delights in hunting with the Xinli--" her voice shook with hatred--"and a Weaver will do when there is nothing better!"

"A Weaver? It had a man's face!" It was Soames, echoing Graydon.

"No," she repeated. "It was nan. At least no man as you are. Long, long ago his ancestors were men like yohat is true. But noe inly a Weaver."

She turned to Graydon.

"Yu-Atlanchi by its arts fashioned him and his kind. Remember him, Graydohen you come to our journey's end!"

She stepped out upon the path. There stood the cowled figure, waiting as tranquilly as though it had never stirred. She called to the white llama, and again took her place at the head of the little caravan. Soames touched Graydon, arousing him from the troubled thought into which her enigmatic warning had thrown him.

"Take your place, Graydon," he muttered. "We'll follow. Later I want to talk to you. Maybe you can get your guns bacf you're reasonable."

"Hurry," said Suarra, "the sun sinks, and we must go quickly. Before to-morrow's noon you shall see your garden of jewels, and the living gold streaming for you to do with it as you wilr the gold to do as it wills with you."

She looked the three over, swiftly, a shadow of mockery in her eyes. Soames' lips tightened.

"Get right along, sister," he said, sardonically. "All you have to do is show us. Then your work is done. We'll take care of the rest."

She shrugged, carelessly. They set forth once more along the rimmed path.

The plain was silent, deserted. From the far forests came no sound. Graydon strove for sane comprehension of what he had just beheld. A Weaver, Suarra had named the scarlet thinnd had said that once its ancestors had been men like themselves. He remembered what, at their first meeting, she had told him of the powers of this mysterious Yu-Atlanchi. Did she mean that her people had mastered the secrets of evolution so thoroughly that they had learned how to reverse its processes as well? Could controevolution!

Well, why not? In man's long ascent from the primeval jelly on the shallow shores of the warm first seas, he had worn myriad shapes. And as he moved higher from one form to another, changing to vertebrate, discarding cold blood for warm, still was he kin to the fish he caught today, to the furred creatures whose pelts clothed his women, to the apes he brought from the jungles to study or to amuse him. Even the spiders that spun in his gardens, the scorpion that scuttled from the tread of his feet, were abysmally distant blood-brothers.

When St. Francis of Assisi had spoke of Brother Fly, Brother Wolf, Brother Snake, he had voiced scientific truth.

All life on earth had a common origin. Divergent now and Protean shaped, still man and beast, fish and serpent, lizard and bird, ant and bee and spider, all had come from those once similar specks of jelly, adrift millions upon millions of years ago in the shallow littorals of the first seas. Protaebion, Gregory of Edinburgh had named ihe first stuff of life from which all life was to develop.

Were the germs of all those shapes man had worn in his slow upward climb still dormant in him?

Roux, the great French scientist, had taken the eggs of frogs and, by manipulating them, had produced giant frogs and dwarfs, frogs with two heads and one body, frogs with one head and eight legs, three-headed frogs with legs numerous as centipedes'. And he had produced from these eggs, also, creatures which in no way resembled frogs at all.

Vornikoff, the Russian, and Schwartz, the German, had experimented with still higher forms of life, producing chimera, nightmare things they had been forced to sland quickly.

If Roux and the others had done all thind they had done it, Graydon knehen was it not possible for greater scientists to awaken those dormant germs in man, and similarly creatuch creatures as the scarlet thing? A spider-man!

Nature, herself, had given them the hint. Nature from time to time produced such abnormalitieuman monsters marked outwardly if not inwardly with the stigmata of the beast, the fish, even the crustacean. Babies with gill slits in their throats babies with tails; babies furred. The human embryo passed through all these stages, from the protoplasmic unicell uompressing the age-long drama of evolution into less than a year.

Might it not well be, then, that in Yu-Atlanchi dwelt those to whom the crucible of birth held no secrets; who could dip within it and mold from its contents what they would?

A loom is a dead machine upon which fingers work more or less clumsily. The spider is both machine and artisan, spinning and weaving more surely, more exquisitely than can any lifeless mechanism worked by man. What man-made machine had ever approached the delicacy, the beauty of the spider's web?

Suddenly Graydon seemed to behold a whole new world of appalling grotesqueripider-men and spider-women spread upon huge webs and weaving with needled fingers wondrous fabrics, mole-men and mole-women burrowing, opening mazes of subterranean passages, cloaca, for those who had wrought them into being; amphibian folk busy about the water phantasmagoria of humanity, monstrously twinned with Nature's perfect machine, while still plastic in the womb!

Shuddering, he thrust away that nightmare vision.

CHAPTER V—The Elfin Horns

THE SUN was half-way down the west when they came to the end of the oval plain. Here the mountain thrust out a bastion which almost touched the cliff at the right. Into the narrow cleft between the two they filed, and through the semi-gloom of this ravine they marched over a smooth rock floor, their way running always up, although at an easy grade. The sun was behind the westward peaks and dusk was falling when they emerged.

They stood at the edge of a little moor. Upon the left, the arc of the circular mountain resumed its march. The place was, indeed, less a moor than a barren. Its floor was clean white sand. It was dotted with hillocks, mounds flattopped as though constantly swept by brooms of wind. Upon the slopes of these mounds a fall grass grew sparsely. The hillocks arose about a hundred feet apart, with a singular regularity, like tumuli, graves in a cemetery of giants. The little barren covered about five acres. Around it clustered the forest. He heard the gurgling of a brook.

Suarra led them across the sands until she reached a mound close to the center of the place.

"You will camp here," she said. "Water is close by. You may light a fire, and you can sleep without fear. By dawn we must be away."

She left them, and walked with red-and-yellow robe toward one of the neighboring knolls. The white llama followed her. Graydon had expected Soames to halt her, but he did not. Instead, his eyes flashed some message to Dancret and Starrett. It seemed to Graydon they were pleased that the girl was not to share their camp, that they welcomed the distance she had put between them.

And their manner toward him had changed. They were comradely once more.

"Mind takin' the burros over to water?" asked Soames. "We'll get the fire goin', and chow ready."

Graydon nodded and led the animals over to the brook. Taking them back after they had drunk their fill, he looked over at the mound to which Suarra had gone. At its base stood a small square tent, glimmering in the twilight like silk. Tethered close to it was the white llama, placidly munching grass and grain. Its hampers of woven golden withes were still at its sides. Neither Suarra nor the hooded man was visible. They were, he supposed, within the tent.

At his own hillock a fire was crackling and supper being prepared. As he came up, Starrett jerked a thumb at the little tent.

"Took it out of the saddle-bags," he said. "Looked like a folded umbrella and went up like one. Who'd ever think to find anything like that in this wilderness!"

"Lots of things I t'ink in those saddle-bags we have not yet seen maybe," whispered Dancret.

"You bet," said Soames. "An' the loot we've already seen's enough to set us all up for life. Eh, Graydon?"

"She has promised you much more," answered Graydon, troubled by the under-current in the New Englander's voice.

"Yeah," said Soames, "yea guess so. Buell, let's eat."

The four sat around the burning sticks, as they had for so many nights before his fight with Starrett. And, to Graydon's astonishment, they ignored the weird tragedy of the plain; avoided it, swiftly changed the subject when twice, to test them, he brought it up. Their talk was all of the treasure so close to them, and of what could be done with it when back in their own world. Piece by piece they went over the golden hoard in the white llama's packs; discussed Suarra's jewels and their worth. It was as though they were bent upon infecting him with their own avarice.

"Hell! Why, with only her emeralds none of us'd have to worry!" Starrett repeated, with variations, over and over.

Graydon listened with increasing disquiet There was something behind this studied avoidance of the destruction of the scarlet thing by the dinosaurs, this constant reference to the rich loot at hand, the reiterated emphasis upon what ease and luxuries it would bring them all.

Suddenly he realized that they were afraid, that terror of the unknown struggled with treasure lust. And that therefore they were doubly dangerous. Something was hidden in the minds of the three to whose uncovering all this talk was only the preamble.

At last Soames looked at his watch.

"Nearly eight," he said, abruptly. "Dawn breaks about five. Time to talk turkey. Graydon, come up close."

The four drew into a huddle in the shelter of the knoll. From where they crouched, Suarra's tent was hiddes they were hidden to any watchers in that little silken pavilion looking now like a great silver moth at rest under the moonlight.

"Graydon," began the New Englander, "we've made up our minds on this thing. We're goin' to do it a little different. We're glad and willin' to let bygones be bygones. Here we are, four white men among a bunch of God knows what. White men ought to stick together. Ain't that so?"

Graydon nodded, waiting.

"All right, then," said Soames. "Now here's the situation. I don't deny that what we seen to-day gave us all a hell of a jolt. We ain't equipped to go up against anything like that pack of hissin' devils. But, an' here's the point, we can beat it out an' come back equipped. You get me?"

Again Graydon nodded, alert to meet what he sensed was coming.

"There's enough stuff on that llama and the girl to make all comfortable," went on Soames. "But also it's enough to finance the greatest little expedition that ever hit the trail for treasure. An' that's just what we plan doin', Graydon. Get the hampers an' all that's in 'em. Get the stuff on the girl. Beat it, an' come back. We'll get together a little crowd of hard-boiled guys. The four of us'll take half we find an' the others'll divide the other half. We'll pack along a couple of planes, an' damn soon find out where the girl comes from. I bet those hissin' devils wouldn't stand up long under machine guns an' some bombs dropped from the flyin' crates. An' when the smoke clears away we'll lift the loot an' go back an' sit on the top of the world. What you say to that?"

Graydon fenced for time.

"How will you get the stuff now?" he asked. "And if you get it, how will you get away with it?"

"Easy," Soames bent his head closer. "We got it all planned: There's only the girl an' that old devil in that tent. They ain't watchin', they're too sure of us. All right, if you're with us, we'll just slip over there. Starrett and Danc', they'll take care of the dummy. No shootin'. Just slip a knife' between his ribs. Me an' you'll attend to the girl. We won't hurt her. Just tie her up an' gag her. Then we'll stow the stuff on a couple of burros, an' beat it."

"Beat it where?" asked Graydon. He edged a bit closer to Dancret, ready to jerk the automatic from his pocket.

"Beat it out, damn it!" growled Soames. "Me an' Starrett seen a peak to the west both of us recognized when we come in here. Once we hit it I know where we are. An' travelin' light an' all night we can be well on our way to it by this time to-morrow. These woods ain't so thick an' it's full moon."

Graydon moved his hand cautiously and touched Dancret's pocket. The automatic was still there. Before he made that desperate move he would try one last appeao fear.

"But you've forgotten one thing, Soames," he said. "There would be pursuit. What could we do with those hell-beasts on our track? Why, man, they'd be after us in no time. You couldn't get away with anything like that."

Instantly he realized the weakness in the argument.

"Not a bit of it," Soames grinned evilly. "That's just the point Nobody's worryin' about that girl. Nobody knows where she is an' she don't want 'em to. She was damned anxious not to be seen this afternoon. No, Graydo figure she slipped away from her folks to help you out. I take my hat off to yoou're a quick worker an' you sure got her hooked. The only one that might raise trouble is the old devil. He'll get the knife before he knows it. Then there's only the girl. She'll be damned glad to show us the way out, happen we get lost again. But me an' Starrett know that peak, I tell you. We'll carry her along so she can't start anybody after us, an' when we get where we know the country we'll turn her loose for a walk back home. An' none the worse off eitheh, boys?"

Starrett and Dancret nodded.

Graydon feigned to consider. He knew exactly what was in Soames' mino use him in the cold-blooded murder the three had planned and, once beyond the reach of pursuit, to murder him, too. Nor would they ever allow Suarra to return to tell what they had done. She would be slaifter they had thrown her to Starrett.

"Come on, Graydon," whispered Soames, impatiently. "It's a good scheme, an' we can work it. Are you with us? If you ain't--"

His knife glittered in his hand. Simultaneously Starrett and Dancret pressed close. Their movement gave him the one advantage he needed. He thrust his hand into the Frenchman's pocket, plucked out the gun and as he did so landed a side kick that caught Starrett in the groin. The big man rolled over, groaning. Graydon leaped to his feet. But before he could cover Soames, Dancret's hands were around his ankles, his legs jerked from under him.

"Suarra!" shouted Graydon as he fell. At least, his cry might awaken and warn her. A second shout was choked in mid-utterance. Soames' bony hands were around his neck.

He reached up, and tried to break the strangling clutch. It gave a little, enough to let him grasp one breath. Instantly he dropped his hold on Soames' wrists, hooked the fingers of one hand in the corner of the New Englander's mouth, pulling with all his strength. There was a sputtering curse from Soames, and his hands let go. Graydon tried to spring up, but an arm of the gaunt man slipped over the back of his head and held his neck in the vise of bent elbow against shoulder.

"Knife him, Danc'," snarled Soames.

Graydon suddenly twisted, bringing the New Englander on top of him. He was barely in time for, as he did so, Dancret struck, his blade just missing Soames. Soames locked his legs around his, trying to jerk him over in range of the little Frenchman. Graydon sank his teeth in the shoulder pressing him. Soames roared with pain and rage; threshed and rolled trying to shake off the grip of Graydon's jaws. Around them danced Dancret, awaiting a chance to thrust.

There came a bellow from Starrett.

"The llama! It's running away! The llama!"

Involuntarily, Graydon loosed his teeth. Soames leaped up. Graydon followed on the instant, shoulder lifted to meet the blow he expected from Dancret.

"Look, Soames, look!" the little Frenchman was pointing. "He's loose! Christ! There he goeit' the golit' the jewels--"

The moon had gathered strength, and under its flood the white sands were a silver lake in which the hillocks stood like tiny islands. Golden hampers gleaming on its sides, the white llama was flitting across that lake of silver, a hundred paces away and headed for the cleft through which they had come.

"Stop it!" shouted Soames, forgetting all else. "After it, Starrett! That way, Danc'! I'll head it off!"

They ran out over the shining barren. The llama changed its pace, trotted leisurely to one of the mounds, and bounded to its top.

"Close in! We've got it," cried Soames. The three ran to the hillock, on which the white beast stood looking calmly around. They swarmed up the mound from three sides.

As their feet touched the sparse grass a mellow note rang out, one of those elfin horns Graydon had heard chorusing so gayly about Suarra that first day. It was answered by others, close and all about. Again the single note. And then the answering chorus swirled toward the hillock of the llama, hovered over it, and dropped like a shower of winged sounds upon it.

Graydon saw Starrett stagger as though under some blow, then whirl knotted arms as though warding off invisible attack. A moment the big man stood thus, flailing with frantic arms. He cast himself to the ground and rolled down to the sands. The notes of the elfin horns swarmed away from him, to concentrate upon Soames. He had thrown himself face downward on the slope of the mound and was doggedly crawling to the top. He held one arm stiffly, shielding his face.

Shielding his face against what?

All that Graydon could see was the hillock and on it the llama bathed in the moonlight, Starrett at the foot of the mound and Soames now nearly at its crest. Dancret, upon the opposite side, he could not see at all.

The horn notes were ringing in greater volume, scores of them, like the bugles of a fairy hunt. What it was that made those sounds was not visible to him, nor did they cast any shadow in the brilliant moonlight. But he heard a whirring as of hundreds of wings.

Soames had reached the edge of the mound's flat summit. The llama bent its head, contemplating him. As he scrambled over that edge and thrust out a hand to grasp its bridle, it flicked about, sprang to the opposite side and leaped to the sands.

The clamor of the elfin horns about Soames had never stilled. Graydon watched him wince, strike out, bend his head and guard his eyes as though from a shower of blows. And whatever was that attack of the invisible, it did not daunt him. He leaped across the mound and slid down its side, close behind the llama. As he reached the base, Starrett arose, swaying drunkenly.

The horn notes ceased abruptly, like candles blown out by a sudden blast. Dancret came running around the slope. The three stood arguing, gesticulating. Their clothes were ripped to rags, and as Soames shifted and the moonlight fell full upon him, his face showed streaked with blood.

The llama was walking across the sands, as slowly as though it were tempting them to further pursuit. It was strange how its shape now stood out sharply, and now faded almost to a ghostly tenuity. When it reappeared, it was as if the moonbeams thickened, swirled, wove swiftly, and spun it from themselves. The llama fadend then grew again upon the warp and woof of the rays like a pattern on an enchanted loom.

Starrett's hand swept down to his belt. Before he could cover the white beast with his automatic, Soames caught his wrist. He spoke wrathfully, peremptorily. Graydon knew he was warning Starrett of the danger of the pistol crack, urging silence.

The three scattered, Dancret and Starrett to the left and right to flank the llama, Soames approaching it cautiously to keep from frightening it into a run. But as he neared it, the animal broke into a gentle lope and headed for another hillock.

For an instant Graydon thought he saw upon the crest of that mound the figure in motley, red staff raised and pointing at the llama. He looked more intently and decided his eyes had played a trick upon him, for the crest was empty. The llama leaped lightly up to it As before, Soames and the two others closed in. They swarmed up the mound.

Instantly the elfin horns rang ouenacingly. The three hesitated, stopped their climbing. Then Starrett slid down, ran back a few paces, raised his pistol and fired. The white llama fell.

"The fool! The damned fool!" groaned Graydon.

The silence that followed the shot was broken by a tempest of the elfin horns. It swept down up the three. Dancret shrieked, and ran toward the camp, beating the air as he came. Half-way, he dropped and lay still. And Soames and Starrett they, too, were buffeting the air with great blows, ducking and dodging. The elfin horns were now a raging tumuleath creeping into their notes.

Starrett fell to his knees, arose and lurched away. He fell again, not far from Dancret and lay as still as he. And now Soames went down, fighting to the last. The three lay upon the sands, motionless.

Graydon shook himself into action, and leaped forward. He felt a touch upon his shoulder. A tingling numbness ran through his body. With difficulty he turned his head. Behind him was the figure in motley. His red staff it was that had taken from him all power to move, even as it had paralyzed the spider-man and sent him into the jaws of the dinosaurs.

The red staff pointed to the three bodies. Instantly, as at some command, the clamor of the horns lifted from around them, swirled high in the aind stilled. At the top of the hillock the white llama was struggling to its feet. A band of crimson ran across one silvery flank, the mark of Starrett's bullet. The llama limped down the mound.

As it passed Soames it nosed him. The New Englander's head lifted. He tried to arise, and fell back. The llama nosed him again. Soames squirmed up on hands and knees; eyes fixed upon the golden panniers, he began to crawl after the beast.

The white llama walked slowly, stiffly. It came to Starrett's body and touched him as it had Soames. And Starrett's massive head lifted and he tried to rise, and failing even as had Soames, began like him to crawl behind the animal.

The white llama paused beside Dancret. He stirred, and lurched, and followed it on knees and hands.

Over the moon-soaked sands, back to the camp they trailehe limping beast with the blood dripping from its wounded side. Behind it the three crawling men, their eyes fixed upon the golden-withed panniers, their mouths gasping, like fish being drawn up to shore.

The llama reached the camp fire and passed on. The crawling men reached the fire and were passing in the llama's wake. The figure in motley lowered his rod.

The three men ceased their crawling. They collapsed beside the embers as though all life had abruptly been withdrawn.

The strange paralysis lifted from Graydon as swiftly as it had come upon him; his muscles relaxed, and power of movement returned, Suarra ran by him to the llama's side, caressed it, strove to stanch its blood.

He bent over the three. They were breathing stertorously, eyes half closed and turned upward so that only the whites were visible. Their shirts had been ripped to ribbons. And on their faces, their breasts and their backs were dozens of small punctures, the edges clean cut as though by sharp steel punches. Some were bleeding, but on most of them the blood had already dried.

He studied them, puzzled. The wounds were bad enough, of course, yet it did not seem to him that they accounted for the condition of the three. Certainly they had not lost enough blood to cause unconsciousness; no arteries had been touched, nor any of the large veins.

He took a bucket and drew water from the brook. Returning, he saw that Suarra had gotten the llama upon its feet again, and over to her tent. He stopped, loosed the golden panniers, and probed the wound. The bullet had plowed almost through the upper left flank, but without touching the bone. He extracted the lead and bathed and dressed the injury with strips of silken stuff the girl handed him. He did it all silently, nor did she speak.

He drew more water from the brook, and went back to his own camp. He saw that the hooded figure had joined the girl. He felt its hidden eyes upon him as he passed. He spread blankets, and pulled Soames, Dancret and Starrett up on them. They had passed out of the stupor, and seemed to be sleeping naturally. He washed the blood from their faces and bodies, and dabbed iodine into the deepest of the peck-like punctures. They showed no sign of awakening under his handling.

Graydon covered them with blankets, walked away from the fire, and threw himself down on the white sands. Foreboding rested heavily on him, a sense of doom. And as he sat there, fighting against the depression sapping his courage, he heard light footsteps, and Suarra sank beside him. His hand dropped upon hers, covering it. She leaned toward him, her shoulder touched him, her cloudy hair caressed his cheek.

"It is the last night, Graydon," she whispered, tremulously. "The last night! And s may talk with you for awhile."

He answered nothing to that, only looked at her and smiled. Correctly she interpreted that smile.

"Ah, but it is, Graydon," she said. "I have promised. I told you that I would save you if I could. I went to the Mother, and asked her to help you. She laughet first.

"But when she saw how serious it was with me, she was gentle. And at last she promised me, as woman to womaor after all the Mother is womahe promised me if there was that within you which would respond to her, she would help you when you stood before the Face and--"

"The Face, Suarra?" he interrupted her.

"The Face in the Abyss!" she said, and shivered. "I can tell you nothing more of it. Youst stand before it. Yond those three. And, oh Graydoou must not let it conquer you...you must not..."

Her hand drew from beneath his, clenched it tight. He drew her close to him. For a moment she rested against his breast.

"The Mother promised," she said, "and then I knew hope. But she made this condition, Graydof by her help you escape the Face, then you must straightway go from this Forbidden Land, nor speak of it to any beyond its bordero no one, no matter how near or dear. I made that promise for you, Graydon. And so"--she faltered--"and st is the last night."

In his heart was stubborn denial of that. But he did not speak, and after a little silence she said, wistfully--

"Is there any maid who loves yor whom you lovn your own land, Graydon?"

"There is none, Suarra," he answered.

"I believe you," she said, simply, "and I would go away with yof I could. But I cannot. The Mother loves and trusts me. And I love hereatly. I could not leave her even for--"

Suddenly she wrenched her hand from his, clenched it and struck it against her breast.

"I am weary of Yu-Atlanchi! Yes, weary of its ancient wisdom and its deathless people! I would go into the new world where there are babes, and many of them, and the laughter of children, and life streams swiftly, passionatelven though it is through the opened Door of Death that it flows at last. For in Yu-Atlanchi not only the Door of Death but the Door of Life is closed. And there are few babes, and of the laughter of childreone."

He caught the beating hand and soothed her.

"Suarra," he said, "I walk in darkness, and your words give me little light. Tell mho are your people?"

"The ancient people," she told him. "The most ancient. Ages upon ages ago they came here from the south where they had dwelt for other ages still. One day the earth rocked and swung. It was then that the great cold fell, and the darkness and the icy tempests. And many of my people died. Then those who remained journeyed north in their ships, bearing with them the remnant of the Serpent-people who had taught them the most of their wisdom. And the Mother is the last of that people.

"They came to rest here. At that time the sea was close and the mountains had not yet been born. They found hordes of the Xinli occupying this land. They were larger, far larger, than now. My people destroyed most of them, and bred down and tamed those they spared, to their own uses. And here for another age they dwelt as they had in the south, where their cities were now beneath mountains of ice.

"Then there were earth shakings, and the mountains began to lift. Their wisdom was not strong enough to keep the mountains from being born, but they could control their growth around their city. Slowly, steadily, through another age the mountains uprose. Until at last they girdled Yu-Atlanchi like a vast wal wall which could not be scaled. Nor did my people care; indeed, it gladdened them. Because by then the Lords and the Mother had closed the Gate of Death. And my people cared no more to go into the outer world. And so they have dwelor other ages more."

Again she was silent, musing. Graydon looked at her, struggling to hide his incredulity. A people who had conquered death! A people so old that their ancient cities were covered by the Antarctic ice! The latteell, that was possible. Certainly, the South Polar continent had once basked beneath a warm sun. Its fossils of palms and other vegetation that could only have lived at tropical temperatures were proof of that. And quite as certainly what are now the poles at one time were not. Whether the change had come about from a sudden tipping of the earth's axis, or a gradual readjustment, science was not agreed. But whatever it was that had happened, it must have taken place at least a million years ago. If Suarra's story were true, if she were not merely reciting myth, it placed the origin of man back into an inconceivable antiquity.

And yet...it might be...there were many mysteries...legends of lost lands and lost civilizations that must have some basis in fact...the Mother Land of Mu, Atlantis, the unknown race that ruled Asia from the Gobi when that dread desert was a green Paradise...yes, it might be. But that they had conquered Death? No! That he did not believe.

He spoke with an irritation born of his doubts.

"If your people were so wise why did they not come forth and rule this world?"

"Why should they have?" she asked in turn. "If they had come forth what could they have done but build the rest of earth into likeness of this Yu-Atlanchs it was built in likeness of that older Yu-Atlanchi? There were none too many of them. Did I not say that when the Door of Death was closed so also was the Door of Life? It is true that always there have been some who elect to throw open these doory father and my mother were of these, Graydon. But they are feo few! No, there was no reason why they should go beyond the barrier. All that they needed, all that they wanted, was here.

"And there was another reason. They had conquered dream. Through dream they create their own worlds; do therein as they will; live life upon life as they will it. In their dreams they shape world upon worlnd each of these worlds is as real to them as this is to you. And sany let the years stream by while they live in dream. Why should they have gone or why should they go out into this one world when they can create myriads of their own at will?"

"Suarra," he said, abruptly. "Just why do you want to save me?"

"Because," she murmured, slowly, "because you make me feel as I have never felt before. Because you make me happecause you make me sorrowful! I want to be close to you. When you ghe world will be darkened--"

"Suarra!" he cried, and drew her, unresisting now, to him. His lips sought hers and her lips clung.

"I will come back," he whispered. "I will come back, Suarra."

"Come back!" her soft arms tightened round his neck, "Come back to mraydon!"

She thrust him from her, leaped to her feet.

"No! No!" she sobbed. "Nraydon! I am wicked. Nt would be death for you."

"As God lives," he told her, "I will come back to you."

She trembled; leaned forward, pressed her lips again to his, slipped from his arms and ran to the silken tent. For a moment she paused thertretched wistful hands toward him; and was hidden in its folds. There seemed to come to him, faintly, heard only by his heart, her voice--

"Come back! Come baco me!"

CHAPTER VI—The Face in the Abyss

THE WHITE SANDS of the barren were wan in the first gleam of the dawn. A chill wind was blowing down from the heights. Graydon walked over to the three men, and drew their blankets aside. They were breathing normally, seemed to be deep in sleep, and the strange punctured wounds had closed. And yehey looked like dead men, livid and wan as the pallid sands beneath the spreading dawn. He shivered again, but this time not from the touch of the chill wind.

He drew his automatic from Soames' belt, satisfied himself that it was properly loaded and thrust it into his pocket. Then he emptied all their weapons. Whatever the peril they were to meet, he was convinced that it was one against which firearms would be useless. And he had no desire to be again at their mercy.

He went back to the fire, made coffee, threw together a breakfast and returned to the sleeping men. As he stood watching them, Soames groaned and sat up. He stared at Graydon blankly, then stumbled to his feet. His gaze roved round restlessly. He saw the golden panniers beside Suarra's tent. His dull eyes glittered, and something of crafty exultance passed over his face.

"Come, Soames, and get some hot coffee in you," Graydon touched his arm.

Soames turned with a snarl, his hand falling upon the butt of his automatic. Graydon stepped back, his fingers closing upon the gun in his pocket. But Soames made no further move toward him. He was looking again at the panniers, glinting in the rising sun. He stirred Starrett with his foot, and the big man staggered up, mumbling. The movement aroused Dancret.

Soames pointed to the golden hampers, then strode stiffly to the silken tent, useless pistol in hand, Starrett and Dancret at his heels. Graydon began to follow. He felt a light touch on his shoulder. Suarra stood beside him.

"Let them do as they will, Graydon," she said. "They can harm no onow. And none can help them."

They watched silently as Soames ripped open the flap of the silken tent and passed within. He came out a moment later, and the three set to work pulling out the golden pegs. Soames rolled tent and pegs together and thrust them into one of the hampers. They plodded back to camp, Starrett and Dancret dragging the hampers behind them.

As they passed Graydon, he felt a wonder filled with vague terror. Something of humanness had been withdrawn from them, something inhuman had taken its place. They walked less like men than like automatons. They paid no heed to him or the girl. Their eyes were vacant except when they turned their heads to look at the golden burden. They reached the burros and fastened the hampers upon two of them.

"It is time to start, Graydon," urged Suarra. "The Lord of Folly grows impatient."

He stared at her, then laughed, thinking her jesting. She glanced toward the figure in motley.

"Why do you laugh?" she asked. "He stands there waiting for uhe Lord Tyddo, the Lord of Folly, of all the Lords the only one who has not abandoned Yu-Atlanchi. The Mother would not have let me take this journey without him."

He looked at her more closelhis, surely, was mockery. But her eyes met his steadily, gravely.

"I bow to the wisdom of the Mother," he said, grimly. "She could have chosen no fitter attendant. For all of us."

She flushed; touched his hand.

"You are angry, Graydon. Why?"

He did not answer; she sighed, and moved slowly away.

He walked over to the three. They stood beside the embers of the fire, silent and motionless. He shiverehey were so much like dead men, listening for some dread command. He felt pity for them.

He filled a cup with coffee and put it in Soames' hand. He did the same for Starrett and Dancret. Hesitantly, jerkily, they lifted the tins to their mouths, and gulped the hot liquid. He handed them food, and they wolfed it. But always their faces kept turning to the burros with their golden loads. Graydon could stand it no longer.

"Start!" he called to Suarra. "For God's sake, start!"

He picked up the rifles of the others and put them in their hands. They took them, as mechanically as they had the coffee and the food.

Now Suarra's enigmatic attendant took the lead, while between him and the girl plodded the burros.

"Come on, Soames," he said. "Come, Starrett. It's time to go, Dancret."

Obediently, eyes fixed upon the yellow hampers, they swung upon the trail, marching side by sidaunt man at left, giant in the center, little man at right. Like marionettes they marched. Graydon swung in behind them.

They crossed the white sands, and entered a trail winding through close growing, enormous trees. For an hour they passed along this trail. They emerged from it, abruptly, upon a broad platform of bare rock. Before them were the walls of a split mountain. Its precipices towered thousands of feet. Between them, was a narrow rift which widened as it reached upward. The platform was the threshold of this rift.

He whom Suarra had called the Lord of Folly crossed the threshold, behind him Suarra; and after her the stiffly marching three. Then over it went Graydon.

The way led downward. No trees, no vegetation of any kind, could he senless the ancient, gray and dry lichen that covered the path and whispered under their feet could be called vegetation. But it gave resistance, that lichen; made the descent easier. It covered the straight rock walls that arose on each side. The light that fell through the rim of the gorge, hundreds of feet overhead, was faint. But the gray lichen seemed to take it up and diffuse it. It was no darker than an early northern twilight; every object was plainly visible. Down they went and ever down; for half an hour; an hour. Always straight ahead the road stretched, never varying in the width and growing no darker.

The road angled. A breast of rock jutted abruptly out of the cliff, stretching from side to side like a barrier. The new path was darker than the old. He had an uneasy feeling that the rocks were closing high over his head; that what they were entering was a tunnel. The gray lichen dwindled rapidly on the walls and underfoot And as they dwindled, so faded the light.

At last the gray lichen ceased to be. He moved through a half darkness in which barely could he see, save as shadows, those who went before. And now he was sure that the rocks had closed overhead, burying them. He fought against a choking oppression that came with the knowledge.

And yet was not so dark, after all. Strange, he thought, strange that there should be light at all in this covered wand stranger still was that light. It seemed to be in the aio be of the air. It came neither from walls nor roof. It seemed to filter in, creeping, along the tunnel from some source far ahead. A light that was as though it came from radiant atoms that shed their rays as they floated slowly by.

Thicker grew these luminous atoms whose radiance only, and not their bodies, could be perceived by the eye. Lighter and lighter grew the way.

Again, and as abruptly as before, it turned.

They stood within a cavern that was like a great square auditorium to some gigantic stage. Perhaps it was the smooth wall of rock a hundred yards ahead that gave Graydon that suggestion. It was like a curtain, raised an inch above the floor. Out of that crack flowed the radiant atoms whose slow drift down the tunnel filled it with the ever-growing luminosity. Here they streamed swiftly, like countless swarms of fireflies each carrying a tiny lamp of diamond light.

As he searched for some outlet to the place, the rocky curtain moved. It slid soundlessly aside for a yard or more. He turneeside him gaunt man, little man, giant man, stood with blank, incurious eyes--

He thought he saw the red staff of the Lord of Folly pass over their heads...how could that be?...there stood the silent figure in motley, rod in hand, far off at the entrance of the cavern.

He heard the nasal cursing of Soames, a bellow from Starrett, the piping of Dancret. He swung round to them. Gone, all gone, was that unnatural deadness which had so perplexed him, gone all vagueness of action and of purpose. They were alive, alergain their old selves.

"What the hell's this place, Graydon? How the hell did I get here?" Soames caught his wrist in iron grip. Suarra answered for him.

"This is the treasure house I promised you--"

"Yeah?" the savage snarl silenced her. "I'm talkin' to you, Graydon. How did I get here? You know, Danc'? You, Bill?"

Their own amazed faces gave him his answer. He swung the rifle against Graydon's side.

"Come clean!"

Again Suarra answered, tranquilly.

"What matter how you came, since you are herhe four of you. There, where the light streams out, is the cavern where the jewels grow from the walls like fruit, and the gold streams like water. They are yours for the taking. Go take them."

He lowered the rifle; studied her, wickedly.

"And what else is there, sister?"

"There is nothing else there," she said. "Except a great face carved of stone."

Slow seconds passed as he weighed her.

"Only a face carved of stone, eh?" he said at last "Well, thee will all go to look at it together. Call your man over here."

"No," she said, steadily. "We go no farther with you. You must go alone. I have told you and I tell you agaiou have nothing to fear except what may be in yourselves. You fools!" She stamped her foot in sudden wrath--"If we had wished to kill you, could we not have abandoned you to the Xinii? Have you forgotten last night when you pursued the llama? I have fulfilled my promise to you. Argue no more. And beware of meware how you anger me further!"

Now Graydon saw Soames' face whiten as she spoke of the llama, and saw him glance furtively at Dancret and Starrett who, too, had paled. The New Englander stood for a minute in thought. When he spoke it was quietly, and not to her.

"All right. As long as we've come this far we won't go without takin' a look at the place. Danc', take your gun an' go over there where we came in. Cover the old dummy, an' keep watch. Bill an' me'll hold on to the girl an' you. Mister Graydon, you go an' take a peep at the joint, an' tell us what you see. You can take your gun. If we hear you shootin', we'll know there's somethin' there except gold and jewels an'--what was ieah, a stone face. March, Mister Graydon your way."

He gave him a push toward the radiant opening, and he and Starrett closed in on each side of the girl Graydon noticed that they were careful not to touch her. He caught a glimpse of Dancret at the cavern's opening. Suarra lifted her face to him. In her eyes were sorrow, agonnd love!

"Remember!" he said. "I am coming back to you!"

Soames could not know the hidden meaning of that farewell; he took its obvious one.

"If you don't," he sneered, "it's goin' to be damned hard on her! I'm tellin' you, fellow."

Graydon did not answer. He walked over to the curtain's edge, swinging his automatic free as he went. He went past the edge, and full into the rush of the radiance. The opened passage was little more than ten feet long. He reached its end, and stood there, motionless. The pistol dropped from his nerveless hand, and clattered upon the rock.

He looked into a vast cavern filled with the diamonded atoms. It was like an immense hollow globe that had been cut in two, and one-half cast away. The luminosity streamed from its curving walls, and these walls were jet black and polished like mirrors. The rays that issued from them seemed to come from infinite depths within them, darting up and out with prodigious speeike rays shot up through inconceivable depths of black water beneath which blazed a sun of diamond incandescence.

Out of these curving walls, hanging to them like the grapes of precious jewels in the enchanted vineyards of the Paradise of El-Shiraz, like flowers in a garden of the King of the Jinns, grew clustered gems!

Great crystals, cabochon and edged, globular and angled, alive under that jubilant light with the very soul of fire that is the lure of jewels. Rubies that glowed with every rubrous tint from that clear scarlet that is sunlight streaming through the finger tips of delicate maids to deepest sullen red of bruised hearts; sapphires that shone with blues as rare as that beneath the bluebird's wings and blue as deep as those which darken beneath the creamy crest of the Gulf Stream's crisping waves; huge emeralds that gleamed now with the peacock verdancies of tropic shallows, and now were green as the depths of a jungle glade; diamonds that glittered with irised fires or shot forth showers of rainbowed rays; great burning opals; gems burning with amethystine flames; unknown jewels whose unfamiliar beauty checked the heart with wonder.

But it was not the clustered jewels within this chamber of radiance that had released the grip of his hand upon the automatic and had turned him into stone.

It wahe Face!

From where he stood a flight of Cyclopean steps ran down into the heart of the cavern. At their left was the semi-globe of gemmed and glittering rock. At their right wapace. An abyss, whose other side he could not see, but which fell sheer away from the stairway in bottomless depth upon depth.

The Face looked at him from the far side of the cavern. Bodiless, its chin rested upon the floor. Colossal, its eyes of pale blue crystals were level with his. It was carved out of the same black stone as the walls, but within it was no faintest sparkle of the darting luminescences.

It was man's face and the face of a fallen angel's in one;

Luciferean; imperious; ruthlesnd beautiful. Upon its broad brows power was enthroneower which could have been godlike in beneficence, had it so willed, but which had chosen instead the lot of Satan.

Whoever the master sculptor, he had made of it the ultimate symbol of man's age-old, remorseless lust for power. In the Face this lust was concentrate, given body and form, made tangible. And within himself, answering it, Graydon felt this lust stir and awaken, grow swiftly stronger, rise steadily like a wave, lapping and threatening to submerge the normal barriers that had restrained it.

Something deep within him fought against this evil rising tide; fought to hold him back from the summoning Face; fought to drag his eyes from the pallid blue ones.

And now he saw that all the darting rays, all the flashing atoms, were focused full upon the Face, and that over its brow was a wide circlet of gold. From the circlet globules of gold dripped, like golden sweat. They crept sluggishly down its cheeks. From its eyes crept other golden drops, like tears. And out of each corner of the merciless mouth the golden globules dribbled like spittle. Golden sweat, golden tears and golden slaver crawled and joined a rivulet of gold that oozed from behind the Face, thence to the verge of the abyss, and over its lip into the depths.

"Look into my eyes! Look into my eyes!"

It seemed to him that the Face had spokehat it could not be disobeyed. He did obey. Up leaped the wave, breaking all bonds.

Earth and the dominion of earth, that was what the eyes of the Face were promising him! And from them and into him streamed a flaming ecstasy, a shouting recklessness, a jubilant sense of freedom from every law.

He tensed himself to leap down the steps, straight to that gigantic mask of black rock that sweated, wept and slavered gold; to take from it what it offered; to pay it whatever it should demand of him in return--

A hand gripped his shoulder, a voice was in his earoames' voice:

"Takin' a hell of a long while, ain't you--"

Then a high-pitched, hysterical shouting:'

"Bilanc'--come quick! Look at this! Christ--"

He was hurled down to the stone; sent rolling. Rushing feet trampled him, kicked him, knocked the breath from him. Gasping, he raised himself on hands and knees, struggled to rise.

Abruptly, the shouts and babble of the three were silenced. Ah...he knew why that was...they were looking into the eyes of the Face...it was promising them what it had promised him...

He made a heart-straining effort. He was up! Swaying, sick, he glared into the cavern. Racing down the-steps, half-way down them, were gaunt Soames, giant Starrett, little Dancret.

By Gohey couldn't get away with that! Earth and the dominion of earth...they were his own for the taking...the Face had promised them to him first...

He leaped after the three--

Something like the wing of an immense bird struck him across the breast. The blow threw him back, and down again upon hands and knees. Sobbing, he regained his feet, stood swaying, then staggered to the steps...the eyes of the Face...the eyes...they would give him strength...they would--

Stretched out upon the radiant air between him and the Face, her misty length half-coiled, was the phantom shape of that being, part woman and part serpent, whose image Suarra bore upon her bracelehat being she had named the Snake Mother.

At one and the same time real and unreal, she floated there. The diamonded atoms swirled round and through her. He saw hend still plainly through her he could see the Face. Her purple eyes were intent upon his.

The Snake Mother...who had promised Suarra as woman to woman that she would help him...if he had that within him which could avail itself of her help.

Suarra!

With that memory, his rage and the poison that had poured into him from the eyes of the Face vanished. In their place flowed shame, contrition, a vast thankfulness.

He looked fearlessly into the eyes of the Face. They were but pale blue crystals. The face itself was nothing but carved rock. Its spell upon him was broken!

He looked down the stairway. Soames, Starrett and Dancret were at its end. They were still runninunning straight toward the Face. In the crystalline luminosity they stood out like moving figures cut from black cardboard. They were flattened by ihree outlines, sharp as silhouettes cut from black paper. Lank and gaunt silhouette, giant silhouette and little one, they ran side by side. And now they were at the point of the huge chin. He watched them pause there for an instant, striking at each other, each trying to push the others away. Then as one, and as though answering some summons irresistible, they began to climb up the cliffed chilimbing up to the cold blue eyes and to what those eyes promised.

And now they were in the full focus of the driving rays, the storm center of the luminous atoms. For an instant they stood out, still like three men cut from cardboard, a little darker than the black stone.

They grayed, their outlines grew misty. They ceased their climbing. They writhed--

They faded out!

Where they had been, hovered three wisps of stained cloud. The wisps dissolved.

In their place were three great drops of gold.

Sluggishly the three globules began to roll down the Face. They drew together. They became one. This dribbled slowly down to the crawling golden stream; was merged with it; was carried to the lip of the abyss--

Over into the gulf.

From high over that gulf came a burst of the elfin horns, a rush of unseen wings. And now, in the strange light of that cavern, Graydon saw them. Their bodies were serpents, silver scaled. They were winged. They dipped and drifted and eddied before the Face on snowy pinions, like those of ghostly birds of paradise.

Large and small, some the size of the great python, some no longer than the asp, they whirled and coiled and spun through the sparkling air, trumpeting triumphantly, calling to each other with their voices like elfin horns, fencing joyously with each other with bills that were like thin, straight swords.

Winged serpents, paradise-plumed, whose bills were sharp rapiers. Winged serpents sending forth their paeans of fairy trumpets while that crawling stream of which Soameancretarretere now a part dripped, dripped, slowly, so slowly, down into the abyss.

Graydon dropped upon the step, sick in every nerve and fiber of his being. He crept past the edge of the rock curtain, out of the brilliancy of the diamonded light, out of the sight of the Face and out of hearing of the trumpetclamor of the flying serpents.

He saw Suarra, running to him.

And consciousness left him.

CHAPTER VII—The Guarded Frontier

THE DIM GREENNESS of a forest glade shadowed Graydon when he opened his eyes. He was lying upon his blanket, and close beside him was his burro, placidly nibbling the grass.

Some one stirred in the shadow and came toward him. It was an Indian, but Graydon had never seen an Indian quite like him. His features were clean cut and delicate, his skin was more olive than brown. He wore a corselet and kilt of quilted blue silk. There was a thin circlet of gold around his forehead, upon his back a long bow and quiver of arrows, and in his hand a spear of black metal. He held out a silken-wrapped packet.

Graydon opened the packet. Within was Suarra's bracelet of the Snake Mother and a caraquenque feather, its shaft cunningly inlaid with gold.

"Where is she who sent me these?" he asked. The Indian smiled, shook his head, and laid two fingers over his lips. Graydon understoopon the messenger had been laid the command of silence. He restored the feather to its covering, and thrust it into the pocket over his heart. The bracelet he slipped with some difficulty over his own wrist.

The Indian pointed to the sky, then to the trees at his left. Graydon knew that he was telling him they must be going. He nodded and took the lead-strap of the burro.

For an hour they threaded the foresrailless so far as he could see. They passed out of it into a narrow valley between high hills. These cut off all view of the circular mountain, even had he known in what direction to look for it. The sun was half down the western sky. They reached, at dusk, a level stretch of rock through which a little stream cut a wandering channel. Here, the Indian indicated by signs that they would pass the night.

Graydon hobbled the burro where it could graze, made a fire and began to prepare a sketchy meal from his dwindling stores. The Indian had disappeared. Shortly he returned with a couple of trout. Graydon cooked them.

Night fell and with it the Andean cold. Graydon rolled himself up in his blanket, closed his eyes, and began to reconstruct, as far as possible, every step of the afternoon's journey; impressing upon his memory each landmark he had carefully noted after they had emerged from the trees. Soon these blended into a phantasmagoria of jeweled caverns, great faces of stone, dancing old men, in motlehen Suarra floated among these phantoms, banishing them. And then she, too, vanished.

It was long after noon when, having passed through another belt of trees, the Indian halted at the edge of a plateau stretching for unknown distances west and east. He pushed aside some bushes and pointed down. Graydon, following the pointing finger, saw a faint trail a hundred feet beneath hiome animal's runway, he thought, not marked out by human feet He looked at the Indian, who nodded, pointed to the burro and to Graydon, then down to the trail and eastward. Pointed next to himself, and back the way they had come.

"Plain enough!" said Graydon. "Frontier of Yu-Atlanchi. And here is where I'm deported."

The Indian broke his silence. He could not have understood what Graydon had said, but he recognized the name of Yu-Atlanchi.

"Yu-Atlanchi," he repeated gravely, and swung his hand behind him in a wide gesture. "Yu-Atlanchi! Death! Death!"

He stood aside, and waited for Graydon and the burro to pass him. When man and beast had reached the bottom, he waved his hand in farewell. He slipped back into the forest.

Graydon plodded on for perhaps a mile, eastward as he had been directed. He sank in the underbrush and waited for an hour. Then he turned back, retraced his way, and driving the burro before him reclimbed the ascent. He had but one thought, one desiro return to Suarra. No matter what the perio go back to her. He drew over the edge of the plateau, and stood listening. He heard nothing. He pushed ahead of the burralked forward.

Instantly, close above his head, a horn note rang ouenacingly, angrily. There was a whirring of great wings.

Instinctively, he threw up his arm. It was the one upon whose wrist he had fastened the bracelet of Suarra. The purple gems flashed in the sun. He beard the horn note sound again, protestingly. There was a whistling flurry in the air close beside him, as of some unseen winged creature striving frantically to check its flight.

Something struck the bracelet a glancing blow. Something like a rapier-point thrust through his shoulder just where it joined the base of his neck. He felt the blood gush forth. Something struck his breast. He toppled over the verge of the plateau, and rolled over and over down to the trail.

When he came to his senses, he was lying at the foot of the slope with the burro standing beside him. He must have lain there unconscious for a considerable time, for shoulder and arm were stiff, and the stained ground testified he had lost much blood. There was a gash above his temple where he had struck a stone during his fall.

He got up, groaning. The shoulder wound was in an awkward place for examination, but so far as he could tell, it was a clean puncture. Whatever had made the wound had passed through the muscles of the shoulder and neck. It must have missed the artery by a hair, he thought, painfully dressing the stab.

Whatever had done it? Well, he knew what had wounded him. One of those feathered serpents he had seen above the abyss of the Face! One of those Messengers, as Suarra had called them, which had so inexplicably let the four of them pass the frontiers of the Forbidden Land.

It could have killed him...it had meant to kill him...what had checked its slaying thrust...diverted it? He strove to think...God, how his head hurt! What had stopped it...Why, the bracelet, of course...the glint of the purple gems.

But that must mean the Messengers would not attack the wearer of the bracelet That it was a passport to the Forbidden Land. Was that why Suarra had sent it to him? So that he could return?

Well, he couldn't determine that now...he must heal his wounds first...must find help...somewhere.., before he could go back to Suarra...

Graydon staggered along the trail, the burro at his heels. It stood patiently that night while he tossed and moaned beside the ashes of a dead fire, and fever crept slowly through every vein. Patiently it followed him the next day as he stumbled along the trail, and fell and rose, and fell and rose, sobbing, gesticulating, laughing, cursinn the scorching grip of that fever. And patiently it trotted after the Indian hunters who ran across Graydon when death was squatting at his feet, and, who being Aymara and not Quicha, carried him to the isolated little hamlet of Chupan, nearest spot in all that wilderness where there were men of his own color who could look after him; and doctored him with their own unorthodox but highly efficient medicines as they went.

Two months passed before Graydon, wounds healed and his strength back, could leave Chupan. How much of his recovery was due to the nursing of the old padre and his household, and how much to the doses the Indians had forced into him, he did not know. Nor did he know how much he had revealed in his ravings. But, he reflected, these had probably been in English, and none in Chupan, nor the Indian hunters had a word of that language. Yet it was true that the old padre had been strangely disturbed about his leaving, had talked long about demons, their lures and devices, and of the wisdom of giving them wide berth.

During his convalescence there had been plenty of time for him to analyze what he had beheld; rationalize it; dissolve its mystery. Had the three actually turned into globules of gold? There was another explanationd a far more probable one. The cavern of the Face might be a laboratory of Nature, a crucible wherein, under unknown rays, transmutation of one element into another took place. Within the rock out of which the Face was carved might be some substance which by these rays was transformed into gold. Fulfillment of that old dream...or inspiration...of the ancient alchemists which modern science is turning into reality. Had not Rutherford, the Englishman, succeeded in turning an entirely different element into pure copper by depriving it of an electron or two? Was not the final product of uranium, the vibrant mother of radiuull, inert lead?

The concentration of the rays upon the Face was terrific. Beneath the bombardment of those radiant particles of energy the bodies of the three might have been swiftly disintegrated. The three droplets of gold might have been oozing from the rock behind them...the three had vanished...he had seen the drops...thought the three changed into them...an illusion.

And the Face did not really sweat and weep and slaver gold. That was the action of the rays upon it. The genius who had cut it from the stone had manipulated that...Of course!

The lure of the Face? Its power? A simple matter of psycholognce one understood it. That same genius had taken the stone, worked upon it, and reproduced so accurately man's hunger for power that inevitably, he who looked upon it responded. The subconsciousness, the consciousness as well, leaped up in response to what the Face portrayed with such tremendous fidelity. In proportion to the strength of that desire within him was the strength of the response. Like calls to like. The stronger draws the weaker. A simple matter of psychology. Agaif course!

The winged serpenthe Messengers? There, indeed, one's feet were solidly on scientific fact. Ambrose Bierce had deduced in his story "The Damned Thing" that there might be such things: H. G. Wells, the Englishman, had played with the same idea in his "Invisible Man"; and de Maupassant had worked it out, just before he went insane, in his haunting tale of the Horla. Science knew the thing was possible, and scientists the world over were trying to find the secret to use in the next war.

Yes, the invisible Messengers were easily explained. Conceive something that neither absorbs light nor throws it back. In such case the light rays stream over that something as water in a swift brook streams over a submerged bowlder. The bowlder is not visible. Nor would be the thing over which the light rays streamed. The light rays would curve over it, bringing to the eyes of the observer whatever image they carried from behind. The intervening object would be invisible. Because it neither absorbed nor threw back light, it could be nothing else.

There is a traveler in the desert. Suddenly he sees before him a rivulet and green palms. They are not there. They are far behind the mountain at whose base they seem to be. The rays of light carrying their images have struck upward, angled over the mountain, struck down, and have been reflected in denser hot air. It is a mirage. The example was not entirely analogous, but the basic principle was the same.

Ah, yes, thought Graydohe winged Messengers were not hard to understand. And as for their shaps not the bird but a feathered serpent, or feathered lizard? The plumes of the bird of paradise are only developments of the snake's scales. Science says so. The bird is a feathered serpent. The first bird, the Archeopterix, still had the jaws and teeth and tail of its reptilian ancestors.

Buhese creatures understanding and obeying human command? Well, why not? The dog could be trained to do the same thing. There was nothing to puzzle about in that. The dog is intelligent. There was no reason why the flying serpents should have less intelligence than the dog. And that explained the recognition of Suarra's bracelet by the unseen creature that had attacked him.

The Snake Mother?--well, he'd have to see her before he believed in anything half-snake and half-woman. Let that be.

Having explained everything except the Serpent-woman to his own satisfaction, Graydon ceased to think, and in consequence grew rapidly better.

When he had fully recovered, he tried to pay some of his debt of life to whomsoever it was he owed that life. He sent messengers to Cerro de Pasco for funds, and other things. The padre could have the altar trappings he had long wished for, and what he gave the Indians made them thank their patron saints or secret gods that they had found him.

He had been lucky, too. He had lost his rifle in his wanderings, and his messengers had been able to pick up a superior, high-power gun in Cerro.

And now, with plenty of ammunition, four automatics, and all the equipment he needed, Graydon was on his way back to the hidden haunted trail. With him was that same patient burro which had shared his adventures in the Hidden Land.

Since leaving Chupan he had borne steadily toward the Cordillera. For the past few days he had seen no trace of Indians. Something whispered to him to be cautious.

Cautious? He smiled at the thought. It was hardly the word for this journene man headed deliberately into the range of the power Suarra had named Yu-Atlanchi! Cautious! Graydon laughed outright. Yet, he reflected, one probably could exercise caution even in invading Hell. And Suarra's land, from what he had seen of its phenomena, seemed rather close to some such place of the damned, if not well over its borders. Lingering upon this interesting idea, he took stock of his assets for its invasion.

A first class rifle and plenty of ammunition; four serviceable automatics, two in one of the packs, one at his belt and one tucked in a holster under his armpit. Good enougut Yu-Atlanchi might have, and probably did have, weapons that could make these look like a bushman's bow and arrow. And what use would automatics and rifles be against the scaly armor of the dinosaurs?

What else had he? A flicker of purple light from his wrist answered hihe gleam of the jewels in Suarra's bracelet. That would be worth a hundred guns and pistolf it were passport to the Forbidden Land.

When dusk fell on the fourteenth day of his journeying, he was in a little valley between sparsely wooded, close-lying ranges. A friendly stream gurgled and chuckled close to him. He made camp beside the brook, stripped the burro, hobbled it, and turned it loose to graze. He built his fire, boiled his tea, and prepared his supper. He measured with his eyes the southern range of hills. Till now he had been lucky in being able to follow the valleys, with few climbs and none of them a stiff one. Here, a mountain lay directly in his path. About two thousand feet high, he reckoned it; not difficult to get over. The trees marched all the way up to its summit, singly and in platoons, and always with the curious suggestion of careful planting.

He lay for awhile, thinking. His right arm was stretched outside his blanket. In the light of the dying fire the purple gems in the bracelet gleamed and waneleamed and waned. Larger they seemed to grond larger still. Sleep swept over Graydon.

He slept, and he knew that he slept. Still, even in his sleep he saw the gleaming purple jewels. He dreamend they guided his dream. He passed swiftly over a moonlit waste. Ahead of him frowned a black barrier. It shrouded him and was gone. He had a glimpse of an immense circular valley rimmed by sky-piercing peaks. He caught the glint of a lake, the liquid silver of a mighty torrent streaming out of the heart of a cliff. He had wheeling visions of colossi, gigantic shapes of stone bathed in the milky flood of the moon, each guarding the black mouth of a cavern.

A city rushed up to meet him; a city ruby-roofed and opal-turreted and fantastic as though built by Djinns from the stuff of dreams.

He came to rest within a vast and columned hall from whose high roof fell beams of dimly azure light. High arose those columns, unfolding far above into wide petalings of opal and emerald and turquoise flecked with gold.

He sahe Snake Mother!

She lay coiled in a nest of cushions just beyond the lip of a wide alcove set high above the pillared pave. Between her and him the azure beams fell, curtaining the immense niche with a misty radiance that half-revealed, half-shadowed, her.

Her face was ageleseither young nor old; free from time, free from the etching acid of the years. She might have been born yesterdar a million years ago.

Her eyes, set wide apart, were round and luminous; they were living jewels filled with purple fires. Her forehead was wide and low; her nose delicate and long, the nostrils a little dilated. Her chin was small and pointed. Her mouth was small, and heart-shaped; her lips were a vivid scarlet.

Down her narrow, childish shoulders flowed hair that gleamed like spun silver. It arrow-headed into a point on her forehead. It gave her face that same heart shape in which her lips were forme heart of which the pointed chin was the basal point.

She had little high breasts, uptilted. Her face, neck, shoulders and breasts were the hue of pearls suffused faintly with rose. Her coils began just below her tilted breasts. They were half buried in a nest of silken cushions; thick coils and many; circle upon circle of them, covered with gleaming heart-shaped scales; each scale as exquisitely wrought as though by an elfin carver-of-gems; opaline; mother-of-pearl.

Her pointed chin was cupped in hands as small as a child's. Like a child's were her slender arms, their dimpled elbows resting on her topmost coil.

On her face which was both face of woman and face of serpennd in some strange fashion neither serpent nor womahere dwelt side by side an awesome wisdom and a weariness beyond belief--

The Serpent-womaemory of whom or of her sisters may be the source of those legends of the Naga Princesses whose wisdom reared the cities of the vanished Khmers in the Cambodian jungles; yes, and may be the source of those persistent stories of serpent-women in the folklore of every land.

May even be the germ of truth in the legend of Lilith, first wife of Adam, whom Eve ousted.

It was thus that Graydon saw her thus he thought he saw her. For again and again that question of whether she was as she seemed to him to be, or whether he saw her as she willed him to see her, was to rise to torment him.

He thrilled to the beauty of that little heart-shaped face, the glistening argent glory of her hair, the childish exquisiteness of her.

He gave no heed to her coils, heonstrousness. It was as though she reached down into his heart and plucked some deep hidden string, silent there since birth.

And in that dreaf dream it wae knew that she was aware of all this and was well pleased. Her eyes softened, and brooded upon him; the rose-pearl coil upon which was her body raised until her head swayed twice the height of a tall man above the alcove's pave. She nodded toward him. She raised her little hands to her forehead and cupped them; then with oddly hieratic gesture lowered them, tipping the palms as though she poured from them.

Beyond her was a throne that seemed cut from the heart of a colossal sapphire. It was oval, ten feet or more in height, and hollowed like a shrine. It rested upon, or was set within, the cupped end of a pillar of milky rock-crystal It was empty, although around it clung, he thought, a faint radiance. At its foot were six lesser thrones. One was red as though carved from ruby; one was black as though cut from jet; the four thrones between the two were yellow gold.

The crimson lips of the Snake Mother opened; a slender, pointed, scarlet tongue flicked out and touched them. Whether she spoke or did not speak, Graydon heard her thought.

"I will hold up the hands of this man. Suarra loves him. He pleases me. Except for Suarra, I have no interest in those who dwell in Yu-Atlanchi. The desire of the child flies to him. So let it be! I grow weary of Lantlu and his crew. For one thing, Lantlu draws closer than I like to that Shadow of Nimir they call the Dark Master. Also, he would take Suarra. He shall not."

"By the ancient compact," the Lord of Folly spoke--"by that compact, Adana, you may not use your wisdom against any of the Old Race. Your ancestors swore it. It was sworn to long and long and long ago, before the ice drove us north from the Homeland. The oath has never been broken. Even you, Adana, cannot break that oath."

"S-s-s-s!" the Snake Mother's scarlet tongue flickered wrathfully--"Say you so! There was another side to that compact. Did not the Old Race swear never to plot against any of us, the Serpent-people? Yet Lantlu and his followers plot with the Shadow. They plot to free Nimir from the fetters which long ago we forged for him. Free, he will seek to destroy us...and why should he not...and perhaps he may!

"Heed that, Tyddo! I say perhaps he may! Lantlu plots with Nimir, who is our enemy; therefore he plots against mhe last of the Serpent-people. The ancient compact is broken. By Lantlot by me."

She swayed forward.

"Suppose we abandon Yu-Atlanchi? Pass from it as did my ancestors, and the Lords who were your peers? Leave it to its rot?"

The Lord of Folly did not answer.

"Ah, well, where there is little left but folly, you of course must stay," she nodded her childish head toward him. "But what is there to keep me? By the wisdom of my people! Here was a race of hairless gray apes that we took from their trees. Took them and taught them, and turned them into men. And what have they become? Dwellers in dream, paramours of phantoms, slaves of illusion. The otherwinging ever toward the darkness, lovers of cruelty; retainers of beauty, outwardlnd under their masks, hideous. I sicken of them. Yu-Atlanchi rotay, it is rotten. Let it die!"

"There is Suarra," said the Lord of Folly, softly. "And there are others who are still sound. Will you abandon them?"

The Serpent-woman's face softened.

"There is Suarra," she whispered, "and there arthers. But so few! By my ancestors, so few!"

"If it were their fault alone!" said the Lord of Folly.

"But it is not, Adana. Better for them had we razed the barrier that has protected them. Better for them had we let them make their own way against the wilderness, and what of enemies it held. Better for them had we never closed the Door of Death."

"Peace!" answered the Serpent-woman, sadly. "It was my woman's tongue speaking. Yet there is a deeper reason why we may not abandon them. This Shadow of Nimir seeks a body. What this Shadow is, how strong Nimir still may be, what he has forgotten of his old arts, or what new arts he has learned through the age do not know. But this I do knof this Shadow seeks a body, it is to free Nimir from the stone. We must prepare for battle, Old One. Nimir freed, and victorioue must go! Nor would our going be orderly and as we may desire. And in time he would spread his dominion over all the world, as other ages ago he planned to do. And that must not be!"

The Lord of Folly stirred upon the red throne, flapping about like a great red and yellow bird, uneasily.

"Well," said the Serpent-woman, practically, "I am glad I cannot read the future. If it is to be war, I have no desire to be weakened by knowing I am going to lose. Nor to be bored by knowing I am going to win. If one must exert oneself to such a degree as such war promises, one is surely entitled to the interest of uncertainty."

Graydon, for all the incredible weirdness of what he seemed to be seeing and hearing, chuckled involuntarily at this, it was so amazingly feminine. The Serpent-woman glanced at him, as though she had heard him. There was a half-malicious twinkle in her glowing eyes.

"As for this man who seeks Suarra," she said, "let him come and find me! There is much in what you have said of our error in making life too easy for Yu-Atlanchi, Tyddo. Let us not repeat it. When this man, by his own wit and courage, has found the way to me, and stands before me in body as now he stands in thought, I will arm him with power. If we win, Suarra shall be his reward. In the meantime, for sign, I shall send my winged Messengers to him, that they may know hind also that he may know he need fear them no more."

The temple faded, and disappeared. Graydon seemed to hear around and above him a storm of elfin buglings. He thought that he opened his eyes, threw off the blanket and arose--

And that all around him, glimmering with pale silver fires, were circles upon circles of the silver-feathered serpents! Whirling and wheeling in countless spirals; hundreds upon hundreds of them, great and small, their plumes gleaming, fencing gayly with long rapier beaks, horn notes ringing--

And were gone.

At dawn he threw together a hasty breakfast, caught the burro and adjusted the packs upon it. Whistling, he set forth, up the mountain. The ascent was not difficult. In an hour he had reached the summit.

At his feet the ground sloped down to a level plain, dotted with huge standing stones. Up from this plain and not three miles from where he stood arose the scarps of a great mountain. Its precipices marched in the arc of an immense circle, on and on beyond sight--

The ramparts of Yu-Atlanchi!

CHAPTER VIII—The Lizard Men

THERE COULD BE no doubt of it. Behind the barrier upon which he looked lay Yu-Adanchnd Suarra! The plain studded with the giant menhirs was that over which the spider-man had scuttled. The path along which Graydon had trodden on his way to the Face must be just below him.

He heard high overhead a mellow bugle-call. Three times the notes sounded, then thrice agairom the base of the slope whose top he trod; from far out on the plain; and, last close to the mountain wall.

He began to descend.

It was early afternoon when he reached the mountain. The rock was basaltic, black and adamantine. Its scarps thrust almost perpendicularly from the plain. They were unscalable; at least, those before him were. Which way should he go? As though answering his question he heard once more the mellow horn note high in the air, and southward.

"South it is," said Graydon, cheerfully, and resumed his march.

His eye caught a verdancy, a green banner streaming down the face of the escarpment a hundred feet or more above its base. As he drew near, he saw that there had been a shattering of the rock at this point. Rubble studded with immense bowlders lay piled against the cliff. Bushes and small trees had found foothold and climbed to the top of the breast.

Studying the breast to determine its cause, Graydon saw a narrow crack in the rock wall above the mound. Curiosity drove him to examine it The burro watched him until he was half-way up the hill, and then with a protesting bray scrambled after him.

He pressed on. He pushed, through the last of the bushes. Here he found that the end of the fissure was about four feet wide. It was dark within it. He knelt and shot around the rays of his searchlight. Rocks littered the floor, but the place was dry. He came out, and began to collect his firewood.

When he had thrown down the last armload of faggots, he walked back along the fissure. A hundred paces and his light fell upon a rock walhe end of it, he supposed. But he found when he reached it that the cleft made an abrupt turn. He heard water dripping, at his left, drops were exuding from the stone, were caught in a small natural basin, then trickled away in a thin stream. He turned his flash upward. He could see no roof, but neither could he see the sky.

Well, he would do some exploring next morning. He drove the burro into the shelter, and tethered it to a spur of rock. After he had eaten, he rolled himself up in his blanket and went to sleep.

He awakened early, the desire hot within him to see where the fissure led. Without bothering to breakfast, he swung down it. When he had gone about three hundred paces past the tiny spring, the passage turned sharply, this time resuming its original direction. Not far ahead was a gray, palely luminous curtain. He snapped off his flash, and crept forwart was daylight.

He looked down a rift in the mountain, a hundred feet wide, with smoothly precipitous walls. It ran due east, facing the rising sun. There was no other way to account for the volume of light that filtered down into the narrow canyon. Its floor was level and smooth. Along one side it ran the trickle of the spring. There was no vegetatioot even the hardy, rock-loving lichens.

Graydon went back, watered the burro and tethered it among the bushes.

"Eat hearty, Sancho Panza," he said. "God alone knows when you get your next meal."

He made a fire and broke his own fast. He waited until the burro had filled itself, fastened on the packs, and finally, with considerable difficulty, got the little brute to the canyon door. After that, it ambled along ahead of him contentedly enough.

For a mile the canyon ran as straight as though laid out by a surveyor's level. Then it began to turn and twist, widen and narrow, dip and climb. Small rocks and bowlders appeared in ever-growing numbers on its floor. The trickle, augmented by other seepages from the cliffs, had grown into a small brook. The rocky walls had changed from black to a reddish-yellow. A stunted, pallid vegetation grew sparsely beside the flowing water and among the broken stones.

From time to time he caught glimpses of roughly rounded holes high up the cliffs at his right, apertures that seemed to be the mouths of tunnels or caves. They stared at him from the ocherous rock like huge pupilless eyes. With that sharpening of the faculties the wilderness effects, Graydon sensed that something deadly lurked there. He watched them warily, rifle ready. There was a taint in the air, a faintly acrid, musky odor, vaguely familiar. It was likow what was it like? It was like the reek of alligators in some infested, sluggish, jungle creek.

The taint in the air grew stronger. The number of the cave mouths increased. The burro began to show nervousness, halting and sniffing.

The canyon made another of its abrupt turns. From beyond the angle that hid the way from Graydon there came an appalling outburst of hissings and gruntings. At the same time gusts of the musky stench smote his nostrils, nauseating him. The burro stood stock-still.

He heard the cries of men. He sprang forward; turned the corner. Just ahead of him were three Indians like the one who had led him to the frontier of the Forbidden Land, but in yellow instead of blue. Circling them, tearing at them with fangs and claws, were a score or more of creatures which at first glance he took for giant lizards. And at second, realized that they were, if not men, at least semi-human.

The things stood a little over four feet high. Their leathery skins were a dirty yellow. They balanced themselves upon squat, stocky legs whose feet were like paws, flat and taloned. Their arms were short and muscular. Their hands were pads, duplicates almost of their feet, but with longer claws.

It was their faces that chilled Graydon's blood. There was no mistaking the human element in them. They were man and lizard inextricably, inexplicably, mingles man and spider had been mingled in the scarlet thing Suarra had named the Weaver.

Beyond their narrow, pointed foreheads their heads were covered with scarlet scales which stood upright like multiple cockscombs. Their eyes were red, round and unwinking. Their noses were flat, but under them their jaws extended in a broad six-inch snout armed with yellow fangs, strong and cruel as a crocodile's. They had no chins, and only rudiments of ears.

What sickened him most was that around their loins were filthy strips of cloth.

The three Indians stood back to back in a triangle, battering at the lizard-men with maul-headed clubs of some shining metal. That they had given good account of themselves a half dozen of the creatures, heads crushed in, gave proof. But now in rapid succession first one Indian and then a second was pulled to the ground and hidden by the loathsome bodies.

Graydon threw off his paralysis and shouted to the remaining Indian.

He raised his rifle, took rapid aim, and fired. The lizard-man he had picked out staggered under the impact of the bullet, then dropped. At the report, echoing like a miniature peal of thunder from the rocky walls, the pack turned as one toward him, fanged mouths open and staring, bodies crouched, glaring at him with the unwinking red eyes.

The Indian stooped, lifted the body of one of his comrades, and sprang clear. Freed from fear of hitting him, Graydon emptied his rifle into the creatures. He rapidly reloaded his magazine. Then, as he began dropping them, they broke from their stupor, leaped for the walls, and like true lizards swarmed up the sheer faces of the cliffs. Hissing and screeching, they darted into the black mouths of the caves. They vanished into their dark depths.

The Indian stood with his wounded comrade in his arms. There was amazement and awe on his finely featured brown face. Graydon threw the rifle thong around his neck, and held out both hands in the universal gesture of peace. The Indian gently lowered the other to the ground, and bowed low, the backs of his hands to his forehead.

Graydon walked toward the Indian. He stopped for a moment to look more closely at the creatures his bullets had dropped. He saw that only those whose skulls had been pierced by the high power bullets lay there. And the limbs of these drew up and down spasmodically as though they still lived. One of them had been shot straight through the heart. But still that heart beat on. He could see the leathery yellow chest throb with its pulsations. Only those whose skulls had been crushed by the clubs seemed quite dead.

And again the perverted humanness of these things shook him.

One of them lay face down. The stained breech-clout had slipped off. At the base of its spine was a blunt, scaled tail.

He was aware of the first Indian beside him. He saluted again, and methodically began to crush with his club the heads of those Graydon had shot.

"This," he said in the Aymara, "so they cannot live again. It is the only way."

Graydon walked over to the second Indian. He was unconscious and badly mauled, but not necessarily fatally, so he thought, going carefully over the wounds. He took his emergency kit out of the saddle-bag, treated and bandaged the worst of them. He looked up to see the other Indian standing over him, watching with eyes in which the awe was stronger, "If we can get him to some place where those brutes can't interrupt, I can do more for him," said Graydon, also in the Aymara tongue, rising.

"A little way," answered the Indian, "and we shall be safe from them, Mighty Lord!"

"Let's go," said Graydon, in English, grinning at the title.

He bent down and lifted the wounded man's shoulders. The Indian took his feet. Burro once more in the lead, they made their way down the canyon.

The openings of the caves watched them. Within them nothing stirred, but Graydon felt upon him the gaze of malignant eyehe devil eyes of the lizard-men hidden in the shadow of their dens.

CHAPTER IX—In the Lair of Huon

THE CLIFF BURROWS of the lizard-men became fewer; at last the precipices were clean of them. The Indians gave them no attention whatever, satisfied apparently of Graydon's ability to handle any fresh assault by the monsters.

The man they were carrying groaned, opened his eyes, and spoke. His comrade nodded, and set his feet on the ground. He stood upright, looking at Graydon with the same amazement his fellow had shown, and then, as he saw the bracelet of the Snake Mother, with the same awe. The first Indian spoke rapidly, too rapidly, for Graydon to understand. When he had finished, the second took his hand, laid it first upon his heart and then upon his forehead.

"Lord," he said, "my life is yours."

"Where is it that you go?" Graydon asked.

They looked at each other, uneasily.

"Lord, we go to our own place," answered one at last, evasively.

"I suppose you do," said Graydon. "Is that placu-Atlanchi?"

Again they hesitated before replying.

"We do not go into the City, Lord," said the first Indian, finally.

Graydon weighed their evasiveness, their reluctance to give him straight answer, wondering how far he might trust their gratitude. They had asked him no questions whence he had come, nor why, nor who nor what he was. But that reticence had been due to courtesy or some other potent reason; not to any lack of curiosity, for clearly that burned in each. He felt he could expect no such consideration from others he might meet, once he was inside the Hidden Land. He could look for no help, at least not yet, from the Snake Mother. He was convinced that his vision of the Temple had been no illusion. The guiding buglings of the flying serpents, and his immunity from them was proof to him of that. And the Serpent-woman had said that he must win to her by his own wit and courage before she would aid him.

He could not win to her by blundering into Yu-Adanchi like any reckless fool. But where could he hide until he had been able to reconnoiter, to make some plan...

"You," he turned to the wounded man, decision made for good or bad, "have said your life is mine?"

The Indian again took his hand, and touched it to heart and forehead.

"I would enter Yu-Atlanchi," said Graydon, "but for a time I would not be seen by others there. Can you guide me, give me shelter, none but you knowing of my presence, until such time as I choose to go my own way?"

"Do you jest with us, Mighty Lord?" asked the first Indian. "What does one who wears the symbol of the Mother, and who wields this," he pointed to the rifle, "need of our guidance? Are you not a messenger of...her? Did not those who are her servants let you pass? Lord, why jest with us?"

"I do not jest," said Graydon, and, watching them narrowly, added, "Know you the Lord Lanflu?"

Their faces hardened, their eyes became suspicious; he knew that the two hated the master of the dinosaur pack. Good, he would tell them something more.

"I seek the Mother," he said. "If I am not her messenger, I at least am her servant The Lord Lantlu stands between her and me. There are reasons why I must cope with him without her help. Therefore I must have time to plan, and he must know nothing of me until I have made my plan."

There was relief in their faces, and a curious elation. They whispered.

"Lord," said the first, "will you swear by the Mother," again they made reverence to the bracelet, "raise her to your lips and swear by her that what you have said is truth; that you are no friend nopf the Lord Lantlu?"

Graydon raised the bracelet.

"I do swear it," he said. "May the Mother destroy me utterly, body and spirit, if what I have told you is not truth."

He kissed the tiny coiled figure.

Once more the Indians whispered.

"Come with us, Lord," said the one who had vowed himself to Graydon. "We will take you to the Lord Huon. Until we come to him, ask us no more questions. You have asked us for shelter against the Lord Lantlu. We guide you to the only shelter against him. And you shall have if the Lord Huon wills it. If he does not will ie will go with you or die with you. Can we do more?"

"By God!" said Graydon, touched to the heart, "neither you nor any man could do more for another. But I do not think that your Lord Huon, whoever he may be, will hold grudge against you for bringing me to him."

Rapidly he went again over the wounded man; the tears and gashes were bad enough, but no arteries had been cut and no vital organs touched.

"You have lost much blood," Graydon told him. "I think we should carry you."

But he would not have it so.

"It is but a little way now," he said. "There is poison in the fangs and claws of the Urd, the lizard-men. The water of flame which you poured into my wounds burned most of it away, but not all I feel it, and it is better that I walk if I can."

"The Urd poison carries sleep," explained the first Indian. "The sleep ends in death. The Mighty Lord's water of flame conquered that sleep and made him awaken. Now he fears if he is carried he may sleep again, since, he says, the flame-water has ceased to burn."

Graydon smiled at the description of the iodine that he had used on the wounds. Nevertheless, the reasoning was sound enough. If the venom of the lizard-men had a narcotic action, then in the absence of any neutralizing agent the exercise of walking would help throw off the poison. He lifted the bandages from the deepest gashes and poured more iodine into them. By the tightening of the muscles, he knew that the stuff bit.

"It is good," said the Indian, "the water of flame burns."

"It burns the poison," said Graydon cheerfully. "If you have any other medicine, it will be well to use it."

"There is such where we go," said the first Indian. "But had it not been for yours, Lord, he would now be well advanced in the Urd sleend that is no peaceful one. Now let us go as quickly as we can."

They resumed their way along the canyon. They had traveled probably a mile when, abruptly, the two walls of the cliffs swung toward each other. Separating them was a fissure some twenty feet wide, clean cut as though chiseled out of the rocks, and black as a starless night.

"Wait here," said the first Indian, and walked to the fissure's mouth. He drew from his pouch something that seemed to be a globe of rock crystal about as big as a tennis ball, its back cased in a cone of metal. He raised the globe above his head. A light sprayed from it into the tunnel. It was not a ray; it was like a swiftly moving, luminous ball of cloud. He dropped the globe back into his pouch, and beckoned.

They entered the fissure. It was no longer dark. It was filled with a pale luminosity, as though the cloud from the globe had dispersed a phosphorescent mist. They walked on a thousand feet or more. The Indian did not use the globe again, yet the light persisted.

He halted. Graydon saw that the fissure had ended. Outside was blackness. Far below was the sound of rushing water. The Indian raised the cone. Again the luminous cloud sprayed out.

Graydon gasped. The luminous vapor was speeding over an abyss. Suddenly the face of a cliff sprang out, a hundred yards away. The cloud of light had impinged upon it. Instantly a part of the cliff lifted like an immense curtain. Out of the revealed portal shot a metal tongue, flat, ten feet wide. It licked over the abyss, following the path of light. It halted at their feet. The Indians smiled at Graydon, reassuringly. "Follow me, Lord," one said. "There is no danger." Graydon stepped upon the span, the burro at his heels.

The roar of the torrent, hundreds of feet below, came up to him.

They reached the end of that strange bridge. The Indians drew up beside him. They marched on for fifty paces. Looking back, he saw the entrance to the passage like a great gate of twilight. He heard a soft sighing, and the rectangle of twilight was blotted out. The curtain of rock had fallen.

Now light was all around him, soft and suffused as though it were a quality of the air itself. He stood in a chamber that was a hollow cube perhaps a hundred feet square. Walls and roof were of polished black stone, and in the stone were tiny, swiftly moving luminous corpuscles like those he had watched stream out of the ebon walls of the cavern of the Face. They were the source of the light.

The place was empty, no sign of the passage through which they had come, nor of openers of the rock, nor machinery that controlled its opening; nor was there sign of door; nor was there trace of openings within the other walls. Yet Graydon heard a murmuring as of many people whispering within the chamber, and then a curt sentence, too rapidly spoken for him to understand.

The unwounded Indian saluted, and walked forward a few paces. He answered the challenger in the same rapid speech. But Graydon had no difficulty in getting his meaning. He was telling of the battle with the lizard-men. He finished; there was a brief silence, and then from the Unseen speaker came another quick command. The Indian beckoned.

"Lord, hold up the bracelet," he said.

By now, of course, Graydon had realized that the unseen speaker was not really in the rock chamber, but behind the wall. His voice was carried by some tube device no doubt, and there were probably peepholes. Still, he could see no sign of either, the shining black surface seemed unpierced, smooth as unbroken glass. He lifted the wrist on which was the golden image of the Snake Mother. The purple eyes gleamed. There was a louder burst of the murmurings, exclamations; another command.

"Lay down your weapon, Lord," said the Indian, "and go forward to the wall."

And then as Graydon hesitated:

"Do not fear. We will stand beside you--" The voice of the unseen speaker interrupted, sternly. The Indian shook his head, and took his stand beside Graydon, his comrade at the other hand. Graydon, knowing they had been ordered to remain behind while he went on alone, laid his rifle upon the floor, and whispered to them to obey. He walked forward, loosening the pistol in his armpit holster. And as he halted, the light blinked out.

Only for a moment did the darkness hold. When the radiance returned a third of the wall had vanished. Where it had been there stretched a corridor, wide and well lighted. On each side of it was a file of the Indians. Another file stood between him and the pair with the burro. They carried spears tipped with some shining black metal; they bore small round shields of the same substance. Their straight black hair was held by narrow fillets of gold. They were naked except for short kilts of quilted yellow silk. All this Graydon saw in one swift glance before his gaze came to rest upon the man beside him.

He was a giant of a man, his face that of a pure-blood of Suarra's and Lantlu's race; or had been, before catastrophic fight had marred it. He stood a good eight inches over Graydon's six-foot height His hair was silver white, cut to the nape of his neck and held by a fillet of amber lacquer. From right temple to chin ran four parallel lines of livid scars. His nose had been broken and flattened. From his shoulders fell a coat-of-mail of the black metal, linked like those the Crusaders wore. It was gathered in at his waist by a belt. Chain mail breeches covered his thighs and legs to the knees, baggily. The lower legs were protected by greaves from knees to the ankles of the sandaled feet. His right arm had been cut off at the elbow, and attached to that elbow by a band of gold and held by a shoulder harness was a murderous three-foot metal bar. In his belt was a short double ax, twin to those which were the symbols of ancient Crete.

Formidable enough he was, but Graydon, looking into his eyes, drew from them reassurance. There were wrinkles of laughter at their corners, and humor and toleration that even his present suspicion and puzzlement could not entirely efface. Nor, despite his silver hair, was he old; forty at most, Graydon judged.

He spoke in the Aymara, and with a gusty, huskily roaring bass.

"And so you want to see Huon! Well, so you shall. And do not think us lacking in gratitude that I kept you waiting so long, and took from you your weapon. But the Dark One is subtle, and Lantlu, may his Xinli shred him, is like him. Nor would this be the first time that he has tried to foist spies upon us in the guise of those who would do us service. Regor is my name, Black Regor some call me. My blackness is not that of the Dark One, yet I, too, am subtle. But it may be that you know nothing of this Dark Onh, lad?"

He paused, eyes shrewd.

"Some little I have heard of him," answered Graydon, cautiously.

"Eh, some little you have heard of him! Well, and what did that little make you think of him?"

"Nothing!" answered Graydon, quoting an Aymara proverb that holds certain obscurely improper implications, "nothing that would make me want to sit cheek by jowl and break eggs with him."

"Ho! ho!" roared the giant, and swung his bar dangerously close. "But that is good! I must tell Huon that--"

"And besides," said Graydon, "is he not the enemy oer?" He lifted the bracelet.

Black Regor checked his laughter; gave an order to the guard.

"Walk beside me," he told Graydon. Looking back before obeying, he saw one of the two Indians pick up his rifle gingerly, and both of them take up the march on each side of the burro. He wondered uneasily, as he tried to match Regor's strides, whether he had locked the gun before dropping it; then decided that he had.

A graver doubt began to grow. He had been building up a fabric of hope based on the idea that Huon, whoever he might be, was bitter enemy of Lantlu, would welcome his aid and help him in return for it. And he had intended to tell him the whole story of his encounter with Suarra, and what had followed. Now this seemed too naive of him. The situation was not so simple as all that. After all, what did he know of these people with their sinister artheir spider-folk and their lizard-folk and God alone knew what other monstrosities?

And what, after all did he really know of that utterly weird, incredible creaturhe Snake Mother?

Graydon felt a momentary despair. He resolutely put it aside. He would have to recast his ideas, that was all. And he had few enough minutes in which to do it. Better make no plans at all until he met this Huon, and had a chance to gauge him.

A sharp challenge brought him back to alertness. Before him the corridor was barred by immense doors of the black metal. Guarding them was a double file of the yellow-kilted soldiers, the first rank made up of spears, and the second of archers bearing long metal bows. They were captained by a thick-set, dwarfish Indian whose double ax almost dropped from his hand as he caught sight of Graydon.

To him Regor whispered. The captain nodded, and stamped upon the floor. The valves of the great door separated, folds of filmy curtains like a waterfall of cobwebs through which an amber sun was shining billowing out between them.

"I go to tell Huon of you," rumbled Regor. "Wait patiently." He melted within the webs. The door closed silently behind him.

And silently Graydon waited; silently the yellow-kilted guards stared at him, and long minutes passed by. A bell sounded; the great doors parted. He heard a murmur from beyond the webs. The captain beckoned to the two Indians. Driving the burro before him they passed into the hidden room. A still longer time, and then once more the bell and the opened door. The captain signaled, and Graydon walked forward and through the webs.

His eyes were dazzled by what seemed sunlight flooding through amber glass. Details sharpened. He had a vague impression of walls covered with tapestries of shifting hues. He blinked up, and saw that the roof of the chamber was of the same polished stone as the corridors, amber colored instead of black, and that the intenser light came from denser spirals of the radiant swirling corpuscles.

A woman laughed. He looked toward the laughtend leaped forward, the name of Suarra on his lips. Some one caught him by the arm and held him back--

And suddenly he knew that this laughing woman was not Suarra.

She lay stretched upon a low couch, head raised and resting upon one long white hand. Her face was older, but still it was the exquisite twin of Suarra's, and like Suarra's was her cloudy midnight hair. There the resemblance ended. Upon that lovely face was a mockery alien to the sweetness of the girl. There was a touch of cruelty upon the perfect lips, and something of inhuman withdrawal in the clear dark eyeothing of the tenderness within Suarra's; something, rather, of what he had seen on the face of Lantlu when the dinosaur pack had sighted the Scarlet Weaver. A slender white foot swung over the edge of the couch, negligently balancing upon a toe of a silken sandal.

"Our unbidden guest seems impetuous, Dorina," came a man's voice, speaking the Aymara. "If simple tribute to your beauty, I applaud. Yet to me it seemed to savor something oecognition."

The speaker had risen from a chair at the head of the couch. His face was of that extraordinary beauty which seemed the heritage of all this strange race. The eyes were the deep blue that usually promises friendliness, but there was none of it in them now. Like Regor, his ruddy hair was filleted with amber. Under the white, toga-like robe that covered him, Graydon sensed the body of an athlete.

"You know I am no Dream Maker, Huon," drawled the woman. "I am a realist. Where but in dreams could I have met him? Still, although no Dreameerhapad I known--"

Her voice was faintly languishing, but there was malicious mockery in the glance she gave Graydon. Huon flushed, his eyes grew bleak; he spoke one sharp word. Immediately, Graydon's chest was encircled as though by a vise, crushing his ribs, stifling him. His hands flew up to break that grip, and closed on a thin, stringy arm that seemed less flesh than leather. He twisted his head. Two feet above him was a chinless, half-human face. Long, red elf locks fell over its sharply sloping forehead. Its eyes were round and golden, filled with melancholy; filled, too, with intelligence.

A spider-man!

Another stringy arm covered with scarlet hair circled his throat. A third caught him under the knees and lifted him on high.

He heard a roar of protest from Regor. Blindly, he struck out at the chinless face close to his, and as he struck, the purple stones in the golden bracelet flashed like a tiny streak of fire. He heard a grunt from the spider-man, a sharp cry from Huon.

He felt himself falling, falling ever faster through blackneshen felt and heard no more.

CHAPTER X—Outlaws of Yu-Atlanchi

HIS SENSES were struggling back; a gusty voice was shouting wrathfully.

"He wears the ancient symbol of the Mother. He passes her Watchers. He routs the stinking Urd who serve the Dark One, spittle on his name! Each alone enough to win a hearing! I tell you again, Huon, here was a man to be received with courtesy; one who had a tale to tell and that tale a matter of concern not only to you but all the Fellowship. And you toss him to Kon, unheard! What of Adana when she learns of it? By every jeweled scale of her coils, we have yearned lustily enough for her aid, and never broken through her indifference! This man might have won her to us!"

"Enough, Regor, enough!" It was Huon's voice, depression in it.

"It is not enough," stormed the giant. "Was it the Dark One bade you do this? By the Lord of Lords, the Fellowship must deal with you!"

"You are right, of course, Regor. It is your duty to summon the Fellowship, if you think best. I am sorry and I am ashamed. When the stranger awakens from his swoon, and indeed I am sure it is no worse, I will make amends to him. And the Fellowship, not I, shall decide what is to be done with him."

"All of which does not seem to flatter me," said Dorina, sweetly suave, and too sweetly. "Do you hint, Regor, that I am an agent of the Dark One, for clearly it was I who gave the impulse to Huon's rage?"

"I hint nothing--" began the giant, and was interrupted by Huon.

"Dorina, I will answer that. And I say to you that it is no unfamiliar doubt to me. Be careful that some time you do not change that doubt to certainty. For then I will kill you, Dorina, and there is no power in Yu-Atlanchi, nor above it nor below it, that may save you."

It was said calmly enough, but with a cold implacability.

"You dare say that, Huon--"

Graydon knew that more of truth often enters ears thought closed than those believed open. Therefore he had kept quiet, listening, and mustering his strength. A quarrel among these three could not help him. He groaned, and opened his eyes, and thereby silenced whatever had been on the woman's tongue to say. He looked up into Huon's face, in which was nothing but concern; at Dorina, her black eyes blazing, long white hands clenched to her breast in effort to control her rage.

His eyes fell upon a scarlet figure beyond them both. It was Kon, the spider-man, and Graydon forgot his danger and all else, contemplating him.

He was something that might have stepped out of one of Durer's nightmare fantasies of the Witches' Sabbath, stealing from the picture into reality through a scarlet bath. And yet there was nothing demonic, nothing of the Black Evil, about him. Indeed, he was touched with a grotesque charm, as though created by a master in whom the spirit of beauty was so vital that even in shaping a monster it could not be wholly lost.

The spider-man's head hung three feet above Huon's. The torso, the body, was globular, and little bigger than a lad's. The round body was supported on four slender stiltlike legs; from the center of it stretched out two more, longer by half than the others and terminating in hands or claws whose fingers, delicately slender and needle pointed, were a foot in length.

He had no neck. Where head joined body there was a pair of small arms whose terminations were like the hands of a child. And over these hands was the face, chinless and earless, framed in matted red locks. The mouth was human, the nose a slender beak. Except for face and hands and feet, which were slate gray, he was covered with a vivid scarlet down.

But the eyes, the great lidless lashless eyes of phosphorescent gold, were wholly human in expression, sorrowful, wondering, and apologetic, tos though Huon's present mood were reflected in them. Such was Kon, highest of all his kind in Yu-Atlanchi, whom Graydon was destined to know much more intimately.

He staggered up, Regor's arm supporting him. He looked straight at the woman.

"I thought," he muttered, "I thoughou weruarra!"

The anger flew from Dorina's face; it sharpened, as though with fear; Huon's grew intent; Regor grunted.

"Suarra!" breathed the woman, and loosed her clenched hands.

If Suarra's name brought fear to her, and Graydon felt a fleeting wonder at that, it carried no such burden to Regor.

"I told you, Huon, that this was no ordinary matter," he cried jubilantly, "and here is still another proof. Suarra whom the Mother lovend he is friend of Suarra! Hhere is purpose here, a path begins to open--"

"You go a little too fast along it," broke in Huon warningly, yet with a certain eagerness, a repressed excitement. He spoke to Graydon.

"For what has occurred, I am sorry. Even if you are an enemtill I am sorry. Our welcome to strangers is never too cordial, but this ought not to have happened. I can say no more."

"No need," answered Graydon, a bit grimly. "If not too cordial, at least the welcome was warm enough. It is forgotten."

"Good!" There was a flash of approval in Huon's eyes. "Whatever you may be," he went on, "we are hunted men. Those who would destroy us are strong and cunning, and we must ever be alert against their snares. If you come from them, there is no harm in telling you this, since you already know it. But if you seek the Snake Mother anuarrnd have happened upon us by chance, it is well for you to know we are outlaws of Yu-Atlanchi, although we are no enemies of those two. Convince us of your honesty, and you shall go from us unharmed, to follow your fortune as you choose; or if you ask our aid, remembering that we are outlaws, we will give you aid to the limit of our means. If you fail to convince us, you shall die as all the baits sent to trap us have died. It will be no pleasant death; we do not delight in suffering, but it is wisdom to discourage others from following you."

"Fair enough," said Graydon.

"You are not of our race," Huon said. "You may be a prisoner sent to betray us, your life and liberty the promised rewards. The bracelet you wear may have been given you to blind us. We do not really know that you passed the Messengers. You may have been guided through the lairs of the Urd, and set down where you met the men who brought you here. That you slew some of the Urd proves nothing. There are many, and their lives are less than nothing to Lantlu and the Dark One whose slaves they are. I tell you all this," he added with a touch of apology, "that you may know the doubts you must dissipate to live."

"And fair enough," said Graydon again. Huon turned to the woman, who had been studying Graydon with a wholly absorbed, puzzled intentness ever since he had named Suarra.

"You will stay with us and help us judge?" he asked.

"As if," drawled Dorina, and stretching herself upon the couch, "as if, Huon, I had the slightest intention of doing anything else!"

Huon spoke to the spider-man; a red arm stretched out and brought a stool to Graydon's feet. Regor lowered his bulk upon another; Huon dropped into his chair. The eyes of that strange quartet upon him, Graydon began his story.

A little he told them of the world from which he had come, and his place in it; as briefly as he could, of his trek into the Forbidden Land with the three adventurers; and of his meeting with Suarra. He heard Regor growl approval as he sketched his battle with Starrett, saw Huon's eyes warm. He told of Suarra's return next morning. And as he spoke of the Lord of Folly, he saw conviction of his truth begin to steal into their faces, and deepen as he told of his glimpse of Lantlu among his hissing pack. But he was amazed to see it turn to such a horror of belief as it did when his story led them into the cavern of the great stone Face.

For as he described that visage of ultimate evil, and the seeming transmutation of the three men into globules of golden sweat, Dorina covered her face with shaking hands, and the blood was drained from Huon's own, and Regor muttered; only Kon, the spider-man, stood unmoved, regarding him with his sorrowful, shining golden eyes.

And this could only mean that none of them had ever seen the Facnd that therefore there were in Yu-Atlanchi secrets hidden even from its dwellers. Some obscure impulse bade him be cautious. So he said nothing of his vision of the Temple, but told them of his awakening, of the Indian he had found beside him as guide, and of his impulsive return. He showed them the scar of the wound that had been its penalty.

"As for what it was that summoned me back," he said, "I cannot tell yot least not now. It was a summons I might not disobey--" and that was true enough, he thought, as the face of Suarra came before him, and her appeal echoed in his heart.

"It is all I can say," he repeated. "And all I have said is truth. How the summons came to me has no bearing upon the matter, since because of it I am here. Stahere is something else--"

He took from his pocket the packet that held Suarra's caraquenque plume, opened it and held it toward them.

"Suarra's," breathed Dorina, and Huon nodded.

There was no question of their belief now. It might be well to put a spur to their own self-interest.

"And still there is one more thing," he said slowly. "Regor has spoken of some purpose. Of that purpose, it may be I know as little as you. But this happened--"

He told them of the elfin bugles that had led him across the plain of the monoliths, and finally to the cleft in the ramparts. Huon drew a deep breath and stood erect, hope blazing upon his face, and Regor leaped to his feet, swinging his clubbed arm in a whistling circle.

Huon clasped Graydon's shoulders. "I believe!" he said, voice shaking; he turned to Dorina:

"And you?" "Of course it is truth, Huon!" she answered; but some swift calculation narrowed her lids and clouded her face, and Graydon thought for an instant she looked menacingly at him. "You are our guest," said Huon. "In the morning you shall meet the Fellowship, and repeat to them what you have told us. And then you shall decide whether to call upon us for help, or go on alone. All that is ours is yours for the asking. Anraydon--" he hesitated, and then with abrupt wistfulness--"by the Mother, I hope you throw your lot with ours! Regor, see to it that the little beast is cared for. Take this, Graydon," he stooped and picked up the rifle. "To-morrow you shall show us what it is. I will take you to your quarters. Wait for me, Dorina."

He took Graydon by the arm, and led him toward the wall of the room opposite that which he had entered. He parted the webs.

"Follow," he bade.

Graydon looked back as he passed after him. Dorina was standing, watching him with that menacing speculation stronger upon her face.

Graydon passed through the webs, and followed Huon's broad back into another faintly sparkling, black-walled corridor.

CHAPTER XI—The Deathless People

"UP, LAD, bathe and break your fast. The Fellowship will soon be gathering, and I am here to take you to them."

Graydon blinked uncomprehendingly at his awakener. Regor stood at the foot of his couch, on his face a broad smile that his scars turned into the grin of a benevolent gargoyle. He had changed the chain armor for the close-fitting garments that seemed to be the fashion of Yu-Atlanchi's men. Black Regor he still was, however, for these were black, and black was the cloak that hung from his immense shoulders.

Graydon looked around that chamber to which Huon had led him, at the thick rugs which were like spun silk of silver, the walls covered by the webs of shadowy silver through which ran strange patterns of a deeper argent, webs which were drawn aside at one end of the room to reveal a wide alcove in which a sunken pool sparkled. He drew together the threads of memory.

Huon had watched and talked while two silent brown men had bathed and massaged away his weariness and the marks of Kon's talons. And then had sat with him whilst he had eaten unfamiliar meats which two Indian girls, with wide wondering eyes, had set before him in dishes of crystal. Huon himself had poured his wine, asking many questions about the people who dwelt outside the Hidden Land. He had not seemed much interested in their arts or sciences or governments; but avidly so upon how death came to them, and what was done with the old, the customs of mating, whether there were many children and their upbringing. Ever and ever be had returned to the subject of death and the forms in which it came, as though it held for him some overpowering fascination.

And, at last, he had sat silent, thinking; then, sighing, had said:

"So it was in the old daynd which is the better way?"

He had risen, abruptly, and passed out of the chamber; the light had dimmed, and Graydon had thrown himself upon the couch to sink into deep slumber.

Why had Huon dwelt so persistently upon death? There was something about that which vaguely troubled Graydon. Suddenly he recalled that Suarra had said her people had closed the Door of Death. He realized that he had not taken her literally. But might it be truth--

He roused himself from his reverie, shook himself impatiently, and rising, walked over to the pool, splashed about and dried himself upon silken cloths. He returned to his chamber to find a table set with fruits, and with what seemed like wheaten cakes, and milk. He dressed quickly, and sat down to it. Not till then did Regor speak.

"Lad," he said, "I told you that I am a subtle one. Now my subtlety tells me that so are you, and that very subtly you held back much from your story last night. Notablour command from the Mother."

"Good Lord," exclaimed Graydon, in the Aymara equivalent "There's nothing subtle in that discovery. I warned you I couldn't tell you how--"

He stopped, afraid that he had hurt the giant's feelings. But Regor smiled broadly.

"I'm not referring to that," he said. "What you were careful not to mention was the reward the Mother promised you if you obeyed her summonnd managed to reach her."

Graydon jumped, in his astonishment, choking on a bite of the wheaten cake.

"Ho! ho!" roared Regor, and gave him a resounding whack upon the back. "Am I not a subtle one, eh?

"Dorina is not here now," he muttered slyly, looking up at the ceiling, "nor am I bound to tell Huon all I hear."

Graydon swung around on his stool and looked at him.

Regor looked back quizzically, yet with such real friendship in his eyes that Graydon felt his resolve waver. There was something about Huon, as there had been about Lantlu, that made him feel lonely; something alien, something unhuman. Whether it was their beauty, so far beyond any dream of classic, antique sculpture, or whether it lay deeper, he did not know. But he felt none of it concerning this man. Regor seemed of his own world. And certainly he had demonstrated his kindliness.

"You can trust me, lad," Regor answered his thought. "You were wise last night, but what was wisdom then may not be so now. Would this help you to decidhat I know Suarra, and love her as my own child?"

It turned the scale in Graydon's mind.

"A bargain, Regor," he said. "Question for question. Answer mine, and I'll answer yours."

"Done!" grunted Regor, "and if we keep them waiting let the Fellowship chew their thumbs."

Graydon went straight to the matter that was troubling him.

"Huon asked me many questions last night. And the most of them were about death in my own land, its shapes, how it came to us; and how long men lived there. One would think he knew nothing of death except that which comes by killing. Why is Huon so curious aboueath?"

"Because," said Regor, tranquilly, "Huon is deathless!"

"Deathless!" echoed Graydon, incredulously.

"Deathless," repeated Regor, "unless, of course, some one kills him, or he should choose to exercise a certain choice which all of us have."

"Which all of you have!" echoed Graydon again. "You, too, Regor?"

"Even I," answered the giant, bowing urbanely.

"But surely not the Indians," cried Graydon.

"No, not they," Regor replied, patiently.

"Then they die," Graydon was struggling desperately to find some flaw in what seemed to him a monstrous condition. "They die, like my people. Then why have they not taught Huon all that death can be? Why ask me?"

"There are two answers to that," said Regor with quite a professional air. "First, yond therefore your racre much closer to us than are the Emer, or as you call them, the Aymara. Therefore, Huon argues, he might learn from you what would probably come out of the Door of Death for us if it should be decided to reopen that door upon Yu-Atlanchll Yu-Atlanchi. It is, by the way, one of the matters that has made us outlaws. The second answer is, however, all-embracing. It is that, except in the rarest of cases, the Emer do not live long enough for any one to find out how they might possibly die except in the distressingly similar manner in which they do. I mean, they are killed before they have opportunity to die otherwise! It is another of the matters that has made us outlaws." Graydon felt a nightmarish creep. Was Suarra toeathless? And if so, then in the name of God how old was she? The thought was definitely unpleasant. They were unhuman, those hidden people; abnormal! Surely Suarra, with all her sweetness, was not one of thesonsters! He did not dare ask; approached the question obliquely.

"Dorina too, I suppose?" he asked.

"Naturally," said Regor, placidly.

"She looks very like Suarra," hazarded Graydon. "She might be her sister."

"Oh, no," said Regor. "Let me sehe was, I believe, the sister of Suarra's grandmothees, or her great-grandmother. Something like that, at any rate."

Graydon glared at him suspiciously. Was Regor after all making game of him?

"A sort of an aunt," he observed, sarcastically.

"You might say so," agreed Regor.

"Hell!" shouted Graydon, in utter exasperation, and brought down his fist on the table with a crash. Regor looked startled, then chuckled.

"What does it matter?" he asked. "One of your day-old babes, if it had the brain to think, would probably consider you an ancient as you do me. But it would accept it as natural. All these things are comparative. And if our ages offend you," he added, unctuously, "be thankful that it is Dorina who is Suarra's great-grandmother's sister, and not the other way about."

Graydon laughed; this was comforting common sense after all. And yeuarra centuries old, perhaps! Not Primavera, not the fresh young Springtide maid he had thought her! Well, there was no use crying about it. It was so, or it wasn't. And if it were still she was Suarra. He thrust the whole matter aside.

"One more question, and I'm ready for yours. None of you thoroughly believed me until I told you of the Face, and what I told you frightened you. Why?"

Now it was Regor who was troubled; his face darkened, then paled, the scars standing out like livid welts.

"And again you are frightened," Graydon said, curiously. "Why?"

"At a Shadow," answered Regor, and with effort. "At an evil Shadow which you have turned to substance. At an ancient talhich you have turned to truth. Let b say no more."

A shadow...the Serpent-woman had spoken of a shadow...linking it with this enemy they called the Dark One...there had been a name...The Shadow of...ah, yee had it now.

"You speak," he said, "in riddles. As though I were a child. Do you fear to name this Shadow? Well, I do not is the Shadow of Nimir."

Roger's jaw dropped; closed with a snap. He took a menacing step toward Graydon, face hard, eyes bleak, with suspicion.

"You know too much, I think! And knowing, fear too little--"

"Don't be a fool," said Graydon, sharply. "If I knew why you feared, would I ask? I know the name, and that is alxcept that he is foe of the Mother. How I came to know it, I will tell you latefter you have answered my question. And with no more riddles."

For a full minute the great man glared at him, then shrugged his shoulders, and sat facing him.

"You shook me," he said, quietly enough. "Of all the Fellowship, I alone, or so I think, know the name of Nimir. It has been forgotten. The Lord of Evihat name all know. But not the name he bore before--"

He leaned over toward Graydon, laid his hand on his shoulder, and his stern mouth quivered.

"By the Power above us all, I want to believe you, lad!"

"I would not have this hope die!"

Graydon reached up, and pressed the clutching hand. "And by the Power above us alou can believe, Regor."

Regor nodded, face tranquil once more.

"Thus then it is," he began. "This is the ancient story. That long, long ago Yu-Adanchi was ruled by the Seven Lords and Adana, the Snake Mother. They were not as other men, these Lords. Masters of knowledge, holders of strange secrets, wielders of strange powers. Both death and life they had conquered, holding back death at will, doing as they willed with life. They came to this land with the Mother and her people, age upon age long gone. Through their wisdom, they had ceased to be entirely humahese Lords. Or at lease would not think them so; though men like us they must once have been.

"There came a time when one of them plotted secretly against the others, scheming to wrest their power from them. Himself, to rule supreme. And not alone in Yu-Atlanchi, but over all earth, all living things his slaves. Himself enthroned. All powerful. God on earth. Slowly, steadily, he armed himself with dread powers unknown to the others.

"When he felt his strength had ripenee struck. And almost won. And would have woad it not been for the guile and wisdom of the Mother.

"That Lord waimir.

"They conquered hiut they could not destroy him. Yet by their arts they could fetter him. And this they did, so the ancient story ran, preparing a certain place, and by their arts prisoning him within the rock there.

"Out of that rock they carved a great Face, in the likeness of Nimir's own. It was not in mockery...they had some purpose...but what that purpose might have been...none knows. And by their arts they set in action within that place forces which would keep him bound fast as long as the lanr Nimindured. Of fruit of jewels or flowing gold, such as you described, the tale said nothing.

"All this being done, the Six Lords and Adana, the Mother, returned to Yu-Atlanchi. And for long the old peace reigned.

"Time upon time passed. One by one those whose eyes had beheld the Lord of Evil grew weary, and opened the Door of Death. Or opened the Door of Life, brought babes through it, and then passed through the dark portal, that being the price of children in Yu-Atlanchi! So there came a day when in all this hidden land there was none of its people left who knew the whole truth except a handful among the Dream Makers, and who would believe a Dream Maker?

"That war whose stakes had been a world, faded into a legend, a parable.

"Then, not so long ago as time is measured in Yu-Atlanchi, there came the rumor that this evil Lord had reappeared. A Shadow of him rather; a Darkness that whispered; bodiless but seeking a body; promising all things to those who would obey him; whispering, whispering that he was the Lord of Evil. And that the Urd, the lizard-people, were his slaves.

"When first we heard this rumor of the Shadow and its whisperings, we laughed. A Dream Maker has awakened, we said, and some one has believed him. But as the Shadow's following increased, we laughed not so loudly. For cruelty and wickedness grew swiftly, and we realized that whether Lord of Evil or another, there was poison at the roots of the ancient tree of Yu-Atlanchi.

"Of all the six Lords there remained only one, and the Mother and he had long withdrawn from us. We sought audience with the Mother, and she was indifferent. Then Lantlu seized power, and life in the ancient city became intolerable to many of us. Following Huon, we found refuge in these caverns. And ever darker through the years grew the Shadow over Yu-Atlanchi. But still we saie is not that ancient Lord of Evil!

"And theou come. And you tell us--'I have seen that secret place! I have looked into the eyes of the Face!'"

Regor arose and paced the room; there were little drops of sweat on his forehead.

"And now we know that the Shadow has not lied, and that it and the Lord of Evil are one. That he has found means of partial escape, and that once again embodied, as he seeks to be, will have power to break all his bonds, find full release, and rule here and in time over earth, as ages ago he was balked from doing."

Again he took up his restless pacing, and again halted, facing Graydon.

"We fear, but it is not death we fear," he said, and it was like an echo of Suarra. "It is something infinitely worse than any death could ever be. We fear to livn such shapes and ways as this Lord of Evil and Lantlu could devise. And would devise for us, be sure of that."

He covered his face with his cloak. When he uncovered it he had himself in hand once more.

"Well, lad, courage," he rumbled. "Neither Lantlu nor the Dark Master has us yet! Your turn now. What was it the Mother promised you?"

And Graydon, with a dull horror knocking at his own heart, told him fully all that he had heard and seen in that vision of his. Regor listened, silent. But, steadily, hope grew in his eyes; and when Graydon had repeated the Serpent-woman's threat against Lantlu, he leaped to his feet with an oath of joy.

"Win to her you must and shall!" he said. "I am not saying it will be easy. Yet there are wayes, there are ways. And you shall bear a message to the Mother from uhat we stand ready to join her and fight as best we can beside her. And that there are perhaps more in Yu-Atlanchi worth the saving than she thinks," he added a little bitterly. "Say to her that we, at least, each and all of us, will gladly lay down our lives if by doing so, we can help her conquer."

From somewhere far away came the mellow golden note of a bell.

"The Fellowship has gathered," said Regor. "It is the signal. When you come before them say nothing of what you have just told me. Repeat only your story of last night."

"Dorina will be there. And I have told you nothing. You understand, lad?"

"Right," answered Graydon.

"And if you're a good lad," said Regor, pausing at the curtained door and poking his bar into Graydon's ribs, "if you're a really good lad. I'll tell you something else."

"Yes, what?" said Graydon, intent.

"I'll tell you how old Suarra really is!" answered Regor, and, laughing, marched through the doorway.

CHAPTER XII—The Secret Ancient City

GRAYDON DECIDED that he would have to revise his estimate of Black Regor. He had laughed inwardly at his boasts of subtlety, considering him as transparent as air. He knew now that he had been wrong. The sly reference to Suarra's years showed how accurately Regor had read him. That, however, was only one egg of the omelette. More significant had been his perception that Graydon had held back the most vital part of his story.

There was, besides, his independence of thought, manifest both in word and action; Huon's man he might be, but he was master of his own judgment. His distrust of Dorina was proof of that. And certainly the way in which last night he had infected Huon with that sinister doubt of her had been subtle enough. Also he had a sense of humor, and somehow Graydon was quite sure Huon had none.

The corridor along which they were passing was not long. It ended against a huge door of the black metal, guarded by the yellow-kilted Indians.

"Remember!" warned Regor. The door slid aside, revealing webs of curtains. He parted them, and Graydon followed him through.

He stood at the threshold of an immense chamber from whose high ceiling poured light, golden and dazzling as though from full sun. His vision clearing, he saw curving across the wide floor a double semicircle of seats that appeared cut from rose coral. Occupying them were a hundred or more of Huon's people, the men in yellow, the women dressed in vivid color; and each and all of them, his swift glance told him, possessed of that disturbing beauty which was the heritage of this unknown race.

Graydon, studying them, trembled again at the touch of the strange loneliness.

There was a low dais facing the semicircle, on it a wide and cushioned bench of the rose coral, and in front of it a pedestal, like a speaker's rostrum. Dorina sat there, and rising from her side was Huon. He came swiftly down, greeted Graydon most courteously, and taking him by hand led him up to the dais where Dorina acknowledged his bow by a negligent lifting of black lashes and a careless word. Regor dropped down beside her; then Huon turned him toward the others, raising the wrist that held the bracelet, at sight of which there was another murmuring and hands lifted in salutation.

"This," began Huon, "is the Fellowship, outlaws of Yu-Atlanchi, haters of and hated by Lantlu and the Dark Master, loyal children of the Mother, and ready to serve her if she will so allow. Something I have told them of your story, and that we three believe you. Yet, though they call me leader, still am I only one of them. It is their right to judge you. Speahey listen."

Graydon mustered his words; then launched his tale. Ever more tensely they listened as that tale progressed, and it came to him that, so far as judgment of him was concerned, this hearing was only a formality; that they had been convinced of his genuineness by Huon before he had entered. With that thought came a greater assurance, and as he sensed their growing sympathy and approval, a greater ease, so that his speech flowed more readily.

And when at last he had led them to the cavern of the Face, all doubt of this was ended, for now they leaned forward in rigid attention, pallid, with whitened lips and in their eyes was horrohey were like seraphs, Graydon thought, hearing suddenly that Satan and his legions had broken through a gate of Heaven. But if there was horror, there was no sign of panic, nor of despair, and no weakening of spirit apparent upon those masks of beauty that stared at him so raptly. When he had ended, a long sigh went up, and a silence fell.

"You have heard," Huon broke that silence. "Now let any who doubts this man rise and question him."

A murmuring ran through the Fellowship as one turned to the other; little groups formed and whispered. Then came a voice from among them.

"Huon, we believe. And quickly must he reach the Mother. Remains now to decide how to do it."

"Graydon," Huon turned to him, "last night I promised you that if we believed, you should go your own way, as your own wit might guide yor you could throw in your lot with us, and call upon our wits to help you. And now you must decide. Stay--" he said, as Graydon was about to speak, "we cozen none with fair promises which we know are doubtful of performance. And it may well be that our help would be more harmful to you than otherwise. Before you decide, see the board upon which the game must be played."

He strode down from the dais and over to the farther end of the chamber. He thrust aside the thick hangings which covered its wall. Behind them was a gleaming black stone. Huon rested his hand upon it, and slowly a circular aperture opened. A little gust of fragrant air came dancing in.

Graydon looked out upon hidden Yu-Atlanchi. Far beneath him sparkled the blue waters of a long lake. Huon's lair was at one narrowed end of it. Beaches of golden sand and flowering marshes bordered it. Beyond the marshes was thick forest, marching mile upon mile away, to be thrust back at last like a green wave by cliffs, sheer and gray and thousands of feet high. He looked down the lake, following its ever-widening southward course. There was a faint haze over the landscape, but far away he saw a splotch of color, as though a gigantic jewel box had been spilled there. Opposite it, the cliffs marched forward and out into the water, narrowing the lake once more. And set in these cliffs was a row of huge black ovals, like windows opening into darkness. Beside each of them was a gigantic figure.

Of course! That splotch of spilled jewels was the secret ancient city. The oval shadows were those caverns he had glimpsed when summoned by the Serpent-woman; the guarding shapes were the colossnd there at the left where a precipice made a mighty buttress, leaning against its green and ebon breast, was a rod of shining silver. It was the cataract of his vision.

Huon handed him a mask of crystal, and he set it over his eyes. The splotch of color leaped forward, swam in front of him and resolved itself into a towered and turreted city, a city built by Djinns with blocks and scales of red glowing gold and gleaming silver, and roofed with tiles of turquoise and sapphire, smoldering ruby and flashing diamond. He could see the spume of the cataract waving like signaling veils. He saw that no two of the colossi were alike, that some were shaped like women, and that some, like the gods of ancient Egypt, bore the heads of animals and birds. A hundred feet in height he judged them. His eyes lingered on one, a naked woman's body, heroically proportioned, yet exquisite. Her face was that of a grinning frog.

Behind the city was a long low hill. Crowning it was a building whose proportions dwarfed even the columned immensity of ancient Karnak. It was of white marble, and it brooded over the jeweled city like a white-robed vestal. Its front was pillared, but the enormous columns were without ornament. It was of Cyclopean simplicity, aloof; and, like the colossi, it seemed to watch.

He saw no streets; there were leafy lanes on which was sparse movement. West, south and east, his gaze was checked by the sky-reaching ramparts of the mountains. The hidden land was a vast circular bowl some thirty miles in diameter, he estimated.

"There," Huon was pointing at the temple, "is your goal. There dwells the Mothend Suarra."

The aperture closed; Huon let the curtains drop, and led Graydon back to the dais.

"You have seen," he said. "What you could not see were the obstacles that lie between you and that temple, the way to which seems so near and open. The city is well guarded, Graydon, and all its guards are Lantlu's men. You could not get to the Temple without being caught a score of times. Therefore, dismiss all hope that you can reach the Mother by stealth, unaided. Inevitably you would be taken before Lantlu. By the ancient law, your life would be forfeit.

"But it might be that if you went boldly into the city, showing your bracelet as passport, and demanding in its name audience with the Mothet might be that thus simply you could gain your end. It might be that Lantlu, mazed by the mystery of how you passed the Messengers, of how you were guided to Yu-Atlanchi, would not dare slay you nor hold you back from the Mother."

"The best he would do," growled Regor, "since whatever Lantlu may be he is no fool, would be to greet you fairly, find out all he could from you, put you off on the pretext that the Mother must be prepared for your visit, probably slip some drug into your drink, and while you slept take counsel with the Dark Master as to what was to be done with you. I do not think you would ever reach the Mother by that route."

There was a murmur of assent from the Fellowship, and Huon himself nodded agreement.

"Still, he should weigh the chance," he said. "Now, if you reject that plan, there is the matter of our aid. Frankly, Graydon, it can be none too great. Those of the Old Race who still live are not many. There are in all perhaps two thousand of us. Of these, we account for a scant hundred. Of those within the city, some three hundred more are with us, and serve us better by being there than here. Of those remaining, the Dream Makers number half a thousand. They are not concerned with anything of earth. The others are with Lantlu, one with him in his amusements and aims, followers, more or less, of the Dark Master.

"We are in no position to take issue in the open with Lantlu. He controls the Xinli, both the hunting packs, and those which are riddend these latter are as formidable as the hunters. Through the Dark Master he controls the Urd, the lizard-men. Against all these we have for weapons swords and lance, bow and arrow and battle mace. Once we had weapons of a different kinounds that went forth like swift sparks, flaming, and slew all upon whom they fell; shadows that flitted where they were willed to go, and turned to ice all upon which they rested; shapes of flame that consumed all living things upon which they rested; and other strange devices of death. But, so our legends run, after a certain war, these were taken and hidden away in one of the caverns, so that never might we use them upon each other. Or it may be they were destroyed. At any rate, we have them not. I tell you this, Graydon," added Huon a trifle bitterly, "to show you why it is we do not take you by the hand and go marching up to the white Temple with you. If we had but one of those weapons of the old ones--"

"If we had but one, we would march with you so," roared Regor. "The Mother knows where they are, if they still exist, and, therefore, you must get to her and persuade her to let us have them. By all the Hells, if the Dark Master is the Lord of Evihen Adana had better be looking for her own safety! Maybe he, too, knows where those weapons are hidden!"

"This we can do, Graydon," went on Huon. "We can arrange to hide you with friends in the city, if we can get you there undiscovered. After that we must plot to get you into the Temple. That done, if Lantlu tries to take you, it will be open war between the Mother and him. And that, frankly, is what interests us. The danger is in your discovery before you can reach her. Yet I do believe you have a better chance to win to her with our help than unaided!"

"I too," answered Graydon. "But whether so or not, Huon, something tells me that our fortunes are interwoven. That if I win, there is hope for you, and for all those who would see life changed in Yu-Atlanchi. At any rate, if you will accept me, I throw in my lot with you."

Huon's face lightened, and he caught Graydon's hands, while Regor muttered and struck him on the shoulder, and from the Fellowship arose a hum of relief. And suddenly through it struck the voice of Dorina, sweetly languid.

"But it seems to me that you have missed the simplest solution of all. Clearly, it was Suarra as much as the Mother who brought Graydon here. And clearly Suarra is, to say the least, interested in him. And Suarra is the Mother's favorite. Well theet word be sent secretly to Suarra that Graydon has returned, let her say where she will meet him; then, having met, let her tell him how best he can reach Adana."

Graydon saw Regor look at her suspiciously, but Huon hailed the suggestion, and after a little discussion the Fellowship approved it. And so it was decided that a messenger be sent at once to Suarra to tell her of Graydon's presence, and as proof that this was so he wrote at Regor's suggestion one brief liny your caraquenque feather on my heart this is truthat and no more. Also, at Regor's suggestion, the place of meeting was set at the first of the caverns of the colossi which was close to the great cataract and almost at the lake's level.

"There is none to stop her or question her going there," urged Regor. "She can say she is sent by the Mother, for a purpose of her own. None will dare interfernd why should they? She has visited the caverns before. It should be well after dusk, say the fifth hour. I and a half-dozen of us will be sufficient guard for Graydon. I know a way that has few dangers of discovery."

So it was settled. The message was prepared for Suarra, and its carrier, one of the Indians, departed. Graydon did not have a clear idea how it was to be gotten to her. Vaguely, he gathered that it would be passed along through other Indians not known to be enemies of the rulers, until it reached the Emers who were the servants and bodyguard of the Temple, owing no allegiance to any except the Snake Mother and the Lord of Folly. They would see that Suarra got it.

That day, Graydon spent with Huon and the Fellowship and found them gay, witty, and delightful companions, the women of perilous charm. He dined with them. Dorina, oddly, paid him marked attention, but Huon's jealousy slept. Like Huon, she was curious about death, and that part of his evening he spent at her side Graydon did not find so gay. At last she was silent for many minutes, then said:

"If Huon wins this fight and comes to rule Yu-Atlanchi, he threatens to open the Door of Death for all of us. Why should we not have the right to choose?"

Without giving him time to answer, she stared at him through narrowed lids, and said with utmost finality:

"Well, I for one do not intend to die! You can tell the Mother sf you ever reach her!"

And abruptly turned away and left him.

Later on, as he was turning in, Regor had come and sat and talked with him.

"Lad," he said, "I have forebodings. It was in my own mind to suggest that meeting with Suarra, nevertheless I like it ill coming from Dorina. So Suarra is to meet us not at the fifth hour, but the third. Also, the place will not be the first cavern, but the cavern of the Frog-woman."

"But the message has gone," said Graydon. "How is Suarra to know?"

"Don't worry about that," retorted the giant. "In my subtle fashion, I sent a message of my own with that other. Even the messenger who bore it did not know what it was. If we get a caraquenque feather back from Suarra, it means she understands. If we don'hy, then we'll have to go to the first cavern."

He nodded gloomily.

"I repeat. I don't like that idea coming from Dorina. Oh, well--"

He grumbled a good-night, and stalked out CHAPTER XIII.—Cavern of the Frog-Woman

THE MORNING of the third day Graydon heard from Regor that Suarra had got his message, and had set that night for their meeting. She had sent a plume of the caraquenque bird to show she had understood, and would be at the cavern of the Frog-woman.

"Not even Huon knows it is there we go," said Regor. "If he did, Dorina would wheedle it out of him. And two nights' sleep have not diminished my distrust. In making that suggestion she had something more in mind than making easy your way to Adana, or gratifying your desire to see the young woman whose aunt, in a manner of speaking, she is," he ended with a grin.

Graydon had given considerable thought to that matter himself; and now he repeated to Regor his curious conversation with Dorina.

"She may," he said, "plan a trap to deliver me to Lantlu. She may reason that if I get to the Mother, the issue will be joined at once. Then, if Lantlu is conquered, Huon will rule and open the Door of Death, whatever that may be, which she so greatly dreads. Whereas, if I am put out of the way definitely, things will probably go on much as now, which will give her time to persuade Huon from his resolve. That is the only basis I can think of for your suspicions, if there is any basis for them."

Regor listened thoughtfully.

"It is no secret that Dorina opposes Huon in that matter. There has always been that conflict between them. His desire for children is as strong as hers for deathlessness. Before we came here, he urged her to join him in opening the two Doors. She would not. There are other women who would. But Huon is a one-woman man. He would kill Dorina if he found her in treachery, but he will be the father of no other woman's child." He paced the room, grumbling.

"You have given words to my thoughts, true enough," he stopped his pacing. "Yet there is another side to the matter which I do not think Dorina would overlook. If you are trapped, so in all probability will be Suarra. She runs great risk in meeting you. Enough to secure her condemnation by the Council, which Lantlu controlt would mean at best her outlawry. The Council would be within its rights in so dealing with her. But if I know anything of women, and remember the Snake Mother is woman, she would not allow that foster-child of hers to suffer. And then the issue would be joined indeed, and in a way that only the destruction of Lantlu or Adana herself could end."

"And that, if you are right, is exactly what Dorina does not want."

"Good God, Regor!" exclaimed Graydon, aghast. "Why didn't you let me know that before I told them how Suarra came back to me? Surely that puts her in Lantlu's power if that hell-cat gets the information to him."

"No," answered the giant, "no, it doesn't. You see, lad, then she had the Lord Tyddo with her. She was but obeying his bidding."

"Perhaps he'll come with her to-night," said Graydon, hopefully.

"No," Regor shook his head, "no, I don't believe he will. This is different. Then there were four of you, going to punishment. And if it had not been for the Mother, you would have gone rolling down the abyss, a bit of golden sweat with the others. The Mother interfered there, and I think she would agaior Suarra. But she might not for you. Also, you told me she said you must win to her by your own wit and courage. So, I hardly think that we can count on any protection to-night beyond what we ourselves devise."

Again he grumbled, inarticulately. "Furthermore," he pointed his bar at Graydon like a finger, "Adana is woman, and therefore changeable. She might decide that, after all, you are not essential to Suarra's welfare, or she might grow momentarily weary of the whole matter, and that brief abstraction might occur at a most unfortunate time for you--"

"Hell!" cried Graydon, springing up, "you are certainly a cheerful companion, Regor!"

"Well," chuckled Regor, "if it's a cheerful thought you want, here is one. The Mother is woman true enougut certainly not human woman. Therefore neither of us can possibly know what she may or may not do!"

He left Graydon to wrestle with the depressing conviction that he was completely right.

The balance of the day Graydon spent with Huon and certain members of the Fellowship, as he had the day before, all of them eager to know more of that world which had grown up outside the Hidden Land. Dorina did not appear. They were interested in his rifle and pistols, skeptical as to their effect upon the dinosaurs; like children, they were more interested in the explosions than the work of the bullets. The Xinli, they explained, were vulnerable only in one unprotected place in their necks under the jaw, and an upward thrust from a lance into this spot was about the one way to kill them. There were some two hundred in the hunting packs, and not more than a score of the monsters used for riding. They bred scantily, and their numbers were slowly but steadily lessened by fights among themselves. The greater creatures were tractable as horses, and could be ridden by any one. The packs were ravening devils over which only Lantlu had complete control. There was an amphitheater where races of the great dinosaurs were regularly held; and it was also the arena of combats between selected fighters of the hunting packs and small bands of the lizard-men, raids upon whom were periodically made to keep down their numbers. And now Graydon discovered why none of the Indians died in ways that would have given Huon the enlightenment he sought as to the varied guises of death. When they began to age they were fed to the packs.

Then, too, it appeared, Lantlu had a passion for hunting human game. Offenders against the law, and offenders against him, were often takepenly in the case of the first and secretly in that of the otheeyond the barriers, given a start and run down. That, he also discovered, was how Regor had gotten his scars and lost his arm. Daring to oppose Lantlu in one of his cruelties, he had been trapped, loosed and hunted. He had managed to evade the pursuers, all except one questing dinosaur; had fought and killed it. Fearfully wounded, he had by some miracle of vitality reached Huon's lair, and had there been nursed back to life. Lantlu's price for his capture was only a little less than that for Huon's.

Rapidly Graydon's understanding of this lost people clarified. Scant remnants of what must have been a race more advanced than any following it on eart race that had reached a peak of scientific attainment never afterward touched by mahey were all that was left of a mighty wave of prehistoric civilization, a little pool fast becoming stagnant Over-sheltered, over-protected, made immune from all attack and necessity for effort, they had retained the beauty of their bodies; but initiative, urge to advance, impulse to regain the lost knowledge of their ancestors had atrophied, or at best was comatose to the point of extinction. Except for that beautnd the disquieting thought of their aghey seemed normal people, charmingly courteous.

Apparently there had been a sharp line of cleavage among them. Huon and the Fellowship were atavars, throwbacks to a more humane period of the race. Lantlu and his followers had been carried in the opposite direction, toward cruelty, indifference to suffering, pleasure in its infliction, dropping steadily to the black nadir of evil which made them fit tools for the Dark One. Those whom they called the Dream Makers were entirely withdrawn from all that was human, static. And Graydon believed that he could understand why Huon desired to open those mysterious Doors which would, so far as span of years was concerned, rid them of that deathlessness which had been the curse of the race; a vague conviction that by doing this he would get back to the well-springs of the youth of his people, recover from them their olden strength.

For now Graydon accepted that deathlessness as fact. Studying Kon, he could not doubt that the science which had effected that monstrous blend of man and spider was entirely capable of performing the lesser miracle of indefinitely prolonging life. The lizard-folk were other proof of it. And above all was the Serpent-woman, Adana, the Snake Mother, by her indubitable reality saying to him:

"When such as I can be, and where such as I am, all things are possible!"

The day wore on, dusk began to fall within the mountain-rimmed bowl of the Hidden Land. A little before the time set to start, Regor brought him a suit of the black chain mail, and he and Huon fastened it upon him. It was oddly light and flexible. Greaves, and the ankle-high, tanned footwear he rejected, preferring his own stout boots. He girdled himself with his own belt, and thrust into it one of his automatics and some extra clips of cartridges. Although he could not get at it, he left the second automatic in its holster under his left armpihy he did not know, except that the familiar feel of it gave him more confidence. He saw that they had not much confidence in his own weapons, so to satisfy them he let Regor fasten to his belt a scabbard holding a short, stabbing sword of the black metal, and took from him one of the curiously shaped maces. If there was to be any fighting, said Regor, it would be at close quarters; and Graydon reflected that the giant knew what he was talking about, and that the strange weapons might be useful. He told himself that he would put his first trust in the automatic.

His rifle was a problem. Since there was a probability that Suarra might have some plan for his reaching the Snake Mother which would prevent his return to the lair, he did not want to leave it behind. If the possible fighting was to be of the hand-to-hand variety Regor predicted, the rifle would not only be secondary to pistol and mace or sword, but a handicap; he compromised by asking that one of the Indian soldiers be allowed to carry it, and march close behind him or at his side when possible. They agreed to this. Then Huon placed upon his head a cap of mail, padded, close-fitting, covering his ears and falling upon his shoulders.

And when this had all been done, he set his hands on Graydon's shoulders.

"Graydon," he said, "something tells me that with your coming the balances of Yu-Atlanchi's fate, so long motionless, begin to move. You are the new weight that disturbs them, and whether for good or for eviho knows? Whether, when they come to rest again, Lantlu will have outweighed those who oppose him, or whether he will be outweigheho knows? But it comes to me that change sweeps swiftly down on Yu-Atlanchn one way or another the old order is close to its end. And that you and I, Graydon, will never again meet herill meet but once more, and briefly...and part under a crimson sky...from which shadows drop...slaying shadows and cold...cold slaying shadows that clash with shapes of flame...and then...meet never again...'Till theare you well, Graydon!" He turned abruptly, and strode out of the room. "Now I wonder--" muttered Graydon, and shivered, as though two hands of ice had rested fleetingly on his shoulders where Huon's had been.

"I wonder, too," said Regor, brusquely. "But at least you two are to meet again, it seems. Therefore Death does not stalk you to-night."

They passed from that room into a guard chamber where a dozen of the kilted Aymara awaited them. They were sturdy men, armed with maces and spears, in their girdles the short stabbing swords. To one, Regor handed the rifle, and explained what he was to do. The Indian looked at it doubtfully, until Graydon, smiling, snapped the safety lock back and forth a few times, showing him that the trigger could not move with the catch on. Reassured, he threw the thong over his head, and took his place, the rifle dangling at his side.

Regor led the way. They marched at first along a wide, well-lighted tunnel from which ran smaller passages. As they walked along Graydon reflected that the barrier walls must be honeycombed with these corridors and caverns, both great and little; wondered whether they had been shaped by nature or cut out by the ancient Yu-Atlanchan's; and if by the latter, for what purpose. He had also given much thought to the luminous properties of the walls, but without discovering their secret. Either the rock had been covered with some vitreous substance possessing radioactive qualities unknown to modern science, or the ancients had found some way to treat the atomic structure of the stone so that luminous centers were created at the intersection of certain of the crystalline planes. There was no warmth to the light, which had in it much of the soft brilliancy of the firefly. It cast no shadows.

They had gone well over a mile when the tunnel widened into a crypt, and ended there against a solid wall.

"And here," said Regor, speaking for the first time, "our danger begins."

He stood close to the wall, listening; then took from his belt one of the cone-shaped objects. He pressed it against a carved symbol at the level of his shoulder. A six-foot section of the wall began to rise slowly like a curtain. When it was a few inches from the floor, two of the Indians dropped upon their bellies and peered through the opening. The curtain rose a foot higher; they wriggled under it and disappeared. Regor's hand fell, and the stone's motion ceased. Perhaps five minutes went by, and then the pair wriggled back, and nodded to the giant. Again he pressed the cone to the symbol. The rock rose swiftly, leaving a squat portal through which the Emers, bending, streamed, with Regor and Graydon at their heels.

A few yards of this crouching progress, and Graydon straightened. He looked out into a vast cavern filled with a faint reddish light so faint indeed that it was barely removed from darkness. He turned to Regor, and saw that he was thrusting the cone back into his girdle. The wall through which they had come was unbroken, with no trace of the passage.

The Indians formed a circle around the two of them, and, noiselessly as ghosts, began a quick march. Graydon, about to speak, caught Regor's warning gesture. The reddish darkness closed about them. Through the dim and strangely oppressive light they sped, over a floor of yellow sand. How the Indians guided themselves he could not tell, but there was no uncertainty in their movements and their swift pace never slackened.

Suddenly they closed around him, touching him, and at that instant they passed out of the murk into absolute blackness. They did not lessen their speed. There came a grunt from Regor, like a long-held breath, and a whispered command. The Indians halted. A ball of the cloudy luminescence flashed out and raced ahead of them. Behind it a pallid light grew, as though it had clothed the particles of air with a misty spray of phosphorescence. They went down a sharply sloping passage which the light had revealed, a thousand feet, two thousand feet, before the glow began to dim.

Five times the luminous ball shot ahead of them, lighting their way through the unbroken tunnel. Four miles and more they must have gone since they had left the lair, and the pace was beginning to tell on Graydon. Again the faint light was dimming, but far ahead was an oval opening behind which there seemed to be a flood of moonbeams. Now they were out of the passage and through that opening. And there Graydon paused, transfixed with amazement and awe.

It was another caverned space whose walls and roof he could not see. It was filled with silvery light like the woven rays of full moons of Spring. Under that light, upon low couches, lay cushioned the bodies of score upon score of women and men, each of their faces stamped with the unearthly beauty of Yu-Atlanchi, and as though asleep. Across the cavern, and back into the mountain as far as his vision could go, they lay. At first he thought that they were sleeping; then he saw that no breath raised their breasts. Staring at silken hair, golden and black and ruddy bronze, at red lips and blossoms of fair bosoms, he thought them exquisitely tinted statues.

Touching the hair, the cheek of one close to him, he realized that they were no effigies, but bodies once instinct with life; transmuted now by some alchemy of this mysterious land not into stone but into imperishable substance retaining both the coloring of the body when it had been living flesh, and its texture.

"Yu-Atlanchi's dead!" said Regor. "The ancient ones who passed before the Gate of Death was closed. And those who since that time opened of their own will that Gate, so new life might stream among us. The dead!"

The Indians were uneasy, eager to be going. Quickly they left that silent place of the dead, and even Regor seemed to be relieved when they had passed into another passage through the rock.

"A few steps more, lad," he rumbled, "and we are out. And here the way is not beset with such dangers. We have passed under five of the great caverns, the place of the dead was the sixth; we skirt the entrances of three more and then we are at the Frog-woman's. And by every scale of the Mothe will be glad to get once more into the open."

And shortly they passed cautiously out of that passage, and Graydon felt the fresh air upon his face, and looked up into a sky where a half-moon dipped in and out of scurrying clouds.

They dropped down upon a narrow trail. Here the Indians re-formed, part going ahead of them, the others following. At left, the verdure rose high, masking the lake. Looking upward and back, he saw the colossal figure of a woman, in pure white stone, with arms raised to the Heavenhe guardian of that cavern through which they had just passed. Then the vegetation closed round him.

The trail was easy to follow, not dark even when the clouds covered the moon. Louder, and even louder came the roar of the cataract. Through gaps in the trees and bushes, he caught glimpses of the monstrous figure of the Frog-woman, on watch at the entrance of the black oval that was the mouth of her cavern.

The path began to rise. It passed behind a high ledge and became a steep flight of narrow steps. He climbed these. He stood in the shadow close to the opening of the Frog-woman's cavern. He looked up at that colossal figure, a squatting woman, unclothed, and carved of some green stone that glistened beneath the moon as though its rays were falling spray. Her grotesque face grinned at him above the exquisite shoulders and breasts. Beside her gaped the cavern's mouth, inky black.

He was at the inner edge of an immense platform of smooth stone. Directly opposite him, a half-mile across the lake, was the secret city.

More than ever, under the moon, did it seem a city built by Djinns. It was larger, far larger, than he had thought it. Its palaces thrust up their fantastic turrets and domes; their gay colorings as of lacquer of jewels were changed and softened into a tapestry that spread for mile upon mile, an immense rug each of whose irised patterns was surrounded by arabesques of dark green, and black, and white, the foliage and flowers of the trees that circled the dwellings. From minaret and tower and dome sprang tiny arches of light, delicate moon-bows, spanning them like bridges. In the air, above the green and black, and threading them, tiny dancing lights flashed and vanished and flashed out again, fireflies, he thought, playing among the trees. At the right, looking down upon the city, was the Temple, vestal white, majestic, serene.

Somewhere within it might buarra! Perhaps she would not be able to meet him here after all. With half his mind he hoped that she would not, for Huon's farewell still echoed in his heart, and he feared for her. And half his mind willed fiercely that she should comet the perils be what they may.

There was a rustle close beside him. A little hand caught his. He looked down into soft dark eyes, a tress of cloudy hair kissed his cheek, rocking him with its fragrance.

"Suarra!" he whispered, and again--"Suarra!"

"Graydon!" her sweet voice murmured. "You did come back to meloved!"

Her arms were around his neck, her lips were close to his, and slowly, slowly, they drew closer. They met, and clunnd for a time there were no such things in all the world as peril or suffering, sorrow or death.

CHAPTER XIV—Shadow of the Lizard Mask

THE SHADOW of the Frog-woman, sharply outlined by the moonlight, lay in fantastic profile from side to side of the great platform. Behind them was the blackness of her cavern, and between them and the city the lake shone like a vast silver mirror, waveless, no sign of life upon it. Below the platform, the Indians watched. The Frog-woman's head seemed to bend lower, listening to their whispering.

"Graydon! Graydon!" Suarra was weeping. "You should not have returned! Oh, but it was wicked of me to call you back!"

"Nonsense!" rumbled Regor. "You love each other, don't you? Well, then, what else was there for him to do? Besides, he has made strong frienduon and Black Regor, and one stronger than all of us, or by Riza the Lightning Eater he wouldn't be here! I mean the Mother herself. Child," he said slyly, "has she instructed you how to take him back to her?"

"Ah, Regor," sighed Suarra, "far from it. It is what weighs so upon my heart. For when I received your message I told her straightway of it, and asked her aid, but told her also that with it or without it, still must I go. She only nodded, and said: 'Naturallince you are woman.' Then after a little silence she spoke again: 'Go, Suarro harm shall come to you.' 'I ask protection for him, Mother,' I said, and she did not answer. And I asked:

"'Mother Adana, will you not summon him to you through me, so that none will dare harm him?' The Mother shook her head: 'If he loves you he will find his own way to me.'"

"No one saw you? No one followed you?" questioned Regor.

"No," said Suarra, "no, I'm quite sure they did not. We went through the Hall of the Weavers, and into the secret way that leads beneath the cataract, thence out and by the hidden path along the shore."

"You came silently? You heard nothing, saw nothing, as you passed the first cavern?"

"Very silently," she answered. "And as for the cavern, the path dips far below it, so that one can neither see it nor be seen from it. And I heard nothinothing but the voice of the torrent."

"Where was Lantlu?" Regor still did not seem satisfied.

"They fed the Xinli to-night!" she said, and shivered.

"Then," said Regor with satisfaction, "we know at least where he is."

"Well," Graydon spoke, "the upshot of the matter seems to be that much depends upon my doing obeisance in person to the Mother. And she has put it severely up to me to accomplish that--"

"Graydon," Suarra interrupted softly, "there is another way for us. If you wish i will go with you to Huon! I love the Mother. But if you wish i will not return to her. I will go with you to the Fellowship. This will I do for you, beloved. I would not have you meet any of the deaths of Yu-Atlanchi, and I think they throng thickly about your path to Adana. With Huon, we can live and be happor a time at least."

Now Graydon heard Regor gasp at this, and felt that he waited with anxiety for his answer, although he said nothing. He was tempted. After all, there was a way out for them from Huon's lair. And once beyond the barrier, it was probable that the Snake Mother would hold back her hand, not loose the winged Watchers upon theor Suarra's sake. And if he could get Suarra safely away, what did he care about Yu-Atlanchi or any who dwelt within it?

Swiftly, other thoughts came. The Mother had aided him, not once but twice. She had saved him from the Face! She had bade her Messengers protect and guide him.

She had challenged his loyalty and his courage. And she had shown that in some measure she trusted him.

And then there wahis Dark One! This Shadow of Nimir, Lord of Evil, which menaced her...Huon and the Fellowship, who also had trusted him...and Regor...pinning his hopes upon his meeting with the Serpent-woman to rid the land of evil and to deliver them all from outlawry.

No, he could not run from all this, not even for Suarra! He told her so. And why.

He felt Regor relax. He had the curious feeling that in some way that weirdly beautiful, unhuman creature named Adana had been following his thoughts, approved his decision, and because of it had come to some final determination of her own which till now had hung in the balance.

Nor did Suarra seem much surprised. So little that he wondered whether that proposal had been her own devising.

"Well," she said, quietly, "then we must make some other plan. And I have thought of one. Listen carefully, Regor. In seven nights the moon is full and on that night is the Ladnophaxhe Feast of the Dream Makers. All will be at the amphitheater. There will be few guards in the city. Take Graydon back to Huon. On the fifth night from this, slip out of the lair and around the head of the lake and through the marshes. Let Graydon be dressed as one of the Emer, stain his face and body, make him a black wig cut as the Emer wear their hair. His gray eyes we cannot change, and so must risk.

"You know the palace of Cadok. He is secret foe of Lantlu and friend of Huon, and of yout that I need not tell you. Get Graydon there. Cadok will hide him until the night of the Ladnophaxi. I will send a guide to be trusted. That guide will lead him to the Templnd so he shall find his way to the Mother. And it shall be by his courage and wit; For it will take courage. And was it not his wit that rejected my proposal to him. So shall the terms of the Mother be fulfilled."

"It is a good plan!" rumbled Regor. "By the Mother, it is as good a plan as though it came from her! Thus shall it be. And now, Suarra, prepare to go. You have been here lonnd at every heart-beat fear creeps closer to me, and I am little used to fear."

"It is a good plan," said Graydon. "And, heart of hearts, go now as Regor bids. For I, too, fear for you."

Her soft arms were round his neck, her lips on his, he felt her cheeks wet with tears.

"Beloved!" she whispered, and again--"Beloved!" And she was gone.

"Hr-r-r-mp!" Regor drew a great sigh of relief. "Well, the path grows clearer. Now is there nothing for us to do but return and wait the fifth night. And begin to stain you up," he chuckled.

"Wait!" Graydon was listening with all his nerves. "Wait, Regor! There might be danger...she might be waylaid. Listen..."

For several minutes they stood quiet, and heard no sound.

"She's safe enough," grumbled Regor at last. "You heard her say the Mother promised her. But we're not, lad. Our path back is just as dangerous as it was coming. Let's start..."

He whistled softly to the watching guards. They came gliding back upon the platform. Graydon, deep in thought, followed abstractedly with his eyes the fantastic profile of the Frog-woman's shadow. The moon had moved higher in the heavens, and cast a sharp shadow of the colossal head upon the smooth face of rock that was the beginning of the cavern's farther wall. He stared at it, awakened from his abstraction, fascinated by its grotesqueness.

And as he watched he saw appear beside it another shadohe shadow of a gigantic lizard head that crept closer to it. He turned to trace it.

Out from the cliff at the level of the Frog-woman's shoulder peered the head of a lizard-man immense head twice at least the size of any he had seen. Its red eyes glared down at him, its great jaws opened.

"Regor!" he cried, and reached to his belt for his automatic. "Regor! Look!"

There was a sickening reek of musk around him. Claws gripped his ankles and threw him to the rock. As he fell, the thing whose head had cast the shadow slid down the face of the stonnd he saw that its body was that of a man! Knew that it was a man, and the head but a mask!

He grappled with the creature that had thrown him. He heard Regor shouting. His fingers clutched and slipped from the leathery skin. Its jaws were so close that the fetid breath sickened him. And while he fought it, he wondered why it did not tear him with its fangs. His hand touched the hilt of the short sword in his belt. He drew it, and thrust the point haphazard upward. The lizard-man screeched, and rolled from him.

As he struggled to his feet, he saw that he had been drawn yards back into the cavern. On the platform was Regor, his deadly bar smiting up and down and around, mowing the hissing pack of the lizard-folk milling about him. Beside the giant were but two of Huon's Indians, fighting as desperately as he.

At the edge of the platform stood the man in the lizard mask. Around him, guarding him, was a ring of Indians dressed in kilts of green. He was laughing and that sound of human laughter coming through the ranged jaws was hideous.

"Caught!" shouted the lizard mask. "Trapped, old fox! Kilut you'll not be killed! Not here, Regor! Not here!" "Graydon!" bellowed Regor. "To me, Graydon!" "Coming!" he cried, and leaped forward. There was a rain of bodies upon him, leathery bodies.

Clawed hands gripped him. He fought desperately to keep his feet--

There was only one Indian now beside Regor, the one who bore his rifle. As Graydon struggled, he saw this soldier's spear wrested from him, saw him throw the rifle thong over his head and raise the gun like a club. And as he did so there came a flash from its barrel and a report that echoed in the cavern mouth like thundend another and another in quick succession.

Now Graydon was down and could see no more, smothered under the lizard-men.

And now thongs were all about him, trussing his arms to his sides, binding together his legs. He was carried swiftly back into the dense darkness. One glimpse he had of the cavern mouth before it was blotted from his sight.

It was empty. Regor and the Indian, the man in the lizard mask and his soldiers, lizard-mell were gone!

The lizard-men carried Graydon along gently enough. There was a considerable body of them; he could hear them hissing and squalling all around him, and the musky saurian stench was almost overpowering. As far as he could tell, he had sustained no wounds of any kind. The armor accounted for part of this, but not for all, since it had not protected his hands and face, and he had lost his cap of mail in the scramble. He recalled that the creatures had made no attempt to use their talons or fangs upon him, that they had overcome him by sheer swarming weighs though they had been ordered to capture but not to harm him.

Ordered? But that would mean whoever had issued the order had known he would be at the cavern of the Frog-woman that night! And in turn that meant they had been betrayed despite all Regor's precautions.

Dorina!

Her name seemed to leap out of the darkness in letters of fire.

Another thought came to him that rocked him. If his coming had been foreknown by Huon's enemies, then the reason for it must also have been known. Good Goad Suarra been taken after all!

There had been a deliberate attempt to cut him away from Regor, that was certain. It had begun with the first stealthy attack which had drawn him back into the cavern; its second phase had been the rush of the hidden lizard-men upon him, and the wave that had surged up around Regor forming between them a ringed barrier.

Ever and ever as the hissing pack carried him on through the blackness his mind came back to Dorinorina, who would not open the Door of Life with Huon; Dorina, who did not want him to meet the Mother until she had persuaded Huon to keep shut the Door of Deatorina, who did not want to die!

He wondered how far they had gone through this blackness within which the lizard people moved as in broad daylight. He could not tell how fast was their pace. Yet it seemed to him that it must have gone several miles. Were they still in the Frog-woman's cavern? What did the colossus guard in this vast lightless space, if hers it was?

He passed out of that blackness, without warning, as though he had been carried through an impalpable curtain.

Red light beat upon his eyes, brighter than the dim, rubrous haze through which he had gone so cautiously with Regor when they had left the lair, but of the same disturbing quality of darkness, shot through with crimson rust of light. All around him were the lizard-men, a hundred or more. He was being borne upon the heads of eight of the creatures, raised upon the pads of their forearms. Under that weird light their leathery skins were dull orange; the cockscombs of scarlet scales cresting their reptilian skulls were turned by it into a poisonous purple. They padded, hissing to each other, over the yellow sand.

He was lying upon his back, and the effort of turning his head was painful. He stared up. He could see no roof above him, nothing but the rusted murk. Steadily the light grew less dim, though never losing its suggestion of inherent darkness. Suddenly the lizard-men set up a louder and prolonged hissing. From somewhere far ahead came an answering sibilation. Their pace grew more rapid.

The red light abruptly lost much of its haziness. His bearers halted and lowered him to his feet. Hooked talons were thrust under his bonds and stripped them from him. Graydon stretched cramped arms and legs, and looked about him.

A hundred feet in front was an immense screen of black stone. It was semicircular in shape, and curved like a shallow shell. Its base was all of another hundred feet between the ends of its arc; its entire surface was pierced and cut with delicate designs through which ran strange patterns, unknown symbols.

Close to its center was a throne of jet, oddly familiar. With a prickling of his scalp he was suddenly aware that it was the exact duplicate of the sapphire throne of the Lord of Lords in the Temple. Screen and throne were upon a dais raised a few feet above the floor, and up to it ran a broad ramp. Between the throne and the head of the ramp was an immense bowl of the same ebon stone, its base imbedded in the rock. It was, he thought, like an oversized baptismal font, one designed for giants' children. At the end of each wing of the curved screen was what, at that distance, seemed to be a low stone bench.

Empty was the black throne, empty the daiere they empty? He searched them with his eyes. Of course they were empty! Then whence came his feeling that from every inch of that raised place within the screen somethinome onas regarding him, measuring him, weighing him, reading him with a cold malignant amusement...something evil...something incredibly evil...like the force that had streamed out upon him from...from the Face in the abyss...

He turned his back to the dais, with conscious effort. He faced a horde of the lizard-people. There were hundreds of them, grouped in orderly ranks, and at about the same distance away from him as the black throne. They stood silent, red eyes intent upon him. They were so close together that their scarlet crests seemed to form a huge, fantastically tufted carpet. Among them were lizard-women and children. He stared at them, small things like baby demons, little needled yellow fangs glistening between the pointed jaws, small eyes glittering upon him like goblin lanterns.

He looked to right and left. The cavern was distinguishable in a circle perhaps half a mile in diameter. At that distance the clearer light in which he stood ended, bounded by the red rust murk. To his right, the smooth yellow sand stretched to the boundary of that murk.

At his left was a garden! A garden of evil!

There, a narrow stream ran over the floor of the cavern in curves and intricate loops. It was crimson, like a stream of sluggishly running blood. Upon its banks were great red lilies, tainted and splotched with venomous greens; orchid blooms of sullen purple veined with unclean scarlets; debauched roses; obscene thickets of what seemed to be shoots of young bamboo stained with verdigris; crouching trees from whose branches hung heart-shaped fruits of leprous white; patches of fleshy leafed plants from whose mauve centers protruded thick yellowish spikes shaped like hooded adders down whose sides slowly dripped glistening drops of some dreadful nectar.

A little breeze eddied about him. It brought the mingled scents of that strange garden, and these were the very essence of it, distillation of its wickedness. They rocked him with blasphemous imaginings, steeped him with evil longings. The breeze lingered for a breath, seemed to laugh, then fled back to the garden and left him trembling.

He feared that garden! Yes, the fear of it was as strong as the fear of the black throne. Why did he fear it so? Evil, unknown and undreamed evil, was in it. It was living evih, that was it! Vital evil! A flood of evil life pulsed and ran through every bloom, every plant and tree...evil vitality...they drew it from that stream of blood...but, ah, how strong one who fed upon their life might grow...

As that dark thought crept into Graydon's mind, something deep within him seemed to awaken, to repulse it with cold contemptuous strength and to take stern control of his brain. His assurance and all his old courage returned to him. He faced the black throne fearlessly.

He felt its invisible occupant thrust out at him, search for some loophole in his defense, withdraw as though puzzled, drive against him viciously, as if to break him down, and then withdrew again. Immediately, as in obedience to a command, the lizard-people surged forward, driving him toward the ramp. At its foot he hesitated, but a half dozen of the creatures padded from the ranks, closed round him, and pushed him upward. They pressed him to the stone bench at the right of the screen, and down upon it. As he tried to break from those who were holding his arms, he felt the others at his feet. Something circled his ankles; there were two sharp clicks. The lizard-men padded away from him.

Graydon arose from the bench and looked down at his feet. There was a metal ring around each ankle, attached to thin chains running back under the bench. He wondered how long the chains were. He took a step, and another and another, and still the chains did not check him. He reached down and pulled one of them to him until it grew taut. Measuring it, he estimated that it was precisely long enough to enable him to mount to the seat of the black throne. Having thus verified an unpleasant suspicion. Graydon hastily returned to the stone bench.

He heard a subdued hissing, the padding of many feet The lizard-folk were going. Close-packed, they poured away, a tawny flood of leathery waves crested with leaping tongues of scarlet None looked back at him. They reached the encircling murk and vanished within it.

Graydon was alone, in the silenclone with the evil garden and the throne of jet.

Slowly the red radiance that fell upon the dais began to dim and thicken, as though a spray of black light were sifting through it.

Denser it grew about the throne of jet, and upon the throne a deeper shadow formed. Shapeless, wavering at first, slowly it condensed, ceased wavering, took outline. Within the throne sat the shadow of a man. Faceless, featureless, cloudy hands gripping the arms of the throne, woven of the black atoms within the crepuscular rus man's shadow!

The faceless head leaned forward. It had no eyes, yet Graydon felt its eyes upon him. It had no lips, yet its lips began to whisper.

He heard the voice of the Dark One! The whispering of the Shadow of Nimir, Lord of Evil!

CHAPTER XV—"Lend Me Your Body, Graydon!"

THE VOICE of the Shadow was sweet, liquid as a flute heard from a forest at dusk. It lulled his fears, relaxed his guard.

"I know you, Graydon!" ran the whisper. "Know why you came to Yu-Atlanchi. Know how hopeless is your quesithout me. I brought you here, Graydon, commanding no harm to be done you. Else you would have been slain at the cavern. Do not fear me! You do not fear me, Graydon?"

He felt an oddly pleasant lethargy creeping over him as he listened to the melodious whisper.

"No," he said, half-drowsily. "No, I do not fear you, Nimir."

"Ah," the Shadow drew itself up from the throne, something of the lulling sweetness left his voice, something of menace took its place. "So you know me!"

The spell upon Graydon loosened, his mind leaped to alertness. The Shadow saw it, and all the dulcet, soothing lure flowed back into its whisper.

"But that is well! It is very well, Graydon. You have been told many lies about me, without doubt. You have seen these people of Yu-Atlanchi. They are in decadence. They rot. But had they in the olden days followed my counsel, they now would be a great peopltrong, vital, rulers of the world. And the old wisdom would not have perished. It would have shaped a new and better world.

"You have seen these people, Graydon, and I think you have weighed them. Do you believe they have reason to thank those who banished me and so condemned them to this end? I would not have abandoned them as did those other Lords, leaving them to a charlatan and a Snake-woman, who, not being human, therefore cannot understand the human need. I would have led them onward and upward to greater strength and greater wisdom. I would have placed them on the heights, Graydon, only the stars above theot left them in the swamp, there to stagnate and decay. You believe me, Graydon?"

Graydon considered. It was a little difficult to think with this pleasantly lazy feeling holding one; there was a curious exhilaration in it, too. But yes, yet was all true. It was clear, cold logic. He had thought the same thing himself, in a way. Certainly it was a damnable thing for those Lords, whoever they might have been, to have gone calmly off as though they had no responsibility for the people. Who was the charlatan? Why, the Lord of Fools, of course. And the Mother? Half a snake! Damned apt descriptions. He quite agreed.

"Right, Nimiou're right!" he said, nodding solemnly.

A ghost of perfume from the garden stole to him. He drank it greedily. Odd he had thought it evil! It wasn't. He felt damned good, and the scent made him feel even better. What was evil, anyway? Only a point of view. Not a bad sort this Shadow. Quite logicaeasonable...

"You are strong, Graydon," the Shadow's whisper was sweeter still. "Strong! You are stronger than any man of Yu-Atlanchi. Strong of body and strong of mind. You are like those of the Old Race whom I would have raised to the skies had it not been for trickery. It was not strength that defeated me, but the wiles of the Snake-woman who cares nothing for maemember that, Graydon, the Snake who cares nothing for man! It was not to harm you but to test your strength that I just now wrestled with you. You were strong enough to resist me. I was glad of that, Graydon, for then I knew that at last I had found the man I need!"

So he was the man Nimir needed, eh? Well, he was a good man, a hell of a good man. He had gotten this far without help from anybody, hadn't he? No, wait a minutomebody had helped him. Who was it? No mattee was a good man. But somebody had helped him...somebody...

The whisper of the Shadow broke smoothly into his groping thought.

"I need you, Graydon! It is not yet too late to remake this world as it ought to be; not yet too late to right the wrong to humanity wreaked by the ancient treachery to me. But I must have a body to do it, Graydon. A strong body to hold me. Lend me your body, Graydon! It will be but for a time. And during that time you shall share it with me; you shall see as I see, enjoy as I shall enjoy, share my power and drink the wine of my victories. And when I have grown to my old strength, then, Graydon, I will leave you in full possession, and I will make it immortaye, deathless as long as the sun endures! Let me share your body, Graydotrong Graydon!"

Now the whispering ceased. Strong wine surged through Graydon's veins, a rich, heady, reckless flood of life. He heard the blast of conquering trumpets! He was Genghis Khan, sweeping over kingdoms with his broom of Tartar horsemen; he was Attila lifted upon the shields of his roaring Huns; Macedonian Alexander trampling the world under his feet; Sennacherib holding all Asia like a goblet! He drank deep of power! He was drunk with power!

Was drunk! Was drunk? Who dared say that he, Nicholas Graydon, Master of the World, could be drunk! Well, all righe was drunk, then. That was another funny ideho wanted to be master of the world if all you got out of it was a drunk? Anybody could get drunherefore anybody who was drunk was master of the world! That was a funny idea...logical...have to tell that logical Shadow that funny idea...

He found himself wide awake and roaring with laughter. He stared stupidly about him, and no longer felt desire for laughter. For he was half-way to the throne of jend the Shadow was bending, bending over it, beckoning him, urging him on, and whisperinhispering--

The spell that had held him, the lure that had played him, as a fish is played, half into the Shadow's creel, dropped from him. Loathing for that cloudy shape on the black throne, loathing for himself, bitter anger, swept him as he staggered back to the stone bench and dropped upon it, face hidden in shaking hands.

What had saved him? Not his consciousness, that thing he called himself. Something deep within his subconsciousness, something unalterably sane which had neutralized by ironic humor the poison his ears had been drinking. And now Graydon was afraid! So afraid that in sheer desperation he forced himself to lift his head and look straight at the Shadow.

It was staring at him, faceless head resting upon one misty hand. He sensed within it that same perplexity as when at first, unseen, it had striven to beat down his defenseensed, too, an infernal rage. Abruptly both were cut off; in their place flowed to him a current of calmness, deep peace. He strove to resist it, recognizing it for the trap it was; but it would not be repulsed; it lapped round him like little waves, caressing him, soothing him.

"Graydon!" came the whisper. "I am pleased with you, Graydon! But you are wrong to deny me. You are stronger than I thought, and that is why I am pleased with you. The body I share must be strong, very strong. Share your body with me, Graydon!"

"No! No! By God, no!" groaned Graydon, hating himself for the desire he felt to rush to this shadowy thing and let it merge itself with him.

"You are wrong! I will not harm you, Graydon. I do not want that strong body which is to be my home weakened. What is it you hope? Is it help from Huon? His days are few. Dorina has delivered him to Lantlu, even as she delivered you to me. Before the Feast of the Dream Makers his lair will be taken, and Huon and all left alive will feed the Xinli, or mr pray that they had!"

The whisper died, as though the Shadow had paused to watch the effect of this announcement. If it was to test the lethargy that steeped Graydon, it was satisfied; he made no motion, nor did his face change from its fixed, fascinated stare.

"Lend me your body, Graydon! The Snake cannot help you. Whether you lend or not, soon shall I be incarnate. I would have your body rather than a weaker onnly to share, Graydon, only to sharnd that but for a little while. Power, immortality, wisdom beyond all others! These shall be yours! Lend me your body, Graydon! You desire one woman? What is one woman to those you can possess! Look, Graydon, look--"

Graydon's dazed eyes followed the pointing cloudy hand. He saw the evil blooms of the garden dipping and nodding to each other as though alive. He heard a witch song, a luting choral woven with arpeggios of lutes and tinkling sistrums which was the garden-given voice. A gust swept up from it and embraced him. As he breathed its fragrance wild-fire touched his blood. The nodding flowers vanished, blood-red stream vanished; the corroding light of rusted black atoms became lucent. Close to his feet was a rippling, laughing little brook, beyond it a copse of beech and birch. And from the copse women came streaming women of wondrous beauty, white nymphs and brown; full-breasted Bacchantes; slender, virginal dryads. They held out to him desirous arms, their eyes promised him undreamed delights. They came to the verge of the rill, beckoning him, calling him to them with voices that fanned the fire in his blood to flaming ecstasy of desire.

Gohat women! That one with the coronal of bronze tresses might have been High Priestess of Tanith in the secret garden of her temple in old Carthage! And that one with the flood of golden hair might be white Aphrodite herself! Why, any one of them would make the fairest of houris in Mohammed's Paradise look like a kitchen maid! Fiercer grew the fire in his veine leaped forward...

Stop! That girl who has stepped out from the otherho is she? She has midnight hair, and it covers her face. She's weeping! Why is she weeping when all her sisters are singing and laughing? He once had known a girl whose hair was that same mist of midnighho? No matter...whoever she had been, none who resembled her must weep! She herself must never weep...what was her name...Suarra!

A wave of pity swept through him, quenching the witchfires in his blood.

"Suarra!" he cried. "Suarra! You must not weep!" And with that cry he felt a tingling shock. The wave of beckoning women vanished. The girl of the misty hair vanished. Gone was laughing brook, and copse of birch and beech. The evil garden swayed before him. He stood more than half-way to the throne of jet. From it, the Shadow was leaning far out, quivering with eagerness, and whisperinhispering--

"Lend me your body, Graydon! All these you shall have if you will but lend me your body! Lend me your body, Graydon!"

"Curse you!" groaned Graydon, and then--"No, you devil! No!"

The Shadow stood erect. The pulse of rage that drove from it struck him like a material blow. He reeled under it, stumbled back to the safety of his bench. The Shadow spoke, and gone was all sweetness from its tone; its whisper was malignant, cold with purpose.

"You fool!" it said. "Now hear me. I shall have your body, Graydon! Deny me as you will, still shall I have it. Sleep, and I who do not sleep will enter it. Fight sleep, and when weariness saps that strength of yours, I will enter it. For a time you shall dwell within it with me, like a slave condemned, so tortured by what you see that again and again you will pray me to blot you out! And, because your body pleases me so, I will be merciful and give you this hope to dwell upon. After I am wearied of you, I will blot you out! Now, for the last time, will you submit to me? Lend me your body, share its tenancy with me, not as a slave but as master of all I have promised you?"

"No!" said Graydon, steadily.

There was a swirling upon the jet throne. It was empty of the Shadow. But still through the light upon the dais sifted the black atoms, and although that throne seemed empty, Graydon knew that it was not. And that the dark power was still there, watching, watching him.

Waiting to strike!

Graydon sat upon his bench, motionless as a man of stone. How many hours had passed since the whispering Shadow had gone, he did not know. His body was numb, but his mind was awake, brilliantly awake. He could not feel his body at all. His mind was like a tireless sentinel upon a sleeping tower. It was like an unquenchable light in a darkened castle. All his being was in that serene concentration of consciousness. He felt neither hunger nor thirst. He did not even think. That which was he, endured; withdrawn wholly into itself; unconquerable in a timeless world.

At first it had not been so. He had been sleepy, and he had fought sleep. He had dozed, and had felt the Shadow reach forth, touching him, testing his resistance. With what had seemed the last of his strength he had fought it back. He had striven to shut his mind from his surroundings, replace them with memory pictures of sane scenes. Sleep had again stolen upon him. He had awakened to find himself away from the bench, creeping toward the black throne. He had fled back in panic, thrown himself down, holding to the sides of the bench like a shipwrecked sailor to a spar.

He realized that the Shadow had its limitations, that it could not possess him unless it could draw him to its throne, or he mounted it of his own volition. As long as he remained upon the bench he was safe. After he had realized that, he did not dare close his eyes.

He wondered if by fixing his mind on her he could get in touch with the Snake Mother. If he could reach the bracelet on his arm, concentrate his gaze upon the purple stones, he might reach her. The sleeve of the coat-of-mail covered it too tightly, he could not get at it. And suppose she should summon him as she had before! Would not the Shadow leap into his unguarded body? The sweat dropped from his cold forehead. Frantically he shut the Serpent-woman from his thoughts.

He remembered the automatic beneath his armpit. If he could only get at that, it would give him a chance. At any rate, he could prevent the Shadow from getting his body to use it in any shape. It wouldn't be much good to Nimir with its brains blown out! But there was no opening in the suit through which he could reach it. He wondered whether by some device he could persuade the lizard-men, if they came back, to strip him. There would be time enough for him to use the gun before they could take it from him.

And then slowly his consciousness had withdrawn to this impregnable fortress. He no longer feared sleep; sleep was of another world. He feared nothing. When that sentinel which was his very essence abandoned its post, it would leave his body dead. Of no value to the Dark One as a habitation. He knew that, and was content that it should be so.

The rusted light about the black throne began to thicken, as it had when first the Shadow appeared to him. Shapeless, wavering at the beginning as then, the thing took form, condensed into sharp outline. He watched, with the detached interest of a casual spectator.

The Shadow took no notice of him, did not even turn its faceless head to him. It sat upon the throne, motionless as Graydon himself, gazing toward the further wall of murk through which the lizard-people had gone. It raised a hand, as though in summons.

There was a far-away thudding of padding feet, scores of them; a faint chorus of hissings that swiftly grew louder. He did not turn his head to look, could not if he had the desire. The padding feet came close and stopped, the hissing ceased, the musky fetor of the lizard-folk crept round him.

Up the ramp strode the man in the lizard mask.

The hideous head rested upon broad shoulders, the body was powerful, graceful, clad in close-fitting green. In his hand was a heavy, thonged whip. He paid no attention to Graydon. He walked to the foot of the jet throne, and bowed low to the Shadow.

"Master! Hail, Dark Master!" the voice that issued from the fanged jaws was melodious and faintly mocking, its arrogance thinly covered. "I have brought you another vessel into which it may please you to pour the wine of your spirit!"

Now it seemed to Graydon that the Shadow looked upon the man in the lizard mask with a malice greatly to be dreaded; but if so, it went unnoticed by him, and the Shadow's whisper held all its sweetness as it answered.

"I thank you, Lantlu--"

Lantlu! Graydon's serenity was shaken. On the instant he regained his poise, and none too sooor the Shadow had turned its face swiftly toward him, as a fisherman twitches his line when he feels the fish nibble at his bait.

"I thank you, Lantlu," it repeated, "but I have found, I believe, the perfect vessel. It is now being reshaped somewhat upon the wheel, since it thinks itself designed for other purposes."

Lantlu turned the red eyes of his mask at Graydon, and walked over to him.

"Ah, yes," he said, "the hopeful fool from beyond who is to deliver Yu-Atlanchi from you and me, Master! Who conspires with Huon, the weakling, to shake our power. Who slinks through the night to meet his love. His love! You doven to look at one upon whom I had set my seal! And Suarro give her lips to such as you! Faugh! She would mate with the Urd! Well, after I take her, she shall."

Now at this, Graydon's citadel was shaken indeed; he felt his body again and tensed it to spring at Lantlu's throat. With almost audible clang the opening gates of his mind closed, that aloof consciousness resumed its sway, secure, bulwarked once more from attack. And again it was none too soon, for even as they closed he felt the Shadow thrust upon them. And like a sentence written in one flaming symbol, he read that no matter what he heard, or what he beheld, he must not again heed it. Or the Shadow would reel him in!

Lantlu raised his whip, poised it to bring it slashing down across Graydon's face.

"What?" he sneered. "So even that does not arouse you! Well, this may!"

The whip whistled down--

"Stop!" the whisper from the throne was thick with menace. Lantlu's arm was jerked back as though a stronger hand had gripped his wrist, the whip fell to the stone.

"You shall not touch this man! I, the Shadow of Nimir, tell you so!" the whispering was venom made articulate. "That is my body you would have dared to strike! My body you would have dared deface! Sometimes you annoy me, Lantlu. Beware that you do not do it once too often!"

Lantlu stooped, and as he picked up the whip his hand was shaking, but whether with fear or rage Graydon could not tell. He raised his head and spoke, the old arrogance in his voice.

"Every one to his taste, Dark Master," he said boldly. "And since you approve of his body, I suppose there is excuse for Suarra. But it is not one I would choose, with all Yu-Atlanchi to pick from until I found one strong enough."

"There is something more to a body than its shape, Lantlu," whispered the Shadow, sardonically. "Precisely as there is something more to a head than a skull. It is why he beat you just now, although you are free and he is in chains. I had supposed you knew this."

Lantlu quivered with rage, his hand clenched again about the whip. But he mastered himself.

"Well," he said, "he shall see the fruit of his folly. The vessel I bring you. Dark Master, is he who was to shelter this chosen one of yours."

He whistled. Up the ramp, arms held by two of the lizard-men, stumbled a Yu-Atlanchan tall as Lantlu himself. All the beauty of his face was wiped away by the fear that distorted it. His yellow hair dripped with the sweat of terror. He glared at the cloudy shape within the throne with eyes of nightmare. And as he glared, foam puffed from his lips in tiny bubbles.

"Come, Cadok, come!" jeered Lantlu. "You do not appreciate the honor shown you. Why, in a breath you will be no longer Cadok! You will be the Dark One! An apotheosis, Cadohe only living apotheosis in all Yu-Atlanchi! Smile, man, smile!"

At this sinister jesting Graydon again thought that the Shadow's unseen gaze rested upon the lizard mask darkly, but as before there was nothing of threat in its voice when it spoke.

"I am sure this vessel is too weak to hold me--" the Shadow leaned forward, studying the trembling noble, impersonally. "Indeed, were I not sure, I would not pour myself into him, Lantlu, since there upon the bench is the body I desire. But I will enter him...I think that I am a little weary...and at the least he will refresh me..."

Lantlu laughed, cruelly. He signaled the lizard-men. They ripped from Cadok his clothing, stripped him mother-naked. The Shadow bent, beckoning him. Lantlu gave him a quick push forward.

"On to your high reward, Cadok!"

And suddenly the face of Cadok was wiped clean of its nightmare terror. It became the face of a child. Like a child's face it wrinkled, and great tears poured down his cheeks.

Eyes fixed upon the beckoning Shadow, he walked to the throne of jet and mounted it.

The Shadow enveloped him!

For an instant Graydon could see nothing but a lurid mist in which Cadok writhed. The mist wrapped him closer, forcing itself within him. The Yu-Atlanchan's great chest swelled, his muscles knotted in agony.

And now his whole body seemed to expand as though rushing out to cover that part of the mist which still clung around him, unable to enter. The outline of his naked body became nebulous, cloudy, as though flesh and mist had merged into something less material than flesh, more material than the avid vapor.

The face of Cadok seemed to melt, the features to run together, then reassemble--

Upon the straining, tortured body was the Face in the abyss!

No longer stone!

Alive! The pale, sparkling blue eyes looked out over the cavern, at the lizard-folk, now prostrate, groveling upon their bellies, heads hidden; upon Lantlu with Satanic amusement, upon Graydon with a glint of triumph.

Abruptly, what had been the body of Cadok shriveled and collapsed. It twisted and rolled down from the throne to the dais. It lay there, twitching and strangely shrunken to half the size it had been.

Upon the throne sat only the Shadow.

But now the Shadow was less tenuous, closer knit, as though that which had gone from the body of Cadok, leaving it so shrunken, had been absorbed by it. It seemed to breathe. The Luciferean face was still visible within it, the pale blue eyes still glittered.

Again Lantlu laughed and whistled. The two Urd upon the dais hopped to their feet, picked up the shriveled body, carried it to the garden and threw it into the red stream.

Lantlu raised his hand in careless salute to the jet throne, turned on his heel with never a glance at Graydon, and marched away swinging his whip, the Urd pack at his heels.

"Not you, but he is the fool, Graydon!" whispered the Shadow. "He serves my purpose now, but when I...Better lend me your body, Graydon, than have me take it! I will not treat you as I did Cadok. Lend me your body, Graydon! I will not torture you. I will not blot you out, as I threatened. We shall dwell together, side by side. I will teach you. And soon you will look back upon the man you now are, and wonder why you ever thought to resist me. For never have you lived as you shall live, Graydon! No man on earth has ever lived as you shall live! Lend me your body, Graydon!"

But Graydon was silent.

There came from the Shadow a whispering laugh. It waverend was gone!

Graydon waited, like a hare which has heard the fox go from where it hides, but lingers to be sure. After a time he knew definitely that the Shadow had departed. There was nothing of it left; no unseen crouching power awaiting its chance to strike. He relaxed, stood upon numb and uncertain feet, fighting a violent nausea.

And as he stood, he felt a touch upon his ankle, looked down and saw reaching from behind the edge of the carven screen a long and sinewy arm covered with scarlet hair. The needled, pointed fingers felt carefully around the metal link that fettered him, snapped it open, crept to the other and released it while Graydon stood staring stupidly, unbelievingly, at it.

A face peered round the screen's edge, chinless, scarlet elf locks falling over a sloping forehead, golden eyes filled with melancholy staring at him.

The face of Kon, the spider-man!

CHAPTER XVI—The Painted Chamber

KON'S FACE was distorted by what was undoubtedly intended for a reassuring smile. Graydon, limp with reaction from his ordeal, dropped to his hands and knees. Kon reached over the side of the dais and lifted him up as easily as though he had been a puppy. Grotesque though he was, Graydon saw him then as more beautiful than any of those phantom women who had almost lured him into the Shadow's net. He put his arms around the hairy shoulders and clung tightly to them. The spider-man patted him on the back with his little upper hands, making odd comforting clicking sounds.

From the garden came a shrill humming as of thousands of bees in swarm. Its flowers and trees were bending and twisting as though blown by a strong wind. Kon's huge eyes scanned it doubtfully, then, with Graydon still held close, he slipped around the edge of the screen. The humming in the garden rose octaves higher in pitch, threatening anummoning.

As they turned its edge, Graydon saw that the screen was not detached as he had supposed. It was in reality a sculptured alcove, cut from the front of a buttress which thrust into the red cavern like the prow of a ship. A smooth cliff of black rock angled back from it.

Crouching at the base of this cliff, their scarlet hair causing them to be barely discernible in the rubrous haze, were two more spider-men. They arose as Kon swung toward them. Graydon had a sense of weird duplication as they regarded him with their sorrowful golden eyes though not one Kon had come for him, but three. Clutched in the terminations of their four middle arms, or feet, were long metal bars like that which Regor wore, but unlike his, they had handgrips and ended in spiked knobs. Two of these bars they passed to Kon. Mingled now with the insistent humming of the garden was a faint hissing undertone, far away, and rapidly growing closer; the clamor of the Urd.

Graydon wriggled in Ken's arm, and motioned to be set down. The spider-man shook his head. He clicked to the others, gripped his two bars in the opposite hand, and dropping upon four of his stilts turned sharply from the wall of rock. He scuttled toward the wall of murk half a mile away. His comrades ranged on each side of him. They ran bent almost double, with the speed of a racing horse. They entered the rusty murk. The humming and hissing lessened to a faint drone, were swallowed by the silence.

Ahead, a barrier of reddish rock sprang out of the haze, vanishing in the heights above. At its base were great bowlders, fallen from the cliff, and among them hundreds of smaller ones, smooth and ochreous, and shaped with a queer regularity. The spider-men slowed to a walk, scanning the face of the precipice. Suddenly Graydon smelled the reek of the lizard-folk, knew those oddly similar bowlders for what they were--

"Kon!" he cried, pointing. "The Urd!"

The bowlders moved, sprang up, rushed upon the pack of the lizard-men, hissing, slaver dripping from ranged jaws, red eyes glowing.

Before they could turn, the pack was all around them. Kon dropped upon three stilts, out swung two other stilts whirling the great bars. His comrades rose on their hinder legs, a bar gripped in each of their four free hands. They flailed through the first ranks of the encircling pack, mowing them down. They re-formed into a triangle, back to back. Into the center of this triangle Kon set Graydon with an admonitory click. Out swung the bars again, cracking the pointed skulls of the Urd, unable to strike with their stumpy arms under that deadly ring, or to break through it.

The spider-men retreated slowly along the base of the cliff, cutting their way as they went. Graydon could no longer watch the fight, intent upon keeping his feet as he walked over the writhing bodies which paved the way. He heard a sharp clicking from Kon, felt his arm embrace and lift him. There was a quick rush forward. They had waded through the waves of the Urd. Down upon four stilts they dropped, and raced away, clicking triumphantly as they sped along. The hissing of the pack and the pad of their pursuing feet died.

Their pace decreased, they went more and more slowly, Kon studying the scarp. He halted, set Graydon down, and pointed to the cliff. High above the floor of the cavern, set in the red rock face, was an oval black stone. The spider-man scuttled up to it, raised his long arms, and began feeling delicately around it. He gave a satisfied click, and keeping his talons upon a spot at the side of the stone, beckoned to Graydon.

He took his hand, and placed it against the cliff with the fingers spread wide and the heel of the hand pressing hard against the rock. Thrice he did this, and then, lifting him, carefully placed his fingers where his own claws had rested. Graydon understood. He was showing him where some mechanism was located which Kon's sharp-pointed digits could not motivate. He pressed fingers and heel of hand as directed.

A stone moved slowly upward like a curtain, revealing a dark tunnel. Kon clicked to his comrades. The pair passed warily through the black opening, bars ready. Soon they reappeared and conferred. The spider-man patted Graydon on the back, and pointing to the tunnel, followed him into it. Here Kon again felt along the inner edge of the opening until he had found what he sought, and again he pressed Graydon's hand upon a spot which seemed to his touch precisely the same as the surrounding surface, as had the outer lock. The curtain of rock dropped, leaving him in utter blackness.

Darkness evidently meant no more to the spider-men than it did to the lizard-folk, for he heard them moving on ahead of him. Momentary panic seized him that they might not be able to understand his limitations and would leave him behind. Before he could cry out, Kon's arm was around him, had lifted him up and carried him away.

On they went, and on, through the darkness. Graydon felt rise around him a fine, impalpable dust, so fine that only by the millstones of incalculable ages could it have been ground to such tenuity. It told him that this passage was one unused by the lizard-folk or any other, and evidently it told the spider-men the same thing, for they went on confidently, with increased speed.

The darkness began to gray; now he could see the walls of the tunnel; and now they passed out of it into an immense chamber cut in the living rock. Dim within it as the light might be, it seemed glaring daylight to Graydon after the rust haze of the Shadow's cavern and the blackness of the passage. It came through fissures in the far side of the place. The impalpable dust was thick upon its floor.

In its center was a huge oval pool in which glimmered water, and around whose raised rim squatted a score of figures like gray gnomes. They were motionless, rigid. The spider-men drew together and clicked busily to each other, looking about them with obvious perplexity. Graydon walked over to the pool and touched one of the squatting gnomes. It was stone. He looked at the figures more closely. They were carven effigies of hairless, tailless, gray ape-men. Their long upper lips dropped to mouths beneath which were well-defined chins. The sinewy hands of their long arms knuckled the stone on which they sat. Their foreheads, though retreating, were semi-human. In the stone sockets of their eyes were gems resembling smoky topazes. With these topaz eyes they stared at the pool with something of that same puzzled melancholy which filled the golden eyes of Kon and his mates.

Walking around them, Graydon saw that they were both male and female, and that each wore a crown. He bent closer. The crowns were miniature sculptures of Serpent-people, serpent-men and serpent-women, their coils twisted round the heads of the gray ape-men like the sun-snake upon the Uraeus crown of the Pharaohs.

Down into the still pool a flight of yellow marble steps fell, vanishing in its depths.

Wondering, he walked over to a fissure, and as he drew near he saw that this whole face of the chamber had been broken away by the same force, earthquakes or subsidences perhaps, which had opened up the fissures. He peered out. He looked over the plain of the monolithic stones beyond the barrier. The chamber was at the very edge of the skyreaching wall.

The sun was loas it rising? If so, the time he had spent with the Shadow had been but a night. He had thought it much longer. He watched for awhilhe sun was setting. His ordeal had lasted a night and a day.

He turned back to Kon, suddenly aware that he was both thirsty and hungry. Under the direct light from the fissures, the wall through which they had come stood out clearly. Looking at it he halted, forgetting both hunger and thirst.

Along all its thousand-foot length it was covered with paintings. Paintings by lost masters, as rich in detail as Michelangelo's Last Judgment, landscapes as mystically beautiful as those of El Greco or Davies, portraiture as true as Holbein's or Sargent's, colorful as Botticelli, fantastiut only so, he knew, because they pictured an unknown world; nothing in them of the fantasy of the unreal. He ran back to examine them.

Here was a city of rose-coral domes whose streets were bordered by scaled trees red and green, with foliage like immense ferns. Along them the serpent-people were borne in litters upon the heads of the gray ape-men. And here was a night scene with the constellations looking serenely down upon smooth fields covered with rings of pale green radiance through which the serpent-people moved in some strange ritual.

There was something peculiar about those constellatione studied them. Of course, the outline of the Dipper, the Great Bear, was not the same shape as now. The four stars of its bowl were closer for one thing, a perfect square. And there was Scorpits claws not an arc but a straight bar of stars.

Why, if that picture of them were true, it showed the heavens as they must have been hundreds of thousands of years ago. How many ages before those distant orbs could shift to the position they seem to occupy today? It dizzied him.

And there was something peculiar about the pictures of the serpent-people. They lacked that human quality, so marked and so weird, of the Mother. Their heads were longer, flatter, reptilian. Their bodies above their coils were plainly development of the saurian; unmistakably evolved from a reptilian stem. He could accept them as realitieince in varying environments the evolution of almost any kind of intelligent creature is possible. He realized that it was the abrupt transition from serpent to woman that made the Serpent-woman incomprehensible; unreal.

Again he knew the haunting doubas she in reality as he had seen her, or, by some unknown power of will, did she create in the minds of those who looked upon her, illusion of childish body and heart-shaped face of exquisite beauty? He went back to the pool and scanned more closely the crowns upon the gray ape-men. They were like the serpent-people upon the wall. He compared them with the bracelet on his wrist. Well, whoever had carved that had seen the Serpent-woman as he had.

Wondering, he went back to his study of the painted wall. He looked long at the painting of a vast swamp in which monstrous bodies floundered; from its mud hideous heads peered, and over it great winged lizards flapped on leathery bat-like wings. He stared even longer at the next. It was the same swamp; in the foreground was a group of the serpent-people. They lay coiled behind what appeared to be an immense crystal disk. The disk seemed to be swiftly revolving. And all over the morass, battling with the monsters, were winged shapes of flame. They held a core of brilliant incandescence from which sprang two nebulously radiant wings, like those of the sun's corona seen during some eclipses. These winged shapes appeared to pulse abruptly out of empty air, dart upon the monsters and fold their lambent wings about them.

And there was another city...the city across the lake from the cavern of the Frog-woman was a miniature of it, but there were no mountains around it. It came to him that this was the Yu-Atlanchi of the immemorial past, from which the serpent-people and those they had fostered had fled before the flood of ice whose creeping progress all their arts could not check...He saw a fleet of strange ships, one of them fighting off the attack of a group of gigantic seasaurians whose heads reared high above its masts...

The history of a whole lost world was within that painted cavern. It held the pictured record of a lost era of earth's history.

He saw that at one time the paintings had covered all four walls. They were almost obliterated on two sides, completely so on that of the fissures. Only where the passage had opened were the pictures complete.

What had this chamber been? Why abandoned? He was again aware of thirst. He walked back to the pool. He heard a warning click from Kon. Graydon pointed to the pool and to his throat. For full measure, he rubbed his belly and made the motions of chewing. The spider-man nodded, scuttled to the yellow steps and down them. He dipped a hand in the water, smelled of it; cautiously tasted it He nodded approvingly, bent down and sucked in a huge draft.

Graydon knelt and scooped up handfuls. It was cold and sweet.

Kon clicked to his comrades. They went searching about the fissures, and presently returned with large pieces of brown fungi. Kon took a bit, dipped it into water, bit off a corner and handed the balance of it to Graydon. He accepted it doubtfully, but tasting it found that it absorbed the water like a sponge and was somewhat like bread with a pleasant yeasty flavor. He took another piece and dipped it. The three Weavers squatted beside him. All solemnly sopped their fungi in the pool and chewed it.

And suddenly Graydon began to laugh. Surely no man had ever dined as he was dininquatting there beside the weird pool with the three scarlet grotesques, dipping mushrooms in the water with topaz-eyed, hairless, gray ape-men looking on, and the history of a lost epoch spread out before him for his entertainment. He laughed and laughed, with swiftly growing hysteria.

Kon looked at him, clicking inquiringly. Graydon could not stop his laughing, nor the sobbing hiccoughs that now began to punctuate it. Kon took him up in his long arms, and swung him to and fro like a baby.

Graydon clung to him; the hysteria passed away. And in passing it took with it all the taint of the Shadow's whispers, all the hateful lure of the evil garden. The film of evil which lay upon his mind passed away like scum on water under a strong cleansing wind.

He was sleepy, he had never felt so sleepy! Now he could sleep without fear of the Shadow creeping into him. Kon wouldn't let anything like that happen. The light was dimming fast...sun must be almost down...he'd sleep for a few minutes...

Cradled in the arms of the spider-man, Graydon dropped into deepest, dreamless sleep.

CHAPTER XVII—Taking of Huon's Lair

DAWN WAS FILTERING into the painted cavern. Graydon sat up and looked uncomprehendingly about him. He was upon a bed of moss. One of the spider-men squatted close to him, studying him with puzzled, sad eyes. There was no sign of the others.

"Where's Kon?" he asked. The spider-man answered with a string of rapid clicks.

"Kon! Hey, Kon!" called Graydon.

The Weaver sensed his anxiety, and its reason; he sidled to him, patted him with his small upper hands, nodding and softly clicking. Graydon gathered he was being told there was nothing to worry about. He smiled and patted the Weaver upon a shoulder. The spider-man seemed much pleased. He scuttled over to the crevices, returning with the bread-like fungi. The two went down to the pool and breakfasted; the Weaver keeping up an amiable succession of clicks between bites, and Graydon companionably answering with a totally unrelated monologue. He felt refreshed, ready to cope with anything.

There was a movement in one of the large crevices. Through it came the scarlet body of Kon, and following him the second Weaver. The trio clicked busily. Kon waited until Graydon had finished his last piece of fungi, beckoned him and moved over to the crevice through which he had entered. The other spider-men crawled through it, vanishing. Kon followed, and disappeared. His long red arm stole back into the slit, and looked out. Far below was the plain of the monoliths.

Kon's arm crooked round him, and drew him out. Graydon's head swam, for below him was a sheer half-mile drop.

The spider-man was hanging to the face of the cliff, his supple fingers gripping cracks and projections which only they could have made use of. He tucked Graydon under his arm, and began to crawl along the precipice. Graydon looked down just once more, and was convinced he would feel better if he kept his eyes on the rock. They swung along for about two thousand feet Another crevice appeared. Kon thrust him through it, and scrambled after him.

They were in a wide passage which had probably once run into the painted cavern. The same destructive agency had been at work. Its end was blocked by a rock fall, and its wall was pierced by scores of holes and fissures. Its floor was littered with fallen stone. Kon looked doubtfully at Graydon and stretched out his arm. Graydon shook his head violently, tired of being carried around like a baby. They set off down the corridor, but his progress was comparatively slow; so slow that Kon shortly picked him up with a conciliatory click. The three Weavers set off at a fast pace over the debris. He resigned himself. After all, as well ride a spider-man as a camel or an elephant; if one had never seen a camel or an elephant they would seem just as unusual as Kon and his kind.

The passage darkened, blackened and finally curved into a cavemed space filled with a dim twilight. There were no fissures. The light was the same as that which streamed from the walls in Huon's lair, but here it seemed to be dying, old and outworn, as though the force which produced it were almost spent. The place was a vast storehouse. Graydon caught glimpses of enigmatic mechanisms of crystal arid black metal, among them huge globes of silver; once he saw something which appeared to be the hull of a ship, and once he passed by what was certainly one of the crystal disks painted in the battle in the primeval swamp. They loomed all around him, these vague, shrouded shapes of mystery. The spider-men paid no attention to them, threading their way rapidly.

They entered another black tunnel. They had gone along this for a mile or more when Kon gave a click of warning.

He set Graydon down, and the four stood listening. He heard men walking slowly and cautiously, and not far away. A cloudy light abruptly impinged upon the wall of the tunnel, as though a little luminous ball of cloud had been thrown against it. It came from a transverse passage only a few yards ahead. The spider-men gripped their bars, stole softly forward.

Before they could reach the opening, a man's head projected around the sid head whose hair was silvery-white over a stained bandage, the scars of claws upon its cheek--

"Regor!" shouted Graydon, and rushed by the spidermen.

The giant bounded into the tunnel, embracing him, bellowing amazed joy. The spider-men came forward, clicking like castanets. From the transverse passage emerged five of the Fellowship men, clothing torn, carrying swords and maces and small round shields; all showed the marks of heavy fighting; After them trooped a dozen of the Emers with spears and swords and the same small shields, kilts tattered and none of them without some wound.

One of these grinned at him out of a battered face and held up his rifle.

"How the devil did you know where to look for me?" demanded Graydon when at last Regor had grown coherent.

"I wasn't looking for you, lad," he answered. "I was looking for a way into the Temple to tell Suarra of your capture, hoping she would raise such a storm about it that the Mother could not refuse to aid yof you were still alive. Also I admit hoping this would involve protection for myself and these with me. And on second thought, I'm not so sure I am glad I did find you. It was our only hope, and now I have no excuse to appeal to Adana." He grinned.

"Protection!" exclaimed Graydon. "I don't understand you, Regor. You must have gotten back to the lair safely."

"The lair is sacked!" said Regor. "Ripped open, gutted. Huon is prisoner of Lantlu. The Fellowship, what's left of it, dispersed, wandering like us about these burrows." "Good God!" Graydon was aghast. "What happened?" "Dorina did it," said the giant, and there was a murmur of hatred from the others. "Something told me to kill her, when I managed to get back to the lair after you had disappeared. But I wasn't sure she had betrayed us. Last night, while we were asleep, she opened a secret door to Lantlu and a few of his friends. They stole in and killed quietly and quickly the guards at the great door. Dorina lifted it, and let in more of Lantlu's supporters and a pack of the Urd. There was no time for us to gather. Many were slaughtered in their beds. After that it was group fighting all over the place. I saw them drag Huon down and truss him. Some of our Emers managed to escapow much of the Fellowship, I don't know. Not many, I fear. We were fortunate. They added a few more scars to my decorations," he touched the bandage, "but they paid for it."

"Dorina!" whispered Graydon, "Dorina! Then the Shadow did not lie!" Regor started, looked at him keenly. "Laou've seen the Shadow! The Dark Master!" "I'll say I have!" said Graydon, grimly, in his own tongue, then in the Aymara, "I was his guest for a night and a day. He was bargaining for my body!"

Regor drew back a step, scrutinizing him. He clicked to Kon and the spider-man answered at some length. When he finished, Regor stationed the Indians at guard at the opening through which they had come, and seated himself on a block of fallen stone.

"Now, tell me everything. And this timeep nothing back."

Graydon did, from the first stealthy onslaught of the hidden lizard-man. Regor and the five Yu-Atlanchans listened, silent, fascinated. When he told the fate of Cadok, Regor groaned, his face livid, and beat his breast with clenched fist.

"Good lad! Good lad!" he muttered brokenly, when Graydon had ended, and sat for a time in thought.

"That cavern where you thought you saw a ship," he broke his silence. "If you are right was a ship. One of those upon which our ancestors came to the Hidden Land with the serpent-people, and preserved there with many other precious things. So long has that cavern been locked away, unentered, that it was thought to be but another legend, a wonder tale. None but the Snake Mother and the Lord of Folly remembers the way into it, unless it be Nimir. And if he does, it is plain he has not given the secret to Lantlu.

"The cavern of the Lost Wisdom!" there was awe in Regor's voice. "And it exists! By the Mother, what we have forgotten! How we have fallen from the ancient strength! Once, Graydon, so the story runs, there was a wide entrance to it opening upon the lake. This was blocked with rocks, and the rocks melted, by some device the Old Ones knew, after the war that ended in the prisoning of Nimir. So cunningly was it done that none now can tell that sealed place from the surrounding stone. Yet I have heard a way was left to it from the Temple, through which the Lords and the Snake Mother passed from time to time when desire came to them to look again upon its ancient treasures. Once in, I think we can find its door, and if we do I have that which will open it."

He drew Graydon aside.

"Did you think I had abandoned you, lad?" he whispered, huskily. "The Urd were too thick around me to break through. Although I fought as never before. Then by lucky chance that Emer over there who held your noisy weapon set it going. The Urd scattered squealing and even Lantlu dropped from the platform. But you were nowhere in sight, or hearing. I knew you had been carried off. The Emer and I were away before Lantlu could gather his pack together. When I reached the lair, we took council. It was Huon's idea to send Kon after you. Huon was strangtrange as when he bade you farewell. There was a cavern of red-dust light, he said. There Kon and his Weavers must search. They must start, he said, from the opening through which we passed when we left the lair...always have we known that there was danger of meeting the Urd in that place...but never dreamed that it was a way to the throne of the Dark One. Back, far back you must go, Huon told Kon. And then...his face became drawn and white as when he spoke of the slaying shadows dropping from the red sky...and he told of a black precipice ending in a black shrine beside a garden. There they would find you."

"I opened that door and let them out. I watched them merge at once into the murk, and realized how wisely Huon had picked them. Kon says they made their way swiftly far, far back, seeing no Urd, until at last the black cliff sprang up before them. Now which way to follow that wall, he did not know; by chance decided upon the left. On they went and on until he heard the sound of many Urd, and a man's voice, and a voice which Kon says 'spoke without a man to hold it.' They waited until the Urd had gone away and until the bodiless voice had gone--"

"And there you were, in the black shrine beside the garden! Strange...strange that Huon..."

He paused, shaking his head perplexedly.

"That little beast of yours is done for, I fear," he said. "But just before the raid I took some of your weapon's food."

He called the Indian who held the gun. Graydon took it, rejoicing in the feel of it. The Emer thrust a pouch out to him. Within it were about a hundred cartridges and several, clips for his automatics. He looked the rifle over, it was unharmed. He loaded it.

"Put your hand through the slit of this damned armor, Regor," he said. "Reach up under my arm and give me what you find there."

Regor obeyed, drew out the automatic. Graydon thrust it into his belt. He felt much better; swords and maces were all right in their way, but every man knew his own weapons best.

"Let's go," he said.

Regor whistled to the guard, and touched Kon. The spider-man beside him, he led the way up the black passage, retracing Graydon's journey. The two Weavers fell in behind them, Graydon and the Fellowship men followed, the Indians brought up the rear. Regor did not depend upon Kon's eyes for guidance. Now and again he cast ahead of him the vaporous, light-stimulating ball.

They came to that place Regor had called the Cavern of Lost Wisdom. As he crossed its threshold, he dropped upon his knees and kissed the floor. The Yu-Atlanchans whispered among themselves but did not imitate him.

They threaded their way through it in the crepuscular dusk of the dying atoms; past the dim, vague shapes of the mysterious machines, past immense coffers of metals red and gray that held, Graydon wondered, what relics of the lost world; by the huge silvery globes they went, and he saw that upon them were traced enigmatic symbolings in lacquers of gold and blue; they came to the shadowy hull of the great ship, and here again Regor bent his knee. On and on they went, through the dusk, past the science, the art, the treasures of the serpent-people and the mighty forefathers of the Yu-Atlanchans. They came to their end, and looked out over an empty space whose further side they could not see.

"We must cross there," Regor said, "until we come to the rock that seals the ancient entrance. The corridor of the Lords, so said he who told me of this, is at its edge and in the direction of the cataract, which is at the right. The tunnel runs under the lake and skirts the amphitheater of the Xinli. There we must go softly, for I do not know whether other passages may not open into the one we travel. If so, it seems to me they must be sealendeed, must be, since the Old Ones planned to shut this cavern off for all time. Still, we will take no chances. And, somewhere near, there is an entrance into the tunnel which Suarra traveled from the Hall of the Weavers that night she met us."

They set off across the empty space. They came at length to a wall of rock which appeared to be formed of bowlders fused by volcanic heat. Regor grunted complacently. They skirted the wall to the right until Regor saw, set high within the rock, an oval black stone like that Kon had searched for in the red cavern.

Regor clicked to the spider-man. Kon felt carefully around the stone as he had the other, turned and shook his head. Regor took from his belt the cone he had used to open the door from the lair and gave it to him. Light sprayed from it as the red Weaver pressed it methodically over the face of the barrier. The rock began slowly to open, like the two valves of a sliding door. They peered into a corridor, much more brilliantly lighted, dropping at an easy decline. After they had entered, Kon pressed the cone to the inner sides. The rock portal closed. Look closely as he might, Graydon could see no traces of it; the rock was smooth and unlined.

They went through that passage for a mile or more. Straight at first, it soon began to twist tortuously, as though it had been cut from some soft, meandering vein.

"We have passed beneath the lake, I know that if nothing else," whispered Regor.

Abruptly the corridor terminated in a small crypt. Two of its walls bore a black oval. Regor looked at them, and scratched his head.

"By Durdan the Hairy!" he grumbled. "There were so many turns that I know not which side is toward the Temple and which away from it."

Nor could the others help him.

"Well," he decided, "we go to the right."

Kon manipulated the cone. Almost immediately a stone slid upward. They were in a tunnel brighter still, and running at right angles.

"If this is right, then we go right again," said Regor. They slipped along, cautiously. They stepped out of the tunnel without warning into a guard chamber in which were half a dozen Emer soldiers, not in yellow but in green-kilted kirtles, and an officer, a noble clad also in Lantlu's green.

These stared at the motley intruders, like men of wood. Before they could recover from their amazement, Regor signaled Kon. Instantly the three spider-men sprang upon the Indians and throttled them. Regor's strong fingers went round the officer's throat. And all so quickly that Graydon himself had had no time to move.

Regor loosened his grip, and raised his bar. Kon scuttled over, stood behind the Yu-Atlanchan, pinioned his arms.

"So right was wrong!" muttered Regor. "Speak softly, Ranena. Answer briefly. What place is this?"

Ranena glanced at the bodies of his guards at the feet of the two Weavers, and little beads of sweat stood out on his forehead.

"No need to treat me so, Regor," he said thickly. "I have never been your enemy."

"No?" asked Regor suavely, "and yet I thought I saw you in the lair last night. Perhaps I was mistaken. Howevenswer quickly, Ranena!"

"It guards a way to the amphitheater," the answer came sullenly. As though to confirm him, there came a rumbling as of far-away thunder, and the sound of cheering. "They race the Xinli," he added.

"And Lantlu, of course, is there?" asked Regor.

A shade of malice crossed Ranena's fine face.

"And Dorina," he said.

"What have they done with Huon?"

"Listen, Regor," Ranena's clear eyes darkened craftily, "if I tell you where Huon is and how to reach him, will you promise not to kill me, but truss me up and gag me before you go to him?"

"What have they done with Huon?" repeated Regor.

He clicked to the spider-man. One of Kon's hands covered Ranena's mouth, with the others he began slowly to lift his arms behind him and twist them. Ranena writhed, his face distorted with agony. He nodded.

Kon withdrew his hand, lowered his arms. Little drops of blood ran down the cheek where the needled fingers had pierced it.

"After the next race fights the Xinli," he groaned.

"So!" said Regor quietly. "So! And now do I see that though right was wrong, wrong has become right!"

He signaled Kon. The spider-man bent back Ranena's neck and snapped it.

Regor looked down into the glazing eyes, and turned to his Indians.

"You and you--" he pointed in turn to six of them, "dress yourselves in their clothes. Notalu," he spoke to one of the Yu-Atlanchans, "strip Ranena, and change your yellow for his green. Then watch. Probably none will come, but if they dlay them swiftly before they have a chance to cry out I will leave you two of the Weaverou know how to command them. Kon goes with me. But first we must get rid of this carrion."

He clicked to Kon. The spider-man picked up the bodies, and carried them into the corridor which Ranena had said led to the amphitheater. They laid the stiffening figures along its walls, out of sight of the guard room. They returned and two of them dropped behind the stone benches, hidden.

"Now let us see what can be done for Huon," said Regor.

They stole down the corridor, past Ranena, glaring at them with dead eyes.

There was a blaze of sunlight, dazzling Graydon. Squares of black danced in it. He heard the thunder of monstrous feet.

His vision cleared. He stood before a door grated with heavy metal bars. He looked through it into the arena of the dinosaurs.

CHAPTER XVIII—The Arena of the Dinosaurs

THE FLOOR of the arena was an immense oval about five hundred feet across, a half-mile in length, and covered with smooth yellow sand. Around this oval ran a wall of polished, jade-green stone four times the height of a tall man. There were grated openings in it here and there, a few much larger than that through which he peered. Beyond the wall, tier upon tier of stone seats stretched back to the amphitheater's rim a hundred and fifty feet on high. Here banners streamed. Within the greater oval was a smaller one, made of a thick, four-foot wall; the two made a track about fifty feet wide.

Almost directly opposite Graydon was a wide section thronged with the Yu-Atlanchans. Slender, green lacquered pillars arose from its supporting silken awnings. It was like a gigantic flower garden with the gay and vivid hues of the women's garments blossoming out of the dominant green which evidently was Lantlu's chosen color.

Bordering this enclosure of the nobles was a double file of the green-kirtled Emers bearing javelins and bows; then came a wide and empty area of the seats, another double file of the soldiers, and beyond them thousands of the Indians in holiday dress. And beyond them stretched untenanted tier upon tieroof of the dwindling numbers of the ancient people.

In the curiously clear air, distances were foreshortened. At the very front he saw Lantlu, surrounded by a group of laughing nobles. Who was the woman beside him?

Dorina!

He heard Regor cursing, knew he, too, had seen her.

But Dorina was not laughing with the others. She sat, chin on clenched hands, looking somberly across the arena, staring straight at where they hid, as thougs though she watched them. Graydon drew hastily back.

"Will that weapon of yours reach her?" Regor's face was black with hate.

"Easilut I'd rather try it on Lantlu," answered Graydon.

"Nn neither of them. Not now--" he shook his head, recovering his control. "It would bring us no closer to Huon. But that rotting daughter of a carrion eater, that bualo come to watch him die!"

"Well, she doesn't seem very happy about it," said Graydon.

Regor groaned, and began searching around the sides of the grating.

"We must get this open," he grumbled. "Get Huon to us when they let him out...where's the cursed lock...then we can run back to the tunnel and get away by that other door...better send Kon to carry him back...no, Kon can run faster than any of us, but not faster than the arrows...they'll fill him with them before he is half-way there...no, we'll have to wait...by the Seven...ah, there it is!"

There was the sound of bolts slipping. He tried the door. It was open. Twice they locked and unlocked it, and to make certain no time would be wasted on it when the moment came, Graydon marked the pressure spots with the end of a cartridge.

There was a fanfare of trumpets. A grating below Lantlu swung open. Out of it leaped six of the riding Xinli. Tyrannosaurs, thunder-lizards dwarfed like those of the hunting packs, but not so greatly. Monstrous black shapes shining as though covered with armor of finely cut jet. Their thick tails, twice as long as their bodies, tapered to a point; the tails curved up, twitching restlessly. Their small reptilian heads turned nervously upon long, slender, snake-like necks. They bent forward upon hind legs heavy and cylindrical as those of an elephant. They held their small forelegs close to their breasts, like kangaroohose attitude when at rest, in fact, almost precisely simulated that of these dinosaurs.

Where the slender necks ran into the sloping shoulders a rider sat, each clad in different color, like jockeys. They were of the nobles, and despite their height they were monkeysmall against the bulk of their steeds. They squatted upon little saddles, stirruped, holding reins which manipulated a massive bit. The dinosaurs champed at these bits, hissing and grumbling, striking at each other with their absurdly small heads like spirited racers at the starting post, chafing to be gone.

There was another fanfare of the trumpets, and immediately upon it the thundering of the huge feet. The Xinli did not hop, they ran as a man runs, legs pumping up and down like pistons. Necks stretched rigidly ahead of them, they swept round the oval course. They passed Graydon in a bunch and with the speed of an express train. The wind from their passing rushed through the grating like a whirlwind. He shuddered, visualizing what would happen to a file of men trying to oppose those projectiles of sinew and bone.

They passed the enclosure of the nobles like a rushing black cloud. From Yu-Atlanchans and Indians came a storm of cheering. And now, as they neared him again, Graydon saw that there was another phase to this racing of the dinosaurs. They were no longer grouped. Two were in the lead, a rider in green and one in red. The green rider was trying to force the red over against the inner wall of the course. The four thundering close behind seemed to be in melee, each jockeying to force the other against the same low buttresses. The boa-like necks of the Xinli writhed and twisted, the small heads darting at each other like striking snakes.

The rider in green suddenly lurched his mount against that of the red. The red rider made a desperate effort to lift his monster over the barricade. It stumbled, went crashing down into the island. The rider went flying from it like a red ball from a tennis racket, struck the sand, rolled over and over and lay still. The green rider drew ahead of the ruck; a rider in purple drew out of it and came thundering down upon him, striving to keep the other between himself and the low rail. A burst of cheering drowned the thunder of the Xinli's flying feet.

Again they rushed past, the green rider now two lengths ahead of the purple, the three remaining riders spread out in line close behind them. They charged by the stand of the nobles and, sliding in a cloud of the yellow sand, came to halt. There was a wilder burst of cheering. They padded back, and Graydon saw a glittering circlet tossed down to the green rider.

The dinosaurs filed through the opening and out of sight. Soldiers came through it when they had disappeared, picked up the limp body of the red rider, and carried him away. One of them took the reins of the dinosaur he had ridden and which had stood stupidly, head lowered, since its fall. He led it off like a horse through the gate. The gratings clanged.

There was another loud fanfare of the trumpets. A silence fell upon the arena. Another grating opened, close by the other--

Out of it walked Huon.

He carried a short sword and a javelin, upon his left arm was one of the little round shields. He stood for a moment, blinking in the dazzling sun. His eyes rested upon Dorina. She shrank and hid her face in her handhen lifted her head and met Huon's gaze defiantly.

He began to raise his javelin, slowly, slowly. Whatever was his thought, he had no chance to carry it into action. A grating not a hundred feet from him swung softly open. Out upon the yellow sand sprang one of the dwarfed dinosaurs of the hunting packs. While it halted there, motionless, glaring around, Graydon learned how much can pass through the mind in the time it takes to draw a single breath. He saw Lantlu lean forward with ironic salute to the man Dorina had betrayed. He saw the fighting Xinii in every detaihe burnished scales of sapphire blue and emerald green that covered it gleaming like jewels, its forelegs, short and powerfully thewed, its talons like long curved chisels protruding from the flat hands, the vicious flailing tail, the white-fanged jaws, the eyes of flaming red set wide apart like a bird's on each side of the visored head.

His rifle was at his shoulder, the sights upon Lantlu. He hesitatehould he drop Lantlu or try for the dinosaur? In only one place was it vulnerable to a bullet, through one of those little red eyes. Wavering, he turned the sights upon it, drawing finest bead...no, better not risk that tiny target...back again to Lantlu...but he was leaning, half-hidden behind Dorina, talking to some one beside her...steady, steady till he swings back...ah, that was it...Hell, Regor's moved the grating, spoiled the aim...

All in a breath this went racing through Graydon's mind. And then the dinosaur was rushing upon Huon. Regor was shaking his arm, pointing at the charging monster, beseeching him to shoot. Hell...there was no use in a wild shot...the bullet would ricochet off those scales like armor plate...better try Lantlu...what use would that be now...better wait...better wait for a chance at the devilish brute...

Huon leaped backward, out of the path of the dinosaur's rush. It whirled within its own length, sprang back at him with talons upraised to smite. It leaped. Huon dropped upon one knee, thrust upward with the javelin at the unprotected spot in its throat. The javelin struck, but not deeply enough to kill. The shaft snapped close to the hilt. The dinosaur hissed, pivoted in mid-leap, and dropped to its feet a few yards away. It felt of its throat with oddly human gesture, then began to circle Huon warily, flexing the muscles of its arms like a shadow-boxer. Huon kept pacing it, broken javelin shifted to his left hand, sword in the other, shield on left arm and close to his breast. "Huon! I'm coming! Hold fast!"

Shouting, Regor rushed by Graydon, and out over the sand. His cry shattered the silence that, except for the hissing of the wounded dinosaur, had hung over the arena. A deeper silence, one of sheer stupefaction, followed. Huon stared at the running figure. The dinosaur turned its head. The sun fell straight upon one of the crimson eyes. It stood out against the skull like a small bull's-eye of fire. Graydon drew quick sight on that red target and fired.

The crack of the rifle echoed over the arena. The dinosaur sprang high, somersaulted, and hopped staggering over the sand, clawing at its head. From the crowded tiers arose a great sigh like the first sough of a tempest, a surging of bodies. Past Graydon, clicking violently, raced Kon in Regor's wake. He raised the rifle upon Lantlu, and saw him drop behind the protecting wall as though something had whispered warning.

Dorina sat motionless, looking down at Huon. She was like one who knew her weird was upon her.

Regor was half across the arena, Kon scuttling beside him. Huon, looking not once again behind him, eyes fixed on the woman, stepped a pace nearer the wall.

He hurled his broken javelin. There was a flash of light as it sped. The light was quenched in Dorina's breast.

Silence again for another long moment. And then the whole amphitheater roared. A shower of arrows fell round the outlaw of the lair. Kon sped past Regor, caught Huon in an arm, and came racing back. Graydon emptied his rifle into the line of archers; the storm of arrows abruptly ceased.

The trumpets sounded, peremptorily. Through opened gratings and down over the wall streamed the green-kirtled Emers. Closer to them, from each side ran others emerging from the nearer openings. Kon was close, Regor drawing near. Graydon, with burning desire for just one machine gun, emptied his rifle into those who menaced them from the sides. They halted. The frenzied dinosaur raised its head and came charging with great leaps down upon the line of soldiers pursuing Regor. They scattered out of its path. The giant swung shut the heavy doors and set the bars. The dinosaur hurled himself against them, tearing at them with its steel-like claws, dripping yellowish blood from a skull partly shattered by Graydon's bullet.

"You're damned hard to kill!" he muttered, and raised the rifle for another close, certain shot at the unhurt eye.

"No!" panted Regor, and caught his arm. "It will hold that door for us."

Huon, dropped upon his feet by the spider-man, stood like an automaton, head bent. And suddenly deep sobs shook him.

"It's all right now, lat's all right now!" comforted the giant.

An arrow flew past the dinosaur, through the grating, barely missing Graydon, then another and another. He heard the blaring of many trumpets, angry, summoning.

"Best move quickly!" grunted Regor. Arm around Huon, he ran back through the corridor, Graydon at his heels, the little hands of Kon patting him approvingly, affectionately, as they went The others pressed close behind. They came to the guard chamber. They opened the secret door though which they had entered that place, and closed it with the clatter of pursuing feet already near. And in the little crypt Kon sought and found the means of unlocking the passage beneath the left-hand oval stone.

They closed that last portal. They set off in silence down the corridor into which it had opened, to the haven of the Temple.

CHAPTER XIX—The Snake Mother

THEY WENT SILENTLY, Regor's arm around Huon's shoulders. The five Fellowship men had passed the Weavers; they marched with drawn swords behind their chief. The Indians followed Graydon. Whenever he turned he found their eyes upon his though they now regarded him as their leader. The one who carried his rifle had plainly become a personage, stepping proudly ahead of his fellows almost on Graydon's heels. They came to the end of the passage, and opened without difficulty its entrance.

They stepped out of it into the columned hall of Graydon's dream!

The beams of dimly azure light played down from its soaring, vaulted roof like the lanced rays of the aurora. Mistily radiant, they curtained a spacious alcove raised high above the tesselated, opaline pave. Behind their veil Graydon saw a sapphire throne, and lesser thrones of red, golden and black at its base of milky crystahe seats of the Seven Lords.

A girl stood there, just beyond the top of a broad flight of steps dropping from the alcove, a girl with white hands clasped tightly to her breast, red lips parted in wonder, soft black eyes staring at him incredulously--

"Graydon!" she cried, and took a swift step toward him. "Suarra!" the warning voice was lisping, tinglingly pure, in it the trilling of birds. A pillar of shimmering mother-of-pearl shot up behind the girl; over her shoulder peered a face, heart-shaped, coifed with hair like spun silver, purple-eyed--

The Snake Mother!

"Let us see who are these visitors who come so unceremoniously in the train of your man," she lisped, "and by a way I thought surely none now in Yu-Atlanchi knew."

She raised a little hand, in it a sistrum within whose loop, instead of bars, a glistening globule danced like quicksilver.

Regor stifled an exclamation and dropped upon his knees, the others hastily following suit with the exception of the spider-men, who stood quietly watching. Graydon hesitated, then also knelt.

"Ah, so you have remembered your manners!" there was faint mockery in the tinkling voice. "Come nearer. By my ancestort is Regond Huon...and since when did you don Lantlu's green, Notalu? It is long since you bent the knee to me, Regor."

"That is not my fault, Mother!" began Regor, indignantly. "Now that is not just--"

A trilling of laughter silenced him.

"Hot-tempered as ever, Regor. Well, for a time at least, you shall have much practice in that neglected duty. You too, Huon, and the others of you--"

Graydon heard the giant groan with relief, saw his scarred face light up; his bellow interrupted her.

"Homage to Adana! We are her men now!" He bent until his bandaged brow touched the floor.

"Yes!" said the Mother, softly, "but for how lonh, that even I cannot tell..." She dropped the hand that held the quivering globe, bent further over Suarra's shoulder, beckoned to Graydon--"Come up to me. And do you shut that door behind you, Regor."

Graydon walked to the alcove, mounted the steps, his fascinated eyes upon the purple ones fixed upon him so searchingly. As he drew close, the Serpent-woman moved from behind the girl, the shimmering pillar from which sprang her childish body between him and Suarra. And he felt again that curious, deep-seated throb of love for this strange beinike a harp string in his heart which none but she could pluck. He knelt again, and kissed the tiny hand she held out to him. He looked up into her face, and it was tender, all age-old weariness gone, her eyes sofnd he had not even memory of those doubts which had risen in the Painted Cavern; so strong her witcherf witchery it was.

"You have been well brought up, child," she murmured. "Nay, daughter--" she glanced at Suarra, mischievously, "be not disturbed. It is only to my years that he does reverence."

"Mother Adana--" began Suarra, face burning--

"Oh, go over there and talk, you babes," the scarlet, heart-shaped lips were smiling. "You have much to say to each other. Sit on the golden thrones, if you like. What were you thinking then, Suarra's man? That a golden throne was symbol to you of journey's end? Surely, you were. Why it should be, I do not knout that was your thought. Well then, take one."

Graydon, beginning to rise, dropped back on his knee. When she had spoken of the golden thrones lines of an old negro spiritual had cropped up in his head--

When I'm through with this weary wanderin', When I'm through, Lawd! I'll sit on a golden throne--

The Snake Mother was laughing. She beckoned Suarra. She took the girl's hand and put it in Graydon's. She gave them a little push away.

"Regor," she called. "Come to me. Tell me what has happened."

Swinging his bar, marching jauntily, Regor approached. Suarra drew Graydon back to a nest of curtains at the rear of the alcove. He watched Regor mount beside the Serpent-woman, saw her bend her head to him, prepare to listen. Then he forgot them entirely, absorbed in Suarra, overflowing with concern for him, and curiosity.

"What did happen, Graydon?" her arm slipped round his neck. "We had gone quickly, and were close to the cataract. It was very noisy, but I thought I heard your weapon. I hesitated, thinking to return. But there was no further sound, so I went on. And Regor and the otherow did they get their wounds?"

"Lantlu sacked the lair. Huon was betrayed by Dorina. Lantlu took Huon and matched him against one of his cursed Xinli. We rescued him. Huon killed Dorina," he told her, staccato.

"Dorina betrayed him! He killed her!" Her eyes widened.

"She was an aunt of yours, in some way, wasn't she?" he asked.

"Oh, I suppose sn a waong, long ago," she answered.

And suddenly he determined to settle once for all that question which had been tormenting hie'd find out if she was one of these "deathless ones" or just the normal girl she seemed...if she was like the rest of them, then he'd have to accept the fact he loved a girl old enough to be his great-grandmother, maybf she wasn't, then he didn't give a damn about all the rest of the puzzles--

"See here, Suarra," he demanded, "how old are you?" "Why, Graydon, I'm twenty," she answered, wonderingly. "I know," he said, "but do you mean you're twenty, or that you were twenty, the Mother alone knows how many years ago, when you closed those infernal Gates, whatever they may be, on yourself?"

"But, beloved," said Suarra, "why are you so disturbed? I've never gone into the Chamber of the Gates! I'm really twent mean not staying twenty, but getting older every year."

"Thank God!" exclaimed Graydon, fervently, a load rolling from his mind. "Now after the good news, comes the bad. Lantlu, and most of Yu-Atlanchi, I gather, are out hunting for us at this very moment."

"Oh, but that doesn't matter," said Suarra, "now that the Mother has accepted you."

Graydon had his doubts about the accuracy of that, but he did not trouble her with them. He began the tale of his adventures. In the middle of his first sentence he heard a hissing exclamation from the Serpent-woman; heard Regor rumble--

"It is truth. Kon found him there."

He looked toward them. The Snake Mother's eyes were upon him. She beckoned him; and when he stood beside her she raised herself, swayed forward until her face was almost touching his.

"The Shadow, Graydoell me of it. From the moment you saw it appear upon the black throne. Nay wai would see while you tell me--" she placed a hand upon his forehead--"now speak."

He obeyed, going step by step over his ordeal. He lived it again; so vivid were the pictures of it that it was as though his brain were a silver screen upon which a camera unreeled them. At his recital of the death of Cadok he felt the hand upon his forehead tremble; he spoke of Kon, and the hand dropped away.

"Enough!"

She drew back; she regarded him, thoughtfully; there was something of surprise in her gaze, something of wondeomething, the odd idea came to him, of the emotion a mathematician might feel if in a mass of well studied formulae he should suddenly come across an entirely new equation.

"You are more than I thought, Graydon," she echoed that odd ideation. "Now I wonder...up from the gray ape-men you came...yet all I know of men is from those who dwell here ...what else have you developed, you who have grown up beyond our barrier...I wonder..."

Silent again, she studied him; then--"You thought the Shadow rea mean, no shadow, no shade, nommaterial--"

"Material enough, substantial enough to pour itself into Cadok," he interrupted. "Substantial enough to destroy him. It poured into Cadok like water in a jar. It sucked from hiife. And foen heartbeathe Shadow was no Shadow, Mother. If indeed you saw into my mind you know whose face it wore." "I saw," she nodded. "Yet still I cannot believe. How can I believe when I do not know--" She stopped; she seemed to be listening. She raised her self upon her coils until her head was a full foot above tall Regor. Her eyes were intent, as though she looked beyond the walls of that great chamber. She dropped back upon her coils, the rosy pearl of her body slowly deepening.

"To me, Huon!" she called. "Your men with you. Kon--" she clicked some command, pointed to the opposite side of the alcove.

Again she listened.

"Suarra," she pointed toward the girl, "Suarra, go you to your rooms."

Then, as Suarra faltered, "Nay, stand behind me, daughter. If he has dared thiest for you to be near me!"

Once more the Serpent-woman was quiet; gaze withdrawn. Huon and his men climbed the steps; ranked themselves where she had bade: Suarra stepped by Graydon.

"She is angry! She is very angry!" she whispered. She passed behind the Serpent-woman's coils.

And now Graydon heard a faint, a far-away clamor; shouts and ring of metal on metal. The tumult drew close. At a distant end of the columned place was a broad entrance over which the webbed curtains fell. Abruptly, these were torn apart, ripped away, and through the opening poured blue-kirtled Emer soldiers, fighting to check some inexorable pressure slowly forcing them back.

Then over them he saw the head of Lantlu, and behind and around him a hundred or more of his nobles.

They made their way through the portal. The Emer fought desperately, but gave way, step by step, before the push of long javelins in the hands of those who drove them. None fell, and Graydon realized that their assailants were deliberately holding back from killing, striving only to break through.

"Stop!" the cry of the Snake Mother had in it something of the elfin buglings of her winged Messengers, the flying, feathered serpents. It halted the struggling ranks.

"Dura!" an officer of the blue-kirtled Emer faced her, saluting. "Let them through! Escort them to me!"

The guards drew aside, formed into two lines; between them Lantlu and his followers marched to the foot of the steps. He smiled as he beheld Graydon, his eyes glinted as they roved from Regor to Huon and his band.

"All here, Bural!" he spoke to a noble beside him whose face was as beautiful and cruel as his. "I had not hoped for such luck!"

He made an ironic obeisance to the Serpent-woman.

"Hail, Mother!" Rank insolence steeped the greeting. "We ask your pardon for our rough entrance, but your guards have evidently forgotten the right of the Old Race to do you homage. We knew that you would punish them for their forgetfulness, so we did them no harm. And it seems we have come barely in time to save you, Mother, since we find you beset by dangerous men. Outlaws whom we have been seeking. Also an outlander whose life was forfeit when he entered Yu-Atlanchi. Evil men. Mother! We will lift their menace from you!"

He whispered to Bural, and took a swaggering step up the stairway. Up came the javelins of the nobles, ready to hurl, as they followed him. Graydon threw his rifle to his shoulder, finger itching on the trigger. Under stress, he reverted unconsciously to his English.

"Stop! Or I'll blow your rotten heart out of you! Tell them to drop those javelins!"

"Silence!" the Mother touched his arm with the sistrum, a numbing shock ran through it; the gun fell at his feet.

"He said you would be safer where you are, Lantlu. Safer still with javelins lowered. He is right, Lantl, Adana, tell you so!" lisped the Snake Mother.

She raised the sistrum high. Lantlu stared at the quivering globe, a shade of doubt on his face. He halted, spoke softly to Bural; and the javelins were lowered.

The Serpent-woman swayed slightly, rhythmically, to and fro, upon the upper pillar of her coils.

"By what right do you demand these men, Lantlu?"

"By what right! By what right?" he looked at her with malicious, assumed incredulity. "Mother Adana! Do you grow olr forgetful like your guards? We demand them because they have broken the law of Yu-Atlanchi, because they are outlaws, wolf-heads, to be taken where and how it may be. By right of the old law, Mother, with which, by virtue of a certain pact between your ancestors and mine, you may not interfere. Or if you dhen, Mother, we must save your honor for you, and take them nevertheless. Buraf the outlander stoops to pick up his weapon, skewer him. If one of those outlaws moves toward his, let the javelins loose. Are you answered. Mother?"

"You shall not have them," said the Serpent-woman, serenely. But the pillar of her body swayed in slowly widening arcs, her neck began to arch, thrusting her head forwarike a serpent poising to strike.

Suarra slipped from behind her, thrust her arm through Graydon's. Lantlu's face darkened.

"So!" he said, "Suarra! With your lover! Your people howl for you, you wench of the Urd! Weloon they shall have you--"

Red light flashed before Graydon's eyes, there was a singing in his ears. Hot hatred, dammed up since Lantlu had taunted him in the shrine of the Shadow, swept him. Before the Serpent-woman could stay him, he leaped down the steps, and shot a hard fist squarely into the sneering face. He felt the nose crunch under the blow. Lantlu tottered, staggered back. He recovered his poise with cat-like quickness; he rushed at Graydon, arms flexed to grip him.

Graydon ducked under his clutching arms, drove two blows upward into his face, the second squarely upon his snarling mouth. And again he felt bone give. Lantlu reeled back into the arms of Bural.

"Graydon! Come to me!" the Snake Mother's cry was peremptory, not to be disobeyed.

He walked slowly back up the steps, head turned on the watching nobles. They made no move to stop him. Half-way up, he saw Lantlu open his eyes, break away from Bural's hold, and glare uncomprehendingly about him. Graydon halted, fierce elation filling him, and again, unknowing, he spoke in his own language.

"That'll spoil some of your beauty!"

Lantlu glared up at him, vacantly; he wiped a hand over his mouth, stared at its scarlet wetness stupidly.

"He says your women will find it difficult to admire you hereafter," trilled the Serpent-woman. "Again he is right!"

Graydon looked at her. The little hand holding the sistrum was clenched so tightly that the knuckles shone white, her red forked tongue flickered upon her lips, her eyes were very bright...The Mother, he thought, might be angry with him, but she appeared to be uncommonly enjoying the sight of Lantlu's battered countenance...he had seen women at the prize ring watch with exactly that expression the successful mauling progress of their favorite. He drew up beside her, nursing his bruised knuckles.

And now Lantlu was trying to break from the hands of his men who were holding him...Graydon rather admired him at that moment...certainly the brute had courage...quite a hog for punishment...

"Lantlu!" the Snake Mother raised herself until her head swayed a man's full height over them, her eyes were cold purple gems, her face like stone--"Lantlook at me!"

She lifted the sistrum. The globe stopped its quicksilver quivering, and out of it sprang a ray of silvery light that flashed on Lantlu's forehead. Instantly he ceased his struggling, grew rigid, raised his face to her. The silvery ray flashed across the faces of his followers, and they too stiffened into men of wood, silent.

"Lantlu! Carrion carrier for Nimir! Listen to me! You have defiled the Temple, the only one of all the Old Race to do that. By violence you have forced your way to me, Adana, of the Older Race who fed your forefathers with the fruit of our wisdom. Who made you into men. You have mocked me! You have dared to raise armed hands against me! Now do I declare the ancient pact between my people and yours brokeroken by you, Lantlu. Now do I, Adana, declare you outlaw, and outlaws all those with you. And outlaw shall be all who hereafter throw their lot with yours. I cast you out! Go to your whispering Shadow, tell it what has befallen you. Go to your Dark Master, Lantlu, and beg him to make you whole again, restore your beauty. He cannoot he, whose craft has grown so weak that he cannot find himself a body. Let this comfort you. Tempted as he may have been, he will not now try to hide behind that face of yours. Tell him that I, who worsted him long time ago, I, Adana, who prisoned him in the stone, am awake, and on guard, and will meet him once again when the hour has strucye, and worst him again. Aye, utterly destroy him! Go, you beast lower than the Uro!"

She pointed with the sistrum to the tattered curtains. And Lantlu, head swaying in weird mimicry of hers, turned stiffly, and paced away. Behind him, heads swaying, went his nobles. The blue-kirtled soldiers herding them, they passed from sight.

The Serpent-woman's body ceased its movement, her pillared coil dropped, she rested her little pointed chin on Suarra's shoulder. Her purple eyes, no longer cold or glittering, weighed Graydon quizzically.

"As the brutes fight!" she mused. "I think there must be something human in me after alo to enjoy those blows and the sight of Lantlu's face. Graydon, for the first time in ages, you have lifted all boredom from me."

She paused, smiling at him.

"I should have slain him," she said. "It would have saved much trouble. And many liveaybe. But then he would have had no time to mourn his vanished beautor to eat his vain heart out over it. No, oh n could not relinquish that, not even for many lives. Augh-h!--" she yawned, "and for the first time in ages, I am sleepy."

Suarra leaned against the side of the alcove. A golden bell sounded. A door opened and through it came four comely Indian women, carrying a cushioned litter. They set it beside the Serpent-woman, stood waiting, arms crossed on brown breasts, heads bowed. She swayed toward it, stopped--

"Suarra," she said, "see that Regor and Huon and the others are shown to their quarters, and that they are properly cared for. Graydon, wait here with me."

They knelt to her once more, then followed Suarra through the opened portal.

Graydon stood with the Mother. She did not speak, was deep in thought. At last she looked at him.

"That was a boasting message I sent to Nimir," she said.

"I am not so sure of the outcome, my Graydon, as I seemed to be. You have given me several new things to think about Stilt will also give that creeping Evil something to think on besides his deviltrieerhaps."

She was silent until Suarra returned. Then she slipped out of her nest, thrust her body into the litter and slowly drew her shimmering coils after her. She lay for a moment, chin cupped in her tiny hands, looking at them.

"Kiss him good-night, daughter," she said. "He shall rest well, and safely."

Suarra raised her lips to his.

"Come, Graydon," laughed the Serpent-woman, and when he was close, she put her hands on each side of his face, and kissed him, too.

"What abysses between us!" She shook her head, "and bridged by three blows to a man I hates, daughter, I am woman, after all!"

The women picked up the litter, Suarra beside her, they moved away. From the entrance came two blue-kilted Emers, who with low bows, invited him to follow them. The Mother waved a hand toward him, Suarra blew a kiss. They were gone.

Graydon followed the Indians. As he passed the red throne he saw a figure within i shrunken figure all in tasseled robe of red and yellow.

The Lord of Folly! He had not seen him enter. How long had he been there? He paused. The Lord of Folly looked at him with twinkling, youthful eyes. He reached out a long white hand and touched him on the forehead. At the touch, Graydon felt all perplexities leave him; in their place was a careless gayety, a comfortable feeling that, despite appearances, things were perfectly all right in a world that seemed perfectly all wrong. He laughed back into the twinkling eyes.

"Welcomon!" chuckled the Lord of Folly.

One of the Indians touched him upon the arm. When he looked back at the red throne, it was empty.

He followed the Indians through the portal. They led him to a room, dimly lighted, cobweb curtained, a wide couch in its center. There was a small ivory table on which were bread and fruit and a pale mild wine. As he ate, the Indians took from him his suit-of-mail, and stripped him to the skin. They brought in a basin of crystal, bathed him, and massaged him and rubbed him with oil. They drew a silken robe around him, and put him to bed.

"'Welcomon!'" muttered Graydon, sleepily. "Son? Now what did he mean by that?"

Still wondering, he went sound asleep.

CHAPTER XX—Wisdom of the Serpent Mother

IT WAS MID-MORNING of the next day when an Emer came to Graydon with a summons from the Snake Mother. He had awakened to find Regor and Huon watching him from the doorway. Regor still wore his black, but Huon had traded the yellow of the Fellowship for the Serpent-woman's blue. As he arose, he found on a settle beside his bed a similar costume. He put on the long, loose blouse, the hose and the heelless, half-length boots of soft leather. They fitted him so well that he wondered whether some one had come in during the night and had measured him.

There was a circlet of gold upon the settle, but he let it be. After a moment's hesitation he thrust his automatic into the inner fold of his wide girdle. A blue silken cloak, fastened at the shoulders with loops of gold, completed his dress. He felt rather self-conscious in it, as though he were going to a costume partomething he had always loathed; but there was nothing else to wear, his suit-of-mail had vanished, and his other clothing was in the ravished lair.

He breakfasted with the pair. Huon, he saw, was taking matters badly, his beauty grown haggard, his eyes unhappy. Also, much of Regor's buoyancy had fled, whether through sympathy for Huon or for some other reason he did not know. Neither of them made slightest reference to his fight with Lantlu, and that aroused in him a piqued curiosity. Once he had led the talk close to it; Huon had glanced at him with a flash of irritated distaste; Regor had given him an admonitory kick under the table.

He did not find it a pleasant meal, but he had been enlightened as to Huon's manner. Regor and Huon had started; to go out. Graydon would have accompanied them, but the giant told him gruffly that he would better stay where he was, that the Mother was sure to send for him, that she had turned over all her soldiery to Huon and himself and that they would be busy drilling them. In a few moments he returned, alone.

"You did well, lad," he grumbled, slapping Graydon's shoulder. "Don't mind Huon. You see, we don't fight each other in just the way you did. It's the way of the Urd. I tell Huon that you're not supposed to know our customs buell, he didn't like it. Besides, he's heartbroken about the Fellowship and Dorina."

"You can tell Huon to go to hell with his customs," Graydon was hurt and angry. "When it comes to a brute like Lantlu, I fight tooth and nail, and no hold barred. But I see why Lantlu beat him. He was on the job while Huon, probably, was considering how to say it to him with flowers!"

"Much of that was in your own tongue," grinned Regor, "but I get your meaning. You may be righut Huon is Huon. Don't worry. He'll be over it when you meet him again."

"I don't give a damn whether he is or not--" began Graydon, furiously. Regor gave him another friendly slap, and walked out.

Still hotly indignant, Graydon dropped upon a settle and prepared to await the expected summons. The walls of the room were covered with the filmy curtains, dropping from ceiling to floor. He got up and walked around them, feeling through the webs. At one spot, his hand encountered no resistance. He parted them and stepped into another room, flooded with clear daylight from a balconied window. He walked out on the balcony. Beneath him lay Yu-Atlanchi.

The Temple was high above the city, the ground falling away from it in a gentle slope. Between it and the lake the slope was like a meadow, free of all trees, and blue as though carpeted with harebells. And the opposite side of the lake was nearer then he had judged, less than a mile away.

He could see the spume of the cataract, torn into tattered banners by the wind. The caverns of the colossi were like immense eyes in the brown face of the precipice. The figure of the Frog-woman was plain, the green stone of which she was carved standing out in relief against the ochreous rock.

And there was the white, exquisite shape which guarded the cavern of the dead.

There was another colossus, cut, it seemed, from rosequartz, shrouded to the feet, its face hidden behind an uplifted arm; and there was a Cyclopean statue of one of the gray and hairless ape-men. These stood out clearly, the outlines of the other he could not distinguish for their color merged into that of the cliffs.

At his left, the meadow changed to a level plain, sparsely wooded, running for miles into the first wave of the forest, and checkered by the little farms of the Indians. At his right was the ancient city and, now seen so closely, less like a city than a park.

Where the city halted at the edge of the Temple's flowering mead, and half-way to the lake, was a singular structure. It was shaped like an enormous shell whose base had been buried to hold it upright; its sides curved gracefully, drawing closer in two broad, descending arcs, then flaring out to form an entrance. It faced the Temple, and from where he stood Graydon could see practically all of the interior.

This shell-like building was made of some opaline stone. Here and there within it glowed patches of peacock fires of the Mexican opal's matrix, and here and there were starry points of blue like those which shine from the black opal. The reflected rays from them appeared to meet in the center of the structure, stretching across it like a nebulous curtain. And, like a shell, its surface was fluted. The grooves were cut across, two-thirds from the top, by tier upon tier of stoneseats. Its top was all of three hundred feet high, its length perhaps thrice that. He wondered what could be its use.

He looked again over the city. If Lantlu were preparing an attack, there was no evidence of it. Along the broad avenue skirting the lake was tranquil movement, Indians going about their businesses, the glint of jeweled litters borne on the shoulders of others; a small fleet of boats with gayly colored sails and resembling feluccas skimmed over the water. There was no marching of armed men, no sign of excitement. He watched laden llamas swinging along, and smaller deer-like animals, grazing. The flowering trees and shrubs hid the lanes threading the grounds of the palaces. Then he had been summoned to the Serpent-woman. Graydon followed the messenger. They paused before a curtained recess; the Indian touched a golden bell set in the wall. The hangings parted.

He was on the threshold of a roomy chamber, through whose high, oval windows the sunlight streamed. Tapestries covered its walls, woven with scenes from the life of the serpent-people. Upon a low dais, her coils curled within a nest of cushions, was the Snake Mother. Behind her was Suarra, brushing her hair. The sun made round it a halo of silver. At her side squatted the Lord of Folly in his cloak of red and yellow. Suarra's eyes brightened as he entered, dwelling upon him tenderly. He made obeisance to Adana, bowed low to the Lord in motley.

"You look well in my blue, Graydon," lisped the Serpent-woman. "You haven't the beauty of the Old Race, naturally. But Suarra doesn't mind that," she glanced slyly at the girl.

"I think him very beautiful," said Suarra, quite shamelessly.

"Well, I myself find him interesting," trilled Adana, "after all these centuries, the men of Yu-Atlanchi have become a bit monotonous. Come and sit beside me, child," she motioned toward a long, low coffer close to her. "Take a pillow or two and be comfortable. Now tell me about your world. Don't bother about your wars or godhey've been the same for a hundred thousand years. Tell me how you live, how you amuse yourselves, what your cities are like, how you get about, what you have learned."

Graydon felt this to be a rather large order, but he did his best. He ended almost an hour later, feeling that he had made a frightful jumble of skyscrapers and motion pictures, railroads and steamships, hospitals, radios, electricity and airplanes, newspapers and television, astronomy, art and telephones, germs, high-explosives and arc lights, he tripped on the electronic theory, bogged hopelessly on relativity, gulped and wiped a wet forehead. Also he had been unable to find Aymara words to describe many things, and had been forced to use the English terms.

But Adana had seemed to follow him easily, interrupting him seldom, and then only with extremely pointed questions.

Suarra, he was sure, had been left hopelessly behind; he was equally sure that the Lord of Folly had kept pace with him. The Serpent-woman had seemed a little startled by the airplanes and television, much interested in skyscrapers, telephones, high-explosives and electric lighting.

"A very clear picture," she said. "And truly amazing progress fo hundred years, I think you said, Graydon. Soon, I should think, you would do away with some of your cruditieearn to produce light from the stone, as we did, and by releasing it from air. I am truly concerned about your flying machines, much concerned. If Nimir wins, they may soar over Yu-Atlanchi and welcome! If he does nohen I shall have to devise means to discourage any such visits. Truly! I am not so enamored with your civilization, as you describe it, to wish it extended here. For one thing, I think you are building too rapidly outside yourselves, and too slowly inside. Thought, my child, is quite as powerful a force as any you have named, and better controlled, since you generate it within yourself. You seem never to have considered it objectively. Some day you will find yourselves so far buried within your machines that you will not be able to find a way our discover yourself being carried helplessly away by them. But then I suppose you believe you have within you an immortal something which, when the time comes, can float out of anything into a perfect other world?"

"Many do," he answered. "I did not. But I find my disbelief shakence by something I saw in the Cavern of the Face, once by a certain dream while I slept beside a stream, and later found was no dreand again by a whispering Shadow. If there is not something to man besides bodhen what were they?"

"Did you think it was that immortal part of me which you saw in the Cavern? Did you think that, really?" she leaned forward, smiling. "But that is too childish, Graydon. Surely my ethereal essence, if I have it, is not a mere shadowy duplication! Such a wonderful thing should be at least twice as beautiful! And differenh, surely different! I am a woman, Graydon, and would dearly like to try a few new fashions in appearance."

It was not until after he had left her that he recalled how intently the Serpent-woman had looked at him when she said this. If she thought something was within his minome reservation, some doubhe was satisfied with what she found, or did not find. She laughed; then grew grave.

"Nor did anything of you rush forth from your body at my call. It was my thought that touched you beside the brook; my thought that narrowed the space between urecisely as your harnessed force penetrates all obstacles and carries to you a distant picture. I saw you there, but it pleased me to let you see me as well. So it was that I watched Lantlu march into the Temple. Once we of the Older Race could send the seeing thought around the world, even as you are on the verge of doing with your machines. But I have used the power so little, for so long and long and long again, that now I can barely send it to the frontiers of Yu-Atlanchi.

"And as for Nimir--" she hesitated. "Well, he was master of strange arts. A pioneer, in a fashion. What this Shadow i do not know. But I do not believe it is any immortahat do you name it, Graydoh, yes, soul. Not his soul! And yehere must be a beginning in everything...perhaps Nimir is pioneer in soul making...who knows! But if shy is it so weak? For compared to that which was Nimir in body this Shadow is weak. No, no! It is some product of thought; an emanation from what once was Nimir whom we fettered in the Face...a disembodied intelligence, able to manipulate the particles that formed the body of Cadohat far I will go...but an immortal soul? No!" She dropped into one of her silences; withdrawhen--"But the seeing thought, I do know, I will show you, Graydoill send my sight into that place where you saw the ship, and yours shall accompany it."

She pressed her palm against his forehead, held it there. He had the sensation of whirling across the lake and through the cliffs, the same vertiginous feeling he had experienced when he had thought he stood, bodiless, within the Temple. And now he seemed to halt beside the hull of the ship in the dim cavern. He looked over its shrouded, enigmatic shapes. And as swiftly he was back in Adana's chamber.

"You see!" she said, "nothing of you went forth. Your sight was lengthenehat was all."

She picked up a silver mirror, gazed at herself complacently.

"That is fine, daughter," she said. "Now coif it for me." She preened herself before the mirror, set it down. "Graydon, you have aroused old thoughts. Often I have asked, 'What is it that is I, Adana'--and never found the answer. None of my ancestors has ever returned to tell me. Nor any of the Old Race. Now is it not strange, if there be another life beyond this one, that not love nor sorrow, wit nor strength nor compassion has ever bridged the gap between them? Think of the countless millions who have died since man became man, among them seekers of far horizons who had challenged unknown perils to bring back tidings of distant shores, great adventurers, ingenious in artifice; and men of wisdom who had sought truth not selfishly but to spread it among their kind; men and women who had loved so greatly that surely it seems they could break through any barrier, return and say--'Behold, I am! Now grieve no more!' Fervent priests whose fires of faith had shone like beacons to their flockave they come back to say--'See! It was truth I told you! Doubt no more!' Compassionate men, lighteners of burdens, prelates of pithy have they not reappeared crying, 'There is no death!' There has come no word from them. Why are they silent?

"Yet that proves nothing. Would that it dior then we would be rid of sometimes troublesome thoughts. But it does not, for look you, Graydon, we march beside our sun among an army of other stars, some it must be with their own circling worlds. Beyond this universe are other armies of suns, marching like ours through space. Earth cannot be the only place in all these universes upon which is life. And if time bhen it must stretch backward as well as forward into infinitude. Well, in all illimitable time, no ship from any other world has cast anchor upon ours, no argosy has sailed between the stars bearing tidings that life is elsewhere.

"Have we any more evidence that life exists among these visible universes than that it persists in some mysterious, invisible land whose only gateway is death? But your men of wisdom who deny the one because none has returned from it, will not deny the other though none has come to us from the star strands. They will say that they do not knoell, neither do they know the other!

"And yef there be what you name the soul, whence does it come, and when, how planted in these bodies of ours? Did the ape-like creatures from which you grew have them? Did the first of your ancestors who crawled on four pads out of the waters have them? When did the soul first appear? Is it man's alone? Is it in the egg of the woman? Or in the seed of the man? Or incomplete in both? If not, when does it enter its shell within the mother's womb? Is it summoned by the new-born child's first cry? From whence?"

"Time streams like a mighty river, placid, unhurried," said the Lord of Fools. "Across it is a rift where bubbles rise. It is life. Some bubbles float a little longer than the others. Some are large and some small. The bubbles rise and burst, rise and burst. Bursting, do they release some immortal essence? Who knowho knows?"

The Serpent-woman looked at herself again in the silver mirror.

"I do not, for one," she said, practically. "Suarra, child, you've done my hair splendidly. And enough of speculation. I am a practical person. What we are chiefly concerned about, Tyddo, is to keep Nimir and Lantlu from bursting those bubbles which are ourselves.

"There is one thing I feahat Nimir will fasten his mind upon those things of power which are within that cavern of the ship; find some way of getting them. Therefore, Graydon and Suarra, you shall go there tonight, taking with you fifty of the Emer to carry back to me what I want from it. After that, there is another thing you must do there, and then return speedily. Graydon, arise from that coffer."

He obeyed. She opened the coffer and drew out a thick, yard-long crystal bar, apparently hollow, its core filled with a slender pillar of pulsing violet fire.

"This, Graydon, I will give you when you start," she said. "Carry it carefully, for the lives of all of us may rest upon it. After the Emers are laden and in the passage, you must do with it what I shall shortly show you. Suarra, within the ship is a small ches will show you where it lieou must bring me that. And before you set this bar in place, take whatsoever pleases you from the ancient treasures. But do not loiter--" she frowned at the throbbing flame--"I am sorry. Truly! But now must great loss come, that far greater loss does not follow. Suarra, chilollow my sight!"

The girl came forward, stood waiting with a tranquility which indicated it was not the first time she had made such journey. The Serpent-woman pressed her palm upon her forehead as she had on Graydon's. She kept it there for long minutes. She took away her hand; Suarra smiled at her and nodded.

"You have seen! You know precisely what I want! You will remember!" They were not questions, they were commands.

"I have seen, I know and I will remember," answered Suarra.

"Now, Graydon, you too there may be no mistake, and that you work quickly together."

She touched his forehead. With the speed of thought he was once more within the cavern. One by one those things she wanted flashed out of the vaguenese knew precisely where each was, how to go to it. And unforgettably. Now he was in the ship, within a richly furnished cabin, and saw there the little chest Suarra was to take. And now he was beside a curious contrivance built of crystal and silver metal, the bulk of it shaped like an immense thick-bottomed bowl around whose rim were globes like that of the sistrum, ten times larger, and with none of its quicksilver quivering; quiescent. Within the crystal which formed the bulk of the bowl was a pool of the violet flame, quiescent too, not pulsing like that within the rod. Looking more closely, he saw that the top of the bowl was covered with some transparent substance, clear as air, and that the pool was prisoned within it. Set at the exact center, and vanishing in the flame, was a hollow cylinder of metal. Before him there appeared the misty shape of the rod. He saw it thrust sharply into the cylinder. He heard the voice of the Serpent-woman, whispering--"This must you do."

He thought that even at the spectral touch, the globes began to quiver, the violet flame to pulse. The rod vanished.

He began the whirling flight back toward the Templas halted in mid-flight! He felt the horror he had known when bound to the bench before the jet throne!

Red light beat upon him, rusted black atoms drifted round hie was in the cavern of the Shadow, and on its throne, featureless face intent upon him, sat the Shadow!

The dreadful gaze sifted him. He felt the grip relax; heard a whispering laugh--

He was back in the room of the Snake Mother, trembling, breathing like a man spent from running. Suarra was beside him, his hands clutched in hers, staring at him with frightened eyes. The Serpent-woman was erect, upon her face the first amazement he had ever seen. The Lord of Folly was on his feet, red staff stretched out to him.

"God!" sobbed Graydon, and caught at Suarra for support. "The Shadow! It caught me!"

And suddenly he realized what had happenehat in the brief instant the Shadow had gripped him, it had read his mind like an open page, knew exactly what it was that he had looked upon in the Cavern of the Lost Wisdom, knew precisely what the Mother wanted, knew what she planned to do thernd was now making swift preparation to checkmate her! He told the Serpent-woman this.

She listened to him, eyes glittering, head flattening like a snake's; she hissed!

"If Nimir read his mind, as he thinks, then he must also have read that it was to-night he was to go," said the Lord of Folly, quietly. "Therefore, they must go now, Adana."

"You are right, Tyddo. Nimir cannot entet least not as he is. What he will do, I do not know. But he has some plae laughed, you say, Graydon? Well, whatever it is, it will take him time to put it into action. He must summon others to help him. We have good chance to outrace him. Suarra, Graydoou go at once. You with them, Tyddo."

The Lord of Folly nodded, eyes sparkling.

"I would like to test Nimir's strength once again, Adana," he said.

"And Koon must go with you. Suarra, chilummon Regor. Let him pick the soldiers."

And when Suarra had gone for Regor, the Snake Mother handed the crystal bar to the Lord of Folly.

"Nimir is stronger than I had believed," she said, gravely. "That whispering Shadow left its mark upon you, Graydon. You are too sensitive to it to risk the carrying of this key. Tyddo will use it. And take my bracelet from beneath your sleeve. Wear it openly, and should you feel the Shadow reach out to yoook quickly into the purple stones, and think of me. Give it to me--"

She took the bracelet from him, breathed upon its gems, pressed them to her forehead, and returned it to him.

In half an hour they were off. Regor had begged to go with them, argued and blustered and almost wept; but the Serpent-woman had forbade him. The Lord of Folly leading and bearing both crystal staff and his red rod, Suarra and Kon on each side of Graydon, half a hundred picked Emers of the Temple guard behind him, they were on their way to the Cavern of the Lost Wisdom.

CHAPTER XXI—The Cavern of the Lost Wisdom

THEY WENT by another passage than that by which they had entered the Temple, high-roofed and wider. The Lord of Folly, for once, did not flitter. He walked purposefully, as though eager for some rendezvous. They entered the Cavern of the Lost Wisdom by a door which opened to the touch of Tyddo's red rod. The new corridor had cut off all that empty space they had traversed before, and the sealed treasures of the Serpent-people and most ancient Yu-Atlanchi lay before them.

There was no sign of the Dark Master, nor of any of his followers, man nor lizard-people. The cavern seemed untouched, crystal shimmering palely, metals gleaming and jewels glinting fugitively, the puzzling shapes designed for uses unguessable, shadowy in the dim light.

They first took two of the crystal disks. At close range, Graydon saw details not perceptible in the painting of the primeval swamp. They were twenty feet high, lens-shaped, a yard in thickness at their centers. They were hollow. Within the center was a foot-wide disk milky as curdled moonlight. From its edges ran countless filaments, each fine as a hair on the Serpent-woman's head, and as silvery. They were crossed by other filaments, making them resemble immense, finely spun cobwebs. Spaced regularly around the rim of the larger disk were a dozen little lenses of the moonray material. Where the radiating strands passed from the last encircling one, they were gathered into these lenses, like minute reins. The disks rested upon bases of gray metal fitted with runners, like a sled. Their bottom edges dropped into deep grooves. Whatever held them upright was hidden in their bases.

The Indians produced long thongs, tied them to the runners, the Lord of Folly directing; then still under his eye they drew them away and into the passage. When they were safely there, he drew what seemed to Graydon a breath of relief, clicked to Kon, and the spider-man followed on the trail of the Emers.

"Best to make sure of those," said the Lord of Folly. "They are our strongest weapons. I bade Kon see they are taken straight to Adana. Now do you two gather those other things she wants. I go to mount guard."

He walked away into the obscurity of the cavern.

They went quickly about their business, dividing the remaining Indians between them. Mainly the objects were coffers, some so small that one man could carry them, others under whose weight four strained. There were seven of the symboled silver globes in the Serpent-woman's inventory, and he was amazed to find them light as bubbles, rolling over the floor before the push of a hand. They came at last to the end, and with the last of their men, remained only to get the chest from the ship.

The ship rested upon a metal cradle. A ladder dropped from its side, and as Graydon clambered up it Suarra at his heels, he wondered how the ancient people had managed to get this Ark of theirs over land and through the barrier of mountains into this place; remembered that Suarra had told him the mountains had not then arisen, and that in those fargone days the ocean had been close.

Stilo carry this ship, and it was all of three hundred feet long, into the cavern implied engines of amazing power. And how had it been preserved during the ages preceding the upthrust of the barrier? It was hard wood, almost metallic; schooner rigged, its masts thick and squat, and, curiously enough, yardless. He caught at its stern a gleam of blue, saw there one of the great disks, deep cerulean, not transparent like the others. Wondered whether it had furnished the propulsive power for the craft, and if so, then why the masts? Except for disk and squat masts the deck was clear. He remembered now that the ships upon the wall of the Painted Cavern had shown tall masts, he had not seen among them any boat such as this. Well, it might have been among the pictures of the ruined walls. He looked out over the cavern. The Lord of Folly, a patch of red and yellow, was beside that strange contrivance in whose bowl lay the pool of violet flame. He stood, motionless, listening, the crystal rod poised over the hollow cylinder.

"Graydon!" called Suarra, beckoning from an open hatchway. "Make haste!"

A cleated ramp dropped down into dark depths, and Suarra was tripping down it with the sure feet of a fawn; he followed her. From a light-cone in her hand spurted one of the luminous clouds. Under his feet was a silken carpet, deep and lush as a June meadow; in front of him a row of low oval doors, tightly shut. Suarra counted them, sped to one and thrust it open. The sparkling light streamed through after them.

It was a wide cabin, tapestry-hung, and clearly a woman's. What princess of most ancient Yu-Atlanchi, flying uncounted centuries ago through racked seas from the ice flood, had preened herself before that silver mirror? He glimpsed a nest of silken cushions, and knew. Suarra was beside it, lifting the little chest. He saw another coffer nearby, and opened it. Within was a long strand of gems blue as deepest sapphire, unknown radiant jewels gleaming with their own imprisoned light. He drew it out, wound it within Suarra's midnight hair; it glittered there like captured stars. There was a book! A book whose pages of metal, thin and pliable as papyrus, were like those of some ancient missal, rich in pictures and margined with unknown symbols, letterings of the Serpent-people. He thrust it into his tunic, drew his girdle tighter to hold it.

The purple gems of the bracelet caught his gaze. They were shininarning him! Suarra, admiring herself in the silver mirror, saw them.

"Quick!" she cried. "The deck, Graydon!"

They ran up the ramp. They were just in time to see the Lord of Folly thrust the crystal rod down into the pool of violet flame.

Instantly, a pillar of amethyst fire shot up from it, reaching toward the roof of the cavern. It was smoothly round as though carved by sculptor's chisel, and as it drove up there came from it a sustained sighing like the first breath of a tempest. It lighted the cavern with a radiance stronger than sunlight; it destroyed all perspective, so that every object seemed to press forward, standing out in its own proportions as though rid of spacial trammels, freed from the diminishing effects of distance.

The Lord of Folly, far away as they knew him to be, seemed in that strange light to be close enough to touch. The quicksilver globes around the rim of the great bowl beside which he stood had begun to quiver like that in the sistrum of the Serpent-woman.

He looked at them, lifted his rod and pointed to the passage. They could not move, staring at that radiant column, fascinated.

A pulse shook the pillar; a ring of violet incandescence throbbed out of it, like the first ring in a still pool into which a stone has been thrown. It passed through the Lord of Folly, obscuring him in a mist of lavender. It swelled outward a score of feend vanished. Of all it had touched, except that figure, there remaineothing! And from the Lord of Folly, the motley had vanished. He stood there, a withered old man, naked!

Around the pillar for a circle twice twenty feet wide was emptiness!

The sighing pillar pulsed again. A thicker ring widened slowly from it. Ahead of it hopped the Lord of Folly, shaking his staff at them, gesticulating, calling to them to go. They leaped for the ladder--

High over the sighing of the pillar sounded a hideous hissing. From the rear of the cavern poured the lizard-men. They vomited forth by hundreds, leaping down upon the withered figure standing there so quietly. And now the second ring of lambent violet touched the Lord of Folly, passed through him as had the other and went widening outward. It reached the first ranks of the onrushing Urd, lapped them up, and died away. And now within a circle twice twenty feet the cavern floor stood empty.

Into that circle swept more lizard-men, pressed onward by those behind them. The Lord of Folly stepped back, back into a third flaming ripple from the pillar. It widened on, tranquilly. And, like the others, it left behind iothing!

"Suarra! Down the ladder! Get to the passage!" gasped Graydon. "The rings are coming faster. They'll reach us. Tyddo knows what he's about. Gof that hell spawn sees you--"

He stopped, both speech and motion frozen. Above the hissing of the horde, the louder sighing of the pillar, arose a screaming like that of a maddened horse. The lizard-men scuttled back. Out through them, halting at the edge of emptiness left by the last ring of flame, camimir!

And dreadful as he had been as the Shadow, dreadful when as Shadow he had poured himself into Cadok, they had been pleasant pictures to what he was now.

For the Dark Master had gotten himself a body! It had been a Yu-Atlanchan, one, no doubt of Lantlu's enemies, provided hastily for his Dark Master's needs. It was swollen. Its outlines wavered, as though the Shadow found it difficult to remain within, was holding its cloak of flesh together by sheer force of will. Its head lolled forward, and suddenly up from behind it shot the face of the Lord of Evil, pale eyes glaring. And Graydon's heart beat chokingly in a throat as dry as dust as he looked upon that bloated, cloudy body, its corpse-face and the face of living evil over it.

Another ring of flame came circling. Whatever the Lord of Folly's immunity from that noose of flame, it was clearly not shared. For Nimir retreated from it, stumbling back on dead feet.

And as he went, the Lord of Folly pointed his rod toward him and laughed.

"Fie upon you, Nimir!" he jeered, "to greet me after all these years in such ill-fitting garments! Draw your tattered cloak more tightly round you, Great Onr better still, go naked to the flame like me! But, I forgot, Master of the World, you cannot!"

Now it seemed to Graydon, mind swimming up through the wave of horror that had covered it, that the Lord of Folly was deliberately baiting Nimir, playing for time or for some other purpose. But the Dark Master took the bait, and rushed at hind barely saw the hook in time; barely could stagger beyond the reach of the next obliterating ring before it had died, all that had been in its path eaten.

He stumbled back, into the halted horde. At once there was motion among it. Graydon, dropping down the ladder behind Suarra, saw the lizard-men scurrying beyond the widening circle of emptiness, tugging, pulling, hauling away at this and that while the Shadow, holding tight around him its borrowed body, urged them on.

Louder and ever louder grew the sussuration of the naming pillar, faster and faster its pulse, and swifter and wider the flaming rings flung from it.

He ran, Suarra gripping his hand, head turned, unable to take his eyes from that incredible scene. A ring enveloped the shind the ship was gone! Another caught a line of the lizard-men laden with coffers, and they were gone! He heard the howling of Nimir--

Suarra drew him, the Lord of Folly pushed him, into the passage. Its opening dropped. He went with them, unseeing, unhearing, as powerless to tear his mind away from what he had just beheld as he had been to tear his gaze from it.

They found the Snake Mother in a room so cluttered with her salvaged treasures that there was little room to move. She had been opening the coffers, rummaging through them. Her hair was threaded with sparkling jewels, there was a wide belt of gems around her waist, and others fell between her little breasts. She was admiring herself in her mirror.

"I am rather beautiful in my way," she said, airily. "At least I have this satisfactiohat there is no one more beautiful in my way! Suarra, child, I'm so glad you found those jewels. I always meant to get them for you. Tyddo"--she raised her hands in mock astonishment--"where are your clothes! To go thund at your age!"

"By your ancestors, Adana, I had quite forgotten!" the Lord of Folly hastily snatched up a piece of silk, wrapped it round his withered frame.

"Is it done?" the Serpent-woman's face lost all laughter, was sorrowful.

"It is done, Adana," answered the Lord of Folly. "And none too soon!"

She listened, with no lightening of sorrow, as he told her what had happened in the cavern.

"So much lost!" she whispered. "So much that never can be replaced, nevehough the world last forever. My peoplh, my people! And the shiell," she brightened, "we got the better of Nimir! But again I say it, he is stronger than I believed. Dearly would I like to know what he saved. I hope he found something that will give him a permanent costume! I wonder whose body he was wearing? Now go away, childreyddo and I have work to do."

She dismissed them with a wave of her hand. But as Graydon turned to go, he saw the sorrow creep again over her face, her eyes fill with tears.

CHAPTER XXII—The Feast of the Dream Makers

FOR THE NEXT two days, Graydon saw nothing of the Snake Mother; little of Regor and Huon. He spent most of his time with Suarra, and glad enough were both to be left alone. He wandered with her through the vast place at will, beholding strange and often disquieting things, experiments of the serpent-people and the ancient Yu-Atlanchans in the reshaping of life, experiments of which the spider-folk and the lizard-folk had been results; grotesque and terrifying shapes; androgynous monstrosities; hybrid prodigieome of them of bizarre beauty. There was a great library, filled with the metallic paged and pictured books; their glyphs understandable now only by Adana and the Lord of Folly.

He had looked into the Hall of the Weavers with Suarra, and had lingered long, fascinated by the scarlet people clicking at their immense looms along whose sides they ran, weaving patterns which through the ages had become as instinctive to them as the pattern of the spider-webs to their makers. They were not more than a hundred of them left, and in their immense workshop most of the looms swung empty.

Beneath the Temple, Suarra told him, were other chambers and crypts, and she herself did not know what was in them. There was that mysterious place whose two doors, one of Life and one of Death, were opened for those who desired children and were willing to pay the priche canceling of their deathlessness.

Neither Nimir nor Lantlu had as yet made any open move. From Graydon's eyrie the city seemed quiet, untroubled. But Regor said his spies had reported unrest and uneasiness; the story of Lantlu's humiliation had been whispered about. It had shaken the confidence of some of his followers.

Regor's emissaries had been at work among the Indians; they could count, he thought, upon about half of them. Graydon had asked how many that was, and had been told that those with soldierly training numbered some four thousand. Of the remainder, he thought that many would take to the forest and await the outcome of the conflict; in fact, were already filtering away. He did not believe those who remained with Lantlu would be formidablor one thing, they were held to him mainly by fear; for another, they hated the lizard-men and would not relish fighting with them. Far more than the hordes of the Urd, Graydon dreaded the dinosaur pack and the charge of the riding monsters; felt that against them the whole four thousand of the Emer could put up feeble defense, would go down before them like stubble before fire. Regor seemed not to think so, hinted of other resources.

He had other newome twenty of the Fellowship had survived the raid and probably a hundred of their Emer, all of them soldiers of the first class.

This night was the Feast of the Dream Makers, the Ladnophaxi. It would drain the city of the nobles. The Emers were rigidly excluded, forbidden even to watch from vantage points outside the shell-like structure which Graydon had learned was dedicated to this yearly fete; they held their own moon festival far away at the verge of the forest. Of all the nights, therefore, it was the best to smuggle in the remnants from the lair, since the city would be deserted, its guard negligible. Huon and Regor were to lead a little force which would meet his men at a certain point on the lake, and guide them to sanctuary.

Graydon's curiosity about this Feast of the Dream Makers was avid. He was on fire to witness it. He determined that by hook or crook he would do so. He could say nothing to Suarra about it, fearing that she would either put her little foot inflexibly down, or that she would insist upon going with hiomething clearly not to be thought of since Lantlu's threats and the Snake Mother's declaration of war. He wondered whether he could cajole Adana into devising a means of getting into the place, came to the speedy conclusion that Adana would even more speedily devise some means of keeping him under lock and key. The Lord of Folly? It was a foolhardy enough idea to appeal to him. But since the affair in the Cavern of the Lost Wisdom, Graydon had realized that whatever the kind of folly of which that able person was Lord, it was not this kind. Nevertheless, he was not going to miss the Ladnophaxi.

While he was turning the matter over, the Mother sent for him. He found her alone in her tapestried room. The great disks were gone, as were most of the other things they had brought her. Her eyes were bright, her neck undulated, her gleaming coils stirred restlessly.

"You are so different from any one I have seen for so long," she said, "that you take my mind out of its old ruts, freshen it. I know how unutterably strange Yu-Atlanchi must seem to yoyself, perhaps, strangest of all. Yet this which seems so strange to you is all too familiar to me. And what is everyday matter to you would be to these people quite as fantasties, much of it even to me. I would draw away from my closeness which is both a strength and a weakness; look through your eyes a little, Graydon; think as you, the outlander, think. How do you sum up this situation into which you have been thrust? Speak freely, child, without thought of offending me."

As freely as she had bade him, he spoke; of the stagnation of the Old Race, of its decline into cruelty and inhuman indifference, and what he believed the cause; of what he felt to be the monstrous wickedness in the creation of such creatures as the lizard-people, and the cynical perversion of scientific knowledge that had gone into the making of the spider-men; and that although the Urd, at least, should be exterminated, still the fault lay not with them; nor even with Lantlu and his kind, but with those who at the beginning had set working the relentless processes of evolution whose fruits they were. At last, of his fear of the fighting dinosaurs, and of the smashing comber of the Xinli steeds and in their wake the fanged and tearing waves of the Urd.

"But you have said nothing of Nimihy?" she asked, when he had ended.

"Neither have I said anything of you, Mother," he answered. "I have spoken only of the things I knond I know nothing of what weapons or powers you two may command. But I think that in the end it will be only you and Nimihat all other things, the Urd and the Xinli, Lantlu and Regor and Huon, and myself are pawns, negligible. The issue lies between you two."

"That is true," nodded the Serpent-woman. "And I do wish I knew what Nimir managed to take away with him from the cavern! There was one thing there I hope he found," her eyes glinted maliciously, "and hope still more that, finding, he will use. It would give him that body he desires, Graydon. Yet he might not like the result. As for the othero not fear too much the Xinli and the Urd. My winged Messengers will cope with them. Nor are the rest of you as negligible as you think. I may rest upon that quick eye and steady hand of yours at the last. But in essence you are right. It does lie between me and Nimir!"

She dropped into one of her silences, regarding him; then--

"As for the resoes not Nature herself constantly experiment with the coverings of life? How many models has she made, more monstrous than anything you have seen here, and, as cynically, as you charge against us, stamped them out. What shapes, loathsome, ravening, has not Nature turned out of her laboratory? Why should not we, who are a part of her, have followed the example she set us? As for the Old Race and what they have becomf you save another man's life, nurse him through sickness, are you thereafter responsible for what he does? If he slays, torturere you the slayer, the torturer? My ancestors released this people from Death, under certain necessary conditions. if we had not, at the rate men breed there would soon have been no place to stand on all the crowded globe. We ridded them not alone of death but of sickness. We placed in their hands great knowledge. Is it our fault that they have proved not worthy of it?"

"And built a barrier around them so they could not use their knowledge!" said Graydon. "Men develop through overcoming obstacles, not by being hot-housed."

"Ah, but was not that an obstacle?" asked the Mother shrewdly. "If they had been worthy would they not have surmounted the barrier?"

He had no answer for that.

"But one matter you have clarified," she said. "If I win from Nimir, I will destroy the Urd. And I will leave only a few of the Old Race. Those errors shall be wiped ous Nature at times wipes out hers. The swamp shall be cleansed--"

She picked up her mirror, caressed her hair; put the mirror down.

"The crisis is close. Perhaps it comes to-night. Lantlu appeared in the city a few hours ago, swaggering, strangely confident, more arrogant than ever, boasting. Is it bravado? I do not think so. He knows something of a broth that Nimir is cooking. Well, let him! Yet I do wish I knew what Nimir took awa have tried to see, but I cannoe blocks me...he has found something...I wonder if I dare..."

She leaned forward, put her hand upon his forehead. He felt the swift vertigo, was swirled across the lake. He was in the red cavern of the Shadow! But what was the matter with it? The rusted light was thick, impenetrable. Go where he would, it closed around him like a mist of iron. He could not see--

He was back beside the Snake Mother. He shook his head.

"I know," she said. "I sent your sight with mine on the chance that sensitivity to the Shadow would let your gaze penetrate where mine cannot. But you saw no more than I. Well--" she smiled at him with one of her abrupt changes of mood, "I'm sorry you can't go to the Feast of the Dream Makers, child. I could send your sight there, with mine. But not long enough to let you see anything. It would be too great a strain for you. A littlnd it does no harm; but for any length of timo."

Not long after that she dismissed him. He went from her with a bad conscience, but with his determination unchanged.

He was back in his own quarters when an idea came to him.

Kon!

There might be the solution. Since his fight with Lantlu, the spider-man had apparently tucked him under his heart as tightly as he had under his arm during the scramble across the precipice; never passed him without clicking affectionately and giving him a pat or two with his little paws. Could he persuade Kon to scale the walls of the great shell with him, find a place where he could see but not be seen? How the devil could he cajole Kon when he didn't know how to talk to him? He turned the matter over and over, then laughed. Well, his idea might work. He could only try it.

The full moon arose over the barrier of peaks three hours after the sunset. That meant sunset in Yu-Atlanchi, which by reason of those same peaks was dark when it was still twilight outside. The Feast of the Dream Makers would not begin until the moon shone full upon the amphitheater. That much he had gathered from Suarra. And even now dusk was thickening in the bowl of the Hidden Land. He would have to work quickly.

He dined with Suarra, and the others. She told him that the Mother wanted her attendance that night, gathered that the Serpent-woman intended to miss nothing of what went on at the Feast, and that Suarra had certain duties of her own in that surveillance. To his relief, he found that he was not asked to accompany her. He told her he was tired, would take some of the pictured books to his room, read awhile and sleep. Her solicitude made him feel guiltier, but did not shake his determination. Casually, he asked her where Kon kept himself. She said he had taken a fancy to the chamber of the thrones, was usually there when not scuttling around after Huon.

After she had gone, he stole away to the throne chamber. There, sure enough, was Kon, and sitting, of all places, in the throne of the Lord of Folly. Graydon, taking it as a happy augury, grinned widely. He seated himself beside him, drew out a stick of red pigment and a piece of white silken stuff. Kon clicked, interestedly. Graydon drew on the silk the outline of the amphitheater. Kon nodded. Graydon pointed to the entrance and to himself. The spider-man shook his head, vigorously. Graydon drew a picture of the back of the shell as he thought it might be, and an outline of himself climbing up it. Kon looked at the picture scornfully, took the stick from him, and drew an excellent picture of what, clearly, was the actuality. He made it curved outward, instead of flat as in Graydon's drawing, covered its face with scrolls which apparently were carvings upon it, and then with that extraordinary facial contortion meant for a grin, sketched on it an outline of himself with Graydon under his arm. He patted Graydon on the back, and broke into a weird burst of sounds plainly intended for a laugh.

Kon had told him as clearly as by words--"The only way you can get up there is to have me carry you, and I know damned well you won't want that."

Didn't he? It was exactly what he did want!

He patted the spider-man on the shoulder approvingly, pointed to the sketch and nodded. The grin faded from Kon's face. He seemed surprised; disconcerted. He clicked warningly, even angrily. Kon, reflected Graydon, was undoubtedly giving him helut he kept his finger on the drawing, nodding stubbornly. Kon seemed to have an idea; he caught up the stick and drew a recognizable picture of Lantlu, mainly so because it showed a face with a fist planted on its nose. Then he drew Graydon again with his rifle pointing at the face. Graydon shook his head. The spider-man looked puzzled.

His next picture showed him crawling down the Temple wall with Graydon apparently held by a foot, headfirst, in Kon's hand. Graydon nodded cheerfully. If clicks could swear, Kon was swearing. He drew another picture of himself swinging through the branches of the trees with Graydon hanging on behintill by his foot. Graydon clapped him on the shoulder, nodding complete acquiescence. Kon swore again, stood for a moment in thought, then rapidly sketched himself bringing down four bars on Lantlu's head. Graydon shrugged, indifferently. Kon emitted one despairing click, and surrendered.

He stalked out of the throne chamber with a gesture to Graydon to follow. He led him to a balcony at the end of a corridor. He scuttled away. Graydon looked out. The bowl of Yu-Atlanchi was filled with darkness, the sun had set behind the barrier. He saw lights, like trains of fireflies, making their way to the amphitheater of the shell. There was a touch on his arm. Kon was beside him, carrying two of the mace-headed bars. Without a single click, the spider-man took him under his arm, swung over the edge of the balcony and seemed to scuttle down the sheer face of the Temple. Graydon noted with amusement that Kon did not hold him upside down as he had threatened.

They stood close to the edge of the great flight of steps leading down to the meadow. They passed cautiously along them, and reached the bordering fringe of trees. There Kon again lifted him, but not to swing him behind him through the branches. The spider-man kept to their cover, flitting from trunk to trunk.

There was a murmur of voices, rapidly growing louder. The fireflies became flambeauale, motionless lights like frozen moonbeams. Faintly by them he saw Yu-Atlanchi's nobles, men and women, streaming through the narrow entrance to the enormous shell. Here and there among them were the jeweled litters. The flambeaux were pallid ghostlights, gave out no glow, intensified the darkness beyond them.

Kon detoured, and scurried silently through the trees to the back of the amphitheater. He passed the two bars to Graydon, took a firmer grip on him, and began to climb it, making a ladder of those carvings he had sketched, but which Graydon could not see in the blackness. They were at the top.

Here was a broad parapet. Kon straddled it, set Graydon upon it with a bump, and disappeared. Soon he was back, picked him up and slid with him into the dark void beneath. Graydon gasped, then their flight was ended so abruptly that his teeth shook. Around him was the faintest of light, starshine reflected from the opaline wall towering behind and above him. Kon had slid down one of the furrows. He wondered how in the devil the spider-man was going to slide back up it with him under his arm.

He looked around him. They were in the topmost tier of the stone seats. In front of the seats was a three-foot parapet protecting it. Not far below him he heard rustlings, whisperings, soft laughter.

Kon took his shoulder, slid him off the seat, forced him down behind the parapet; crouched there beside him, peeping over it.

Above the western mountains a faint glow of silver appeared. It grew brighter. The whispering below him ceased. Between two of the towering peaks a shimmering argent point sprang out. It became a rill of silver fire.

A man's voice, a vibrant baritone, began a chant. He was answered with strophe and anti-strophe by the unseen throng below.

Steadily as that chant arose, so arose the moon.

Behind him, at first in fugitive sparklings, then in steadily rising rhythms of opal radiance, the great shell began to glorighter and ever brighter, as steadily the moon swung out of the stone fingers of the peaks.

The Feast of the Dream Makers had begun.

The chanting ended. The light of the risen moon fell within the amphitheater and full upon the conchoidal walls. Their radiance quickened, the shell became a luminous opal. Rays streamed from the starry points of blue and peacock patches. They met and crossed at the center of the amphitheater, weaving a web that stretched from side to side. Steadily this ray-woven web grew denser; against it were silhouetted the heads of the nobles, many empty tiers below.

Another chant began. A point of silver light appeared within the opposite wall, high up and close to the opening of the shell-like valves which formed the structure's entrance. It expanded into a little moon, a replica of the orb swimming across the sky. Three more shone softly into sight beside it. Their rays crept out, touched the luminous web, spread over it. The web held now the quality of a curtain, transparent but material.

And suddenly, through that curtain, high up on the other side of the shell, a larger moon swelled out of the semi-darkness, since there the moonlight did not fall full upon the walls. Within the glowing disk was a woman's head. She was one of the Old Race, and aureoled by that silver nimbus, her face was transformed into truly unearthly beauty. Her eyes were closed, she seemed asleep--

A Maker of Dreams!

She was, he thought, within a wide niche or alcove, but whether she sat or stood he could not tell. Her body was indistinguishable. The orb behind that exquisite head throbbed, swelled, became still. The Dream Maker seemed to merge with its luminescence, become only a mist against it. The chant soared into a shouting chord, and died.

Something sped from the orb, something without shape or form, realized by another sense than sight. It struck the web. Under its impact the curtain trembled. And suddenlhere was no web, no ray-woven curtain! Graydon looked out into space, into the void beyond this universe. He saw the shapeless thing racing through it with a speed thousands of times that of light. Knew it for a thought from the Maker of Dreams. Following it, he felt probing into his brain something like a numbing finger, cold with the cold of outer space through which the thought moved. On and on, into unfathomable infinitude it went.

It stopped. It became a vast nebula, spiraling like Andromeda's starry whirl. The nebula came rushing back at the same prodigious speed, a cosmic pinwheel of suns, threatening annihilation.

It resolved itself into its component stars, huge spinning spheres of incandescence, of every color. One sun came rolling out from its fellows, an immense orb of candent sapphire. Beside it appeared a world, fit child of that luminary in size. The sun drew away, the world drew nearer--

It was a world of flame. He looked into jungles of flame through which moved monstrous shapes of fire; at forests built of flames over which flew other shapes whose plumage was fire of emeralds, of rubies and of diamonds; at oceans which were seas of molten jewels and through whose iridescent spray swam leviathans of fire.

Back whirled fire world and sapphire sun among their fellows.

Striding through the void came gigantic men, god-like, laughing. They stooped and plucked the whirling suns. They tossed them to each other. They hurled them into the outer void, streaming like comets. They sent them crashing into each other with storms of coruscant meteors, cascades of sparkling star dust.

The laughing gods strode off, over where had lain the garden of suns they had uprooted. For an instant the void hung, empty.

Graydon, gasping, looked again upon the curtain of woven rays.

Had it been illusion? Had it been real? What he had seen had seemed no two-dimensional picture thrown upon that strange screen. No, it had been in three dimensionnd as actual as anything he had ever beheld. Had the thought of the Dream Maker created that wrecked universe? And the playful godere they, too, born of her thought? Or had they been other realities, happening upon that galaxy, stopping to destroy it, then carelessly passing on?

There was a murmuring among the nobles, a faint applause. The orb behind the head of the Dream Maker dimmed. When it pulsed out, it held within it the head of a man, eyes closed as had been the woman's.

Again the thought of the Dream Maker sped. The ray curtain quivered under its impact. Graydon looked upon a desert. Its sands began to sparkle, to stir and grow. Up from the waste a city built itselut no such city as Earth had ever borne. Vast structures of an architecture alien and unknown to man! And peopled with chimerae. Their hideousness struck his eyes like a blow. He closed them. When he opened them, the city was crumbling. In its place grew a broad landscape illumined by two suns, one saffron and one green, which swiftly circled each round the other. Under their mingled light were trees, shaped like hydras, like polyps, with fleshy, writhing reptilian limbs to which clung great pulpy flowers of a loathsome beauty. The flowers opened, and out of them sprang amorphous things which fought among the dreadful growths like obscene demons, torturing, mating--

He closed his eyes, sickened. A wave of applause told him the Dream Maker was finished. He felt a deeper hate for these people who could find delectable such horrors as he had beheld.

And now Dream Maker after Dream Maker followed one another, and dream upon dream unfolded in the web of rays. Some, Graydon watched fascinated, unable to draw his eyes from them; others sent him shuddering into the shelter of the spider-man's arms, sick of soul. A few were of surpassing beauty, Djinn worlds straight out of the Arabian Nights. There was a world of pure colors, unpeopled, colors that built of themselves gigantic symphonies, vast vistas of harmonies. Such drew little applause from these men and women whose chant was interlude between the dreams. It was carnage and cruelty, diablerie, defiled, monstrous matings, Sabbats; hideous fantasies to which Dante's blackest hell was Paradise itself which stirred them.

He heard a louder whispering, over it the voice of Lantlu; arrogant; vibrant with gloating anticipation.

Within the silver orb was a woman's head. The beauty of her face was tainted, subtly debased, as though through her veins ran sweet corruption. As her head merged into misty outline on the disk, he thought he saw the closed lids open for an instant, disclose deep violet eyes that were wells of evil, and which sent some swift message toward where Lantlu boasted; they closed. For the first time, an absolute silence fell over the amphitheater; a waiting silence; a silence of suspensf expectation.

The curtain shook with the speeding thought of the woman. But the web did not vanish as heretofore. Instead, a film crept over it; a crawling film of shifting hues, like oil spreading over the surface of a clear pool. Rapidly the film became more dense, the motion of its shifting colors swifter.

Dark shadows began to flit through the film, one on the skirts of the other, converging toward, settling at, the edge of the ray web. Faster they flitted, one by one, from all parts of it, gathering there, growing steadily densessuming shape.

Not only taking shapaking substance!

Graydon clutched the stone balustrade with stiff fingers. There upon the web was the shape of a man, a giant all of ten feet tall, tenebrous, framed by the crawling colornd no shadow. Nomething material--

Over the rim of the amphitheater shot a wide and vivid ray of red. It came from the direction of the caverns. It struck the sombrous shape, spread fanwise over it, changing it to a rusty black.

The red ray began to feed it, to build it up. Through the beam streamed a storm of black atoms, the shape sucked them in, took substance from thet was no longer tenebrous.

It was a body, featureless but still a body, caught high in the web, held there by the force of the red ray.

Borne in the wake of the black atoms came the Shadow!

It did not come swiftly. It floated through the beam cautiously, as though none too sure of its progress. It crept, its faceless head outstretched, its unseen eyes intent upon its goal. It covered the last few yards between it and the hanging shape with a lightning leap. There was a cloudy swirling where the black body had hung, a churning mist shot through with darting crimson corpuscles.

Something like a spark of dazzling white incandescence touched the churning mist, was swallowed by it. To Graydon it had seemed to come from outside, opposite the source of the red rarom the Temple.

The mist condensed, vanished. The body hung for a breath, then slithered through the web down to the ground.

No longer the body of a man. A crouching thing, misshapen, deformed--

Something like a great frond on its shoulders--

The head of Nimir!

Graydon thought he heard the laughter of the Serpent-woman!

But Nimir's pale blue eyes were alive with triumph. The imperious, Luciferean face was radiant with triumph. He shouted his triumph while a frozen silence held those who looked upon him. He capered, grotesquely, upon his sprawling legs, roaring in the lost tongue of the Lords his triumph and defiance!

The red ray blinked out. A flare of crimson light shot up into the skies from beyond the lake.

The hideous hopping figure became rigid; its face of a fallen angel staring at that flare. Its gaze dropped from it to its body, Graydon, every nerve at breaking point, watched incredulity change to truly demonic raghe eyes glared like blue hell flames, the mouth became an open square from which slaver dripped, the face writhed into a Gorgon mask.

Slowly Nimir turned his gaze to that evil Maker of Dreams who had been his tool and Lantlu's. She was standing, awake enough now, in the niche of the silver orb.

The monstrous arms of Nimir swung wide, he made a squattering leap toward her. The woman screamed, swayed, and fell forward from the niche. On the floor of the amphitheater, far below where she had stood, a white heap stirred feebly for an instant and was still.

Slowly the eyes of Nimir drew from her, searched the empty tiers, drew closeloseo Graydon!

CHAPTER XXIII—The Taking of Suarra

GRAYDON DROPPED flat behind the parapet; covered there, hiding his face, fear such as he had never knowo, not even in the red caverumbing him. He waited with dying heart for the sound of hopping pads...coming for him...coming to take him...

He raised his hand, fixed his eyes upon the purple stones of the Serpent-woman's bracelet. Their glitter steadied him. Desperately he thrust from his mind everything but the image of the Mothelung to that image as a falling climber clings to a projecting root that has stayed his drop into some abyss; filled his mind with that image; closed his ears, closed his mind to all but that.

How long he crouched there he never knew. He was aroused by the patting of Kon's little hands. Trembling, sick, he raised his head, stared around him. He was in semi-darkness. The moon had traveled past its zenith, was descending. Its rays no longer shone upon the shell behind him. The opaline glow was dim, the web of rays gone.

The amphitheater was empty.

After a little time, Graydon mastered his weakness, crept with the spider-man, hugging the shadow, down the wide aisle that led to the pave; slipped without challenge through the valves of the entrance and into the shelter of the trees.

He reached the Temple. He was lifted by Kon up to that balcony from which they had set forth. He stared from it down upon the city.

The city was ablaze with lights; it was astir and roaring!

He hesitated, uncertain what to do; and while he hesitated, the curtains parted. Into the chamber marched Regor at the head of a score of Emers armed with bows and spears.

His face was haggard. Without a word to Graydon, he stationed the Indians at the opening. He clicked to Kon, and for a minute or two a rapid conversation went on between them. Regor gave some command; with more than his usual melancholy, the spider-man looked at Graydon, and sidled out.

"Come," Regor touched him on the shoulder, "the Mother wants you."

A chill of apprehension shot through Graydon. If his conscience had not been so troubled, he would have burst into immediate questions. As it was, he followed Regor without speaking. The outer corridor was filled with Indians, among them a sprinkling of the nobles. A few he recognized as of the Fellowshiome of Huon's rescued remnant. These saluted him, with, he thought, pity in their gaze.

"Regor," he said, "something's wrong. What is it?"

Regor mumbled inarticulately, shook his head, and hurried on. Graydon, fighting an increasing dread, kept step with him. They were mounting toward the top of the Temple, not going to the room where always heretofore he had been summoned to the Mother.

And everywhere were companies of the Emers, threaded by the nobles. A number of the latter were clothed in Lantlu's green ..the defection from the dinosaur master must have been more considerable than Regor had reckoned...plenty of women among them, tond armed like the men with the short swords and javelins and small round shields. Plenty here for defense...and all of them seemed to know exactly what they were doing...under perfect discipline...

He realized that in reality he didn't care whether they were or not; that he was deliberately marking time, desperately taking note of exterior things to check a fear he had not dared put into words. He could do it no longer. He had to know.

"Regor," he said, "is iuarra?"

The big man's arm went round his shoulders.

"They've taken her! Lantlu has her!"

Graydon stopped short, the blood draining from his heart.

"Taken her? But she was with the Mother! How could they take her?"

"It happened in the confusion when the Ladnophaxi ended." Regor hurried him onward. "Huon and I had gotten back an hour before that. The Indians were filtering in. There was much to do. And fivescore and more of the Old Race upon whom we had not counted had come, swearing allegiance to the Mother, demanding entrance by their ancient right. Some say Suarra went seeking you. And, not finding you, sought Kon. And that while she was seeking, a message came to herom you!"

Graydon halted abruptly.

"From me! Good Goo!" he cried. "How could I have sent her a message? I was at that cursed Feasorced Kon to take me. I'd only gotten back when you appeared--"

"Ah, yes, lad," Regor shrugged his broad shoulders, helplessly. "But it is now the hour after midnight. The Feast ended an hour before midnight. What of the two hours between?"

Now Graydon felt his head whirl. Could it be that he had crouched behind the parapet for two whole hours? Impossible! But even so--

He thrust out his hand, struck the giant such a blow on his breast that he reeled back.

"Damn you, Regor!" he cried, furiously. "Do you hint I had anything to do with it--"

"Don't be foolish, lad," Regor showed no resentment. "Of course I know you sent no message. But this much is certaiad you been here, Suarra would have fallen into no such trap. And it seems just as certain that those who decoyed her must have known you were not here. How did they know it? Why did they not try to intercept you on your return? Maybe the Mother knows all that by now...she was raging...the one she loved best snatched from under her eyes..."

He stopped where the corridor ended in a rounded buttress of wall. He touched it, and a door slid open, revealing a small circular vault or well, its sides sheathed with polished amber metal. Regor stepped into it, drawing Graydon beside him. As the door closed, he had the sensation of swift upward flight. The floor came to rest. He stood upon the roof of the Temple, under the stars; he caught the shimmer of the Serpent-woman's coils, heard her voice, vibrant with anxiety but without reproach or anger.

"Come to me, Graydon. Go you back, Regor, and get for him the clothing of one of those who abandoned Lantlu. A green cloak with ind an emerald fillet. Do not tarry!"

"You will not be hard on the lad, Mother?" muttered Regor.

"Nonsense! What blame may be is mine! On with you, and return quickly," she answered; and when he had gone she beckoned Graydon to her side, cupped his face with her little hands, and kissed him.

"If I had it in my heart to scold you, child, I could noeeing into your heart with its load of self-reproach and misery. The fault is mine! Had I not yielded to impulse, had let Nimir take the shape woven upon the web instead of malforming it, he would not have struck back at me through Suarra. I wanted to shake his will, weaken him at the outseh, why justify myself? It was my woman's vanit wanted to show him my power. I invited reprisal in kinnd it was not long coming. The fault is minnd so enough of that."

A thought which had been knocking at Graydon's mind, a thought so terrible that he had fought its shaping, found utterance.

"Mother," he said, "you know that, disobeying you, I slipped away to the Feast. When the change came upon Nimir, and after the evil Maker of Dreams had fallen to her death, his gaze began searching the tiers as though for some one. And I think he suspected I was there. I set my thought on you, hiding from him in you. But Regor tells me almost two hours passed while time went by me, unknown. During that time, even though Kon was with me and knows I did not move, could Nimir have stolen my thought, used my mind by some infernal art, to lure Suarra from the Temple? A week ago, Mother, I would have held such a thought sheer madness. But nofter what I beheld at the Feast no longer seems madness."

"No," she shook her head, but her eyes narrowed and she studied him. "No, I do not believe he knew you were there."

"I did nout then it never occurred to me to look for you--"

"He did know I was there!" Conviction came to Graydon, and with it full vision of his dreadful thought. "Again he snared me, and he left me there, like a bird on a limed twig, until he had carried out his purpose...He did not molest me on my way back. And that was after Suarra had been taken. This is what I believe is in Nimir's mind, Mothehat he will exchange Suarra foe. He wanted my body. He knows I would not surrender to him to save myself from torment or death. But to save Suarrh, he believes I would. So he binds me helpless, takes her and will offer to return heor what he wants from me."

"And if he makes that offeill you accept?" the Serpent-woman leaned forward, purple eyes deep in his.

"Yes," he answered, and although the old horror of the Shadow rocked him, he knew that he spoke truth.

"But why did he let you return?" she asked. "Why, if you are right, did he not take you after Suarra had been trapped and while you were on your way back to the Temple?"

"That answer is easy," Graydon smiled wryly. "He knew that I would fight, feared that this body he covets might be injured, marred, perhaps, even be destroyed. I heard Nimir express himself very clearly on that point. Why should he run that risf he could make me come to him of my own volition, entirely intact?"

One of the Mother's childish arms went round his neck, drew his head to her shoulder.

"How far you have marched, you children of the gray ape-men!" she whispered. "And I can offer you little comfort, Graydon, if the truth be that. But this is also truimir will think long before he shakes off the body he now has. The mechanism which sent the feeding ray is destroyed. I sent back on the ray the force which annihilated it. So not again may Nimir weave clothing for himself in that manner, even though he may be able to shed what he wears. It may be that he can become Shadow once more, an intelligence disembodiend enter you. If you throw open your gates to him. But would he dare take the chance at this moment?

"Not now, when I am ready to strike. If he could but be sure he could enter yoh, yes. But he cannot be sure. If such bargain is in his mind, he would hold you beside him until the issue between us is settled. And then, if he won, put on your strong clean bodf he could."

"There's a large flaw in his reasoning, if that's his idea," said Graydon, grimly. "If he destroys you, Mother, it is not likely Suarra would survive. And then I would very speedily put this body of mine in such condition he could not occupy is once before, when captive to him, I had planned to do."

"But I don't want to be destroyed, nor Suarra, nor you, child," replied the Mother, practically. "And I don't intend we shall be. Nevertheless, whether you are right or wrong as to Nimir's motives, it amounts to the same thing. You are the only one who can save Suarrf she can be saved. It may be that I play directly into Nimir's hands by what I have decided. I cannot see, though, how we are any worse off by taking the aggressive. If you fail, you only anticipate by a few hours what you fear--"

She rose high upon her coils, all bird-trills gone from the lisping voice.

"Alone, as soon as may be, you must go to the house of Lantlu, face that spawn of evil and his Dark Master, take Suarra from them. If you fail, then this I promise yoou shall not become the habitation of Nimir. For I, Adana, will blast Yu-Atlanchi and every living thing within it from earth's fachough in doing this I, too, must pass with them!"

She sank down, red tongue flickering.

"You would have it so, Graydon?"

"I would, Mother," he answered, steadily, "if in that annihilation Nimir is surely included."

"Ease your mind of any doubt on that score," she answered, dryly.

"Then the sooner I go the better," he said. "Gohat's keeping Regor!"

"He comes," she answered. "Look around you, Graydon."

For the first time, he took conscious note of the place. He was upon a circular platform raised high upon the roof of the Temple. Above him were the stars and in the west the sinking moon. At the right and far below was the city, its agitated lights like a panic among fireflies. Its clamor came faintly to him. Across the lake, the caverns of the colossi were black mouths in the moon-glow on the cliffs. At his left was the shadowy plain.

And now he saw that this platform was a circle some two hundred feet wide, rimmed with a high curb of the amber metal. At its edge, facing the caverns, was one of the great crystal disks; a second disk looked down upon the city. The metal bases in which they rested were open; within them were oblong coffers of crystal filled with the quicksilver of the Mother's sistrum. From these coffers protruded rods of crystal filled with the purple flame of the destroying pillar in the Cavern of the Lost Wisdom.

Close by where the Serpent-woman lay was a curious contrivance resembling somewhat the bowl from which the pillar of violet light had ascended, but much smaller, and tipped as though it were a searchlight which could be swung upward or around in any direction. This, too, bristled with the crystal rods. There were other things whose uses he could not guess, the contents he supposed of those mysterious chests they had carried to her. And set here and there within the circle of the platform were the seven huge silver globes.

"Adana in her arsenal," she smiled for the first time. "And if you only knew, my Graydon, what weapons these are! I wish that we could have destroyed all in the Cavern before Nimir came to it. Yes, and especially that feeding ray by which in ancient times my ancestors built up many strange beings for usnd for amusemenut always destroyed when their uses were done. Aye, much do I wish it noho a little time ago hoped as earnestly that Nimir had found it. Ah, welo to the curb and pass your hand over it."

Wonderingly, he obeyed, stretched out his hand over the amber curelt nothing but air.

"And now--" she leaned over, touched a rod in the bowl beside her. From the curb flashed a ring of atomically tiny sparks of violet light. It rushed up, a hundred feet into the air, contracted there into a globe of violet fire, and vanished.

"Now stretch your hand--" she said. He reached out.

His fingers touched substance. He pressed his palm against it; it seemed slightly warm, glasslike and subtly conveyed a sense of impenetrability. The noise of the city was stillehere was absolute silence about him. He pressed against the obstacle, beat his closed, fist on ie could see nothing, yet there was a wall. The Serpent-woman touched the lever again. His hand went out into air so abruptly that he almost fell.

"Not even the strongest of your weapons could break that, Graydon," she said. "Nor has Nimir anything that can penetrate it. If I could extend that wall around the Temple, as I can round myself here, there would be no need for guards. Yet there is no magic in it. Your wise men believe that what you call matter is nothing but force, energy, in another form. They are right. All this is energy somewhat more abruptly made mattef a sornd a most stubborn matter, child. Oh, most stubboregor, you took your time!"

The opening in the platform through which they had risen had disgorged the giant, with a little pile of clothing over his arm.

"Not the easiest thing to find anything to fit him," he rumbled.

"Take off your clothes," the Mother nodded to Graydon, "put those on. Nay, child, don't be disconcerted. Remembe am a very old, old woman!" Her eyes had danced at his involuntary movement of embarrassment. "And while you dress, listen to me."

He began to strip.

"Now this it is," she said. "I could loose destruction upon the city, or loose it upon the palace of Lantlu alone. But such weapons as I handle make no distinction between friend or foe. Suarra would be slain with the others. Therefore, that is barret least--" she looked at Graydon, a message in her eyes--"at least for the moment. Nor can we send out any force to rescue her, since that would mean open fighting, and before they could reach her, she would be spirited away where we could not find her. It is a matter for stealth and cunning, courage and ready resourcnd one man. One man can pass unnoticed where many could not. It cannot be you, Regor, for you bear too many distinctive marks for successful disguise. Nor Huon, since his strength is not in cunning nor resourcefulness. Nor would I trust any other Yu-Atlanchan.

"It must be you, Graydond you must be alone. Also it will be the last thing they will expecr at least, I hope so. You shall carry your own weapons."

Graydon, half-dressed, nodded approvingly at that.

"She is in the house of Lantlu. Whether Nimir is there or not I do not know. As he obscured my sight when I tried to find him in his den, so has he there. Where Suarra is, in what plight, I cannot selways the veiling murk balks me, A told you Nimir is more cunning than I had thoughut I can send your sight as far as that place, Graydon, so that you will know how to go to it. And another thing I can do to help yout that later. Bend to me--"

She pressed her hand against his forehead as when she sent his sight to the cavern that time Nimir had noosed him. He seemed to float from the roof, pass as fast as a man could run away from the Temple, along this lane and that, pausing now here and now there to note a landmark, until he came to a palace of turquoise and opal set around with trees from which drooped long panicles of flowers all red and silver. There were immense windows, casemented, latticed with fretted metal delicate as lace-work, set in walls and turrets, and behind them light and the movement of many people. Light and movement he sensed, rather than saw, for ever as he strove to look within, his sight was met by what seemed a fine dark mist through which it could not penetrate.

Back he returned, at the same pace, pausing again at the landmarks that were his clews in this labyrinth of lanes. He stood, swaying a little, beside the Serpent-woman.

"You know the way! You will remember!" As before, they were less questions than commands. And, as before, he answered:

"I know. I will remember." And realized that every foot between the Temple and the palace of Lantlu was etched into his memory as though he had traversed the way ten thousand times.

She took the fillet of emerald and pressed it down upon his forehead; threw the cloak of green over his shoulders, drew a fold of it up over his mouth. She pushed him awaegarded him, doubtfully.

"For the first time, child, I'm sorry you haven't the beauty of which I am so weary. You look somewhat like some one half between the Emers and the Old Race. By my ancestors, why weren't you born with blue eyes instead of gray, and with your hair yellow? Welt can't be helped! The tide of things is with yohere is great confusion, and they will not expect attack; certainly, not attack from you, singlehanded. And if you fai will avenge you as I have promised."

He bowed over her hand, turned to go.

"Wait!" She drew up her body, sent out a soft call like a faint echo of the elfin bugles. And now he realized that if those winged serpents she called her Messengers were invisible to him, they were not so to her. Forth from the shadows came a beating of strong pinions. The air about him eddied with the sweep of unseen wings. She reached out her arms, seemed to gather something within each, drew them close, looking, with eyes that plainly saw, into eyes none else could see. She began a low, sweet trilling. Weird enough it was to hear those birdlike notes answered by others out of empty air close beside her lips. She dropped her arms.

Graydon heard the wings close over his own head. Something touched his shoulder, wrapped itself gently about his upper arm and sent a coil around his waist; something pressed his cheek, caressingly. Involuntarily, he thrust up a hand and gripped it. It was a serpent shape, yet contact with it brought no shrinking, nor repugnance. It was cool, but not cold; he drew tentative fingers around it. The coil, he thought, must be all of eight inches through. It puzzled him that the creature had so little weight. There was a rapid pulsation above him like the whirring of an enormous humming-bird; he knew that it was holding its weight off hihat it meant its embrace to be reassuring.

He patted it, as he would have a dog. The coils slipped away. The whirring continued. Listening, he thought that there were two there.

"Go now, Graydon," said the Mother. "Go quickly. These two shall attend you. You cannot talk to them. Point to those you would have slaind they will slay them. Trust them. They have intelligence, Graydon. You cannot understand, but they have it. Trust theo--"

She pushed him away from her. Regor wheeled him round; marched him to the edge of the Temple's roof. There he stooped and drew forth a stout rope at whose end was a grappling hook. He fastened the hook to the cornice, threw the rope over.

"There's your path, lad," he said, huskily; "The Mother wants none to see you leave. Over with you! And take this--"

He thrust his long poniard into Graydon's girdle. Rifle slung over his shoulders, he caught the rope, slipped over the parapet. He slid down, the whirring of the winged serpents accompanying him. He reached the end of the rope, stood for an instant in the darkness, wondering which way to go.

He felt the touch of one of the Messengers, urging him on. And suddenly, in his brain, he saw the way to Lantlu's palace sharply outlined as a map.

Graydon began to run along these lanes his sight had followed when the Serpent-woman had touched him. Over him, matching his pace, beat the unseen wings.

CHAPTER XXIV—Bride of the Lizard-Man

IT WAS a luminously clear night. He found his way easily, as though his feet had been long trained to every turn and curve. After a little he stopped running; for one thing, to conserve his strength for what was to come, for another, lest it draw attention to him from those who might also be traveling his path.

He was close to the palace of Lantlu when he had his first encounter. It proved to him the deadly mettle of those animate rapier blades the Mother had assigned to him for servants. From a shrubbery-concealed lane emerged a couple of Emers carrying javelins and flambeaux in which, instead of flames, were globes gleaming with a golden light. Behind them came a litter carried by four Indians. In it was a noble clad in green. He was followed by another pair of guards.

Graydon had no chance to retreat, nor to slip into the shadow. The occupant of the litter waved his hand, greeted him. Graydon, holding his cloak to hide his face as much as possible, returned the greeting briefly, tried to pass on. Such brusque behavior was apparently not the custom, for the noble raised himself, gave a sharp command to his men, then leaped out and advanced toward him with drawn sword.

There was but one thing to do, and Graydon did it. He pointed at the Emers, and hurled himself upon the Yu-Atlanchan. He ducked beneath a vicious thrust of the sword, and the next instant had caught the noble's right wrist in one hand while the other throttled him. It was no time for niceties. Up came his knee, and caught his opponent in the groin. Under the agony of that blow, the Yu-Atlanchan relaxed, his sword dropped. Graydon pinned him through the heart with Regor's dagger.

He did not dare use his rifle, so bent swiftly, picked up the dead man's sword, turned to face the Emers.

They, too, were dead.

They lay, the eight of them, pierced by the rapier bills of the winged serpents before they could make out-cry or lift a single javelin, slain in that brief moment it had taken him to kill one man.

He looked down at their bodies. It seemed incredible that those eight lives could have been wiped out in such little time. He heard the wings of the creatures whirring close over his head, and stared up toward the sound. Above him, as though an unseen finger had traced them in the air, were two slender crimson lines. They shook, and a little shower of crimson drops fell from them--

The winged serpents cleansing their beaks!

He went on with a ruthless elation in his heart. All sense of aloneness had fled; he felt as though he had an army at his back. He sped on, boldly. The lane entered a dense coppice of flowering trees. He crept softly along through the copse. He halted in the deepest shadow. Not a hundred yards away was the palace of Lantlu. The structure covered, he estimated, a little more than an acre. It seemed to be octagonal, not lofty, the bulk of it composed of two high-vaulted floors. From its center arose a dome, shimmering sapphire and opal; and shaped like that which Tamerlane the Conqueror brought back from ravished Damascus to grace his beloved Samarkand. Up to its swelling base pushed clusters of small jeweled turrets, like little bowers built by gnomes for their women.

The octagonal walls were sheathed with tiles glimmering as though lacquered with molten pale rubies, sun-yellow topazes, water-green emeralds. They contained windows, both rectangular and oval, casemented and latticed by fretwork of stone and metal delicate as lace. Out from their base extended a tessellated pave, thirty feet wide, of black and white polished stone. Slender pillars of gold were ranged at its edge, bearing silken canopies. Soft light streamed from every window through webbed curtainings. There was no door.

Graydon crept forward to the edge of the copse. Between him and the pave was a smooth stretch of sward, open, and impossible to cross without being detected by any one on watch. He saw no one, but from the whole palace came a confused murmur. A hundred feet or more to his right the flowering trees pressed closer to the walls. He flitted along the rim of the boskage until he reached this verdant tongue. Working cautious way to its tip, he found he was now within fifty feet of the pillars.

He faced another side of the palace. On the ground floor were a trio of wide oval windows, almost touching, through which came a brighter glow than from the others. And now voices came to him plainly, voices of the nobles, both men and women. They came from this chamber wherein shone the brighter lights. Here beside the pillars was a guard of a dozen Indians armed with javelins and bows.

As he stood hesitating, wondering what was best to do, he heard from the room a tumult of shouts and laughter, and the sound of pipes playing a curious jigging tune. Then above all, stilling both clamor and music, the jeering voice of Lantlu:

"Welcome Suarra! Welcome to the bride! Ho, therring forth the bridegroom!"

And then the beginning of another tumult of applause and laughter.

Graydon leaped out of the protecting shadow of the trees, and pointed to the Emer guard. He heard the swish of pinions. He ran toward the palace, unslinging his rifle as he went. Before he could take his second step he saw two of the Indians go down, then another pair, while the others stood frozen, paralyzed by this invisible death striking among them. And here was sword-play swifter than he had ever beheld in any salon of French or Italian master of fencing. He had not covered half the fifty-foot strip before all that guard lay stretched at the edge of the pave, hearts pierced, throats torn. Precise, unerring, with the speed of a spray of machine-gun bullets, the rapier beaks had reached their marks. Silently they had strucnd silently those Emers had died.

He strode over a body, and to the curtained windows. Whether there were other guards close by, he neither knew nor cared, gave indeed no thought to it. The oval windows were grilled like those he had first noted. He tried the first, but it was immovable. The second swung quietly under his hands. He snapped open the safety lock of his rifle, gripped the gun in his left hand, softly parted the curtain webs with his right, and looked into the chamber.

His gaze flew straight to Suarrook her in, and for the moment nothing else.

She stood on a dais in the center of the great room beside a flower-decked couch. She was clad in a robe of green through which her white body gleamed. Around her head was a wreath of crimson flowers. Her feet were bare. Her hands were crossed over her breasts, and around their wrists he saw the glitter of golden manacles.

Her mouth had been painted, her cheeks rouged, and these spots of color stood out against the waxen pallor of her face like those upon a doll's. Like a waxen doll she seemed, lifeless, eyes closed, scarcely breathing. And even as he gazed, she shuddered, swayed, and dropped upon the edge of the couch.

"The bride is becomingly disturbed at the approach of the bridegroom," spoke Lantlu, suavely, sonorously, like a mocking showman. "It is fitting. It is the traditional attitude. Her virginity is alarmed. Shyness overcomes her. But sooh, sooo, ho, ho!" laughed Lantlu. From all the room a chorus of malicious laughter answered him. Suarra's head drooped lower.

There were red lights dancing before Graydon's eyes. Rage so great it half strangled him beat through him. He mastered himself, vision clearing. He saw now that all around the dais was a circle of low couches, and upon these were a score of the Yu-Atlanchans. So far as their beauty went, they might have been angels, but through those masks of perfection peered devils of cruelty and cold lusts. There was no pity in the eyes that sparkled upon Suarra.

At the far end of the room, half-risen, one knee upon the couch, a hand caressing the hair of a woman lying there, was Lantlu. With a satisfaction that for a moment overrode his red wrath, Graydon noted the flattening of the once perfect nose, the still disfigured mouth, the signatures of his fist. He looked away from him quickly examining the chamber for its entrances and guards.

There was only one doorway, draped like the windows; and no guards, at least not within the room. Well, that was good...Lantlu was an easy target...the best plan would be to step in, put a bullet through his head, shoot a few more, get Suarra and escape with her before the others could recover from the surprise of the attack. He hated to let that mocking devil off as easily as that...what he would prefer was the use of a fully equipped medieval torture chamber for a day or two...howevene couldn't have everything. After all, he was playing in luck that the Dark Master was absent. Yehat was the best way. Hell! He was forgetting his best cards of all! The Mother's two Messengers! With them and his rifle he could clean up this whole devil's outfit! Where were they?

As though in answer to his thought, he felt the pressure of a coil on each side of him; knew that the two creatures were poised, waiting to enter the window with him.

He gave a swift glance at Suarra before he tensed himself for the leap within. He saw then what he had not noticed beforhat between her and the doorway the circle of couches was broken, leaving a wide passage straight from it to the dais.

And as he looked, the webs were drawn aside, and through the opening walked two Emer women, naked, carrying great baskets filled with flowers from which, as they marched, they drew handfuls of blooms strewing them on the floor.

Close behind them came four Emers, armed with maces.

"Behold!" chanted Lantlu. "The bridegroom!"

Through the portal shambled a lizard-man!

He was clothed, like Suarra, in a robe of filmy green through which his leathery yellow skin glistened, as though it had been oiled. His red eyes darted right and left, viciously, challenging. Around his scaly head was a wreath of white blossoms out of which his red comb protruded, hideously. From some hidden place the jigging music sounded again, loudly. The crimson eyes of the lizard-man fell upon the crouching figure of the girl upon the dais. His lips drew back along his snout, showing the yellow fangs. He leaped forward.

"Mother!" groaned Graydond shot through the curtains.

The leap of the lizard-man was checked as though by a sledge blow. He spun in mid-air. He dropped with the top of his head blown off.

Graydon vaulted over the low sill of the oval window. He fired again, with half-raised rifle, at Lantlu. As the shot rang out, the master of the dinosaurs dropped behind the couch, but Graydon knew that he had missed him. All right, he'd get him later! Now for the Emers. He raised his guhe Emers were down!

The winged serpents! Again he had forgotten them. This time they had not waited for his orders. The guards lay slain.

"Suarra!" he called. "Come to me!"

She stood, gazing at him incredulously. She took one tottering step.

Without a twinge of compunction he sent bullets through the heads of two nobles upon couches between them, breaking the circle. That would teach them a lesson...but better not kill any more now...better not turn the Messengers upon them until Suarra was under his arm...keep 'em quiet till then...then send 'em all to hell, where they belonged...

If he only knew how to talk to the Messengers! He'd send them after Lantlu. But you couldn't just say, "Go get him, Bowser," to things like those.

"Suarra!" he called again. She had slipped over the edge of the dais, was running to him...better watch that doorway ...those shots must have been heard...how about that open window at his back...well, you couldn't look two ways at once...

Suarra was beside him!

"Beloved! Oh, my beloved!" he heard her broken whisper, felt her lips press his shoulder.

"Buck up, darling! We're going to get out all right!" he said. He kept eyes and rifle ready on the ring of silent nobles and the doorway.

He wondered whether they were going to get out. He'd better keep to that idea he had a moment ago...launch the winged serpents, get out the window and away with Suarra while the two Messengers were slaughtering, leave them to follow, catch up and cover their retreat...

Too late.

In the open doorway, appearing abruptly as though he had stepped out of the air, was Nimir!

Too late now. No use to loose the winged deaths, or try to flee. Graydon had clear conviction of that. He had walked into Nimir's trap, and must make his bargain. He lowered his gun, drew Suarra close to him.

A doubt assailed him. Had it been Nimir's trap? The Lord of Evil had moved a step into the great room, and was staring at him and Suarra, astonishment in his pale blue eyes. Up from beside him rose Lantlu, laughinointing derisively, gloating upon them.

Graydon threw up the rifle, covered him. Before he could press the trigger, one of Nimir's long, misshapen arms had circled Lantlu, had thrust him behind the shelter of his own body. The rifle spat. It seemed to Graydon that the bullet went through Nimir's breast.

Silent, unheeding, the Lord of Evil's puzzled gaze traveled from man and girl to the body of the Urd, the wreath of white blooms yellowed with its blood, mockery of green wedding garment torn in its death agony. His eyes passed along the path of flowers, over the dead Emers, to the blossom-strewn couch on the dais, and rested again upon green-robed Suarra.

Then Graydon saw comprehension come to him.

The crouching, frog-like body seemed to expand; it drew erect. The beautiful, Luciferean face above it became white and hard as stone, the pale eyes like ice. He wheeled, gripped Lantlu, lifted him and held him high over his head as though he meant to dash him to the floor. The master of the dinosaurs writhed and fought vainly against that grip.

For an instant the Lord of Evil held him thus, then mastered his passion, lowered him, and thrust him down prone at his feet.

"You fool!" he said, and there was a dreadful tonelessness in his voice, "to set your lusts and your hatreds against my will! Did I not tell you that this girl was to be held safe, inviolate? And did I not tell you why? How did you dare to do this thing? Answer me, fool!"

"I promised her I would mate her with the Urd. I keep my promises. What difference would it have made? The outlander would have come at your summons. Nor never have knowntil too late. And no harm has been done, since you have him now. And even somewhat sooner than you had planned, Dark Master!"

There was no fear in Lantlu's voice, and there was more than a trace of his mocking arrogance in his salutation. The Lord of Evil did not reply, looking down upon him inscrutably. Stubborn lad, Lantlu, thought Graydon. Thoroughly rotteut hard to break.

He studied the monstrous body, with its face of a fallen angel, the noble head, the imperial power and beauty of ie felt a pang of pity for the Lord of Evil! After all, why not have let him have a body which would have gone with that head...damned if he could see what was gained by saddling Nimir with that monstrosity...Nimir had worked long enough for proper clothes...a woman's trick...it wasn't decent fighting...

Suddenly he was aware that Nimir's eyes were upon him, that he had read his thoughts.

"You and I are not so far apart after all, Graydon!" said the Lord of Evil, with all that alluring sweetness which he had fought when battling against him as the Shadow on the jet throne.

It brought Graydon back with a jolt. After all, what business had he pitying Nimir! It was his business to get Suarra out of periave himself if he could!

The cold eyes of the Lord of Evil were bluer, there was friendliness in theeal or assumed.

"I must talk with you, Graydon."

"I know it," said Graydon, grimly. "And it will be right here, Nimir. And now."

The Lord of Evil smiled, and the smile lightened the dark power throned upon his face, gave it something of that dangerous attraction which lived in the sweetness of his voice. Graydon felt the spell, and braced himself against it.

"Get up, Lantlu. Do not go from here until I permit you. See that you do nothing to interrupt us. I warn yond for the last time!"

Lantlu arose leisurely, gave Graydon and Suarra an indifferent glance, sauntered over to his couch, dropped beside the woman there and drew her arm around his neck. It was rather well done, Graydon thought, grudgingly.

The Lord of Evil shambled toward him. He felt Suarra's uncontrollable shudder. And when he was within a half-dozen paces, Graydon drew Regor's poniard, set its point on the girl's breast, over her heart.

"Stop there, Nimir," he said. "That is close enough. And hear me first. I know what you want. I am willing to discuss it. If we cannot agree, and if I am convinced we cannot escape, I will kill Suarra. She would have it so. Is that not true, Suarra?"

"It is true, beloved," she answered, tranquilly.

"I will then," continued Graydon, "do my best against you with this--" he touched the rifle--"If I find I can't stop you, I'll use my last bullet to blow my own head off. And that, I think, you won't like. But I'll do it. I mean it, Nimir."

The Lord of Evil smiled again.

"I believe you. And that is, as you surmise, the last thing I would like to see happen. Nor will it be necessarf you are reasonable."

"My mind is wide open," said Graydon, "but only to your words. You understand me?"

The Lord of Evil bowed, then looked at him for a time without speaking. A feeling of unreality stole over Graydon. He felt as though he were in some play, a dream play in which he ran no real risks; that he could pick his own lines, mold his situations. He lost entirely the sense of grimmest reality that had held every nerve and muscle taut as drawn bow strings. And, oddly, that feeling of the unreal buoyed him, filled him with a heady recklessnesor did it occur to hihehat the Lord of Evil might be responsible for all that.

"Neither of you can escapnless I let you," said Nimir. "You cannot harm me, nor can those servants of Adana whom I see hovering. That is truth, Graydon. This shape of mine, built as it was, is not in any manner like yours. Material, yen a way. Send your missiles through it, plunge your poniard into ihey cannot harm me. If you do not believe mry it, Graydon."

He plucked open his cloak, revealing the distorted barrel of his chest, and stood waiting. Graydon raised the rifle, minded for the moment to accept the challenge. He dropped iseless to waste the cartridge, Nimir spoke truth--

"But you," the Lord of Evil covered his monstrous torso, "you and Suarra I can destroy. Oh, very easily. Yet here once more we are at stalematince I want you, Graydoet us say, intact."

"You made that quite clear once before," said Graydon curtly. "Welhen what?"

"A better bargain for you than if that wilful fool had not spoiled my plan," answered Nimir. "And not alone because by doing so he has put it in your immediate power to make yourselninhabitable. Nuite as much because of a certain thought you had of me and the Snake-woman not so long ago. It has been so long since any one has thought kindly of me," said Nimir, and laughed--"I find it oddly pleasant."

"The bargain?" said Graydon, impatiently.

"Quite so," went on the Lord of Evil, gently. "I never intended this shape of mine to bermanent. Even if it had not been marred, it would still have been buemporary. No, Graydon, I much prefer good human flesh and blood, which, adequately treated, can be made to last forever. And, as I have told you, as you remind me, rather often, I much prefer yours. Therefore, I will send Suarra and you safely back to the Temples, even with a guard of honof--"

"I was waiting for thf," said Graydon.

"If you will promise me, should I win the coming battle, that you will come to me of your own free will and, after I have cast aside these present coverings, let me enter as permanent tenant of that body of your mean, of course, as co-tenant, I renew, in short, my offer of sharing your habitation with you without crowding or other molestation," smiled the Lord of Evil.

"Fair enough," said Graydon, unhesitatingly. "I agree."

"No, beloved, no!" cried Suarra, and clung to him. "Better death for both--"

"I don't think he will win, darling," said Graydon; the heady recklessness was stronger within him...it was a damned sight better dicker than he had expected... rather a sporting proposition...he didn't believe Nimir could win...even if he diell, he, Graydon, was strong...he could fight this companion once he was seated in his brain beside him...control him...make him sick of his bargain...and, at the worst, life would be interestino put it mildly...hell, where were those ideas coming from?...why was he thinking like that?...weakening...no matter, he had to save Suarra...he had to save Suarra...it was the only way!

"I know I will win," said the Lord of Evil, softly. "You know it, too, don't you, Graydon!"

"No!" said Graydon, and slipped away from that spell of helpless acquiescence which had stolen over him. He drew a deep breath, all recklessness and sense of the unreal gone, bitter anger and a fierce determination taking their place. "No, I don't know it, Nimir. And don't cast any more of that sorcery of yours around mr I may decide to end things right here and now. Let it stand! I agree! Now let us go!"

"Good!" the Lord of Evil laughed, the sweetness that had laden the whisperings of the Shadow strong in that laughter, "now would you make me even more determined to win, Graydon, did I not know that my victory is certain. There is only one more detail. I will not demand that you remain within the Temple during my little debate with the Snakewoman. Indee do not think you would be able to," he looked at Graydon with a sparkle of amusement in the pale eyes--"But now that I have such a personal interest in you, it is surely within my rights to insist that every precaution be taken to keeell, to employ a polite phraso keep my stake in the contract in usable condition! Therefore, you shall weahis--" He took from his girdle a broad collar of faintly gleaming red metal, stepped forward with it in his hand. "What is it?" asked Graydon, suspiciously. "Something that will keep certain powerful servants of mine from killing you," answered the Lord of Evil, "if and when you are shaken out of the Temple. I don't mind your telling Adana that. She will be fully aware of what I mean when she sees it. Really, it gives you quite an advantage. I waive that, howeveor broader considerations. Come," into his voice crept implacable command--"it is necessary. It gives me no power over you, if that is what you fear. But until you wear ihe girl cannot go."

Graydon bent his head, felt the touch of the misshapen fingers on his throat, heard the click as they fastened the collar around his neceard Suarra sobbing.

"And now," said the Lord of Evil, "for your escort back to Adano anxiously trying to see what is happening to you! So furious because she cannot! Follow me."

He shambled to the doorway. Hand in hand, they followed him, through the broken ring of the silent, staring nobles, past the hideous body of the lizard-man and the Emers whom the winged serpents had slain. As Graydon passed, he heard the pinions of those unseen guardians above their heads. He stifled an impulse to send them darting at Lantlu.

The Lord of Evil leading, they passed out of that chamber into a great hall filled with the Emer soldiers and with nobles who shrank back as Nimir squattered bhrank back and let them pass and kept lips closed and faces expressionless. Only, he noted, they looked furtively at the dully gleaming collar that fettered his throand over some of their faces quick pallor spread.

They came at last to the entrance to the palace. The Lord of Evil beckoned a captain, and gave swift orders. A double litter was brought, borne by eight strong green-kilted bearers. Into it, courteously, Nimir waved them.

The bearers raised the litter, a score of the soldiers led by another Indian officer, surrounded it. The doors swung open, and through them marched their escort.

"Until we meet again," smiled the Lord of Evil.

"May it be never!" answered Graydon, whole-heartedly.

"I look forward to many pleasant centuries together!" said the Lord of Evind laughed.

That laughter, still ringing in his ears, they entered the shadows of the trees. In the hands of the guards shone out flambeaux of clear white light. And suddenly Suarra thrust arms round his neck, drew his head down upon her soft breast.

"Graydoraydon, belove am afraid! I am greatly afraid! It was too great a price, beloved! Better, far better, had I slain myself before you came! But I did not know...I hoped...until it was too late, and they fettered me...and then I could not kill myself..."

Welo was he afraid! Bitterly afraid! He comforted her as best he could.

They came at last to the Temple. They halted while the officer and a squad of his men mounted the broad steps, signaling with their flambeaux as they went. Graydon heard a challenge, the rumbling of Regor's voice. Then down the great stairway leaped the giant, to the side of their litter; lifted them out; embraced them as though they had been children returned from the dead.

The green-kilted guard saluted, stood at attention until they had come to the massive doors. Graydon heard the pinions of the winged serpents, darting upward to where the Mother waited; turning, saw the escort beginning their return.

He felt an immense weariness; he swayed, was caught by Regor's strong arm, carried forward. The doors of the Temple clanged shut behind him.

CHAPTER XXV—The Collar of Nimir

SUARRA'S SOFT HANDS caressed him, she was murmuring broken words of pity, of endearment. He mastered his weakness, and broke away from Regor. The immense vestibule was filled with Indian soldiers in the Mother's blue, and some score of the nobles. Now these latter strode toward them, eagerly, their customary poise banished by devouring curiosity. But Regor waved them aside.

"To the Mothend at once. Suarra, you are not harmed?"

She shook her head, and he hurried them onward. His eyes fell upon the metal collar around Graydon's neck, and he paused, staring at it perplexedly.

"The badge of Nimir!" laughed Graydon, mirthlessly. The giant reached out his hand, as though to tear it from him.

"No," Graydon pushed him away, "it's not so easy as all that, Regor."

The giant glared at the collar, uneasily, his brows knitted.

"It is a matter for the Mother," said Suarra. "Quickly, for the night wanes."

She took Graydon's hand, sped on with him, leaving Regor to follow. On they went through wide corridors filled with the Emers and little knots of the Old Race, stopping not even for greeting, until they came to that curving buttress up through which ran the shaft to the Serpent-woman's sanctuary. They stepped from it out onto the roof of the Temple.

"Mother!" cried Suarra.

There was a gleam of rosy-pearl, flashing to her, the coils of Adana undulating over the platform. Her body arose be side the girl, her childish arms went round her neck, drawing her head down to her little tilted breasts. For the first time, Graydon heard something suspiciously like a human sob in the Serpent-woman's voice.

"My daughter! Suarra! My daughter!"

And Suarra clung to her, weeping, while the Mother's heart-shaped mouth caressed her misty hair.

The Mother raised her head, thrust out a hand to Graydon. Her gaze fell upon the collar of the Lord of Evil. She grew rigid, her eyes dilated, her neck thrust forward, her pointed red tongue flicked ounce, twicike a snake's.

She dipped from Suarra, reached out and touched Graydon upon the heart, the forehead; then cupped his face in her tiny hands and stared deep into his eyes. And gradually into the purple pools came pity, regrend a certain apprehension, or so it seemed to him.

"So!" she whispered, and dropped her hands. "Shat is what he plans!" Her gaze drew inward, it was as though she were talking to herself, unseeing, unaware of them--"But he will be loath to use that weapontil the last. I can meet it, yes. But I, too, am loath to use that powes reluctant as he. By my ancestorad I but one of my own people to stand beside me! Yes, had I but another of the Lords to stand with Tydd would not fear. Welhere is no choice. And if between us Nimir and I unloose that which we cannot again leash, will not destruction spread like a swift pestilence over all this spinning globe...make of earth a desert indeed...bare of life? Aut then Nimir himself cannot escape destruction..."

Her gaze came back to Graydon.

"There, child," she said, softly. "Don't despair. So you pitied Nimir, did you? And made his bargain! While he dropped his poison into your mind so cunninglh, so cunningly! Well, it was written, I supposnd had to be. Nor was it your fault. It was I who baited that trap, though unknowingly, when I gave way to my woman's vanity and altered his clothing to my whim there at the Ladnophaxi. What has happened is but the pattern I made. You could have done nothing elsnd it might be worse. We will let the dice lie as they have fallen. Oh, do not stare at me. It is no sorcery. I have read your thought, that is all. But I would hear the tale in words. Suarra--"

She turned to the girl. She saw, apparently for the first time, the bridal robe of green, the painted cheeks and lips. And at the sight, all her wrath against Nimir, all her hours of anxiety for Suarra, came to a focus and exploded. She threw out her hands, ripped the robe from the girl, leaving her revealed in all her white loveliness.

"Go over there and wash your face!" hissed the Snake Mother, as angrily as any old-fashioned woman might to a daughter she had caught surreptitiously dipping into the rouge pot.

The girl gasped, then fled, an ivory shadow, into the dimness around Adana's cushioned nest. And Graydon, despite all his weariness and trouble, chuckled; it was one of the flashes of purely human character that took away from this entirely unhuman being any mind-clogging awe or sense of terrifying strangeness; that made him doubt the doubts which, significantly enough, never crossed his mind when he was with her.

The Mother looked at him angrily, raised her hand as though half inclined to slap him; then glided to Suarra. He heard her talking gently, even remorsefully, to the girl. Then she called him.

A globe of dim luminescence pulsed out beside her. By its light he saw that Suarra had thrown round herself a covering cloak, and that she had cleansed her face of paint. She glanced at him, and dropped her head. The Serpent-woman laughed, brought their faces together, cheek by cheek.

"Don't mind, child," she said. "He knows women have bodies, I'm sure. Or should, by this time. And Regor is old enough to be your great-grandfather, at least. Come over, Regor. Now tell us, daughter, just what happened. Here, drink this."

She reached down into her coffer, took from it a small phial, filled a crystal goblet with water, and into it a drop from the phial. Suarra sipped, and handed it to Graydon. He drank, a tingling went through him, all weariness vanished; tenseness relaxed, his mind cleared, and he sank back beside Regor, listening to Suarra.

There was little of what she told, save how she had been trapped, that he did not know. An Emer officer had come to her after she had left the Mother and was watching the arrival of Huon's refugees from the lair. He bore a message from the Lord Graydon, he told her, who was on the lower terrace of the Temple. The Lord Graydon had discovered something there he wanted her to see before they went to the Mother with news of it. The Lord Graydon had commanded the speaker to find her and guide her to where he waited.

The very boldness and simplicity of the ruse had snared her. She knew that the Temple terraces were guarded, and it never occurred to her to doubt the genuineness of the summons. She had gone along the lower terrace, passing several squads of guards and answering their challenges. She had just gone by one of these squads when a cloak was thrown over her head, and she was lifted up and borne away.

"They were Lantlu's men," said Regor. "They had killed our guards, and taken their places. They were clad in the Mother's colors. We found the bodies of our men where they had been hurled over the terrace."

When they had gotten into the shelter of the trees, Suarra continued, her wrists and ankles had been bound and she had been placed in a litter. She had been taken straight to Lantlu's palace. There, Indian women had rouged and wreathed her and before she could suspect what was intended, had stripped her, clothed her in the green robe and snapped the golden manacles. Then she had been led to the room where Graydon had found heo learn from Lantlu's jeering lips what he had in store for her.

The Serpent-woman listened, head swaying back and forth menacingly, eyes glittering; she asked no questions, did not Interrupt. "Regor," she said quietly, when Suarra was done, "go you now, and make sure there has been no chink left through which any other rat of Nimir can creep. Take what sleep you caor at dawn all within the Temple must be awake and at their posts. By another dawn, either I or Nimir will have conquered. Suarra, Graydoou two sleep here beside me for what remains of this night."

And when Regor had gone, she took a hand of his in both of hers.

"Child," she said, softly, "do not fear. You shall sleep deep, and without dream or fear of Nimir. There are still four hours before dawn. I will awaken yond then we shall talk of what is to be done. About this, I mean--" she touched the sullenly glowing collar--"and other things. Now drink thiou, too, Suarra."

She dipped again into her coffer, drew forth another phial, dropped one colorless globule into the goblet They drank of it. Suarra yawned, sank down upon the cushions, smiled at him sleepily; her eyes closed. He felt a delicious lethargy stealing over him, let his head fall upon his cushions. He looked again at the Serpent-woman. She had drawn forth her sistrum, was holding it on high. From it streamed a slender pencil of milky light. She pointed it to the zenith, began to trace within its depths an ever-widening spiral.

She was signaling. Signaling, he wondered drowsily, to whoo what? He fell asleep.

The Mother's touch awakened him; he looked up into her face bending over him. Her purple eyes were dilated, phosphorescent, enormous in the heart of her childish face. He sprang to his feet. At the edge of the platform was the Lord of Folly, peering over toward the lake; the scarlet figure of Kon, the spider-man, and the black bulk of Regor beside him. Suarra was still asleep, her cheek nestled in the crook of one white arm stretched from under a heap of silken coverings.

Graydon shivered, feeling suddenly chill. For the first time since he had entered the Hidden Land, the sky was obscured. The clouds hung low, not more than three hundred feet above the Temple. They were less like clouds than a solid steel-gray ceiling, motionless.

Above him, and all around him, was a continuous soughing and whispering like the circling flight of countless and immense birds. Rhythmically they pulsed, this beating of unseen pinions--

The winged serpents! The Messengers of the Snake Mother! It was they she had been summoning from beyond the barrier with her slender beam of light!

She took his hand, glided with him over to the platform's edge, gave him a lens similar to that he had used in Huon's lair, pointed a finger to the nearer shore of the lake. He looked through it.

The shore was encrusted with the lizard-men! They surged there by the hundreds, by the thousands, it seemed to him; their ranks moving slowly forward as others joined them, wading up from the waters. And now he saw that the Urd horde was streaming across the lake from the caverns, that the surface was streaked from side to side with the swimming horde. And that along the front of those who had landed rode a half dozen of Lantlu's nobles upon the black dinosaurs, whipping them into order with huge lashes shaped like sjamboks. One of them leaned over the side of his monstrous steed. Graydon caught the dull glimmer of red metal around his throat, looked more closely. It was a collar such as that which the Lord of Evil had snapped around his own neck.

Another of the dinosaur riders bore this badge of Nimind another. He dropped the lens, turned to the Serpent-woman. She nodded, answering his unspoken question.

"Yes," she said, "Nimir has linked you to him. Part of what he told you was truth, Graydout part of it was lies. When he said that it would protect you, he spoke truth. But when he said it gave him no power over yohere he lied, indeed."

She was silent, while he stared at her, miserably. "And that is why you may not stay here with me to help us as I had hoped. For Nimir is cunning and desperatnd I hope will soon be much more desperatnd it might be that in one unguarded moment of yours he could wreck through you all that I plan."

"Not through me!" groaned Graydon. "No, no!"

"We cannot afford to run the risk," answered the Mother. "Now I could rid you of his marut something whispers to me to let it be. That in doing this to you, Nimir has made a mistake. That if he had been wise he would have let the cards fall as I had disposed them for him. That he should have bent his mind solely upon this issue, but that his eagerness to possess you may react upon him, even as my vanity has reacted upon me. How this advantage may come, I do not knout it is there--"

"The last Urd has reached the shore, Adana," muttered Regor. "We should go."

"Go you then with Regor and Huon," said the Mother. "They have use for you. And of this be surimir shall not have you. This I have promised you. And I, Adana, tell you that thus it shall be."

And suddenly she leaned forward and set her lips to his forehead.

"Awaken Suarra," she said. "Bid her good-bhen go swiftly. If we meet never agai loved you, child."

Again she kissed him, then pushed him away. He bent over the sleeping girl. She opened drowsy eyes, looked up at him, dropped an arm around his neck and drew his lips down to hers.

"Oh, but I have slept," she murmured, but half-awake. "And is it already dawn?"

"It is well beyond dawn, heart of mine," he told her. "And I must go with Regor and Huon down into the Temple--"

"Into the Temple!" she sat up, all awake. "But I thought you were to be here. With me. Mother--"

"Have no fear, darling," he laughed, and only Adana knew what that laughter cost him, "I have the habit of coming back to you."

Regor tapped his shoulder. Graydon gently withdrew the clinging arms, kissed her once more, strode swiftly away between the giant and Huon. His last glimpse of her as the three dropped down the shining shaft was her head against the breast of the Serpent-woman, her hand raised to her lips to throw him a parting kisnd doubt beginning to darken her clear eyes.

CHAPTER XXVI—Ragnarok in Yu-Atlanchi

NOW OF THE FREIGHT of those dread hours following his parting with Suarra, Graydon saw with his own eyes only a part. The complete picture he had to arrange from the stories of others.

They passed on quickly, the three of them, stopping only to get his pouch of cartridges. They came to the entrance of the chamber of the thrones. Here Regor halted.

"We have destroyed the opening mechanism of every tunnel entrance to the Temple except one," he began, abruptly. "That one cannot be forced. This was at command of the Mother. Unless she has miscalculated, we cannot therefore be taken by surprise from without. It will be Nimir's and Lantlu's object to get us out of the Temple, where they can overwhelm us with the Xinli and the Urd. Ours to prevent it.

"We threw up during the night, strong barricades across the great stairs. We have stationed regiments upon the three terraces all around the Temple. If the attack becomes too hot, they can swarm back into the Temple by means of scaling ladders from the windows and through the great doors. Every window and opening is manned by archers and javelins and mace-men. Huon commands the barricade. You, Graydon, are to fight beside him. If they charge with the riding Xinii, try to kill their riders with that weapon of yours. If you can sting the Xinii into turning back upon those who follot will be very good. At the worst, a Xinli with none to guide it is not of much use to Lantlu. We must beat them ofhat is all. What Nimir has hidden in his girdle we don't know. Above us all fights the Motheho probably does know. And who has weapons as deadly as any possessed by the Lord of Evil, be sure of that! I do not think this is farewell, lad," the giant's voice grew husky--"but if farewell it be--" he threw his sound arm around Graydon, hugged him mightily, gripped the hand of Huon, and strode away.

"You and I, Graydon." Huon's voice was grim. "You remember what I told you that night you set out for the cavern of the Frog-woman. You and I togethender a red sky from which icy shadows dropped and battled with shapes of flame. It is the hound I am glad. Look."

He pointed to a high window out of which a dozen bowmen peered. Through it could be seen a little square of sky. The ceiling of cloud was no longer steely gray. It was becoming lurid, tinged with a sinister red which slowly deepened as he looked.

"Come!" said Huon. Silently, they passed on into the vast vestibule into which the portals of the Temple opened. It was crowded with Emers armed with bows and the crushing clubs, swords and javelins. Captaining them were some twenty of the Old Race, armed only with swords and maces. They had been waiting for Huon, for as he approached the massive metal valves of the doors swung back. The soldiers marching behind them, they passed out upon the broad platform which met the colossal flight of stone steps.

The parapets of the three terraces were lined with soldiers, like the walls of some beleaguered city. A double barricade of stone blocks had been raised across the stairway. These barricades were about six feet high, the first beginning at the lowest terrace, the second some fifty feet behind it. At the base of each were blocks upon which the defenders could stand. He thought what an excellent trap that fifty-foot enclosure could be made into, wished heartily for just half a dozen machine guns to station on the top of the hither barricade. What a shambles they could make of it!

He checked himselo use of thinking in terms of modern warfare in this game, where the opposing generals held powers of which neither their officers nor rank and file knew anything. He reached the further wall, unslung his rifle, drew the little bag of cartridges in front of him, and felt through its contents. Not more than a couple of hundred, he reflected ruefully. Well, with careful shooting, that many could do a lot of damage. He charged his magazine, while Huon disposed of his force.

Graydon peered down toward the lake edge. It was a damned nasty colohat reddish light from the cloud canopy made it mighty hard to see anything at any distance. Nimir was doing it, of course. Where was Nimir? Would he fight with his followers, or was he, like the Serpent-woman, in some secret place directing his mysterious forces?

Nimir had seemed very certain of winning. He might have lied to him about some thingut he hadn't been lying about that. He meant it. Wouldn't it be better after all to vault the barricade, get to the Lord of Evil, anive himself to him? Force immediate trial of that infernal experiment? It would hold Nimir back, cause an armistice until the Dark Master was within him. After that, he could fight it out with Nimir. By Gohy not? That would be worth the trying! If he woe'd have saved Suarrnd the Mothend Regoine old boy, Regor. Why have all this slaughter when he could stop it?

The thought was like a whisper in his mind.

A whisper!

Graydon pulled himself up, gasping. A whisper? Like the whisper of the Shadow!

The Serpent-woman had been right! It was Nimihispering to his mind, luring him, tempting him, lying to him. Playing him! Thank God she hadn't let him stay up there on the roof! His hands flew up to the collar, tore at ie seemed to hear the laughter of the Lord of Evil!

Huon gripped his arm. Graydon turned to him, trembling, the cold sweat pouring down his face.

"Huon," he said, breathlessly, "if I start to run to the enemy, if I do one single thing that seems to you to bot myselnock me on the head with your sword. Or put the sword through me, if it seems necessary."

"Do not fear," Huon nodded, gravely. "I am watching, and you shall not be betrayed."

From the Temple came the blare of warning bugles. Far away, on the fringe of the meadow, there was movement, the glinting of black scales, and the dull gleaming of yellow leathery skins.

"They come!" said Huon, and shouted to his men. The shout was echoed along the terraces. There was a whistling of bowstrings being tested. Then silence as the defenders watched the approach.

The attackers came slowly at first. In the van were the great dinosaurs spread out some fifty feet apart. With chagrin, Graydon saw that these riders were clad in coats-of-mail, their faces visored. He had never tried a bullet against that armor; wondered how pierceable it might be; took comfort in the thought that, at worst, the impact would probably knock them from their saddles.

Behind the dinosaurs padded the horde of the lizard-men. And it was a real horde six deep and shoulder to shoulder over a thousand foot line. If the Urd had leaders, then they were of their own kind and not to be distinguished from the mass. On they padded in the wake of the black saurians, their red eyes glittering, their heads thrust forward, talons outstretched.

A hundred yards behind the Urd marched ordered companies of green-kilted Indians led by Lantlu's nobles.

Graydon thought he recognized the plan of attack. It was to be a sledge bloo subtle strategy. The great dinosaurs, impervious to arrows and, except for a skilful and lucky thrust, to swords and javelins, were to crush like battering rams through the defense. Into the gaps would stream the Urd, hard to kill, fighting with poisonous fang and claw...The Emer would mop up after them, penetrating the Temple With Lantlu's nobles....But where were Lantlu and his scaled pack?

There was a tumult of trumpets in the oncoming ranks. The black dinosaurs stamped thunderously and broke into a run. Like a long yellow hissing comber the lizard-men rolled forward. They swept down upon the Temple.

A ray of milk light flashed up from the roof. Instantly all the air was filled with the buglings of the winged serpents!

And instantly the rush of the dinosaurs and the lizard-men was checked. From the saddles of a full third of the Xinli their riders were flung, as though torn off by lariats. Caught in the invisible coils of the winged serpents and dragged to earth.

Among the lizard-men began a maelstrom milling. Squalling and hissing they leaped and hopped, striking with their chisel-edged talons; bringing some of the Messengers down, tearing at them with fang and claw, as movements here and there plainly showed. But the Urd themselves were falling by the hundred, pierced through heart and brain by the rapier beaks.

From the backs of the dinosaurs half the riders were gone, And the monsters were faring badly. Graydon saw them whirling frantically upon their heavy hind legs, hissing in rage, hitting out with their absurdly small forelegs, striking viciously with their snake-like necks.

One pivoted, then another and another. They went crashing back through the lizard-men. The Indians had halted, and now as the saurians tore through the Urd they wavered, broke formation, fled out of their paths. Into those paths ran nobles who sprang up and snatched at dangling reins, struggled to bring the monsters into subjection. Many of them they did, but a score or more of the Yu-Atlanchans were trampled into the grass before it was done.

From the Temple came a summoning blare of the bugles. It was answered from the left by others. Over the meadow charged regiments of blue-kilted Emer led by mailed nobles from whose shoulders streamed blue cloaks, the livery of the Mother. They had lain hidden until now, and Graydon's blood sang victory as he watched them charge. Their front line dropped upon their knees. A cloud of arrows whistled into the broken ranks of Lantlu's soldiery. They arose, rushed on again, and struck against the green-clad Indians like a wave.

And now there were two battles upon the meainged serpents against Xinli and Urd, and behind them the locked lines of nobles and Emer.

From all the Temple rang out a wild shout of triumph. Out of the distance, from the direction of the caverns, came a vast humming, a drone rising to a shrieking wail which tortured the ears; then, falling below the range of hearing, became an unheard sound that shook the brain and every nerve to the verge of madness. Closer drew that droning, traveling with projectile speed. It paused overhead and came to rest directly above the Temple. Up rose the maddening note, then downd up and down--

And suddenly all the space between earth and the lurid sky was shot through with rays of dull red light. They seemed rigid, those raytriated. They tore at the eyes as the drone tore at the brain.

But not then did Graydon know that. He felt nothing; the drone of madness was to him only a humming as of some gigantic top, nothing more; the red rays spared him.

Uncomprehending, he watched Huon's sword drop from his hands, saw him reel, hands clasped over eyes--

And saw appear in that inexplicable, rigid lighhe winged serpents. The Messengers of the Motheo longer protected by their cloak of invisibility!

They were black shapes, caught in the rays. And they, too, were blinded. Whirling and tumbling, striking against each other, they fell. Little and great, the winged serpents dropped, coils lashing, into the talons of the Urd, the lizard-men, immune like Graydon himself to that intolerable vibration of linked light and sound.

Within the Temple sound and light brought full madness, as though they were intensified. In tortured brains of one and all was but one thougho get into the open; to run and ruway from drone and searing ray. The huge doors flung open. Out of them poured Emer and noble, men and women alike. They came dropping from the windows--

Shaken out of the Temple even as the Lord of Evil had promised!

Through the droning came a hideous sussuration, a hellish hissing. He knew it for what it was before his eyes told him. The hunting packs of the dinosaurs. Emerald and sapphire scales glittering in the crimson light, crimson eyes flaming, they burst from the shelter of the trees that stretched between the Temple meadow and the city. Ahead of them rode Lantlu, alone, mounted upon his Xinli. Shouting, he raced to the stairway.

Graydon broke the bonds of his paralysis, raised his rifle; cursing, he sent bullet after bullet at the master of the pack. Untouched, unharmed, Lantlu drove on, the Xinli leaping at his heel.

Out from the Serpent-woman's sanctuary upon the Temple roof shot one of the immense silver globes; swiftly in its wake soared the others. They halted, hovering in a thousand-foot circle high above the plain. They began to pulse with a brilliant white radiance; and as they pulsed they expanded, became a coronet of little incandescent suns which sprayed their rays of white incandescence through the striating rays of sullen red.

Abruptly the drone ceased. The turmoil of the winged serpents ended. They faded back into invisibility. And the torment of brains and nerves and eyes was lifted.

Now it was Graydon's turn to feel agony. The white radiance seared his eyes, sent needles of torment through them into his brain. And in this torture again was he one with Urd and saurian and those of the Old Race who wore the collar of Nimir. From drone and red ray that collar had protected hiut to this weapon of the Serpent-woman it had betrayed him.

Before the agony mastered him, sent him writhing, face to ground, hands clasped tight over eyes, he saw Lantlu's monstrous mount rear, twitch its head from reins, tear its jaws from cruel bit and stagger blindly back, screeching. Saw Lantlu pitch from its saddle, regain his feet with his panther quickness and stagger, face covered by his arms. Saw the lizard-men running this way and that, and falling under the thrusts of the winged serpents.

Down upon Xinli and Urd the soldiery of the Temple surged, striking the lizard-men to earth with their maces, hamstringing the monsters with their swords, thrusting up with their javelins at the vulnerable spot in their throats, slaughtering Lantlu's crazed pack.

Intent upon his enemy, Huon had forgotten Graydon. He had leaped upon the barricade, was half over it, when he turned to look for him. Only for a breath did he hesitate between concern for him and hatred for Lantlu. He sprang back, lifted him in his arms, started to carry him up into the Temple--

A wind whose breath bore the cold of outer space sighed round them. And at its touch Graydon's agony ended. He writhed from Huon's grip. They stood, staring at the radiant globes. Their brilliancy had dimmed. A film of darkness was gathering round them. Steadily that film grew denser.

The globes went out!

Together the two leaped the barricade. Close to the base of the stairway, sword dripping blood, the body of a blue-cloaked noble at his feet, was Lantlu, glaring up at them, freed like Graydon from the torture.

And over all the meadow noble and Emer and Urd were locked together in death struggle. Of the hunting pack not one was left. And the giant Xinli had vanished.

Graydon raised his rifle, took deliberate aim. Before he could press the trigger, Huon struck the gun from his hands.

"Mine to kill! Not yours!" he cried, and ran down the steps sword in hand to where the master of the dinosaurs waited him, lips drawn back over his teeth, his own red sword ready.

The crimson sky pulsence, twice, thrics though it were a giant heart. Down from it like enormous bats dropped black shadows. And bitter and ever more bitter grew the cold.

For a moment Graydon watched that dread rain. The shadows appeared to form directly beneath the canopy of crimson mist. They were shapeless, formless, yet densely black as though torn from the cloak of deepest night. They swirled down, spinning as they dropped. They fell with the swift dart of the swallow. They were falling over all the plain, on lizard-men and Emer and noble alike.

He heard the clash of sword on sword, saw Huon and Lantlu thrusting, beating at each other with their blades.

Between him and the pair swirled a knot of fighting Urd and Indians. A shadow dropped upon them, enveloped them, hid them, swirled upward again. He looked upon the little group it had covered. They were no longer fighting. They stood there, motionless, immobile. They swayed. They fell. He ran down the steps, stopped beside them. The grass was black as though burned. He touched them. They were stiff and icy cold. He touched the ground. It, too, was frozen.

He looked toward Huon. His sword was sweeping down upon Lantlu's right wrist. It struck and half severed it. The master of the dinosaurs howled, sprang back, catching his weapon in his left hand before it could fall. Heedless of his wound, he rushed upon Huon.

And Huon avoided the rush, stepped aside, and as Lantlu twisted toward him thrust him through the belly and with swift upward lift ripped him to the breast.

The master of the dinosaurs dropped his sword, glared at his killer, his hands at his navel, the blood spurting through his fingers. He sank to his knees. Fell forward--

A shadow came silently spinning down. It enveloped both quick and dead.

Graydon heard the shrieking of a voice he did not know; realized it was his own! raced forward.

The shadow lifted, recoiled from him as though he had thrust it away, swirled skyward. Huon stood rigid, glaring down upon his enemy.

"Huon!" cried Graydon, and touched him upon the shoulder. It was icy cold.

And at the touch, Huon toppled, fell prone over the body of Lantlu.

He stood up, staring around him stupidly.

What were those lights? Winged shapes of greenish flame with cores of incandescence...flitting out of the air, pulsing from it...grappling with the shadows. Shapes of flame that battled with slaying shadows...and Huon dead there at his feet beneath a crimson sky.

As Huon had foretolhen was it? Ages upon ages ago.

His brain was numb. And despair...black despair that slowed his heart and set him gasping for breath was overwhelming him. Whence came that black tide...he'd never felt anything like that before? Hatred, too...cold hatred, cold and implacable as those slaying shadows...it was woven with the despair. Who was it he hated so...and, why?...if he could shake that creeping numbness from his brain.

Those damned shapes of flame! They were everywhere. And look at them running...Emer and Urd and spawn of the Old Race. My men...running...conquered! My men...what did he mean...my men? What a hell of a light...what a hell of a night! Good rhyme that...it seemed to stop the spread of that cursed numbness. Try anotheshes to ashes and dust to dust, if the shadows don't get you the winged flames must. No...that didn't help any. What the hell was the matter with his head? Poor Huon...wonder if Suarra knew he was down here...wonder where Nimir was...ah, now he knew whom he hated so...the Snake-woman...damned monster...Yes, Dark Master, I am coming!

Helhat had made him say that? Brace up Nick Graydon...Nick Graydon of Philadelphia, Harvard School of Mines, U.S.A. . ...brace up!...Yes, yes, Dark Master...I...am coming!

An arm encircled him. He drew back, snarling. Wht was Regor.

Regor! Something of the creeping deadness lifted from his brain.

"Heaegor! Something wrong!"

"Yes, lad. It's all right. Come noith Regor. To tho Suarra."

Suarra? Yes, sure he'd go with Regor to Suarra. Not to that Snake-woman though! No, no! Not to her...she wasn't human...No, not to her. Dark Master...

Why, here he was back in the Temple! How the devil had he gotten there? Something was pulling at that collar. Pulling him by it. He wouldn't go! That's where that numbness came frop from the collar. Aut he would have to go! But not before he had told Suarra about it all. Ah, there she was! Not the Snake-woman though...No, Dark Master, I'll not...it was good to have Suarra's arms around you...your head on her breast...

"Hold him tight, Suarra," said the Mother, quietly. "Kiss him. Talk to him. Do anythinut keep him aware of you. Kon!"

The spider-man drew from the shadows, looked down upon the muttering Graydon sorrowfully.

"Watch him closely, Regor. Kon may have to help you hold him. When the full call comes to him, his strength will be out of all bounds. If you musind him. But I would rather noor my own reasons. Yet Nimir shall not have him. A feared it! Stand ready, Tyddo!"

A green glare, bright as daylight, flooded all the Hidden Land. The slaying shadows had vanished, the crimson light had gone from the clouds. Up from the plain midway between Temple and lake arose an immense pillar of coruscant green flame. As it arose it roared. It pulsated with a slow, regular rhythm. Around its girth and above it and at its feet, lightnings flashed, and thunder crackled like torrents of shattering glass.

Beneath that terrifying glare the battling figures upon mead and plain stood motionless, then in shrieking panic raced for cover.

From every quarter the winged shapes of flame throbbed into being. They swept toward the pillar, merged with it, fed it.

"His last play, Tyddo," whispered the Serpent-woman. "Yet it may be his best."

The Lord of Folly nodded, and took his station at the mechanism of crystal rods. The two great disks of moonlight radiance and cobweb strands were whirling. The Serpent-woman glided first to one, then the other, manipulating levers at their bases. Slowly their speed decreased.

"Now my ancestors aid me!" murmured the Snake Mother.

More slowly spun the disks. Fewer and fewer became the shapes of flame that fed the column. And now no more appeared.

The pulsing column quivered, swayed, and with a bellowing of thunders leaped a hundred feet from the ground. It dropped upon the amphitheater of the Dream Makers. Bellowing, it leaped agairom where the amphitheater of the Dream Makers had been.

Higher it drove this time. It came down among the trees of the city. Again the thunderous bellow--

The disks were still. The pillar of flame came rushing toward the Temple.

"Now!" cried the Serpent-woman to the Lord of Folly. From the mechanism he was manipulating spread out a gigantic fan of violet radianctraight toward the racing column. It met and held it. It mingled with it. The pillar bent, twisted,-struggled like a living thing to escape.

There was a vast screaming, a crash like mountains falling. Then darkness and an appalling silence.

"That was well done," breathed the Mother. "And thanks be to all my ancestors that done it is!"

Graydon raised his head from Suarra's breast. His face was white and drawn, the eyes turned upward so that the pupils were almost covered by the upper lids. He seemed to be listening.

The Serpent-woman drew to him, watched him closely. His lips moved.

"Yes, Dark Maste hear!"

"It is close. Take him, Regor. Net Kon hold him." She glided to her coffer, took from it the sistrum of the quicksilver globe, and another larger one threaded with many beads of the same gleaming substance; took from it also a blunt crystal tube in which glowed an imprisoned purple flame like that of the rod the Lord of Folly had used in the Cavern of the Lost Wisdom. She handed the second sistrum to him.

The spider-man lifted Graydon in his arms. He lay there, inert, apparently still listening. The Mother undulated to him.

"Regor," she whispered rapidly, "stay you here with Suarra. No, child, no use to plead nor weep. You cannot come. Be still!" she said sternly, as the girl lifted beseeching hands, "I go to save your lover. And to end Nimir. Rego take Kon with me. Quickly now--"

She clicked to the spider-man. Carrying Graydon, he stepped upon the movable platform which masked the shining shaft. She glided beside him, coiled herself, made room for the Lord of Folly. The platform dropped. They passed out into the corridor of the shaft.

Graydon's body bent into a bow.

"I hear! I come. Dark Master!" he cried, and tore at the spider-man's arms.

"Yes," hissed the Serpent-woman. "But by my waot Nimir's. Set him down, Kon. Let him go."

Graydon, eyes still strained sightlessly upward, was turning his head like a dog seeking scent. He began to run down the corridor, straight to the portals of the Temple.

Behind him, sistrum raised, in her other hand the tube of violet fire, swept the Serpent-woman, matching effortlessly his pace, and behind her, as effortlessly, the Lord of Folly with Kon. They came to the corridor that led to the chamber of the thrones. From the sistrum shot a tiny ray. It touched Graydon's head. He swerved, turned. Again the ray flashed, over his head, striking against a wall. Up rolled one of the curtains of stone, unmasking the passage. Again the ray touched Graydon. He ran into that passage.

"Good!" breathed the Mother.

Twice more the ray of the sistrum opened a passage. Graydon sped on. He never turned his head, never looked back, seemingly was unaware of the three who followed. And weird enough must have been that sighhe running man, and behind him the gleaming undulating rosy-pearl length of the Serpent-woman bearing high her exquisite face and body, the scarlet, many-armed shape of the spider-man, the ancient wise face of the Lord of Folly with its sparkling youthful eyes.

On and on went Graydon, like a straw drawn to a whirlpool, a grain of iron to a lodestone.

"But, Adana, will not Nimir know we follow?" the Lord of Folly spoke with unhurried breath.

"No," the Mother answered as tranquilly. "When Nimir hid himself from my seeing thought, he hid me from his as well. He can no more look through that veil at me than I can at him. He draws this man to hiut he does not know how he comes. Only that he is coming."

"He goes more swiftly," said the Lord of Folly.

"He nears Nimir," said the Serpent-woman. "I do not guide this man, Tyddo, he guides me. All that I do is to open the shortest way for him to that which summons hih, I thought so!"

Graydon had been running, blindly, straight toward a blank wall. At the touch of the sistrum ray, a stone had drawn up. Through the aperture streamed red rust of light.

They passed into the lair of the Shadow.

Faster sped Graydon, a racing shadow in the murk. Up loomed the black cliff. Along it he ran. It ended. He turned the edge. There was the carven screen, the dais, the throne of jet.

Stretched out on the cavern's floor, prone upon their bellies, lay hundreds of the lizard-people, the females and young of the Urd, and those who, surviving the Ragnarok of the Temple, had scuttered back to the red cavern. Mingled with the reek of their bodies was the obscene fragrance of the Shadow's garden.

And crouching upon the jet throne was Nimir!

"Dark Maste am here!" Graydon's voice was toneless; he halted as though awaiting command.

Nimir's pale eyes lifted from the groveling remnants of the horde. His monstrous body expanded, lifted itself from the throne; his long, misshapen arms thrust out hungrily, his face was filled with triumph.

"Come!" he whispered, and as though his muscles had been taut steel strings, Graydon bounded up the side of the dais.

"No!" the cry of the Serpent-woman was shrill. From the sistrum in her hand the thin ray shot, touched Graydon's head. He spun and dropped, almost at Nimir's feet.

The gaze of the Lord of Evil fell upon the Serpent-woman, abruptly became aware of hes though some veil between them had been rent apart, revealing her. His eyes flashed from her to the Lord of Folly and the spider-man, and then blazed out with the fires of hell itself.

His hands darted to his girdle, darted out with something that glittered like frozen green flame. Before he could raise the object, the Serpent-woman had leveled the crystal tube in her left hand. A ray of intense violet darted from it. It struck the hand of Nimir and that which was clenched within it. There was a tinkling explosion, and a cloud of sparkling purple atoms swirled round him, hiding both the Lord of Evil and his throne.

The Serpent-woman snatched the larger sistrum from the Lord of Folly. Out of its innumerable tiny globes shot moonlight radiance, and condensed into a three-inch sphere of dazzling brilliance. It darted into the swirling purple mist at the level of Nimir's heand passed on. It struck the carven screen of rock, and sprayed over its surface. From side to side and from top to bottom, the screen cracked and split, came crumbling down.

Where screen had been yawned the black opening of a tunnel.

At the touch of the sphere the purple mist had dissolved. Head bent low, squatting close to the floor of the dais, was Nimir, untouched by the Mother's missile. Before she could hurl another, he had snatched up Graydon's body, thrown it over his back like a cloak, arms over his shoulders, and had leaped into the darkness of the tunnel.

The Serpent-woman hissed, furiously. High reared the coil that held her body. Her gleaming length flowed over the edge of the dais and through the black opening. And in her wake sped the Lord of Folly, and Kon!

They needed no light to guide them, that three to whose eyes, like those of Nimir's, darkness and light were as one. And suddenly against the end of the passage was silhouetted the monstrous shape of Nimir. It blackened into outline, and vanished--

The passage had opened into the Cavern of the Face. It ended close to the top of that Cyclopean stairway which was the pathway to the Face. Despairing, hunted, Nimir had doubled back to his dungeon.

The Serpent-woman halted there. Half down the steps Nimir was plunging, holding tight to his shield of living flesh and blood. Through the storms of luminous atoms streaming from the cavern's walls the great Face brooded upon her. From the circlet around its brow the golden sweat still dropped; still from its eyes ran the tears of gold, and from the drooping corners of the mouth the golden slaver dribbled.

The Face's eyes of wan blue gems were lifeless. They glittereut they were empty. No prisoned thing peered through them. Gone was all imperious summonings, all subtle promises of domination. The Face stared indifferently, unseeingly, over the head of Nimiimir who for so lono lonad dwelt within it.

From the throat of the Serpent-woman came a bugle note. It was answered from beyond, where the cavern's floor edged the immeasurable depths. Out of the space that overhung the abyss arrowed a pair of the winged serpents.

One dropped upon the shoulders of the Lord of Evil, buffeting him with its pinions. The second twisted its coils around his legs.

The Lord of Evil staggered, dropped Graydon, struck out at the beating wings.

The coils about his legs drew closer. The Lord of Evil toppled.

He went rolling down the steps. Graydon's body lay, motionless, where it had fallen.

The Serpent-woman clicked. The spider-man scuttered down the steps, grasped Graydon, rushed back with him, and dropped him beside her.

Buffeting wings and clinging coil of the winged serpents withdrew from Nimir. He stumbled to his feet. He hopped to the Face.

He reached its chin. He turned, facing the Mother. Two faces of the Lord of Evil were there. The great face of stone, lifeless, indifferennd its miniature of dream stuff and rusted atoms interwoven, instinct with life.

Against the cliffed chin pressed the Lord of Evil, arms outstretched, facing the Serpent-woman. In living eyes that matched the glittering ones far above them was neither fear nor appeal for mercy.

Only hatnd merciless threat. He spoke no word, nor did she.

The Lord of Evil turned. Like a great frog, he swarmed up the stone.

The Serpent-woman raised her sistrum. Out shot a radiant sphere. After it anothend another. The first struck the Face squarely upon the brow, the other two, almost simultaneously, upon eyes and mouth.

They burst and sprayed. Tongues of white lightning licked out. The Face seemed to grimace; contorted. Its stony mouth writhed.

Out sped a fourth sphere. It struck the climbing body of the Lord of Evil, and climbing figure and Face were hidden by the tongues of the white lightning. They vanishehose tongues.

There was no Face in the abyss! Only a smooth smoking surface of black stone.

There was no Lord of Evil! Only a smear of rusted atoms against the blasted rock. The smear quivered. It seemed to be feebly trying to cling.

Another of the brilliant spheres struck it. The white tongues licked it--

The rock was clean!

And now shining sphere upon sphere shot from the sistrum. They struck the walls of the cavern, and the tempests of shining atoms died. The gemmed flowers and fruits upon those walls dulled, and dropped.

Darker grew the cavern where the Face in the abyss had beearker and darker.

Densest darkness filled it.

The Serpent-woman's voice lifted into one long, wild, shrilling, clarion note of triumph.

She beckoned the spider-man and pointed to Graydon, She turned her back on the black tomb of the Lord of Evil. She glided into the portal of the passage.

Behind her followed the Lord of Folly, and Kon...holding Graydon's body to his scarlet breast like a chiluzzling him with his liprooning to his unhearing ears.

CHAPTER XXVII—Farewell of the Snake Mother

IT WAS FIVE DAYS before Graydon opened his eyes to consciousness. During all that time he had lain in the bower of the Snake Mother, Suarra attending him. Nor would the Mother take the collar of Nimir from his neck.

"I am not yet sure," she told the girl and Regor when they begged her to open it, rid Graydon of it. "It will not hurt him. Or should it threaten him, then will I take it off quickly enoug promise you. But it was a link, and a strong link, between him and Nimir, and may still be so. I am not yet sure that which we knew as Nimir has been wholly absorbed in what sent him forth. I do not yet know what was that Shadow. But if something of it still survives, it will be drawn by that symbol, try to enter him through it. Then I will see what measure of strength that something possesses. If nothing of Nimir survives, the collar can do no harm. But until I knoe wears it."

That ended the matter. The first day Graydon was restless, muttering of the Dark Master, listening as though to spoken words, speaking now and then to one unseen. Whether to some beseeching wisp of Nimir or to some phantom of his sick mind only the Serpent-woman knew. His unease increased until the second night, and so did his mutterings. The Mother came now and then and coiled herself beside him, lifting his lids, examining closely his eyes. On that night when his restlessness reached its peak, she had Regor lay his naked body on her own nest of cushions. She took the smaller sistrum and held it over his head. A soft radiance began to stream from it. She moved the sistrum around him, bathing him from head to feet in its light. On the third day he was much quieter. That night she examined him intently, nodded as though satisfied, and sent a strong ray from the sistrum upon the collar. Graydon groaned feebly, began to raise trembling hands as though to protect it.

"Hold his hands, Regor," said the Mother, impassively. A stronger ray sprang from the sistrum. The collar of the Lord of Evil lost its sullen gleaming; changed to a lifeless brown. She took it between her hands and broke it. It crumbled to a pinch of dust in her fingers. Immediately Graydon relaxed and passed into deep normal sleep.

On the morning of the fifth day he awakened. Suarra and Regor were beside him. He tried to rise, but his weakness was too great. He was drained of all strength. His mind, however, was crystal clear.

"I know everything you're going to say against it," he told them, grinning faintly and holding tight to Suarra. "But it's no good. I feel as though I've been shot through a dozen windmills. In fact, I feel like hell. Nevertheless, I'm not going to close my eyes again until I'm brought up to date. Firshat happened to Nimir?"

They told him of the pursuit of the Lord of Evil, and of his end in the cavern of the Face, as they themselves had been told it by the Mother.

"And then," said Regor, "she blasted the tunnel through which Nimir had gone so that it is sealed forever. She blasted Nimir's throne and the dais. The strange garden she destroyed utterly. It screamed and shrilled its agony as the tongues of the white lightnings licked it up."

"Evil was that garden," said Suarra. "Evil beyond all imaginings, the Mother told me. And that for its creation Nimir alone deserved annihilation. But what sorcery he wrought there, to what uses he had put it or what uses he intended ihe will not tell me."

"The Urd had fled from the red cavern," Regor took up the tale. "Ran, what was left of them, to hide in their deepest dens. And so the three came back to the Temple, bearing you. The next day the Mother took stock of what remained in ancient Yu-Atlanchi. Of the Old Race who defended the Temple, there was a scant hundred left. Of those who had fought for Lantlu, some four-score sent an ambassador to the Mother asking truce and pardon. She ordered them before her, slew a dozen of them, and forgave the others. There are, I suppose, as many more who, knowing they can expect no mercy, have taken to the caves and foresecome outlaws, as we were before you came, Graydon.

"She had the Dream Makers, over whom the battle had passed unheeded, awakened and brought to the chamber of the thrones. Or the most of theor there were some she commanded slain out of hand. She gave them the choice of abandoning their dreams and opening upon themselves the Doors of Life and Death, oell, just death. Some fifty preferred to live. The others could find no attraction in it. They were allowed to go back to their homes, enter their favorite world of phantomnd shortly thereafter they and their worlds ceased altogether to be.

"Of the winged serpents, the Messengers of the Mother, not more than a quarter survived. Of the Emer there are about a thousand lef mean men. Mostly, they are those who took no part in the battle. Our soldiers and those of Lantlu were rather thoroughly wiped out. Nimir's shadows and the Mother's flames made no distinction between friend and enemy. Two days ago, at the command of Adana, the bulk of these Emers were sent to the caverns to exterminate the remnants of the Urd. Oh, yebout a half dozen of the hunting Xinli escaped, and an equal number of the riding Xinli The first are being tracked down and killed; the others we will keep.

"That seems to be about all. We start life in Yu-Atlanchi afresh with some three hundred of the Old Race, of whom considerably more than half are women. Each and all have, perforce, put off our deathlessness. The Mother herself saw that the Two Doors were flung wide open. Having more than half of us women is better, however," said Regor, thoughtfully, "than having more than half of us men."

Graydon closed his eyes; lay thinking over what he had heard. The Serpent-woman was certainly efficient once she waited! Ruthless! He visioned the Dream Makers blotted out in the midst of their mirages which were so reao real. He hoped that the one who had created on the web of dream the miraculous world of color had chosen life. Drone and light of madnesow had Nimir created them? Some manipulation of the infrared rays, he supposed. Light waves of the lower spectrum linked in some way, transmuted somewhere in their range, to sound vibration. That the two had been so linked, were parts of the same phenomenon, he felt sure. And the Mother's little diadem of suns? Manipulation of other radiant waves which had cancelled Nimir's. Why had the collar saved him from onelivered him over to the other? Some sort of receiver, probably...tuned up to Nimir's stuff...well, it was off him...

He sank into deep sleep.

He saw nothing of the Serpent-woman for several days. She had gone off to the caverns, Suarra said, with the Lord of Folly and Kon, borne by the Indian women in her litter, only her Messengers guarding her. His strength returned slowly. He was carried out in Suarra's own litter one day, the girl beside him. The once flowering plain between the Temple and the lake was blackened and desolate, blasted by the icy shadows and the leaping pillar of flame. A thin covering of impalpable dust marked where the amphitheater of the Dream Makers had stood. Many trees along the mead were dead or dying. And where the pillar had leaped upon the city there was a roughly circular place two thousand feet in width from which habitations and vegetation had been turned into the same thin ash.

He asked Suarra what had been done with the dead. The Emer had gathered them together in great heaps, she told him; then they, too, had been blasted into dust by contrivances the Mother had ordered set up. Huon lay with his ancestors in the Cavern of the Dead.

He told her to turn the bearers of the litter back to the Temple; recovered in the silence of the chamber of the thrones his peace.

The next day the Mother returned; and thereafter for a week Graydon was with her many hours each day; answering her countless questions, telling her in detail of the life of men beyond the barrier, their habits and aspirations, and this time, too, of their wars and gods, and all the long history of the race since the fires of the Cro-Magnons were quenched in their caves twenty-five thousand years ago. Of the aims and conditions of the races, white and yellow, black and brown, he spoke; and of Russia's drab experiment in communism, and the great unrest in Asia among the Chinese and Indians.

Then for another time she ceased her questionings, told him in turn of that forgotten civilization of which her strange race was the head, and of how it had come into being; of other lost civilizations and races, buried beyond trace under the dust of time; gave him blinding glimpses of attainments in science as advanced over those he knew as Einstein's geometry over the Euclidean; conceptions of mind and matter and energy that dazed him.

"In nothing," she told him, "that you have seen was there touch of sorcery or magic. All that you have beheld, each manifestation, was nothing but conscious manipulation of purely natural forces, my Grayden. The slaying shadows?--a definite energy made obedient by purely mechanical means to Nimir's will. In words of your own to make it understandabltheric vortices, power condensed from that universal ocean of energy about us from which all energy and mind and what you term matter comes. The shapes of flame I summoned to meet them? Another harnessed force which neutralized the shadownd more. The pillar of flame? Nimir's last play and one I truly feared. For by his swift shutting off of that which brought the shadows into being, he disturbed abruptly the interaction of the two forces, overbalanced me; hoped that before I could gain control of it, the tremendous freed energy which shaped itself into that pillar would overwhelm me. And he came within a hair of being right!"

She sat silently for a time; then seemed to have come to some decision; roused herself.

"Go you with Suarra, child," she said. "Amuse yourselves. Get strong quickly. For two days I shall have no need for either of you."

And when those days had passed, summons from the Snake Mother came to him by way of Regor. He found her coiled upon her cushions in her bower, complacently gazing at herself in her mirror while Suarra coifed her hair. The bower seemed oddly empty; stripped. And Suarra's eyes were misty with unshed tears. With her was the Lord of Folly. She laid down her mirror, gave Graydon her hand to kiss.

"I am going to leave you, child," she began without preamble. "I am tired. I am going to sleeh, for a long, long time. Nao not look so startled and unhappy. I don't intend to die. I know of no other world to which to go. But I don't intend to grow old--" her eyes sparkled at Graydon's uncontrollable expression of surprise at this remarkable statement, considering her thousands of years. "I mean I do not intend to let myself look old. Therefore, I shall sleep and renew myselnd my looks. It was the custom of my people."

"Now thus have I decided. There are not many of you left in Yu-Atlanchi, it is true. But shortly there will be more. Trust your race for thaf for nothing else. Let you and Regor govern herith Tyddo to aid you. Nimir is gone forever. Those of his who still lurk, outlaestroy as speedily as you can. Let nothing of him nor of Lantlu remain. If any of the Makers of Dreaelapsill them. Danger lurks in thauarra! Stop your crying! You're pulling my hair!"

She frowned for a moment into the mirror.

"I have told you," went on the Mother, briskly, "that I do not intend to die. And certainly I do not intend to be made uncomfortable while I sleep. I do not think so highly of those people you've told me so much about, Graydon. Oh, I have no doubt that they include any number of persons as estimable as yourself. But collectively, they irritate me, to put it mildly. I don't propose to have them digging around where I am sleeping, nor blowing up things with their explosives, nor buildinhat is your quaint workyscrapers over me. Nor ransacking the caverns for their treasure, nor poking around trying to find out things they're much better off not knowinnd wouldn't know what to do with if they did find them. I will have no invasion of the Hidden Land.

"Therefore, during the last two days I have seen to it that there cannot be. I have destroyed much of what Nimir recovered from the Cavern of the Lost Wisdom, including that which evoked the shadows. I have destroyed my two disks which summoned the shapes of flame. You will not need theor shall I, again.

"And, Graydon, I have sent my Messengers on guard beyond the barrier, and especially against those flying boats of yours which have done so much to make barriers negligible. They will bring them down without mercy. They will as mercilessly destroy those who may survive the fall. No eyes shall peer down on Yu-Atlanchi to bring back strong companies who woulestroy my slumber. I put it that way, child, not to hurt your feelings.

"That is definite. That is irrevocable. And thus shall it be," said the Serpent-woman, and Graydon had no doubt at all that quite as ruthlessly as she promised it, so would it be carried out. "And if by any newly discovered wisdom they overcome my Messengers, Tyddo will awaken me. And me, Graydon, they will not overcome. That, too, is certain."

She glanced again at her hair--

"Suarrhat is really fine. Ah-ut I am tired!" she yawned, her little pointed tongue flickering in the scarlet, heart-shaped mouth. "It has all been enjoyablut rather fatiguing. And I think--" she looked again into the mirror--"yes, I am certain I have acquired a few wrinkles. Ah-t is time I slept!"

Her eyes dwelt lovingly upon the weeping girl, and they were misted, too. Whatever the urgency that prompted the Serpent-woman to go, Graydon had swift perception that in her heart she did not feel the lightness she affected.

"Children," she twined her arm around Suarra's neck. "Come with me. On my way I must seal that chamber on which open the Doors of Life and Death. You shall see it."

She nodded to Suarra. Under the girl's touch the wall opposite the doorway swung open. The scarlet body of Kon swayed through, behind him four of his kind, carrying the Mother's litter. She gave one last look in her mirror, then drew her coils into the litter's cushions. Kon leading, Graydon and Regor on each side, Suarra lying beside her with head hidden in the Mother's breast, the Lord of Folly following, they passed into a great empty chamber, out through its farther wall, and down a wide ramp.

Down went the ramp, and dowar below the foundations of the Temple. They came to an alcove that curved shallowly into the wall of the passage. Here the Mother signaled her bearers. They halted close beside it. She stretched out a hand, within it the smaller sistrum. A faint ray touched the wall. An oval opening appeared, as though the ray had melted the stone away. She beckoned Graydon, drew Suarra over her body so the girl could look within.

They peered down into a place that was like the half of a gigantic pearl. Its circled floor was some twenty yards in diameter. It was filled with a limpid rosy light as though a sun were shining behind its curved walls. The floor was like black obsidian, and set within it were two pools, oval, some twenty feet in length and half that in width. Between them was a couch of the same black glassy substance and hollowed with the outlines of a human bods though, indeed, some perfect body of woman or man had been pressed there while the material was still plastic and, hardening, had retained the stamp.

In one pool the water, if it was water, was like pale rose wine, shot through with sparklings and eddies of deeper rose. The liquid in the second pool was utterly colorless, translucent, stilwesome in its tranquility.

While they watched, this tranquility was disturbed. Something came floating up from its depths. And as it approached the surface, the liquid in the rosy pool too became disturbed, its sparklings and its eddies dancing jubilantly.

Out of each pool a bubble arose, slowly expanding until they had domed them from edge to edge.

Rosy bubble and crystal clear bubble broke. A rainbow mist filled the chamber, hiding pools and couch. It was shot through with tiny darting particles of irised light. It pulsed for no more than three heartbeats. It vanished.

The Serpent-woman raised the sistrum. She sent from it a ray straight into the still pool. The pool quivered as though it had been a living heart. Its translucency clouded. A cloud of little bubbles rushed up through it as if trying to escape the ray. They burst with a faint, mournful sighing. The pool again was stilut all awesome tranquillity had gone.

The sistrum's ray plunged into the rosy pool. There was a moment of frantic swirling in its depths. Again the bursting cloud of sighing bubbles. And it too lay stilnd dead.

"It is done!" said the Serpent-woman, tonelessly. Her face was drawn, her lips pale, her eyes like stone.

She passed the sistrum over the aperture. The wall reappeared, seeming to form out of air as it came. She signaled the spider-men. They resumed their journey, in silence.

They came at last to another shallow niche. Here, under the sistrum, the wall drew away into a low and rounded portal. They entered. It was circular like that of the two pools but not more than half its size. A faint blue radiance streamed from its walls, centering upon a huge nest of cushions. Around its walls were several coffers. Save for these, it was empty. Graydon was aware of a slightly pungent, curiously fresh, fragrance.

The Serpent-woman flowed out of her litter, coiled herself upon the cushions. She looked at them, tears now frankly in the purple eyes and rolling down her cheeks. She gave the sistrum to the Lord of Folly, strained Suarra to her bosom. She beckoned Graydon, and gently brought the girl's lips and his together.

And suddenly she held them a little away from her, bent and kissed each upon the mouth, twinkled on them mischievously, wholly tenderly, and laughed her bird-like trill.

"Waken me to see your first-born!" said the Snake Mother.

She thrust them from her, settled down on her cushions, and yawned. Her eyes closed, her head nodded once or twice; sleepily moved to find a better place.

But as Graydon turned to go, he thought that a change had begun to creep over her fachat its unearthly beauty was beginning to fade...like a veil dropping...

Resolutely, he turned his head, forbade himself to look...let that doubt remain unresolved...as she had willed him to see her, so he would remember her...

They passed out of the low doorway, Suarra clasped close to Graydon, weeping. The Lord of Folly raised the sistrum. The stone of the portal thickened into place.

The hidden chamber where the Snake Mother slept was sealed.

THE END

CHAPTER I

THE ANCIENT STEPS wound up the side of the mountain through the tall pines, patience trodden deep into them by the feet of twenty centuries. Some soul of silence, ancient and patient as the steps, brooded over them. They were wide, twenty men could have marched abreast upon them; lichens brown and orange traced strange symbols on their grey stones, and emerald mosses cushioned them. At times the steps climbed steep as stairs, and at times they swept leisurely around bastions of the mountain, but always on each side the tall pines stood close, green shoulder to shoulder, vigilant.

At the feet of the pines crouched laurels and dwarfed rhododendrons of a singular regularity of shape and of one height, that of a kneeling man. Their stiff and glossy leaves were like links on coats-of-mail...like the jade-lacquered scale-armor of the Green Archers of Kwanyin who guard the goddess when she goes forth in the Spring to awaken the trees. The pines were like watchful sentinels, and oddly like crouching archers were the laurels and the dwarfed rhododendrons, and they said as plainly as though with tongues: Up these steps you may go, and down theut never try to pass through us!

A woman came round one of the bastions. She walked stubbornly, head down, as one who fights against a strong winr as one whose will rides, lashing the reluctant body on. One white shoulder and breast were bare, and on the shoulder was a bruise and blood, four scarlet streaks above the purpled patch as though a long-nailed hand had struck viciously, clawing. And as she walked she wept.

The steps began to lift. The woman raised her head and saw how steeply here they climbed. She stopped, her hands making little fluttering helpless motions.

She turned, listening. She seemed to listen not with ears alone but with every tensed muscle, her entire body one rapt chord of listening through which swept swift arpeggios of terror. The brittle twilight of the Yunnan highlands, like clearest crystal made impalpable, fell upon brown hair shot with gleams of dull copper, upon a face lovely even in its dazed horror. Her grey eyes stared down the steps, and it was as though they, too, were listening rather than seeing...

She was heavy with child...

She heard voices beyond the bend of the bastion, voices guttural and sing-song, angry and arguing, protesting and urging. She heard the shuffle of many feet, hesitating, halting, but coming inexorably on. Voices and feet of the hung-hutzes, the outlaws who had slaughtered her husband and Kenwood and their bearers a scant hour ago, and who but for Kenwood would now have her. They had found her trail.

She wanted to die; desperately Jean Meredith wanted to die; her faith taught her that then she would rejoin that scholarly, gentle lover-husband of hers whom she had loved so dearly although his years had been twice her own. It would not matter did they kill her quickly, but she knew they would not do that. And she could not endure even the thought of what must befall her through them before death came. Nor had she weapon to kill herself. And there was that other life budding beneath her heart.

But stronger than desire for death, stronger than fear of torment, stronger than the claim of the unborn was something deep within her that cried for vengeance. Not vengeance against the hung-hutzehey were only a pack of wild beasts doing what was their nature to do. This cry was for vengeance against those who had loosed them, directed them. For this she knew had been done, although how she knew it she could not yet tell. It was not accident, no chance encounter that swift slaughter. She was sure of that.

It was like a pulse, that cry for vengeance; a pulse whose rhythm grew, deadening grief and terror, beating strength back into her. It was like a bitter spring welling up around her soul. When its dark waters had risen far enough they would touch her lips and she would drink of them .. . and then knowledge would come to her . .. she would know who had planned this evil thing, and why. But she must have timime to drink of the waterime to learn and avenge. She must live...for vengeance ...

Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord!

It was as though a voice had whispered the old text in her ear. She struck her breast with clenched hands; she looked with eyes grown hard and tearless up to the tranquil sky; she answered the voice:

"A lie! Like all the lies I have been taught oou! I am through witou! Vengeance! Whoever gives me vengeance shall be my God!"

The voices and the feet were nearer. Strange, how slowly, how reluctantly they advanced. It was as though they were afraid. She studied the woods beyond the pines. Impenetrable; or if not, then impossible for her. They would soon find her if she tried to hide there. She must go op the steps. At their end might be some hiding place...perhaps sanctuary...

Yes, she was sure the hung-hutzes feared the steps... they came so slowly, so haltingly...arguing, protesting...

She had seen another turn at the top of this steep. If she could reach it before they saw her, it might be that they would follow her no further. She turned to climb...

A fox stood upon the steps a dozen feet above her, watching her, barring her way. It was a female fox, a vixen. Its coat was all silken russet-red. It had a curiously broad head and slanted green eyes. On its head was a mark, silver white and shaped like the flame of a candle wavering in the wind.

The fox was lithe and graceful, Jean Meredith thought, as a dainty woman. A mad idea came, born of her despair and her denial of that God whom she had been taught from childhood to worship as all-good, all-wise, all-powerful. She thrust her hands out to the fox. She cried to it:

"Sisteou are a woman! Lead me to safety that I may have vengeancister!"

Remember, she had just seen her husband die under the knives of the hung-hutzes and she was with child... and who can know upon what fantastic paths of unreality a mind so beset may stray.

As though it had understood the fox paced slowly down the steps. And again she thought how like a graceful woman it was. It paused a little beyond reach of her hand, studying her with those slanted green eyeyes clear and brilliant as jewels, sea-green, and like no eyes she had ever seen in any animal. There seemed faint mockery in their gaze, a delicate malice, but as they rested upon her bruised shoulder and dropped to her swollen girdle, she could have sworn that there was human comprehension in them, and pity. She whispered:

"Sisteelp me!"

There was a sudden outburst of the guttural singsong. They were close now, her pursuers, close to the bend of the steps round which she had come. Soon they must turn it and see her. She stood staring at the fox expectantly...hoping she knew not what.

The fox slipped by her, seemed to melt in the crouching bushes. It vanished.

Black despair, the despair of a child who finds itself abandoned to wild beasts by one it has trusted, closed in on Jean Meredith. What she had hoped for, what she had expected of help, was vague, unformulated. A miracle by alien gods, now she had renounced her own? Or had her appeal to the vixen deeper impulse? Atavistic awakenings, anthropomorphic, going back to that immemorial past when men first thought of animals and birds as creatures with souls like theirs, but closer to Nature's spirit; given by that spirit a wisdom greater than human, and more than human powerervants and messengers of potent deities and little less than gods themselves.

Nor has it been so long ago that St. Francis of Assisi spoke to the beasts and birds as he did to men and women, naming them Brother Wolf and Brother Eagle. And did not St. Conan baptize the seals of the Orkneys as he did the pagan men? The past and all that men have thought in the past is born anew within us all. And sometimes strange doors open within our mindnd out of them or into them strange spirits come or go. And whether real or unreal, who can say?

The fox seemed to understanad seemed to promisomething. And it had abandoned her, fled away! Sobbing, she turned to climb the steps.

Too late! The hung-hutzes had rounded the bend.

There was a howling chorus. With obscene gestures, yapping threats, they ran toward her. Ahead of the pack was the pock-faced, half-breed Tibetan leader whose knife had been the first to cut her husband down. She watched them come, helpless to move, unable even to close her eyes. The pock-face saw and understood, gave quick command, and the pack slowed to a walk, gloating upon her agony, prolonging it.

They halted! Something like a flicker of russet flame had shot across the steps between her and them. It was the fox. It stood there, quietly regarding them. And hope flashed up through Jean Meredith, melting the cold terror that had frozen her. Power of motion returned. But she did not try to run. She did not want to run. The cry for vengeance was welling up again. She felt that cry reach out to the fox.

As though it had heard her, the fox turned its head and looked at her. She saw its green eyes sparkle, its white teeth bared as though it smiled.

Its eyes withdrawn, the spell upon the hung-hutzes broke. The leader drew pistol, fired upon the fox.

Jean Meredith saw, or thought she saw, the incredible.

Where fox had been, stood now a woman! She was tall, and lithe as a young willow. Jean Meredith could not see her face, but she could see hair of russet-red coifed upon a small and shapely head. A silken gown of russet-red, sleeveless, dropped to the woman's feet. She raised an arm and pointed at the pock-faced leader. Behind him his men were silent, motionless, even as Jean Meredith had beend it came to her that it was the same ice of terror that held them. Their eyes were fixed upon the woman.

The woman's hand droppelowly. And as it dropped, the pock-faced Tibetan dropped with it. He sank to his knees and then upon his hands. He stared into her face, lips drawn back from his teeth like a snarling dog, and there was foam upon his lips. Then he hurled himself upon his men, like a wolf. He sprang upon them howling; he leaped up at their throats, tearing at them with teeth and talons. They milled, squalling rage and bewildered terror. They tried to beat him ofhey could not.

There was a flashing of knives. The pock-face lay writhing on the steps, like a dog dying. Still squalling, never looking behind them, his men poured down the steps and away.

Jean Meredith's hands went up, covering her eyes. She dropped the fox, all silken russet-red, stood where the woman had been. It was watching her. She saw its green eyes sparkle, its white teeth bared as though it smilet began to walk daintily up the steps toward her.

Weakness swept over her; she bent her head, crumpled to her knees, covered again her eyes with shaking hands. She was aware of an unfamiliar fragrancisturbing, evocative of strange, fleeting images. She heard low, sweet laughter. She heard a soft voice whisper:

"Sister!"

She looked up. A woman's face was bending over her. An exquisite face...with sea-green, slanted eyes under a broad white brow...with hair of russet-red that came to a small peak in the center of that brow...a lock of silvery white shaped like the flame of a candle wavering in the wind...a nose long but delicate, the nostrils slightly flaring, daintily...a mouth small and red as the royal coral, heart-shaped, lips full, archaic.

Over that exquisite face, like a veil, was faint mockery, a delicate malice that had in them little of the human. Her hands were white and long and slender.

They touched Jean Meredith's heart...soothing her, strengthening her, drowning fear and sorrow.

She heard again the sweet voice, lilting, faintly amuseith the alien, half-malicious amusement of one who understands human emotion yet has never felt it, but knows how little it matters:

"You shall have your vengeancister!" The white hands touched her eyes...she forgot... and forgot...and now there was nothing to remember...not even herself...

It seemed to Jean Meredith that she lay cushioned within soft, blind darknesllimitable, impenetrable. She had no memories; all that she knew was that she was. She thought: I am I. The darkness that cradled her was gentle, kindly. She thought: I am a spirit still unborn in the womb of night. But what was night...and what was spirit? She thought: I am conten do not want to be born again. Again? That meant that she had been born before...a word came to heean. She thought: I am Jean...but who was Jean?

She heard two voices speaking. One a woman's, soft and sweet with throbbing undertones like plucked harp strings. She had heard that voice before...before, when she had been Jean. The man's voice was low, filled with tranquillity, human...that was it, the voice held within it a humanness the sweet voice of the woman lacked. She thought: I, Jean, am human...

The man said: "Soon she must awaken. The tide of sleep is high on the shore of life. It must not cover it."

The woman answered: "I command that tide. And it has begun to ebb. Soon she will awaken."

He asked: "Will she remember?"

The woman said: "She will remember. But she will not suffer. It will be as though what she remembers had happened to another self of hers. She will pity that self, but it will be to her as though it died when died her husband. As indeed it did. That self bears the sorrow, the pain, the agony. It leaves no legacy of them to heave memory."

And now it seemed to her that for a time there was a silence...although she knew that time could not exist within the blackness that cradled her...and what waime?

The man's voice broke that silence, musingly: "With memory there can be no happiness for her, long as she lives."

The woman laughed, a tingling-sweet mocking chime: "Happiness? I thought you wiser than to cling to that illusion, priest. I give her serenity, which is far better than happiness. Nor did she ask for happiness. She asked for vengeance. And vengeance she shall have."

The man said: "But she does not know who--"

The woman interrupted: "She does know. And I know. And so shall you when you have told her what was wrung from the Tibetan before he died. And if you still do not believe, you will believe when he who is guilty comes here, as come he wilo kill the child."

The man whispered: "To kill the child!"

The woman's voice became cold, losing none of its sweetness but edged with menace: "You must not let him have it, priest. Not then. Later, when the word is given you...."

Again the voice grew mocking..."I contemplate a journey...I would see other lands, who so long have dwelt among these hills...and I would not have my plans spoiled by precipitancy..." Once more Jean Meredith heard the tingling laughter. "Have no fear, priest. They will help yoy sisters."

He said, steadily: "I have no fear."

The woman's voice became gentle, all mockery fled. She said:

"I know that, you who have had wisdom and courage to open forbidden doors. But I am bound by a threefold cor promise, a vow, and a desire. When a certain time comes, I must surrender mucust lie helpless, bound by that cord. It is then that I shall need you, priest, for this man who will come...."

The voices faded. Slowly the blackness within which she lay began to lighten. Slowly, slowly, a luminous greyness replaced it. She thought, desperately: I am going to be born! I don't want to be born! Implacably, the light increased. Now within the greyness was a nimbus of watery emerald. The nimbus became brighter, brighter...

She was lying upon a low bed, in a nest of silken cushions. Close to her was an immense and ancient bronze vessel, like a baptismal font. The hands of thousands of years had caressed it, leaving behind them an ever deepening patina like a soft green twilight. A ray of the sun shone upon it, and where the ray rested, the patina gleamed like a tiny green sun. Upon the sides of the great bowl were strange geometric patterns, archaic, the spirals and meanders of the Lei-wehe thunder patterns. It stood upon three legs, tripodal...why, it was the ancient ceremonial vessel, the Tang font which Martin had brought home from Yunnan years ago...and she was back home...she had dreamed that she had been in China and that Martin...that Martin...

She sat up abruptly and looked through wide, opened doors into a garden. Broad steps dropped shallowly to an oval pool around whose sides were lithe willows trailing green tendrils in the blue water, wisterias with drooping ropes of blossoms, white and pale azure, and azaleas like flower flames. Rosy lilies lay upon the pool's breast. And at its far end was a small pagoda, fairy-like, built all of tiles of iridescent peacock blue and on each side a stately cypress, as though they were its ministers...why, this was their garden, the garden of the blue pagoda which Martin had copied from that place in Yunnan where lived his friend, the wise old priest...

But there was something wrong. These mountains were not like those of the ranch. They were conical, their smooth bare slopes of rose-red stone circled with trees...they were like huge stone hats with green brims...

She turned again and looked about the room. It was a wide room and a deep one, but how deep she could not see, because the sun streaming in from a high window struck the ancient vessel and made a curtain, veiling it beyond. She could see that there were beams across its ceiling, mellow with age, carved with strange symbols. She caught glimpses of ivory and of gleaming lacquer. There was a low altar of what seemed green jade, curiously carved and upon which were ceremonial objects of unfamiliar shape, a huge ewer of bronze whose lid was the head of a fox.. ..

A man came toward her, walking out of the shadows beyond the ancient Tang vessel. He was clothed from neck to feet in a silken robe of silvery-blue upon which were embroidered, delicately as though by spiders, Taoist symbols and under them, ghostly in silver threads, a fox's head. He was bald, his face heavy, expressionless, skin smooth and faded yellow as some antique parchment. So far as age went he might have been sixtr three hundred. But it was his eyes that held Jean Meredith. They were large and black and, liquid, and prodigiously alive. They were young eyes, belying the agelessness of the heavy face; and it was as though the face was but a mask from which the eyes had drawn all life into themselves. They poured into her strength and calmness and reassurance, and from her mind vanished all vagueness, all doubts, all fears. Her mind for the first time since the ambush was clear, crystal clear, her thoughts her own.

She remembereemembered everything. But it was as though all had happened to another self. She felt pity for that self, but it had left no heritage of sorrow. She was tranquil. The black, youthful eyes poured tranquillity into her.

She said: "I know you. You are Yu Ch'ien, the wise priest my husband loved. This is the Temple of the Foxes."

CHAPTER II

"I AM Yu CH'IEN, my daughter." His voice was the man's voice which she had heard when cradled in the darkness.

She tried to rise, then swayed back upon the bed, weakness overcoming her.

He said: "A night and a day, and still another night and half this day you have slept, and now you must eat." He spoke the English words slowly, as one whose tongue had long been stranger to them.

He clapped his hands and a woman slipped by the great vase through the bars of the sunlight. She was ageless as he, with broad shrewd face and tilted sloeblack eyes that were kindly yet very wise. A smock covered her from full breasts to knees, and she was sturdy and strong and brown as though she had been carved from seasoned wood. In her hands was a tray upon which was a bowl of steaming broth and oaten cakes.

The woman sat beside Jean Meredith, lifting her head, resting it against her deep bosom and feeding her like a child, and now Jean saw that herself was naked except for a thin robe of soft blue silk and that upon it was the moon-silver symbol of the fox.

The priest nodded, his eyes smiled upon her. "Fienwi will attend you. Soon you will be stronger. Soon I shall return. Then we shall talk."

He passed out of the wide doors. The woman fed her the last of the broth, the last of the little cakes. She left her, and returned with bowls of bronze in which was water hot and cold; undressed her; ministered to her, bathed her and rubbed her; dressed her in fresh silken robes of blue; strapped sandals to her feet, and smiling, left her. Thrice Jean essayed to speak to her, but the woman only shook her head, answering in a lisping dialect, no sound of which she recognized.

The sun had moved from the great Tang font. She lay back, lazily. Her mind was limpidly clear; upon it was reflected all through which she had passed, yet it was tranquil, untroubled, like a woodland pool that reflects the storm clouds but whose placid surface lies undisturbed. The things that had happened were only images reflected upon her mind. But under that placid surface was something implacable, adamant-hard, something that would have been bitter did it not know that it was to be satisfied.

She thought over what Martin had told her of Yu Ch'ien. A Chinese whose forefathers had been enlightened rulers ten centuries before the Man of Galilee had been raised upon the cross, who had studied Occidental thought both in England and France, and had found little in it to satisfy his thirst for wisdom; who had gone back to the land of his fathers, embraced at last the philosophy of Lao-Tse, and had withdrawn from the world to an ancient fane in Yunnan known as the Temple of the Foxes, a temple reverenced and feared and around which strange legends clustered; there to spend his life in meditation and study.

What was it Martin had called him? Ah, yes, a master of secret and forgotten knowledge, a master of illusion. She knew that of all men, Martin had held Yu Ch'ien in profoundest respect, deepest affection...she wondered if the woman she had seen upon the steps had been one of his illusions...if the peace she felt came from him...if he had made sorrow and pain of soul illusions for her...and was she thinking the thoughts he had placed in her minr her own...she wondered dreamily, not much caring...

He came through the doors to her, and again it was as though his eyes were springs of tranquillity from which her soul drank deep. She tried to rise, to greet him; her mind was strong but through all her body was languor. He touched her forehead, and the languor fled. He said:

"All is well with you, my daughter. But now we must talk. We will go into the garden."

He clapped his hands. The brown woman, Fienwi, came at the summons, and with her two blue-smocked men bearing a chair. The woman lifted her, placed her in the chair. The men carried her out of the wide doors, down the shallow steps to the blue pool. She looked behind her as she went.

The temple was built into the brow of the mountain. It was of brown stone and brown wood. Slender pillars hard bitten by the teeth of the ages held up a curved roof of the peacock blue tiles. From the wide doors through which she had come a double row of sculptured foxes ran, like Thebes' road of the Sphynxes, half way down to the pool. Over the crest of the mountain crept the ancient steps up which she had stumbled. Where the steps joined the temple, stood a tree covered all with white blossoms. It wavered in the wind like the flame of a candle.

Strangely was the temple like the head of a fox, its muzzle between the paws of the rows of sculptured foxes, the crest of the mountain its forehead and the white blossoming tree, like the lock of white upon the forehead of the fox of the steps...and the white lock upon the forehead of the woman...

They were at the pool. There was a seat cut at the end, facing the blue pagoda. The woman Fienwi piled the stone with cushions and, as she waited, Jean Meredith saw that there were arms to this seat and that at the end of each was the head of a fox, and that over its back was a tracery of dancing foxes; and she saw, too, that on each side of the seat tiny paths had been cut in stone leading to the water, as though for some small-footed creatures to trot upon and drink.

She was lifted to the stone chair, and sank into the cushions. Except for the seat and the little runways, it was as though she sat beside the pool Martin had built at their California ranch. There, as here, the willows dipped green tendrils into the water; there, as here, drooped ropes of wisteria, pale amethyst and white. And here as there was peace.

Yu Ch'ien spoke: "A stone is thrown into a pool. The ripples spread and break against the shore. At last they cease and the pool is as before. Yet when the stone strikes, as it sinks and while the ripples live, microscopic lives within the pool are changed. But not for long. The stone touches bottom, the pool again becomes calm. It is over, and life for the tiny things is as before."

She said quietly, out of the immense clarity of her mind: "You mean, Yu Ch'ien, that my husband's murder was such a stone."

He went on, as though she had not spoken: "But there is life within life, and over life, and under lifs we know life. And that which happens to the tiny things within the pool may be felt by those beneath and above them. Life is a bubble in which are lesser bubbles which we cannot see, and the bubble we call life is only part of a greater bubble which also we may not see. But sometimes we perceive those bubbles, sometimes glimpse the beauty of the greater, sense the kinship of the lesser...and sometimes a lesser life touches ours and then we speak of demons...and when the greater ones touch us we name it inspiration from Heaven, an angel speaking through our lips--"

She interrupted, thought crystal clear: "I understand you, Martin's murder was the stone. It would pass with its rippleut it has disturbed some pool within which it was a lesser pool. Very well, what then?"

He said: "There are places in this world where the veil between it and the other worlds is thin. They can enter. Why it is so, I do not knout I know it is so. The ancients recognized such places. They named those who dwelt unseen there the genii locoruiterally, the spirits of the places. This mountain, this temple, is such a place. It is why I came to it."

She said: "You mean the fox I saw upon the steps. You mean the woman I thought I saw take the place of that fox, and who drove the Tibetan mad. The fox I asked to help me and to give me revenge, and whom I called sister. The woman I thought I saw who whispered to me that I should have revenge and who called me sister. Very well, what then?"

He answered: "It is true. The murder of your husband was the stone. Better to have let the ripples die. But there was this place...there was a moment...and now the ripples cannot die until--"

Again she interrupted the true thoughr what she believed the true thoughlashing up through her mind like sun-glints from jewels at a clear pool's bottom. "I had denied my God. Whether he exists or does not, I had stripped myself of my armor against those other lives. I did it where and when such other lives, if they exist, could strike. I accept that. And again, what then?"

He said: "You have a strong soul, my daughter."

She answered, with a touch of irony: "While I was within the blackness, before I awakened, I seemed to hear two persons talking, Yu Ch'ien. One had your voice, and the other the voice of the fox woman who called me sister. She promised me serenity. Well, I have that. And having it, I am as unhuman as was her voice. Tell me, Yu Ch'ien, whom my husband called master of illusions, was that woman upon the steps one of your illusions, and was her voice another? Does my serenity come from her or from you? I am no child, and, I know how easily you could accomplish this, by drugs or by your will while I lay helpless."

He said: "My daughter, if they were illusionhey were not mine. And if they were illusions, then I, like you, am victim to them."

She asked: "You mean you have seeer?"

He answered: "And her sisters. Many times."

She said shrewdly: "Yet that does not prove her reahe might have passed from your mind to mine."

He did not answer. She asked abruptly: "Shall I live?"

He replied without hesitation. "No."

She considered that for a little, looking at the willow tendrils, the ropes of wisteria. She mused: "I did not ask for happiness, but she gives me serenity. I did not ask for life, so she gives mengeance. But I no longer care for vengeance."

He said gravely: "It does not matter. You struck into that other life. You asked, and you were promised. The ripples upon the greater pool cannot cease until that promise is fulfilled."

She considered that, looking at the conical hills. She laughed. "They are like great stone hats with brims of green. What are their faces like, I wonder." He asked: "Who killed your husband?" She answered, still smiling at the hatted hills: "Why, his brother, of course."

He asked: "How do you know that?"

She lifted her arms and twined her hands behind her neck. She said, as impersonally as though she read from a book: "I was little more than twenty when I met Martin, Just out of college. He was fifty. But inside was a dreaming boy. Oh, I knew he had lots and lots of money. It didn't matter. I loved hior the boy inside him. He asked me to marry him. I married him.

"Charles hated me from the beginning. Charles is his brother, fifteen years younger. Charles' wife hated me. You see, there was no other besides Charles until I came. If Martin dieell, all his money would go to Charles. They never thought he would marry. For the last ten years Charles had looked after his businesis mines, his investments. I really don't blame Charles for hating mut he shouldn't have killed Martin.

"We spent our honeymoon out on Martin's ranch. He has a pool and garden just like this, you know. It's just as beautiful, but the mountains around it have snowy caps instead of the stony, green-rimmed ones. And he had a great bronze vessel like that of yours. He told me that he had copied the garden from Yu Ch'ien's even to the blue pagoda. And that the vessel had a mate in Yu Ch'ien's Temple of the Foxes. And he told me...of you..."

"Then the thought came to him to return to you and your temple. Martin was a bohe desire gripped him. I did not care, if it made him happy. So we came.

"Charles came with us as far as Nanking. Hating me, I knew, every mile of the journey. At Nankin told Martin I was going to have a baby. I had known it for months but I hadn't told him because I was afraid he would put off this trip on which he had set his heart. Now I knew I couldn't keep it secret much longer. Martin was so happy! He told Charles, who hated me then more than ever. And Martin made a will. If Martin should die, Charles was to act as trustee for me and the child, carry on the estate as before, with his share of the income increased. All the balance, and there are millions, was left to me and the coming baby. There was also a direct bequest of half a million to Charles.

"Martin read the will to him. I was present. So was Kenwood, Martin's secretary. I saw Charles turn white, but outwardly he was pleasantly acquiescent, concerned only lest something really might happen to his brother. But I guessed what was in his heart.

"Kenwood liked me, and he did not like Charles. He came to me one night in Nanking, a few days before we were to start for Yunnan. He tried to dissuade me from the journey. He was a bit vague about reasons, talked of my condition, hard traveling and so on, but that was ridiculous. At last I asked him point-blanhy? Then he said that Charles was secretly meeting a Chinese captain, by nami-kong. I asked what of it, he had a right to pick his friends. Li-kong Li-kong was suspected of being in touch with certain outlaws operating in Szechwan and Yunnan, and of receiving and disposing of the best of their booty. Li-kong: 'If both you and Martin die before the baby is born, Charles will inherit everything. He's next of kin and the only one, for you have nobody.' Kenwood said:

"You're going up into Yunnan. How easy to send word to one of these bands to look out for you. And then brother Charles would have it all. Of course, there's no use saying anything to your husband. He trusts everybody, and Charles most of all. All that would happen would be my dismissal.

"And of course that was true. But I couldn't believe Charles, for all he hated me so, would do this to Martin. There were two of us, and Kenwood and a nice Scotch woman I found at Nanking, a Miss Mackenzie, who agreed to come along to look after me in event of my needing it. There were twenty of us in alhe others Chinese boys, thoroughly good, thoroughly dependable. We came North slowly, unhurriedly. I said that Martin was a boy inside. No need to tell you again of his affection for you. And he loved Chinhe old China. He said it lived now only in a few places, and Yunnan was first. And he had it in his mind that our baby should be borere--"

She sat silent, then laughed. "And so it will be. But not as Martin dreamed ..." She was silent again. She said, as though faintly puzzled: "It was noumao laugh at that!" She went on serenely: "We came on and on slowly. Sampans on the rivers, and I by litter mostly. Always easily, easily...because of the baby. Then two weeks ago Kenwood told me that he had word we were to be attacked at a certain place. He had been years in China, knew how to get information and I knew he had watched and cajoled and threatened and bribed ever since we had entered the hills. He said he, had arranged a counter-attack that would catch the trappers in their own trap. He cursed Charles dreadfully, saying he was behind it. He said that if we could only get to Yu Ch'ien we would be safe. Afterwards he told me that he must have been sold wrong information. The counter-attack had drawn blank. I told him he was letting his imagination run away with him.

"We went on. Then came the ambush. It wasn't a matter of ransom. It was a matter of wiping us out.

"They gave us no chance. So it must have been that we were worth more to them dead than alive. That realization came to me as I stood at the door of my tent and saw Martin cut down, poor Mackenzie fall. Kenwood could have escaped as I diut he died to give me time to get away..."

"Yu Ch'ien, what have you done to me?" asked Jean Meredith, dreamily. "I have seen my husband butchered...I have seen a man give up his life for me...and still I feel no more emotion than as though they had been reeds under the sickle...what have you done to me, Yu Ch'ien?"

He answered: "Daughtehen you are dead, and all those now living are deaill it matter?"

She answered, shaking her head: "Bu am not dead! Nor are those now living dead. And I should rather be human, Yu Ch'ien. And suffer," He said: "It may not be, my daughter." "I wish I could feel," she said. "Good God, but I wish I could feel...."

She said: "That is all. Kenwood threw himself in front of me. I ran. I came to wide steps. I climbed thep and up. I saw a fo saw a woman where I had seen the fox--"

He said: "You saw a Tibetan, a half-caste, who threw himself upon those who followed you, howling like a mad dog. You saw that Tibetan cut down by the knives of his men. I came with my men before he died. We brought him here. I searched his dying mind. He told me that they had been hired to wipe out your party by a Shensi leader of hung-hutzes. And that he had been promised not only the loot of your party if all were slain, but a thousand taels besides. And that when he asked who guaranteed this sum, this leader, in his cups, had told him the Captain Li-kong."

She cupped her chin in hand, looked out over the blue pool to the pagoda. She said at last: "So Kenwood was right! And I am right. It was Charles..."

She said: "I feel a little, Yu Ch'ien. But what I feel is not pleasant. It is hate, Yu Ch'ien...."

She said: "I am only twenty-four. It is rather young to die, Yu Ch'ien, isn't it? But thehat was it your woman's voice said while I was in the darkness? That the self of mine whom I would pity died when Martin did? She was right, Yu Ch'ier you were. And I think I will not be sorry to join that other self."

The sun was sinking. An amethyst veil dropped over the conical mountains. Suddenly they seemed to flatten, to become transparent. The whole valley between the peaks grew luminously crystalline. The blue pagoda shone as though made of dark sapphires behind which little suns burned. She sighed: "It is very beautiful, Yu Ch'ien. I am glad to be herntil I die."

There was a patter of feet beside her. A fox came trotting down one of the carven runways. It looked up at her fearlessly with glowing green eyes. Another slipped from the cover of the pool and another and another. They lapped the blue water fearlessly, eyes glinting swift side-glances at her, curiously...

The days slipped by her, the week month. Each day she sat in the seat of the foxes beside the pool, watching the willows trail their tendrils, the lilies like great rosy pearls open and close and die and be reborn on the pool's blue breast; watching the crystalline green dusks ensorcell the conical peaks, and watching the foxes that came when these dusks fell.

They were friendly now, the foxenew her, sat beside her, studying her; but never did she see the lithe fox with the lock of white between its slanting green eyes. She grew to know the brown woman Fienwi and the sturdy servitors. And from the scattered villages pilgrims came to the shrine; they looked at her fearfully, shyly; as she sat on the seat of the foxes, prostrating themselves before her as though she were some spirit to be placated by worship.

And each day was as the day before, and she thought: Without sorrow, without fear, without gladness, without hope there is no difference between the days, and therefore what difference does it make if I die tomorrow or a year hence?

Whatever the anodyne that steeped her souhether from vague woman of the steps or from Yu Ch'iet had left her with no emotion. Except that she knew she must bear it, she had no feeling even toward her unborn baby. Once, indeed, she had felt a faint curiosity. That this wise priest of the Foxes' Temple had his own means of learning what he desired of the outer world, she was well aware.

She said: "Does Charles know as yet of the ambusnow that I am still alive?"

He answered: "Not yet. The messengers who were sent to Li-kong did not reach him. It will be weeks before he knows."

She said: "And then he will come here. Will the baby be born when he comes, Yu Ch'ien?"

He answered: "Yes."

"And shall I be alive, Yu Ch'ien?"

He did not answer. She laughed.

It was one twilight, in the middle of the Hour of the Dog, that she turned to him, sitting in the garden beside the pool.

"My time has come, Yu Ch'ien. The child stirs."

They carried her into the temple. She lay upon the bed, while the brown woman stooped over her, ministering to her, helping her. The only light in the temple chamber came from five ancient lanterns of milky jade through whose thin sides the candles gleamed, turning them into five small moons. She felt little pain. She thought: I owe that to Yu Ch'ien, I suppose. And the minutes fled by until it was the Hour of the Boar.

She heard a scratching at the temple door. The priest opened it. He spoke softly, one word, a word often on his lips, and she knew it meant "patience." She could see through the opened door into the garden. There were small globular green lights all about, dozens of them, like gnome lanterns.

She said drowsily: "My little foxes wait. Let them enter, Yu Ch'ien."

"Not yet, my daughter."

The Hour of the Boar passed. Midnight passed. There was a great silence in the temple. It seemed to her that all the temple was waiting, that even the unfaltering light of the five small moons on the altar was waiting. She thought: Even the child is waiting . .. and for what?

And suddenly a swift agony shook her and she cried out. The brown woman held tight her hands that tried to beat the air. The priest called, and into the room came four of the sturdy servants of the temple. They carried large vessels in which was water steaming hot and water which did not steam and so, she reasoned idly, must be cold. They kept their backs to her, eyes averted.

The priest touched her eyes, stroked her flanks, and the agony was gone as swiftly as it had come. She watched the servants pour the waters into the ancient Tang font and slip away, backs still turned to her, faces averted.

She had not seen the door open, but there was a fox in the room. It was ghostly in the dim light of the jade lamps, yet she could see it stepping daintily toward her...a vixen, lithe and graceful as a woman...with slanted eyes, sea-green, brilliant as jewels...the fox of the steps whom she had called sister...

And now she was looking up into a woman's face. An exquisite face with sea-green, slanted eyes under a broad ' brow, whose hair of russet-red came to a small peak in the center of that brow, and above the peak a lock of silvery white...the eyes gazed into hers, and although they caressed her, there was in them a faint mockery, a delicate malice.

The woman was naked. Although Jean Meredith could not wrest her own eyes from the slanting green ones, she could see the curve of delicate shoulders, the rounded breasts, the slender hips. It was as though the woman stood poised upon her own breasts, without weight, upon airy feet. There was a curious tingling coolness in her breasts...more pleasant than warmth... and it was as though the woman were sinking into her, becoming a part of her. The face came nearer...nearer...the eyes were now close to hers, and mockery and malice gone from them...in them was only gentleness and promise...she felt cool lips touch hers...

The face was gone. She was sinking, sinking, unresistingly...gratefully...through a luminous greyness ..then into a soft blind darkness...she was being cradled by it, sinking ever deeper and deeper. She cried out once, as though frightened: Martin! Then she cried again, voice vibrant with joy: Martin!

One of the five moon lamps upon the jade altar darkened. Went out.

The brown woman was prostrate upon her face beside the bed. The priest touched her with his foot. He said: "Prepare. Be swift." She bent over the still body.

There was a movement beside the altar. Four foxes stepped daintily from its shadows toward the Tang front. They were vixens, and they came like graceful women, and the coat of each was silken russet-red, their eyes brilliant, sea-green and slanting, and upon each forehead was a lock of silvery white. They drew near the brown woman, watching her.

The priest walked to the doors and threw them open. Into the temple slipped fox after fox...a score, two score...the temple filled with them. They ringed the ancient font, squatting, red tongues lolling, eyes upon the bed.

The priest walked to the bed. In his hand was a curiously shaped, slender knife of bronze, double-edged, sharp as a surgeon's knife. The brown woman threw herself again upon the floor. The priest leaned over the bed, began with a surgeon's deftness and delicacy to cut. The four vixens drew close, watching every movement---

Suddenly there wailed through the temple the querulous crying of a new-born child.

The priest walked from the bed toward the font....He held the child in his hands, and hands and child were red with blood. The vixens walked beside him. The foxes made way for them, closing their circles as they passed. The four vixens halted, one at each of the font's four sides. They did not sit. They stood with gaze fastened upon the priest.

The priest ringed the font, bending before each of the four vixens, holding out the child until each had touched it with her tongue. He lifted the child by the feet, held it dangling head down, high above his head, turning so that all the other foxes could see it.

He plunged it five times into the water of the font.

As abruptly as the first moon lantern had gone out, so darkened the other four.

There was a rustling, the soft patter of many pads. Then silence.

Yu Ch'ien called. There was the gleam of lanterns borne by the servants. The brown woman raised herself from the floor. He placed the child in her hands. He said: "It is finishend it is begun. Care for her."

Thus was born the daughter of Jean and Martin Meredith in the ancient Temple of the Foxes. Born in the heart of the Hour of the Fox, so called in those parts of China where the ancient beliefs still live because it is at the opposite pole of the Hour of the Horse, which animal at certain times and at certain places, has a magic against which the magic of the Fox may not prevail.

CHAPTER III

THE HOME OF HEAVENLY ANTICIPATIONS honored with its presence Peking, not yet at that time renamed Peiping. It was hidden in the heart of the Old City. The anticipations discussed there were usually the reverse of heavenlr, if not, then dealing with highly unorthodox realms of beatitude.

But except for its patrons none ever knew what went on within its walls. There was never any leakage of secrets through those walls. Peculiarly ultimate information could be obtained at the Home of Heavenly Anticipationo long as it did not pertain to its patrons.

It was, in fact, a clearing house for enterprises looked upon with a certain amount of disfavor even by many uncivilized countries: enterprises such as blackmail, larceny on the grand scale, smuggling, escapes, piracies, removal of obstacles by assassination and so on. Its abbots collected rich tithes from each successful operation in return for absolute protection from interruption, eavesdropping and spies, and for the expert and thoroughly trustworthy advices upon any point of any enterprise which needed to be cleared up before action.

Prospective members of the most exclusive of London's clubs were never scanned with such completeness as were applicants for the right to enter the Home of Heavenly Anticipationnd one had to be a rather complete scoundrel to win that right. But to those who sought such benefits as it offered, they were worth all the difficulty in securing them.

Charles Meredith sat in one of its rooms, three weeks to a night from the birth of Jean Meredith's baby. He was not a member, but it was the privilege of accredited patrons to entertain guests to whom secrecy was as desirable as to themselver who might prove refractory.

It was a doubtful privilege for these guests, although they were not aware of it, because it was always quite possible that they might never appear again in their usual haunts. In such event it was almost impossible to trace them back to the Home of Heavenly Anticipations. Always, on their way to it, they had been directed to leave their vehicle, coolie-carriage or what not at a certain point and to wait until another picked them up. Beyond that point they were never traced. Or if their bodies were later found, it was always under such circumstances that no one could point a finger at the Home of Heavenly Anticipations, which was as expert on alibis for corpses as for crooks.

Although he knew nothing of this, Charles Meredith was uneasy. For one thing, he had a considerable sum of money in his pocke very considerable sum. To be explicit, fifty thousand dollars. For another thing, he had not the slightest idea of where he was.

He had dismissed his hotel coolie at a designated point, had been approached by another who gave the proper word of recognition, had been whisked through street after street, then through a narrow alley, then through a door opening into a winding passage, thence into a plain reception hall where a bowing Chinese had met him and led him to the room. He had seen no one, and he heard no sound. Under the circumstances, he appreciated privacut damn it, there was a limit! And where was Li-kong?

He got up and walked about nervously. It gave him some satisfaction to feel the automatic holstered under his left arm-pit. He was tall, rather rangy and his shoulders stooped a little. He had clear eyes whose grey stood out a bit startlingly from his dark face; a good forehead, a somewhat predatory beaked nose; his worst feature, his mouth, which hinted self-indulgence and cruelty. Seemingly an alert, capable American man of affairs, not at all one who would connive at the murder of his own brother.

He turned at the opening of the door. Li-kong came in. Li-kong was a graduate of an American college. His father had cherished hopes of a high diplomatic career, with his American training as part of its foundation. He had repaid it by learning in exhaustive detail the worst of American life. This, grafted to his natural qualifications, had given him high place in the Home of Heavenly Anticipations and among its patrons.

He was in the most formal of English evening dress, looked completely the person his father had hoped he would be instead of what he actually waithout principles, morals, mercy or compunction whatever.

Meredith's nervousness found vent in an irritable, "You've been a hell of a long time getting here, Li-kong!"

The eyes of the Chinese flickered, but he answered urbanely: "Bad news flies fast. Good news is slow. I am neither early nor late."

Meredith asked suspiciously: "What the hell do you mean by that?"

Li-kong said, eyes watchful: "Your honorable elder brother has ascended the dragon."

Meredith's grey eyes glittered. The cruelty stood out on his mouth, unmasked. Li-kong said before he could speak: "All with him, even his unworthy servants, ascended at the same time. All except--" He paused.

Meredith's body tightened, his head thrust forward. He asked in a thin voice: "Except?"

The eyes of the Chinese never left him. He said:

"When you rebuked me a moment ago for slowness, I answered that I was neither early nor late. I must therefore bear good news and bad--"

The American interrupted: "Damn you, Li-kong, who got away?"

The Chinese answered: "Your brother's wife."

Meredith's face whitened, then blackened with fury. He whispered: "Christ!"

He roared: "So you bungled it!" His hand twitched up to the gun under his arm-pit, then dropped. He asked: "Where is she?"

The Chinese must have seen that betraying movement, but he gave no sign. He answered: "She fled to the Temple of the Foxeo your brother's old friend, the priest Yu Ch'ien."

The other snarled: "What were your bunglers about, to let her go? Why didn't they go after her?"

"They did go after her! Of what happened thereafter, you shall heahen you have paid me my money, my friend."

"Paid you!" Meredith's fury mastered him at this. "With the bitch alive? I'll see you in hell before you get a cent from me."

The Chinese said calmly: "But since then she has also ascended the dragon in the footsteps of her lord. She died in childbirth."

"They both are dead--" Meredith sank into the chair, trembling like one from whom tremendous strain has lifted. "Both dead--"

The Chinese watched him, malicious anticipation in his eyes. "But the chilived!" he said.

For a long minute the American sat motionless, looking at him. And now he did not lose control. He said coldly: "So you have been playing with me, have you? Well, now listen to mou get nothing until the child has followed its father and mother. Nothing! And if it is in your mind to blackmail me, remember you can bring no charge against me without sending yourself to the executioner. Think over that, you leering yellow ape!"

The Chinese lighted a cigarette. He said mildly:

"Your brother is dead, according to plan. His wife is dead through that same plan, even though she did not die when the others did. There was nothing in the bargain concerning the child. And I do not think you could reach the child without me." He smiled. "Is it not said, of two brothers, he who thinks himself the invulnerable onhat is the fool?"

Meredith said nothing, eyes bleak on him. Li-kong went on: "Also, I have information to impart, advice to givecessary to you if you determine to go for the child. As you musf you want her. And finalls it not written in the Yih King, the Book of Changes, that a man's mind should have many entrances but only one exit! In this house the saying is reversed. It has only one entrance but many exitnd the door-keeper of each one of them is death."

Again he paused, then said: "Think over that, you welching white brother-killer!"

The American quivered. He sprang up, reaching for his gun. Strong hands grasped his elbows, held him helpless. Li-kong sauntered to him, drew out the automatic, thrust it into his own pocket. The hands released Meredith. He looked behind him. Two Chinese stood there. One held a crimson bow-string, the other a double-edged short-sword.

"Two of the deaths that guard the exits." Li-kong's voice was courtesy itself. "You may have your choice. I recommend the swort is swifter."

Ruthless Meredith was, and no coward, but he recognized here a ruthlessness complete as his own. "You win," he said. "I'll pay."

"And now," smiled Li-kong.

Meredith drew out the bundle of notes and passed them to him. The Chinese counted them and nodded. He spoke to the two executioners and they withdrew. He said very seriously: "My friend, it is well for you I recognize that insults by a younger people have not the same force that they would have if spoken by one of my own race, so much older than yours. In the Yih King it is written that we must not be confused by similitude, that the superior man places not the same value upon the words of a child as he does upon those of a grown man, although the words be identical. It is well also for you that I feel a certain obligation. Not personally, but because an unconsidered factor has caused a seed sown in this house to bring forth a deformed blossom. It is," continued Li-kong, still very seriously, "a reflection upon its honor--"

He smiled at that, and said, "Or rather, its efficiency. I suggest, therefore, that we discuss the matter without heat or further recrimination of any kind."

Meredith said: "I am sorry I said what I did, Li-kong. It was childish temper. I apologize."

The Chinese bowed, but he did not take the hand the other extended. Nor did he recall his own words.

He said: "The child is at the Temple of the Foxes. In Kansu, it is an extremely sacred shrine. She is in charge of Yu Ch'ien, who is not only wise but powerful, and in addition was your honorable late brother's devoted friend. If Yu Ch'ien suspects, then you will have great difficulty in adding to your brother's and your sister-in-law's happiness in Heaven by restoring to them their daughter. You may assume that Yu Ch'ien does suspecnd knows."

Meredith asked incredulously: "Why should he suspect? How could he know?"

Li-kong tapped his cigarette thoughtfully before he answered: "The priest is very wise. Also, like myself, he has had the advantage of contact with your admirable civilization. The woman was with him for weeks, and so he must know who would benefit by thh, expungement of your revered relatives. He might think it highly suspicious that those responsible for the regrettable affair did not pursue the custom of holding the principals for ransom instead oh, expunging them on the spot. Naturally, he would ask himself why. Finally, Yu Ch'ien is locally reported to have sources of information not open to other me mean living men. The dead," observed Li-kong sardonically, "of course know everything."

Meredith said contemptuously: "What do you mean? Spiritism, divinatiohat rot?"

Li-kong considered pensively, answered at last: "Not exactly that. Something closer, rather to the classical idea of communion with elemental intelligences, nature spirits, creatures surviving from an older world than man'ut still of earth. Something like the spirits that answered from the oaks of Dodona, or that spoke to the Sybyl in the grotto of Cumae, or in more modern times appeared in, and instructed Joan of Arc from, the branches of the arbre fee, the fairy tree of Domremy."

Meredith laughed. "Good God! And thirom you!"

Li-kong said imperturbably: "This from me! I ahat I am. I believe in nothing. Yet I tell you that I would not go up those steps to the Temple of the ' for all the gold you could give me. Noow!"

Meredith thought: He is trying to frighten me. The yellow dog is trying to keep me from the temple. Why? He spoke only the last word of the thought: "Why?"

The Chinese answered: "China is old. The ancient beliefs are still strong. There are, for example, the legends of the fox women. The fox women are nature spirits. Intelligences earthy but not humakin to those in Dodona's oaks, Cumae's grotto, Joan of Arc's fairy tree. Believed ispecially in Kansu. Theset us say spiritave certain powers far exceeding the human. Bear with me while I tell you of a few of these powers. They can assume two earthly shapes onlhat of a fox and that of a beautiful woman. There are fox men, too, but the weight of the legends are upon the women. Since for them time does not exist, they are mistresses of time. To those who come under their power, they can cause a day to seem like a thousand years, or a thousand years like a day. They can open the doors to other worldorlds of terror, worlds of delight. If such worlds are illusions, they do not seem so to those for whom they are opened. The fox women can make or mar journeys."

Meredith thought: Come, now we're getting down to it.

The Chinese went quietly on: "They can create other illusions. Phantoms, perhaput if so, phantoms whose blows maim or kill. They are capricious, bestowing good fortune or ill regardless of the virtue or the lack of it of the recipient. They are peculiarly favorable to women with child. They can, by invitation, enter a woman, passing through her breasts or beneath her finger nails. They can enter an unborn child, or rather a child about to be born. In such cases, the mother dieor is the manner of birth the normal one. They cannot oust the soul of the child, but they can dwell beside it, influencing it. Quaint fancies, my friend, in none of which I have belief. Yet because of them nothing could induce me to climb the steps to the Temple of the Foxes."

Meredith thought: He's trying to frighten me away! What the hell does he think I ao be frightened by such superstitious drivel? He said, in that thin voice with which he spoke when temper was mastering him:

"What's your game, Li-kong? Another double-cross? You're trying to tell me that if I were you, I wouldn't go to the temple for the brat. Why?"

The Chinese said: "My friend, I have played the game with you. I do not say that if I were you, I would not go. I say that if you were I, you would not. A quite different thing."

The other swung clenched fist down upon the table. "Don't tell me you expect me to take seriously that farrago of nonsense! You don't expect me to give up now because of a yellow--" He checked himself abruptly.

The Chinese completed the sentence politely: "Because of a yellow man's superstition! No, but let me point out a few rather disquieting things. The Temple of the Foxes is believed to be the home of five of these fox women. Fivpiritho are sisters. Three messengers were sent me with the news of the ambush. The first should have reached me within three weeks after it happened. He has vanished. The second was despatched with other news a week later. He too vanished. But the third, bearing the news of the death of your brother's wife, the birth of the child, came as on the wings of the wind. Why the failure of the first two? Because someone desired to keep you in ignorance until after that birth? Who?

"Again, no word has come from Kansu, except by this messenger, of the attack on your brother's party. This, my friend, places you in a dilemma. You cannot betray your knowledge of his death without subjecting yourself to questioning as to how that knowledge came to you. You cannot, therefore, send for the child. You must yourself gpon some pretext. I think that whoever sped the third messenger on his way intends that you shall gourself. Why?"

Meredith struck the table again. "I'll go!"

"Third," continued Li-kong, "my messenger said that the woman who fled ran up the steps of the Temple of the Foxes. And that when they were almost upon he fox stood between her and them. And that fox changed into a woman who changed their leader into a mad dog. At whichey ran. So I think," said Li-kong meditatively, "would I have run!"

Meredith said nothing, but his hand beat steadily on the table and the grey eyes were furious.

"You are thinking," said the Chinese, "'The yellow dogs! Of course they would run! Filled with rum or opium! Of course!'"

It was precisely what he had been thinking, but Meredith made no answer.

"And finally," said Li-kong, "your brother's wife died when the child was born--"

"Because, I suppose, the fox bitch crawled into her!" jeered Meredith, and leaning back, whined thin, high-pitched laughter.

The Chinese lost for a moment his calm, half arose, then dropped back. He said patiently: "If you go up the stepide a horse. Preferably an English horse that has hunted foxes."

He lighted another cigarette. "But that is superstition. Nevertheless, if you go, take two men with you as free from tains you are. I know two such men. One is a German, the other French. Bold men and hard men. Travel alone, the three of you, as far as you can. At all times keep as few Chinese with you as possible. When you go to the temple, go up the steps alone. Take no Chinese with you there." He said gravely: "I vouch for these two men. Better still, the Home of Heavenly Anticipations vouches for them. They will want money, of course."

Meredith asked: "How much?"

"I don't know. They're not cheap. Probably five thousand dollars at most."

Meredith thought: Here's what he's been leading up to. It's a trap!

Again it was as though Li-kong had read his thoughts. He said very deliberately: "Meredith, listen to me! I want nothing more from you nor through you. I have not spoken to these men. They do not know, nor will they know from me, anything of that transaction for which you have just paid. I am through with it. I am through with you! I do not like you. I hope never to see you again. Is that plain American talk?"

Meredith said, as deliberately: "I like it. Go on."

"All that they need know is that you are anxious about your brother. When in due time during your journey you discover that he and his wife are dead, and that there is a child, you will naturally want to bring that child back with you. If you are denied the child, and killing is necessary, they will kill. That is all. I will put you in touch with these two men. And I will see to it that none with whom I have relations embarrass you on your way to Kansu, nor on your way bacf you come back. Except for that obligation of which I have spoken, I would not do even this. I would not lift a finger to help you. After you leave this house, you shall be to me as though you never had been. I want nothing to do with Yu Ch'ien and those who go to the Temple of the Foxes. If we should meet agaiever speak to me! Do not show you have known me! Never speak to me, never write to me, do not think of me. I am through with you! Is that clear?"

Meredith nodded, smiling. He thought: I was wrong about him wanting to keep me from the place. The yellow rat is frightened...he believes in his own bogies! America and everything else couldn't knock the superstition out of him!

The thought amused him. It gave him a contemptuous tolerance of Li-kong, a pleasant knowledge of superiority. He said, not bothering to keep the contempt from his voice: "Clearer than you know, Li-kong. Where do I meet your friends?"

"They can be at your hotel at one, if it suits you."

"It suits me. Their names?"

"They will tell you. They will bear credentials from me."

Li-kong arose. He stood beside the door, bowing courteously. Meredith passed through. They went along another passage and through a winding alley out into a street. It was not the same street from which he had entered. Nor did he recognize it. A coolie-car waited. Li-kong bowed him into it.

"May our shadows never touch again," said Li-kong ceremoniously. He added, for the first time menacingly: "For your health."

He turned and passed into the alley. The coolie broke into a swift trot, and away.

CHAPTER IV

IT WAS MID-AFTERNOON a month later that he rode out of the green glen and looked up the first steep flight of the ancient steps to the Temple of the Foxes. Riding beside him were von Brenner and Lascelles, the two bold and hard men Li-kong had recommended. They were all of that, but they were also discreet men. They had accepted without comment his explanation of seeking news of his brother, had been properly sympathetic and had asked him no embarrassing questions. Both could speak the Mandarin as well as several of the dialects. Lascelles knew Kansu, was even familiar with the locality in which was the Temple of the Foxes.

Meredith had thought it wise to make inquiries at various places through which he knew Martin had passed, and here the German and the Frenchman acted as his interpreters. When they reported that at these points his brother's party had been in excellent health, they did so with every outward evidence of belief that such tidings were welcome to him.

Either they were excellent actors or Li-kong had kept faith with him and told them nothing beyond what had been agreed. Confidence in the second possibility however had been somewhat disturbed shortly after entering Kansu. The Frenchman had said he thought, somewhat too casually, that if it was desirable to get to the temple without passing through any village within a day's march, he knew a way. He added that while undoubtedly the temple's priest would know they were coming, he would expect them to follow the usual route. Therefore, he could possibly be taken by surprise.

Meredith smelled a trap. To accept the suggestion was to admit that the temple had been the real object of his journey, the reason he had given a subterfuge, and the anxious inquiries he had made along the line of march a blind. He answered sharply that there was no reason for any surprise visit, that the priest Yu Ch'ien, a venerable scholar, was an old friend of his brother, and that if the party had reached him there was no further cause for anxiety. Why did Lascelles think he desired any secrecy in his search? The Frenchman replied politely that if he had known of such friendship the thought would not have occurred to him, of course.

As a matter of fact, Meredith felt no more fear of Yu Ch'ien than he did of Li-kong's fox woman. Whenever he thought of how the Chinese had tried to impress him with that yellow Mother Goose yarn, he felt a contemptuous amusement that more than compensated him for the humiliation of having been forced to pay the blood money. He had often listened to Martin extol Yu Ch'ien's wisdom and virtues, but that only proved what a complete impractical ass Martin had been...gone senile prematurely, in brain at least...that was plain enough when he married that golddigger young enough to be his daughter...no longer the brother he had known...who could tell what he might have done next...some senility which would have brought ruin to them all...a senile crazy brain in Martin's still sound body, that was all...if Martin had been suffering from some agonizing and incurable disease and had asked him to put him out of his misery, he would certainly have done so...well, what was the difference between that and what he had done? That the girl and her brat should also have to suffer was too bad...but it had been made necessary by Martin's own senility.

Thus he justified himself. At the same time there was no reason why he should take these two men into his confidence.

What he should do with the brat when he had it was not quite clear. It was only two months olnd it was a long journey back to Peking. There must be some woman taking care of it at the temple. He would arrange that she go with them to Peking. If some accident happened, or if the child caught something or other on the way bachat would not be his fault. Her proper place, obviously, was with her father's family. Not in a heathen temple back of nowhere in China. Nobody could blame him for wanting to bring her back...even if anything did happen to her.

But on second thought, not so good. He would have to take back proof that this child was theirs. Proof of birth. It would be better to bring her alive to Peking...even better, it might be, if it lived until he had taken it back to the States and the whole matter of trusteeship and guardianship had been legally adjusted. There was plenty of time. And he would have his half-million, and the increased percentage from the estate to tide him over the gap between now and untiomething happened, and the whole estate would be his. He thought callously: Well, the brat is insured as far as Peking at any rate.

They had passed through a village that morning. The headman had met them, and in answer to the usual questioning, had given a complete account of the massacre, of Jean's escape, of her death later at the temple and of the child's birth. It was so complete, even to the dates, that he felt a stirring of faint suspicion. It was a little as though the story had been drilled into this man. And now and then he would call this one or that among the villagers for corroboration. But Charles had shown the proper shades of grief, and desire to punish the killers. And Brenner and Lascelles had exerted themselves to comfort him in orthodox fashion.

He had said at last: "The first thing to do is get the baby safely back to Peking. I can get capable white nurses there. I'll have to find a woman here to look after it until we reach Peking. I want to get the child to the States and in my wife's care as soon as I can. And I want to start the machinery going to punish my brother's murdererlthough I realize that's a forlorn hope."

They had agreed with him that it was most desirable to get the child to his wife in quickest possible time, and that hope of punishing the killers was indeed a forlorn one.

And now he stood looking up the ancient steps at whose end was the child. He said: "You couldn't ride a horse up that, unless it was a circus horse. And these are not."

Lascelles smiled. "It is impossible to ride to the temple. There are steeper flights than this. And there is no trail or other road. We must walk."

Meredith said suspiciously: "You seem to know a lot about this place, Lascelles. Ever been to the temple?"

The Frenchman answered: "No, but I have talked to those who have."

Meredith grinned. "Li-kong told me to take a horse. He said the fox women were afraid of it."

Brenner laughed. "Die Fuchs-Damen! I haf always wanted to see one. Joost as I always wanted to see one of those bowmen of Mons they haf spoken so highly of in the War. Yah! I would like to try a bullet on the bowmen, but I would haf other treatment for the fox women. Yah!"

Lascelles said noncommittally: "It's hard to get some things out of the mind of a Chinese."

Brenner said to Meredith: "There is one question I haf to ask. How far iss it that we go in getting this child? Suppose this priest thinks it better you do not haf it? How far iss it that we go to persuade him, hein?" He added meditatively: "The headman said that there are with the priest three women and four men." He said even more meditatively: "The headsman he was very full of detail. Yae knew a lot. I do not like thauite."

Lascelles nodded, saying nothing, looking at Meredith interrogatively.

Meredith said: "I do not see for what reason or upon what grounds Yu Ch'ien can deny me the child. I am its uncle, its natural guardian. Its father, my brother so designated me in the event of his death. Well, he is dead. If the priest refuses to give it up peaceably I would certainly be justified in using force to secure it. If the priest were hure would not be to blame. If his men attacked us and were hure would be blameless. One way or anothe take the child."

Lascelles said somewhat grimly: "If it comes to fighting, we ride back along that way I told you of. We will go through no village within a day's journey from here. It will not be healthy for us in Kanshe speed at which we must go will not be healthy for the child."

Meredith said: "I am sure we'll have no trouble with Yu Ch'ien."

They had brought a fourth horse with them, a sturdy beast with wide Chinese saddle such as a woman rides. They tethered the four horses and began to mount the steps. At first they talked, then their voices seemed to be absorbed in the silence, to grow thin. They stopped talking.

The tall pines watched them as they passehe crouching shrubs watched them. They saw no one, heard nothinut gradually they became as watchful as the pines and bushes, alert, hands gripping the butts of their pistols as though the touch gave them confidence. They came over the brow of the hill and the sweat was streaming from them as it streams from horses frightened by something they sense but can neither see nor hear.

It was as though they had passed out of some peril-haunted jungle into safety. They still said nothing to each other, but they straightened, drew deep breaths, and their hands fell from their pistols. They looked down upon the peacock-tiled roof of the Temple of the Foxes and upon its blue pool of peace. A man sat beside it on a stone seat. As they watched him, he arose and walked toward the temple. At each side of him went a pair of what seemed russet-red dogs. Suddenly they saw that these were not dogs, but foxes.

They came down over the brow of the hill to the rear of the temple. In its brown stone there was no door, only six high windows that seemed to watch them come. They saw no one. They skirted the temple and reached its front. The man they had seen at the pool stood there, as though awaiting them. The foxes were gone.

The three halted as one, involuntarily. Meredith had expected to see an old, old maentle, a little feeble, perhaps. The face he saw was old, no doubt of thaut the eyes were young and prodigiously alive. Large and black and liquid, they held his. He was clothed in a symboled robe of silvery blue on whose breast in silver was a fox's head.

Meredith thought: What if he isn't what I expected! He shook his head impatiently, as though to get rid of some numbness. He stepped forward, hand outstretched. He said: "I am Charles Meredith. You are Yu Ch'iey brother's friend--"

The priest said: "I have been expecting you, Charles Meredith. You already know what happened. The village headman mercifully took from me the burden of delivering to you the first blossom of sorrowful knowledge."

Meredith thought: How the devil did he know that?

The village is half a day away. We came swiftly, and no runner could have reached here before us.

The priest had taken his outstretched hand. He did not clasp it palm to palm, but held it across the top, thumb pressed to wrist. Meredith felt a curious tingling coolness dart from wrist to shoulder. The black eyes were looking deep into his, and he felt the same tingling coolness in his brain. His hand was released, the gaze withdrawn. He felt as though something had been withdrawn from his mind with it.

"And your friends--" Yu Ch'ien grasped von Brenner's hand in the same way, black eyes searching the German's. He turned to Lascelles. The French thrust his hands behind him, avoided the eyes. He bowed and said: "For me, it is too great honor, venerable father of wisdom."

For an instant Yu Ch'ien's gaze rested on him thoughtfully. He spoke to Meredith: "Of your brother and your brother's wife there is nothing more to be said. They have passed. You shall see the child."

Meredith answered bluntly: "I came to take her with me, Yu Ch'ien."

The priest said as though he had not heard: "Come into the temple and you shall see her."

He walked through the time-bitten pillars into the room where Jean Meredith had died. They followed him. It was oddly dark within the temple '. Meredith supposed that it was the transition from the sunny brightness. It was as though the chamber was filled with silent, watchful brown shadows. There was an altar of green stone on which were five ancient lamps of milky jade. They were circular, and in four of them candles burned, turning them into four small moons. The priest led them toward this altar. Not far from the altar was an immense vessel of bronze, like a baptismal font. Between altar and vessel was an old Chinese cradle, and nestled in its cushions was a baby. It was a girl child, fast asleep, one little dimpled fist doubled up to its mouth. The priest walked to the opposite side of the cradle.

He said softly: "Your brother's daughter, Charles Meredith. Bend over. I desire to show you something, let your friends look too."

The three bent over the cradle. The priest gently opened the child's swathings. Upon its breast, over its heart, was a small scarlet birth-mark shaped like a candle flame wavering in the wind. Lascelles lifted his hand, finger pointing, but before he could speak, the priest had caught his wrist. He looked into the Frenchman's eyes. He said sternly: "Do not waken her."

The Frenchman stared at him for a moment, then said through stiff lips: "You devil!"

The priest dropped his wrist. He said to Meredith, tranquilly: "I show you the birth-mark so you may know the child when you see her again. It will be long, Charles Meredith, before you do see her again."

A quick rage swept Meredith but before he succumbed to it he found time to wonder at its fury. He whispered: "Cover him, von Brenner! Throttle him, Lascelles!"

He bent down to lift the baby from the cradle. He stiffened, hands clutching at empty air. The baby and cradle were gone. He looked up. The priest was gone.

Where Yu Ch'ien had stood was a row of archers, a dozen of them. The light from the four lanterns shone shadedly upon them. They were in archaic mail, black lacquered helmets on their heads; under their visors yellow slanted eyes gleamed from impassive faces. Their bows were stretched, strings ready to loose, the triangular arrow heads at point like snakes poised to spring. He looked at them stupidly. Where had they come from? At the head of the line was a giant all of seven feet tall, old, with a face as though made of gnarled pear-wood. It was his arrow that pointed to Meredith's heart. The others---

He sprang bacack between von Brenner and Lascelles. They stood, glaring unbelievingly as he had at that line of bowmen. He saw the German lift his pistol, heard him say thickly: "The bowmen of Mons--" heard Lascelles cry: "Drop it, you fool!" Heard the twang of a bow, the hiss of an arrow and saw an arrow pierce the German's wrist and saw the pistol fall to the temple floor.

Lascelles cried: "Don't move, Meredith!" The Frenchman's automatic rang upon the temple floor.

He heard a commann the voice of Yu Ch'ien. The archers moved forward, not touching the three, but menacing them with their arrows. The three moved back.

Abruptly, beneath the altar, in the light of the four lanterns, he saw the cradle and the child within it, still asleep.

And beside the cradle, Yu Ch'ien.

The priest beckoned him. The line of archers opened as he walked forward. Yu Ch'ien looked at him with unfathomable eyes. He said in the same tranquil tones, utterly without anger or reproach:

"I know the truth. You think I could not prove that truth? You are right. I could non an earthly court. And you fear no other. But listen welou have good reason to fear me! Some day your brother's child will be sent to you. Until she comes, look after her interests well and try in no manner directly or indirectly to injure her. You will have the money your brother left you. You will have your interest in her estate. You will have at least seven years before she comes. Use those years well, Charles Mereditt is not impossible that you may build up much merit which will mitigate, even if it cannot cancel, your debt of wickedness. But this I tell yoo not try to regain this child before she is sent to you, nor attempt to molest her. After she comes to yohe matter is in other hands than mine. Do you understand me, Charles Meredith?"

He heard himself say: "I understand you. It shall be as you say."

Yu Ch'ien thrust his hand into his robe, drew out a package. He said: "Here are written the circumstances of your brother's death, his wife's death and the birth of the child. They are attested by me, and by witnesses of mine. I am well known far beyond the limits of this, my temple. My signature will be sufficient to prove the authenticity of the statements. I have given my reasons why I think it useless to attempt to bring the actual murderers of your brother and his party to justice. I have said that their leader was caught and executed. He was! My real reason for acting as I am may not be known by you. Now pick up those useless weapons of yourseless at least herake these papers and go!"

Meredith took the documents. He picked up the guns. He turned and walked stiffly through the bowmen to where von Brenner and Lascelles stood close to the temple doors, under the arrows of the bowmen. They mounted the hill and set their feet upon the ancient road.

Silent, like men half-awake, they passed through the lines of the watchful pines and at last into the glen where their horses stood tethered---

There was an oath from the German. He was moving the wrist gingerly. And suddenly all three were like men who had just awakened. Von Brenner cried: "The arrow! I felt i saw it! But there iss no arrow and no mark. And my hand iss good as ever."

Lascelles said very quietly: "There was no arrow, von Brenner. There were no bowmen. Nevertheless, let us move from here quickly."

Meredith said: "But I saw the arrow strike. I saw the archers."

"When Yu Ch'ien gripped our wrists he gripped our minds," answered Lascelles. "If we had not believed in the reality of the bowmee would not have seen them. The arrow could not have hurt you, von Brenner. But the priest had trapped us. We had to believe in their reality." He untied his horse. He turned to Meredith, foot on stirrup: "Did Yu Ch'ien threaten you?"

Meredith answered with a touch of grim humor:

"Yeut he gave me seven years for the threats to take effect."

Lascelles said: "Good. Then you and I, von Brenner, get back to Peking. We'll spend the night at that village of the too well informed headmao back by the open road. But ride fast."

He gave the horse his knee and raced away. The other two followed. The horse with the wide Chinese saddle placidly watched them go.

Two hours after dusk they came to the village. The headman was courteous, provided them with food and shelter, but no longer was communicative. Meredith was quiet. Before they rolled into their blankets he said to Lascelles: "When the priest grasped your hand you were about to say somethinomething about that birth-mark on the child's breast. What was it?"

Lascelles said: "I was about to say that it was the symbol of the fox women."

Meredith said: "Don't tell me you believe in that damned nonsense!"

Lascelles answered: "I'm not telling you anything, except that the mark was the symbol of the fox women."

Von Brenner said: "I'fe seen some strange things in this damned China and elsewhere, Pierre. But neffer an arrow that pierced a man's wrist and hung there quiverinnd then was gone. But the wrist deas mine wass."

Lascelles said: "Listen, Franz. This priest is a great man. What he did to us I have seen sorcerers, so-called, do to others in Tibet and in India. But never with such completeness, such clarity. The archers came from the mind of the priest into our mindes, that I know. But I tell you, Franz, that if you had believed that arrow had pierced your hearour heart would not be alive as your wrist is! I tell you agaie is a great man, that priest."

Meredith said: "But--"

Lascelles said: "For Christ's sake, man, is it impossible for you to learn!" He rolled himself in his blankets. Went to sleep.

Meredith lay awake, thinking, for long. He thought;

Yu Ch'ien doesn't know a damned thing. If he dihy would he promise me the child? He knows he can't prove a thing. He thought: He thinks he can frighten me so that when the child comes of age she'll get what's coming to her...And he thought: Lascelles is as crazy as Li-kong. Those archers were hidden there all the time. They were real, all right. Or, if it was a matter of hypnotism, I'd like to see myself believe in them in New York! He laughed.

It was a damned good arrangement, he concluded. Probably the priest wouldn't send the brat back to him for ten years. But in the meantimell, he'd like to see that file of archers in one of the Bronx night clubs! It was a good arrangemenor him. The priest was as senile as Martin...

THE END

NORTH OF us a shaft of light shot half way to the zenith. It came from behind the five peaks. The beam drove up through a column of blue haze whose edges were marked as sharply as the rain that streams from the edges of a thunder cloud. It was like the flash of a searchlight through an azure mist. It cast no shadows.

As it struck upward the summits were outlined hard and black and I saw that the whole mountain was shaped like a hand. As the light silhouetted it, the gigantic fingers stretched, the hand seemed to thrust itself forward. It was exactly as though it moved to push something back. The shining beam held steady for a moment; then broke into myriads of little luminous globes that swung to and fro and dropped gently. They seemed to be searching.

The forest had become very still. Every wood noise held its breath. I felt the dogs pressing against my legs. They too were silent; but every muscle in their bodies trembled, their hair was stiff along their backs and their eyes, fixed on the falling lights, were filmed with the terror glaze.

I looked at Anderson. He was staring at the North where once more the beam had pulsed upward.

"It can't be the aurora," I spoke without moving my lips. My mouth was as dry as though Lao T'zai had poured his fear dust down my throat.

"If it is I never saw one like it," he answered in the same tone. "Besides who ever heard of an aurora at this time of the year?"

He voiced the thought that was in my own mind.

"It makes me think something is being hunted up there," he said, "an unholy sort of hunt's well for us to be out of range."

"The mountain seems to move each time the shaft shoots up," I said. "What's it keeping back, Starr? It makes me think of the frozen hand of cloud that Shan Nadour set before the Gate of Ghouls to keep them in the lairs that Eblis cut for them."

He raised a hanistening.

From the North and high overhead there came a whispering. It was not the rustling of the aurora, that rushing, crackling sound like the ghosts of winds that blew at Creation racing through the skeleton leaves of ancient trees that sheltered Lilith. It was a whispering that held in it a demand. It was eager. It called us to come up where the beam was flashing. It drew. There was in it a note of inexorable insistence. It touched my heart with a thousand tiny fear-tipped fingers and it filled me with a vast longing to race on and merge myself in the light. It must have been so that Ulysses felt when he strained at the mast and strove to obey the crystal sweet singing of the Sirens.

The whispering grew louder.

"What the hell's the matter with those dogs?" cried Anderson savagely. "Look at them!"

The malemutes, whining, were racing away toward the light. We saw them disappear among the trees. There came back to us a mournful howling. Then that too died away and left nothing but the insistent murmuring overhead.

The glade we had camped in looked straight to the North. We had reached I suppose three hundred mile above the first great bend of the Koskokwim toward the Yukon. Certainly we were in an untrodden part of the wilderness. We had pushed through from Dawson at the breaking of the Spring, on a fair lead to the lost five peaks between which, so the Athabasean medicine man had told us, the gold streams out like putty from a clenched fist. Not an Indian were we able to get to go with us. The land of the Hand Mountain was accursed they said. We had sighted the peaks the night before, their tops faintly outlined against a pulsing glow. And now we saw the light that had led us to them.

Anderson stiffened. Through the whispering had broken a curious pad-pad and a rustling. It sounded as though a small bear were moving towards us. I threw a pile of wood on the fire and, as it blazed up, saw something break through the bushes. It walked on all fours, but it did not walk like a bear. All at once it flashed upon mt was like a baby crawling upstairs. The forepaws lifted themselves in grotesquely infantile fashion. It was grotesque but it waerrible. It grew closer. We reached for our gunnd dropped them. Suddenly we knew that this crawling thing was a man!

It was a man. Still with the high climbing pad-pad he swayed to the fire. He stopped.

"Safe," whispered the crawling man, in a voice that was an echo of the murmur overhead. "Quite safe here. They can't get out of the blue, you know. They can't get yonless you go to them--"

He fell over on his side. We ran to him. Anderson knelt.

"God's love!" he said. "Frank, look at this!" He pointed to the hands. The wrists were covered with torn rags of a heavy shirt. The hands themselves were stumps! The fingers had been bent into the palms and the flesh had been worn to the bone. They looked like the feet of a little black elephant! My eyes traveled down the body. Around the waist was a heavy band of yellow metal. From it fell a ring and a dozen links of shining white chain!

"What is he? Where did he come from?" said Anderson. "Look, he's fast asleeet even in his sleep his arms try to climb and his feet draw themselves up one after the other! And his kneeow in God's name was he ever able to move on them?"

It was even as he said. In the deep sleep that had come upon the crawler arms and legs kept raising in a deliberate, dreadful climbing motion. It was as though they had a life of their owhey kept their movement independently of the motionless body. They were semaphoric motions. If you have ever stood at the back of a train and had watched the semaphores rise and fall you will know exactly what I mean.

Abruptly the overhead whispering ceased. The shaft of light dropped and did not rise again. The crawling man became still. A gentle glow began to grow around us. It was dawn, and the short Alaskan summer night was over. Anderson rubbed his eyes and turned to me a haggard face.

"Man!" he exclaimed. "You look as though you have been through a spell of sickness!"

"No more than you, Starr," I said. "What do you make of it all?"

"I'm thinking our only answer lies there," he answered, pointing to the figure that lay so motionless under the blankets we had thrown over him. "Whatever it wahat's what it was after. There was no aurora about that light, Frank. It was like the flaring up of some queer hell the preacher folk never frightened us with."

"We'll go no further today," I said. "I wouldn't wake him for all the gold that runs between the fingers of the five peakor for all the devils that may be behind them."

The crawling man lay in a sleep as deep as the Styx. We bathed and bandaged the pads that had been his hands. Arms and legs were as rigid as though they were crutches. He did not move while we worked over him. He lay as he had fallen, the arms a trifle raised, the knees bent.

"Why did he crawl?" whispered Anderson. "Why didn't he walk?"

I was filing the band about the waist. It was gold, but it was like no gold I had ever handled. Pure gold is soft. This was soft, but it had an unclean, viscid life of its own. It clung to the file. I gashed through it, bent it away from the body and hurled it far off. It waoathsome!

All that day he slept. Darkness came and still he slept. That night there was no shaft of light, no questing globe, no whispering. Some spell of horror seemed lifted from the land. It was noon when the crawling man awoke. I jumped as the pleasant drawling voice sounded.

"How long have I slept?" he asked. His pale blue eyes grew quizzical as I stared at him. "A nighnd almost two days," I said. "Was there any light up there last night?" He nodded to the North eagerly. "Any whispering?"

"Neither," I answered. His head fell back and he stared up at the sky.

"They've given it up, then?" he said at last.

"Who have given it up?" asked Anderson.

"Why, the people of the pit," replied the crawling man quietly.

We stared at him. "The people of the pit," he said. "Things that the Devil made before the Flood and that somehow have escaped God's vengeance. You weren't in any danger from thenless you had followed their call. They can't get any further than the blue haze. I was their prisoner," he added simply. "They were trying to whisper me back to them!"

Anderson and I looked at each other, the same thought in both our minds.

"You're wrong," said the crawling man. "I'm not insane. Give me a very little to drink. I'm going to die soon, but I want you to take me as far South as you can before I die, and afterwards I want you to build a big fire and burn me. I want to be in such shape that no infernal spell of theirs can drag my body back to them. You'll do it too, when I've told you about them--" he hesitated. "I think their chain is off me?" he said.

"I cut it off," I answered shortly.

"Thank God for that too," whispered the crawling man.

He drank the brandy and water we lifted to his lips.

"Arms and legs quite dead," he said. "Dead as I'll be soon. Well, they did well for me. Now I'll tell you what's up there behind that hand. Hell!"

"Now listen. My name is Stantoinclair Stanton. Class 1900, Yale. Explorer. I started away from Dawson last year to hunt for five peaks that rise like a hand in a haunted country and run pure gold between them. Same thing you were after? I thought so. Late last fall my comrade sickened. Sent him back with some Indians. Little later all my Indians ran away from me. I decided I'd stick, built a cabin, stocked myself with food and lay down to winter it. In the Spring I started off again. Little less than two weeks ago I sighted the five peaks. Not from this side thoughe other. Give me some more brandy.

"I'd made too wide a detour," he went on. "I'd gotten too far North. I beat back. From this side you see nothing but forest straight up to the base of the Hand Mountain. Over on the other side--"

He was silent for a moment.

"Over there is forest too. But it doesn't reach so far. No! I came out of it. Stretching miles in front of me was a level plain. It was as worn and ancient looking as the desert around the ruins of Babylon. At its end rose the peaks. Between me and thear ofas what looked like a low dike of rocks. The ran across the road!

"The road!" cried Anderson incredulously.

"The road," said the crawling man. "A fine smooth stone road. It ran straight on to the mountain. Oh, it was road all righnd worn as though millions and millions of feet had passed over it for thousands of years. On each side of it were sand and heaps of stones. After while I began to notice these stones. They were cut, and the shape of the heaps somehow gave me the idea that a hundred thousand years ago they might have been houses. I sensed man about them and at the same time they smelled of immemorial antiquity. Well--

"The peaks grew closer. The heaps of ruins thicker. Something inexpressibly desolate hovered over them; something reached from them that struck my heart like the touch of ghosts so old that they could be only the ghosts of ghosts. I went on.

"And now I saw that what I had thought to be the low rock range at the base of the peaks was a thicker litter of ruins. The Hand Mountain was really much farther off. The road passed between two high rocks that raised themselves like a gateway."

The crawling man paused.

"They were a gateway," he said. "I reached them. I went between them. And then I sprawled and clutched the earth in sheer awe! I was on a broad stone platform. Before me waheer space! Imagine the Grand Canyon five times as wide and with the bottom dropped out. That is what I was looking into. It was like peeping over the edge of a cleft world down into the infinity where the planets roll! On the far side stood the five peaks. They looked like a gigantic warning hand stretched up to the sky. The lip of the abyss curved away on each side of me.

"I could see down perhaps a thousand feet. Then a thick blue haze shut out the eye. It was like the blue you see gather on the high hills at dusk. And the pit was awesome; awesome as the Maori Gulf of Ranalak, that sinks between the living and the dead and that only the freshly released soul has strength to leaut never strength to cross again.

"I crept back from the verge and stood up, weak. My hand rested against one of the pillars of the gateway. There was carving upon it. It bore in still sharp outlines the heroic figure of a man. His back was turned. His arms were outstretched. There was an odd peaked headdress upon him. I looked at the opposite pillar. It bore a figure exactly similar. The pillars were triangular and the carvings were on the side away from the pit. The figures seemed to be holding something back. I looked closer. Behind the outstretched hands I seemed to see other shapes.

"I traced them out vaguely. Suddenly I felt unaccountably sick. There had come to me an impression of enormous upright slugs. Their swollen bodies were faintly cull except the heads which were well marked globes. They wernutterably loathsome. I turned from the gates back to the void. I stretched myself upon the slab and looked over the edge.

"A stairway led down into the pit!"

"A stairway!" we cried.

"A stairway," repeated the crawling man as patiently as before. "It seemed not so much carved out of the rock as built into it. The slabs were about six feet long and three feet wide. It ran down from the platform and vanished into the blue haze."

"But who could build such a stairway as that?" I said. "A stairway built into the wall of a precipice and leading down into a bottomless pit!"

"Not bottomless," said the crawling man quietly. "There was a bottom. I reached it!"

"Reached it?" we repeated.

"Yes, by the stairway," answered the crawling man. "You se went down it!

"Yes," he said. "I went down the stairway. But not that day. I made my camp back of the gates. At dawn I filled my knapsack with food, my two canteens with water from a spring that wells up there by the gateway, walked between the carved monoliths and stepped over the edge of the pit.

"The steps ran along the side of the rock at a forty degree pitch. As I went down and down I studied them. They were of a greenish rock quite different from the granitic porphyry that formed the wall of the precipice. At first I thought that the builders had taken advantage of an outcropping stratum, and had carved from it their gigantic flight. But the regularity of the angle at which it fell made me doubtful of this theory.

"After I had gone perhaps half a mile I stepped out upon a landing. From this landing the stairs made a V shaped turn and ran on downward, clinging to the cliff at the same angle as the first flight; it was a zig-zag, and after I had made three of these turns I knew that the steps dropped straight down in a succession of such angles. No strata could be so regular as that. No, the stairway was built by hands! But whose? The answer is in those ruins around the edge, I thinever to be read.

"By noon I had lost sight of the five peaks and the lip of the abyss. Above me, below me, was nothing but the blue haze. Beside me, too, was nothingness, for the further breast of rock had long since vanished. I felt no dizziness, and any trace of fear was swallowed in a vast curiosity. What was I to discover? Some ancient and wonderful civilization that had ruled when the Poles were tropical gardens? Nothing living, I felt surll was too old for life. Still, a stairway so wonderful must lead to something quite as wonderful I knew. What was it? I went on.

"At regular intervals I had passed the mouths of small caves. There would be two thousand steps and then an opening, two thousand more steps and an openinnd so on and on. Late that afternoon I stopped before one of these clefts. I suppose I had gone then three miles down the pit, although the angles were such that I had walked in all fully ten miles. I examined the entrance. On each side were carved the figures of the great portal above, only now they were standing face forward, the arms outstretched as though to hold something back from the outer depths. Their faces were covered with veils. There were no hideous shapes behind them. I went inside. The fissure ran back for twenty yards like a burrow. It was dry and perfectly light. Outside I could see the blue haze rising upward like a column, its edges clearly marked. I felt an extraordinary sense of security, although I had not been conscious of any fear. I felt that the figures at the entrance were guardianut against what?

"The blue haze thickened and grew faintly luminescent. I fancied that it was dusk above. I ate and drank a little and slept. When I awoke the blue had lightened again, and I fancied it was dawn above. I went on. I forgot the gulf yawning at my side. I felt no fatigue and little hunger or thirst, although I had drunk and eaten sparingly. That night I spent within another of the caves, and at dawn I descended again.

"It was late that day when I first saw the city--."

He was silent for a time.

"The city," he said at last, "there is a city you know. But not such a city as you have ever seeor any other man who has lived to tell of it. The pit, I think, is shaped like a bottle; the opening before the five peaks is the neck. But how wide the bottom is I do not knohousands of miles maybe. I had begun to catch little glints of light far down in the blue. Then I saw the tops orees, I suppose they are. But not our kind of treenpleasant, snaky kind of trees. They reared themselves on high thin trunks and their tops were nests of thick tendrils with ugly little leaves like arrow heads. The trees were red, a vivid angry red. Here and there I glimpsed spots of shining yellow. I knew these were water because I could see things breaking through their surfacr at least I could see the splash and ripple, but what it was that disturbed them I never saw.

"Straight beneath me was thity. I looked down upon mile after mile of closely packed cylinders. They lay upon their sides in pyramids of three, of fivf dozeniled upon each other. It is hard to make you see what that city is likook, suppose you have water pipes of a certain length and first you lay three of them side by side and on top of them you place two and on these two one; or suppose you take five for a foundation and place on these four and then three, then two and then one. Do you see? That was the way they looked. But they were topped by towers, by minarets, by flares, by fans, and twisted monstrosities. They gleamed as though coated with pale rose flame. Beside them the venomous red trees raised themselves like the heads of hydras guarding nests of gigantic, jeweled and sleeping worms!

"A few feet beneath me the stairway jutted out into a Titanic arch, unearthly as the span that bridges Hell and leads to Asgard. It curved out and down straight through the top of the highest pile of carven cylinders and then it vanished through it. It was appallint was demonic--"

The crawling man stopped. His eyes rolled up into his head. He trembled and his arms and legs began their horrible crawling movement. From his lips came a whispering. It was an echo of the high murmuring we had heard the night he came to us. I put my hands over his eyes. He quieted.

"The Things Accursed!" he said. "The People of the Pit! Did I whisper. Yeut they can't get me nohey can't!"

After a time he began as quietly as before.

"I crossed the span. I went down through the top of thauilding. Blue darkness shrouded me for a moment and I felt the steps twist into a spiral. I wound down and the was standing high up i can't tell you in what, I'll have to call it a room. We have no images for what is in the pit. A hundred feet below me was the floor. The walls sloped down and out from where I stood in a series of widening crescents. The place was colossand it was filled with a curious mottled red light. It was like the light inside a green and gold flecked fire opal. I went down to the last step. Far in front of me rose a high, columned altar. Its pillars were carved in monstrous scrollike mad octopuses with a thousand drunken tentacles; they rested on the backs of shapeless monstrosities carved in crimson stone. The altar front was a gigantic slab of purple covered with carvings.

"I can't describe these carvings! No human being coulhe human eye cannot grasp them any more than it can grasp the shapes that haunt the fourth dimension. Only a subtle sense in the back of the brain sensed them vaguely. They were formless things that gave no conscious image, yet pressed into the mind like small hot sealdeas of hatf combats between unthinkable monstrous thingictories in a nebulous hell of steaming, obscene junglespirations and ideals immeasurably loathsome--

"And as I stood I grew aware of something that lay behind the lip of the altar fifty feet above me. I knew it was ther felt it with every hair and every tiny bit of my skin. Something infinitely malignant, infinitely horrible, infinitely ancient. It lurked, it brooded, it threatened and ias invisible!

"Behind me was a circle of blue light. I ran for it. Something urged me to turn back, to climb the stairs and make away. It was impossible. Repulsion for that unseen Thing raced me onward as though a current had my feet. I passed through the circle. I was out on a street that stretched on into dim distance between rows of the carven cylinders.

"Here and there the red trees arose. Between them rolled the stone burrows. And now I could take in the amazing ornamentation that clothed them. They were like the trunks of smooth skinned trees that had fallen and had been clothed with high reaching noxious orchids. Yehose cylinders were like thand more. They should have gone out with the dinosaurs. They weronstrous. They struck the eyes like a blow and they passed across the nerves like a rasp. And nowhere was there sight or sound of living thing.

"There were circular openings in the cylinders like the circle in the Temple of the Stairway. I passed through one of them. I was in a long, bare vaulted room whose curving sides half closed twenty feet over my head, leaving a wide slit that opened into another vaulted chamber above. There was absolutely nothing in the room save the same mottled reddish light that I had seen in the Temple. I stumbled. I still could see nothing, but there was something on the floor over which I had tripped. I reached downd my hand touched a thing cold and smoothat moved under i turned and ran out of that plac was filled with a loathing that had in it something of madnes ran on and on blindlringing my handeeping with horror--

"When I came to myself I was still among the stone cylinders and red trees. I tried to retrace my steps; to find the Temple. I was more than afraid. I was like a new loosed soul panic-stricken with the first terrors of hell. I could not find the Temple! Then the haze began to thicken and glow; the cylinders to shine more brightly. I knew that it was dusk in the world above and I felt that with dusk my time of peril had come; that the thickening of the haze was the signal for the awakening of whatever things lived in this pit.

"I scrambled up the sides of one of the burrows. I hid behind a twisted nightmare of stone. Perhaps, I thought, there was a chance of remaining hidden until the blue lightened and the peril passed. There began to grow around me a murmur. It was everywhernd it grew and grew into a great whispering. I peeped from the side of the stone down into the street. I saw lights passing and repassing. More and more lighthey swam out of the circular doorways and they thronged the street. The highest were eight feet above the pave; the lowest perhaps two. They hurried, they sauntered, they bowed, they stopped and whisperend there was nothing under them!"

"Nothing under them!" breathed Anderson.

"No," he went on, "that was the terrible part of ihere was nothing under them. Yet certainly the lights were living things. They had consciousness, volition, thoughhat else I did not know. They were nearly two feet acroshe largest. Their center was a bright nucleued, blue, green. This nucleus faded off, gradually, into a misty glow that did not end abruptly. It too seemed to fade off into nothingnesut a nothingness that had under it a somethingness. I strained my eyes trying to grasp this body into which the lights merged and which one could only feel was there, but could not see.

"And all at once I grew rigid. Something cold, and thin like a whip, had touched my face. I turned my head. Close behind were three of the lights. They were a pale blue. They looked at mf you can imagine lights that are eyes. Another whiplash gripped my shoulder. Under the closest light came a shrill whispering. I shrieked. Abruptly the murmuring in the street ceased. I dragged my eyes from the pale blue globe that held them and looked ouhe lights in the streets were rising by myriads to the level of where I stood! There they stopped and peered at me. They crowded and jostled as though they were a crowd of curious peopln Broadway. I felt a score of the lashes touch me--

"When I came to myself I was again in the great Place of the Stairway, lying at the foot of the altar. All was silent. There were no lightnly the mottled red glow. I jumped to my feet and ran toward the steps. Something jerked me back to my knees. And then I saw that around my waist had been fastened a yellow ring of metal. From it hung a chain and this chain passed up over the lip of the high ledge. I was chained to the altar!

"I reached into my pockets for my knife to cut through the ring. It was not there! I had been stripped of everything except one of the canteens that I had hung around my neck and which I suppose They had thought waart of me. I tried to break the ring. It seemed alive. It writhed in my hands and it drew itself closer around me! I pulled at the chain. It was immovable. There came to me the consciousness of the unseen Thing above the altar. I groveled at the foot of the slab and wept. Thinlone in that place of strange light with the brooding ancient Horror above m monstrous Thing, a Thing unthinkabln unseen Thing that poured forth horror--

"After awhile I gripped myself. Then I saw beside one of the pillars a yellow bowl filled with a thick white liquid. I drank it. If it killed I did not care. But its taste was pleasant and as I drank my strength came back to me with a rush. Clearly I was not to be starved. The lights, whatever they were, had a conception of human needs.

"And now the reddish mottled gleam began to deepen. Outside arose the humming and through the circle that was the entrance came streaming the globes, They ranged themselves in ranks until they filled the Temple. Their whispering grew into a chant, a cadenced whispering chant that rose and fell, rose and fell, while to its rhythm the globes lifted and sank, lifted and sank.

"All that night the lights came and wennd all that night the chant sounded as they rose and fell. At the last I felt myself only an atom of consciousness in a sea of cadenced whispering; an atom that rose and fell with the bowing globes. I tell you that even my heart pulsed in unison with them! The red glow faded, the lights streamed out; the whispering died. I was again alone and I knew that once again day had broken in my own world.

"I slept. When I awoke I found beside the pillar more of the white liquid. I scrutinized the chain that held me to the altar. I began to rub two of the links together. I did this for hours. When the red began to thicken there was a ridge worn in the links. Hope rushed up within me. There was, then, a chance to escape.

"With the thickening the lights came again. All through that night the whispering chant sounded, and the globes rose and fell. The chant seized me. It pulsed through me until every nerve and muscle quivered to it. My lips began to quiver. They strove like a man trying to cry out on a nightmare. And at last they too were whispering the chant of the people of the pit. My body bowed in unison with the light was, in movement and sound, one with the nameless things while my soul sank back sick with horror and powerless. While I whispered aw Them!"

"Saw the lights?" I asked stupidly.

"Saw the Things under the lights," he answered. "Great transparent snail-like bodieozens of waving tentacles stretching from theound gaping mouths under the luminous seeing globes. They were like the ghosts of inconceivably monstrous slugs! I could see through them. And as I stared, still bowing and whispering, the dawn came and they streamed to and through the entrance. They did not crawl or walhey floated! They floated and werone!

"I did not sleep. I worked all that day at my chain. By the thickening of the red I had worn it a sixth through. And all that night I whispered and bowed with the pit people, joining in their chant to the Thing that brooded above me!

"Twice again the red thickened and the chant held mhen on the morning of the fifth day I broke through the worn links of the chain. I was free! I drank from the bowl of white liquid and poured what was left in my flask. I ran to the Stairway. I rushed up and past that unseen Horror behind the altar ledge and was out upon the Bridge. I raced across the span and up the Stairway.

"Can you think what it is to climb straight up the verge of a cleft-worlith hell behind you? Hell was behind me and terror rode me. The city had long been lost in the blue haze before I knew that I could climb no more. My heart beat upon my ears like a sledge. I fell before one of the little caves feeling that here at last was sanctuary. I crept far back within it and waited for the haze to thicken. Almost at once it did so. From far below me came a vast and angry murmur. At the mouth of the rift I saw a light pulse up through the blue; die down and as it dimmed I saw myriads of the globes that are the eyes of the pit people swing downward into the abyss. Again and again the light pulsed and the globes fell. They were hunting me. The whispering grew louder, more insistent.

"There grew in me the dreadful desire to join in the whispering as I had done in the Temple. I bit my lips through and through to still them. All that night the beam shot up through the abyss, the globes swung and the whispering soundend now I knew the purpose of the caves and of the sculptured figures that still had power to guard them. But what were the people who had carved them? Why had they built their city around the verge and why had they set that Stairway in the pit? What had they been to those Things that dwelt at the bottom and what use had the Things been to them that they should live beside their dwelling place? That there had been some purpose was certain. No work so prodigious as the Stairway would have been undertaken otherwise. But what was the purpose? And why was it that those who had dwelt about the abyss had passed away ages gone, and the dwellers in the abyss still lived? I could find no answeor can I find any now. I have not the shred of a theory.

"Dawn came as I wondered and with it silence. I drank what was left of the liquid in my canteen, crept from the cave and began to climb again. That afternoon my legs gave out. I tore off my shirt, made from it pads for my knees and coverings for my hands. I crawled upward. I crawled up and up. And again I crept into one of the caves and waited until again the blue thickened, the shaft of light shot through it and the whispering came.

"But now there was a new note in the whispering. It was no longer threatening. It called and coaxed. It drew.

"A new terror gripped me. There had come upon me a mighty desire to leave the cave and go out where the lights swung; to let them do with me as they pleased, carry me where they wished. The desire grew. It gained fresh impulse with every rise of the beam until at last I vibrated with the desire as I had vibrated to the chant in the Temple. My body was a pendulum. Up would go the beam and I would swing toward it! Only my soul kept steady. It held me fast to the floor of the cave; And all that night it fought with my body against the spell of the pit people.

"Dawn came. Again I crept from the cave and faced the Stairway. I could not rise. My hands were torn and bleeding; my knees an agony. I forced myself upward step by step. After a while my hands became numb, the pain left my knees. They deadened. Step by step my will drove my body upward upon them.

"And the nightmare of crawling up infinite stretches of stepemories of dull horror while hidden within caves with the lights pulsing without and whisperings that called and called memory of a time when I awoke to find that my body was obeying the call and had carried me half way out between the guardians of the portals while thousands of gleaming globes rested in the blue haze and watched me."

"Glimpses of bitter fights against sleep and always, alway climb up and up along infinite distances of steps that led from Abaddon to a Paradise of blue sky and open world!

"At last a consciousness of the clear sky close above me, the lip of the pit before memory of passing between the great portals of the pit and of steady withdrawal from ireams of giant men with strange peaked crowns and veiled faces who pushed me onward and onward and held back Roman Candle globules of light that sought to draw me back to a gulf wherein planets swam between the branches of red trees that had snakes for crowns.

"And then a long, long sleeow long God alone known a cleft of rocks; an awakening to see far in the North the beam still rising and falling, the lights still hunting, the whispering high above me calling.

"Again crawling on dead arms and legs that movehat moveike the Ancient Mariner's shiithout volition of mine, but that carried me from a haunted place. And theour firnd thiafety!"

The crawling man smiled at us for a moment. Then swiftly life faded from his face. He slept.

That afternoon we struck camp and carrying the crawling man started back South. For three days we carried him and still he slept. And on the third day, still sleeping, he died. We built a great pile of wood and we burned his body as he had asked. We scattered his ashes about the forest with the ashes of the trees that had consumed him. It must be a great magic indeed that could disentangle those ashes and draw him back in a rushing cloud to the pit he called Accursed. I do not think that even the People of the Pit have such a spell. No.

But we did not return to the five peaks to see.

THE END

THE POOL OF THE STONE GOD

(written under the pseudonym W. Fenimore)

This is Professor James Marston's story. A score of learned bodies have courteously heard him tell it, and then among themselves have lamented that so brilliant a man should have such an obsession. Professor Marston told it to me in San Francisco, just before he started to find the island that holds his pool of the stone god anhe wings that guard it. He seemed to me very sane. It is true that the equipment of his expedition was unusual, and not the least curious part of it are the suits of fine chain mail and masks and gauntlets with which each man of the party is provided.

The five of us, said Professor Marston, sat side by side on the beach. There was Wilkinson the first officer, Bates and Cassidy the two seamen, Waters the pearler and myself. We had all been on our way to New Guinea, I to study the fossils for the Smithsonian. The Moranus had struck the hidden reef the night before and had sunk swiftly. We were then, roughly, about five hundred miles northeast of the Guinea coast. The five of us had managed to drop a lifeboat and get away. The boat was well stocked with water and provisions. Whether the rest of the crew had escaped we did not know. We had sighted the island at dawn and had made for her. The lifeboat was drawn safely up on the sands.

"We'd better explore a bit, anyway," said Waters. "This may be a perfect place for us to wait rescue. At least until the typhoon season is over. We've our pistols. Let's start by following this brook to its source, look over the place and then decide what we'll do."

The trees began to thin out. We saw ahead an open space. We reached it and stopped in sheer amazement. The clearing was perfectly square and about five hundred feet wide. The trees stopped abruptly at its edges as though held back by something unseen.

But it was not this singular impression that held us. At the far end of the square were a dozen stone huts clustered about one slightly larger. They reminded me powerfully of those prehistoric structures you see in parts of England and France. I approach now the most singular thing about this whole singular and sinister place. In the center of the space was a pool walled about with huge blocks of cut stone. At the side of the pool rose a great stone figure, carved in the semblance of a man with outstretched hands. It was at least twenty feet high and was extremely well executed. At the distance the statue seemed nude and yet it had a peculiar effect of drapery about it. As we drew nearer we saw that it was covered from ankles to neck with the most extraordinary carved wings. They looked exactly like bat wings when they were folded.

There was something extremely disquieting about this figure. The face was inexpressibly ugly and malignant. The eyes, Mongol-shaped, slanted evil. It was not from the face, though, that this feeling seemed to emanate. It was from the body covered with wingnd especially from the wings. They were part of the idol and yet they gave one the idea that they were clinging to it.

Cassidy, a big brute of a man, swaggered up to the idol and laid his hand on it. He drew it away quickly, his face white, his mouth twitching. I followed him and conquering my unscientific repugnance, examined the stone. It, like the huts and in fact the whole place, was clearly the work of that forgotten race whose monuments are scattered over the Southern Pacific. The carving of the wings was wonderful. They were batlike, as I have said, folded and each ended in a little ring of conventionalized feathers. They ranged in size from four to ten inches. I ran my fingers over one. Never have I felt the equal of the nausea that sent me to my knees before the idol. The wing had felt like smooth, cold stone, but I had the sensation of having touched back of the stone some monstrous obscene creature of a lower world. The sensation came of course, I reasoned, only from the temperature and texture of the stonnd yet this did not really satisfy me.

Dusk was soon due. We decided to return to the beach and examine the clearing further on the morrow. I desired greatly to explore the stone huts.

We started back through the forest. We walked some distance and then night fell. We lost the brook. After a half hour's wandering we heard it again. We started for it. The trees began to thin out and we thought we were approaching the beach. Then Waters clutched my arm. I stopped. Directly in front of us was the open space with the stone god leering under the moon and the green water shining at his feet!

We had made a circle. Bates and Wilkinson were exhausted. Cassidy swore that devils or no devils he was going to camp that night beside the pool!

The moon was very bright. And it was so very quiet. My scientific curiosity got the better of me and I thought I would examine the huts. I left Bates on guard and walked over to the largest. There was only one room and the moonlight shining through the chinks in the wall illuminated it clearly. At the back were two small basins set in the stone. I looked in one and saw a faint reddish gleam reflected from a number of globular objects. I drew a half dozen of them out. They were pearls, very wonderful pearls of a peculiarly rosy hue. I ran toward the door to call Batend stopped!

My eyes had been drawn to the stone idol. Was it an effect of the moonlight or did it move? No, it was the wings! They stood out from the stone and wavehey waved, I say, from the ankles to the neck of that monstrous statue.

Bates had seen them, too. He was standing with his pistol raised. Then there was a shot. And after that the air was filled with a rushing sound like that of a thousand fans. I saw the wings loose themselves from the stone god and sweep down in a cloud upon the four men. Another cloud raced up from the pool and joined them. I could not move. The wings circled swiftly around and about the four. All were now on their feet and I never saw such horror as was in their faces.

Then the wings closed in. They clung to my companions as they had clung to the stone.

I fell back into the hut. I lay there through the night insane with terror. Many times I heard the fan-like rushing about the enclosure, but nothing entered my hut. Dawn came, and silence, and I dragged myself to the door. There stood the stone god with the wings carved upon him as we had seen him ten hours before!

I ran over to the four lying on the grass. I thought that perhaps I had had a nightmare. But they were dead. That was not the worst of it. Each man was shrunken to his bones! They looked like collapsed white balloons. There was not a drop of blood in them. They were nothing but bones wrapped around in thin skin!

Mastering myself, I went close to the idol. There was something different about it. It seemed larges though, the thought went through my mind, as though it had eaten. Then I saw that it was covered with tiny drops of blood that had dropped from the ends of the wings that clothed it!

I do not remember what happened afterward. I awoke on the pearling schooner Luana which had picked me up, crazed with thirst as they supposed in the boat of the Moranus.

THE END

CHAPTER ONE

The clock was striking eight as I walked out of the doors of the Discoverers' Club and stood for a moment looking down lower Fifth Avenue. As I paused, I felt with full force that uncomfortable sensation of being watched that had both puzzled and harassed me for the past two weeks. A curiously prickly, cold feeling somewhere deep under the skin on the side that the watchers are located; an odd sort of tingling pressure. It is a queer sort of a sensitivity that I have in common with most men who spend much of their lives in the jungle or desert. It is a throwback to some primitive sixth sense, since all savages have it until they get introduced to the white man's liquor.

Trouble was I couldn't localize the sensation. It seemed to trickle in on me from all sides. I scanned the street. Three taxis were drawn up along the curb in front of the Club. They were empty and their drivers busy talking. There were no loiterers that I could see. The two swift side-rubbing streams of traffic swept up and down the Avenue. I studied the windows of the opposite houses. There was no sign in them of any watchers.

Yet eyes were upon me, intently. I knew it.

The warning had come to me in many places this last fortnight. I had felt the unseen watchers time and again in the Museum where I had gone to look at the Yunnan jades I had made it possible for rich old Rockbilt to put there with distinct increase to his reputation as a philanthropist; it had come to me in the theater and while riding in the Park; in the brokers' offices where I myself had watched the money the jades had brought me melt swiftly away in a game which I now ruefully admitted I knew less than nothing about. I had felt it in the streets, and that was to be expected. But I had also felt it at the Club, and that was not to be expected and it bothered me more than anything else.

Yes, I was under strictest surveillance. But why?

That was what this night I had determined to find out.

At a touch upon my shoulder, I jumped, and swept my hand halfway up to the little automatic under my left armpit. By that, suddenly I realized how badly the mystery had gotten on my nerves. I turned, and grinned a bit sheepishly into the face of big Lars Thorwaldsen, back in New York only a few days from his two years in the Antarctic.

"Bit jerky, aren't you, Jim?" he asked. "What's the matter? Been on a bender?"

"Nothing like it, Lars," I answered. "Too much city, I guess. Too much continual noise and motion. And too many people," I added with a real candor he could not suspect.

"God!" he exclaimed. "It all looks good to me. I'm eating it up—after those two years. But I suppose in a month or two I'll be feeling the same way about it. I hear you're going away again soon. Where this time? Back to China?"

I shook my head. I did not feel like telling Lars that my destination was entirely controlled by whatever might turn up before I had spent the sixty-five dollars in my wallet and the seven quarters and two dimes in my pocket.

"Not in trouble, are you, Jim?" he looked at me more keenly. "If you are, I'd be glad to—help you."

I shook my head. Everybody knew that old Rockbilt had been unusually generous about those infernal jades. I had my pride, and staggered though I was by that amazingly rapid melting away of a golden deposit I had confidently expected to grow into a barrier against care for the rest of my life, make me, as a matter of fact, independent of all chance, I did not feel like telling even Lars of my folly. Besides, I was not yet that hopeless of all things, a beachcomber in New York. Something would turn up.

"Wait," he said, as some one called him back into the Club.

But I did not wait. Even less than baring my unfortunate gamble did I feel like telling about my watchers. I stepped down into the street.

Who was it that was watching me? And why? Some one from China who had followed after the treasure I had taken from the ancient tomb? I could not believe it. Kin-Wang, bandit though he might be, and accomplished graduate of American poker as well as of Cornell, would have sent no spies after me. Our, well—call it transaction, irregular as it had been, was finished in his mind when he had lost. Crooked as he might be with the cards, he was not the man to go back on his word. Of that I was sure. Besides, there had been no need of letting me get this far before striking. No, they were no emissaries of Kin-Wang.

There had been that mock arrest in Paris, designed to get me quickly out of the way for a few hours, as the ransacked condition of my room and baggage showed when I returned. A return undoubtedly much earlier than the thieves had planned, due to my discovery of the ruse and my surprise sally which left me with an uncomfortable knife slash under an arm but, I afterwards reflected pleasantly, had undoubtedly left one of my guards with a broken neck and another with a head that would not do much thinking for another month or so. Then there had been the second attempt when the auto in which I was rushing to the steamer had been held up between Paris and the Havre. That might have been successful had not the plaques been tucked among the baggage of an acquaintance who was going to the boat by the regular train, thinking, by the way, that he was carrying for me some moderately rare old dishes that I did not want to trust to the possible shocks of fast automobile travel, to which the mythical engagement on the day of sailing had condemned me.

Were the watchers this same gang? They must know that the jades were now out of my hands and safe in the museum. I could be of no further value to these disappointed gentlemen, unless, of course, they were after revenge. Yet that would hardly explain this constant, furtive, patient watching. And why hadn't they struck long before? Surely there had been plenty of opportunities.

Well, whoever the watchers were, I had determined to give them the most open of chances to get at me. I had paid all my bills. The sixty-six dollars and ninety-five cents in my pocket comprised all my worldly goods, but no one else had any claim on it. Whatever unknown port I was clearing for with severely bare sticks and decks, it was with no debts left behind.

Yes, I had determined to decoy my enemies, if enemies they were, out into the open. I had even made up my mind as to where it should be.

In all New York the loneliest spot at eight o'clock of an October night, or any night for that matter, is the one which by day is the most crowded on all the globe. Lower Broadway, empty then of all its hordes and its canyon-like cleft silent, its intersecting minor canyons emptier and quieter even than their desert kin. It was there that I would go.

As I turned down Fifth Avenue from the Discoverers' Club a man passed me, a man whose gait and carriage, figure and clothing, were oddly familiar.

I stood stock still, looking after him as he strolled leisurely up the steps and into the Club.

Then, queerly disturbed, I resumed my walk. There had been something peculiarly familiar, indeed disquietingly familiar, about that man. What was it? Making my way over to Broadway, I went down that street, always aware of the watchers.

But it was not until I was opposite City Hall that I realized what that truly weird familiarity had been. The realization came to me with a distinct shock.

In gait and carriage, in figure and clothing, from light brown overcoat, gray soft hat, to strong Malacca cane that man had been—Myself!

CHAPTER TWO

I stopped short. The natural assumption was, of course, that the resemblance had been a coincidence, extraordinary enough, but still—coincidence. Without doubt there were at least fifty men in New York who might easily be mistaken for me at casual glance. The chance, however, that one of them would be dressed precisely like me at any precise moment was almost nil. Yet it could be. What else could it be? What reason had any one to impersonate me?

But then, for that matter, what reason had any one to put a watch on me?

I hesitated, of half a mind to call a taxi, and return to the Club. Reason whispered to me that the glimpse I had gotten had been brief, that perhaps I had been deceived by the play of light and shadow, the resemblance been only an illusion. I cursed my jumpy nerves and went on.

Fewer and fewer became the people I passed as I left Cortlandt Street behind me. Trinity was like a country church at midnight. As the cliffs of the silent office buildings hemmed me I felt a smothering oppression, as though they were asleep and swaying in on me; their countless windows were like blind eyes. But if they were blind, those other eyes, that I had never for an instant felt leave me, were not. They seemed to become more intent, more watchful.

And now I met no one. Not a policeman, not even a watchman. The latter were, I knew, inside these huge stone forts of capital. I loitered at corners, giving every opportunity for the lurkers to step out, the invisible to become visible. And still I saw no one. And still the eyes never left me.

It was with a certain sense of disappointment that I reached the end of Broadway and looked out over Battery Park. It was deserted. I walked down to the Harbor wall and sat upon a bench. A ferryboat gliding toward Staten Island was like some great golden water bug. The full moon poured a rivulet of rippling silver fire upon the waves. It was very still—so still that I could faintly hear Trinity's bells chiming nine o'clock.

I had heard no one approach, but suddenly I was aware of a man sitting beside me and a pleasant voice asking me for a match. As the flame flared up to meet his cigarette, I saw a dark, ascetic face, smooth-shaven, the mouth and eyes kindly and the latter a bit weary, as though from study. The hand that held the match was long and slender and beautifully kept. It gave the impression of unusual strength—a surgeon's hand or a sculptor's. A professional man certainly, I conjectured. The thought was strengthened by his Inverness coat and his soft, dark hat. In the broad shoulders under the cloak of the coat was further suggestion of a muscular power much beyond the ordinary.

"A beautiful night, sir," he tossed the match from him. "A night for adventure. And behind us a city in which any adventure is possible."

I looked at him more closely. It was an odd remark, considering that I had unquestionably started out that night for adventure. But was it so odd after all? Perhaps it was only my overstimulated suspicion that made it seem so. He could not possibly have known what had drawn me to this silent place. And the kindly eyes and the face made me almost instantly dismiss the thought. Some scholar this, perhaps, grateful for the quietness of the Park.

"That ferryboat yonder," he pointed, seemingly unaware of my scrutiny. "It is an argosy of potential adventure. Within it are mute Alexanders, inglorious Caesars and Napoleons, incomplete Jasons each almost able to retrieve some Golden Fleece—yes, and incomplete Helens and Cleopatras, all lacking only one thing to round them out and send them forth to conquer."

"Lucky for the world they're incomplete, then," I laughed. "How long would it be before all these Napoleons and Caesars and Cleopatras and all the rest of them were at each other's throats—and the whole world on fire?"

"Never," he said, very seriously. "Never, that is, if they were under the control of a will and an intellect greater than the sum total of all their wills and intellects. A mind greater than all of them to plan for all of them, a will more powerful than all their wills to force them to carry out those plans exactly as the greater mind had conceived them."

"The result, sir," I objected, "would seem to me to be not the super-pirates, super-thieves and super-courtesans you have cited, but super-slaves."

"Less slaves than at any time in history," he replied. "The personages I have suggested as types were always under control of Destiny—or God, if you prefer the term. The will and intellect I have in mind would profit, since its house would be a human brain, by the mistakes of blind, mechanistic Destiny or of a God who surely, if he exists, has too many varying worlds to look after to give minute attention to individuals of the countless species that crawl over them. No, it would use the talents of its servants to the utmost, not waste them. It would suitably and justly reward them, and when it punished—its punishments would be just. It would not scatter a thousand seeds haphazardly on the chance that a few would find fertile ground and grow. It would select the few, and see that they fell on fertile ground and that nothing prevented their growing."

"Such a mind would have to be greater than Destiny, or, if you prefer the term, God," I said. "I repeat that it seems to me a super-slavery and that it's mighty lucky for the world that no such mind exists."

"Ah!" he drew at his cigarette, thoughtfully, "but, you see—it does."

"Yes?" I stared at him, wondering if he were joking. "Where?"

"That," he answered, coolly, "you shall soon know—Mr. Kirkham."

"You know me!" for one amazed moment I thought that I could not have heard aright.

"Very well," he said. "And that mind whose existence you doubt knows—all of you there is to know. He summons you! Come, Kirkham, it is time for us to go!"

So! I had met what I had started out to find! They, whoever they were, had come out into the open at last.

"Wait a bit." I felt my anger stir at the arrogance of the hitherto courteous voice. "Whoever you may be or whoever he may be who sent you, neither of you knows me as well as you seem to think. Let me tell you that I go nowhere unless I know where it is I'm going, and I meet no one unless I choose. Tell me then where you want me to go, who it is I'm to meet and the reason for it. When you do that, I'll decide whether or not I'll answer this, what did you call it—summons."

He had listened to me quietly. Now his hand shot out and caught my wrist. I had run across many strong men, but never one with a grip like that. My cane dropped from my paralyzed grasp.

"You have been told all that is necessary," he said, coldly. "And you are going with me—now!"

He loosed my wrist, and shaking with rage I jumped to my feet.

"Damn you," I cried. "I go where I please when I please—" I stooped to pick up my cane. Instantly his arms were around me.

"You go," he whispered, "where he who sent me pleases and when he pleases!"

I felt his hands swiftly touching me here and there. I could no more have broken away from him than if I had been a kitten. He found the small automatic under my left armpit and drew it out of its holster. Quickly as he had seized me, he released me and stepped back. "Come," he ordered.

I stood, considering him and the situation. No one has ever had occasion to question my courage, but courage, to my way of thinking, has nothing whatever to do with bull-headed rashness. Courage is the cool weighing of the factors of an emergency within whatever time limit your judgment tells you that you have, and then the putting of every last ounce of brain, nerve and muscle into the course chosen. I had not the slightest doubt that this mysterious messenger had men within instant call. If I threw myself on him, what good would it do? I had only my cane. He had my gun and probably weapons of his own. Strong as I am, he had taught me that my strength was nothing to his. It might even be that he was counting upon an attack by me, that it was what he hoped for.

True, I could cry out for help or I could run. Not only did both of these expedients seem to me to be ridiculous, but, in view of the certainty of his hidden aides, useless.

Not far away were the subway stations and the elevated road. In that brilliantly lighted zone I would be comparatively safe from any concerted attack—if I could get there. I began to walk away across the Park toward Whitehall Street.

To my surprise he made neither objection nor comment. He paced quietly beside me. Soon we were out of the Battery and not far ahead were the lights of the Bowling Green Station. My resentment and anger diminished, a certain amusement took their place. Obviously it was absurd to suppose that in New York City anyone could be forced to go anywhere against his will, once he was in the usual close touch with its people and its police. To be snatched away from a subway station was almost unthinkable, to be kidnapped from the subway once we got in it absolutely unthinkable. Why then was my companion so placidly allowing each step to take me closer to this unassailable position?

It would have been so easy to have overpowered me just a few moments before. Or why had I not been approached at the Club? There were a dozen possible ways in which I could have been lured away from there.

There seemed only one answer. There was some paramount need for secrecy. A struggle in the Park might have brought the police. Overtures at the Club might have left evidence behind had I disappeared. How utterly outside the mark all this reasoning was I was soon to learn.

As we drew closer to the Bowling Green entrance of the subway, I saw a policeman standing there. I admit without shame that his scenic effect warmed my heart.

"Listen," I said to my companion. "There's a bluecoat. Slip my gun back into my pocket. Leave me here and go your way. If you do that, I say nothing. If you don't I'm going to order that policeman to lock you up. They'll have the Sullivan Law on you if nothing else. Go away quietly and, if you want to, get in touch with me at the Discoverers' Club. I'll forget all this and talk to you. But don't try any more of the rough stuff or I'll be getting good and mad."

He smiled at me, as at some child, his face and eyes again all kindness. But he did not go. Instead, he linked his arm firmly in mine and led me straight to the officer. And as we came within earshot he said to me, quite loudly:

"Now come, Henry. You've had your little run. I'm sure you don't want to give this busy officer any trouble. Come, Henry! Be good!"

The policeman stepped forward, looking us over. I did not know whether to laugh or grow angry again. Before I could speak, the man in the Inverness had handed the bluecoat a card. He read it, touched his hat respectfully and asked:

"And what's the trouble, doctor?"

"Sorry to bother you, officer," my astonishing companion answered. "But I'll ask you to help me a bit. My young friend here is one of my patients. War case—aviator. He hurt his head in a crash in France and just now he thinks he is James Kirkham, an explorer. Actually, his name is Henry Walton."

The bluecoat looked at me, doubtfully. I smiled, in my certain security.

"Go on!" I said. "What else do I think?"

"He's quite harmless," he gently patted my shoulder, "but now and then he manages to slip away from us. Yes, harmless, but very ingenious. He evaded us this evening. I sent my men out to trace him. I found him myself down there in the Battery. At such times, officer, he believes he is in danger of being kidnapped. That's what he wants to tell you—that I am kidnapping him. Will you kindly listen to him, officer, and assure him that such a thing is impossible in New York. Or, if possible, that kidnappers do not conduct their captives up to a New York policeman as I have."

I could but admire the deftness of the story, the half humorous and yet patient, wholly professional manner in which he told it. Safe now as I thought myself, I could afford to laugh, and I did.

"Quite right, officer," I said. "Only it happens that my name really is James Kirkham. I never even heard of this Henry Walton. I never saw this man here until tonight. And I have every reason in the world to know that he is trying to force me to go somewhere that I have no intention whatever of going."

"You see!" My companion nodded meaningly to the policeman, who, far from answering my smiles, looked at me with an irritating sympathy.

"I wouldn't worry," he assured me. "As the good doctor says, kidnappers don't hunt up the police. Ye couldn't be kidnapped in New York—at least not this way. Now go right along wit' the doctor, an' don't ye worry no more."

It was time to terminate the absurd matter. I thrust my hand into my pocket, brought out my wallet and dipped into it for my card. I picked out one and with it a letter or two and handed them to the bluecoat.

"Perhaps these identifications will give you another slant," I said.

He took them, read them carefully, and handed them back to me, pityingly.

"Sure, lad," his tone was soothing. "Ye're in no danger. I'm tellin' ye. Would ye want a taxi, doctor?"

I stared at him in amazement, and then down to the card and envelopes he had returned to me. I read them once and again, unbelievingly.

For the card bore the name of "Henry Walton," and each of the envelopes was addressed to that same gentleman "in care of Dr. Michael Consardine" at an address that I recognized as a settlement of the highest-priced New York specialists up in the seventies. Nor was the wallet I held in my hand the one with which I had started this eventful stroll a little more than an hour before.

I opened my coat and glanced down into the inner pocket for the tailor's label that bore my name. There was no label there.

Very abruptly my sense of security fled. I began to realize that it might be possible to force me to go where I did not want to, after all. Even from a New York Subway station.

"Officer," I said, and there was no laughter now in my voice, "you are making a great mistake. I met this man a few minutes ago in Battery Park. I give you my word he is an utter stranger to me. He insisted that I follow him to some place whose location he refused to tell, to meet some one whose name he would not reveal. When I refused, he struggled with me, ostensibly searching for weapons. During that struggle it is now plain that he substituted this wallet containing the cards and envelopes bearing the name of Henry Walton in the place of my own. I demand that you search him for my wallet, and then whether you find it or not, I demand that you take us both to Headquarters."

The bluecoat looked at me doubtfully. My earnestness and apparent sanity had shaken him. Neither my appearance nor my manner was that of even a slightly unbalanced person. But on the other hand the benign face, the kindly eyes, the unmistakable refinement and professionalism of the man of the Battery bench were as far apart as the poles from the puzzled officer's conception of a kidnapper.

"I'm perfectly willing to be examined at Headquarters—and even searched there," said the man in the Inverness. "Only I must warn you that all the excitement will certainly react very dangerously on my patient. However—call a taxi—"

"No taxi," I said firmly. "We go in the patrol wagon, with police around us."

"Wait a minute," the bluecoat's face brightened. "Here comes the Sergeant. He'll decide what to do." The Sergeant walked up.

"What's the trouble, Mooney?" he asked, looking us over. Succinctly, Mooney explained the situation. The Sergeant studied us again more closely. I grinned at him cheerfully.

"All I want," I told him, "is to be taken to Headquarters. In a patrol wagon. No taxi, Dr.——what was it? Oh, yes, Consardine. Patrol wagon with plenty of police, and Dr. Consardine sitting in it with me—that's all I want."

"It's all right, Sergeant," said Dr. Consardine, patiently. "I'm quite ready to go. But as I warned Officer Mooney, it means delay and excitement and you must accept the responsibility for the effect upon my patient, whose care is, after all, my first concern. I have said he is harmless, but tonight I took from him—this."

He handed the Sergeant the small automatic.

"Under his left arm you will find its holster," said Consardine. "Frankly, I think it best to get him back to my sanatorium as quickly as possible."

The Sergeant stepped close to me and throwing back my coat, felt under my left arm. I knew by his face as he touched the holster that Consardine had scored.

"I have a license to carry a gun," I said, tartly.

"Where is it?" he asked.

"In the wallet that man took from me when he lifted the gun," I answered. "If you'll search him you'll find it."

"Oh, poor lad! Poor lad!" murmured Consardine. And so sincere seemed his distress that I was half inclined to feel sorry for myself. He spoke again to the Sergeant.

"I think perhaps the matter can be settled without running the risk of the journey to Headquarters. As Officer Mooney has told you, my patient's present delusion is that he is a certain James Kirkham and living at the Discoverers' Club. It may be that the real Mr. Kirkham is there at this moment. I therefore suggest that you call up the Discoverers' Club and ask for him. If Mr. Kirkham is there, I take it that will end the matter. If not, we will go to Headquarters."

The Sergeant looked at me, and I looked at Consardine, amazed.

"If you can talk to James Kirkham at the Discoverers' Club," I said at last, "then I'm Henry Walton!"

We walked over to a telephone booth. I gave the Sergeant the number of the Club.

"Ask for Robert," I interposed. "He's the desk man."

I had talked to Robert a few minutes before I had gone out. He would still be on duty.

"Is that Robert? At the desk?" the Sergeant asked as the call came through. "Is Mr. James Kirkham there? This is Police Sergeant Downey."

There was a pause. He glanced at me.

"They're paging Kirkham," he muttered—then to the phone—"What's that? You are James Kirkham! A moment, please—put that clerk back. Hello—you Robert? That party I'm talking to Kirkham? Kirkham the explorer? You're certain? All right—all right! Don't get excited about it. I'll admit you know him. Put him back—Hello, Mr. Kirkham? No, it's all right. Just a case of—er—bugs! Man thinks he's you—"

I snatched the receiver from his hand, lifted it to my ear and heard a voice saying:

"—Not the first time, poor devil—"

The voice was my very own!

CHAPTER THREE

The receiver was taken from me, gently enough. Now the Sergeant was listening again. Mooney had me by one arm, the man in the Inverness by the other. I heard the Sergeant say:

"Yes—Walton, Henry Walton, yes, that's the name. Sorry to have troubled you, Mr. Kirkham. Goo'-by."

He snapped up the 'phone and regarded me, compassionately.

"Too bad!" he said. "It's a damned shame. Do you want an ambulance, doctor?"

"No, thanks," answered Consardine. "It's a peculiar case. The kidnapping delusion is a strong one. He'll be quieter with people around him. We'll go up on the subway. Even though his normal self is not in control, his subconscious will surely tell him that kidnapping is impossible in the midst of a subway crowd. Now, Henry," he patted my hand, "admit that it is. You are beginning to realize it already, aren't you—"

I broke out of my daze. The man who had passed me on Fifth Avenue! The man who had so strangely resembled me! Fool that I was not to have thought of that before! "Wait, officer," I cried desperately. "That was an impostor at the Club—some one made up to look like me. I saw him—"

"There, there, lad," he put a hand on my shoulder reassuringly. "You gave your word. You're not going to welch on it, I'm sure. You're all right. I'm telling you. Go with the doctor, now."

For the first time I had the sense of futility. This net spreading around me had been woven with infernal ingenuity. Apparently no contingency had been overlooked. I felt the shadow of a grim oppression. If those so interested in me, or in my withdrawal, wished it, how easy would it be to obliterate me. If this double of mine could dupe the clerk who had known me for years and mix in with my friends at the Club without detection—if he could do this, what could he not do in my name and in my guise? A touch of ice went through my blood. Was that the plot? Was I to be removed so this double could take my place in my world for a time to perpetrate some villainy that would blacken forever my memory? The situation was no longer humorous. It was heavy with evil possibilities.

But the next step in my involuntary journey was to be the subway. As Consardine had said, no sane person would believe a man could be kidnapped there. Surely there, if anywhere, I could escape, find some one in the crowds who would listen to me, create if necessary such a scene that it would be impossible for my captor to hold me, outwit him somehow.

At any rate there was nothing to do but go with him. Further appeal to these two policemen was useless.

"Let's go—doctor," I said, quietly. We started down the subway steps, his arm in mine.

We passed through the gates. A train was waiting. 1 went into the last car, Consardine at my heels. It was empty. I marched on. In the second car was only a nondescript passenger or two. But as I neared the third car I saw at the far end half a dozen marines with a second lieutenant. My pulse quickened. Here was the very opportunity I had been seeking. I made straight for them.

As I entered the car I was vaguely aware of a couple sitting in the corner close to the door. Intent upon reaching the leathernecks, I paid no attention to them.

Before I had gone five steps I heard a faint scream, then a cry of—

"Harry! Oh, Dr. Consardine! You've found him!"

Involuntarily, I halted and turned. A girl was running toward me. She threw her arms around my neck and cried again:

"Harry! Harry! dear! Oh, thank God he found you!"

Two of the loveliest brown eyes I had ever beheld looked up at me. They were deep and tender and pitying, and tears trembled on the long black lashes. Even in my consternation I took note of the delicate skin untouched by rouge, the curly, silken fine bobbed hair under the smart little hat—hair touched with warm bronze glints, the nose a bit uplifted and the exquisite mouth and elfinly pointed chin. Under other circumstances, exactly the girl I would have given much to meet; under the present circumstances, well—disconcerting.

"There! There, Miss Walton!" Dr. Consardine's voice was benignly soothing. "Your brother is all right now!"

"Now, Eve, don't fuss any more. The doctor found him just as I told you he would."

It was a third voice, that of the other occupant of the corner seat. He was a man of about my own age, exceedingly well dressed, the face rather thin and tanned, a touch of dissipation about his eyes and mouth.

"How are you feeling, Harry?" he asked me, and added, somewhat gruffly, "Devil of a chase you've given us this time, I must say."

"Now, Walter," the girl rebuked him, "what matter, so he is safe?"

I disengaged the girl's arms and looked at the three of them. Outwardly they were exactly what they purported to be—an earnest, experienced, expensive specialist anxious about a recalcitrant patient with a defective mentality, a sweet, worried sister almost overcome with glad relief that her mind-sick runaway brother had been found, a trusty friend, perhaps a fiance, a bit put out, but still eighteen-carat faithful and devoted and so glad that his sweetheart's worry was over that he was ready to hand me a wallop if I began again to misbehave. So convincing were they that for one insane moment I doubted my own identity. Was I, after all, Jim Kirkham? Maybe I'd only read about him! My mind rocked with the possibility that I might be this Henry Walton whose wits had been scrambled by some accident in France.

It was with distinct effort that I banished the idea. This couple had, of course, been planted in the station and waiting for me to appear. But in the name of all far-seeing devils how could it have been foretold that I would appear at that very station at that very time?

And suddenly one of Consardine's curious phrases returned to me:

"A mind greater than all to plan for all of them; a will greater than all their wills—"

Cobwebs seemed to be dropping around me, cobwebs whose multitudinous strands were held by one master hand, and pulling me, pulling me—irresistibly...where...and to what?

I turned and faced the marines. They were staring at us with absorbed interest. The lieutenant was on his feet, and now he came toward us.

"Anything I can do for you, sir?" he asked Consardine, but his eyes were on the girl and filled with admiration. And at that moment I knew that I could expect no help from him or his men. Nevertheless, it was I who answered.

"You can," I said. "My name is James Kirkham. I live at the Discoverers' Club. I don't expect you to believe me, but these people are kidnapping me—"

"Oh, Harry, Harry!" murmured the girl and touched her eyes with a foolish little square of lace.

"All that I ask you to do," I went on, "is to call up the Discoverers' Club when you leave this car. Ask for Lars Thorwaldsen, tell him what you have seen, and say I told you that the man at the Club who calls himself James Kirkham is an impostor. Will you do that?"

"Oh, Dr. Consardine," sobbed the girl. "Oh, poor, poor brother!"

"Will you come with me a moment, lieutenant?" asked Consardine. He spoke to the man who had called the girl Eve—"Watch; Walter—look after Harry—"

He touched the lieutenant's arm and they walked to the front of the car.

"Sit down, Harry, old man," urged Walter.

"Please, dear," said the girl. A hand of each of them on my arms, they pressed me into a seat.

I made no resistance. A certain grim wonder had come to me. I watched Consardine and the lieutenant carry on a whispered conversation to which the latter's leathernecks aimed eager ears. I knew the story Consardine was telling, for I saw the officer's face soften, and he and his men glanced at me pityingly; at the girl, compassionately. The lieutenant asked some question, Consardine nodded acquiescence and the pair walked back.

"Old man," the lieutenant spoke to me soothingly, "of course I'll do what you ask. We get off at the Bridge and I'll go to the first telephone. Discoverers' Club, you said?"

It would have been wonderful if I had not known that he thought he was humoring a lunatic.

I nodded, wearily.

"'Tell it to the marines,'" I quoted. "The man who said that knew what he was talking about. Invincible but dumb. Of course, you'll not do it. But if a spark of intelligence should miraculously light up your mind tonight or even tomorrow, please phone as I asked."

"Oh, Harry! Please be quiet!" implored the girl. She turned her eyes, eloquent with gratitude, to the lieutenant. "I'm sure the lieutenant will do exactly as he has promised."

"Indeed I will," he assured me—and half winked at her.

I laughed outright, I couldn't help it. No heart of any marine I had ever met, officer or otherwise, could have withstood that look of Eve's—so appealing, so grateful, so wistfully appreciative.

"All right, lieutenant," I said. "I don't blame you a bit. I bet myself I couldn't be kidnapped under a New York cop's eye at a subway entrance. But I lost. Then I bet myself I couldn't be kidnapped in a subway train. And again I've lost. Nevertheless, if you should get wondering whether I'm crazy or not, take a chance, lieutenant, and call up the Club."

"Oh, brother," breathed Eve, and wept once more.

I sank back into my seat, waiting another opportunity. The girl kept her hand on mine, her eyes, intermittently, on the leatherneck lieutenant. Consardine had seated himself at my right. Walter sat at Eve's side.

At Brooklyn Bridge the marines got out, with many backward looks at us. I saluted the lieutenant sardonically; the girl sent him a beautifully grateful smile. If anything else had been needed to make him forget my appeal it was that.

Quite a crowd piled on the car at the Bridge. I watched them hopefully, as they stampeded into the seats. The hopefulness faded steadily as I studied their faces. Sadly I realized that old Vanderbilt had been all wrong when he had said, "The public be damned." What he ought to have said was "The public be dumb."

There was a Hebraic delegation of a half dozen on their way home to the Bronx, a belated stenographer who at once began operations with a lipstick, three rabbit-faced young hoods, an Italian woman with four restless children, a dignified old gentleman who viewed their movements with suspicion, a plain-looking Negro, a rather pleasant-appearing man of early middle age with a woman who might have been a school teacher, two giggling girls who at once began flirting with the hoods, a laborer, three possible clerks and a scattering dozen of assorted morons. The typical New York subway train congregation. A glance at right and left of me assayed no richer residue of human intelligence.

There was no use in making an appeal to these people. My three guardians were too far ahead of them in gray matter and resourcefulness. They could make it abortive before I was half finished. But I might drop that suggestion of calling up the Club. Someone, I argued, might have their curiosity sufficiently developed to risk a phone call. I fixed my gaze on the dignified old gentleman—be seemed the type who possibly would not be able to rest until he had found out what it was all about.

And just as I was opening my mouth to speak to him, the girl patted my hand and leaned across me to the man in the Inverness.

"Doctor," her voice was very clear and of a carrying quality that made it audible throughout the car. "Doctor, Harry seems so much better. Shall I give him—you know what?"

"An excellent idea, Miss Walton," he answered. "Give it to him."

The girl reached under her long sport coat and brought out a small bundle.

"Here, Harry," she handed it to me. "Here's your little playmate—who's been so lonely without you."

Automatically I took the bundle and tore it open.

Into my hands dropped out a dirty, hideous old rag-doll!

As I looked at it, stupefied, there came to me complete perception of the truly devilish cunning of those who had me in their trap. The very farcicality of that doll had a touch of terror in it. At the girl's clear voice, all the car had centered their attention upon us. I saw the dignified old gentleman staring at me unbelievingly over his spectacles, saw Consardine catch his eye and tap his forehead significantly—and so did every one else see him. The Negro's guffaw suddenly stopped. The Hebraic group stiffened up and gaped at me; the stenographer dropped her vanity case; the Italian children goggled at the doll, fascinated. The middle-aged couple looked away, embarrassed.

I realized that I was on my feet, clutching the doll as though I feared it was to be taken from me.

"Hell!" I swore, and lifted it to dash it to the floor.

And suddenly I knew that any further resistance, and further struggle, was useless.

The game was rigged up against me all the way through the deck. For the moment I might as well throw down my hand. I was going, as Consardine had told me, where the "greater intellect and will" pleased, whether it pleased me or not. Also I was going when it pleased. And that was now.

Well, they had played with me long enough. I would throw my hand down, but as I sat back I would have a little diversion myself.

I dropped into my seat, sticking the doll in my upper pocket where its head protruded grotesquely. The dignified old gentleman was making commiserating clucking noises and shaking his head understandingly at Consardine. One of the rabbit-faced youths said "Nuts" and the girls giggled nervously. The Negro hastily got up and retreated to the next car. One of the Italian children pointed to the doll and whined, "Gimme."

I took the girl's hand in both of mine.

"Eve, darling," I said, as distinctly as she had spoken, "you know I ran away because I don't like Walter there."

I put my arm around her waist.

"Walter," I leaned over her, "no man like you just out of prison for what was, God knows, a justly deserved sentence, is worthy of my Eve. No matter how crazy I may be, surely you know that is true."

The old gentleman stopped his annoying clucking and looked startled. The rest of the car turned its attention like him, to Walter. I had the satisfaction of seeing a slow flush creep up his cheeks.

"Dr. Consardine," I turned to him, "as a medical man you are familiar with the stigmata, I mean the marks, of the born criminal. Look at Walter. The eyes small and too close together, the mouth's hardness deplorably softened by certain appetites, the undeveloped lobes of the ears. If I ought not be running loose—how much less ought he to be, doctor?"

Every eye in the car was taking in each point as I called attention to it. And each happened to be a little true. The flush on Walter's face deepened to a brick red. Consardine looked at me, imperturbably.

"No," I went on, "not at all the man for you, Eve."

I gripped the girl closer. I drew her tightly to me. I was beginning to enjoy myself—and she was marvelously pretty.

"Eve!" I exclaimed. "All this time I've been away from you—and you haven't even kissed me!"

I lifted up her chin and—well, I kissed her. Kissed her properly and in no brotherly manner. I heard Walter cursing under his breath. How Consardine was taking it I could not tell. Indeed I did not care—Eve's mouth was very sweet.

I kissed her again and again—to the chuckles of the hoods, the giggles of the girls, and horrified exclamations of the dignified old gentleman.

And the girl's face, which at the first of my kisses had gone all rosy red, turned white. She did not resist, but between kisses I heard her whisper:

"You'll pay for this! Oh, but you'll pay for this!"

I laughed and released her. I did not care now. I was going to go with Dr. Consardine wherever he wanted to take me—as long as she went with me.

"Harry," his voice broke my thought, "come along. Here is our station."

The train was slowing up for the Fourteenth Street stop. Consardine arose. His eyes signaled the girl. Her own eyes downcast, she took my hand. Her hand was like ice. I got up, still laughing. Consardine at my other side, Walter guarding the rear, I walked out upon the platform and up the steps to the street. Once I looked behind me into Walter's face, and my heart warmed at the murder in it.

It had been touche for me with two of them at any rate—and at their own game.

A chauffeur in livery stood at the top of the steps. He gave me a quick, curious glance and saluted Consardine.

"This way—Kirkham!" said the latter, curtly.

So I was Kirkham again! And what did that mean?

A powerful car stood at the curb. Consardine gestured. Eve's hand firmly clasped in mine, I entered, drawing her after me. Walter had gone ahead of us. Consardine followed. The chauffeur closed the door. I saw another liveried figure on the driver's seat. The car started.

Consardine touched a lever and down came the curtains, closeting us in semi-darkness.

And as he did so the girl Eve wrenched her hand from mine, struck me a stinging blow across the lips and huddling down in her corner began silently to weep.

CHAPTER FOUR

The cab, one of expensive European make, sped smoothly over to Fifth Avenue and turned north. Consardine touched another lever and a curtain dropped between us and the driving seat. There was a hidden bulb that shed a dim glow.

By it I saw that the girl had recovered her poise. She sat regarding the tips of her shapely narrow shoes. Walter drew out a cigarette case. I followed suit.

"You do not mind, Eve?" I asked solicitously.

She neither looked at me nor answered. Consardine was apparently lost in thought. Walter stared icily over my head. I lighted my cigarette and concentrated upon our course. My watch registered a quarter to ten.

The tightly shaded windows gave no glimpse of our surroundings. By the traffic stops I knew we were still on the Avenue. Then the car began a series of turns and twists as though it were being driven along side streets. Once it seemed to make a complete circle. I lost all sense of direction, which, I reflected, was undoubtedly what was intended.

At 10:15 the car began to go at greatly increased speed and I judged we were out of heavy traffic. Soon a cooler, fresher air came through the ventilators. We might be either in Westchester or Long Island. I could not tell.

It was precisely 11:20 when the car came to a stop. After a short pause it went on again. I heard from behind us the clang of heavy metal gates. For perhaps ten minutes more we rolled on swiftly and then halted again. Consardine awoke from his reverie and snapped up the curtains. The chauffeur opened the door. Eve dropped out, and after her Walter.

"Well, here we are, Mr. Kirkham," said Consardine, affably. He might have been a pleased host bringing home a thrice-welcome guest instead of a man he had abducted by outrageous wiles and falsehoods.

I jumped out. Under the moon, grown storm-promising and watery as a drunkard's eye, I saw an immense building that was like some chateau transplanted from the Loire. Lights gleamed brilliantly here and there in wings and turrets. Through its doors were passing the girl and Walter. I glanced around me. There were no lights visible anywhere except those of the chateau. I had the impression of remoteness and of wide, tree-filled spaces hemming the place in and guarding its isolation.

Consardine took my arm and we passed over the threshold. On each side stood two tall footmen and as I went by them I perceived that they were Arabs, extraordinarily powerful. But when I had gotten within the great hall I stopped short with an involuntary exclamation of admiration.

It was as though the choicest treasures of medieval France had been skimmed of their best and that best concentrated here. The long galleries, a third of the way up to the high vaulted ceiling, were exquisite Gothic arrases and tapestries whose equals few museums could show hung from them and the shields and arms were those of conquering kings.

Consardine gave me no time to study them. He touched my arm and I saw beside me an impeccably correct English valet.

"Thomas will look after you now," said Consardine. "See you later, Kirkham."

"This way, sir, if you please," bowed the valet, and led me into a miniature chapel at the side of the hall. He pressed against its fretted back. It slid away and we entered a small elevator. When it stopped, another panel slipped aside. I stepped into a bedroom furnished, in its own fashion, with the same astonishing richness as the great hall. Behind heavy curtains was a bathroom.

Upon the bed lay dress trousers, shirt, cravat, and so on. In a few minutes I was washed, freshly shaved and in evening clothes. They fitted me perfectly. As the valet opened a closet door a coat hanging there drew my sharp attention. I peered in.

Hanging within that closet was the exact duplicate of every garment that made up my wardrobe at the Club. Yes, there they were, and as I looked into the pockets for the tailor's labels I saw written on them my own name.

I had an idea that the valet, watching me covertly, was waiting for some expression of surprise. If so he was disappointed. My capacity for surprise was getting a bit numb.

"And now where do I go?" I asked.

For answer he slid the panel aside and stood waiting for me to enter the lift. When it stopped I expected of course to step out into the great hall. Instead of that the opening panel revealed a small anteroom, oak paneled, bare and with a door of darker oak set in its side. Here was another tall Arab, evidently awaiting me, for the valet bowed me out of the elevator and re-entering, disappeared.

The Arab salaamed. Opening the door, he salaamed again. I walked over its threshold. A clock began to chime midnight.

"Welcome, James Kirkham! You are punctual to the minute," said some one.

The voice was strangely resonant and musical, with a curious organ quality. The speaker sat at the head of a long table where places were laid for three. That much I saw before I looked into his eyes, and then for a time could see nothing else. For those eyes were of the deepest sapphire blue and they were the alivest eyes I had ever beheld. They were large, slightly oblique, and they sparkled as though the very spring of life was bubbling up behind them. Gem-like they were in color, and gem-like were they in their hardness. They were lashless, and as unwinking as a bird's—or a snake's.

It was with distinct effort that I tore my gaze from them and took note of the face in which they were set. The head above them was inordinately large, high and broad and totally bald. It was an astonishing hemisphere whose capacity must have been almost double that of the average. The ears were long and narrow and distinctly pointed at the tips. The nose was heavy and beaked, the chin round but massive. The lips were full, and as classically cut and immobile as of some antique Greek statue. The whole huge, round face was of a marble pallor, and it was unwrinkled, unlined and expressionless. The only thing alive about it were the eyes, and alive indeed they were—uncannily, terrifyingly so.

His body, what I could see of it, was unusually large, the enormous barrel of the chest indicating tremendous vitality.

Even at first contact one sensed the abnormal, and the radiation of inhuman power.

"Be seated, James Kirkham," the sonorous voice rolled out again. A butler emerged from the shadows at his back and drew out for me the chair at the left.

I bowed to this amazing host of mine and seated myself silently.

"You must be hungry after your long ride," he said. "It was good of you, James Kirkham, thus to honor this whim of mine."

I looked at him sharply but could detect no sign of mockery.

"I am indebted to you, sir," I answered, as urbanely, "for an unusually entertaining journey. And as for humoring what you are pleased to call your whim, how, sir, could I have done otherwise when you sent messengers so—ah—eloquent?"

"Ah, yes," he nodded. "Dr. Consardine is indeed a singularly persuasive person. He will join us presently. But drink—eat."

The butler poured champagne. I lifted my glass and paused, staring at it with delight. It was a goblet of rock crystal, exquisitely cut, extremely ancient I judged—a jewel and priceless.

"Yes," said my host, as though I had spoken. "Truly one of a rare set. They were the drinking glasses of the Caliph Haroun-al-Raschid. When I drink from them I seem to see him surrounded by his beloved cup-companions amid the glories of his court in old Bagdad. All the gorgeous panorama of the Arabian Nights spreads out before me. They were preserved for me," he went on, thoughtfully, "by the late Sultan Abdul Hamid. At least they were his until I felt the desire to possess them."

"You must have exercised great—ah—persuasion, sir, to have made the Sultan part from them," I murmured.

"As you have remarked, James Kirkham, my messengers are—eloquent," he replied, suavely.

I took a sip of the wine and could not for the life of me hide my pleasure.

"Yes," intoned my strange host, "a rare vintage. It was intended for the exclusive use of King Alfonso of Spain. But again my messengers were—eloquent. When I drink it my admiration for its excellences is shadowed only by my sympathy for Alfonso in his deprivation."

I drank that wine, worshipfully. I attacked with relish a delicious cold bird. My eye was caught by the lines of a golden compote set with precious stones. So exquisite was it that I half arose to examine it more closely.

"Benvenuto Cellini made it," observed my host. "It is one of his masterpieces. Italy kept it for me through the centuries."

"But Italy would never voluntarily have let a thing like that go from her!" I exclaimed.

"No, quite involuntarily, oh quite, I assure you," he answered, blandly.

I began to glance about the dimly lighted room and realized that here, like the great hall, was another amazing treasure chamber. If half of what my eyes took in was genuine, the contents of that room alone were worth millions. But they could not be—not even an American billionaire could have gathered such things.

"But they are genuine," again he read my thoughts. "I am a connoisseur indeed—the greatest in the world. Not alone of paintings, and of gems and wines and other masterpieces of man's genius. I am a connoisseur of men and women. A collection of what, loosely, are called souls. That is why, James Kirkham, you are here!"

The butler filled the goblets and placed another bottle in the iced pail beside me; he put liqueurs and cigars upon the table and then, as though at some signal, he withdrew. He disappeared, I noted with interest, through still another wall panel that masked one of the hidden lifts. I saw that he was a Chinese.

"Manchu," observed my host. "Of princely rank. Yet he thinks to be my servant the greater honor."

I nodded casually, as though the matter were commonplace and butlers who were Manchu princes, wine lifted from King Alfonso, goblets of an Arabian Nights' Caliph and Cellini compotes everyday affairs. I realized that the game which had begun in Battery Park a few hours before had reached its second stage and I was determined to maintain my best poker face and manner.

"You please me, James Kirkham," the voice was totally devoid of expression, the lips scarcely moved as it rolled forth. "You are thinking—'I am a prisoner, my place in the outer world is being filled by a double whom even my closest friends do not suspect of being other than I; this man speaking is a monster, ruthless and conscienceless, a passionless intellect which could—and would—blow me out if he desired as carelessly as he would blow out a candle flame.' In all that, James Kirkham, you are right."

He paused. I found it better not to look into those jewel-bright blue eyes. I lighted a cigarette and nodded, fixing my attention on the glowing tip.

"Yes, you are right," he went on. "Yet you ask no questions and make no appeals. Your voice and hands are steady, your eyes untroubled. But back of all, your brain is keenly alert, poised on tiptoe to seize some advantage. You are feeling out for danger with the invisible antennae of your nerves like any jungleman. Every sense is alive to catch some break in the net you feel around you. There is a touch of terror upon you. Yet outwardly you show no slightest sign of all this—only I could detect it. You please me greatly, James Kirkham. Yours is the true gambler's soul!"

He paused again, studying me over the rim of his goblet. I forced myself to meet his gaze and smile.

"You are now thirty-five," he continued. "I have watched you for years. I was first attracted to you by your work in the French Espionage Service during the second year of the war."

My fingers stiffened involuntarily about my glass. None, I had thought, had known of that hazardous work except the Chief and myself.

"It happened that you ran counter to no plans of mine," the toneless voice rolled on. "So you—lived. You next came to my notice when you undertook to recover the Spiradoff emeralds from the Communists in Moscow. You ingeniously left with them the imitations and escaped with the originals. I did not care for them, I have much finer ones. So I allowed you to return them to those who had commissioned you. But the audacity of your plan and the cool courage with which you carried it out entertained me greatly. I like to be entertained, James Kirkham. Your indifferent acceptance of the wholly inadequate reward showed that it had been the adventure which had been the primal appeal. It had been the game and not the gain. You were, as I had thought, a true gambler."

And now despite myself I could not keep astonishment from my face. The Spiradoff affair had been carried out in absolute secrecy. I had insisted upon none except the owner knowing how the jewels had been recovered. They had been resold for their value as gems and not with their histories attached...not even the Communists had as yet discovered the substitution, I had reason to believe, and would not until they tried to sell them. Yet this man knew!

"It was then I decided I would—collect—you," he said. "But the time was not fully ripe. I would let you run awhile. You went to China for Rockbilt on the strength of a flimsy legend. And you found the tomb wherein, true enough, the jade plaques of that legend lay on the moldering breast of old Prince Sukantse. You took them and were captured by the bandit Kin-Wang. You found the joint in that cunning thief's armor. You saw, and took, the one chance to escape with your loot. Gambler he was, and you knew it. And there in his tent you played him for the plaques with two years' slavery to him as your forfeit if you lost.

"The idea of having you as a willing slave amused him. Besides, he recognized of what value your brain and courage would be to him. So he made the bargain. You detected the cards he had cunningly nicked before the game had gone far. I approve the dexterity and skill with which you promptly nicked others in the identical fashion. Kin-Wang was confused. Luck was with you. You won."

I half arose, staring at him, fascinated.

"I do not wish to mystify you further." He waved me back into my seat. "Kin-Wang is sometimes useful to me. I have many men in many lands who do my bidding, James Kirkham. Had you lost, Kin-Wang would have sent me the plaques, and he would have looked after you more carefully than his own head. Because he knew that at any time I might demand you from him!"

I leaned back with a sigh, the feeling that some inexorable trap had closed upon me, oppressive.

"Afterwards," his eyes never left me, "afterwards, I tested you again. Twice did my messengers try to take the plaques from you. Purposely, in neither of those efforts had I planned for sure success. Else you would have lost them. I left in each instance a loophole that would enable you to escape had you the wit to see it. You had the wit—and again I was vastly entertained. And pleased.

"And now," he leaned forward a trifle, "we come to tonight. You had acquired a comfortable sum out of the jades. But there seemed to be a waning interest in the game you know so well. You cast your eyes upon another—the fool's gamble, the stock market. It did not fit in with my plans to let you win at that. I knew what you had bought. I manipulated. I stripped you, dollar by dollar, leisurely. You are thinking that the method I took was more adapted to the wrecking of some great financier than the possessor of a few thousands. Not so. If your thousands had been millions the end would have been the same. That was the lesson I wished to drive home when the time came. Have you learned the lesson?"

I repressed with difficulty a gust of anger.

"I hear you," I answered, curtly.

"Heed!" he whispered, and a bleakness dulled for a breath the sparkling eyes.

"So too," he went on, "it was of tonight. I could have had you caught up bodily and carried here, beaten or drugged, bound and gagged. Such methods are those of the thug, the unimaginative savage in our midst. You could have had no respect for the mind behind such crude tactics. Nor would I have been entertained.

"No, the constant surveillance which at last forced you out into the open, your double now enjoying himself at your Club—a splendid actor, by the way, who studied you for weeks—in fact, all your experiences were largely devised to demonstrate to you the extraordinary character of the organization to which you have been called.

"And I say again that your conduct has pleased me. You could have fought Consardine. Had you done so you would have shown yourself lacking in imagination and true courage. You would have come here just the same, but I would have been disappointed. And I was greatly diverted by your attitude toward Walter and Eve—a girl whom I have destined for a great work and whom I am training now for it.

"You have wondered how they came to be in that particular subway station. There were other couples at South Ferry, the elevated station and at all approaches to the Battery within five minutes after you had seated yourself there. I tell you that you had not one chance of escape. Nothing that you could have done that had not been anticipated and prepared for. Not all the police in New York could have held you back from me tonight.

"Because, James Kirkham, I had willed your coming!"

I had listened to this astonishing mixture of subtle flattery, threat and colossal boasting with ever-increasing amazement. I stood back from the table.

"Who are you?" I asked, directly. "And what do you want of me?"

The weird blue eyes blazed out, intolerably.

"Since everything upon this earth toward which I direct my will does as that will dictates," he answered, slowly, "you may call me—Satan!

"And what I offer you is a chance to rule this world with me—at a price, of course!"

CHAPTER FIVE

The two sentences tingled in my brain as though charged with electricity. Absurd as they might have sounded under any other circumstances, here they were as far removed from absurdity as anything I have ever known.

Those lashless, intensely alive blue eyes in the immobile face were—Satanic! I had long sensed the diabolic touch in every experience I had undergone that night. In the stillness of the huge body, in the strangeness of the organ pipe voice that welled, expressionless, from the almost still lips was something diabolic too—as though the body were but an automaton in which dwelt some infernal spirit, some alien being that made itself manifest through eyes and voice only. That my host was the exact opposite of the long, lank, dark Mephisto of opera, play and story made him only the more terrifying. And it has long been my experience that fat men are capable of far greater deviltries than thin men.

No, this man who bade me call him Satan had nothing of the absurd about him. I acknowledged to myself that he was—dreadful.

A bell rang, a mellow note. A light pulsed on a wall, a panel slid aside and Consardine stepped into the room. Vaguely, I noted that the panel was a different one than that through which the Manchu butler had gone. At the same time I recalled, aimlessly it seemed, that I had seen no stairway leading up from the great hall. And on the heels of that was recollection that I had noticed neither windows nor doors in the bedroom to which I had been conducted by the valet. The thoughts came and went without my mind then taking in their significance. That was to come later.

I arose, returning Consardine's bow. He seated himself without salutation or ceremony at Satan's right.

"I have been telling James Kirkham how entertaining I have found him," said my host.

"And I," smiled Consardine. "But I am afraid my companions did not. Cobham was quite upset. That was really cruel of you, Kirkham. Vanity is one of Cobham's besetting sins."

So Walter's name was Cobham. What was Eve's, I wondered.

"Your stratagem of the rag-doll was—demoralizing," I said. "I thought I was rather restrained in my observations upon Mr. Cobham. There was so much more opportunity, you know. And after all, so much provocation."

"The rag-doll was a diverting idea," observed Satan. "And effective."

"Diabolically so," I spoke to Consardine. "But I find that was to have been expected. Just before you entered I discovered that I have been dining with—Satan."

"Ah, yes," said Consardine, coolly. "And you are no doubt expecting me to produce a lancet and open a vein in your wrist while Satan puts in front of you a document written in brimstone and orders you to sign away your soul in your blood."

"I am expecting no such childish thing," I replied with some show of indignation.

Satan chuckled; his face did not move but his eyes danced.

"Obsolete methods," he said. "I gave them up after my experiences with the late Dr. Faustus."

"Perhaps," Consardine addressed me, blandly, "you think I may be the late Dr. Faustus. No, no—or if so, Kirkham," he looked at me slyly, "Eve is not Marguerite."

"Let us say, not your Marguerite," amended Satan.

I felt the blood rush up into my face. And again Satan chuckled. They were playing with me, these two. Yet under that play the sinister note persisted, not to be mistaken. I felt uncomfortably like a mouse between a pair of cats. I had a sudden vision of the girl as just such another helpless mouse.

"No," it was Satan's sonorous voice. "No, I have become more modern. I still buy souls, it is true. Or take them. But I am not so rigorous in my terms as of old. I now also lease souls for certain periods. I pay well for such leases, James Kirkham."

"Is it not time that you ceased treating me like a child?" I asked coldly. "I admit all that you have said of me. I believe all that you have said of yourself. I concede that you are—Satan. Very well. What then?"

There was a slight pause. Consardine lighted a cigar, poured himself some brandy and pushed aside a candle that stood between us, so I thought, that he could have a clearer view of my face. Satan for the first time turned his eyes away from me, looking over my head. I had come to the third stage of this mysterious game.

"Did you ever hear the legend of the seven shining footsteps of Buddha?" he asked me. I shook my head.

"It was that which made me change my ancient methods of snaring souls," he said gravely. "Since it caused the beginning of a new infernal epoch, the legend is important. But it is important to you for other reasons as well. So listen.

"When the Lord Buddha, Gautama, the Enlightened One," he intoned, "was about to be born, he was seen gleaming like a jewel of living light in his Mother's womb. So filled with light was he that he made of her body a lantern, himself the holy flame."

For the first time there was expression in the voice, a touch of sardonic unctuousness.

"And when the time came for him to be delivered, he stepped forth from his Mother's side, which miraculously closed behind him.

"Seven footsteps the infant Buddha took before he halted for the worship of the devis, genü, rishis and all the Heavenly hierarchy that had gathered round. Seven shining footsteps they were, seven footsteps that gleamed like stars upon the soft greensward."

"And, lo! Even as Buddha was being worshipped, those shining footsteps of his stirred and moved and marched away, beginning the opening of the paths which later the Holy One would traverse. Seven interesting little John the Baptists going before him—Ho! Ho! Ho!" laughed Satan, from unchanged face and motionless lips.

"West went one and East went one," he continued. "One North and one South—opening up the paths of deliverance to the whole four quarters of the globe."

"But what of the other three? Ah—alas! Mara, the King of Illusion, had watched with apprehension the advent of Buddha, because the light of Buddha's words would be a light in which only the truth had shadow and by it would be rendered useless the snares by which mankind, or the most of it, was held in thrall by Mara. If Buddha conquered, Mara would be destroyed. The King of Illusion did not take kindly to the idea, since his supreme enjoyment was in wielding power and being entertained. In that," commented Satan, apparently quite seriously, "Mara was much like me. But in intelligence much inferior, because he did not realize that truth, aptly manipulated, creates far better illusions than do lies. However—"

"Before those laggard three could get very far away, Mara had captured them!"

"And then by wile and artifice and sorcery Mara seduced them. He taught them naughtiness, schooled them in delicious deceptions—and he sent them forth to wander!"

"What happened? Well, naturally men and women followed the three. The paths they picked out were so much pleasanter, so much more delectable, so much softer and more fragrant and beautiful than the stony, hard, austere, cold trails broken by the incorruptible four. Who could blame people for following them? And besides, superficially, all seven footprints were alike. The difference, of course, was in the ending. Those souls who followed the three deceitful prints were inevitably led back into the very heart of error, the inner lair of illusion, and were lost there: while those who followed the four were freed."

"And more and more followed the naughty prints while Mara waxed joyful. Until it seemed that there would be none left to take the paths of enlightenment. But now Buddha grew angry. He sent forth a command and back to him from the four quarters of the world came hurrying the shining holy quartette. They tracked down the erring three and made them prisoners."

"Now arose a problem. Since the erring three were of Buddha, they could not be destroyed. They had their rights, inalienable. But so deep had been their defilement by Mara that they could not be cleansed of their wickedness."

"So they were imprisoned for as long as the world shall last. Somewhere near the great temple of Borobudur in Java, there is a smaller, hidden temple. In it is a throne. To reach that throne, one must climb seven steps. On each of these steps gleams one of Buddha's seven baby footprints. Each looks precisely like the other—but, oh, how different they are. Four are the holy ones, guarding the wicked three. The temple is secret, the way to it beset with deadly perils. He who lives through them and enters that temple may climb to the throne."

"But—as he climbs he must set his foot on five of those shining prints!"

"Now, after he has done this, hear what must befall. If of those five steps he has taken he has set his feet upon the three naughty prints, behold, when he reaches the throne, all of earthly desire, all that the King of Illusion can give him, is his for the wishing. To the enslavement and possible destruction of his soul, naturally. But if, of the five, three have been the holy prints, then is he freed of all earthly desire, freed of all illusion, free of the wheel, a Bearer of the Light, a Vessel of Wisdom—his soul one with the Pure One, eternally."

"Saint or sinner—if he steps on the three unholy footprints, all worldly illusions are his, willy-nilly."

"And sinner or saint—if he treads on three of the holy footprints, he is freed of all illusion, a blessed soul forever in Nirvana!"

"Poor devil!" murmured Consardine.

"Such is the legend." Satan turned his gaze upon me again. "Now I never tried to collect those interesting footprints. They could have served no purpose of mine. I have no desire to turn sinners into saints, for one thing. But they gave me the most entertaining idea I have had for—shall I say—centuries?

"Life, James Kirkham, is one long gamble between the two inexorable gambles of birth and death. All men and all women are gamblers, although most are very poor ones. All men and all women have at least one desire during their lives for which they would willingly stake their souls—and often even their lives. But life is such a crude game, haphazardly directed, if directed at all, and with such confusing, conflicting, contradictory and tawdry rules.

"Very well, I would improve the game for a chosen few, gamble with them for their great desire, and for my own entertainment would use as my model these seven footsteps of Buddha.

"And now, James Kirkham, listen intently, for this directly concerns you. I constructed two thrones upon a dais up to which lead not seven but twenty-one steps. On each third step there shines out a footprint—seven of them in all.

"One of the thrones is lower than the other. Upon that I sit. On the other rests a crown and a scepter.

"Now then. Three of these footsteps are—unfortunate. Four are fortunate in the aggregate. He who would gamble with me must climb to that throne on which are crown and scepter. In climbing he must place a foot on four, not five of these seven prints.

"Should those four upon which he steps prove to be the fortunate ones, that man may have every desire satisfied as long as he lives. I am his servant—and his servant is all that vast organization which I have created and which serves me. His, my billions to do as he pleases with. His, my masterpieces. His, anything that he covets—power, women, rule—anything. What he hates I punish or—remove. His is the crown and scepter upon that throne higher than mine. It is power over earth! He may have—everything!"

I glanced at Consardine. He was nervously bending and unbending a silver knife in his strong fingers, his eyes glittering.

"But if he treads on the others?"

"Ah—that is my end of the gamble. If he treads upon the first of my three—he must do me one service. Whatever I bid him. If he treads on two—he must do my bidding for a year. They are my—minor leases.

"But if he treads on all my three"—I felt the blaze of the blue eyes scorch me, heard a muffled groan from Consardine—"if he treads on all my three—then he is mine, body and soul. To kill at once if it is my mood—and in what slow ways I please. To live—if I please, as long as I please, and then to die—again as I please. Mine! body and soul! Mine."

The rolling voice trumpeted, grew dreadful. Satanic enough was he now with those weird eyes blazing at me as though behind them were flames from that very pit whose Master's name he had taken.

"There are a few rules to remember," the voice abruptly regained its calm. "One need not take the whole four steps. You may stop, if you desire, at one. Or two. Or three. You need not take the next step.

"If you take one step and it is mine, and go no farther, then you do my service, are well paid for it, and after it is done may ascend the steps again.

"So if you go farther and touch the second of my steps. After your year—if you are alive—you again have your chance. And are well paid during that year."

I considered. Power over all the world! Every desire granted. An Aladdin's lamp to rub! Not for a moment did I doubt that this—whatever he was—could do what he promised.

"I will explain the mechanism," he said. "Obviously the relative positions of the seven steps cannot remain the same at each essay. Their combination would be too easy to learn. That combination I leave to chance. Not even I know it. Through that I get the cream of my entertainment.

"I sit upon my throne. I touch a lever that spins a hidden wheel over which roll seven balls, three marked for my steps, four marked for the fortunate ones. As those balls settle into place, they form an electrical contact with the seven footprints. As the balls lie, so lie the prints.

"Where I can see—and others if they are present—but not to be seen by the climber of the steps, is an indicator. As the—aspirant—sets his foot on the prints this indicator shows whether he has picked one of my three or one of his four.

"And there is one final rule. When you climb you may not look back at that indicator. You must take the next step in ignorance of whether that from which you have come was good for you or—evil. If you do weaken and look behind, you must descend and begin your climb anew."

"But it seems to me that you have the better end of the game," I observed. "Suppose one steps upon a fortunate step and stops—what does he get?"

"Nothing," he answered, "but the chance to take the next. You forget, James Kirkham, that what he stands to win is immeasurably greater than what I win if he loses. Winning, he wins me and all I stand for. Losing, I win only one man—or one woman. Besides, for my limited leases I pay high. And give protection."

I nodded. As a matter of fact I was profoundly stirred. Everything that I had experienced had been carefully calculated to set my imagination on fire. I thrilled at the thought of what I might not be able to do with—well, admit he was Satan—and his power at my beck and call. He watched me, imperturbably; Consardine, understandingly, with a shadow of pity in his eyes.

"Look here," I said abruptly, "please clear up a few more things. Suppose I refuse to play this game of yours—what happens to me?"

"You will be set back in Battery Park tomorrow," he answered. "Your double will be withdrawn from your club. You will find he has done no harm to your reputation. You may go your way. But—"

"I thought, sir, there was a but," I murmured.

"But I will be disappointed," he went on, quietly. "I do not like to be disappointed. I am afraid your affairs would not prosper. It might even be that I would find you such a constant reproach, such a living reminder of a flaw in my judgment that—"

"I understand," I interrupted. "The living reminder would strangely cease some day to be a reminder—living."

He did not speak—but, surely, I read the answer in his eyes.

"And what is to prevent me from taking your challenge," I asked again, "going partly through with it, enough to get away from here, and then—ah—?"

"Betray me?" again the chuckle came through the motionless lips. "Your efforts would come to nothing. And as for you—better for you, James Kirkham, had you remained unborn. I, Satan, tell you so!"

The blue eyes scorched; about him in his chair seemed to grow a shadow, enveloping him. From him emanated something diabolic, something that gripped my throat and checked the very pulse of my heart.

"I, Satan, tell you so!" he repeated.

There was a little pause in which I strove to regain my badly shaken poise.

Again the bell sounded.

"It is time," said Consardine. But I noticed that he had paled, knew my own face was white.

"It happens," the organ-like voice was calm again, "it happens that you have an opportunity to see what becomes of those who try to thwart me. I will ask you to excuse certain precautions which it will be necessary to take. You will not be harmed. Only it is essential that you remain silent and motionless and that none read your face while you see—what you are going to see."

Consardine arose, I followed him. The man who called himself Satan lifted himself from his chair. Huge I had guessed him to be, but I was unprepared for the giant that he was. I am all of six feet and he towered over me a full twelve inches.

Involuntarily I looked at his feet.

"Ah," he said, suavely. "You are looking for my cloven hoof. Come, you are about to see it."

He touched the wall. A panel slipped away revealing a wide corridor, not long, and windowless and doorless. He leading, Consardine behind me, Satan walked a few yards and pressed against the wainscoting. It slid back, soundlessly. He stepped through.

I walked after him and halted, staring blankly, into one of the most singular—rooms, chambers, no, temple is the only word that its size and character deserve to describe it—I stood staring, I repeat, into one of the most singular temples that probably man's eyes had ever looked upon.

CHAPTER SIX

It was suffused with a dim amber light from some concealed source. Its domed roof arched a hundred feet above me. Only one wall was straight; the others curved out from it like the inner walls of a vast bubble. The straight wall cut across what was the three-quarter arc of a huge hemisphere.

That wall was all of some lustrous green stone, malachite, I judged. And upon its face was carved in the old Egyptian style a picture.

The subject was the Three Fates, the Moerae of the ancient Greeks, the Parcse of the Romans, the Norns of the Norsemen. There was Clotho with the distaff upon which were spun the threads of human destiny, Lachesis guiding the threads, and Atropos with her shears that cut the threads when the trio so willed. Above the Fates hovered the face of Satan.

One of his hands grasped that of Clotho, he seemed to whisper to Lachesis, his other hand guided that of the Fate who wielded the shears. The lines of the four figures were lined in blues, vermilions and vivid green. The eyes of Satan were not upon the threads whose destinies he was controlling. They were looking out over the temple.

And whoever the unknown genius who had cut that picture, he had created a marvelous likeness. By some trick, the eyes blazed out of the stone with the same living, jewel-like brilliancy of those of the man who called himself Satan.

The curved walls of some black wood—teak or ebony. There was shimmering tracery upon them—like webs. I saw that they were webs; spider webs traced upon the black wood and glimmering like those same silken traps beneath the moon. By the hundreds and thousands they were interlaced upon the walls. They shimmered over the ceiling.

The floors of the temple lifted toward the back in row upon row of seats carved out of black stone and arranged like those of the old Roman amphitheaters.

But all of this I noted only after I had forced my gaze away from the structure that dominated the whole strange place. This was a flight of semicircular steps that swept out in gradually diminishing arcs from the base of the malachite wall. There were twenty-one of them, the lowest, I estimated, a hundred feet wide and the highest about thirty. They were each about a foot high and some three feet deep. They were of inky black stone.

At their top was a low dais upon which stood two elaborately carved thrones—one of black wood, and the other, resting on a pedestal which brought its seat well above the first, apparently of dull, yellow gold.

The black throne was bare. Over the back of the golden throne was a strip of royal purple velvet; upon its seat was a cushion of the same royal purple.

And upon that cushion rested a crown and scepter. The crown was ablaze with the multicolored fires of great diamonds, the soft blue flames of huge sapphires; red glowings of immense rubies and green radiances that were emeralds. The orb of the scepter was one enormous diamond. And all its jeweled length blazed like the crown with gems.

Ranged down each side of the one and twenty steps were seven men in white robes shaped like the burnooses of the Arabs. If they were Arabs they were of a tribe I had never come across; to me they appeared more like Persians. Their faces were gaunt and of a peculiar waxen pallor. Their eyes seemed pupilless. Each carried in his right hand a snake-like rope, noosed like a lariat.

From every third ebon step a footprint shone out, the footprint of a child outlined as though by living fire.

There were seven of them, shining out with an unearthly brilliancy as though they themselves were alive and poised to march up those steps.

I had looked first at the crown and scepter, and the sight of them had fanned within me such desire as I had never known; a burning lust for possession of them and the power that went with them; a lust that shook me like a fever.

I had looked next at those gleaming marks of a babe's feet, and the sight of them had stirred within me an inexplicable awe and terror and loathing as great as had been the desire which the sight of them had swiftly numbed.

And suddenly I heard Satan's voice.

"Sit, James Kirkham!"

There was an armed chair, oddly shaped, almost against the circular wall and close beside the edge of the first curving step. It was somewhat like a lesser throne. I dropped into it, glad at the moment of its support.

Instantly, bands of steel sprang from the arms and circled my elbows; other bands bound my ankles, and from the back where my head rested a veil dropped, covering my face. Its lower edge, thick and softly padded, was drawn tight across my lips.

I was held fast, gagged, my face hidden all in an instant. I made no attempt to struggle. These, I realized, were the "precautions" of which my host had warned me. The bonds held but did not constrict, the silencing pad was not uncomfortable, the veil was of a material which, though it hid my face, enabled me to see as clearly as though it were not enveloping my head.

I saw Satan at the foot of the steps. His enormous body was covered from neck to feet by a black cloak. He paced slowly up the flight. As he trod upon the first step the white-robed, rope-bearing men bent before him, low. Not until he had seated himself upon the black throne did they straighten.

The amber light dulled and went out. Before there could be anything but a thin slice of darkness, a strong white light beat down upon thrones and steps. Its edge formed a sharp semicircle three yards away from the curve of the first. It bathed Satan, the fourteen guardians and myself. Under it the seven footprints leaped out more brilliantly, seeming to be straining against some invisible leash and eager to follow their master. The unwinking eyes of the man on the black throne and their counterparts in the stone behind him glittered.

I heard a movement at the rear of the temple among the seats of stone. There were rustlings as of many people seating themselves, faint whisperings of panels sliding back and forth in the black walls, opening of hidden entrances through which this unseen audience was streaming.

Who they were, what they were—I could not see. The semicircle of light glaring upon the steps and thrones formed an impenetrable curtain beyond which was utter darkness.

A gong sounded. Silence fell. Whatever that audience, the doors were now closed upon them; the curtain ready to rise.

Now I saw, high up and halfway between roof and floor, a globe gleam forth like a little moon. It was at the edge of the white light and as I watched its left half darkened. The right half shone undimmed, the black half was outlined by a narrow rim of radiance.

Abruptly the greater light went out again. For an instant only was the temple in darkness. The light blazed forth once more.

But now he who called himself Satan was not alone on the dais. No. Beside him stood a figure that the devil himself might have summoned from hell!

It was a black man naked except for a loin cloth. His legs were short and spindly; his shoulders inordinately wide, his arms long, and upon shoulders and arms the muscles and sinews stood out like blackened withes of thick rope. The face was flat-nosed, the jaw protruding, brutish and ape-like. Ape-like too were the close-set, beady eyes that burned like demon-lights. His mouth was a slit, and upon his face was the stamp of a ravening cruelty.

He held in one hand a noosed cord, thin and long and braided as though made of woman's hair. In his loin cloth was a slender knife.

A sighing quavered out of the darkness beyond me as from scores of tightening throats.

Again the gong clanged.

Into the circle of light came two men. One was Consardine; the other a tall, immaculately dressed and finely built man of about forty. He looked like a highly bred, cultured English gentleman. As he faced the black throne I heard a murmur as of surprise and pity well up from the hidden audience.

There was a debonair unconcern in his poise, but I saw his face twitch as he glanced at the horror standing beside Satan. He drew a cigarette from his case and lighted it; in that action was a touch of bravado that betrayed him; nor could he control the faint tremor of the hand that held the match. Nevertheless, he took a deliberate inhalation and met the eyes of Satan squarely.

"Cartright," the voice of Satan broke the silence. "You have disobeyed me. You have tried to thwart me. You have dared to set your will against mine. By your disobedience you almost wrecked a plan I had conceived. You thought to reap gain and to escape me. You even had it in your mind to betray me. I do not ask you if all this is so. I know it is so. I do not ask you why you did it. You did it. That is enough."

"I have no intention of offering any defense, Satan." answered the man called Cartright, coolly enough. "I might urge, however, that any inconvenience to which I have put you is entirely your own fault. You claim perfection of judgment. Yet in me you picked a wrong tool. Is the tool to blame or the artisan if that tool which he picks cannot stand up under the task for which that artisan selects it?"

"The tool is not to blame," answered Satan. "But what does the artisan do with such a tool thereafter? He does not use it again. He destroys it."

"The perfect artisan does not," said Cartright. "He uses it thereafter for work for which it is fit."

"Not when he has more than enough good ones to choose from," said Satan.

"You have the power," Cartright replied. "Nevertheless, you know I have answered you. I am simply an error of your judgment. Or if your judgment is perfect as you boast, then you deliberately picked me to fail. In either event, punish yourself, Satan—not me!"

For a long minute the black-robed figure regarded him. Cartright met the gaze boldly.

"I ask only for justice," he said. "I ask no mercy of you. Satan."

"Not—yet!" answered Satan, slowly, and the flaming eyes grew bleak and cold and once more a sighing passed me from the darkness of the temple.

There was another interminable minute of silence.

"Cartright, you have given me an answer," the organ voice rolled out, emotionless. "For that answer you shall be credited. You have reminded me that a wise artisan uses a faulty tool only for work it can do without breaking. That too I set down for you.

"Now, Cartright, this is my decree. You shall take the four steps. Now. And all of them. You shall have, first of all, your chance to win that crown and scepter and the empire of earth that they carry with them. This if the four footprints that you tread upon are the four fortunate ones.

"And if you place your foot on three of the fortunate prints and on but one of mine—I forgive you. This in recognition of a certain justice in your parable of the artisan and the faulty tool."

I saw Cartright's tenseness slacken, a shadow of relief pass over his face.

"If you tread upon two of the fortunate prints and upon two of mine then I will give you a choice of a swift and merciful death or of joining my slaves of the kehjt. In brief, Cartright, you pick between the destruction of your body or slow annihilation of your soul. And that mercy I hold out to you in recognition of your claim that the wise artisan chooses some other use for the untrustworthy tool."

Once more the sighing, and Cartright's face paled.

"We come now to the last possibility—that on your journey upward you tread upon all three of my dainty little servants. In that case"—the voice chilled—"in that case, Cartright, you die. You die at the hands of Sanchal here by the cord. Not one death, Cartright. No, a thousand deaths. For slowly and with agony Sanchal's cord shall drag you to the threshold of the gates of death. Slowly and with agony he shall drag you back to life. Again and again...and again... and again...until at last your torn soul has strength to return no more and crawls whimpering over that threshold whose gates shall close upon it...forever! Such is my decree! So is my will! So shall it be!"

The black horror had grinned evilly as he heard his name and had shaken with a ghastly gesture the cord of braided woman's hair. As for Cartright, at that dreadful sentence the blood had drained from his face, the cigarette fallen from his fingers. He stood, all bravado gone. And Consardine, who all the while had been beside him, slipped back into the shadow, leaving him alone. Satan pressed down a lever which stood like a slender rod between the two thrones. There was a faint whirring sound. The seven gleaming prints of a child's bare foot flashed as though fire had shot from them.

"The steps are prepared," called Satan. "Cartright—ascend!"

The white-robed men stirred; they unslung the loops of their ropes and held the nooses ready, as though to cast swiftly. The black horror thrust his head forward, mouth slavering, his talons caressing his cord.

The silence in the temple deepened—as though all within had ceased to breathe Now Cartright walked forward, moving slowly, studying the gleaming footprints. Satan leaned back in his throne, hands hidden beneath his robe, his huge head having disconcertingly the appearance of being bodiless, floating over the dais as the head in the stone floated above the three Norns.

And now Cartright had passed by the first print and had walked up the two intervening steps. He set without hesitation his foot upon the second gleaming mark.

Instantly a glittering duplicate of it shone out upon the white half of the moon globe. I knew that he had trodden upon one of the fortunate steps.

But Cartright, the globe hidden from him, forbidden to turn—Cartright could not know it!

He shot a swift look at Satan, seeking some sign either of triumph or chagrin. The marble face was expressionless, the eyes unchanged. Nor was there any sound from the black seats.

He walked rapidly up the next two steps and again unhesitatingly set his foot on the next print.

And again another glittered out upon the pale field of the globe. Two chances he had won! Gone from him now was the threat of the thousand deaths. At most he would have his choice of merciful extinction or that mysterious slavery I had heard Satan name.

And again he could not know!

Once more he studied the face of his tormentor for some betraying expression, some hint of how his score stood. Immobile as before, it stared at him; expressionless too was the face of the monstrosity with the cord.

Slowly Cartright ascended the next two steps. He hesitated before the next devilish print, for minutes—and hours they seemed to me. And now I saw that his mouth had become pinched and that little beads of sweat stood out upon his forehead.

Plainly as though he were speaking, I could follow his thoughts. Had the two prints upon which he had trodden been Satan's? And would the next condemn him to the torture of the cord? Had he trodden upon only one? Had he escaped as yet the traps that gave him over to Satan?

He could not know!

He passed that print and paced upward more slowly. He stood looking down upon the fifth footprint. And then, slowly, his head began to turn!

It was as though a strong hand were forcing it. The tormented brain, wrestling with the panic that urged it to look...to look behind...to see what the marks upon the moon-globe showed.

A groan came from his gray lips. He caught his head between his two hands, held it rigid and leaped upon the footprint before him.

And he stood there, gasping, like a man who has run a long race. His mouth hung open, drawing in sobbing breaths to the laboring lungs. His hair was wet, his face dripping. His haggard eyes searched Satan—

The white field of the globe bore a third shining symbol!

Cartright had won—

And he could not know!

My own hands were shaking; my body drenched with sweat as though it were I myself who stood in his place. Words leaped to my lips—a cry to him that he need fear no more! That his torment was over! That Satan had lost! The gag stifled them.

Upon me burst full realization of all the hellish cruelty, the truly diabolic subtlety and ingenuity of this ordeal.

Cartright stood trembling. His despairing gaze ate into the impassive face now not far above him. Did I see a flicker of evil triumph pass over it, reflected on the black mask of his torturer? If so, it was gone like a swift ripple on a still pond.

Had Cartright seen it? So it must have been, for the despair upon his own face deepened and turned it into a thing of agony.

Once more his head began to turn backward with that slow and dreadful suggestion of unseen compulsion!

He swayed forward, fighting against it. He stumbled up the steps. I knew with what destroying effort he dragged his eyes down to the next shining print. He poised over it a shaking foot—

And slowly, slowly, ever his head turned...back, back to the telltale globe!

He drew back the foot. He thrust it forward again...and again withdrew it. He sobbed. And I strained at my bonds, cursing and sobbing with him...

Now his head was half around, his face turned directly to me...

He recoiled from the print. His body swung about with the snap of a breaking spring. He looked at the globe and saw.

The three prints upon the fortunate field!

A vast sighing went up from the black amphitheater.

"The tool again betrays its weakness!" It was Satan's voice. "Lo, deliverance was in your hands, Cartright. And like Lot's wife, you turned to look! And now you must descend...and all is to do again. But wait. Let us see if you may not have lost something far greater than deliverance. That footprint upon which you could not summon the courage to tread. What was it? I am curious to know."

He spoke in some strange tongue to the guard at the right of the print. The man came forward and pressed his foot upon the mark.

Out upon the pale semi-disk of the globe flashed out another shimmering print!

Crown and scepter! Empire of Earth! Not only free from Satan—but his master!

All this Cartright might have won.

And he had turned to look—and lost.

A groan went up from the darkness, murmurings. They were stilled by the dreadful laughter that rolled from Satan's still lips.

"Lost! Lost!" he mocked. "Go back, Cartright, And climb again. And not twice, I think, will such luck as this come to you. Go back, traitor. And climb!" He pressed the lever and the hidden mechanism whirred and the seven prints flashed out.

Cartright tottered down the steps. He walked like a puppet whose legs are pulled by strings.

He stopped at the base of the steps. He turned, and again, like some marionette, began to climb, putting his foot automatically on each mark as he came to it. His eyes were fixed upon the scepter and the crown. His arms were stretched out to them. His mouth was drawn at the corners like a heartbroken child, and as he climbed he wept.

One—and a shining print sprang out on the black field of the globe.

Two—another.

Three—a print on the white side.

Four—a print on the black I

A roar of hellish laughter shook Satan. For an instant I seemed to see his black robe melt, become vaporous and change into an enveloping shadow. A blacker shadow seemed to hover over him.

And still his laughter roared and still Cartright climbed the steps, his eyes streaming, face contorted, gaze fixed upon the glittering baubles in the golden throne, arms reaching out for them...

There was a swishing sound. The black horror had leaned forward and cast his cord. It circled over Cartright's head and tightened about his shoulders.

A tug, and he had fallen.

Then hand over hand, unresisting, the torturer pulled him up the steps and to him like a fish:

The light went out. It left a blackness made darker by the rolling, demonic laughter.

The laughter ceased. I heard a thin, wailing cry.

The light came on.

The black throne was empty. Empty too was the dais. Empty of Satan, of the torturer and of—Cartright!

Only the orb of the scepter and the crown glittered mockingly on the golden throne between the two lines of watching, white-robed men.

CHAPTER SEVEN

I felt a touch upon my arm, sprang back and faced Consardine. On his face was a shadow of that horror I knew was on my own.

The bands around my arms and legs sprang back, veil and gag were lifted from me. I leaped from the chair. And again blackness fell.

The amber glow returned, slowly. I looked toward the back of the temple. Empty now was the amphitheater of all that hidden audience whose sighing and murmuring had come to me. I stared back at the steps.

Golden throne and its burden had vanished. Gone were all but two of the white-robed figures. These stood guarding the black throne.

The blue eyes of the stone Satan blazed out at me. The seven shining prints of a child's foot sparkled.

"They opened his way into Paradise, and he weakened, and they led him straight into Hell."

Consardine stared at the seven shining footsteps, and on his face was that avid look I had seen on faces bent over the rouge-et-noir tables at Monte Carlo; faces molded by the scorching fingers of the gambler's passion which is a lust exceeding that for women; faces that glare hungrily at the wheel just before it begins to spin and that see not the wheel but the golden booty its spinning may draw for them from Fortune's heaped hands. Like them, Consardine was seeing not the gleaming prints but that enchanted land to which they led where all desire was fulfilled.

The web of Satan's lure had him!

Well, despite what I had just beheld, so had it me. I was conscious of an impatience, a straining desire to put my own luck to the test. But in it, stronger far than the desire to gain the treasures he had promised was the desire to make that mocking, cold and merciless devil do my bidding as he had made me do his.

Consardine broke the spell that held him and turned to me.

"It's been rather an evening for you, Kirkham," he said. "Do you want to go to your room now, or will you stop in my quarters and have a night-cap with me?"

I hesitated. I had a thousand questions to ask. And yet I felt even more the necessity of being by myself and digesting what I had heard and seen since I had been brought to this place. Besides—of my thousand questions how many would he answer? Reasoning from my recent experiences, few. He, himself, ended the uncertainty.

"You'd better go to bed," he said. "Satan desires you to think over what he has proposed to you. And, after all, I am not permitted"—he caught himself hastily—"I mean I can add nothing to what he did say. He will want your answer tomorrow—or rather"—he glanced at his watch—"today, since it is nearly two o'clock."

"What time shall I see him?" I asked.

"Oh, not till afternoon, surely," he answered. "He"—a slight shudder passed over him—"he will be occupied for hours still. You may sleep till noon if you wish."

"Very well," I said, "I'll go to my room."

Without further comment he led me back toward the amphitheater, and up to the rear wall. He pressed, and one of the inevitable panels slid away revealing another of the little elevators. He looked back at the footprints before closing the panel. They glimmered, alertly. The two white-robed guards stood at the sides of the black throne, their strange eyes intent upon us.

Again he shivered, then sighed and closed the slide. We stepped out into a long, vaulted corridor sheathed with slabs of marble. It was doorless. He pressed upon one of the slabs and we entered a second lift. It stopped and I passed out of it into the chamber where I had changed into evening clothes.

Pajamas had been laid out for me on the bed, slippers and a bathrobe were on an easy chair. On a table were decanters of Scotch, rye and brandy, soda, a bowl of ice, some fruit and cakes, several boxes of my favorite cigarettes—and my missing wallet.

I opened the latter. There were my cards and letters and my money all intact. Making no comment, I poured myself out a drink and invited Consardine to join me.

"To the fortunate steps," he raised his glass. "May you have the luck to pick them!"

"May you," I answered. His face twitched, a haggard shadow dimmed his eyes, he looked at me strangely, and half set down his drink.

"The toast is to you, not to me," he said at last and drained his glass. He walked across the room. At the panel he paused.

"Kirkham," he spoke softly, "sleep without fear. But—keep away from these walls. If you should want anything, ring the bell there"—he pointed to a button on the table—"and Thomas will answer it. I repeat—do not try to open any of these panels. And if I were you I would go to sleep and do no more thinking until you awaken. Would you like, by the way, a sleeping draught? I am really a doctor, you know," he smiled.

"Thanks," I said, "I'll need nothing to make me sleep."

"Good night," he bade me, and the panel closed.

I poured myself another drink and began to undress. I was not sleepy—far from it. Despite Consardine's warning I went over the walls both of the bed chamber and bathroom, touching them cautiously here and there. They seemed solid, of heavy wood, beautifully grained and polished. As I had thought, there were no windows or doors. My room was, in truth, a luxurious cell.

I switched off the lights, one by one and, getting into the bed, turned off the last light upon the side table.

How long I had lain there in the darkness, thinking, before I sensed some one in the room besides myself I do not know. Perhaps half an hour at most. I had heard not the slightest sound, but I knew with absolute certainty that I was no longer alone. I slipped out of the light covering, and twisted silently to the foot of the bed. There I crouched upon one knee, ready to leap when my stealthy visitor had reached its side. To have turned on the light would have put me completely at his mercy. Whoever it was, he evidently thought me asleep and his attack, if attack there was to be, would be made where he would naturally suppose my body to lie. Well, my body was in an entirely different place, and it was I who would provide the surprise.

Instead of an attack came a whisper:

"It's me, Cap'n Kirkham—'Arry Barker. For God's sake, sir, don't myke no noise!"

I seemed to know that voice. And then I remembered. Barker, the little cockney Tommy that I had run across, bled almost white, in a shell-torn thicket of the Marne. I had given first aid to the little man and had managed to carry him to a field hospital. I had happened to be for some days in the town where was the base hospital to which he had finally been taken and had dropped in regularly to talk to him, bringing him cigarettes and other luxuries. His gratitude to me had been dog-like and touching; he was a sentimental little beggar. Then I had seen him no more. How in the name of Heaven had he come to this place?

"You remember me, Captain?" the whispering voice was anxious. "Wyte a bit. I'll show you..."

There was the flash of a small light held in a cupped hand so that it illuminated for a second only the speaker's face. But in that second I recognized it as Barker's—shrewd and narrow, sandy hair bristling, the short upper lip and buck teeth.

"Barker—well, I'll be damned!" I swore softly, but did not add that the sight of him was so welcome that had he been close enough I would have embraced him.

"S-sh!" he cautioned. "I'm fair sure there ain't nobody watchin'. You can't always tell in this Gord awful plyce, though. Tyke me 'and, sir. There's a chair over there just beside where I come through the wall. Sit in it an' light a cigar. If I 'ear anything I can slip right back—an' all you're doin' is sittin' up smokin'."

His hand caught mine. He seemed to be able to see in the dark for he led me unerringly across the floor and pressed me into the cushioned seat.

"Light up, sir," he said.

I struck a match and lighted a cigar. The flare showed the room, but no Barker. I flicked it out and after a moment I heard his whisper close to my ear.

"First thing I want to say, sir, is don't let 'im scare you with that bunk about bein' the devil. 'E's a devil right enough, a bloody, blinkin' one, but 'e ain't the devil. 'E's pullin' your leg, sir. 'E's a man just like me an' you. A knife in 'is black 'eart or a bullet through 'is guts an' you'd see."

"How did you know I was here?" I whispered.

"Seen you in the chair," he answered. "'Ere's my 'and. When you want to sye anything, squeeze it an' I'll lean my ear close. It's syfer. Yes, seen you in the chair—out there. Fact is, sir, I'm the one that looks after that chair. Look after a lot of such damned things 'ere. That's why 'e lets me live. Satan, I mean."

He went back to his first theme, bitterly.

"But 'e ain't the devil, sir. Always remember 'e ain't. I was brought up Gord-fearin'. Pentecosters, my people was. Taught me Satan was in 'ell, they did. An' won't 'e just give this bloody swine particular 'ell for tykin' 'is nyme in vyne when 'e gets 'im in 'ell! Christ, 'ow I'd like to see it.

"From h'outside lookin' in," he added hastily.

I pressed his hand and felt his ear close to my lips.

"How did you get here, Harry?" I murmured. "And who is this—Satan, and what's his real game?"

"I'll tell you the 'ole tale, Captain," he answered. "It'll tyke a little time, but Gord knows when I'll get the chance again. That's why I beat it to you quick as I could. The bloody beast is gloatin' over that poor devil Cartright. Watchin' 'im die! The rest is either sleepin' or drinkin' themselves blind. Still, as I said, we'll tyke no chances. You let me talk an' ask your questions afterwards."

"Go on," I said.

"I was an electrician before the war," came the whisper in the dark. "None better. Master at it. 'E knows I am. It's why 'e let me live, as I told you. Satan—augh-h-h!

"Things was different after the war. Jobs 'ard to get an' livin' 'igh. Got lookin' at things different, too. Seen lots of muckers what hadn't done a thing in the war but live cushy and pile up loot. What right 'ad they to 'ave all they 'ad when them as 'ad fought an' their families was cold an' 'ungry?

"'Andy with my 'ands I always was. An' light on my feet. Climb! Climb like a cat. Climb like a bloody centipede. An' quiet! A spook in galoshes was a parade compared to me. I ain't praisin' myself, sir. I'm just tellin' you.

"Syes I to myself, ''Arry, it's all wrong. 'Arry, it's time to turn your talents to account. Time to settle down to real work, 'Arry.'

"I was good from the very start at the new trade. I kept goin' 'igher an' 'igher. From villas to apartment 'ouses, apartment 'ouses to mansions. Never once caught. King Cat 'Arry they called me. Swarm up a water pipe as easy as porch pillar, up an apartment 'ouse wall as easy as a water pipe. Master at my new trade just like my old.

"Then I met Maggie. They only myke one like Maggie once, sir. Quick with 'er fingers! She made 'Oudini an' 'Errman look like slow movies. An' a lydy. Regular Clare Vere de Vere when she wanted to be!

"Lot's of swell mobsmen wanted to myke Maggie. She'd 'ave none of them. All wrapped up in 'er work she was. ''Ell!' she'd sye, just like a duchess, 'what do I want with a 'usband? 'Ell,' she'd sye, 'A 'usband is about as much use as a 'eadache!' Sort of discouragin', was Maggie.

"Captain, we was crazy h'about each other right off. Married we was, quick. Took a nice 'ouse down in Maida Vale. Was I 'appy? Was she? Gord!

"'Now, Maggie,' I syes after we come back from the 'oneymoon, 'there ain't no reason for you workin' no more. I'm a good provider. I'm a 'ard an' conscientious worker. All you 'ave to do is enjoy yourself an' make our 'ome comfortable an' 'appy.'

"An' Maggie said, 'Righto, 'Arry.'

"I was wearin' I remember a stick pin she'd give me for a weddin' present. Big ruby in it. An' a watch she'd give me, an' a nifty ring with pearls. Admired 'em I 'ad when I see 'em on a couple of toffs at the 'otel we stopped at. An' that night when we went to our room she 'anded 'em to me as a present! That was the kind of a worker Maggie was."

I suppressed a chuckle with difficulty. This whispered-in-the-dark romance of the conscientious soldier and able electrician turned into just as able and conscientious a burglar was the one touch needed to make the night complete. It washed away the film of horror in my mind and brought me back to normal.

"Night or two lyter I was takin' a dye off an' we went to the theayter. ''Ow do you like that pin, 'Arry?' whispers Maggie an' shoots a look at a sparkler in the toff's tie next me. 'Ain't it pretty,' syes I, 'eedlessly.' 'Ere it is!' syes Maggie when we get 'ome.

"'Now, Maggie,' I syes, 'I told you I don't want you to work no more. Ain't I the good provider I promised? Can't I get all the pins I want, myself? All I want, Maggie, is a snug, comfortable, 'appy 'ome when I come back from a 'ard night's work an' my wife to welcome me. I won't 'ave you workin', Maggie!"

"'Righto, 'Arry,' syes she.

"But, Captain, it wasn't all right. It got so that when we went out together I didn't dare to look at a man's tie or 'is watch or nothin'. I couldn't even stand an' admire things in shops. Sure's I did, there when we got 'ome or the next dye would be the things I'd admired. An' Maggie so proud like an' pleased she'd got 'em for me that I 'adn't the 'eart—Oh, it was love all right, but—Oh, 'ell!

"She'd be waitin' for me when I got 'ome. But if I'd wyke up from sleep before my time, she was out. An' when I'd wyke up after she got back, first thing I'd see was laces, or a fur coat, or a ring or two lyde out on the tyble.

"She'd been workin' again!

"'Maggie, I'd sye, 'it ain't right. It 'urts my pride. An' ow'll it be when kiddies come? With their daddy out workin' all night an' sleepin' while their mother's out workin' all dye an' sleepin' while their daddy's workin'—'ell, Maggie, they might as well be h'orphants!'

"But 'twas no good, Captain. She loved 'er work more than she did me, or maybe she just couldn't tell us apart.

"An' at last I 'ad to leave 'er. Fair broke my 'eart, it did. I loved 'er an' my 'ome. But I just couldn't stand it.

"So I come to America. Me, King Cat 'Arry, an exile because my wife couldn't stop workin'.

"Did well, too. But I wasn't 'appy. One dye I was out in the country an' I ran across a big wall. Fair built to tempt me, it was. After while I come to a pair of gates, iron and a guard house behind 'em. Gates not barred. Solid.

"'Goramighty!' syes I to myself. 'It must be the Duke of New York lives 'ere.' I reconnoitered. That wall must 'ave been five miles long. I 'id around an' that night I climbed on top of it. Nothin' but trees an' far-off lights shinin' as though it was a big castle.

"First thing I look for is wires. There was a wire just at the h'inner edge of the wall. Careful I was not to touch it. Charged, I guessed it. I looked over an' took a chance at shootin' my flash. There was two more wires down at the base just where any one would land on 'em if they shinned down the wall. An' it was a twelve-foot drop.

"Anybody else would have been discouraged. But they didn't nyme me King Cat for nothin'. Took a leap, I did. Landed soft as a cat. Sneaked through the trees like a weasel. Came up to the big 'ouse.

"Saw a 'ole lot of queer people goin' in an' around. After while most of the lights went out. Swarmed up a place I'd spotted an' found myself in a big room. An' Cripes, the stuff in that room! It fair myde my 'ed swim. I picked up a few tysty bits, an' then I noticed something funny. There wasn't no doors to that room! ''Ow the 'ell do they get in?' I asked myself. An' then I looked around at the windows I'd come through."

"Goramighty, Captain, I fair fell out of my shirt! There wasn't no windows. They'd disappeared. There wasn't nothin' but wall!"

"An' then a big light blazed up an' out of the walls come about a dozen men with ropes an' a big man after them. I shriveled when he turned them h'eyes of 'is on me. Scared! If I'd nearly fell out of my shirt before, now I was slippin' from my pants.

"Well, it was this bloody bloke Satan, y'understand. 'E just stood scorchin' me. Then 'e started to ask me questions.

"Captain, I told 'im everythin'. Just like 'e was Gord. 'E 'ad me fair kippered. Told 'im all about bein' an electrician, an' my new work, an' about Maggie. Just as I been tellin' you, only more so. 'Strewth, sir, 'e 'ad my life from the time I was out of swaddles.

"'E laughed. That awful laugh. You've 'eard it. 'Ow, 'e laughed 1 An' next thing I knows I'm standin' at 'is table an' tellin' it all over to Consardine.

"An' 'ere I've been ever since, Cap'n Kirkham. 'E put me under sentence of death, sir, an' sooner or later 'e'll do for me. Unless 'e's done for first. But 'e finds me very useful, 'e does, an' 'e won't do for me as long as I'm that to 'im. Also 'e syes I entertain 'em. Fair prize 'og for entertainment 'e is! Gets me in there with Consardine an' others and mykes me tell 'em about my work, an' ambitions an' my sacredest sentiments. All about Maggie, too. Everything about 'er, sir.

"Gord, 'ow I 'ate 'im! The muckin', bloody, blue-eyed son of a mangy she-dog! But 'e's got me! 'E's got me! Like 'e's got you!"

The little man's voice had risen dangerously high. The shrill edge of hysteria was beginning to creep into it. All along I had sensed the tension under which he was laboring. But aside from the welcome diversion of his unintentionally droll story, I had realized the necessity of letting him run along and pour out his heart to me. Mine was perhaps the first sympathetic ear he had encountered since his imprisonment in this place. Certainly I was the only friend, and it must have seemed to him that I had dropped down from Heaven. I was deeply touched by the swiftness with which he had flown to me as soon as he had recognized me. That he had run grave risks to do this seemed sure.

"Quiet, Harry! Quiet!" I whispered, patting his hand. "You're not alone now. Between the two of us, we ought to find some way to get you free."

"No!" I could almost see the despairing shake of his head. "You don't know 'im, sir. There wouldn't be a bit of use in my gettin' away. 'E'd 'ave me in no time. No. I can't get away while 'e's alive."

"How did you know where I was? How did you find me?" I asked.

"Come through the walls," he said. "There ain't an honest stairs or door in this 'ole place. Nothin' but passages in the walls, an' panels that slide, an' lifts all over, thick as the seeds in a pumpkin. Satan, 'e's the only one that knows the 'ole combination. Consardine, 'e's 'is right 'and man 'ere, knows some of 'em. But I know more than Consardine. I ought to. Been 'ere nigh on two years now, I 'ave. Never once been out. 'E's warned me. If I go outside 'e does for me. Been creepin', creepin', creepin', round like a rat in the walls whenever I got the chance. A lot of wires to look after, too, an' that learned me. I don't know all—but I know a 'ell of a lot. I was close behind you and Consardine all the time."

"What is Satan?" I asked. "I mean, where does he come from—admitting it's not from Hell?"

"I think he's part Rooshian and part Chink. 'E's got Chink in 'im, sure. Where 'e was before 'e come 'ere, I don't know. I don't dare ask questions. But I found out 'e took this plyce about ten years ago. An' the people who tore it apart inside an' fixed up the panels an' passages were all Chinks."

"But you can't look after a place like this all by yourself, Harry," I considered. "And I can't see Satan giving many the chance to learn the combination."

"'E lets me use the kehjt slyves," he answered astonishingly.

"That's twice tonight I've heard their name," I said. "What are they?"

"Them?" there was loathing and horror in his voice. "They fair give you the creeps. 'E feeds 'em with the kehjt. Opium, coke, 'asheesh—they're mother's milk compared to it. Gives each one of 'em 'is or 'er particular Paradise—till they wake up. Murder's the least of what they'll do to get another shot. Them fellows in the white nightgowns that stood on the steps with their ropes, was some of 'em. You've 'eard of the Old Man of the Mountains who used to send out the assassins. Feller told me about 'em in the war.

"Satan's gyme's the syme. One drink of it an' they can't do without it. Then he gets 'em believin' if they get killed for 'im 'e can stick their souls where they get forever the 'appiness the kehjt gives 'em 'ere only occasionally. Then! They'll do anything for Satan! Anything!"

I broached the question I had long been waiting to ask.

"Do you know a girl named Eve? Big brown eyes and—"

"Eve Demerest," he answered. "Poor kid! 'E's got 'er all right. Gord, what a shyme! 'E'll drag 'er down to 'ell, an' she's an angel, a—Careful! Smoke up!"

His hand jerked from mine. I heard a faint sound from the opposite wall. I drew upon my cigar, and stretched and sighed. Again the sound, the veriest ghost of one.

"Who's there?" I called, sharply.

A light flashed up and by the wall, beside an opened panel, stood Thomas, the valet.

"Did you call, sir?" he asked. His eyes glanced swiftly around the room, then came to rest on mine, and there was suspicion in them.

"No," I said, indifferently.

"I am sure the bell rang, sir. I was half asleep—" he hesitated.

"Then you were dreaming," I told him.

"I'll just fix your bed for you, sir, while I'm here."

"Do," I said. "When I've finished my cigar I'll turn in."

He made it up and drew a handkerchief from his pocket. A coin dropped upon the floor at his feet. As he stooped to pick it up it slipped from his fingers and rolled beneath the bed. He got down upon his knees and felt about. It was very neatly done. I had been wondering whether he would boldly look under the bed or devise some such polite stratagem.

"Will you have a drink, Thomas?" I asked him, cordially, as he stood up, once more searching the room with his eyes.

"Thank you, sir, I will," he poured himself a rather stiff one. "If you don't mind I'll get some plain water."

"Go ahead," I bade him. He walked into the bathroom and turned on the light. I continued to smoke serenely. He emerged, satisfied apparently that there was no one there. He took his drink and went to the panel.

"I hope you will sleep, sir."

"I shall," I answered cheerfully. "Turn out the light as you go."

He vanished, but I was certain that he was still behind the wall, listening. And after a little while I yawned loudly, arose, walked over to the bed and making what noise I could naturally, turned in.

For a little while I lay awake, turning over the situation in the light of what Barker had told me. A castle with no stairs or "honest doors."...A labyrinth of secret passages and sliding panels. And the little thief creeping, creeping through the walls, denied the open, patiently marking down one by one their secrets. Well, there was a rare ally, indeed, if I should need one.

And Satan 1 Dealing out Paradise by retail to these mysterious slaves of his potent drug. Promising Paradise to those others by his seven shining footsteps. What was his aim? What did he get out of it?

Well, I would probably know more this afternoon after I had obeyed his second summons.

And Eve? Damn that prying Thomas for interrupting just as I was finding out something about her.

Well, I would play Satan's game—with a few reservations.

I went to sleep.

CHAPTER EIGHT

When I woke up, Thomas was at the closet selecting a suit. I heard the taps running in the bath. How long he had been in the room I could not tell. No doubt he had made a thorough search of it. Lazily I wondered what it had been that had aroused his suspicions. I looked at my watch. It had stopped.

"Hello, Thomas," I hailed him. "What's the time?"

He popped out of the wardrobe like a startled rabbit.

"It's one o'clock. I wouldn't have disturbed you, sir, but the Master is expecting you to breakfast with him at two."

"Good." I made for the bath. As I splashed around, the half-formed plan upon which I had gone to sleep suddenly crystallized. I would try my luck at the footprints at once. But—I would not go the distance. Not this time. I would step upon two of them and no more. There was much I wanted to know before running the risk of delivering myself over to Satan body and soul.

What I hoped was that only one of the two would be his. At the worst I would incur a year's bondage. Well, I did not mind that so much either.

I had, in fact, determined to match my wits against Satan rather than my luck.

I did not want to escape him. My keenest desire was to be incorporated among his entourage, infernal or not. Barker gave me a unique advantage. Out of it might well come the opportunity to tumble this slanting blue-eyed devil off his black throne, break his power and—well, why mince words—loot him.

Or, to put it more politely, recover from him a thousand fold what he had so casually stripped me of.

That had been twenty thousand dollars. To wipe off the debt at that rate I must strip Satan of twenty millions—

That would be a good game indeed. I laughed.

"You seem quite gay, sir," said Thomas.

"The birds, Thomas," I said, "are singing everywhere. Everywhere, Thomas. Even here."

"Yes, sir," he answered, looking at me dubiously.

It was a quarter of two when I had finished. The valet walked me into the hall and out again, stopping the lift this time at a much higher level. Again I emerged into a small antechamber whose one door was guarded by two tall slaves.

Passing through it, I was dazzled by a flood of sunshine. Then the sunshine seemed to gather itself and center upon the girl who had half risen from her seat at the table as I entered. It was Eve, but a far different Eve than she who had so ably aided in my kidnaping the night before. Then I had thought her extraordinarily pretty; now I realized how inadequate was the adjective.

The girl was beautiful. Her clear brown eyes regarded me gravely, studying me with a curious intentness. Her proud little head had the poise of a princess, and the sunlight playing in her hair traced a ruddy golden coronet within it; her mouth was sweeter even than I had found it.

And as I looked at the lips I had kissed so ruthlessly, a quick rose tinted her face.

"Eve—this is Mr. Kirkham," it was Consardine's voice, faintly amused. "Miss Demerest and you have met, I think."

"I think," I answered, slowly, "that I am seeing Miss Demerest for the first time. I am hoping that she—will consider it so."

It was as near to an apology as I could come. Would she take the proffered olive branch? Her eyes widened as though with reproachful surprise.

"To think," mused Eve, mournfully, "that a man could so soon forget having kissed me! It seems hardly a compliment, does it, Dr. Consardine?"

"It seems," said Consardine, truthfully, "impossible."

"Ah, no," sighed Eve. "No, Mr. Kirkham. I can't think it is our first meeting. You have, you know, such a forceful way of impressing one with your personality. And a woman cannot forget kisses so easily."

I flushed. That Eve was a consummate little actress she had given me plenty of convincing proof. But what did this bit of by-play mean? I could not believe that she was so bitterly offended by my actions in the Subway; she was too intelligent for that. Yet if she distrusted me, disliked me, how could I help her?

"My remark," I said, "was prompted wholly by politeness. The truth is, Miss Demerest, that I consider those kisses generous payment for any inconveniences of my interesting journey here."

"Well, then," she said coldly, "you have made your trade and the slate is clean. And do not trouble to be polite with me, Mr. Kirkham. Just be yourself. You are much more amusing."

I choked back an angry retort and bowed.

"Quite right," I returned, as coldly as she. "After all there seems to be no reason why I should be polite to you."

"None at all," she answered indifferently. "And, frankly, the less I come into contact with even your natural self, Mr. Kirkham, the better it will be for both of us."

That was an oddly turned phrase, it flashed upon me. And there was an enigmatic something deep in the brown eyes. What did she mean? Was she trying to convey to me some message that Consardine would not suspect? I heard a chuckle and turned to face—Satan.

I could not know how long he had been listening. As his gaze rested on the girl I saw a momentary flashing of the brilliant eyes, and a flicker passed over his face. It was as though the hidden devil within him had licked its lips.

"Quarreling! Oh fie!" he said unctuously.

"Quarreling? Not at all," Eve answered coolly. "It happens that I dislike Mr. Kirkham. I am sorry—but it is so. It seemed to me better to tell him, that we may avoid each other in the future except, of course, when you find it necessary for us to be together, Satan."

It was disconcerting, to say the least. I made no effort to hide my chagrin. Satan looked at me and chuckled again. I had a curious conviction that he was pleased.

"Well," he purred, "even I have no power over personal prejudices. All that I can do is to make use of them. In the meantime—I am hungry."

He seated himself at the table's head; Eve at his right hand, I at his left and Consardine beside me. The Manchu butler and another Chinese served us.

We were in a tower room, clearly. The windows were set high above the floor and through them I could see only the blue sky. The walls were covered with Fragonard and Boucher panels, and I had no doubt that they had been acquired by the "eloquence" of Satan's messengers. The rest of the chamber was in keeping; furnished with that same amazing eclecticism and perception of the beautiful that I had noted in the great hall and in the room where I had first met the blue-eyed devil.

Eve, having defined my place—or lack of place—in her regard, was coolly aloof to me but courteous, and sparkling and witty with Satan and Consardine. The drama of the temple and Cartright's punishment seemed to be forgotten by the three of them. Satan was in the best of humors, but in his diabolic benignity—it is the only way I can describe it—was, to me, the sinister suggestion of a wild beast playful because its appetite has been appeased, an addict of cruelty mellowed by the ultimate anguish to which he has subjected a sacrifice. I had a vivid and unpleasant picture of him wallowing like a tiger upon the torn carcass of the man whom he had sent out of life a few hours before through the gateways of hell.

Yet the sunlight stripped him of much of his vague terror. And if he was, as Barker had put it, "an 'og for entertainment" he was himself a masterly entertainer. Something had shifted the conversation toward Jenghis Khan and for half an hour Satan told us stories of that Ruler of the Golden Horde and his black palace in his lost city of Khara-Khoto in the Gobi that wiped all the present out of my mind and set me back, seeing and hearing, into a world ten centuries gone; stories tragic and comic. Rabelaisian and tender—and all as though he had himself been a witness to what he described. Indeed, listening, it seemed to me that he could have been nothing else. Devil or not, the man had magic.

And at the end he signaled the two servants to go, and when they had gone he said to me, abruptly: "Well, James Kirkham, is it yes or no?" I feigned to hesitate. I leaned my head upon my hand and under its cover shot a glance at Eve. She was patting her mouth with slim fingers, suppressing a yawn—but there was a pallor upon her face that had not been there a moment before. I felt Satan's will beating down upon me, tangibly.

"Yes—or no?" he repeated.

"Yes," I said, "if, Satan, you will answer one question."

"It is always permitted to ask," he replied. "Well, then," I said, "I want to know what kind of an—employer you are before I make a play that may mean life service to me. A man is his aims plus the way he works to attain them. As to your methods, I have had at least an illuminative inkling. But what are your aims? In the olden days, Satan, the question would have been unnecessary. Everybody who dealt with you knew that what you were after were souls to keep your furnaces busy. But Hell, I understand, has been modernized with its Master. Furnaces are out of date and fuel therefore nothing like so valuable. Yet still, as of old, you take your prospective customers up a high mountain and offer them the kingdoms of Earth. Very well, the question. What, Satan, do you get out of it now?"

"There you have one reason for my aversion to Mr. Kirkham," murmured Eve. "He admits nothing that cannot be balanced in a set of books. He has the shopkeeper outlook."

I ignored this thrust. But once more Satan chuckled from still lips.

"A proper question, Eve," he told her. "You forget that even I always keep my accounts balanced—and present them when the time comes for payment."

He spoke the last words slowly, contemplatively, staring at her—and again I saw the devil's gloating flicker over his face. And she saw it too, for she caught her lip between her teeth to check its trembling.

"Then answer," I spoke abruptly to draw his attention from her back to me. He studied me as though picking the words to reply.

"Call it," he said at last, "amusement. It is for amusement that I exist. It is for that alone that I remain upon a world in which, when all is said and done, amusement in some form or guise is the one great aim of all, the only thing that makes life upon it tolerable. My aim is, therefore, you perceive, a simple one. But what is it that amuses me?

"Three things. I am a great playwright, the greatest that has ever lived, since my plays are real. I set the scenes for my little single acts, my farces and comedies, dramas and tragedies, my epics. I direct the actors. I am the sole audience that can see every action, hear every line, of my plays from beginning to end. Sometimes what began as a farce turns into high tragedy, tragedies become farces, a one-act diversion develops into an epic, governments fall, the mighty topple from their pedestals, the lowly are exalted. Some people live their lives for chess. I play my chess with living chessmen and I play a score of games at once in all corners of the world. All this amuses me. Furthermore, in my character as Prince of Darkness, which I perceive, James Kirkham, that you do not wholly admit, my art puts me on a par with that other super-dramatist, my ancient and Celestial adversary known according to the dominant local creed as Jehovah. Nay, it places me higher—since I rewrite his script. This also amuses me."

Under the suave, sardonic mockery I read truth. To this cold, monstrous intellect, men and women were only puppets moving over a worldwide stage. Suffering, sorrow, anguish of mind or body were to it nothing but entertaining reactions to situations which it had conceived. Like the dark Power whose name Satan had taken, souls were his playthings. Their antics amused him. In that he found sufficient reward for labor.

"That," he said, "is one of the three. The second? I am a lover of beauty. It is, indeed, the one thing that can arouse in me what may be called—emotion. It happens now and then that man with his mind and eyes and heart and hands makes visible and manifest some thing which bears that stamp of creative perfection the monopoly of which tradition ascribes to the same Celestial adversary I have named. It may be a painting, a statue, a carved bit of wood, a crystal, a vase, a fabric—any one of ten thousand things. But in it is that essence of beauty humanity calls divine and for which, in its blundering way, it is always seeking—as it is amusement. The best of these things I make from time to time my own. But—I will not have them come to me except by my own way. Here enters the third element—the gamble, the game.

"For example. I decided, after mature reflection, that the Mona Lisa of da Vinci, in the Louvre, had the quality I desired. It could not, of course, be bought; nor did I desire to buy it. Yet it is here. In this house. I allowed France to recover an excellent duplicate in which my experts reproduced perfectly even the microscopic cracks in the paint. Only now have they begun to suspect. They can never be sure—and that amuses me more than if they knew.

"James Kirkham, men risk their lives over the globe in search of treasure. I tell you that never, never since mankind began, was there ever such a treasure trove as this house of mine. The fortunes of the ten richest men in all the world could not buy it. It is more precious than all the gold in the Bank of England.

"Its values in dollars and pounds is nothing to me. But to possess this pure essence of beauty, to dwell with it, that is—much! And to know that the best of my ancient adversary's choicest inspirations are mine, Satan's—that is amusing! Ho! Ho!" he roared.

"Third and last," he checked his laughter, "is the game. Collector of souls and beauty I am. Gambler am I, too, and as supreme in that as in my collecting. It is the unknown quantity, the risk, that sharpens the edge of my enjoyment of my plays. It is what gives the final zest to my—acquirements. And I am a generous opponent. The stakes those who play with me may win are immeasurably higher than any I could win from them. But play with me—they must!"

For a moment he stared at me, huge head thrust forward.

"As for the rest," he said, "I have, as you surmised, no further interest in stoking my traditional furnaces. What happens to any man after he leaves this earth concerns me no longer. I have given up my ancient domain for this where I am amused so well. But, James Kirkham"—his blue eyes blazed out at me—"those who cross me find that I have lost none of my old skill as a Hell maker. Now are you answered?"

"Fully, sir," I bowed. "I will gamble with you. And, win or lose, you shall have no occasion to find fault with me. But, by your leave, one more question. You have said that he who mounts the four fortunate steps can have anything that he desires. Very well, if I do so can I have"—I pointed to Eve—"her?"

I heard a gasp from Eve, watched Satan bend toward me, scrutinizing me with eyes in which a menacing coldness had appeared. Consardine spoke:

"Oh, come, now, Kirkham, be reasonable. Eve's been honest with you. She's made it pretty plain you're not an acceptable candidate for bridegroom."

I sensed a certain anxiety in his voice; the desire to placate. Placate whom—me or Satan? It interested me, hugely. Perhaps Consardine—

"Marry—you? Not for anything in this world, not to save my life, not to save myself torture!"

Eve's voice was shrill with anger. She had sprung to her feet and stood, eyes flashing wrath, red danger signals on her cheeks. I met Satan's gaze, squarely.

"Have I mentioned—marriage?" I asked him, blandly.

He took, as I had thought he would, the worst interpretation out of that. I saw the menace and suspicion fade away as swiftly as it had come. Yes, he took the worst interpretation, but—so did Eve.

"Satan," she stamped her foot and thrust her chair from her with such force that it went careening over on its side, "Satan, I have a question, too. If I take the steps will you give me this man to do with as it pleases me?"

Satan looked from one to the other of us. Very evidently the situation gave him much gratification. The blue eyes sparkled and there was a benignant purr in his voice when he spoke.

"To both of you I must answer—no. No, to you, Eve, because James Kirkham has accepted my challenge to the gamble of the steps. That being so, I could not withdraw if I would. He must have his chance. Also, if he should lose to me for one undertaking or enter my service for a year, I am bound to protect him. I am bound also to give him his other chances, should he claim them. But, Eve—if he should decide to gamble no more—why, then, ask me again."

He paused and stared at me. I had no doubt as to his meaning.

"And no to you, James Kirkham," he said, "because all that I have said to Eve as to your position applies equally to hers. She too has her right to her chances. But"—his voice lost its benignity and grew heavy—"there is another reason. I have decreed for Eve a high destiny. Should she fulfill it—she will be far above the reach of any man. Should she shirk it—"

He did not finish the sentence; only brooded upon her with unwinking, blazing eyes. I watched the blood slowly drain from her cheeks, saw her own eyes falter and drop. There was a sharp snap and a tinkle of glass. Consardine's hand had been playing with a heavy goblet of thick crystal and now, tightening around it, had crushed it as though it had been made of paper. He thrust the hand into his pocket, but not before I had seen blood upon it. Satan's eyes dwelt upon him inscrutably.

"Strength like yours, Consardine," he said, "is often dangerous—to its owner."

"Faith, Satan," Consardine answered, ruefully, "I was dreaming, and thought it was a neck I held in my hand."

"A warning, I should say," said Satan, grimly, "to leave that particular neck alone."

"I've no choice," laughed Consardine, "since the throat I had in mind was of an old enemy these ten years dead."

For another moment or two Satan studied him, but made no further comment. He turned to me.

"You have decided," he said. "When will you mount the steps?"

"Any time," I answered. "The sooner the better. Now, if it's possible. I'm feeling lucky."

"Consardine," he said, "have the temple prepared. Bid those who are here assemble in half an hour, Eve."

He watched them go, the girl through a panel with never a look at me, Consardine by way of the door that led into the tiny anteroom. For long minutes Satan sat silent, regarding me. I smoked calmly, waiting for him to speak.

"James Kirkham," he said at last, "I have told you before that you please me. Everything I have seen of you since then pleases me even more. But I must warn you of one thing. Do not let whatever chagrin or feeling of dislike that you have toward Eve Demerest be the cause of the slightest harm coming to her. You are not one that I have to threaten, but—heed this warning."

"I put her out of my mind, Satan," I answered. "Yet I confess I'm a bit curious about that high destiny you've promised her."

"The highest destiny," again there was the fateful heaviness in his voice. "The highest honor that could come to any woman. I will tell you, James Kirkham, so you may know how urgent is my warning. Sooner or later I shall be compelled to visit other of my worlds. When that time comes I shall turn this one over to my son and heir, and his mother shall be—Eve!"

CHAPTER NINE

I consider it one of my few enough major victories that I took the shock of that infernal enunciation with perfect outward composure. Of course, in a way, I had been prepared. In spite of the rage and hatred that seethed up in me, I managed to raise my glass with a steady hand and my voice held nothing but the proper surprise and interest. "That is an honor, sir, indeed," I said. "You will pardon me if I express a certain wonder as to your choice. For you, I would have thought, some empress, at least one of royal blood—"

"No, no," he interrupted me, but I knew that he swallowed with relish my flattery, "you do not know the girl. You let your prejudice blind you. Eve is as perfect as any of the masterpieces I have gathered around me. To her beauty she adds brains. She has daring and spirit. Whatever—to me—otherwise desirable qualities may be lacking in her to pass on to my son, I can supply. He will be—my son. His training will be in my hands. He will be what I make him."

"The son of Satan!" I said.

"Satan's own son!" a flame leaped from his eyes. "My true son, James Kirkham."

"You will understand," he went on, "that there is in this nothing of what is called—love. Something of emotion, yes—but only that emotion which any truly beautiful thing calls up in me. It is intrinsically, solely, a matter of selective breeding: I have had the same idea before, but—I was not fortunate in my selections."

"You mean—"

"They were girl children," he said somberly. "They were disappointments. Therefore, they ceased to be."

And now behind the imperturbable, heavy mask of his face I glimpsed the Chinese. Perceptibly the slant of the eyes had accentuated, the high cheek bones became more prominent. I nodded, thoughtfully.

"But if again you are—" I had meant to add "disappointed."

He caught me up with a touch of that demonic fury he had shown at the ordeal of Cartright.

"Do not dare say it! Do not dare think it! Her first-born shall be a son! A son, I say!"

What I might have answered, what have done, I do not know. His sudden deadliness, his arrogance, had set my smoldering wrath ablaze again. Consardine saved me. I heard the door open and the menacing gaze turned from me for a moment. It gave me my chance to recover myself.

"All is prepared, Satan," Consardine announced. I arose eagerly, nor was that eagerness feigned. I was conscious of the beginning of a curious excitement, a heady exaltation.

"It is your moment, James Kirkham." Satan's voice was again expressionless, his face marble, his eyes sparkling. "But a few minutes—and I may be your servant. The world your plaything! Who knows! Who knows!"

He stepped to the farther wall and opened one of the panels.

"Dr. Consardine," he said, "you will escort the neophyte to the temple."

He brooded upon me, almost caressingly—I saw the hidden devil lick its lips.

"Master of the world!" he repeated. "And Satan your loyal slave! who knows!"

He was gone. Consardine drew a deep breath. He spoke, in carefully matter-of-fact fashion.

"Want a drink before you try it, Kirkham?"

I shook my head, the tingling excitement increasing.

"You know the rules," he said briskly. "You step on any four of the seven footprints. You can stop at any one of them you choose, and abide by the consequences. One of Satan's gives you to him for one—service; two give you to him for a year; three—and you are his forever. No more chances for you then, Kirkham. Hit the four fortunate ones and you sit on the top of the world, just as he promised you. Look back while you're on the climb, and you have to begin all over again. All clear?"

"Let's go," I said, somewhat huskily—my throat felt oddly dry.

He led me to the wall and through it into one of the marble-lined corridors. From that we passed into a lift. It dropped. A panel slid aside. Consardine leading, I stepped out into the webbed temple.

I was close to the base of the steps, just within the half-circle of brilliant light that masked the amphitheater. From it came a faint rustling and murmuring. Foolishly, I hoped that Eve had picked out a good seat. I realized that I was trembling. Cursing myself silently, I mastered the tremor, praying that it had been too slight to be noticed.

I looked up at the black throne, met Satan's mocking eyes and my nerves steadied, my control clicked into place. He sat there in his black robe, just as I had seen him the night before. The blue jeweled eyes of his stone counterpart glittered behind him. Instead of the fourteen white-robed, pallid-faced men with the noosed ropes there were but two, midway up the steps. And something else was missing. The black-visaged fiend of an executioner!

What did that mean? Was it Satan's way of telling me that even if I trod upon his three prints he would not have me killed? Or at least that I need not fear death until I had finished the work for which he had picked me?

Or was it a trap?

That was the more likely. Somehow I could not conceive Satan thus solicitously though subtly reassuring me of a suspended sentence. Was it not, rather, that by cutting down his guards and eliminating his torturer he had schemed to plant that very thought? Lure me on to make the full gamble and go the limit of the four steps in the belief that if I lost I was sure of a reprieve that might give me time to escape him?

Or, admitting that his present purpose was benevolent, if I did lose, might it not suddenly occur to him that he would derive greater amusement from evoking his hellish servant with the cord of woman's hair and giving me to him—like Cartright.

As Cartright had, I studied his face. It was inscrutable, nothing in it to guide me. And now, far more vividly than when I had watched that despairing wretch being hauled in to his torment, did I realize the infernal ingenuity of this game. For now it was I who had to play it.

I dropped my eyes from Satan's. They fell upon the seven shining footprints and followed them up to the golden throne. Crown and scepter glittered upon it. Their gem fires beckoned and called to me. Again the excitement seized me, tingling along every nerve.

If I could win them! Win them and what they stood for!

Satan pressed down the lever between the two thrones. I heard the whirring of the controlling mechanism and saw the seven marks of the childish foot shine with intenser light.

"The steps are ready," he intoned, and thrust his hands beneath his black robe. "They await their conqueror, the chosen one of fortunel Are you he? Ascend—and learn!" I walked to the steps, mounted and set my foot unhesitatingly upon the first of the prints. Behind me, I knew, its symbol glimmered on the telltale of the luminous globe—

On Satan's side—or mine?

Again I ascended, more slowly, and paused at the next print. But it was not to weigh its probabilities of good or evil that I halted. The truth is that the gambler's fever was rising high within me, crazily high, undermining my determination to limit this first game of mine with Satan to only two of the footsteps.

Common sense bade me go slow and get back my grip upon my judgment. Common sense, fighting for time, moved me past that mark and slowly on to the next.

I trod upon it. There was another symbol on the telltale—mine—or Satan's?

Now the fever had me wholly. My eyes were bright with it as Satan's own. My heart was thumping like a drum, my fingers cold, a dry electric heat beating about my head. The little feet of fire seemed to quiver and dance with eagerness to lead me on.

"Take me!" beckoned one.

"Take me!" signaled another.

The jeweled crown and scepter summoned. On the golden throne I saw a phantom—myself, triumphant, with crown upon my head, scepter in my hand, Satan at my beck and the world at my knees!

It may be true that thoughts have form, and that intense emotion or desire leave behind something of themselves that persists, lives on in the place where it was called forth and wakes, ravening, when some one moved by the same impulses that created it appears in that place. At any rate, it was as though the ghosts of desire of all those who had ascended those steps before me had rushed to me and, hungering for fulfillment, were clamoring to me to go on.

But their will was also my will. I needed no urging. I wanted to go on. After all, the two prints upon which I had trodden might well be fortunate ones. At the worst, by all the laws of chance, I should have broken even. And if so then there would be no more risk in making one more throw than I had already resolved to incur.

What did the telltale show?

Ah, if I could but know! If I could but know!

And suddenly a chill went through me, as though the ghosts of despair of all those who had mounted before me and lost had pressed back the hungry wraiths of desire.

Glitter of crown and scepter tarnished and grew sinister.

For an instant I saw the seven shining prints not as those of a child's foot, but as of a cloven hoof!

I drew back up and looked up at Satan. He sat head bent forward, glaring at me, and with distinct shock I realized that with full force of his will he was commanding me to proceed. Instantly after that apperception came another. It was as though a hand touched my shoulder, drawing me still further back, and clearly as though lips were close to my ear I heard a counter-command, imperative—

"Stop! Stop now!"

The voice of—Eve!

For another minute I stood, shaken by the two contending impulses. Then abruptly a shadow lifted from my mind, all fever fled, the spell of the shining prints and lure of crown and orb broke. I turned my face, reeking with sweat, once more to Satan.

"I've had enough...for this...time!" I panted.

He stared at me silently. I thought that behind the cold sparkle of his gaze I read anger, thwarted purpose, a certain evil puzzlement. If so, it was fleeing. He spoke.

"You have claimed the player's right. It was yours to stop when you willed. Look behind you."

I swung around and sought the telltale globe.

Both of the prints upon which I had trodden had been—Satan's!

CHAPTER TEN

I was Satan's bond servant for a year, bound to do whatsoever he commanded me.

The balance of that afternoon I had spent in my room, alternating between intensive thought and hope of Barker cat-footing it out of the wall. It was plain that my liberty was still limited. Not yet might I run with the pack. Tentative overtures to Consardine following my retreat from the steps, a hint that perhaps I ought to make a tour of this citadel of the Prince of Darkness now I was enlisted among his legionaries, had met courteous but firm rebuff. He had gravely prescribed, as a doctor, the quietness of my chamber as a sedative for the nervous strain I had just undergone.

What I had hoped for, of course, had been a chance to run across Eve. Reflection assured me that it was much more important at the moment to get in touch with the little cockney burglar.

As I waited I tried to analyze the fever that had so swept me off my feet. I had thought myself cooler headed, better balanced. The fact is that I was both ashamed of myself and uneasily puzzled. If I admitted that the intensity of the passion I had felt had been due to Satan's will, an actual compelling force pouring down upon me as I climbed the steps—well, at least that was an explanation to soothe my smarting pride.

But if it left me with the comforting thought that my will was quite as strong as I had deemed it, it involved the humiliating alternative that it was far weaker than Satan's. I took no credit for abstaining from that next step which might have given me to him forever. It had been the warning whisper, whether from Eve's mind or my own subconscious one, that had pulled me back.

And Satan's attitude puzzled me. Why had he been so bent on forcing me upward? Had it been simply the natural instinct of the gambler? The urge to win? Had the sight of those two symbols flashing out one after the other on his side of the telltale aroused the blood-lust in him? If one or both of them had been on my side of the globe would he have shown the same eagerness?

Or had he from the beginning willed me to go the limit and lose?

And if so—why?

I could find no answer to the questions, nor did Barker appear. And at last, Thomas aiding, I dressed and was escorted by way of walls and lifts to still another immense and vaulted chamber that in size and trappings might have been a feast hall of the Medicis in the golden prime of that magnificent clan. There were a score or more men and women at a great oval table with Satan at the head, his flawless evening dress giving him an oddly accentuated sardonic note. Plainly I was late, but as plainly informality was the custom.

"Our newest recruit—James Kirkham."

With no more introduction than this, Satan waved me to my appointed place. The others smiled and nodded and went on talking.

As I seated myself I saw with secret amazement that my right-hand neighbor was a certain famous actress whose name was seldom missing from Broadway's electrics. My rapid glance around the table showed me a polo player of enviable American lineage and international reputation, and a brilliant attorney high in the councils of Tammany Hall. The others were unknown to me, but one and all bore the stamp of unusual intelligence. If this were a representative slice of Satan's court, then indeed his organization must be quite as extraordinary as he had boasted. Eve was not there. Cobham was.

Walter sat at the actress's right. As the dinner went on I exerted myself to be pleasant to him. For my own reasons, I wanted no lurking enemies just then. He was a bit stiffish at first, then mellowed. He drank freely, but, I noted with interest, not so freely as he would have liked. Very clearly Walter loved to look upon the wine when it was not only red, but all along the rainbow. I thought at first that it was the restraint he had placed upon himself as to the rate of his consumption that stirred up in him antagonism against other inhibitions, and particularly that of discretion in expression of opinion. Then I realized it was the drink itself that bred in Cobham a stern passion for truth, a contempt for euphemisms and circumlocutions. What he wanted was the plain fact unadorned, and no evasions. As he put it, "no tampering with the formula." He was in fact an in-vino-veritas drinker of Fundamentalist fervor. Also he was amusing, and the actress was vastly entertained by our cross-conversation.

Some day or other soon, I resolved, I would usefully irrigate Walter into such condition that he could not bear to leave even a shred of covering on the clear-eyed goddess of the verities. I was astonished to find that he was a chemist and spent much time in his laboratory in the chateau. That explained his remark about the formula. He was very explicit in telling me what an amazing chemist he was. I was to learn later that he had not exaggerated. That is why I have lingered over his picture.

It was a wonderful dinner, with a high note of sophistication and delicately reckless gayety that had a constantly ringing undertone as of fine steel. The only hints as to our peculiar position were when the distinguished attorney, glancing at me, proposed a toast to "the happy near damned," and when Satan sent for a casket and displayed some of the most magnificent jewels I had ever seen.

He told their histories. This emerald set in turquoise was the seal which Cleopatra had pressed upon the letters she wrote to Anthony; this necklace of diamonds was the one with which the Cardinal de Rohan had thought to buy the favors of Marie Antoinette, and so had set in motion that trial which had been one of the midwives of the Revolution, and finally cost the unhappy queen her head; this coronet had shone among the curls of Nell Gwynne, set there by Charles, her royal lover; this ring with its regal rubies had been given by Montespan to the poisoner La Voiture for a love philter to warm the cooling heart of the Roi du Soleil.

At last he gave the flashing little Frenchwoman who sat at his right a bracelet of sapphires that had been, he said, Lucrezia Borgia's. I wondered what she had done to deserve it, and if there were ironic significance in his naming of its old owner. If so, it made no difference in her delight.

And it gave me an enormously increased respect for Satan's power that in this gathering there was no melodramatic secrecy, no masking, no stale concealment of names by numbers. His people met face to face. Evidently any thought of mutual betrayal was incredible, their faith in Satan's protection absolute. That all of them, or many of them, had witnessed my ordeal of the steps I had no doubt—nor that they had watched the tragedy of Cartright. There was nothing to show it in their behavior.

They bade good night to Satan. I arose and would have gone with them, but his eyes caught mine and he shook his head.

"Remain with me, James Kirkham," he commanded.

And soon we were alone, the table cleared, the servants gone.

"And so," his lashless eyes glittered at me over the edge of his great goblet, "and so—you have lost!"

"Yet not as much as I might have, Satan," I smiled, "since had I gone but a bit higher my fall might have been like that ancient one of yours—straight into Hell."

"A journey," he said blandly, "never devoid of interest. But a year soon passes, and then you shall have your chance again."

"To fall, you mean?" I laughed.

"You gamble against Satan," he reminded me, then shook his head. "No, you are wrong. My plans for you require your presence on earth. I commend, however, your prudence in climbing. And I admit you—surprised me."

"I have then," I arose and bowed, "begun my bondage with a most notable achievement."

"May we both find your year a profitable one," he said. "And now, James Kirkham—I claim my first service from you!"

I seated myself, waiting, with a little heightening of the pulse, for him to go on.

"The Yunnan jades," he said. "It is true that I arranged matters so that you might retain them, if you were clever enough. It is also true that it would have amused me to have possessed the plaques. I was forced to choose between two interests. Obviously whichever way the cards fell I was bound to experience a half-disappointment."

"In other words, you observed, sir," I remarked, solemnly, "that even you cannot have your cake and eat it, too."

"Exactly," he said. "Another blunder of a bunglingly devised world. The museum has the jades; well, they shall keep them. But they must pay me for my half-disappointment. I have decided to accept something else that the museum owns which has long interested me. You shall—persuade—them to let me have it, James Kirkham."

He raised his glass to me, ceremoniously, and drank; I followed suit, with no illusion as to the word he had used.

"What is it," I asked, "and what is to be my method of—persuasion?"

"The task," he said, "will not be a difficult one. It is, in truth, in the nature of the initial deed all knights of old were compelled to perform before they could receive the accolade. I follow the custom."

"I bow to the rules, sir," I told him.

"Many centuries ago," he continued, "a Pharaoh summoned his greatest goldsmith, the Benvenuto Cellini of that day, and commanded him to make a necklace for his daughter.. Whether it was for her birthday or her bridal, none knows. The goldsmith wrought it of finest gold and carnelian and lapis lazuli and that green feldspar called aquamarine. At one side of the golden cartouche that bore in hieroglyphs the Pharaoh's name, he set a falcon crowned with the sun's disk—Horus the son of Osiris, God, in a fashion, of Love, and guardian of happiness. On the other the winged serpent, the uraeus, bearing the looped cross, the crux ansata, the symbol of life. Below it he made a squatting god grasping sheaves of years and set upon his elbow the tadpole symbol of eternity. Thus did the Pharaoh by amulets and symbols invoke an eternity of love and life for his daughter.

"Alas for love and human hope and faith! The princess died, and the Pharaoh died and in time Horus and Osiris and all the gods of ancient Egypt died.

"But the beauty which that forgotten Cellini wrought in that necklace did not die. It could not. It was deathless. It lay for centuries with the mummy of that princess in her hidden coffin of stone. It has outlived her gods. It will outlive the gods of today and the gods of a thousand tomorrows. Undimmed, its beauty shines from it as it did three thousand years ago when the withered breast on which it was found throbbed with life and sobbed with love and had, it may be, its fleeting shadow of that same beauty which in the necklace is immortal."

"The necklace of Senusert the Second!" I exclaimed. "I know that lovely thing, Satan."

"I must have that necklace, James Kirkham!"

I looked at him, disconcerted. If this was what he thought an easy service, what would he consider a difficult one?

"It seems to me, Satan," I hazarded, "that you could hardly have picked an object less likely to be yielded up by any—persuasion. It is guarded day and night. It lies in a cabinet in the center of a comparatively small room, in fact, and designedly, in the most conspicuous part of that room—constantly under observation—"

"I must have it," he silenced me. "You shall get it for me. I answer now your second question. How? By obeying to the minute, to the second, without deviation, the instructions I am about to give you. Take your pencil, put down these o'clocks, fix them unalterably in your memory."

He waited until I had obeyed the first part of his command.

"You will leave here," he said, "at 10:30 tomorrow morning. Your journey will be so timed that you may drop out of the car and enter the museum at precisely one o'clock. You will be wearing a certain suit which your valet will give you. He will also pick out your overcoat, hat and other articles of dress. You must, as is the rule, check your coat at the cloak room.

"From there you must go straight to the Yunnan jades, the ostensible object of your visit. You may talk to whom you please, the more the better, in fact. But you must so manage that at precisely 1:45 you enter alone the north corridor of the Egyptian wing. You will interest yourself in its collections until 2:05, when you will enter, upon the minute, the room of the necklace. It has a guard for each of its two entrances. Do they know you?"

"I'm not sure," I answered. "Probably so. At any rate, they know of me."

"You will find an excuse to introduce yourself to one of the guards in the north corridor," he continued, "provided he does not know you by sight. You will do the same with one of the guards in the necklace room. You will then go to one of the four corners of that room, it does not matter which, and become absorbed in whatever is in the case before you. Your object will be to keep as far from you as possible either of the two attendants who, conceivably, might think it his duty to remain close to such," he raised his goblet to me, "a distinguished visitor.

"And, James Kirkham, at precisely 2:15 you will walk to the cabinet containing the necklace, open it with an instrument which will be provided for you, take out the necklace, drop it into the ingenious pocket which you will find in the inside left of your coat, close the case noiselessly and walk out."

I looked at him, incredulously.

"Did you say—walk out?" I asked.

"Walk out," he repeated.

"Carrying with me, I suppose," I suggested satirically, "the two guards."

"You will pay no attention to the guards," he said.

"No?" I questioned. "But they will certainly be paying attention to me, Satan!"

"Do not interrupt me again," he ordered, sternly enough. "You will do exactly as I am telling you. You will pay no attention to the guards. You will pay no attention to anything that may be happening around you. Remember, James Kirkham, this is vital. You will have but one thought—to open the case at exactly 2:15 and walk out of that room with Senusert's necklace in your possession. You will see nothing, hear nothing, do nothing but that. It will take you two minutes to reach the cloak room. You will go from there straight to the outer doors. As you pass through them you will step to the right, bend down and tie a shoe. You will then walk down the steps to the street, still giving no attention to whatever may be occurring around you. You will see at the curb a blue limousine whose chauffeur will be polishing the right-hand headlight.

"You will enter that car and give the person you find inside it the necklace. The time should then be 2:20. It must not be later. You will drive with that person for one hour. At 3:20 you will find the car close to the obelisk behind the museum. You will descend from it there, walk to the Avenue, take a taxi and return to the Discoverers' Club."

"The Discoverers' Club, you said?" I honestly thought in my astonishment that it had been a slip of his tongue.

"I repeat—the Discoverers' Club," he answered. "You will upon arriving there go straight to the desk and tell the clerk on duty that you have work to do that demands absolute concentration. You will instruct him not to disturb you with either telephone calls or visitors. You will say to him that it is more than likely reporters from the newspapers will try to get in touch with you. He will tell them that you left word that you would receive them at eight o'clock. You will impress it upon him that the work which you have to do is most important and that you must not be disturbed. You will further instruct him to send up to your room at seven o'clock all the late editions and extra editions of the afternoon newspapers."

He paused.

"Is all clear?" he demanded.

"All except what I am to say to the reporters," I said.

"You will know that," he replied enigmatically, "after you have read the newspapers."

He sipped from his goblet, regarding me appraisingly.

"Repeat my instructions," he ordered.

Soberly, I did so.

"Good," he nodded. "You understand, of course, that this small adventure is not the one that prompted my decision to acquire you. That will be a real adventure. This is in the nature of a test. And you must pass it. For your own sake, James Kirkham—you must pass it."

His jewel-hard eyes held a snake-like glitter. Mad as the performance he had outlined seemed, he was in deadly earnest, no doubt about that. I did not answer him. He had left me nothing to say.

"And now," he touched a bell, "no more excitement for you tonight. I am solicitous for the welfare of my subjects, even those on—probation. Go to your room and sleep well."

A panel opened and Thomas stepped from the lift and stood waiting for me.

"Good night, Satan," I said.

"Good night," he answered, "and however good it be, may your night tomorrow be a better one."

It was close to eleven o'clock. The dinner had lasted longer than I had realized. I found everything comfortable in my bedroom, told Thomas so and dismissed him. In about half an hour and two brandies and sodas I turned out the lights and went to bed hoping for Barker.

Waiting wide-eyed in the darkness I went over my amazing instructions. I was, it was plain, part of a more or less intricate jig-saw puzzle. I saw myself as a number of pieces that I must fit in at the exact moments to click the whole design. Or better, I was a living chessman in one of those games in which Satan delighted. I must make my moves at the designated times. But what would his other chessmen be doing? And suppose one of them moved a bit too soon or too late? Then where would I be in this unknown game?

The picture of the glittering-eyed, bald devil on the malachite slabs behind the two thrones came to me—Satan's double directing the hands of the Fates. Oddly enough, it reassured me. The ethics of the matter did not bother me greatly. After all, the bulk of the treasures in any museum is loot; loot of graves, of tombs, of lost cities—and what is not, has been stolen, the most of it, time and again.

But aside from all that—there was nothing else for me to do except obey Satan. If I did not, well—that was an end to me. I had no doubt of it. And Satan would go on. As for betraying him—why, I did not even know the place of my polite imprisonment.

No, if it was in the cards that I might beat Satan, I must play the game with him. There was no other way.

And what was any necklace beside—Eve!

I turned my mind to memorizing my instructions. It put me to sleep. Nor did Barker awaken me.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Before the faithful Thomas could arrive next morning, I was up and in the bath. I accepted without question the suit he laid out for me. It was one I had never known I possessed. On the inner side of the coat, the left, was a wide pocket. It was deep and across the top ran a line of tiny, blunt-edged hooks. I examined them, carefully. The pendent fringes of Senusert's necklace were about six inches long. Its upper strand could be dropped upon the hooks and the whole ornament would then hang from them freely without causing any betraying protuberance through the cloth. It was, as Satan had indicated, ingeniously made for holding that particular treasure.

He handed me, too, a superbly fitting gray overcoat entirely new to me, but I was interested to note, with my name on the inside pocket, my own soft hat and Malacca cane.

And at last he gave me a curiously shaped little instrument of dull gray steel and—a wrist watch!

"I have a watch, Thomas," I said, studying the odd small instrument.

"Yes," he answered, "but this keeps the Master's time, sir."

"Oh, I see." Admiringly I reflected that Satan was taking no chances upon his pawns' timepieces; all, evidently, were synchronized; I liked that. "But this other affair. How does it work?"

"I meant to show you, sir."

He went to a wall and opened a closet. He carried out what appeared to be a section of a strong cabinet with a sash of glass covering it.

"Try to open it, sir," he said.

I tried to lift the top. It resisted all my efforts. He took the steel tool from me. It was shaped like a chisel, its edge razor sharp, its length about four inches, broadening abruptly from the edge to an inch and a half wide handle. In this handle was a screw.

He thrust the razor edge between the top sash and bottom support and rapidly turned the screw. The tool seemed to melt into the almost invisible crack. There was a muffled snap, and he lifted the lid. He handed me back the instrument, smiling. I saw that the edge had opened like a pair of jaws and that through them had been thrust another blade like a tongue. The jaws had been raised and the tongue pushed forward by incredibly powerful levers. The combination had snapped the lock as though it had been made of brittle wood.

"Very easy to manage, sir," said Thomas.

"Very," I replied, drily. And again I felt a wave of admiration for Satan.

I breakfasted in my room and, escorted by Thomas, entered the waiting car at exactly 10:30. The curtains were down and fastened. I thought of using that irresistible little instrument in my pocket. It was an impulse my better judgment warned me not to obey.

At precisely one o'clock I walked through the doors of the museum, keenly conscious both of the empty pocket designed to hold old Senusert's pectoral, and the tool that was to put it there.

I checked my overcoat and hat and cane, nodding to the attendant who had recognized me. I went straight to the jades and spent half an hour, looking them and some rare similar objects over in company with an assistant curator who had happened along. I rid myself of him and at 1:45 to the second strolled into the north corridor of the Egyptian wing. I did not have to introduce myself to the guards there. They knew me. By two o'clock I was close to the entrance of the necklace room.

At 2:05 by Satan's watch I entered it. If my heart was beating somewhat more quickly, I did not show it. I looked casually about the room. A guard stood close to the opposite entrance, the second guard halfway between me and the central case that was my goal. Both of them scanned me carefully. Neither of them knew me.

I walked over to the second guard, gave him my card and asked him a few questions about a collection of scarabs I knew were to be exhibited. I saw his official suspicion drop away from him as he read my name, and his replies were in the tone that he would have taken to an official of the museum. I walked over to the southeast comer of the room and apparently lost myself in a study of the amulets there. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the two guards meet, whisper and look at me respectfully. They separated and resumed their places.

Satan's watch showed 2:10. Five minutes to go!

Swift glances about the room revealed a dozen or more sightseers. There were three couples of manifest respectability, middle-aged outlanders. A girl who might have been an artist, a scholarly looking, white-haired man, a man with German professor written plain upon him, two well-dressed Englishmen discussing learnedly the mutations of the Tet hieroglyphic in well-bred, low, but carrying voices, and an untidy-looking woman who seemed to be uncertain what it was all about, and two or three others. The Englishmen and the girl were standing beside the cabinet that held the necklace. The others were scattered about the room.

Satan's watch registered 2:14.

There was a scurrying of feet in the north corridor. A woman screamed, terrifyingly. I heard a shout:

"Stop him! Stop him!"

A figure flashed by the door. A woman running. Close after her darted another, a man. I caught the glint of steel in his hand.

The watch marked 2:15. I walked over to the cabinet of the necklace, my right hand clutching the opening tool.

The turmoil in the corridor was growing louder. Again the woman screamed. The people in the room were rushing toward the door. The guard from the far entrance ran past me.

I stood before the cabinet. I thrust the razor edge of the little chisel between the flange of the top and the side. I turned the screw. There was a click, and the lock had snapped.

The screaming ended in a dreadful gasping wail. There was another rush of feet by the door. I heard an oath and the fall of a heavy body.

I withdrew my hand from the cabinet, the necklace in it. I dropped it into my pocket, running its upper strand over the line of tiny hooks.

I walked to the entrance through which I had come. One of the guards was lying upon the threshold. The German was bending over him. The girl I had taken for an artist was crouched beside him, hands over her eyes, crying hysterically. From the armor room across the corridor came an agonized shrieking—a man's voice this time.

I went on, between the two black sarcophagi at the entrance to the wing, out into the great hall where the Gobelin tapestries hang, and passed through the turnstile. The guard had his back turned, listening to the sounds which, both because of distance and the arrangement of rooms and corridors, were here barely audible.

I took my coat from the attendant, who, it was clear, had heard nothing.

Walking to the entrance, I stepped to the right as Satan had bade and, leaning over, fumbled with a shoe lace. Some one brushed past me, into the museum.

Straightening, I proceeded to the steps. Down on the sidewalk two men were fighting. A group had gathered around them, I saw a policeman running up. Those upon the steps beside myself were absorbed in watching the combatants.

I passed down. A dozen yards to my left was a blue limousine, the chauffeur paying no attention to the fighters, but polishing with a piece of chamois the right headlight of his car.

Strolling to it, I saw the chauffeur jump from his polishing, throw open the door and stand at attention beside it, his alert gaze upon me.

Satan's watch registered 2:19.

I stepped into the car. The curtains were drawn and it was dark. The door closed behind me and it was darker still.

The car started. Some one moved. Some one spoke softly, tremulously eager.

"Are you all right, Mr. Kirkham?"

Eve's voice!

CHAPTER TWELVE

I struck a match. Eve turned her head quickly away, but not before I had seen the tears in her eyes and how pale was her face.

"I'm quite all right, thank you," I said. "And everything, so far as I know, has gone exactly according to Satan's schedule. I know that I have. The necklace is in my pocket."

"I w-wasn't worrying about th-that," said Eve in a shaky little voice.

Her nerve was badly shattered, there was no mistaking that. Not for a moment did I think that any anxiety about me was the cause of it. That she had thoroughly understood Satan's sinister implications the night before was certain. Probably she had had forebodings. But now she knew.

Nevertheless, for one reason or another, she had felt anxiety for me. I moved closer.

"Satan made it perfectly clear to me that my continued health and getting the necklace were closely tied up together," I told her. "I am obeying his instructions to the letter, naturally. My next move is to give the necklace to you."

I slipped it off the hooks in my pocket.

"How do you turn on the lights?" I asked her. "I want you to be sure that what I give you is what our Master is expecting to get."

"D-don't turn them on," whispered Eve. "Give me the—d-damned thing!"

I laughed. Sorry for her as I was, I couldn't help it. Her hands crept out and touched me. I caught them in mine and she did not withdraw them. And after a time she drew closer, pressing against me like a frightened child. She was crying, I knew, but I said nothing, only slipped an arm around her and let her cry. Yes, very much like a little frightened child was Eve, weeping there in the darkness and clutching my hands so tightly. And in my heart I cursed Satan in seven tongues, a cold, implacable hatred growing within me.

At last she gave a little laugh and moved away.

"Thank you, Mr. Kirkham," she said tranquilly. "You make always a most dependable audience."

"Miss Demerest," I told her bluntly, "I'm done with fencing. You're panic-stricken. You know why—and so do I."

"Why should I be frightened?" she asked.

"At the destiny Satan promised you," I answered. "You know what it is. If you have any doubts at all about it, let me tell you that he left me with none after you had gone from the room last night."

There was a silence, and then out of the darkness came her voice, small and despairing.

"He means to—take me! He will—take me! No matter what I do! I'd kill myself—but I can't! I can't! Oh, God, what can I do? Oh, God, who can help me!"

"I can make a damned good try at it," I told her, "if you'll only let me."

She did not answer immediately, sitting silently, fighting for self-control. Suddenly she snapped on the light and leaned toward me, tear-washed eyes searching mine, and voice firm as though she had come to some momentous decision.

"Tell me, Mr. Kirkham, what made you stop after the second footprint? You wanted to go on. Satan was urging you on. Why did you stop?"

"Because," I said, "I heard your voice telling me to go no farther."

She drew a sharp breath that was like a sob.

"Is that the truth, Mr. Kirkham?"

"It is God's own truth. It was as though you stood beside me, touching my shoulder and whispered to me to stop where I was. To climb no higher. Those devilish jewels on the crown and scepter were calling me out of a thousand mouths. But when I heard you—or thought I did—I heard them no longer."

"Oh!" Eve's eyes were rapt, her cheeks no longer pale, her exclamation a song.

"You did call!" I whispered.

"I watched you from back there beyond the light, with the—others," she said. "And when the second foot shone out on Satan's side I tried with all my strength of will to send my thought out to you, tried so desperately to warn you. Over and over I prayed as you stood there hesitating—'Oh, kind God, wherever you are, let him hear me! Please let him hear me, dear God!' and you did hear—"

She stopped and stared at me with widening eyes and swiftly the color deepened in her cheeks.

"And you knew it was my voice!" whispered Eve. "But you would not have heard, or, hearing, would not have heeded, unless—unless—"

"Unless?" I prompted.

"Unless there were something outside our two selves ready to help us," said Eve, a bit breathlessly.

She was blushing now up to her eyes; and I was quite sure that the reason she had given was not exactly that which caused the blush, not the one that had been on the tip of her tongue a moment before.

My own theory of what had happened was more materialistic. Something within me had sensitized my mind, not something without. I've never run across any particularly convincing evidence of disembodied energies acting as spiritual springs to soften the bumps in a bad piece of road on this earthly tour of ours. I much preferred a good tangible Providence like the little cockney burglar with his knowledge of Satan's trick walls. However, such things may be; and if it gave Eve any comfort to believe it, then let her. So I nodded solemnly and assured her it must be true.

"But," I asked, "is there no one among all Satan's people with whom you have come in contact who might be persuaded to work against him?"

"Not one," she said. "Consardine likes me—I think he would go far to protect me. But he is tied to Satan. So are all of them. Not only by fear—you saw what happened to Cartright—but by other reasons as well. Satan does pay highly, Mr. Kirkham. Not only in money, but in other things—he has dreadful power...unholy power. Oh, it's not just money that people want! Nor all that he gives them! You can't even dream as yet..."

"Drugs?" I suggested, unimaginatively.

"You're being stupid—deliberately," she said. "You know very well what Lucifer was supposed to be able to give. And he can...and he does...and even those who have lost to him still have the hope that they may do something that will give them another chance—or that his caprice will."

"Has such a thing ever happened?"

"Yes," she replied, "it has. But don't think it was because he was capable of mercy."

"You mean it was simply a play to hold them tighter by dangling the hope of freedom under their noses?"

"Yes," she said. "So their usefulness would not be weakened by despair."

"Miss Demerest," I asked her bluntly, "why should you think I am any different from these others?"

"You did not come to him of your own will," she said. "And you are no slave to his seven shining prints."

"I came pretty close to being so last night," I said, somewhat ruefully.

"They haven't—got you," she whispered. "Not like the others. And they won't. They mustn't get you, Mr. Kirkham."

"I don't intend to let them," I told her, grimly. She gave me her other hand at that. I glanced at my watch and jumped. "There's only a little more than ten minutes left to us," I said. "We've not even spoken of any plan. We've got to meet again—quickly. And we've got to keep right on hoodwinking Satan."

"That will be the great difficulty, of course," she nodded. "But I'll take care of that. And you understand now, don't you, that it was that necessity that made me treat you so outrageously?"

"Even before Satan's confession to me, I suspected something of the sort," I grinned. "And of course you understand that my equally outrageously sounding proposition to him to turn you over to me was just a following of your lead."

"Better than that," she answered softly. "I knew what you really did mean."

Again I shot a glance at my watch. Six minutes—just about time.

"Look here," I said abruptly. "Answer me truly. When did it first occur to you that I might be the one to get you out of this trap?"

"Wh-when you kissed me," she whispered.

"And when did you get the idea of camouflaging what you thought about me?"

"R-right after you began kissing me."

"Eve," I said, "do you see any necessity for camouflage at this moment?"

"No," answered Eve, ingenuously. "Why?"

"This is why!" I dropped her hands, drew her to me and kissed her. And Eve put her arms around my neck tightly and kissed me quite as whole-heartedly. And that was that uniquely satisfactory that.

"It's a coincidence," I murmured against her ear a moment or two later, "but the exact second you had that idea was the precise second I decided to stick the game out."

"Oh—Jim!" sighed Eve. This time she kissed me.

The car was going more slowly. I cursed helplessly Satan's inflexible schedule.

"Eve," I said swiftly, and thrust the necklace of Senusert in her hands, "do you know a little Englishman named Barker? The electrician? He seems to know you."

"Yes," she answered, eyes wide with wonder. "I know him. But how—"

"Get in touch with him as soon as you can," I bade her, "I haven't time to explain. But Barker's to be trusted. Tell him he must get to me in my room the first night I return. By hook or crook, he's got to. You understand?"

She nodded, eyes wider.

"Arrange it," I said, "so that you'll be there that night, too."

"All right—Jim," said Eve.

I looked at my watch. I had one and three-quarters minutes more. We put it to excellent use.

The car stopped.

"Remember Barker," I whispered.

I opened the door and stepped out. It closed behind me and the car rolled off. The obelisk was near by. I walked around it obediently. As I started for Fifth Avenue I saw a man on another path about a hundred feet from me. His overcoat and hat were the same as mine. He swung a Malacca cane. A vast curiosity struck me? Was it my double? I started toward him, and halted. If I followed him I was disobeying Satan's instructions. Less than at any time did I want to do that. Reluctantly I turned and let him go.

I hailed a taxi and started to the Club. There was a rosy light outside the windows; I felt like singing; the walkers on the Avenue seemed to skip gaily. Eve had gone a bit to my head.

Suddenly the rosiness dimmed, the song died. Reason began to function. No doubt the absence of the necklace had been soon discovered. The doors of the museum would have been closed, and none allowed to depart without being searched. Perhaps the alarm had been sounded even as I had gone down the steps. It might be that I had been the only one who had gotten out.

If that were so, then, obviously, I must be suspected. I had deliberately drawn the attention of the guards to me, not only in the corridor, but in the treasure room. They would remember me. Why had I slipped away, ignoring the disturbances, if I had not had some strong reason? What reason could I have had except making away with the necklace?

Or supposing the theft had not been discovered until after the museum had been emptied. Still, I would find it difficult to explain why I had so rapidly made my exit; been the only one to take no interest in the happenings.

Had Satan missed a move in his complicated game, made an error in his deliberate calculations? Or had he coldly planned to have suspicion rest upon me? Whether he had or not, it must.

In no easy frame of mind I dismissed the taxi and entered the Club.

"Back early, Mr. Kirkham," smiled the clerk at the desk as he handed me my keys. Quite evidently he had no suspicion that the Kirkham who had gone out a few hours before and the one who had just returned were two distinct persons. My double, I reflected, must be good indeed.

"I'm going to be almighty busy for the next few hours," I told him. "I've some writing to do that will demand my entire concentration. There's nothing, absolutely nothing, of sufficient importance to break in on me. It's very likely that there will be telephone calls and visitors. Tell everybody that I'm out. If it's reporters, tell them I'll see them at eight o'clock. Slip copies of all the afternoon papers up to me at seven o'clock. Not before. Get me the latest editions. And no matter who calls, don't let me be bothered."

"I'll put an extra key in your box," he said. "It always looks better."

I went to my room. Locking the door, I made a minute inspection. On my desk was my three-day accumulation of mail. There were not many letters, none was important; all had been opened. Two were invitations to speak at dinners. Carbon copies of notes of regret were attached to them. My signature upon them was perfect. My double's powers of imitation were clearly not limited to voice and appearance. My reason for declining, I was much interested in learning, was that I would not be in the city on the dates of the dinners. So? Where the devil, I wondered, was I to be?

Beside my typewriter was a bulky document. Riffling its pages I discovered that it was a report upon the possibilities of certain mineralized lands in China. It was addressed to that same brilliant attorney who had toasted the "near-damned" at Satan's feast of the night before. It was corrected and annotated in my own handwriting. I had, of course, no knowledge of its purpose, but I was sure that the lawyer would be able to discuss it with easy familiarity if circumstances forced it to his attention. My confidence in Satan revived. I felt much more comfortable.

I looked through the pockets of my clothes, hanging in the closet. There was not even a scrap of paper.

Seven o'clock came, and with it a discreet knock at my door. It was Robert, the night clerk, with a bundle of the evening papers. His eyes were rather wide, and I could see questions sticking out all over him. Well, he couldn't be more curious about what I had to say regarding what was in those papers than I was to know what was in them. Nor would it do to let him suspect the extent of my ignorance.

So I took them from him with a discouragingly faraway air, and absent-mindedly closed the door in his face.

The headlines leaped out at me from the first I opened:

TRIPLE TRAGEDY AT THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM; PRICELESS RELIC MISSING
WOMAN MURDERED BEFORE EYES OF GUARDS AND
VISITORS, HER SLAYER KILLED BY ANOTHER WHO
COMMITS SUICIDE WHEN HE IS CAPTURED
EXPLORER KIRKHAM BALKS THIEVES
GIVES THE ALARM THAT CLOSES DOORS WHEN MYSTERIOUS SERIES OF FATAL STABBINGS THROWS TREASURE HOUSE INTO CHAOS—ROBBER HIDES OLD EGYPTIAN PRINCESS'S NECKLACE AND
MAKES ESCAPE—METROPOLITAN TO BE CLOSED
UNTIL SEARCH REVEALS IT.

In different words, all the rest of the headlines said about the same thing. I read the stories. Now and then I had the feeling that somebody was shooting a fine spray of ice-water between my shoulder blades. I quote from the most complete account.

An unknown woman was stabbed to death this afternoon in the Metropolitan Museum of Art before the eyes of half a dozen guards and some twenty or more visitors.

Her murderer tried to escape, but before he could get far was attacked by the companion of the woman, tripped, and a knife thrust through his heart.

The second slayer was caught after a chase. As he was being taken to the Curator's office to await the police, he collapsed. He died within a few seconds, the victim, apparently, of some swift poison which he had managed to slip into his mouth.

Both the murders and the suicide occurred close to the Egyptian room where are kept some of the choicest treasures of the museum. Taking advantage of the confusion, some one forced open the case containing the ancient necklace given to his daughter by the Pharaoh Senusert II. The necklace, a priceless relic of the past, and long the admiration of thousands of visitors, was taken. Its removal from the building was frustrated, however, by the alertness of Mr. James Kirkham, the noted explorer, who caused the doors to be locked before any one could leave the museum.

Search of everyone within the walls failed to reveal the stolen treasure. It is supposed that the thief became panic-stricken when he found that no one could get out, and tucked the necklace away in some hidden corner. Whether he did it thinking to return and recover it, or merely to get rid of it cannot, of course, be known. The museum will be closed to visitors until it is found, which, thanks to Mr. Kirkham's quick thinking, is only a matter of time.

Neither the museum authorities nor the police believe that there is any connection between the tragedy and the theft, the latter having obviously been a sudden temptation born from the opportunity-giving confusion.

Well, I reflected, I could tell them better than that. And if the museum remained closed until they found the necklace there, the door hinges would have a chance to become rusty.

But three lives the price of the bauble! I resumed the reading with cold horror at my heart.

It was shortly after two o'clock when one of the guards in the Egyptian wing first took special notice of the woman and the two men. They were talking together earnestly, discussing seemingly an exhibit of ushabtiu figures, toy-like wooden models from a tomb. The woman was about thirty, attractive, blonde and apparently English. The men were older and the guard took them to be Syrians. What had particularly drawn his attention to them was the curious pallor of their faces and the out-of-the-ordinary largeness of their eyes.

"Looked like dopes," he says, "and then again they didn't. Their faces weren't a sick white, more of a transparent. They didn't behave like dopes, either. They seemed to be talking sensible enough. Dressed top-notch, too."

He put them down finally as foreigners, and relaxed his attention. In a few minutes he noticed one of the men walking by him. It was later ascertained that this man had accompanied the woman when she entered the museum about 1:30. The cloak room attendant's attention had also been attracted by their pallor and their curious eyes. This man passed the entrance to the small room where the Senusert necklace was on display with other ancient jewels. He turned into the next corridor and disappeared.

The woman had continued talking to the second man, who, it appears, came into the museum a little before two o'clock.

Suddenly the guard heard a scream. He swung around and saw the two struggling together, the woman trying to ward off blows from a long knife with which the man was stabbing at her. The guard, William Barton, shouted and ran for them. At the same time, visitors came running in from all directions, drawn by the cries.

They got in Barton's way, and he could not shoot for fear of hitting the woman or some of the excited spectators.

The whole affair was a matter of seconds. The knife plunged into the woman's throat!

The murderer, brandishing his red blade, burst through the horror-stricken onlookers and ran in the direction the first man had gone. As he was close to the door of the necklace room the people who had been in it came rushing out. With them was one of the two guards who keep watch there. They piled back, falling over each other in their haste to get out of reach of the knife. There was a panic-stricken scramble, which the second guard tried to quiet. In the meantime, the murderer had come face to face with the woman's companion at the turn of the next corridor. He struck at the latter and missed, and fled into the armor room with the other close behind him, a knife now in his own hand.

The pair gripped and fell, rolling over the tiled floor, and each striving to plunge his dagger into the other. Guards and visitors were piling in from every side, and the place was in pandemonium.

Then they saw the hand of the pursuer flash up and down. The under man shrieked—and the knife was buried in his heart!

The killer leaped to his feet, and began to run blindly. With the guards and others after him he darted out into the Egyptian wing corridor.

There they cornered him and brought him down.

He was beaten half into insensibility. As he was being carried to the Curator's office, his body went limp, and heavy. They put him down.

He was dead!

Either shock or some quick and powerful poison which he had taken when he had realized escape was impossible had killed him. The autopsy will decide which.

The whole tragedy had occurred in an almost incredibly brief time. Less than five minutes had elapsed between the first scream of the woman and the third death.

But it was time enough to give the necklace thief his opportunity.

Among the visitors at the museum was Mr. James Kirkham, the noted explorer, who recently brought to America the famous Yunnan jades which Mr. Rockbilt presented to the Metropolitan. Mr. Kirkham had been preparing an exhaustive report upon mining possibilities in China for a certain powerful American syndicate. He had been working on it for the last two days with intense concentration, and felt the need this afternoon of a little relaxation. He decided to spend a couple of hours at the museum.

He had strolled into the Egyptian room where the necklace was kept and was studying some amulets in a case in a far corner when he heard the woman's scream. He saw those who were in the room running and followed them. He did not see the killings, but was a witness to the capture of the second man.

Preoccupied by the necessity of completing his report, and deciding that he had had enough "relaxation," Mr. Kirkham started to leave. He had just reached the doors of the museum when a suspicion seized him. Trained by the necessities of his occupation to keenest observation, he recalled that while he was hastening to the entrance of the necklace room, following the others, some one had brushed past him going into the room. He recalled also hearing immediately afterward a sharp click, like the forcing of a lock. With his attention focused upon what was going on without, the impressions then carried with them no significance.

But now it seemed that they might be important.

Mr. Kirkham turned back instantly, and ordered the alarm to be sounded which at once closes the doors of the museum. As he is well known at the Metropolitan, he was as instantly obeyed.

And it was that trained observation of his and quick thinking which beyond all doubt foiled the thief of the necklace.

There followed an account of the discovery of the raped cabinet, the verification of the fact that no one had gone out of the museum either during or after the disturbances, the searching of everybody in the Curator's offices, and the careful shepherding of them out one by one so no one could stop and pick up the necklace from wherever it had been hidden. It interested me to find that I had demanded to be searched with the rest, despite the Curator's protests!

I came to my interview, substantially the same in all the papers.

"The truth is," so I was quoted as having said, "I feel a bit guilty that I did not at once realize the importance of those impressions and turn back into the room. I could probably have caught the thief red-handed. The fact is that my mind was about nine-tenths taken up with that infernal report which must be finished and mailed tonight. I have a vague idea that there were about a dozen people in the room, but not the slightest recollection of what they looked like.

"When I heard the woman scream, it was like being jarred out of sleep. My progress to the door was half-automatic. It was only when I was about to go out of the museum that memory began to function, and I recalled that furtive brushing past me of some one and the clicking noise.

"Then, of course, there was only one thing to be done. Make sure that nobody got out until it was determined whether or not anything had been stolen. The entrance guard deserves great credit for the promptness with which he sounded that alarm.

"I agree with the Curator that there can be no connection between the theft and the killings. How could there possibly be? Some one, and he can be no professional because any professional would know that there was no way of selling such a thing, had a sudden crazy impulse. His probable next thought was one of sincere repentance and an intense desire to get rid of the necklace instantly. The only problem is finding where he slipped it.

"You say it was a lucky thing for the museum that I turned back when I did," smiled Mr. Kirkham. "Well, I think it was a mighty lucky thing for me. I wouldn't like being in the position that having been the first one out of the museum—and maybe the only one, for the theft would soon have been discovered—would have put me."

At this the Curator, despite his anxiety, laughed heartily.

There was more to the story, much more; but that was all I was quoted as saying. The guard whom I had seen lying across the threshold told how he had been knocked down in the backward rush, and somebody "had kicked me in the ear, or something." The second guard had joined in the chase. One paper had a grisly "special" about the possibility of the thief having crawled into one of the suits of armor and dying within it, of thirst and hunger. The writer evidently thought of armor as an iron box in which one could hide like a closet.

All the accounts agreed that there was little chance of identifying the three dead. There was not a thing in their clothing or about them to give a single clew.

Well, there it all was. There was my alibi, complete. There were Satan's chessmen now all properly clicked into place, including the three who would never be moved again. It wasn't nice reading for me, not at all. Particularly did I wince at the Curator's amusement that my honesty could come into question.

But again my double had done a good job. It had been he, of course, who had slipped by me as I had bent to tie my shoe, smoothly taking up my trail without apparent break. And it had been he whom I had passed at the obelisk as I had slipped as smoothly back into his. No one had noticed me come down the museum's steps and enter the automobile that held Eve. The diversion on the sidewalk had made sure of that. There were no gaps in the alibi.

And the three dead people who had furnished the diversion in the museum that had enabled me to steal the necklace? Slaves of Satan's mysterious drug, the kehjt. The description of their strange eyes and their pallor proved that—if I had needed proof. Satan's slaves, playing faithfully the parts he had given them, in blissful confidence of a perpetual Paradise for their immediate reward.

I read the stories over again. At eight o'clock the reporters were sent up to my room. I restrained myself severely to the lines of my early interview. Their visit was largely perfunctory. After all, there was not much that I could say. I left the report that had "preoccupied" me so greatly lying where they could see it.

I went even further. Taking the hint from my double's remarks, I sealed and addressed it and asked one of them to drop it into the Post Office for me on his way back to his paper.

When they had gone, I had dinner sent up to my room.

But when I went to bed, hours later, it was with a cold little sick feeling at the pit of my stomach. More than at any time, I was inclined to credit Satan's version of his identity.

For the first time I was afraid of him.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Early next morning, the telephone rang, awakening me. The clerk at the desk was on the other end. There was an urgent message for me, and the bearer had instructions to wait until I had read it. I told him to send it up. It was a letter. I opened it and read:

"You have done well, James Kirkham. I am pleased with you. Visit your friends at the museum this afternoon. You will receive further instructions from me tomorrow. S."

I phoned the desk to dismiss the messenger, and to send me up breakfast and the morning papers.

It was a good story, and they had spread upon it. It surprised me, at first, that they had given so much more space to the theft of the necklace than they had to the murders and suicide. Then I realized, inasmuch as there was no suspicion of any connection between them, that this was sound newspaper judgment. After all, the lost lives were only three among millions. They had been—and they were not. There were many more.

But the necklace was unique.

That, I reflected, was undoubtedly the way Satan felt about it. Certainly those three lives had seemed to him nothing like so important as had the necklace. And quite plainly the newspapers agreed with him.

The three bodies remained in the morgue, unidentified. The museum, after an all-night search, had been unable to find the necklace. That was all there was new, if new it could be called.

I went downstairs, and carried on the inevitable discussions of the affair with various members of the Club. At one o'clock a messenger brought me another letter. The name on the envelope was that of an important legal firm of which the brilliant attorney was the head.

In it was a check for ten thousand dollars.

The accompanying note complimented me upon my report. The check, it said, was for that and further possible services. For the latter only, of course, in the nature of a retainer. Other work which I might be asked to do would be paid for commensurately.

Again Satan had spoken the truth. He did pay well. But the "other work"?

At three o'clock I went to the museum. I had no difficulty in passing the barricade. In a fashion, I was a hero. The Curator was unhappy, but hopeful. I, when I departed, was much more unhappy than he, and, so far as the recovery of the necklace was concerned, with no hopes whatever. Obviously, I was at pains to conceal both of these states of mind from him.

The day went by without further word from Satan, or from any of his servitors. As the hours passed, I became more and more uneasy. Suppose that this one thing was all that he had wanted of me? That, now I had carried it out, I was to be cast aside! Hell might be his realm, but with Eve therein it was Paradise to me. I did not want his gates closed against me. Nor, cast out, could I storm them. I did not know where they were. What sleep I had that night was troubled indeed, swinging between bitter rage and a nightmarish sense of irretrievable loss.

When I opened Satan's letter next morning it was with the feeling that the angel with the flaming sword had stood aside from the barred doors of Eden and was beckoning me in.

"I am having a house party, and you will find congenial company. You can have your mail called for at the Club, daily. On second thought, I won't take no for an answer. A car will come for you at four o'clock. S."

On the surface, nothing but a cordial, insistent invitation to have a little holiday. Actually, a command. Even had I wanted to, I would have known better than to refuse.

My conscience abruptly ceased to trouble me. With a light heart I packed a traveling bag, gave my instructions at the desk, and waited impatiently for the hour to roll around. Precisely at four, a smart limousine stopped in front of the Club, as smartly a liveried chauffeur entered, saluted me respectfully and, in the manner of one who knew me well, took my bag and ushered me into the car.

Here I had immediate proof that I had passed my novitiate and had been accepted by Satan. The curtains were up. I was to be allowed to see where I was going.

We went up Fifth Avenue and turned to the Queensborough Bridge. We went over it into Long Island. In about forty minutes we had struck the entrance of the Vanderbilt Speedway. We did its forty-five miles to Lake Ronkonkoma in a flat fifty minutes. We turned north toward the Sound, passed through Smithtown and out the North Shore road, A little after six we swung toward the Sound again, and in a few minutes came to a narrow private road penetrating a thick growth of pine and oak. We took it. A couple of hundred yards farther on we paused at a cottage where my driver gave a slip of some sort to a man who had walked out to stop us. He carried a high-powered rifle, and was plainly a guard. A mile or so farther on we came to another cottage and the process was repeated.

The road began to skirt a strong high wall. I knew it was the one Barker had told me about, and I wondered how he had managed to evade these outer guards. At 6:30 we stopped at a pair of massive steel gates. At a signal from the chauffeur they opened. We rolled through, and they clanged behind us.

Under the high wall, on each side of the road, was a low, domed structure of heavy concrete. They were distinctly warlike defenses. They looked as though they might house machine guns. Several men came out of them, questioned my driver, inspected me through the windows, and waved us on.

My respect for Satan was steadily mounting.

Fifteen minutes more and we were at the doors of the chateau. It lay, I figured, about ten miles on the New York side of Port Jefferson, in the densely wooded section between it and Oyster Bay. It was built in a small valley, and probably little if any of it could be seen from the Sound which, I estimated, must be about three-quarters of a mile away. So extensive were the grounds through which we had come and so thickly wooded, that I doubted if the house could be seen even from the public roads.

Consardine welcomed me. I had the impression that he was curiously glad to see me. I had been shifted to new quarters, he told me, and he would stay with me, if I didn't mind, while I dressed for dinner. I told him that nothing would delight me more. I meant it. I liked Consardine.

The new quarters were fresh evidence of my promotion. There was a big bedroom, a bigger sitting-room and a bath. They were rather more than wonderfully furnished, and they had windows. I appreciated the subtlety of this assurance that I was no longer a prisoner. The efficient Thomas was awaiting me. He grinned openly at my bag. My clothes had been already laid on the bed. Consardine chatted as I bathed and dressed.

Satan, he said, would not be with us this night. He had ordered Consardine, however, to tell me that I had fulfilled his every expectation of me. Some time tomorrow he would have a talk with me. I would find an engaging lot of people at dinner. Afterwards there would be a bridge game which I could join or not, as I pleased. We did not discuss the affair of the necklace, although Thomas must have known all about it.

I wanted rather badly to ask if Eve would be at the table, but decided not to risk it. When we had reached the dining room, by three of the wall passages and two of the lifts, she was not there.

We were eighteen, all told. My companions were all that Consardine had promised, interesting, witty, entertaining. Among them a remarkably beautiful Polish woman, an Italian count and a Japanese baron, the three frequently featured in the news. Satan's webs spread wide.

It was an excellent dinner among excellent company—no need to go into detail. There was no discussion of our absent host, nor of our activities. Back of my mind throughout it was a strong impatience to get to my rooms and await Barker. Did he know of my change of quarters? Could he get to me? Was Eve in the chateau?

The dinner ended, and we passed into another room where were the bridge tables. There were enough partners for four, and two persons left over. It gave me my chance to avoid playing. Unfortunately for my plans, it gave Consardine the same opportunity. He suggested that he show me some of the wonders of the place. I could not refuse, of course.

We had looked over half a dozen rooms and galleries before I was able decently to plead weariness. Of what I saw I will not write, it is not essential. But the rareness and beauty of their contents stirred me profoundly. Satan, so Consardine told me, had an enormous suite in which he kept the treasures dearest to him. What I had seen had only been a fraction of what the chateau contained, he said.

We looked in on the bridge game on our way back. Others had drifted in during our absence, and several more tables were going.

At one of them, with Cobham for her partner, sat Eve.

She glanced up at me as I passed and nodded indifferently. Cobham got up and shook hands with great friendliness. It was plain that all his resentment was gone. While I was acknowledging introductions, Eve leaned back, humming. I recognized the air as one of the new jazzy songs:

"Meet me, darling, when the clocks are chiming twelve—At midnight, When the moonlight Makes our hearts bright—"

I needed no moonlight to make my own heart bright. It was a message. She had seen Barker.

After a moment or two, I pressed Consardine's foot. Eve was being deliberately impolite, yawning and riffling the cards impatiently. Cobham gave her an irritated glance.

"Well," she said, rudely, "are we playing bridge or aren't we? I'm serving notice—twelve o'clock sees me in bed."

Again I understood; she was underscoring the message.

I bade them good night, and turned away with Consardine. Another little group came in, and called to us to stay.

"Not tonight," I whispered to him. "I'm jumpy. Get me out."

He looked at Eve, and smiled faintly.

"Mr. Kirkham has work to do," he told them. "I'll be back in a few minutes."

He, took me to my rooms, showing me, as we went, how to manipulate the panels through which we passed and the lifts.

"In the event of your changing your mind," he said, "and wanting to come back."

"I won't," I told him. "I'll read a while and go to bed. Truth is, Consardine, I don't feel as though I could stand much of Miss Demerest tonight."

"I'm going to speak to Eve," he answered. "There's no reason for your being made uncomfortable."

"I wish you wouldn't," I said. "I'd rather handle the situation myself."

"Have it your own way," he replied, and went on to tell me that Thomas would awaken me in the morning. Satan would probably send a message by him. If I wanted the valet I could call him by the room 'phone. The 'phone gave me an impression of privacy that the bell had not. Thomas, I inferred, was no longer on duty as my guard. I was very glad of that.

Consardine bade me good night. At last I was alone.

I walked to the windows. They were not barred, but they were covered with a fine steel mesh quite as efficient. I turned out all the lights but one, and began to read. My watch showed 10:30.

It was very still. The time went slowly. It was close to eleven when there came a hoarse whisper from the bedroom:

"'Ere I am, Cap'n, an' bloody glad to see you!"

Despite my absolute certainty that Barker would appear, my heart gave a great leap, and a load seemed to slip from me. I jumped into the bedroom and shook him by the shoulders.

"And, by God, Barker, but I'm glad to see you!" I said.

"Got your message," he grinned, his little eyes snapping. "Ain't no need to 'ide in 'ere, though. Nobody's goin' to come bargin' in on you now, they ain't. Ace 'igh, you are with Satan. A reg'ler one of 'em. Tysty bit o' work, Cap'n, you done. Tyke it from me what knows what good work is."

He took a cigar, lighted it and sat down, eyeing me admiringly.

"A tysty bit o' work," he repeated. "An' you with no trainin'! I couldn't 'ave done better myself."

I bowed, and pushed the decanter over to him.

"Not me," he waved back. "It's all right if you're goin' to sleep an' got a 'oliday. But old John Barleycorn ain't no use in our line o' work, sir."

"I'm just a beginner, Harry," I said apologetically, and set the decanter down untouched. He watched me approvingly.

"When Miss Demerest told me," he resumed, "you could fair 'ave wyved me over with a feather. Bring 'im to me, syes she, the minute you can. If I'm sleepin' or wykin' it mykes no difference, I want 'im she syes. Any hour it's syfe, she syes, but don't you let 'im run no risks. 'Ell on seein' you she is, sir."

"She just let me know she'd be back in her room by twelve," I said.

"All right, we'll be there," he nodded. "Got any plans? To squash 'im, I mean."

I hesitated. The thought in my mind was too nebulous as yet even to be called an idea. Certainly too flimsy to be brought out for inspection.

"No, Harry, I haven't," I answered him. "I don't know enough about the game. I've got to have a chance to look around. I know this though—I'm going to get Miss Demerest free of Satan or go out doing my damnedest."

He cocked an ear at me, like a startled terrier.

"And if that's the only way, I'll pick the time and place to make sure that I take Satan with me," I added.

He hitched his chair close up to mine.

"Cap'n Kirkham," he said earnestly, "that's the last plye to make. The very last plye, sir. I'd be 'ot for it if we could get anybody else to do it. An' if nobody knew we was behind it. But there ain't nobody 'ere who'd do for 'im, sir. Nobody. It's like pryin' for a mountain to fall on 'im, or the h'earth to swaller 'im, sir."

He paused for a moment.

"It's just this, Cap'n. If you do for 'im, or I do for 'im, we got to do for 'im knowin' there ain't no out for us. Not h'even a bloody 'arf-chance of us gettin' awye. The kehjt slyves'd see to that if nobody else did. What! Us tykin' their 'Eaven from 'em? Suicide it'll be, Cap'n, no less. An' if they suspect Miss Demerest knows anything about it—Gord, I 'ates to think of it! No, we got to find some other wye, Cap'n."

"I meant—only if there was no other way," I said. "And if it comes to that I don't expect you to figure in it. I'll go it alone."

"Now, Cap'n, now, Cap'n!" he said, short upper lip quivering over buck teeth and face contorted as though on the edge of tears. "You ain't got no call to talk like that, sir. I'm with you whatever you do. 'Ell, ain't we partners?"

"Sure we are, Harry," I answered quickly, honestly touched. "But when it comes to killing, well—I do my own. There's no reason why you should run any suicidal risks for us."

"Ow!" he snarled. "There ain't, ain't there? Ow, the 'ell there ain't 1 Maybe you think I'm 'avin' a 'appy 'oliday runnin' around these walls like a bloody rat? A decent, Gord-fearin' jail I wouldn't 'ave a word to sye against. But this—what is it? Just plain 'ell! An' you an' Miss Demerest like my own family! No reason, ain't there! Christ, don't talk like that, Cap'n!"

"There, there, Harry, I didn't mean it quite that way," I said, and patted his shoulder. "What I mean is to leave Satan to me, and, if the worst does come about, try to get Miss Demerest away."

"We stand together, Cap'n," he answered stubbornly. "If it comes to killin' I'll be in it"—he hesitated, then muttered, "but I wish to Gord I could be sure any honest bullet would do for 'im."

That touched me on the raw. It came too close to some damnably disconcerting doubts of my own.

"Snap out of it, Harry," I said sharply. "Why, the first thing you told me was that Satan's only a man like you and me. And that a bullet or a knife would do for him. Why the change of heart?"

"I was braggin'," he muttered. "I was talkin' loud to keep my pecker up. 'E ain't exactly what you'd call human, sir, now is he? I said 'e wasn't the devil. I never said 'e wasn't a devil. An'—an'—Oh, Gord, 'e's so bloody 'uge!" he ended helplessly.

My uneasiness increased. I had thought I had an anchor in Barker's lack of superstition about Satan. And now it apparently had him by the throat. I tried ridicule.

"Well, I'll be damned!" I sneered. "I thought you were hard-boiled, Harry. Satan tells you he comes from Hell. Sure, where else could he come from, you tell yourself. I suppose if somebody told you the story of Little Red Riding Hood you'd think every old woman with a shawl was a wolf. Go hide under the bed, little man."

He looked at me somberly.

"'Ell's behind 'im," he said. "An' 'e's got all the passwords."

I began to get angry. One reason was that in arguing against him I had also to argue against myself. After all, he was only voicing my thoughts that I was reluctant to admit were my own.

"Well," I told him, "if he's made you think that, he's got you licked. You're no use to me, Harry. Go back to your walls and creep. Creep around them and stay alive. Devil or no devil, I fight him."

I had thought to prick him. To my surprise, he showed no resentment.

"An' devil or no devil, so do I," he said quietly. "Tryin' to pull my leg, ain't you, Cap'n? You don't 'ave to. I told you I was with you, and I am. I'm through bein' a rat in the walls. That's all, Cap'n Kirkham."

There was a curious dignity about Barker. I felt my face grow hot. I was ashamed of myself. After all, he was showing the highest kind of courage. And surely it was better for him to spread out his fears in front of me than to let them ride him in secret. I thrust my hand out to him.

"I'm damned sorry, Harry—" I began.

"No need to be, sir," he checked me. "Only there's lots about this plyce an'—'im—that you don't know about yet. I do, though. Maybe there wouldn't be no 'arm in showin' you a bit. Maybe you'd be seein' a wolf or two yourself. What time is it?"

There was a hint of grimness in his voice. I grinned to myself, well pleased. There was good hard metal in the little man. It was a challenge he was throwing down to me, of course. I looked at my watch.

"Twenty after eleven," I said. "So that you keep a certain appointment at midnight—lead on, Macduff."

"Your shirt," he said, "would look like a light'ouse in the dark. Put on another suit."

I changed rapidly into the most unobtrusive of the wardrobe's contents.

"Got a gun?" he asked.

I nodded, pointing to my left armpit. I had replenished my personal arsenal, of which Consardine had deprived me, while at the Club.

"Throw it in a drawer," he bade me, surprisingly.

"What's the idea?" I asked.

"No good," he said, "you might be tempted to use it, Cap'n."

"Well, for God's sake," I said, "if I was, there would be good reason."

"Might just as well carry along an alarm clock," said Barker. "Do you just as much good, Or 'arm. Mostly 'arm. We don't exactly want no h'advertisin' on this trip, Cap'n."

My respect for Harry took an abrupt upward swing. I dropped my gun into the casual mouth of a nearby vase. I unslung my armpit holster, and poked it under a pillow.

"Get thee behind me, Temptation," I said. "And now what?"

He dipped into a pocket.

"Sneakers," said Barker, and handed me a pair of thick rubber soles. I slipped them over my shoes. He fumbled in another pocket.

"Knucks," he dropped a beautiful pair of brass knuckles in my hand. I thrust my fingers through them.

"Good," said Barker. "They ain't got the range of a gun, but if we 'ave to get violent we'll 'ave to see it's quiet like. Get up close an' 'it 'ard an' quick."

"Let's go," I said.

He snapped off the lights in the outer room. He returned, moving with absolute silence, and took my hand. He led me to the bedroom wall.

"Put your 'and on my shoulder, an' step right be'ind me," he ordered. I had heard no sound of a panel, and could distinguish no opening in the blackness. But a panel had opened, for I walked through what a moment before had been solid wall. He halted, no doubt closing the aperture. He swung off at a right-angle, I following. I had counted fifty paces before he stopped again. The corridor was a long one. He flashed a light, brief as the blink of a firefly. Before me was one of the little lifts. He pressed my arm, and guided me in. The lift began to drop. He drew a faint sigh, as of relief.

"There was dynger along there," he whispered. "Now it'll be fair clear goin'!"

The descent of the elevator seemed very slow. When it stopped, I was sure that we must be well below the floor of the great hall, somewhere down among the foundations.

"What we're goin' into is one of 'is private wyes," again he whispered. "I don't think even Consardine knows it. An' we won't meet Satan on it. 'Cause why? I'm goin' to show you."

We slipped out of the lift, and crossed what was apparently a ten-foot-wide corridor, black as a windowless dungeon. We passed, I conjectured, through its opposite wall, and along another passage of eighteen short paces. Here Barker paused, listening.

Then in front of me a hair line of faint light appeared. Slowly, ever so slowly, it widened. Barker's head became silhouetted against it. Cautiously he advanced, peering out. Then he nodded, reassuringly. He moved forward.

We were in a dimly lighted, narrow corridor. It was hardly wide enough for two men to walk side by side. It was lined and paved with some polished black stone into which the light, from some hidden source, seemed to sink and drown. We were at one end of it. The floor fell in a gradual ramp for a hundred yards or more, and there the way either ceased or curved, the light was so faint and the effect of the polished stone so confusing I could not tell which.

"Looks like a h'alley into 'Ell, don't it?" muttered Harry. "Well, in a minute or two try to sye it ain't."

He set grimly forth down it, I at his heels. We came to the part that had perplexed me, and I saw that it was a curve, a sharp one. The curve was unlighted, its darkness relieved only by faint reflections from behind. I could not see its end. We moved on into the thickening gloom. The floor had become level.

Suddenly Barker halted, his mouth close to my ear.

"Lay down. Not a sound now when you look in. On your life! Don't 'ardly breathe!"

I looked through the crack. I felt a cold prickling along my spine and in the roots of my hair.

A little below me and not more than fifty feet away sat Satan. And he was opening the gates of his Black Paradise to the dying souls of his kehjt slaves!

The meaning of the scene struck clear with my first glimpse of it. Satan was leaning forward from a massive throne of heavy black stone cushioned in scarlet and standing on a low broad dais. His robes were scarlet. At his side squatted the ape-faced monstrosity of an executioner, Sanchal. At his left hand stood two figures with veiled faces. One of them held a deep ewer, and the other a golden goblet.

At Satan's feet was a woman, rising from her knees. She was not old, fair haired, and must once have been very beautiful. Her body, seen through the one white robe that was her only covering, was still so. Her wide eyes were fixed with a dreadful avidness upon another golden goblet in Satan's hand. Her mouth was half open, her lips drawn tight against her teeth. Her body quivered and strained as though she were about to leap upon him.

The executioner whirred the loop of his cord, and grinned. She shrank back. Satan lifted the goblet high. His voice rolled out, sonorous and toneless.

"You, woman who was Greta von Bohnheim, who am I?"

She answered as tonelessly.

"You are Satan."

"And what am I, Satan?"

She replied:

"You are my God!"

I felt Barker shudder. Well, I was doing a little shivering myself. The infernal litany went on.

"You shall have no God but me!"

"I have no God but you, Satan!"

"What is it, woman, that is your desire?"

Her hands were clenched, and she drew them up to her heart. Her voice was tremulous, and so low that barely could I hear it.

"A man and a child who are dead!"

"Through me they shall live again for you! Drink!"

There was faint mockery in his voice, and derision in his eyes, as he handed the goblet to the woman. She clutched it in both hands, and drained it. She bowed low, and walked away. She passed out of the narrow range of my vision, stepping ever more firmly, face rapt, lips moving as though she talked with one unseen who walked beside her.

Again I felt the cold creep down my back. In what I had beheld there had been something diabolic, something that truly savored of the Prince of the Damned. It betrayed itself in Satan's cold arrogance and pride during the blasphemous litany. It was in his face, his glittering eyes, and in the poise of his huge body. Something truly of Hell that possessed him, emanated from him, hovered around him. As though, as once before I have tried to describe it, as though he were a mechanism of flesh and blood in which a demon had housed itself.

My gaze followed the woman until I could see her no more. The chamber was immense. What I could see of it through the crack must have been less than a third of it. The walls were of rose marble, without hangings or ornamentation of any kind. There were pierced openings like the mouths of deep niches over which silvery curtains fell. There was a great fountain that sent up tinkling jets of water out of a blood-red bowl. Couches of the rosy stone were scattered about. They were richly covered and on them lay, as though sleeping, men and women. There must have been dozens of these, for there were a score of them within my limited vision alone. I could not see the roof.

I thought that these curtained apertures might be cubicles or cells in which the slaves dwelt.

A gong sounded. The curtains were plucked aside. In each of the openings stood a slave, their eyes fastened upon Satan with a horrid eagerness. I shivered. It was like an eruption of the damned.

Satan beckoned. A man stepped forward toward the dais. I took him for an American, a Westerner. He was tall and lanky, and in his gait something of the rocking habit of the range rider. His face was the hawk-like type that the mountain country breeds, and, curiously, it made the peculiar pallor and dilated eyes mask-like and grotesque. His mouth was thin and bitter.

Like the woman, he prostrated himself before Satan. The veiled figure with the goblet held it out to the ewer bearer who poured into it a green liquid. The cup bearer handed the goblet to Satan.

"Rise," he commanded. The suppliant sprang to his feet, burning gaze upon the cup. The unholy ritual began again!

"You, man who was Robert Taylor, who am I?"

"You are Satan!"

"And what am I, Satan?" Again the blasphemous avowal: "You are my God!"

"You shall have no God but me!"

"I have no God but you, Satan!"

"What is it, man, that is your desire?" The slave straightened, his voice lost its lifelessness. His face grew cruel as that of the executioner's own.

"To kill the man I hate...to find him...to ruin him...to kill him slowly in many ways!"

"As you killed him once—too swiftly," said Satan maliciously, and then, again tonelessly:

"Through me you shall find him whom you hate, and slay him as you desire! Drink!"

He drank and passed. Twice more I heard the clang of the summoning gong, and twice I watched the white faces of these doomed ones with their avid eyes appear through the silver curtains and disappear behind them. I heard one man ask for dominance over a kingdom of beasts. Another for a Paradise of women.

And Satan promised, and gave them the green draught. The kehjt!

The subtle, devilish drug that gave to its drinkers the illusion of fulfilled desire. That turned the mind upon itself, to eat itself. And that by some hellish alchemy dissolved the very soul.

I stared on, fascinated, Eve forgotten. But if I had forgotten, Barker had not. The crack through which I was looking closed. He touched me, and we arose. Soundlessly we slipped up the ramp through the dim, black passage. I felt a bit sick.

It had been no nice picture, that of Satan wallowing in the worship of those slaves of his, dealing them out love and hate, dark power and lust, sardonically and impartially giving each what he or she most desired.

Illusions, yes. But more real than life to the drinkers when the drug had them. But, God, their awakening!

And after that awakening the burning craving to escape reality! To return to that place of illusion to which the kehjt was the only key!

No wonder that the three of the museum affair had gone to their deaths with such blind obedience!

And, if Satan was not what he pretended, very surely he was not disgracing that power whose name he had taken.

I had paid little attention to where we were going, blindly following Barker's lead.

"Well," he whispered, suddenly, "was I right? Wasn't it a h'alley into 'Ell? What price Satan now, Cap'n?"

I came back to myself with nerves jumping.

"A drug dealer," I answered him. "A dope den à la Ritz. That's all. I've seen opium joints in China that would make it look like a trench dugout. And the pipe hitters there would cut your throat for a pill just as quick as these would for Satan."

Neither of which assertions was at all true, but it gave me comfort to say them.

"Yes?" he said, cynically. "Well, it's a good wye to think. I 'opes you keep on thinkin' that wye, Cap'n."

I hoped that I might begin to think so.

"Soft along 'ere," he whispered. We were moving like ghosts in the darkness of a passage. I had an indistinct memory of having entered several lifts. Of even the probable location of my room I had not the slightest idea.

"'Ere we are," he muttered, and stood for an instant listening. I thrust my hand into the pocket where I had slipped my wrist watch, that its illuminated dial might not betray us. I took a swift look. It was almost half past midnight.

Barker drew me forward. There was a faint scent in the air, a delicate fragrance.

Eve's! We were in her room.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

"Beat her to it," I whispered incautiously.

There was a rustle, as of some one sitting hastily up in bed.

"Who's there?" came Eve's voice, softly. "I've got my finger on the alarm!"

"It's me—Jim," I answered, as softly as she, but mighty hastily.

"Jim!" A subdued light gleamed suddenly. "Where have you been? I've been worried to death about you!"

Eve was leaning forward from her pillows, brown eyes wide and luminous, silken mop of hair a bit tousled. She looked like a wakeful little girl who had been exasperatedly pulling it. She was, also, the prettiest thing I had ever seen. Every time I looked at Eve she seemed prettier. I wondered where she was going to stop. She had on some sort of a lacy pink negligee. All the rest of my life, I knew, my heart would beat faster whenever I saw a lacy pink negligee, even when it was only in a shop window.

She slipped out of bed, ran straight to me, and kissed me. It was so pleasant that I entirely forgot everything else.

I became aware of a queer noise behind me. Harry was teetering from side to side, his hands clasped, his eyes half closed and moist, his face ecstatic, and he was crooning like an affectionate parrot. He was a sentimental little burglar, Harry.

Eve looked, and laughed.

"If you want to say 'Bless you, my children,' go ahead, Harry," she said mischievously.

He blinked, snapped out of it, and grinned at her.

"Made me think of me an' Maggie," he said. "Just like when we was courtin'. Fair warmed my 'eart, it did."

"Well," I said, "I move that this meeting comes to order. We've got a lot of ground to cover, and not much time to do it. What's the chance of us being interrupted, Eve?"

"Hardly any," she answered. "Frankly, everybody does as they like about having room parties. So everybody is extraordinarily discreet about visiting without an invitation. On the other hand, Jim, you're the one person it wouldn't do to have found here. Our aversion to each other has been so marked, darling, you know. Satan would be bound to hear about it. And the second he did—"

She didn't have to finish the sentence. I had a very clear idea of what Satan would do.

"It would be hard to explain Barker, too," she added.

"How about it, Harry?" I asked him. "Likely to be any calls for you? Any awkward searching parties?"

"Not unless something big goes wrong," he said. "If they look for me in my room, I can say I was workin' somewhere else. Satan won't be 'untin' me, that's certain."

"Well," I said, "we have to take some chances. But we'll talk low and in the dark."

Eve stepped over, and put out the lamp. She drew aside the heavy curtains from one of the windows. A faint light flickered in from the moon hidden behind a hazy sky. Barker and I moved the chaise longue to a shadowed corner. The three of us sat down upon it.

We talked. Not the slightest use of setting down a word of it. We got nowhere. A few schemes gleamed brightly for an instant, and then went glimmering like will-o'-the-wisps. The spell of what I had beheld in Satan's unholy shrine was heavy on me, try as I would to throw it off. I had to fight a sense of futility. We were like three flies in a web of the Temple of the Footsteps. If we got out of one, it was only to find ourselves in another. But steadily Eve's warm, soft body pressing against mine, her courage, her trust, armed me against the devastating sapping of my confidence. There was a way. There must be a way.

More than an hour had passed, and we had found not a solitary clew to it.

And Barker had been growing fidgety, nervously abstracted.

"What's the matter, Harry?" I asked him at last.

"I'm h'uneasy, sir," he said. "I don't know why. But I 'ave a feelin' somethin's wrong somewhere."

It struck me as funny.

"You're devilish well right there is," I couldn't help chuckling. "It's what we've been giving all this time trying to right."

"No," he said soberly. "I'm bl—I'm h'unusually h'uneasy. An' I'm never that wye h'unless somethin's bl—'orrible wrong. Cap'n, I think we'd better call it a night an' get back."

I hesitated. As I say, we had gotten nowhere. At any moment one of us might get a flash that would open up a way out. Truth was, of course, I didn't want to leave Eve. But there was no denying the little man's distress. And if he should go and not be able to return—well, then I would be in a pretty fix. I hadn't the slightest idea of where my room was, or how to get to it.

"We've decided a lot of things won't do," said Eve. "It sounds Pollyanna-ish, I know, but it really is some progress. The day may bring some new ideas. We'll meet again tonight."

"All right," I said. "We'll go, Harry."

By the involuntary breath of relief he drew, I realized how troubled he was. Eve slipped to the windows, and let drop the curtains. The room resumed its original darkness. I felt her hand touch mine, and then her arms were around my neck.

"It's going to seem a long, long time till tonight, Jim, darling," whispered Eve.

"'Urry!" came Harry's whisper. "'Urry up, Cap'n!"

I cautiously began to make my way toward where he stood by the wall.

"Gord!" I heard him gasp.

The word was thick with terror. I leaped forward.

The ray of the flashlight struck Barker full in the face. A hand shot out with the quickness of a snake, and caught his throat. I saw his face distorted with agony as his own two hands flew up to break that merciless grip.

The light struck me in the eyes, dazzling me. I ducked, and dived in. Before I could touch whoever it was that held it, the flash dropped to the rug and Barker's body hit me like a bag of sand hurled by an elephant. I staggered back with a grunt. The lights in the room flashed up.

Just in front of me, menacing me with his automatic, stood Consardine!

And Consardine's eyes were cold and deadly. There was death in them. They flashed from me to Eve. His face softened, as though with relief from some fear. Swiftly it gave way to bewilderment, incredulity. It grew hard and deadly again. The muzzle of the gun pointing at me never wavered. At my feet Harry gasped, and staggered up dizzily. I put an arm out and steadied him.

"What are these men doing here, Eve?"

Consardine's voice was still and flat, as though he were holding himself in check by enormous effort. I had read the thought behind those swiftly changing expressions. First, that we had crept into Eve's room for some sinister purpose. Then—suspicion of Eve herself. I must wipe that out. Keep Eve out of it. Play on Consardine's first card. I answered before she could speak.

"You're rather—impetuous, Consardine," I said in a voice as hard as his own. "But your gun makes that safe, I suppose, when you let loose on an unarmed man. I was restless, and decided to go back to the bridge game. I got lost in your cursed rabbit warren. I ran across this man here who told me that he was working around the place. I asked him to guide me back to my room. By some damned irony, he managed to make the mistake of all mistakes of getting me into Miss Demerest's. Believe me, I was quite as anxious to get away as she was for me to go. Miss Demerest, I think you will confirm what I say?"

I turned to her. It was an open lead, and it sounded plausible enough. Consardine paid no attention to me whatever.

"I asked you, Eve, what these men are doing here?" he repeated.

Eve looked at him steadily for a moment, and then walked over and stood beside me.

"Dr. Consardine," she said, "Mr. Kirkham is lying like a gentleman, to save me. The truth is that I asked him to come and see me. And I asked Barker to guide him to me. Both of them are entirely innocent of anything except courteously doing as I asked. The whole responsibility is mine."

The veins suddenly stood out on Consardine's temples, and the gun in his hand wavered. His face flushed. The cold fury had given way to hot anger. He might be just as dangerous, but I had a flash that Eve knew what she was doing, that her instinct had been truer than mine.

"So!" said Consardine thickly. "You thought you could make a fool out of me! Dupe me! I don't enjoy being fooled, and I don't enjoy being a dupe. How long have you two known each other?"

"We never set eyes on each other until you brought us together," said Eve.

"And why did you send for him?"

"To get me away from Satan," answered Eve, steadily. "What else?"

He regarded her with smoldering eyes.

"And why did you think he could do that?" he asked her.

"Because I love him! And because he loves me!" said Eve quietly.

He stared at us. Then abruptly all anger fled, his eyes softened.

"Good God," said Consardine. "You Babes in the Wood!"

Eve put her hand out to him. He took it, patting it gently. He looked us over carefully again, as though we were some new and puzzling specimens. He turned out all the lights except the shaded one beside Eve's bed, strode over to the window, and peeped out the curtains. He came back to us.

"Let's talk this over," he said. "Barker, I'm sorry I choked you. Kirkham, I'm sorry I bowled you over. I'm sorry, too, that I misjudged you. And glad I did. Eve, I wasn't spying on you from out there. You were on my mind. You have been, child, for some time. I could see how restless and disturbed you were at the game. I thought—it was something else. You were on my mind, I say. I thought that perhaps you had not gone to bed. And that a talk with me, who am more than old enough to be your father, might help. There were—some things I had to say. I stood out there for minutes, hesitating. I thought I might slip the panel a mite and see if you were up—or awake. I thought you might be crying. And just as I was about to do it, it opened and I heard Barker curse. Then the rest happened. That's all."

I gave him my hand. Barker grinned widely, and saluted.

"Had I better be goin', sir?" he asked.

"Not yet," said Consardine. "Kirkham, how long have you known Barker?"

"'E syved my life, 'e did," broke in Harry. "'E pulled me out o' 'Ell. An' while we're all tellin' the truth, Dr. Consardine, I'll sye I'm fair set on doin' the syme by 'im an' 'is young lydy."

I gave Consardine a brief account of my acquaintance with Barker. He nodded, approvingly.

"First," he said, "it will be well to clarify the situation by stating my own position. I am Satan's servant. I am bound by a certain oath to him. I took that oath with open eyes, fully realizing all that it entailed. I came to him voluntarily, not like you, Kirkham. I recognize that your oath was under duress, and that therefore you are entitled to act in ways that I am not. I do not break my voluntary oath nor my word. Besides that I am convinced that if I did I would not live long. I have a foolish partiality for living. I could cheat Satan of his pleasure in my torture, but—I do not believe in any existence beyond the grave, and I find life, at times, vastly interesting. Furthermore, I have certain standards of living, appetites, desires and likings which my contact with Satan insures of satisfaction. Away from him they certainly would not be satisfied. Also I was an outlaw when I came to him. Outlaw I am, but hunted outlaw I would be without his protection. First and last—there is my oath.

"Let it be understood, then, that any assistance that I can promise you will be largely negative. It will consist of warning you of pitfalls to avoid, and of closing my eyes and ears to what I may see or hear. Like this affair tonight, for instance."

"It is all we could ask, sir," I said. "And a great deal more than I had any right to expect."

"And now I say to you, Kirkham," he went on, "that I think you have little chance to win against Satan. I think that the road you have picked has death at its end. I tell you so because I know you have courage, and you should be told what is in my mind. And I say it before you, Eve, because you too have courage. And you must consider, child, whether you should allow your lover to take this almost certain risk of death, or whether you should do—something else."

I looked into Eve's face. Her mouth was quivering, and her eyes were tortured.

"What—what is the something else, Dr. Consardine?" she whispered.

"Become Mme. Satan, I suppose!" I answered for him. "Not while I'm alive."

"That," he acquiesced quietly, "of course. But it is not what I had in mind—" He hesitated, shot a glance at Harry and quickly switched to another thought, or back, rather, to his old one.

"Understand," he said, "I want you to win, Kirkham. In any way that does not break my oath to Satan, or threaten my prejudice for remaining alive, I will help you. At least—I will keep my hands off. But realize this—I am Satan's servant. If he orders me to take you, I shall take you. If he orders me to kill you, I shall—kill you."

"If Jim dies, I die. If you kill him, you kill me," said Eve tranquilly. She meant it. He knew she meant it, and he winced.

"Nevertheless, child, I would do it," he told her. And I knew he meant that. So did Eve.

"You—you started to—you were about to speak of another way—" she faltered.

"I do not want you to tell me your plans, Kirkham," he interrupted her, quickly. "Only this. Do any of them involve your trying to kill Satan?"

I hesitated. It was a dangerous question to answer. After all, Consardine had warned me he could be trusted only so far. What did he consider the limits of his oath?

"I perceive they do," he had interpreted my silence. "Well, it is the one thing you must not attempt. It is the one thing that is impossible. You may think you can kill him while you and he are alone. Kirkham, I tell you Satan is never alone. Always there are guards hidden about—in the walls, in secret places. Before you could fire, they would have you winged. And there is Satan's abnormal quickness of mind. He would perceive your thought before it could be transformed into action. If you tried it while others were about, they would have you down before you could fire a second shot—assuming that you managed to get in a first one. And Satan has an unhuman vitality. I do not believe one bullet or two could kill him any more than they could an elephant. The real point is, however, that you would never get the chance."

Well, Consardine did not know everything—that was clear. With that stone in the wall of the slavers' hall up half an inch instead of a quarter, and a rifle poking through the crack, I would not have given much for Satan's survival. Assuming, of course, that basically he was human.

"Furthermore," he went on, almost as in answer to my thought, "suppose you did perform what I believe the impossible—kill him. Still there could be no escape for you. Better to be slain at once. There is not a place on earth where you could hide from the vengeance of his people. For it is not only by fear that Satan rules. Far from it. As he has told you, he pays his servants well. His continuance means ease, luxury, safety, power—most of the things of life for which man commonly strives—to more people than you can imagine. Satan has his splendid side as well as his dark one. And his people are scattered over all the globe. Many of them are more highly placed than you, as yet, can dream. Is it not so, Eve?"

"It is so," she said, and the trouble in her eyes grew.

"Satan's throne does not rest upon the backs of cringing slaves," he said. "As always, he has his princes and his legions. To sum up. I do not believe you can kill him. If you try and fail, you die—horribly. And Eve is not saved. If you did kill him, you die as inevitably. Eve would be saved from him—yes. But will she have her freedom at such a price?"

"No! No!" cried Eve, and stood in front of me, arms outstretched, despair in her face.

"Consardine," I said abruptly, "why does Satan hide his hands when the climbers go up the steps?"

"What's that? What do you mean?" He stared at me.

"I've seen him on the black throne three times," I said. "Twice with Cartright, once with myself. He pulls the lever, and then he hides his hands under the robe. What does he do with them, Consardine?"

"Are you hinting that the steps are a crooked game? That's absurd, Kirkham!" His voice was amused, but I saw his strong hands clench.

"I'm hinting nothing," I answered. "I—wonder. You must have seen many go up those steps. Have you ever seen Satan's hands in the open while they were mounting? Think back, Consardine."

He was silent. I could see him marshaling in his memory those he had beheld beckoned by the shining footprints. And his face had whitened.

"I—can't tell," he said at last. "I didn't notice. But—I don't think so."

He jumped to his feet.

"Nonsense!" he said. "Even so—it means nothing!"

I was shooting in the dark. No, not quite. I was giving substance to that shadowy thought, that nebulous suspicion, I had feared to bring out before Barker.

"No?" I said. "Do you believe, then, that Satan, with all his genius for details, his setting up of the cards, his discounting of every chance—do you believe that Satan would leave any door open through which one could come and rule him? Has crown and scepter ever been won?"

"Yes," he replied, disconcertingly. "Unfortunately for the doubt with which you nearly netted me, Kirkham, they have. I have been with Satan eight years. Three times I have seen the steps conquered!"

That was like a slap in the face. For the moment it silenced me. Not so Eve.

"What became of them?" she asked.

"Well," he looked at her, uneasily, "one of them wanted something—something rather peculiar. He died of it in six months."

"Yes," drawled Eve, "so he died of it. What about the others?"

"One of them died in an aeroplane accident between London and Paris," he said. "She was on her way to—what she wanted. Not even Satan could have helped that. Everybody was burned."

"Rather unlucky, weren't they?" asked Eve, innocently. "Both of them. But the third?"

"I don't know," said Consardine, half angrily. "I suppose he's all right. He went to Asia. I've never heard of him since then. He wanted a sort of a hidden little pocket kingdom where he could do as he pleased. Satan gave it to him."

"Two dead, and one—disappeared," mused Eve. "But don't you think that you ought to have heard something about that third one, Dr. Consardine? Couldn't you find out what became of him? Maybe—maybe, he died, too, like the others."

"As Eve says, two of them didn't last long," I said. "The third is doubtful. If you were in Satan's place, Consardine, wouldn't it occur to you that it was advisable to keep up hope in the aspirants by showing them now and then that it could be done? It would to me. And, still assuming that we thought like Satan, wouldn't we handpick our successful climbers? I would. But I wouldn't pick the kind that would be likely to live long, would you? Or if they were well and hearty, a little accident might be arranged. Like that Croydon air bus you've mentioned, for instance."

"Gorblyme!" gasped Harry. "The swine! That wouldn't be 'ard to do. An' I'll bet 'e done it!"

"What does Satan do with his hands when he hides them under his robe?" I repeated.

"And what became of that third winner?" murmured Eve.

On Consardine's forehead little beads of sweat stood out. He was trembling.

"See here, Consardine," I said, "you told us you didn't like being a dupe. You didn't like being fooled. Suppose Satan has been making a colossal mock of you—and the others. What happens?"

I saw the effort with which he mastered himself. It frightened me a bit. After all, I hadn't the slightest evidence to back up what I had been hinting. And if Consardine thought that I was deliberately deceiving him—

But I wasn't. The doubts I had raised were entirely legitimate. Satan did hide his hands. The bad after-luck of the step conquerors had been something that Consardine had known, not we.

"Barker," he turned to Harry, "have you ever looked over the mechanism that Satan tells us controls the choice of the shining footprints? Answer me! Is it what he says it is?"

Barker wrung his hands, looking first at him and then at Eve and me, piteously. He swallowed once or twice.

"Answer me," ordered Consardine.

"Gord 'elp me, Cap'n," Harry turned to me desperately, "I never wanted to lie so 'ard in my life. I want to sye I 'aven't seen it. Or that it don't work them bloody prints. But Gord 'elp me, Miss Demerest, I 'ave looked it over. An' it does work 'em, Dr. Consardine. It does, just as 'e syes it does!"

Well, that was that. It knocked, apparently, my theories clean through the vanishing point. For a moment I had hoped that the little man would be diplomatic. Say, at least, that he didn't know. But I could not deny him his right to tell the truth—if he felt like it.

"That's all right, Harry," I said cheerfully. "What we're looking for is the truth. And what you say settles everything, I suppose."

"I'd like to 'ave lied, Cap'n," he half whimpered. "But, 'ell, I couldn't."

Consardine, I suddenly noticed, was behaving rather oddly. He did not seem at all like one whose faith in Satan had been impregnably re-enforced. He seemed, indeed, more disturbed than ever.

"Barker," he said, "you'd better go now. I will see Captain Kirkham back to his room."

Harry slid over to one of the walls. He bowed to us, miserably. A panel opened, and he was gone. Consardine turned to us.

"Now, Eve," he said, "I'll tell you what brought me here tonight. I told you that you'd been on my mind. So you have. Damnably. I wanted to save you from Satan. I had a way to suggest. I stole the idea from Shakespeare. You remember the stratagem by which the honest friar schemed to get Juliet to her Romeo? And cheat their respective warring families? Their Satan, in a sense."

"The draught that would make her appear to be dead," whispered Eve.

"Exactly," nodded Consardine. "It was something like that which I was about to propose to you. To treat you, from my medical knowledge, in such a way that the health and beauty and spirit which makes you so desirable to Satan would fade—temporarily. To put you in such condition as obviously to make impossible, at least in the near future, his personal plans for you. And to keep you in that condition until he had found a substitute for his paternal impulses—or something else happened.

"There was risk to it, certainly. Great risk to you, Eve. The waiting might be too long—I might not be able to restore to you what I had taken from you. Yet you might have preferred that risk to the certainty of—Satan's arms. I was going to let you decide."

"Was going to?" repeated Eve breathlessly. "Of course I'll take the risk. Oh, Dr. Consardine—it seems like the way out!"

"Does it?" asked he grimly. "I think not—now. The original scheme from which I stole my idea came to grief, you remember, because of Romeo. Well, I was reckoning without Romeo. I didn't know there was one."

"I—I don't quite—get that," said Eve.

"Child," he took her hands, "are you willing to give up your lover? Never see him, never meet him, never communicate with him? Not for weeks or months, but for years? Kill your love for him, or live on, starving upon memories?"

"No," answered Eve directly, and shook her curly head.

"And even if you persuaded her to, Consardine, what do you think I would be doing 1" the bare suggestion stirred in me resentment and stubborn anger. "Fold my hands and turn my eyes Heavenward and meekly murmur, 'Thy will be done!' Not me!"

"I'm persuading no one, Kirkham," he replied quietly. "I'm only pointing out that it's the only way the thing could be done. If I did to Eve what I have described, what would happen? Treatment here for a time, of course, so Satan could see her failing. Then her removal somewhere, for other doctors to look after her. Her symptoms could not be feigned. They would have to be real. The medical fraternity is not wholly represented by me in Satan's entourage. He has some highly placed specialists among his dependents. And if he had not, he could call them in. And would, unless at the very outset he was persuaded that her condition would inevitably mean a faulty maternity weakness in offspring. Forgive me, child, for talking so plainly, but it's no time to be beating around the bush.

"The specialists I could take care of. Hoodwink. I could have been a very great"—he hesitated, and sighed—"well, no matter. But Satan has set his will on you, Eve. He will not lightly give up his purpose. If it were only as a woman that he desired you, it would not be so difficult. But you are more than that to him, far more. You are to be the bearer of his child. Not upon my word alone, much as he trusts my judgment, would he relinquish you as unfit. He would have to be convinced beyond all doubt—and therein lies the danger to you and possibly—death."

He paused, looked pityingly into her troubled eyes.

"Too great a risk," I said. "I'll try my way first, Consardine."

"Enter Romeo," he smiled faintly. "You'll have to, Kirkham. You've made the other impossible. You think that life would be worthless without Eve, I take it?"

"I don't think it, I know it," I answered.

"And you feel the same way about—Jim?"

"Yes," she said softly. "But—to save his life—"

"It wouldn't," said Consardine. "I know men and women. No matter what you made up your mind to do, Eve, he would be working and planning to get you away. Nor are you exactly the kind to sit down, as he expresses it, with meekly folded hands. He would be trapped, sooner or later. It might very likely follow that the trick would be discovered. Then I would have to give up my foolish prejudice for living. I won't take the chance of that. But assume that you do escape. Together. You would be two hares running around the world with the hounds constantly at your heels. Satan's hounds, always on the move. Always with his threat hanging over you. Would such a life be worth living? There might be a child. Be sure that Satan's vengeance would not spare it. I repeat—would such a life be worth living?"

"No," I said, and Eve drew a deep breath and shook her head.

"What can we do!" she whispered.

Consardine strode once across the room, and back. He stood before me, and I saw that again the veins in his forehead were standing out like cords, and that his gray eyes were hard and cold as steel. He tapped me thrice on the breast with his clenched fist.

"Find out what Satan does with his hands when he hides them!" he said.

He turned from us, plainly not trusting himself to speak further. Eve was staring at him, wondering, even as I, at the intensity of the rage that was shaking him.

"Come, Kirkham," he had mastered himself. He ran his fingers through Eve's bob, ruffling it caressingly.

"Babes in the Wood," he repeated.

He walked to the panel, slowly. Considerately.

"Tonight," I whispered to Eve.

Her arms were around my neck, her lips pressed to mine.

"Jim—dear!" she whispered, and let me go.

I looked back as I passed through the opening. She was standing as I had left her, hands stretched out to me, eyes wide and wistful. She was like a lonely little child, afraid to go to bed. I felt a deeper twinge at my heart. A strengthening of resolve. The panel closed.

In silence I followed Consardine as he led me to my room. He entered with me and stood for a moment staring at me somberly. Quite suddenly I felt dog-tired.

"I hope you sleep better tonight than I shall," said Consardine, abruptly.

He was gone. I was too tired to wonder what he had meant by that. I managed to get out of my clothes, and was asleep before I could draw the bed covers over me.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The ringing of the telephone aroused me. I reached out for it, only half awake, not in the least realizing where I was. Consardine's voice brought me out of my lethargy like a bucket of water.

"Hello, Kirkham," he said. "Don't want to spoil your beauty sleep, but how about having breakfast with me, and then taking a canter? We've some excellent horses, and the morning's too nice to be wasted."

"Fine," I answered. "I'll be down in ten minutes. How will I find you?"

"Ring for Thomas. I'll be waiting." He hung up.

The sun was streaming through the windows. I looked at my watch. It was close to eleven. I had slept soundly about seven hours. I rang for Thomas.

Sleep, a plunge and the brilliant sunshine were charms that sent the shadow of Satan far below the rim of the world. Whistling, I hoped half-guiltily that Eve felt as fit. The valet brought me out what Barker would have called a "real tysty ridin' rig." He convoyed me to a sunny, old-world lovely room looking out on a broad, green terrace. There were a dozen or so nice-looking people breakfasting at small tables. Some of them I had met the night before.

Over in a corner I saw Consardine. I joined him. We had an extremely pleasant meal, at least I did. Consardine did not seem to have a care on earth. His talk had a subtly sardonic flavor that I found most stimulating. So far as the conversation was concerned, our encounter in Eve's room might never have been. He made no slightest reference to it. Nor, following his lead, did I.

We went from there to the stables. He took a powerful black gelding that whinnied to him as he entered. I mounted a trim roan. We rode at a brisk canter along bridle paths that wound through thick woods to scrub pine and oak. Now and then we met a guard who stood at attention, and saluted Consardine as we passed by. It was a silent ride.

We came abruptly out of the woods. Consardine reined in. We were upon the cleared top of a low hillock. Below us and a hundred yards away sparkled the waters of the Sound.

Perhaps a quarter mile out lay a perfect beauty of a yacht. She was about two hundred feet long and not more than thirty in beam. Seagoing and serviceable, and built for speed as well. Her paint and brass shone, dazzling white and golden.

"The Cherub," said Consardine, dryly. "She's Satan's. He named her that because she looks so spotless and innocent. There is a more descriptive word for her, however, but not a polite one. She can do her thirty knots, by the way."

My gaze dropped from the yacht to a strong landing that thrust out from the shore. A little fleet of launches and speed boats were clustered near it. I caught a glimpse of an old-fashioned rambling house nestled among the trees near the water's edge.

My eyes followed the curve of the shore. A few hundred feet from the pier was a pile of great rocks, huge boulders dropped by the glacier that once covered the Island. I started, and looked more closely.

Upon one of them stood Satan, black-cloaked, arms folded, staring out at the gleaming yacht. I touched Consardine's arm.

"Look!" I whispered, "Sat—" I stopped. The rock was bare. I had turned my eyes from it for the barest fraction of a second. Yet in that time Satan had disappeared.

"What did you see?" asked Consardine.

"Satan," I said. "He was standing on that pile of rocks. Where could he have gone!"

"He has a hole there," he answered indifferently. "A tunnel that runs from the big house to the shore."

He swung around to the woods. I followed. We rode along for a quarter of an hour more. We came out into a small meadow through which ran a brook. He dismounted, and dropped the reins over the black's neck.

"I want to talk to you," he said to me.

I gave the roan its freedom, and sat down beside Consardine.

"Kirkham, you've set my world rocking under my feet," he said curtly. "You've put the black doubt in me. Of the few things that I would have staked my life on, the first was that Satan's gamble of the seven footprints was a straight one. And now—I would not."

"You don't accept Barker's testimony, then?" I asked.

"Talk straight, Kirkham," he warned, coldly. "Your implication was that Satan manipulated the telltale from the Black Throne. With his hidden hands. If so, he has the cunning to do it in a way that Barker, going over the other mechanism, would never suspect. You know that. Talk straight, I tell you."

"The thought that Barker might be wrong occurred to me, Consardine," I said. "I preferred to let it occur to you without my suggesting it. I had said enough."

"Too much—or not enough," he said. "You have put the doubt in me. Well, you've got to rid me of it."

"Just what do you mean by that?" I asked him.

"I mean," he said, "that you must find out the truth. Give me back my faith in Satan, or change my doubt into certainty."

"And if I do the latter—" I began eagerly.

"You will have struck a greater blow at him than any with knife or bullet. You will be no longer alone in your fight. That I promise you."

His voice was thick, and the handle of his riding crop snapped in the sudden clenching of his strong hand.

"Consardine," I said bluntly, "why should the possibility of Satan's play being crooked move you so? You are closest to him here, I gather. His service, so you say, brings you all that you desire. And you tell me he is the shield between you and the law. What difference, then, does it make to you whether his gamble of the seven footprints is on the level or isn't?"

He caught my shoulder, and I winced at the crushing grip.

"Because," he answered, "I am under Satan's sentence of death!"

"You!" I exclaimed, incredulously.

"For eight years," he said, "that threat has been over me. For eight years he has tormented me, as the mood swayed him. Now with hint of the imminent carrying out of that sentence. Now with half-promise of its wiping out, and another trial at the steps. Kirkham, I am no coward—yet death fills me with horror. If I knew it to be inevitable, I would face it calmly. But I believe it to be eternal blackness, oblivion, extinction. There is something in me that recoils from that, something that shrinks from it with a deadly terror, with loathing. Kirkham, I love life.

"Yet if the gamble was straight, he was within his rights. But if it was not straight—then all those eight years he has played with me, made a mock of me, laughed at me. And still laughing, would have watched me go to whatever death he had decreed, unresisting, since I would have believed that by my oath I was so bound.

"And that, Kirkham, is not to be endured. Not by me!

"Nor is that all. I have watched many men and women take the steps, risking all on Satan's word. And I have seen some of them go to death, as calmly as I would have done, their honor, like mine, rooted in dishonor. And others go broken and wailing. Like Cartright. While Satan laughed. And there are more who live like me on Satan's sufferance. And all this on a cast of loaded dice? If so, then I tell you, Kirkham, it is not a thing to be borne! Nor shall it be borne!"

He plucked at his collar, gasping, as though it choked him.

"God!" he whispered. "To pay him back for that! If it is true...I would face death...singing...but I must know if it is true."

I waited until he had regained control.

"Help me find out whether it is or not," I said. "It may well turn out to be an impossible job for me—alone."

He shook his head.

"You have Barker to help you," he replied.

"I don't want to run him into any more risks." I would cover up the little man as much as I could. "There's a certain amount of prowling involved, Consardine. We might run across somebody not so well disposed as you. But the three of us ought to be able to settle matters one way or the other quickly."

"No," he said, stubbornly. "Why should I? It is up to you, Kirkham. It is you who have raised the doubt. It is you who must resolve it. One way or the other. After all, your suspicions are based upon the vaguest evidence. A triviality, and two, or it may be three, perfectly explicable happenings. The chances that you are wrong are enormously greater than those that you are right. Why should I risk my life upon them? I have already gone far. I have promised you neutrality, and somewhat more. I will go no further. Take Barker. I promise neither to see nor hear you should I meet you in your—wanderings. But at this time I will not invite certain death by joining you in them. I have been reasonably content. If you are wrong, I shall still be. If you are right—ah, then, I repeat, you will be no longer alone.

"In the meantime—Michael Consardine holds fast to his place in the sun."

He chirruped to the black gelding, and mounted it. There was no use in further argument, that was plain. We rode away, through the woods, and after a while turned back to the chateau.

I left him at the stable, and went to my rooms to change. There was a note pinned to my pillow. It was from Satan. A casual sort of message. He hoped I was enjoying myself as I deserved, and would see me about nine o'clock that evening.

The rest of the day passed uneventfully. The more I thought over Consardine's talk, the more I sympathized with his viewpoint. Also, oddly enough, the higher rose my spirits. I sat down to dinner in a pleasantly reckless state of mind.

Consardine was at the head of the board as on the previous night. I had Cobham for companion. I saw Eve toward the far end. She ignored me. It was difficult for me to do the same toward her.

Cobham had been drinking. For some reason he seemed to feel a certain responsibility for me. He paid no attention to any one else, nor would he let me. He was vastly interesting, but as the time wore on I began to feel a profound distaste for Cobham. He was expounding his theories of life as a mere electrochemical reaction. He made it clear that neither the individual nor the mass meant anything to him in terms of what is commonly called humanity. He was appallingly callous about it.

He seemed to have no more feeling about men and women than he would have about his test tubes. Rather less, I fancied. In fact, that was what men and women appeared to him to be, just a lot of animated test tubes with minute curiosity-provoking differences in their contents. And he saw no reason why they should not be broken, or emptied or the contents changed in the way of experimentation. He sketched a few rather awful experiments with gases upon the kehjt slaves. At least, I hoped that the unfortunate subjects had been the slaves. He did not say so.

Listening, I was convinced that of the two, Satan might be the more humane. Cobham kept on drinking steadily. The only effect of the liquor was to make him more coldly, inhumanly scientific.

"You've got too much sentiment in your ferment, Kirkham," he said. "You probably think that life is sacred, to use the cant word, not to be destroyed unless by dire necessity. Bosh! It is no more sacred than the current I turn on or off at will from my lamps, nor the ferments in my tubes that I end at will. Whenever did Nature give a damn about the individual? Neutralize the weakening ingredient in you, Kirkham, and you might become a great man. I can do it for you, if you will let me."

I promised to think it over.

At 8:30 Satan appeared. I had been wondering where I was to see him. Consardine yielded his place, and Satan beckoned me to sit at his left hand.

"To my new follower, James Kirkham," he raised his glass. "I am much pleased with him."

They drank to me, standing. I saw Eve pointedly set down her glass untouched. So, as she had meant him to do, did Satan.

At 8:45, as though at some signal, the company began to drift out of the room. In a few minutes there remained only Satan, Cobham and myself. It rather surprised me to see Consardine leave. Servants cleared the table, and at a nod from Satan withdrew.

"There is a ship," he said abruptly, "that sails from Havre within three days. She is the Astarte. A slow boat. She carries some things of superlative beauty which I feel it time for me to claim. There is a painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds, another by Romney. There is a ewer of rock crystal and twelve rock crystal cups, marvelously engraved and set with great cabochon sapphires and rubies. They were made, it may be, in ancient Crete for Queen Pasiphae. At least, they are immemorially old. And to them an unknown genius gave his best. They were long hidden in the Kremlin. The Communists have sold them. There is a necklace of emeralds upon each of which is graven one of the Metamorphoses of Ovid. There is nothing like it in the world."

He paused, then bent his head toward me.

"I must have them, James Kirkham. You and Cobham shall get them for me."

I bowed, awaiting further enlightenment. Cobham, I noticed, had not drunk anything since Satan's entrance. He did not show at all what he had drunk. He sat silent, eyes upon the glass with which his fingers played; cynical, a faint smile upon his full lips. Yet I felt that he was watching me covertly, as though awaiting something. Whatever Satan was about to tell me, I suspected that he had already gone over it with him.

"I have selected you as leader," Satan went on, "not only because the task may demand the exercise of unusual resourcefulness, but also that close obedience to orders which you have proved to me you can exercise. I am merely outlining the venture tonight so you may be turning it over in your mind. You will receive your detailed instructions before you sail."

Sail? That meant leave Eve! I moved restlessly. I suppose my discomfort showed in my face. At any rate, he sensed it.

"Yes," he said. "The transfer will not be made on land after the Astarte arrives. I prefer to make it on the high seas. You are to engage in what the prejudiced would call piracy, James Kirkham. Ah, well, it is a romantic calling."

He eyed me, faint malice in the sparkling gaze.

"And you have your romantic side," he purred. "I admire it. For I, too, have mine. Therefore, I envy you, somewhat, this venture."

"And I am grateful," I smiled, meeting his scrutiny squarely. But the palms of my hands had grown suddenly moist.

"The Astarte," he continued, "will take the southern route. There is little likelihood of her encountering any serious storms at this time of year in those latitudes. On the day she sails, you and Cobham will set out in my yacht which I perceived you admiring today. Besides her crew, the yacht will carry a dozen of my drinkers of the kehjt. They will be for use in emergency. But it is my hope that none such may arise. The Cherub—is it not a lovely name?—the Cherub will leave ostensibly for a coastwise voyage. On the first day out, the night rather, the Cherub will cease to be her angelic self—yes, I assure you there were girl cherubs as well as boy ones. She will be cunningly changed to the semblance of the Sea Wolf, the yacht of an eminently respectable financier which at that moment will be logging along its unsuspecting way to Havana. This also in case of emergency. And, of course, the name of the Sea Wolf will replace that of the Cherub wherever the name is noticeable.

"You will circle the Astarte two days later at a designated section, keeping out of sight, of course. Her speed is fifteen knots, yours thirty. You will be able, therefore, to stop her, remove what I desire, and get back here—again the innocent, spotless Cherub—at least two days before she can arrive in port."

My heart, which had been growing steadily heavier, lightened. Satan intended no mischief to the ship then, or to its crew. Else he would not speak of her return. Cobham gave a short bark, like a suppressed laugh. The cynicism of his smile had deepened. Satan's blue stare rested upon him for an instant. Cobham moved uneasily.

"You have planned, of course, sir," I said, "how we are to stop the Astarte."

"Naturally," he answered. "I am coming to that. At this time of year, this boat would not carry more than a hundred persons. Some of the passengers she does carry will be my people. But beside that, I have arranged it so that there will be even fewer than usual. A number of staterooms have been reserved for a tourists' club. But, oddly, just before the Astarte is to sail, these reservations will be canceled. There will have been an unavoidable change of plans. The generous representative of the club will waive all claims upon the reservation money, and the line will be guaranteed indemnity. The Astarte, because of the anxiety of the owners of the objects I intend to acquire, will not delay her sailing. I think there will be not more than thirty passengers, of whom ten, at least, will be of my following.

"Very well, James Kirkham. We come now to the night of your adventure. All that afternoon you have been following the Astarte at a distance of ten miles. It is a moonless night. At nine o'clock there is a concert going on in the saloon. The few passengers are a happy little family party. They are probably all there. So are some of the officers. You have put out your lights and have steamed up to within four miles.

"There will be a signal from the Astarte which you will answer. At the moment of that signal, two men assigned to that task will hurl a few bombs into the engine room of the Astarte. The bombs will be filled with a certain gas, the invention of Mr. Cobham. Immediately thereafter the occupants of the engine room will take no further interest in their work. A third man of mine will slip into the engine room and bring the boat to a standstill."

He paused, scrutinizing me; I felt upon me again the covert glance of Cobham. By some miracle I managed to keep from my face the horror I felt in my heart; managed to make my voice indifferent and steady as I spoke:

"Well, that wipes out the engine room crew. Then what?"

For many moments Satan did not answer me. His brilliant eyes searched me. I drove from my mind the swift picture that had come into it of men choking and writhing on the floor of the Astarte's engine room. I bore his gaze, frowning as though puzzled. Whether he had found what he had been hunting I do not know, but suddenly its disconcerting intensity diminished.

"Oh, fie, James Kirkham!" he said unctuously, "it is not necessary to kill. The gas I refer to is not lethal. It is a sleep gas. Its effect is practically instantaneous. At least, it acts within five seconds. But it is harmless. Six hours, and its breathers awaken without even a headache. How bloodthirsty he thinks us, Cobham!"

Something warned me to hide my relief, even as I had hidden my dread.

"We still have the officers and the crew," I said indifferently. "What happens to them? Frankly, in all you have outlined, Satan, I seem to be nothing but an onlooker. A messenger boy. Where are my piratical thrills?"

"The venture at this point passes into your hands," he answered. "You will by this time have drawn up beside, the Astarte and will board her with Cobham and a sufficient force to take charge. Conditions may now arise which I can foresee, but must trust to your ingenuity and courage to meet. There will be much confusion on board the Astarte. You must see to it that no boats are launched, and that no one escapes from her. Before you board, the captain, and a mate or two, may have suffered some slight accident. Nothing serious. No, no. Merely disabling. Then again—they may not. You may have their resistance to overcome. Without bloodshed, if you can. But with or without—it must be overcome. Then weather conditions may complicate matters. I think you will not find it too tame, James Kirkham."

Nor did I. I had an uneasy feeling that Satan was not presenting me with the full picture.

"In your final instructions you will find definite information as to the location of what you are to bring to me," he said. "The objects are in a strong safe in a steel storeroom. So precious are the jewels that only the captain will know the combination of the safe. You need waste no time trying to persuade him to tell it to you. There will be with you an expert to whom the safe will have no mysteries. After you have recovered the things for me, you will cut loose from the Astarte and make all speed home, taking off from her, before starting, certain of my people on board her who would find it embarrassing to remain. That is all."

I considered for a moment. What he meant was that some of his agents on the Astarte would be questioned and might be recognized for what they were. Well, how about us on the Cherub?

"Have you considered the probability of some one on the Astarte identifying us later, sir?" I began.

"You will all be masked, of course," he interrupted, smoothly. Cobham moved suddenly, impatiently.

"The wireless," I suggested. "I suppose that will be disabled before the engine room attack?"

"It will not be necessary," he answered. "The yacht carries extraordinarily strong batteries. At the moment of the signal, the Astarte's radio will be blanketed, her waves strangled. There will be no message from her that can break through the barrier the able operator of the Cherub will interpose."

I sat for a moment in thought. Everything seemed to be plain. And yet—I felt a cold unease, a boding depression. There was something else, something deadly sinister hiding behind Satan's smooth phrases.

"I trust you were satisfied with the rewards of your necklace venture," he broke the current of my thoughts. "The rewards of this one will be proportionately greater, naturally. The invitation to join me cut your vacation rather short. What would you say to taking, after the affair, a six months' trip? You shall go where you please, and as you please, and do as you please. At my expense, of course. You may also spend what you please, let me add."

"Thank you, sir," I said, "but I feel no need of a vacation. And frankly, I find my contacts with you infinitely more interesting than anything I could hope to experience away from you."

His face was inscrutable as ever, but I felt that I had pleased him.

"Well," he said, "we shall see. Only continue as you have begun, James Kirkham, and you shall have no cause to complain of my generosity."

He arose. I stood up, politely; Cobham, cautiously. Satan for a moment considered us.

"How are you spending the evening?" he asked me.

"Cobham spoke of us joining the bridge game," I answered, "but if you have any other desire—"

Cobham had done nothing of the sort. He had said so much, however, that I hoped he might take it for granted that he had. I particularly did not want to be separated from Cobham just then. If Satan had thought, as I half feared, of asking either of us to accompany him, he changed his mind. He nodded, and walked toward the wall.

"It would be a good idea," he turned beside the opened panel, "to look over the Cherub tomorrow. Familiarize yourself with her. Good night."

Cobham sat silently for a good minute, staring at the point where Satan had disappeared.

"That was damned decent of you, Kirkham," he said at last, slowly. "I don't know how you guessed it, but I couldn't have stood much more of Satan tonight. Damned decent!"

He stretched out a hand to the brandy. I grinned—Cobham had remembered, then, and was aware of my maneuver. He poured his goblet half full of the liquor and drank it neat.

"Damned decent," he repeated, and I saw the brandy take hold of him swiftly. "Have a drink with me."

I poured myself a small one. Again he half filled his glass and tossed it off.

"A damned shame," he muttered, "treating you like a child. Treating a man like you as if you were in swaddles. You're a man, you are, Kirkham. You've got guts, you have, Kirkham. Why should you be coddled? Lied to? God damn it, Kirkham, you deserve the truth!"

So! It was coming, was it! That hidden, sinister something I had sensed was getting ready to crawl from Cobham's lips.

"Have a drink with me," I said, and tipped the decanter. "Who's treating me like a child?"

He glared at me, drunkenly.

"You think that gas is going to put that engine room crew to sleep, eh?" he chuckled. "Nice little lullaby for poor tired sailors? Sweet little chemical sl-slumber song composh-composed by Pa Satan and M-Ma Cobham? Well, Kirkham, you're damned well right it's going put 'em to sh-sleep. Forever!"

I poured myself another brandy, and drank it composedly.

"Well, what of it?" I asked. "A long sleep or a short one—what does it matter?"

"What's it matter? What's it matter!" he stared at me, then brought his fist down with a thump on the table. "By God, I was right! Told Satan you had the guts! Told him needn't—needn't tamper with the form-florm-formula with you! What's it matter, he asks. Have a drink with me."

I drank with him. He began to shake with laughter.

"Masks!" he said. "You wanted masks so people on Astarte couldn't ren-recognize you later. Later! Ha! Ha! Later! That's good, that is. Hell, man, there's not going to be any later for them!"

The room swam around me. What was Cobham saying now?

"Not exactly accurate. Say—twenty minutes later. Twenty minutes later—Bonk! goes nice bomb. Gentlemanly bomb. Quiet, dignified. But strong. Bonk! Out goes bottom of the Astarte. No boats. Kehjt drinkers have tended to them. Astarte sunk without trace! Bonk! Swoo-oosh! Bubbles! Finish!"

He became drunkenly plaintive.

"Don't—don't believe fooled old Kirkham for a minute. Don't believe he thought Satan would run rish-risk anybody on Astarte running across one of us. Anybody telling police about wicked pirates holding 'em up in midocean. To hell with the witnesses! That's Satan's motto. Make it 'nother unfathomed mish-mystery of the ocean. That's best way. That's Satan's way."

"Well," I said, "I'm damned glad to hear it. It was the one thing that I was uneasy about—"

The drunkenness dropped from Cobham like a cast-off cloak. His face became white and pinched. The glass fell from his hand.

Out of a darkened corner of the room walked Satan!

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

It was a crisis. And a bad one. There was no doubt about that. A time for quick thinking, if ever there was one. I cared nothing about what happened to Cobham. That callous devil could have been whisked to Hell without my turning a hair. But I, myself, was in the gravest danger of sharing his fate. If Satan thought that I had deliberately drawn his confidences he would waste no time asking for explanations. The fact that I had not accepted his word would in itself call for my punishment.

Worst of all, I had caught him lying to me. He might decide that would render me useless to him thereafter. But that was secondary. The paramount thing was that it made him, as the Chinese say, "lose face." If his ancestry was what Barker believed, that was the one unforgivable affront. Whether it was or was not, I knew that Satan's infernal intellect was clothed with as infernal a pride. And that pride had been wounded.

My only chance for escape lay in healing the wound before Satan knew that I had perceived it. I jumped to my feet and walked towards him.

"Well," I laughed, "have I passed the test?"

Instantly he caught it. Whether, at the moment, he believed me as naive as my question implied, I could not know. Still, after all, why not? It was exactly the kind of trap, or rather experiment, he had been teaching me to expect him to conceive.

Nor did I know how long he had been listening. Had he intentionally left Cobham and me together to see what would happen? And heard all? Probably. If so there had been no single word I had spoken upon which his suspicion could feed. At any rate, to follow my lead was the only way he could maintain his pride. Save his face. He followed it.

"Cobham," he said, "you were right."

He turned to me.

"Tell me, James Kirkham, when did you first suspect that you were under test? I am curious to know exactly how keen that perception of yours is."

He waved to me to be seated, and dropped into his own chair. I kept my eyes steadily averted from Cobham.

"The first thing that puzzled me, Satan," I said, "was your attitude toward the Astarte. It would certainly not have been mine. That dead men tell no tales, is a safe and sane old rule. I would have followed your instructions—but," I added, boldly, "I would not have approved of them."

His eyes never left me as I spoke. I felt his will beating against mine like a hammer, endeavoring to strike out the truth.

"When did your suspicion become certainty?" he asked.

"At the moment you appeared here," I told him.

Suddenly I let some of my anger find vent.

"I'll stand for no more such experiments upon me, Satan," I cried, with a cold fury that had none of its roots in the matter in hand, but was real enough nevertheless. "Either I am to be trusted wholly, or I am not to be trusted at all. If you do trust me and I fail you—well, you have the remedy in your hands and I am ready to pay the penalty. But I'll not be the subject of any more laboratory experiments, like a child in a psychological clinic. By God, I won't!"

I thought that I had won. Not only won, but that I had leaped into higher regard than Satan had ever held me. If those gem-hard eyes could be said to soften, they did.

"I agree, James Kirkham," he said, quietly. "Yet I am glad that I put you to this test. Since it has fully revealed to me what dependence I can place upon you."

"I made my decision. I gave my word," I said, a little stiffly. "As long as you play fair with me, I obey your orders, Satan. Let that be understood, and you will find no more loyal servant."

"I do understand, James Kirkham," he answered.

I ventured to look at Cobham. He had regained some of his color. He was watching me, queerly.

"Cobham," I laughed, "you could be as good an actor as you are a chemist."

"Cobham—has been—very valuable to me," said Satan. "And never more than tonight."

I saw a deep shudder shake Cobham. I feigned to observe nothing. Satan arose.

"Come with me, Cobham," he said: "There are matters we must discuss. And you—" he looked at me.

"I'll turn in," I said. "I know the way."

He strode across the room, Cobham following. Once he turned and shot me a strange glance. There was gratitude in it—and there was deadly terror.

I walked over to the panel that was the beginning of the road to my room.

"James Kirkham," I turned, and saw Satan standing by the opposite wall. His bulk almost hid Cobham, now in front of him.

"Sir?" I answered.

"James Kirkham," he said, "I was never better pleased with you than I am now. Good night."

"I am glad, sir," I replied. "Good night."

The panel behind him clicked open. I pressed upon a hidden spring, the wall parted. Before me was the tiny elevator. I entered it. Satan and Cobham were passing through that other wall.

I caught a glimpse of two of the kehjt slaves, cords in hands, gliding to Cobham's side.

As my panel closed I thought I saw them pinion his arms!

And now I was in my rooms. Eve would be expecting me, but I had no desire to make further excursion that night. That Satan had taken my bait, I was reasonably sure. But Cobham was in for punishment—how severe I could not tell. The emphasis Satan had put upon that "has been" in speaking of his usefulness was ominous. Cobham had caught the threat. And there had been that swift vision of the slaves closing in on him. I would be on Satan's mind, whatever he believed. It was possible that he might summon me; might even come to me.

It was best to stay where I was. Barker would be along sooner or later. I would send him with a message to Eve.

I snapped out all the lights except a dim one in the living room, undressed, and turned in. I lay there, smoking, I felt more than a little sick, and filled with a hot, helpless rage. The affair of the Astarte would have been bad enough even as Satan had outlined it. Cobham's revelations made it hideous. I would go on with it, of course. There was nothing else to do. If I refused, it would be the end both of Eve and myself. And some one else would take my place. Cobham, in fact, had made it imperative that I should go. I must find some means of averting that ruthless destruction of the treasure ship. Obviously, the chances were that would mean the end for me also. But it had to be done. I knew that if I stood aside and let those helpless people go down, I could never more live at peace with myself. I knew that Eve would feel the same about it.

What I hoped most desperately was that we could find the way to break Satan before the time came for my sailing.

Suddenly I was aware that some one was in the outer room. I slipped noiselessly out of bed and to the curtains. It was Barker.

I beckoned to him.

"Careful, Harry," I whispered. "Come in here, and keep those ears of yours wide open. Things have been happening."

Briefly I sketched the developments of the day, from my conversation with Consardine to Cobham's drunken disclosures and his sinister shepherding by Satan. I could feel the little man shiver at that.

"Gord," he muttered. "Cobham's a proper devil, but I'm sorry for 'im. Satan, 'e'll see 'e don't no more talkin'. We got to work quick, Cap'n."

"I've an unbreakable hunch that my work is to stay right in this room," I told him. "And if you don't think that is going to be the hardest kind of work, with Miss Demerest expecting me, you're wrong."

"No," he said, "you're right, sir. An' I've got to get h'out quick as may be. 'Ere's what I come to tell you. I h'acted like a bloody dummy last night when you 'inted about Satan an' what 'e done when 'e 'id 'is 'ands. Fair took me off my feet, you did, just like Consardine. I 'adn't been away from you five minutes before I saw 'ow it could be done. 'Ell, I saw a dozen wyes it could be done."

"Right," I whispered, "but cut the explanations. How are we going to find out if he does it?"

"That's what 'as been rackin' my brains all dye," he answered. "'Ow to get in the Temple an' look over the black throne. The gold one sinks down an' under, but the black one's built in. An' there's two of the kehjt slyves watchin' it in there h'every hour of the dye an' night. Four-hour shifts they got, an' you can bloody well wyger 'e picks proper plucked 'uns for that duty, Cap'n."

"No trouble gettin' in, there's 'arf a dozen trick entrances back of them thrones. Ten minutes, an' we'd know what was what. But 'ow the bloody 'ell to get them ten minutes? No good shootin' the paste-faced blighters. That'll bring 'em all down on us. No good killin' 'em nohow. The minute they found 'em Satan'ld know what the gyme was."

He was silent for a moment.

"Cripes!" he said at last, "if we could only get some bloomin' h'angel to drop down an' 'old a glass of the kehjt under their noses 1 They'd follow it like a 'ungry lion would a bone! An' see no thin' else!"

I caught his shoulders, heart thumping.

"By God, Harry! You've hit it!" My voice was shaking. "Do you know where he keeps that hell brew? Can you get at it?"

"Sure I know," he said, "An' there ain't none better at my trade than me, Cap'n, as I told you. I'd sye I could get it. But then what?"

"We'll be the angel," I told him. "It works quick, I know that. How long does it keep them under?"

"I don't know," he answered. "Some longer, some shorter. We'd 'ave our ten minutes, though, an' a lot to spare—

"Cripes!" he chuckled. "What a gyme! If they wake up before the relief comes they ain't likely to say nothin'. An' if they don't, they ain't likely to get a chance to say nothin'. An' if they do get a chance either way, who the 'ell would believe 'em?"

"Get the stuff," I said. "Try to get it tomorrow. And now play safe. Get out of here. If you can manage it, tell Miss Demerest not to look for me tonight. Tell her not to worry. But take no chances. Harry, you're a wonder. If you were a girl, I'd kiss you. Scoot!"

Again he chuckled; another moment and I knew he had gone.

I went into the other room and put out the dim light. For the first time since I had fallen into Satan's hands I felt free of that damnable depression—oppression, rather—which had shadowed me. It was as though a door had begun to open. A door of escape.

I slept soundly. I awakened once in the night from a dream that Satan was standing over me, watching me. Whether it was all a dream, I do not know. Perhaps he had really entered to resolve some lingering doubt. If so, my sleep must have reassured him, for it was that of one who had not a care on his mind. I lost no time worrying about it; in another moment I was asleep again.

The next day passed quickly enough. I was up early. As I was dressing, the 'phone rang. It was Consardine. He said that Satan wished me to go out to the yacht after I had breakfasted. He, Consardine, would accompany me.

There had been no change of plans, then. I was still cast for my piratical role.

When I entered the breakfast room, Consardine was waiting for me. We ate together. I was itching with curiosity about Cobham. But I asked no questions, nor did Consardine speak of him. We walked down to the boat landing, talking of this and that. Tacitly, neither of us made any reference to the conversation of the previous day. It must have been uppermost in his mind, as it was in mine. Yet, after all, there was nothing more to say. He had made his position sufficiently plain.

A cutter was waiting for us, and took us out to the Cherub. The yacht was as beautiful inside as out. The captain was a squat, thickset, broad-shouldered Newfoundlander. He was introduced to me as Captain Morrisey. It may or may not have been the name his parents gave him. Probably not. He was a genial pirate. A hundred years back, and he would have been floating the Jolly Roger. The first mate was a clean-cut saturnine chap with the hall mark of Annapolis. The crew were as hard-boiled looking a lot as any the Marine Corps ever produced.

The discipline was military and perfect. It reached its apotheosis in the engine room. The engines, specially designed, oil-burning Diesels, were marvels. So interested was I that lunch time came around before I realized it. I had not been mistaken about Morrisey. He told us tales of smuggling and gun- and rum-running in which he had been active before he had signed with Satan. Born a hundred years too late for the Black Flag, he had done his best with the material at hand. He was a pirate, but I liked him.

When we got back to the chateau, I found a summons from Satan. With many misgivings I obeyed it. The misgivings were all wrong. I spent two of the most fascinating hours I had ever known. I was guided to that part of the great house which was Satan's own intimate domain. I cannot begin to describe what I saw there, nor the atmosphere of those dozen or more chambers, large and small, wherein that dark strange soul took its delight. Each of them was a temple in which the mysterious, indefinable and eternal spirit that humanity calls beauty and has always worshiped and sought to capture had become incarnate. A living thing.

And Satan was different. He was transformed—gentle, no mockery either in word or look. He talked only of the treasures about us. It came to me that he loved beauty even more than he did power; that he considered power only as a means toward beauty. And that, evil though he was, he knew beauty better than any one alive.

When I left him, his spell upon me was strong. I had to fight against the conviction that what I had beheld justified him as to any means he had taken to get it; that the true criminal was he who would try to thwart him. Absurd as it may seem, I felt myself hideously guilty in the plans I was harboring. It was with difficulty that I held myself back from confessing them, throwing myself on his mercy, swearing myself to him. I think that only the thought of Eve kept me from doing so.

That was, perhaps, his object. But I had to tell myself so, over and over again after I had left him, to banish the loathing I felt about going on against him. If this seems deplorable weakness, I can only say that he who thinks so would not if he had been subjected to that same sorcery, and had listened to Satan preaching in the heart of the miracle he had fashioned.

If it was a trap, I escaped it. But to this day—I do not know whether in the greater sense Satan was not right.

The company at dinner helped me to throw off the obsession. A brisk bridge game afterward did more. It was close to midnight when I returned to my rooms. I had not seen Eve all day. Consardine had mentioned, casually, as we were going in to dinner, that she had gone to town, and probably would not return that night. I took it as a hint that it would be useless for me to venture to her room.

I dropped off to sleep hoping for Barker. He did not come.

There were some truly charming people at the breakfast table next morning. Among them an Australian major, a soldierly and engaging scoundrel. We went riding together, following a different road than that which I had covered with Consardine. At one point it ran parallel to the driveway. A smart little roadster hummed by, headed for the chateau. Eve was driving it. She waved. The Australian took the greeting to himself, remarking that there went a damned nice girl. Everything seemed suddenly brighter. It meant that I would see her that night. At least, that was what I thought then.

After we had stabled the horses, I hung about the pleasant terrace. Maybe I would get another glimpse of Eve, maybe even a whispered word. About four o'clock Consardine appeared and dropped down at the table beside me.

Consardine seemed ill at ease. We had a drink or two, and talked of this and that, but it was plain that something was on his mind. I waited for him to speak, not without a certain apprehension. At last he sighed, and shook his great shoulders.

"Well," he said, "unpleasant medicine gets no sweeter while we hesitate over taking it. Come along with me, Kirkham. Satan's orders."

I remembered vividly his declaration that if his master commanded him, he would unhesitatingly take me prisoner. I felt a distinct shock.

"Does that mean that I am under arrest?" I asked.

"Not at all," he answered. "There is something—some one—Satan wishes you to see. Do not ask me his purpose. I do not know it. I might guess, but—ask me no questions. Let us go."

I went with him, wondering. When he finally stopped we were, I thought, in one of the towers, certainly we had gone far above the ground floor. We were in a small, bare room. More a crypt, in fact, than a room. One of its walls was slightly curved, the bulge toward us. Consardine walked over to this wall, and beckoned me beside him. He touched a hidden spring. An aperture about a foot square, like a window, opened at the level of my eyes.

"Look through," he said.

The place into which I peered was filled with a curiously clear and palely purplish light. It was distinctly unpleasant. I became aware of a thin droning sound, faint but continuous, upon one note. I was not enough of a musician to place the note, but it was quite as high as that made by the rapid vibration of a bee's wings. That, too, was unpleasant. Light and droning had a concentration-shattering quality, a blurring effect upon the mind.

At first glance I thought that I was looking into a circular place in which was a crowd of men, all facing a common center. Then I realized that this could not be so, since all the men were in exactly the same attitude, crouching upon one knee. There seemed to be thousands of these crouching men, line after line of them, one behind the other, growing smaller and smaller and vanishing off into immense distances.

I looked to right and to left. There were the kneeling men, but now in profile. I raised my eyes to the ceiling of the place. And there they appeared to hang, heads downward.

I stared again at those facing me. It was strange how the purplish light and the droning clouded one's thought. They held back, like two hands, the understanding from fulfillment.

Then I realized abruptly that all those thousands of faces were—the same.

And that each was the face of Cobham!

They were the face of Cobham, drawn and distorted, reflected over and over again from scores of mirrors with which the place was lined. The circular walls were faceted with mirrors, and so was the globed ceiling, and all these mirrors curved down to a circular mirrored slab about seven feet in diameter which was their focus.

Upon this slab knelt Cobham, glaring at the countless reflections of himself, reflected with sharpest accuracy by that clear and evil purplish light.

As I looked, he jumped to his feet and began to wave his arms, crazily. Like regiments of automatons, the reflections leaped with him, waving. He turned, and they wheeled as one man in diminishing rank upon rank. He threw himself down upon his face, and I knew that unless his eyes were closed his face still stared up at him, buoyed, it must have seemed, upon the backs of the thousands reflected upon the slab from the mirrors in the ceiling. And I knew that no man could keep his eyes closed long in that room, that he must open them, to look and look again.

I shrank back, trembling. This thing was hellish. It was mind-destroying. There could be no sleep. The drone rasped along the nerves and would not permit it. The light was sleep-killing, too, keying up, stretching the tense nerves to the breaking point. And the mimicking hosts of reflections slowly, inexorably, led the mind into the paths of madness.

"For God's sake...for God's sake..." I turned to Consardine half-incoherent, white-lipped. "I've seen...Consardine...a bullet would be mercy..."

He drew me back to the opening.

"Thrust in your head," he said, coldly. "You must see yourself in the mirrors, and Cobham must see you. It is Satan's order."

I tried to struggle away. He gripped my neck and forced my head forward as one does a puppy to make him drink.

The wall at this point was only a couple of inches thick. Held helpless, my head was now beyond that wall. Cobham had staggered to his feet. I saw my face leap out in the mirrors. He saw it, too. His eyes moved from one reflection to another, striving to find the real.

"Kirkham!" he howled. "Kirkham! Get me out!"

Consardine drew me back. He snapped the opening shut.

"You devil! You cold-blooded devil!" I sobbed, and threw myself upon him.

He caught my arms. He held me as easily as though I had been a child, while I kicked and writhed in futile attempt to break the inexorable grip. And at last my fury spent itself. Still sobbing, I went limp.

"There, there, lad," he said, gently. "I am not responsible for what you've seen. I told you it was unpleasant medicine. But Satan ordered it, and I must obey. Come with me. Back to your rooms."

I followed him, all resistance for the moment gone from me. It was not any affection for Cobham that had so stirred me. He had probably watched others in the mirrored cell from that same window. If the necessity had arisen, I would have shot Cobham down without the slightest feeling about it. Nor had the ordeal of Cartright shaken my nerve at all like this. Bad as that had been, it had been in the open, with people around him. And Cartright, so it seemed, had been given some chance.

But this torture of the many-mirrored cell, with its sleep-slaying light and sound, its slow killing, in utter aloneness, of a man's mind—there was something about that, something not to be put in words, that shook me to the soul.

"How long will he—last?" I put the question to Consardine as we passed in to my rooms.

"It is hard to say," he answered, gently again. "He will come out of that room without memory. He will not know his name, nor what he has been, nor anything that he has ever learned. He will know nothing of all these hereafter—ever. Like an animal, he will know when he is hungry and thirsty, cold or warm. That is all. He will forget from minute to minute. He will live only in each moment. And when that moment goes it will be forgotten. Mindless, soulless—empty. I have known men to come to it in a week, others have resisted for three. Never longer."

I shivered.

"I'll not go down for dinner, Consardine," I said.

"I would, if I were you," he said gravely. "It will be wiser. You cannot help Cobham. After all, it is Satan's right. Like me, Cobham had taken the steps and lost. He lived at Satan's will. And Satan will be watching you. He will want to know how you have taken it. Pull yourself together, Kirkham. Come down, and be gay. I shall tell him that you were only interested in his exhibition. What, lad! Will you let him know what he has made you feel? Where is your pride? And to do so would be dangerous—for any plans you may have. I tell you so."

"Stay with me till it's time to go, Consardine," I said. "Can you?"

"I intended to," he answered, "if you asked me. And I think both of us can stand putting ourselves outside of an extra-sized drink."

I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror as I poured. The glass in my hand shook and spilled.

"I'll never want to look in one again," I told him.

He poured me another drink.

"Enough of that," he said briskly. "You must get it from your mind. Should Satan be at dinner—thank him for a new experience."

Satan was not at dinner. I hoped that he would receive a report, as no doubt he did, of my behavior. I was gay enough to satisfy Consardine. I drank recklessly and often.

Eve was there. I caught her glancing at me, puzzled, now and then.

If she had known how little real gayety there was in my heart, how much of black despair, she would have been more puzzled still.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

I sat late at dinner, with a few others who, like me, had declined the bridge game. It was close to twelve when I returned to my room. I had the feeling that I would see Barker this night, whether or not he had been successful in getting hold of the kehjt.

Alone, the memory of Cobham and the mirrored cell swept back on me with full force. Why had Satan willed me to look upon the prisoner? Why to see myself in those cursed glasses? And why had he decreed that Cobham must see me?

To the first two questions there could be but one answer. He meant it as a warning. He was not, then, wholly satisfied with my explanation. And yet, if he were not, would he not have used harsher measures? Satan was not given to taking chances. I decided that he was satisfied, but nevertheless wished to give me a warning of what might happen to me if he should ever become not so.

Why, if Cobham's memory was to be destroyed, he should have wished him to take note of me peering in upon him, I could not tell. There seemed no answer to that, unless it was one of his whims. But, again, Satan's whims, as he called them, were never without reason. I gave it up, reluctantly and uneasily.

It was twelve-thirty when I heard a jubilant whisper from the bedroom.

"Got it, Cap'n!"

I walked into the bedroom. My nerves had suddenly grown taut, and there was a little ache in my throat. The moment had come. There could be no withdrawing now. The hand was ready to be played. And, without doubt, Death in a peculiarly unpleasant mood was the other player.

"'Ere it is!" Barker thrust a half-pint flask into my cold fingers. It was full of that green liquor which I had watched Satan give to the slaves in the marble hall. The kehjt.

It was a clear fluid, with an elusive sparkle as of microscopic particles catching the light. I uncorked the flask and smelled it. It had a faintly acrid odor with an undertaint of musk. I was about to taste it when Barker stopped me.

"Keep awye from it, Cap'n," he said earnestly. "That stuff was brewed in 'Ell, it was. You're close enough."

"All right," I recorked the flask. "When do we go?"

"Right awye," he answered. "They chynged the blighters in the Temple at midnight. Syfe to start now as at anytime. Oh, yes—"

He fished down in a pocket.

"Thought I'd best bring along some of the scenery," he grinned.

He held out a pair of the golden cups into which the veiled figure with the ewer had poured the kehjt.

"Did you have a hard time getting the stuff, Harry?" I asked.

"It was touch an' go," he said soberly. "I 'ate to think of gettin' them cups back. I 'ates to think of it, but it's got to be done. Still," he added, hopefully, "I'm good."

"I'll say you are, Harry," I told him.

He hesitated.

"Cap'n," he said, "I won't 'ide from you; I feel as if we was h'about to slip into a room what's got a 'undred snakes in every corner."

"You've nothing on me, Harry," I answered cheerfully. "I think maybe it's got a snake carpet and scorpion curtains."

"Well," he said, "let's go."

"Sure," I said, "let's go."

I snapped off the lights in the outer room. We passed through the wall of the bedroom into a dimly lighted passage. A little along it and we went into one of the lifts. We dropped. We came out into a long passage, transverse to the first; another short drop, and we were in a pitch dark corridor. Here Harry took my hand and led me. Suddenly he stopped and flashed his light against the wall. He pressed his finger upon a certain spot. I could not see what had guided him, but a small panel slid aside. It revealed an aperture in which were a number of switches.

"Light control," Barker's mouth was close to my ear. "We're right be'ind the chair you set in. Lie down."

I slipped to the floor. He dropped softly beside me. Another panel about six inches wide and a foot high opened with the noiseless swiftness of a camera shutter.

I looked into the Temple.

The slit through which I was peering was at the level of the floor. It was hidden by the apparatus in which I had been prisoned when Cartright climbed to his doom. By craning my neck, I could see between its legs a horizontal slice of the whole immense chamber.

A brilliant light poured directly upon the black throne. It stood there empty—but menacing. About a dozen feet on each side of it was one of the kehjt slaves. They were tall, strong fellows, white robed, with their noosed cords ready in their hands. Their pallid faces showed dead-white under the glare. The pupilless eyes were not dreaming, but alert.

I caught a glitter of blue eyes behind the black throne. The eyes of the Satan of the pictured stone. They seemed to watch me, malignantly. I turned my gaze abruptly away from them. I saw the back of the Temple.

It, too, was illumined by one strong light. It was larger even than I had sensed it to be. The black seats ranged upward in semicircles, and there were at least three hundred of them.

The slit through which I had been looking closed. Barker touched me, and I arose.

"Give me the dope," he whispered. I handed him the flask of the kehjt; he had kept the golden cups.

Again he flashed his light upon the switches. He took my hands and placed them upon two.

"County sixty," he said. "Then open them switches. It puts out the lights. Keep your 'ands on 'em till I get back. Start now like this—one—two—"

He snapped out the flash. Although I had heard no sound, I knew he was gone. At the sixtieth count I pulled open the switches. It seemed a long time, standing there in the dark. It was probably no more than three or four minutes.

As noiselessly as he had gone, Barker was back. He tapped my hands away, and pressed the switches in place.

"Down," he muttered.

We slid to the floor. Once more the observation panel flew open.

The two guardians of the black throne were standing where I had last seen them. They were blinking, dazed by the swift return of the glaring light. And they were nervous as hunting dogs who had sensed a quarry. They were quivering, twirling their noosed cords, peering here and there.

I saw upon the black throne the two golden cups of the kehjt.

The slaves saw them at the same moment.

They stared at them, incredulously. They looked at each other. Like a pair of automatons moved by the same impulse, they took a step forward, and stared again at the glittering lure. And suddenly into their faces came that look of dreadful hunger. The cords dropped. They rushed to the black throne.

They seized the golden cups. And drank.

"Gord!" I heard Barker mutter. He was gasping and shuddering like one who had taken an icy plunge. Well, so was I. There had been something infinitely horrible in that rush of the pair upon the green drink. Something infernal in the irresistible tidal rush of desire that had swept their drugged minds clear of every impulse but that single one. To drink.

They turned from the black throne, the golden cups still clasped in their hands. I watched first one and then the other sink down upon the steps. Their eyes closed. Their bodies relaxed. But still their fingers gripped the cups.

"Now!" said Barker. He shut the slit, and closed the panel that hid the switches. He led me quickly along the dark corridor. We turned a sharp corner. There was the faintest of rustling sounds. Light streamed out in my face from a narrow opening.

"Quick!" muttered Barker, and pushed me through.

We stood on the dais, beside the black throne. Below us sprawled the bodies of the two guardians. The seven shining footprints glimmered up at me, watchfully.

Barker had dropped upon his knees. The lever which Satan had manipulated to set at work the mechanism of the steps lay flat, locked within an indentation in the stone cut out to receive it when at rest. Barker was working swiftly at its base. A thin slab moved aside. Under it was an arrangement of small cogs. He reached under and moved something. The telltale globe swung down from the ceiling.

Barker released the lever, cautiously. He brought it to upright, then pressed it downward, as I had seen Satan do. I heard no whirring, and understood that the little man had in some way silenced it.

"You got to go down and walk up, Cap'n," he whispered. "Make it snappy, sir. Tread on every one of them prints."

I ran down the steps, turned, and came quickly up, treading firmly on each of the shining marks. I turned at the top of the stairs and looked at the telltale globe. From the pale field three symbols shone out, from Satan's darker field gleamed four. My heart sank.

"Cheer up," said Harry. "You look fair crumpled. No need. It's what I expected. Wyte a moment."

He fumbled around among the cogs again, lying flat, his head half hidden in the aperture.

He gave an exclamation, and leaped to his feet, face sharpened, eyes glittering. He ran over to the black throne, pawing at it like an excited terrier.

Suddenly he threw himself into it and began pressing here and there at the edge of the seat.

"'Ere," he beckoned me. "Sit where I am. Put your fingers 'ere and 'ere. When I tell you, press 'em in 'ard."

He jumped aside. I seated myself on the black throne. He took my hands and placed my fingers in a row about five inches long. They rested upon seven indentations along the edge, barely discernible. Nor did what I touched feel like stone. It was softer.

Barker slipped over to the cogs and resumed his manipulation of them.

"Press," he whispered. "Press 'em all together."

I pressed. The indentations yielded slightly under my fingers. My eyes fell upon the telltale. It had gone blank. All the shining marks upon it had disappeared.

"Press 'em now, one at a time," ordered Barker.

I pressed them one at a time.

"The swine," said Barker. "The bloody double-crossin' swine! Come 'ere, Cap'n, and look."

I dropped beside him and peered down at the cogs. I looked from them up at the telltale. And stared at it, only half believing what I saw.

"Got him!" muttered Harry. "Got him!"

He worked rapidly on the cogs, and closed the slab upon them. The telltale swung back to its resting place in the ceiling.

"The cups," he said. He ran down the steps and took the golden goblets that had held the kehjt from the still resisting fingers of the dreaming guardians.

"Got him!" repeated Harry.

We swung back of the black throne. Barker slid aside the panel through which we had entered. We passed out into the dark passageway.

A wild jubilance possessed me. Yet in it was a shadow of regret, the echo of the afternoon's hours of beauty's sorcery.

For what we had found ended Satan's power over his dupes forever.

Dethroned him!

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

We had reached the dimly lighted corridor wherein lay the entrance to my rooms. Barker halted with a warning gesture.

"Listen!" he breathed.

I heard a noise, faint and far away; a murmuring. There were men moving somewhere behind the walls, and coming toward us. Could they have found the drugged slaves so soon?

"Get into your room. Quick," whispered Harry.

We started on the run. And halted again. Ten feet ahead of us a man had appeared. He had seemed to melt out of the wall with a magical quickness. He leaned against it for a moment sobbing. He turned his face toward us—

It was Cobham!

His face was gray and lined and shrunken. His eyes were so darkly circled that they looked, in that faint illumination, like the sockets of a skull. They stared vaguely, as though the mind behind them were dimmed. His lips were puffed and bleeding as though he had bitten them through time and time again.

"You're Kirkham!" he staggered forward. "Yes, I remember you! I was coming to you. Hide me."

The murmuring sounds were closer. I saw Barker slip the brass knuckles over his fingers and make ready to leap upon Cobham. I caught his arm.

"No use," I warned him. "They'd find him. The man's more than half mad. But they'd make him tell. I'll take him. Hurry! Get out of sight!"

I seized Cobham's arm, and raced him to the panel that opened into the bedroom. I opened it, and thrust him through. Barker at my heels, I slipped in and closed the slide.

"Get in that closet," I ordered Cobham, and shoved him among my clothes. I shut the doors and moved quickly with Barker into the outer room.

"Good!" he muttered, "but I don't fancy this."

"It's the only way," I said. "I'll have to figure some way to get rid of him later. I don't believe they'll come in here. They won't suspect me. Why should they? Still—there's the chance. If they found you here, then the fat would be in the fire. Is there any way you can dig right out without too much risk?"

"Yes," the little man's voice and eyes were troubled. "I can myke the getawye all right. But, Gord, I don't like leavin' you, Cap'n!"

"Beat it!" I said brusquely. "Get to Consardine. Tell him exactly what we found. Tell Miss Demerest what's happened. If anything does go wrong, it's all up to you, Harry."

He groaned. I heard a faint noise in the bedroom. I walked over to the door and looked in. It was Cobham, stirring in the closet. I tapped upon it.

"Be quiet," I told him. "They may be here any minute."

I snapped all the lights on, full. I went back to the other room. Barker was gone.

I threw off my coat and vest, and piled some books on the reading table. I fixed myself comfortably, lighted my pipe and began to read. The minutes passed slowly. Every nerve was tense, and every sense alert. But I flattered myself I was giving an excellent impersonation of one entirely absorbed in what I was reading.

And suddenly I knew that eyes were upon me. That some one was standing behind me, watching me.

I went on reading. The silent scrutiny became intolerable. I yawned and stretched, arose and turned—

Satan stood there.

He was cloaked from neck to feet in scarlet. At his back were half a dozen of the kehjt slaves. Two more were standing by the open panel in the bedroom.

"Satan!" I exclaimed, and the surprise I put into the words was genuine. Whatever the possibilities I had admitted, that Satan himself would head the manhunt had not been among them.

"You are startled, James Kirkham," there seemed a hint of solicitude in the expressionless voice. "I, too, was startled when, knocking at your wall, you failed to answer."

"I did not hear you," I said, truthfully. Had he really knocked?

"You were, I see, deep in your book," he said. "But you wonder, perhaps, why your silence should have disturbed me? I am in pursuit of a fugitive, a dangerous man, James Kirkham. A desperate man, I fear. The trail led us by here. It occurred to me that he might have attempted to hide in your rooms, and that resisting him you had come to harm."

It sounded reasonable enough. I remembered the extraordinary favor he had shown me that afternoon. My doubts were lulled; I let myself relax.

"I thank you, sir," I told him. "But I have seen no one. Who is the man—"

"The man I seek is Cobham," he interrupted me.

"Cobham!" I stared at him as though I had not understood. "But I thought that Cobham—"

"You thought that Cobham was in the room of the mirrors," he interrupted. "You have wondered, without doubt, why I had put him there. You thought that he was one of my trusted aides. You thought him most valuable to me. So he was. Then suddenly that Cobham whom I trusted and who was valuable—ceased to be. Another spirit entered him, one that I cannot trust and that therefore can never be other than a menace to me."

With a sinking heart I saw the cold mockery in the hard bright eyes, realized that he had raised his voice as though to let it carry throughout the rooms.

"That poor departed Cobham," he intoned, "shall I not avenge him? Yea, verily. I will punish that usurping spirit, torment it until it prays to me to loose it from that body it has stolen. My poor, lost Cobham! He will not care what I do with that body that once was his—so he be avenged."

There was no mistaking the mockery now. I felt my throat contract.

"You say you saw nothing?" he asked me.

"Nothing," I answered. "If anyone had come in the rooms I would have heard them."

Instantly I realized the error of that, and cursed myself.

"Ah, no," said Satan, smoothly. "You forget how immersed you were in your reading. You did not hear me. Either when I knocked or when I entered. I cannot let you run the risk of him being hidden here. We must search."

He gave an order to the slaves attending him. Before they could move, the closet door in the bedroom flew open. Cobham leaped out.

His first jump took him halfway to the opened panel. I caught the gleam of steel in his hand. In an instant he was at the two slaves guarding the opening. One went down gurgling, his throat slit. The other stumbled back, hands holding his side, blood spurting through his fingers.

And Cobham was gone.

Satan gave another curt order. Four of the six behind him raced away and through the panel.

The other two closed in on me, pinioning my arms to my sides with their cords.

Satan considered me, the mockery in his eyes grown devilish.

"I thought he would come here," he said. "It was why, James Kirkham, I let him escape!"

So that, too, had been a web of Satan's weaving! And he had snared me in it!

Suddenly an uncontrollable rage swept me. I would lie no more. I would wear a mask no more. I would never be afraid of him again. He could hurt me, damnably. He could kill me. He was probably planning to do both. But I knew him for what he was. He was stripped of his mystery and—I still had an ace in the hole of which he knew nothing. I drew a deep breath, and laughed at him.

"Maybe!" I said cynically. "But I notice that you couldn't keep him from escaping this time. The pity of it is that he didn't slit your damned black throat as he went, instead of that poor devil's yonder."

"Ah," he answered, with no resentment, "truth begins to pour out of the stricken Kirkham as water poured for Moses from the stricken rock. But you are wrong once more. It is long since I have enjoyed a manhunt. Cobham is an ideal quarry. It was why I left the panel open. He will last, I hope, for days and days."

He spoke to one of the two kehjt drinkers guarding me. I did not understand the tongue. The slave bowed and slipped out.

"Yes," Satan turned to me, "he will probably last for days and days. But you, James Kirkham, equally as probably will not. Cobham cannot escape. Neither can you. I shall consider tonight with what form of amusement you shall furnish me."

The slave who had gone out entered with six others. Again Satan instructed them. They massed about me, and guided me toward the wall. I went, unresisting. I did not look back at Satan.

But as I passed through the wall I could not shut my ears to his laughter!

CHAPTER NINETEEN

A day had gone and another night had come before I saw Satan again. Before, in fact, I saw any one except the pallid-faced drinkers of the kehjt who brought my food.

I had been taken, I conjectured, to one of the underground rooms. It was comfortable enough, but windowless and, of course, doorless. There they had unbound my arms and left me.

And then, my rage swiftly ebbing, hopelessness took possession of me. Barker would make every effort to get to Consardine. I was sure of that. But would he be able to get to him in time? Would Consardine accept his word for what we had discovered? I did not think so. Consardine was of the kind that has to be shown. Or, supposing he did believe, would his own hot wrath lead him to some hasty action that would set him with Cobham and myself? Leave Satan triumphant?

And what of Eve? What might she not do when she heard from Harry what had happened to me? For I had no doubt that the little man would soon find a way of finding out what had occurred.

What deviltries upon me was Satan hatching for his—amusement?

My night had not been an exactly hilarious one. The day had dragged endlessly. When I faced Satan I hoped that I showed no signs of those hours.

He had entered unannounced, Consardine with him. He wore the long black cloak. His eyes glittered over me. I looked from him to Consardine. Had Barker seen him? His face was calm, and he regarded me indifferently. My heart sank.

Satan sat down. Without invitation, I followed suit. I pulled out my cigarette case, and politely offered Satan one; a bit of childish bravado for which I was immediately sorry. He paid no attention to the gesture, studying me.

"I am not angry with you, James Kirkham," Satan spoke. "If I could feel regret, I would feel it for you. But you, yourself, are wholly responsible for your plight."

He paused. I made no answer.

"You would have deceived me," he went on. "You lied to me. You attempted to save from my justice a man I had condemned. You put your will against mine. You dared to try to thwart me. You have endangered my venture regarding the Astarte, if indeed you have not negatived it. You are no more to be trusted. You are useless to me. What is the answer?"

"My elimination, I suppose," I replied, carelessly. "But why waste time justifying one of your murders, Satan? By this time, I should think, murder would be second nature to you, no more to be explained than why you eat when you are hungry."

His eyes flickered.

"You deliberately invited Cobham's confidences, and you would have attempted to prevent the sinking of the Astarte, knowing that I had decreed it," he said.

"Right," I agreed.

"And you lied to me," he repeated. "To me!"

"One good lie deserves another, Satan," I answered. "You began the lying. If you had come clean with me, I'd have told you not to trust me with that job. You didn't. I suspected you hadn't. Very well, the man who lies to me in one thing will lie in another."

I shot a swift glance at Consardine. His face was as indifferent as ever, imperturbable as Satan's own.

"The minute Cogham let the cat out of the bag, I lost all faith in you," I went on. "For all I know, your assassins on the Cherub might have had their orders to do away with me after I had pulled your chestnuts. As I once heard another of your dupes say—blame yourself, Satan. Not me."

Consardine was watching me intently. I was feeling pretty reckless by now.

"Father of Lies," I said, "or to give you another of your ancient titles, Prince of Liars, the whole matter can be summed up in two short sentences. You can't trust me, and I know too much. All right. For both of those conditions you have only yourself to thank. But I also know you. And if you think I'm going to beg you for any mercy—you don't know me."

"Consardine," he said, tranquilly, "James Kirkham had such good material in him. He could have been so useful to me. It's a pity, Consardine. Yes, it is a pity!"

He regarded me benevolently.

"Although, frankly, I do not see how the knowledge can profit you," he said, "I feel that you should know the error that betrayed you. Yes, I wish to help you, James Kirkham," the great voice purred, "for it may be that there is a land to which we go when this mortal coil is cut. If so, it is probably much like this. You may even find me or my counterpart there. You will not care to repeat your mistakes."

I listened to this sinister jesting silently; after all, I was curious.

"Your first error was your reference to the bridge game. I noted the surprise it caused Cobham. You were too precipitate. You could just as well have waited your time. Remember, then, if you should reach that next world, never to be precipitate.

"Obviously, you had a reason. Equally obviously, it was my cue to discover that reason. Lesson two—in that world to which you may shortly be traveling, be careful to give to your opponent no cue to eavesdrop.

"When I re-entered, you ingenuously forbore to notice Cobham's very apparent consternation. You studiously kept your eyes from him during the ensuing conversation. That was too naive, James Kirkham. It showed you underestimated the intelligence you were seeking to convince. Your proper move was complete and instant indignation. You should have sacrificed Cobham by accusing him to me. In that bright new world in which you may or may not soon find yourself, never underestimate your opponent.

"But I gave you still another chance. Knowing Cobham, I knew that after my careful—ah—treatment—his mind would fasten upon you as a refuge, his only refuge. He was given the treatment, he saw you, and then he was allowed to escape. He came, as I thought he would, straight to you. If, at the moment he entered your rooms, you had caught him, sounded the alarm, again—sacrificed him, perhaps I would still have believed in you. It was weakness, sentimentality. What was Cobham to you? Remember, then, in your new sphere, to eschew all sentimentality."

Out of that cynical harangue two facts apparently shone clear. Satan did not know that I had gone out of my rooms, nor that I had encountered Cobham outside them. I took some comfort from that. But—had Cobham been caught? Would he tell?

"By the way, how is Cobham?" I asked, politely.

"Not so well, not so well, poor fellow," said Satan, "yet he was able to give me an enjoyable afternoon. At present he is lying in the darkness of a crypt near the laboratory, resting. Shortly he will be given an opportunity to leave it. During his carefully guided wanderings thereafter, he will have the chance to snatch a little food and drink. I do not wish him to wear himself out in his efforts to amuse me. Or, to put it another way, it is not my intention to allow him to die of exhaustion or famine. No, no, the excellent Cobham will provide me with many merry hours still. I shall not send him back to my little mirrors. They have drawn his fangs. But at the last I will inform him of your interest, since, I am quite sure, you will be unable."

He arose.

"James Kirkham," said Satan, "in half an hour you shall be judged. Be ready at that time to appear in the Temple. Come, Consardine."

My hope that he would leave Consardine with me went crumbling. Desperately I wanted to talk to him. He followed Satan out. The wall closed behind him. He had not even turned his head.

I remembered Cartright. Consardine had brought him in, stood beside him before he had begun the ordeal of the steps. Probably he would return for me.

But he did not. When the half hour had elapsed four of the kehjt drinkers came for me. Two in front of me, two behind me, they marched me through long corridors and up steep ramps of stone. They halted. I heard the sound of a gong. A panel opened. The slaves would have pushed me in, but I struck aside their hands and stepped through. The panel closed.

I stood within the Temple.

I was within the semidarkness beyond the ring of brilliant light beating down upon the steps. I heard a murmuring. It came from my left where the amphitheater circled. I caught movement there, glimpses of white faces. The seats seemed full. I thought I heard Eve's voice, whispering, vibrant—

"Jim!"

I could not see her.

I looked toward the dais. It was as it had been when I had watched Cartright stumble up toward it. The golden throne gleamed. On it glittered the jeweled scepter and crown.

Upon the black throne sat Satan.

Squatting beside him, fiend's face agrin, twirling his cord of woman's hair, was Sanchal, the executioner.

Again the gong sounded.

"James Kirkham! Approach for judgment!" Satan's voice rolled out.

I walked forward. I paused at the foot of the steps, within the circle of light. The seven glimmering prints of the child's foot stared at me out of the black stone.

Guarding them, seven upon each side, stood the white-robed slaves of the kehjt. Their eyes were fixed upon me.

The thoughts went racing through my brain. Should I cry out the secret of the black throne to those who sat silent, watching me from the circled seats of stone? I knew that before I uttered a dozen words the cords of the kehjt slaves would be strangling me. Could I make one swift dash up the steps and grapple with Satan? They would have me before I had reached halfway.

One thing I might do. Take the steps leisurely. Make my fourth and final one the sixth of the shining prints. Their arrangement was irregular. The sixth was not far from the black throne. Closer than the seventh. I could leap from it upon Satan. Sink fingers and teeth into his throat. Once I had gripped I did not believe it would be easy for any to tear me away, were I alive or dead.

But Barker? Barker might have his plan. It would not be like the little man to lurk hidden, and supinely let me pass. And Consardine? But did Consardine know?

And Eve!

The thoughts jostled. I could not think clearly. I held fast to my last idea, fixing my gaze upon Satan's throat just below the ear. There was where I would sink my teeth.

But was I to be allowed to take the steps?

"James Kirkham," Satan's voice rolled forth, "I have set upon the throne of gold the crown and scepter of worldly power. It is to remind you of that opportunity which your contumacy has lost to you, forever."

I looked at them. For all that I cared they might be bits of colored glass. But I heard a faint sighing from the hidden seats.

"James Kirkham, you would have betrayed me! You are a traitor! It remains now but to decree your punishment!"

He paused again. In all the Temple there was no sound. The silence was smothering. It was broken by a sibilant whirring, the twirling of the noose in the talons of the executioner. Satan raised a hand, and it was stilled.

"Yet I am inclined to be merciful,"—only I, perhaps, caught the malicious glint in the jewel-bright eyes. "There are three things which man has to which he clings hardest. In the last analysis, they are all he has. One is contained in the other—yet each is separate. They are his soul, his personality and his life. By his soul I mean that unseen and not yet accurately located essence upon which religion lays such stress, considers immortal, and that may or may not be. By personality I mean the ego, the mind, that which says—I am I, the storehouse of old memories, the seeker of new ones. Life I need not define.

"Now, James Kirkham, I offer you a choice. Upon one side I place your soul, upon the other your life and your mind.

"You may join my drinkers of the kehjt. Drink it, and your life and your ego are safe. From time to time you will be happy, happy with an intensity that normally you would never be. But you lose your soul! You will not miss it—at least not often. Soon the kehjt will be more desirable to you than ever that usually troublesome guest—somewhere within you."

He paused again, scrutinizing me.

"If you do not drink the kehjt," he continued, "you take the steps. If you tread upon my three, you lose your life. Slowly, in agony, at the hands of Sanchal.

"If you tread upon the four fortunate ones, you shall have your life and your soul. But you must leave with me your ego, that which says I am I, all your memories. It will not be dangerous to you, it will not be painful. I will not give you to the mirrors. A sleep—and then a knife, cunningly cutting here and there within your brain. You will awaken as one new-born. Literally so, James Kirkham, since from you will have been taken, and taken forever, all recollection of what you have been. Like a child you will set forth upon your new pilgrimage. But with life—and with your precious soul unharmed."

And now I heard a whispering behind me from the dark amphitheater. Satan raised his hand, and it was stilled.

"Such is my decree!" he intoned. "Such is my will! So shall it be!"

"I take the steps," I said, with no hesitation.

"Your guardian angels," he said unctuously, "applaud without doubt your decision. You remember that they have no power where Satan rules. I thought that would be your choice. And now, to prove how little strained is the quality of my mercy, I offer you, James Kirkham, a door for escape—escape with life and mind and soul, all three of them, intact!"

Now I stared at him, every sense alert. Well I knew that there was no mercy in Satan. Knowing, too, the secret of the steps, the diabolic mockery of that offer of his was an open page to me. But what blacker diabolism was coming? I was soon to learn.

"The roots of this man's offense against me," he turned his gaze toward the amphitheater, "were in sentiment. He placed the welfare of others before mine. Let this be a lesson to all of you. I must be first.

"But I am just. Others he could save, himself he could not save. Yet there may be one who can save him. He gives up, it is probable, his life because he dared to stand between me and the lives of others.

"Is there one who will stand between me and his life?"

Once more there came a murmuring, louder now, from the hidden darkness of the Temple; whisperings.

"Wait!" he raised a hand. "This is what I mean. If there is one among you who will step forth and take but three of the steps in his place, then this is what shall happen. If two of the shining prints are fortunate, both shall go forth free and unharmed! Yes, even with rich reward.

"But if two of the steps are mine—then both shall die and by those same torments which I have promised James Kirkham.

"Such is my decree! Such is my will! So shall it be!

"And now, if such person there be, let him step forth."

I heard a louder murmuring. I believed that he suspected I had not been alone. It might even be that this was a trap for Barker. I did not know to what lengths the little man's devotion might take him. At any rate, it was a line thrown out for the unwary. I walked hastily forward to the very base of the steps.

"I can do my own climbing, Satan," I said. "Set your game."

The murmuring behind me had grown louder.

Satan's immobility dropped from him.

For the first time I watched expression transform the mask of his face. And that transformation was at first utter incredulity, then a rage that leaped up straight from the Pit. Plainly, as though that heavy face had melted away under it, I saw the hidden devil stand forth stark naked. I felt a touch upon my arm.

Eve stood beside me!

"Go back!" I whispered to her, fiercely. "Get back there!"

"Too late!" she said, tranquilly.

She looked up at Satan.

"I will take the steps for him, Satan," she said.

Satan raised himself up from the black throne, hands clenched. He glanced once at the executioner. The black leaned forward, loop whirling. I threw myself in front of Eve.

"Your word, Satan," came a voice from the amphitheater, a voice I did not recognize. "Your decree!"

Satan glared out into the darkness, striving to identify the speaker. He signed to the executioner, and the black dropped the whirling cord. Satan sank into his throne. With dreadful effort he thrust back the freed devil that had snatched away the mask. His face resumed its immobility. But he could not banish that devil from his eyes.

"It was my decree," he intoned monotonously, but there was something strangled in the voice. "So shall it be. You offer, Eve Demerest, to take the steps for him?"

"Yes," she answered.

"Why?"

"Because I love him," said Eve, calmly.

Satan's hands twisted beneath his robe. The heavy lips contorted. Upon the enormous dome of his bald head tiny drops of sweat suddenly sprang out, glistening.

Abruptly, he reached forward, and drew back the lever; the shining prints glimmered out as though touched with fire—

I heard no whirring of the hidden cogs!

What did that mean? I looked at Satan. Either I had been mistaken, or else in the rage that ruled him he had not noticed. I had no time to speculate.

"Eve Demerest," the rolling tones still held their curiously strangled note, "you shall take the steps! And all shall be according to my decree. But this I tell you—none who has ever taken them and lost has died as you shall die. What they went through was Paradise, measured against that which you shall undergo if you lose. And so shall it be with your lover.

"First you shall see him die. Before he passes, he will turn from you with loathing and with hate...that ever he knew you. And then I shall give you to Sanchal. But not for him to slay. No, no! Not yet! When he is through with you the drinkers of the kehjt shall have you. The lowest of them. It shall be after them that Sanchal shall possess you again...for his cords and his knives and his irons...for his sport...and for mine!"

He pulled at the neck of his cloak as though it choked him. He signaled to the slaves who stood on the bottom steps. He gave them some command in the unknown tongue. They slithered toward me. I tensed my muscles, about to make one despairing rush upon the blazing-eyed devil in the black throne.

Eve covered her face with her hands.

"Jim, darling," she whispered swiftly, under their shelter, "go quietly! Barker! Something's going to happen—"

The slaves had me. I let them lead me over to the chair from which I had watched Cartright mount to his doom. They pressed me into it. Arm and leg bands snapped into place. The veil dropped over my head. They marched away.

A whisper came from below and behind me:

"Cap'n! The clamps don't hold! There's a gun right be'ind the slide. It's open. I'm in a 'ell of a 'urry. When you see me next, grab it an' get busy."

"Eve Demerest!" called Satan, "the steps await! Ascend!"

Eve walked forward steadily. Unhesitating, she put her foot upon the first of the shining prints.

A symbol leaped out in the fortunate field of the swinging globe. I heard a murmur, louder than before, go up from the darkened amphitheater. Satan watched, immobile.

She mounted, and set her foot in the next gleaming mark of the child's foot—

I saw Satan bend suddenly forward, glaring at the telltale, stark disbelief in his eyes. From the amphitheater the murmuring swelled into a roar.

A second symbol shone out in the fortunate field

She had won our freedom!

But how had it happened? And what was Eve doing—

She had mounted to the third point. She pressed upon it.

Out upon the telltale sprang a third symbol to join the other two!

Satan's face was writhing. The roaring at the back of the Temple had become a tumult. I heard men shouting. Satan was fumbling frantically under his robe—

And now Eve sped up the intervening steps between her and the dais. As she passed them, she trod upon each of the gleaming prints. And as she trod, out upon the fortunate field appeared, one after the other, a shining symbol.

Seven of them—in the fortunate field!

None in Satan's!

The roaring had become deafening. Satan leaped from the black throne. The wall behind him opened. Out sprang Barker, automatic in his hand.

Now he was at Satan's side, the barrel of the gun thrust into his belly. The tumult in the Temple stilled, as though a cloud of silence had fallen upon it.

"'Ands up!" snarled the little man. "Wye up! Two ticks an' I scatter your guts h'over the map!"

Up went Satan's hands, high over his head.

I threw myself forward. The clamps of the chair gave so suddenly that I slipped to my knees. I reached back into the slit, and felt the barrel of a pistol. I gripped it—the executioner Sanchal was crouching, ready to spring. I shot from the floor, and with an accuracy that gave me one of the keenest joys I had ever known, I drilled Sanchal through the head. He fell sideways, flopping half down the steps.

The kehjt slaves stood dazed, irresolute, waiting command.

"One move o' them bastards, an' you're in pieces," I heard Harry say. "Tell 'em, quick!"

He jabbed the muzzle of the gun viciously into Satan's side.

Satan spoke. The voice that came from his lips was like that which one hears in nightmare. To this day I do not like to remember it. It was a command in the unknown tongue, but I had a swift, uneasy suspicion that it held more than the bare order to remain quiet. The slaves dropped their ropes. They slid back toward the walls.

I took the steps on the jump. Eve was beside Barker. I ranged myself at Satan's other side. She slipped behind him, and joined me.

The tumult in the amphitheater burst out afresh. Men were struggling together in the semidarkness. There was a rush down from the seats. The edge of the brilliant circle was abruptly lined with figures.

Out from them stepped Consardine.

His face was chalk-white. His eyes burned with a fire that matched Satan's own. He held his hands before him with fingers curved like talons. He stalked forward like a walking death. And his eyes never left Satan.

"Not yet," whispered Barker. "Stop 'im, Cap'n."

"Consardine!" I called. "Stop where you are."

He paid no heed. He walked on, slowly, like a sleepwalker, the dreadful gaze upon Satan unwavering.

"Consardine!" I called again, sharply. "Stop! I'll drop you. I mean it. I don't want to kill you. But another step, and I drop you. By God, I will!"

He halted.

"You...will not...kill him? You will...leave...him for me?"

Consardine's voice was thin and high. It was Death speaking.

"If we can," I answered him. "But keep those others back. One move against us and Satan goes. And some of you with him. We've no time to pick friends from foes."

He turned and spoke to them. Again they were silent, watching.

"Now then, Cap'n," said Barker, briskly, "stick your gun in 'im, and move 'im over 'ere. I'm goin' to show 'em."

I thrust the automatic just under Satan's lower ribs, and pushed him toward the throne of gold. He moved over unresistingly, quietly, almost stolidly. He did not even look at me. I studied him, the vague apprehension growing stronger. He was intent upon Consardine. His face had regained all its impassivity. But the Devil looked out of his eyes, unchained. It came to me that he believed Consardine to be the archtraitor, that it was he who had set the snare! That we were Consardine's tools!

But why this apparently passive resignation? Even with our guns at his belly, it was not what I would have expected of Satan. And it seemed to me that besides the murder in his gaze there was a certain contempt. Had he, also, a final ace in the hole? My uneasiness increased, sharply.

"Now look, all o' you. I'm goin' to show you what the double-crossin' swine 'as been doin' to you."

It was Barker speaking. I did not dare turn my eyes from Satan to see what he was doing. But there was no need. I knew.

"Promisin' you this an' that," went on the cockney drawl. "Sendin' you to 'Ell! An' all the time larfin' up 'is sleeves at you. Larfin' fit to die, 'e was. An' you like a parcel o' trustin' h'infants. I'm goin' to show you. Miss Demerest, will you please walk down an' then walk up them prints again?"

I saw Eve go down the steps.

"Wyte a second." She halted at the bottom. "'Ere I am sittin' in 'is throne. I pull the lever. But h'after I've pulled it, I press on the h'edge of the seat. Like this. Now, Miss Demerest. Walk up."

Eve ascended, stepping upon each of the shining prints.

I could see, out of the corner of my eye, the telltale. Nothing appeared upon it. No symbol, either upon darkened field or lighted.

There was no sound from the watchers. They seemed dazed, waiting what was to come next.

"Didn't make a damned bit o' difference where you trod," said Barker. "It didn't register. 'Cause why? When I pressed on the h'edge of the throne, a little plate slipped down under there where the machinery is. An' at the same time, the cogs what myde the contacts what flashed the signals on the globe got moved over to another set o' contacts. The steps'd work all right when 'e wanted 'em to. They was always set right when 'e was off 'is throne. But after 'e'd set 'imself on 'is bloody black chair 'e'd 'ide 'is 'ands an' press an' disconnect 'em. 'Ell, a flock o' elephants could o' walked up 'em then an' they'd never give a blink!"

The tumult broke out afresh; men, and women, too, crying out, cursing. They surged forward, farther into the ring of light.

"Back!" I shouted. "Hold them back, Consardine!"

"Wyte!" yelped Barker. "Wyte! That ain't 'arf what the swine's done to you!"

The uproar died. They stared up at us again. Consardine had moved to the very bottom of the steps. His face was, if possible, whiter. His eyes glared upon Satan from rings, black as though painted. He was panting. I wished Harry would hurry. Consardine was near the end of his restraint. I didn't want to shoot him.

All of this I had seen incompletely. Suddenly I had the thought that Satan was listening, listening not to anything within the Temple, but for some sound far away. That he was willing, willing with complete concentration of all his unholy power for some certain thing to happen. And as I watched I seemed to see a flicker of triumph pass over the marble face.

"Now," came Barker's voice, "I'm goin' to show you. 'Ere on the syme h'edge is seven little plyces. Rubber, set in the stone. After 'e'd disconnected the contacts from the steps, 'e put 'is finger tips on each o' them plyces. Three of 'em was linked up to the contacts so's they'd flash the marks on 'is side the telltale. The other four was rigged up to flash 'em on your side. When any o' you tread on a print 'e'd press the button 'e wanted. Up'd go the mark, of the one 'e'd picked. You didn't make them marks show up. 'E did!' 'E 'ad you goin' and comin'.

"Wyte a minute! Just a minute!" Clearly Barker was enjoying himself. "I'm going to sit in 'is chair an' show you. Goin' to show you just what blinkin' bloody fools he myde out o' you."

"Jim!" there was alarm in Eve's voice, close to my ear. "Jim! I've just noticed. There were seven of the kehjt drinkers along that wall. Now there are only six. One of them has slipped away!"

At that instant I knew for what Satan had been listening and waiting. I had been right when I had sensed in his command to the slaves something more than an order to be quiescent. He had bade them watch for an opportunity that would let one of them creep away and raise the alarm.

Loose upon those who threatened him the horde of those soulless, merciless devils to whom Satan was a god since he, and only he, could open to them their Paradise.

In the absorption of us all in the drama of Satan's unmasking, a slave had found that opportunity. Had been gone—how long?

The thoughts flashed through my head in a split second.

And at that same instant the Hell which had been piling up slowly and steadily in the Temple like thunder heads broke loose.

Without warning, swiftly as the darting of a snake, Satan's arm struck down. It caught my arm. It sent my automatic hurtling, exploding as it flew. I heard Eve scream, heard Barker's sharp yelp.

I saw Consardine leaping up the steps, straight for Satan. Abruptly the whole Temple was flooded with light. Like an image caught between the opening and shutting of a camera shutter, I had a glimpse of Bedlam. Those who would have followed Consardine and those who were still faithful to Satan struggling for mastery.

Satan's hands swept in to catch me, lift me, hurl me against Consardine. Quicker than he, I dropped, twisting, and threw myself with every ounce of my strength against his legs.

He tottered. A foot slipped upon the edge of the dais. He reeled down a step or two, swaying in effort to regain his balance.

Consardine was upon him!

His hands gripped Satan's throat. The mighty arms of Satan wrapped themselves around him. The two fell. Locked, they went rolling down the steps.

There was a howling, like packs of wolves. At the back of the Temple and at the two sides, the panels flew open. Through them seethed the kehjt slaves.

"Quick, Cap'n!"

Barker spun me around. He pointed to the throne of gold.

"Be'ind it!" he grunted, and ran.

I caught Eve's arm and we raced after him. He was on his knees, working frantically at the floor. Something clicked, and a block slid aside. I saw a hole down which dropped a narrow flight of steps.

"Go first," said Barker. "Quick!"

Eve slipped through. As I followed I caught a glimpse of the Temple through the legs of the throne. It was a seething place of slaughter. The knives of the kehjt slaves were flashing. Men were shooting. From side to side was battle. Of Satan and Consardine I saw nothing. There were a dozen of the slaves rushing up the stairs toward us—

Barker shoved me down the hole. He jumped after me, landing almost on my head. The slab closed.

"'Urry!" gasped Barker. "Gord! If 'e gets us now!"

The stairs led into a bare and small chamber of stone. Over our heads we could hear the tumult. The feet of the fighters beat on the ceiling like drums.

"Watch the stairs. Where's your gun? 'Ere, tyke mine," Barker thrust his automatic into my hand. He turned to the wall, scrutinizing it. I ran back to where the narrow stairs entered the chamber. I could hear hands working at the block.

"Got it!" cried Barker. "'Urry!"

A slab had opened in the wall. We passed through. It shut behind us. I could see no place in the wall to mark where it had been.

We stood in one of those long and dimly lighted corridors that honeycombed Satan's house.

Clearly to us came the turmoil of the fighting above us.

There were five quick sharp explosions.

And, then, abruptly, as though at some command, the turmoil was stilled.

CHAPTER TWENTY

The effect of that abrupt silencing of the tumult overhead was disconcerting, to put it mildly. The five sharp reports had been less like pistol shots than those of a rifle. But who had been shooting, and how could so few bullets have ended such a melee as I had glimpsed?

"They're quiet! What does it mean?" whispered Eve.

"Somebody's won," I said.

"Satan—you don't think Satan?" she breathed.

Whether Consardine had done for Satan or Satan for him, I had no means of knowing. Desperately I hoped that Consardine had killed him. But whether he had or had not, my betting upon the general battle was with the kehjt drinkers. They swung a wicked knife, and they didn't care. If Consardine had choked Satan's life out of him, the kehjt slaves had in all probability sent Consardine's life after Satan. I didn't tell Eve that.

"Whether Satan has lost or won, his power is gone," I told her. "There's little to fear from him now."

"Not if we can get out of this blinkin' 'ole without gettin' scragged, there ain't," said Harry, gloomily. "It's only fair to tell you I'd a lot rather be 'earin' that Bank 'Oliday goin' on up there."

"What's the matter with you?" I asked.

"It'd keep their minds off us, for one thing," he looked askance at Eve. "But that ain't the 'ole of it."

"Will you kindly not regard me as a sensitive female, Barker," said Eve with considerable acerbity. "Never mind considering my feelings. What do you mean?"

"All right," said Barker. "I'll tell you stryte then. I don't know where the 'ell we are."

I whistled.

"But you knew your way here," I said.

"No," he answered, "I didn't. I took a long chance on that, Cap'n. I knew about the trap be'ind the gold throne an' the room under it. It's where 'e stows it, an' I been there, from up above. I took a chance there was another wye out. I was lucky enough to find it. But 'ow to get from 'ere—I don't know."

"Hadn't we better be moving along, somewhere?" said Eve.

"We sure had," I said. "We've only got one gun. Those slaves may come piling in any minute."

"I move we tyke the right 'and," said Harry. "We're somewhere close to Satan's private quarters. I know that. You keep the gun, Cap'n."

We moved along the corridor, cautiously. Barker kept scanning the walls, shaking his head, and mumbling. Something had been puzzling me ever since Eve had walked forth from the dark amphitheater to take my place at the steps. It seemed as good a time as any to satisfy my curiosity.

"Harry," I asked, "how did you work it so that all the prints registered only on that one side of the globe? What kept Satan from doing his double-crossing as usual from the black throne? He was trying hard enough. Did you get back into the Temple again after we'd left?"

"I fixed it before we went, Cap'n," he grinned. "You saw me fussin' with the machinery after we'd tried it out, didn't you?"

"I thought you were readjusting it," I said.

"So I was," he grinned more broadly. "Settin' it so the steps threw all the contacts on the lucky side o' the telltale. Settin' it so 'is little arryngement in 'is chair wouldn't myke no contacts at all. Took a chance, I did. Thought mybe the next Temple meetin' would be on account o' you. Only thing I was afryd of was 'e'd miss the noise when 'e pulled the little lever. I couldn't 'elp that. Thank Gord, 'e didn't. 'E was too mad."

"Harry," I took the little man by the shoulders, "you've surely paid me back in full and more for whatever I did for you."

"Now, now," said Barker, "wyte till we're out—"

He halted.

"What's that?" he whispered.

There had been another sharp explosion, louder than those we had heard before the silence had dropped upon the Temple. It was closer, too. The floor of the corridor trembled. Quick upon it came another.

"Bombs!" exclaimed Barker.

There was a third explosion, nearer still.

"Cripes! We got to get out o' here!" Barker began questing along the walls like a terrier. Suddenly he grunted, and stopped.

"Got something," he said. "Quiet now. Stand close be'ind me while I tyke a look."

He pressed upon the wall. A panel slid aside revealing one of the small lifts. He drew a long breath of relief. We crowded in.

"Down or up?" he closed the panel on us.

"What do you think?" I asked him.

"Well, the Temple's on the ground floor. We're just under it. If we go down, we'll be somewhere around that slyves' den. If we go up, we got to pass the Temple. If we can get by, an' keep on goin' up—well, it's 'ardly likely there'll be as many slyves over it as under an' around it, Cap'n."

"Up we go," said Eve, decisively.

"Up it is," I said.

He sent the lift upward, slowly. There was a fourth explosion, louder than any of the others. The frame of the elevator rattled. There was a sound of falling masonry.

"Getting close," said Eve.

"If we could bryke into Satan's rooms, we'd 'ave a chance o' findin' that private tunnel of 'is," Barker stopped the lift. "It's somewhere close by. It's our best bet, Cap'n. With any luck at all, we could come out syfe on the shore."

"I'll bet that by now everybody on the place knows what's going on, and is somewhere around here," I said. "We could lift one of those speed boats and get away."

"I smell something burning," said Eve.

"Cripes!" Barker sent the lift up at the limit of its speed, "I'll sye you do!"

A crack had opened in the wall in front of us. Out of it had shot a jet of smoke.

Suddenly Barker stopped the lift. He slid aside a panel, cautiously. He peered out, then nodded to us. We stepped into a small room, paved and walled with a dull black stone. On one side was a narrow door of bronze. It was plainly an antechamber. But to what?

As we stood there, hesitating, we heard two more explosions, one immediately following the other. They seemed to be upon the floor where we were. From below us came another crash, as of a falling wall. The lift from which we had just emerged went smashing down. Out of the open panel poured a dense volume of smoke.

"Gord! The 'ole bloody plyce is on fire!" Barker jammed the panel shut, and stared at us, white faced.

And suddenly I thought of Cobham.

Cobham, with his gentlemanly bomb that was to blow the bottom out of the Astarte. Satan had said that he had been driven into hiding near the laboratory. Had Cobham seen his chance to escape during the rush of the kehjt slaves to aid Satan? Had he found his way clear, gone straight to the laboratory, and was he now strewing in crazed vengeance the death and destruction he had garnered there?

I tried the bronze door. It was unfastened. Gun ready, I slowly opened it.

We were at one end of that amazing group of rooms, that shrine of beauty, which Satan had created for himself. That place of magic whose spell had so wrought upon me not so long ago that I had gone forth from it, half-considering the giving up of Eve, the placing of my whole allegiance in Satan's hands. There was a thin veil of smoke in the silent chamber. It dimmed the tapestries, the priceless paintings, the carvings of stone and wood. We crossed its floor, and looked into a larger treasure room. At its far side where were its doors, the smoke hung like a curtain.

From behind the smoke, and close, came another explosion.

Through the curtain stumbled Satan!

At sight of him we huddled together, the three of us. My mouth went dry, and I felt the sweat wet the roots of my hair. It was not with fear. It was something more than fear.

For Satan, stumbling toward us, was blind!

His eyes were no longer blue, jewel-hard and jewel-bright. They were dull and gray, like unpolished agates. They were dead. It was as though a flame had seared them. There was a red stain over and around them, like a crimson mask.

He was cloakless. Black upon the skin of his swollen neck were the marks of strangling fingers. Consardine's.

One arm hung limp. The other clasped to his breast a little statue of ivory, an Eros. Of all those things of beauty which he had schemed and robbed and slain to possess, that statue was, I think, the thing he loved the best; the thing in which he found the purest, perfect form of that spirit of beauty which, evil as Satan was, he knew and worshiped.

He stumbled on, rolling his great head from side to side like a blinded beast. And as he came, tears fell steadily from the sightless eyes and glistened on the heavy cheeks.

Through the curtain of smoke, following him, stalked Cobham.

A bag was slung over his left shoulder. It bulged, and as he emerged he dipped a hand within it. In his hand when he drew it out was something round, about as big as an orange, something that gleamed, with a dully metallic luster.

As Cobham walked, he laughed; constantly, even as Satan wept.

Cobham halted.

"Satan!" he called. "Stop! Time for a rest, dear Master!"

The stumbling figure lurched on, unheeding. The jeering note in Cobham's voice fled; it became menacing.

"Stop, you dog! Stop when I tell you. Do you want a bomb at your heels?"

Satan stood still, shuddering, the little statue clasped closer.

"Turn, Satan," jeered Cobham. "What, Master, would you deny me the light of those eyes of yours!"

And Satan turned.

Cobham saw us.

The hand that held the bomb flew up.

"Walter!" cried Eve, and leaped in front of me, arms outstretched. "Walter! Don't!"

I had not tried to shoot. To be honest, I had not thought of it. The paralysis with which the sight of Satan had touched me still held me. Eve's swift action saved us more surely than a bullet would have.

Cobham's arm dropped to his side. Satan did not turn. I doubt even if he heard. He was past all except his agony and the voice of his tormentor, and that, it came to me, he obeyed only to save from destruction the thing he was clasping.

"Eve!" some of the madness was swept from Cobham's face. "Who's with you? Come closer."

We moved toward him.

"Kirkham, eh? and little 'Arry. Stop where you are. Put your hands up, both of you. I owe you something, Kirkham. But I don't trust you. Eve, where do you think you're going?"

"We're trying to get away, Walter," she said gently. "Come with us."

"Come with you? Come with you!" I saw the madness fill his eyes again. "I couldn't do that. There's only a part of me here, you know. The rest of me is in a room full of little mirrors. A part of me in every one of those mirrors. I couldn't go away and leave them."

He paused, seemingly to consider the matter. The smoke grew thicker. Satan never moved.

"Disintegrated personality, that's it," said Cobham. "Satan did it. But he didn't keep me there long enough. I got away. If I'd stayed a little longer, all of me would have gone into the mirrors. Into them and through them and away. As it is," said Cobham with a dreadful, impersonal gravity, "the experiment remains unfinished. I can't go away and leave those bits of myself behind. You see that, Eve?"

"Careful, Eve. Don't cross him," I muttered. He heard me.

"Shut up, you, Kirkham. Eve and I will do the talking," he said, viciously.

"We could help you, Walter," she said, steadily. "Come with us—"

"I went to the Temple," he interrupted her, speaking quite calmly, the shattered mind abruptly taking another path, "I had my bombs with me. I distributed a few of them. I used the sleep gas. Consardine was at the bottom of the steps. His back was broken. Satan was just getting up from him. He covered his mouth and nose and ran. I caught him. A little spray across the eyes with something I was carrying. That was all. He made for here like a rat to his hole. Blind as he was—"

The mood had changed. He roared his crazy laughter.

"Come with you! Leave him! After what he's done to me? No, no, Eve. Not if you were all the angels in Heaven. We've had a nice long walk, Satan and I. And when we go, we go together. With all the little bits of me in his damned mirrors going, too. A long, long journey. But I've arranged it so we'll have a swift, swift start!"

"Cobham," I said. "I want to save Eve. The tunnel to the shore. Will you tell us how to find it? Or is the way to it blocked?"

"I told you to shut up, Kirkham," he leered at me. "Everybody used to obey Satan. Now Satan obeys me. Therefore everybody obeys me. You've disobeyed me. Walk over to that wall, Kirkham."

I walked to the wall. There was nothing else to do.

"You want to know how to get to the tunnel," he said when I had reached it, and turned. "Go into that anteroom. Through the right wall there—listen to me, you 'Arry," he shot a malicious look at me. "Six panels left along the corridor. Through again into another passage. Go down the ramp to the end. Through it at the last panel, right. That's the start of the tunnel. So much for that. Now, Kirkham, let's see whether you're going with them. Catch."

He raised his arm and threw the bomb at me.

It seemed to come to me slowly. I seemed to have plenty of time to think of what would happen to me if I missed it, or dropped it, or caught it too roughly. Luck was with me. I did none of the three.

"All right, you go," grinned Cobham. "Keep it in case you meet any of the slaves. I think I cleaned them all out in the Temple. Gas bombs, Kirkham, gas bombs. They're lying up there asleep and toasting."

Again he roared with laughter.

"Get out!" he snarled suddenly.

We walked back through the other room. We did not dare look into each other's faces. At the door, I glanced back. Cobham was watching us.

Satan had not stirred.

We passed through the door, and closed it.

We got out of the little antechamber as quickly as we could. It was pretty bad with the smoke, and rather too much like a furnace. The first corridor was uncomfortably choky, too. The second was entirely clear. When we reached its end, Barker had a bit of trouble with the panel. Finally it swung open, like a door.

Before us was not, as I had expected, the entrance to the tunnel, but a bare, stone room about twenty feet square. Opposite us was a massive steel door closed with heavy bars. On each side of it was a kehjt drinker. They were big fellows, armed with throwing cords and knives. In addition to these they had carbines, the first guns I had seen in the hands of the slaves.

I had thrust Cobham's bomb in my pocket. For an instant I thought of using it. Then common sense told me that it might bring the place crashing down about us, at any rate seal the tunnel entrance. I dropped my hand on my automatic. But by that time the guards covered us with their rifles. The only reason that they had not shot on sight, I suppose, was that they had recognized Barker.

"'Ullo! 'Ullo! What's the matter with you?" Barker stepped toward them.

"What are you doing here?" one of the slaves spoke, and by the faint accent in the deadened voice I thought that he had been Russian before he had become—what he was.

"Satan's orders," answered Harry brusquely, and gestured to the guns. "Put 'em down."

The slave who had spoken said something to the other in that unfamiliar tongue I had heard Satan use. He nodded. They lowered their carbines, but held them in readiness.

"You have his token?" asked the slave.

"You got it, Cap'n," Barker turned his head to me quickly, then back to the guard. "No, you 'aven't. I 'ave—"

I had read the message in his eyes. My hand was on the automatic. I shot from the hip at the second guard. His hand flew up to his breast and he toppled.

At the instant of the report, Barker hurled himself at the legs of the challenging slave. His feet flew from beneath him, and down he crashed. Before he could arise I had put a bullet through his head.

I felt no compunction about killing him. The kehft drinkers had never seemed to me to be human. But whether human or not, I had killed far better men for much less reason during the war. Barker dropped upon the guard he had tripped, and began to search him. He arose with a bunch of small keys and ran to the steel door. It could not have been more than a minute before he had the bars down and the door open. The tunnel lay before us, long, cased with stone and dimly lighted.

"We've got to tyke it on the double," Barker jammed the heavy valve shut. "I didn't like what 'e said about 'im an' Satan goin' awye together quick. I think 'e fixed it to blow up the lab'ratory. An' there's enough stuff there to move the northeast corner of 'Ell."

We set off at a run down the tunnel. After we had gone about a thousand feet we came to another wall. It closed the way, making of the passage apparently a blind alley.

Barker worked feverishly at it, going over it inch by inch with nimble fingers. A block dropped suddenly, sliding downward as though in grooves. We passed through the opening. And ran on.

The lights blinked out. We halted, in darkness. The ground quivered under our feet. The quivering was followed by a deep-toned roar like the bellow of a volcano. I threw an arm around Eve. The floor of the tunnel heaved and rocked. I heard the crash of stones falling from its roof and sides.

"Gord! There goes Satan!" Barker's voice was hysterically shrill.

I knew it must be so. Satan had—gone. And Cobham. And all those, dead and alive, in the chateau—they, too, were gone. And all the treasures of Satan, all the beauty that he had gathered about him—gone. Blasted and shattered in that terrific explosion. Things of beauty irreplaceable, things of beauty for which the world must be poorer forever—destroyed for all time. Wiped out!

I had a sensation of sick emptiness. My very bones felt hollow. I felt a remorse and horror as though I had been party to some supreme sacrilege.

Eve's arms were around my neck, tightly. I heard her sobbing. I thrust away the weakening thoughts, and held her to me close, comforting her.

The stones ceased falling. We went on, picking our way over them by the gleam of Barker's flashlight. The tunnel had been badly damaged. If ever I prayed, I prayed then that no fall of stone or slip of earth had blocked it against us. If so, we were probably due to die like penned-in rats.

But the damage lessened as we drew further away from the center of the explosion, although now and again we heard the crashing of loosened stones behind us. We came at last to a breast of rocks, rough hewn, a formidable barrier that closed the tunnel, and must be, we knew, its further end.

Barker worked long at that, and I, too, and both of us at times despairingly, before we found the key to its opening. At last, when the flash was dying, a boulder sank. We breathed cool, fresh air. Close to us we heard the ripple of waves. Another minute and we stood upon that pile of rocks where I had seen Satan looking out over the waters of the Sound.

We saw the lights of the Cherub. She had come closer to shore. Her searchlight was playing upon the landing, sweeping from it along the road that led through the woods to the great house.

We crept down the rocks, and began to skirt the shore to the landing. At our right, the sky was glowing, pulsing. The tops of the trees stood out against the glow like the silhouettes of trees in a Japanese print.

Satan's funeral pyre.

We reached the pier. The searchlight picked us up. We went forward boldly. Barker dropped into a likely-looking launch that was fastened to the landing. Those on the yacht must have thought we were making ready to come to them. They held the light steady upon us.

The engines of the launch started to hum. I lowered Eve into it, and jumped after her. Barker threw the propeller into first speed, and then into direct drive. The launch shot forward.

There was no moon. A mist was on the waters. The glow of Satan's pyre cast a red film on the sluggish waves.

Barker steered for the yacht. Suddenly he swung sharply to port, and away from her. We heard shouts from her decks. The mists thickened as we sped on. They dimmed the beam. And then it lost us and swept back to the pier.

Barker headed the launch straight for the Connecticut shore. He gave me the wheel, and went back to nurse the engines. Eve pressed close to me. I put my arm around her and drew her closer. Her head dropped upon my shoulder.

My thoughts went back to the burning chateau. What was happening there? Had the great explosion and the glare of the flames brought outsiders to it as yet, volunteer firefighters from the neighboring villages, police? It was not likely. The place was so isolated, so difficult of access. But on the morrow, surely they would come. What would they find? What would be their reception? How many had escaped from the chateau?

And those who had been trapped in Satan's house? Those who had fallen before his slaves and Cobham's bombs? Among them had been men and women of high place. What an aftermath their disappearance would have! The newspapers would be busy for a long time about that.

And Satan! In the last analysis—a crooked gambler. Betrayed at the end by the dice he himself had loaded. Had he but played his game of the seven footprints straight he would have been unconquerable. But he had not—and all his power had rested on a lie. And his power could be no stronger than that which upheld it.

It was Satan's lie that had betrayed him.

Crooked gambler—yes, but more, much more than that—

Would his vengeance follow us, though he was gone?

Well, we would have to take our chances.

I shook off the oppression creeping over me, turned resolutely from the past to the future.

"Eve," I whispered, "all I've got is what's left of sixty-six dollars and ninety-five cents that was my sole capital when I met you."

"Well, what of it?" asked Eve, and snuggled in my arm.

"It's not much for a honeymoon trip," I said. "Of course, there's the ten thousand I got for the museum job. I can't keep that. It'll have to go back to the museum. Marked 'Anonymous Donor.'"

"Of course," said Eve, indifferently. "Oh, Jim, darling, isn't it good to be free!"

Barker moved forward, and took the wheel from me. I put both arms around Eve. Far ahead of us the lights of some Connecticut town sparkled. They evoked a painful memory. I sighed.

"All those treasures—gone!" I groaned. "Why didn't I have the sense to snatch that crown or scepter off the gold throne when I had the chance?"

"'Ere's the crown, Cap'n," said Barker.

He fished down into a pocket. He drew out the crown and dropped it into Eve's lap. Its jewels blazed up at us. We stared at them, and from them to Barker, and from Barker back to them—unbelievingly.

"Crown's a bit crumpled," remarked Barker, easily. "'Ad to bend it to stow it awye. Grabbed the scepter, but it slipped. 'Adn't time to pick it up. Picked up a few other tysty bits, though."

He poured a double handful of rings and necklaces and uncut gems over the glittering crown. We stared at him, still speechless.

"Split 'em two wyes," said Harry, "so long as you an' Miss Eve's goin' to be one. I only 'opes they're real."

"Harry!" whispered Eve, breathlessly. She leaned over and kissed him.

He blinked, and turned back to the wheel.

"Reminds me o' Maggie!" muttered Harry, forlornly.

I felt something round and hard in my pocket. Cobham's bomb! With a little prickling of the scalp, I dropped it gingerly over the side.

The shore lights had crept nearer. I scooped the jewels from Eve's lap and thrust them into Barker's pocket.

I clasped Eve close, and turned her face up to mine.

"Just like me an' Maggie!" whispered Harry, huskily.

I put my lips to hers, and felt hers cling. Life was very sweet just then.

Eve's lips were sweeter.

THE END

TABLE of CONTENTS

PART I—The Coming of the Ship

CHAPTER 1.

CHAPTER 2. The First Adventure

CHAPTER 3. The Ship Returns

PART II—The Sin of Zarpanit

CHAPTER 4.

CHAPTER 5. How The Gods Judged

CHAPTER 6. "Am I Not—Woman!"

CHAPTER 7. Slave Of The Ship

CHAPTER 8. The Tale Of Sigurd

CHAPTER 9. The Bargaining Of Sharane

CHAPTER 10. On The Ship A-Sailing

CHAPTER 11. Gigi Snaps The Chains

CHAPTER 12. Master Of The Ship:

CHAPTER 13. Master Of—Sharane!

PART III—The Black Priest Strikes

CHAPTER 14.

CHAPTER 15. Down The Rope Of Sound

CHAPTER 16. How The Ship Was Manned

CHAPTER 17. They Seek Sorcerers' Isle

PART IV In the Sorcerers' City

CHAPTER 18.

CHAPTER 19. The Lord Of The Two Deaths

CHAPTER 20. Behind The Wall

CHAPTER 21. Before The Altar Of Bel

CHAPTER 22. How Narada Danced

PART V—Dancer and Priest

CHAPTER 23.

CHAPTER 24. The Gods—And Man's Desire

CHAPTER 25. In The Bower Of Bel

CHAPTER 26. The Passing Of Zubran

CHAPTER 27. How They Fared Back To The Ship

CHAPTER 28. The Vision Of Kenton

CHAPTER 29. How The Strife Was Ended

CHAPTER 30. The Last Battle

PART VI The Ship Goes

CHAPTER 31.

PART I—The Coming of the Ship

CHAPTER 1.

A tendril of the strange fragrance spiralled up from the great stone block. Kenton felt it caress his face like a coaxing hand.

He had been aware of that fragrance—an alien perfume, subtly troubling, evocative of fleeting unfamiliar images, of thought-wisps that were gone before the mind could grasp them—ever since he had unsheathed from its coverings the thing Forsyth, the old archaeologist, had sent him from the sand shrouds of ages-dead Babylon.

Once again his eyes measured the block—four feet long, a little more than that in height, a trifle less in width. A faded yellow, its centuries hung about it like a half visible garment. On one face only was there inscription, a dozen parallel lines of archaic cuneiform; carved there, if Forsyth were right in his deductions, in the reign of Sargon of Akkad, sixty centuries ago. The surface of the stone was scarred and pitted and the wedge-shaped symbols mutilated, half obliterated.

Kenton leaned closer over it, and closer around him wound the scented spirals clinging like scores of tendrils, clinging like little fingers, wistful, supplicating, pleading—

Pleading for release! What nonsense was this he was dreaming? Kenton drew himself up. A hammer lay close at hand; he lifted it and struck the block, impatiently.

The block answered the blow!

It murmured; the murmuring grew louder; louder still, with faint bell tones like distant carillons of jade. The murmurings ceased, now they were only high, sweet chimings; clearer, ever more clear they rang, drawing closer, winging up through endless corridors of time.

There was a sharp crackling. The block split. From the break pulsed a radiance as of rosy pearls and with it wave after wave of the fragrance—no longer questing, no longer wistful nor supplicating.

Jubilant now! Triumphant!

Something was inside the block! Something that had lain hidden there since Sargon of Akkad, six thousand years go!

The carillons of jade rang out again. Sharply they pealed, then turned and fled back the endless corridors up which they had come. They died away; and as they died the block collapsed; it disintegrated; it became a swirling, slowly settling cloud of sparkling dust.

The cloud whirled, a vortex of glittering mist. It vanished like a curtain plucked away.

Where the block had been stood—a ship!

It floated high on a base of curving waves cut from lapis lazuli and foam-crested with milky rock crystals. Its hull was of crystal, creamy and faintly luminous. Its prow was shaped like a slender scimitar, bent backward. Under the incurved tip was a cabin whose seaward sides were formed, galleon fashion, by the upward thrust of the bows. Where the hull drew up to form this cabin, a faint flush warmed and cloudy crystal; it deepened as the sides lifted; it gleamed at last with a radiance that turned the cabin into a rosy jewel.

In the center of the ship, taking up a third of its length, was a pit; down from the bow to its railed edge sloped a deck of ivory. The deck that sloped similarly from the stern was jet black. Another cabin rested there, larger than that at the bow, but squat and ebon. Both decks continued in wide platforms on each side of the pit. At the middle of the ship the ivory and black decks met with an odd suggestion of contending forces. They did not fade into each other. They ended there abruptly, edge to edge; hostile.

Out of the pit arose a rail mast: tapering and green as the core of an immense emerald. From its cross-sticks a wide sail stretched.. shimmering like silk spun from fire opals: from mast and yards fell stays of twisted dull gold.

Out from each side of the ship swept a single bank of seven great oars, their scarlet blades dipped deep within the pearl-crested lapis of the waves.

And the jewelled craft was manned! Why, Kenton wondered, had he not noticed the tiny figures before?

It was as though they had just arisen from the deck...a woman had slipped out of the rosy cabin's door, an arm was still outstretched in its closing...and there were other women shapes upon the ivory deck, three of them, crouching...their heads were bent low; two clasped harps and the third held a double flute...

Little figures, not more than two inches high...

Toys!

Odd that he could not distinguish their faces, nor the details of their dress. The boys were indistinct, blurred, as though a veil covered them. Kenton told himself that the blurring was the fault of his eyes; he closed them for a moment.

Opening them he looked down upon the black cabin and stared with deepening perplexity. The black deck had been empty when first the ship had appeared—that he could have sworn.

Now four manikins were clustered there—close to the edge of the pit!

And the baffling haze around the toys was denser. Of course it must be his eyes—what else? He would lie down for a while and rest them. He turned, reluctantly; he walked slowly to the door; he paused there, uncertainly, to look back at the shining mystery—

All the room beyond the ship was hidden by the haze!

Kenton heard a shrilling as of armies of storm; a roaring as of myriads or tempests; a shrieking chaos as though down upon him swept cataracts of mighty winds.

The room split into thousands of fragments; dissolved. Clear through the clamor came the sound of a bell—one—two—thr—

He knew that bell. It was his clock ringing out the hour of six. The third note was cut in twain.

The solid floor on which he stood melted away. He felt himself suspended in space, a space filled with mists of silver.

The mists melted.

Kenton caught a glimpse of a vast blue wave-crested ocean—another of the deck of a ship flashing by a dozen feet below him.

He felt a sudden numbing shock, a blow upon his right temple. Splintered lightnings veined a blackness that wiped out sight of sea and ship.

CHAPTER 2. The First Adventure

Kenton lay listening to a soft whispering, persistent and continuous. It was like the breaking crests of sleepy waves. The sound was all about him; a rippling susurration becoming steadily more insistent. A light beat through his closed lids. He felt motion under him, a gentle, cradling lift and fall. He opened his eyes.

He was on a ship; lying on a narrow deck, his head against the bulwarks. In front of him was a mast rising out of a pit. Inside the pit were chained men straining at great oars. The mast seemed to be of wood covered with translucent, emerald lacquer. It stirred reluctant memories.

Where had he seen such a mast before?

His gaze crept up the mast. There was a wide sail; a sail made of opaled silk. Low overhead hung a sky that was all a soft mist of silver.

He heard a woman's voice, deep toned, liquidly golden. Kenton sat up, dizzily. At his right was a cabin nestling under the curved tip of a scimitared prow; it gleamed rosily. A balcony ran round its top; little trees blossomed on that balcony; doves with feet and bills crimson as though dipped in wine of rubies fluttered snowy wings among the branches.

At the cabin's door stood a woman, tall, willow-lithe, staring beyond him. At her feet crouched three girls. Two of them clasped harps, the other held to her lips a double flute. Again the reluctant memories stirred and fled and were forgotten as Kenton's gaze fastened upon the woman.

Her wide eyes were green as depths of forest glens, and like them they were filled with drifting shadows. Her head was small; the features fine; the red mouth delicately amorous. In the hollow of her throat a dimple lay; a chalice for kisses and empty of them and eager to be filled. Above her brows was set a silver crescent, slim as a newborn moon. Over each horn of the crescent poured a flood of red-gold hair, framing the lovely face; the flood streamed over and was parted by her tilted breasts; it fell in ringlets almost to her sandalled feet.

As young as Spring, she seemed—yet wise as Autumn; Primavera of some archaic Botticelli—but Mona Lisa too; if virginal in body, certainly not in soul.

He followed her gaze. It led him across the pit of the oarsmen. Four men stood there. One was taller by a head than Kenton, and built massively. His pale eyes stared unwinkingly at the woman; menacing; malignant. His face was beardless and pallid. His huge and flattened head was shaven; his nose vulture-beaked; from his shoulders black robes fell, shrouding him to feet. Two shaven heads were at his left, wiry, wolfish, black-robed; each of them held a brazen, conch-shaped horn.

On the last of the group Kenton's eyes lingered, fascinated. This man squatted, his pointed chin resting on a tall drum whose curved sides glittered scarlet and jet with the polished scales of some great snake. His legs were sturdy but dwarfed—his torso that of a giant, knotted and gnarled, prodigiously powerful. His ape-like arms were wound around the barrelled tambour; spider-like were the long fingers standing on their tips upon the drum head.

It was his face that held Kenton. Sardonic and malicious—there was in it none of the evil concentrate in the others. The wide slit of his mouth was frog-like and humor was on the thin lips. His deep set, twinkling black eyes dwelt upon the crescented woman with frank admiration. From the lobes of his outstanding ears hung disks of hammered gold.

The woman paced swiftly down toward Kenton. When she halted he could have reached out a hand and touched her. Yet she did not seem to see him.

"Ho—Klaneth!" she cried. "I hear the voice of Ishtar. She is coming to her ship. Are you ready to do her homage, Slime of Nergal?"

A flicker of hate passed over the massive man's pallid face like a little wave from hell.

"This is Ishtar's Ship," he answered, "yet my Dread Lord has claim upon it too, Sharane? The House of the Goddess brims with light—but tell me, does not Nergal's shadow darken behind me?"

And Kenton saw that the deck on which were these men was black as polished jet and again memory strove to make itself heard.

A sudden wind smote the ship, like an open hand, heeling it. From the doves within the trees of the rosy cabin broke a tumult of cries; they flew up like a white cloud flecked with crimson; they fluttered around the woman.

The ape-like arms of the drummer unwrapped, his spidery fingers poised over the head of the snake drum. Darkness deepened about him and hid him; darkness cloaked all the ship's stern.

Kenton felt the gathering of unknown forces. He slid down, upon his haunches, pressed himself against the bulwarks.

From the deck of the rosy cabin blared a golden trumpeting; defiant; inhuman. He turned his head, and on it the hair lifted and prickled.

Resting on the rosy cabin was a great orb, an orb like the moon at full; but not, like the moon, white and cold—an orb alive with pulsing roseate candescence. Over the ship it poured its rays and where the woman called Sharane had been was now—no woman!

Bathed in the orb's rays she loomed gigantic. The lids of her eyes were closed, yet through those closed lids eyes glared! Plainly Kenton saw them—eyes hard as jade, glaring through the closed lids as though those lids had been gossamer! The slender crescent upon her brows was an arc of living fire, and all about it the masses of her red-gold hair beat and tossed.

Round and round, in clamorous rings above the ship, wheeled the cloud of doves, snowy wings beating, red beaks open; screaming.

Within the blackness of the ship's stern roared the thunder of the serpent drum.

The blackness thinned. A face stared out, half veiled, bodiless, floating in the shadow. It was the face of the man Klaneth—and yet no more his than that which challenged it was the woman Sharane's. The pale eyes had become twin pools of hell flames; pupilless. For a heart beat the face hovered, framed by the darkness. The shadow dropped over it and hid it.

Now Kenton saw that this shadow hung like a curtain over the exact center of the ship, and that he crouched hardly ten feet distant from where that curtain cut the craft in twain. The deck on which he lay was pale ivory and again memory stirred but did not awaken. The radiance from the roseate orb struck against the curtain of shadow and made upon it a disk, wider than the ship, that was like a web of beams spun from the rays of a rosy moon. Against this shining web the shadow pressed, straining to break through.

From the black deck the thunder of the serpent drum redoubled; the brazen conches shrieked. Drum-thunder and shrieking horn mingled; they became the pulse of Abaddon, lair of the damned.

From Sharane's three women, shot storm of harpings, arpeggios like gusts of tiny arrows and with them shrill javelin pipings from the double flute. Arrows and javelins of sound cut through the thunder hammering of the drum and the bellow of the horns, sapping them, beating them back.

A movement began within the shadow. It seethed. It spawned.

Over the face of the disk of radiance black shapes swarmed. Their bodies were like monstrous larva, slugs; faceless. They tore at the web; stove to thrust through it; flailed it.

The web gave!

Its edge held firm, but slowly the center was pushed back until the disk was like the half of a huge hollow sphere. Within that hollow crawled and writhed and struck the monstrous shapes. From the black deck serpent drum and brazen horns bellowed triumph.

Again rang the golden trumpet cry from the deck of ivory. Out of the orb streamed an incandescence intolerable. The edges of the web shot forward and curved.

They closed upon the black spawn; within it the black spawn milled and struggled like fish in a net. Like a net lifted by some mighty hand the web swung high up above the ship. Its brightness grew to match that of the orb. From netted shapes of blackness came a faint, high-pitched, obscene wailing. They shrank, dissolved, were gone.

The net opened. Out of it drifted a little cloud of ebon dust.

The web streamed back into the orb that had sent it forth.

Then, swiftly, the orb was gone! Gone too was the shadow that had shrouded the black deck. High above the ship the snowy doves circled, screaming victory.

A hand touched Kenton's shoulder. He looked up into the shadowy eyes of the woman called Sharane; no goddess now, only woman. In her eyes he read amazement, startled disbelief.

Kenton sprang to his feet. A thrust of blinding pain shot through his head. The deck whirled round him. He tried to master the dizziness; he could not. Dizzily the ship spun beneath his feet; and beyond in wider arcs dizzily spun turquoise sea and silver horizon.

Now all formed a vortex, a maelstrom, down whose pit he was dropping—faster, ever faster. Around him was a formless blur. Again he heard the tumult of the tempests; the shrillings of the winds of space. The winds died away. There were three clear bell notes—

Kenton stood within his own room!

The bell had been his clock, striking the hour of six. Six o'clock? Why the last sound of his own world before the mystic sea had swept it from under him had been the third stroke of that hour clipped off in mid-note.

God—what a dream! And all in half a bell stroke!

He lifted his hand and touched a throbbing bruise over his right temple. He winced—well, that blow at least had been no dream. He stumbled over to the jewelled ship.

He stared at it, incredulous.

The toys upon the ship had moved—new toys had appeared!

No longer were there four manikins on the black deck.

There were only two. One stood pointing toward the starboard platform near the mast, his hand resting on the shoulder of a red bearded, agate-eyed soldier toy clad all in glittering chain mail.

Nor was there any woman at the rosy cabin's door as there had been when Kenton had loosed the ship from the block. At its threshold were five slim girls with javelins in hands.

The woman was on the starboard platform, bent low beside the rail!

And the ship's oars were no longer buried in the waves of lapis lazuli. They were lifted, poised for the downward stroke!

CHAPTER 3. The Ship Returns

One by one Kenton pulled at the manikins, each toy. Immovable, gem hard, each was, seemingly part of the deck itself; no force he could exert would move them.

Yet something had shifted them—and where were the vanished ones? From where had the new ones come?

Nor was there any haze around the little figures, nor blurring; each lineament stood out clean cut. The pointing toy on the black deck had dwarfed, bowed legs; his torso was that of a giant; his bald pate glinted and in his ears were wide discs of gold. Kenton recognized him —the beater of the serpent drum.

There was a tiny silver crescent upon the head of the bending woman toy, and over its tips poured flood of red-gold hair—

Sharane!

And that place at which she peered—was it not where he had lain on that other ship of his dream?

That—other ship? He saw again its decks ebon and ivory, its rosy cabin and its emerald mast. It had been this ship before him—no other! Dream? Then what had moved the toys?

Kenton's wonder grew. Within it moved a sharp unease, a sharper curiosity. He found he could not think clearly with the ship filling his eyes; it seemed to focus all his attention upon it, to draw it taut, to fill him with a tense expectancy. He unhooked a hanging from the wall and threw it over the gleaming mystery. He walked from the room, fighting with each step an imperative desire to turn his head. He dragged himself through the doorway as though hands were gripping his ankles, drawing him back. Head still turned away Kenton lurched shoulders against the door; closed it; locked it.

In his bathroom he examined the bruise on his head. It was painful enough, but nothing serious. Half an hour of cold compresses fairly well removed all outward marks of it. He told himself that he might have fallen upon the floor, overcome by the strange perfumes—he knew that he had not.

Kenton dined alone, scarce heeding what was set before him, his mind groping through perplexities. What was the history of the block from Babylon? Who had set the ship within it—and why? Forsyth's letter had said that he had found it in the mound called Amran, just south of the Qser or crumbled "palace" of Nabopolasser. There was evidence, Kenton knew, that the Amran mound was the site of E-Sagilla, the ziggurat or terraced temple that had been the Great House of the Gods in ancient Babylon. The block must have been held in peculiar reverence, so Forsyth had conjectured, since only so would it have been saved from the destruction of the city by Sennacherib and afterwards have been put back in the re-built temple.

But why had it been held in such reverence? Why had such a miracle as the ship been imprisoned in the stone?

The inscription might have given some clue had it not been so mutilated. In his letter Forsyth had pointed out that the name of Ishtar, Mother Goddess of the Babylonians—Goddess of Vengeance and Destruction as well —appeared over and over again; that plain too were the arrowed symbols of Nergal, God of the Babylonian Hades and Lord of the Dead; that the symbols of Nabu, the God of Wisdom, appeared many times. These three names had been almost the only legible words on the block. It was as though the acid of time which had etched out the other characters had been held back from them.

Kenton could read the cuneatic well nigh as readily as his native English. He recalled now that in the inscription Ishtar's name had been coupled with her wrathful aspect rather than her softer ones, and that associated al ways with the symbols of Nabu had been the signs of warning, of danger.

Forsyth had not noticed that, evidently—or if he had he had not thought it worth mentioning. Nor, apparently had he been aware of the hidden perfumes of the block.

Well—there was no use thinking of the inscription. It was gone forever with the dust into which it had turned.

Kenton impatiently thrust back his chair. He knew that for the past hour he had been out temporizing, divided between the burning desire to get back to the room where the ship lay and the dread that when he did he would find all that adventure had been illusion, a dream; that the little figures had not really moved; that they were as they had been when he had first loosed the ship; that it was only a toy manned by toys—nothing more. He would temporize no longer.

"Don't bother about me any more to-night, Jevins," he told his butler. "I've some important work to do. If there are any calls say that I am away. I'm going to lock myself in and I don't want to be disturbed for anything less than Gabriel's trumpet."

The old servant, a heritage from Kenton's father, smiled.

"Very well, Mr. John," he said. "I'll let no one bother you."

To reach the room wherein was the ship, Kenton's way led through another in which he kept the rarest of his spoils from many a far away corner of the world. Passing, a vivid gleam of blue caught his eye and stayed him, like a hand. The gleam came from the hilt of a sword in one of the cabinets, a curious weapon he had bought from a desert nomad in Arabia. The sword hung above an ancient cloak in which it had been wrapped when the furtive Arab had slipped into his tent. Unknown centuries had softened the azure of that cloak, through whose web and woof great silver serpents writhed, cabalistically entwined.

Kenton unhooked the sword. Silver serpents, counterparts of those on the garments, twined about its hilt. From the hilt sprang a rod of bronze, eight inches long and three thick, round as a staff. This rod flared and flattened out into a leaf-shaped blade two feet long and full six inches wide across its center. Set in the hilt had been one large stone of cloudy blue.

The stone was no longer clouded. It was translucent, shining like an immense sapphire!

Obeying some half-formed thought that linked this new enigma with the ship's shifting toys, he drew down the cloak and threw it over his shoulders. The sword in hand, he unlocked the further door, closed and fastened it behind him; walked over to the shrouded ship; swept off its covers.

Pulses leaping, Kenton drew back.

On it now were two figures only—the drummer, crouched with head in arms upon the black deck, and on deck of ivory a girl, leaning over the rail and looking down upon the oarsmen!

Kenton snapped out the electrics and stood waiting.

Minute after minute crept by. Fugitive gleams from the lights on the Avenue penetrated the curtains of the windows, glimmered on the ship. Muted but steady came the roar of the traffic, punctuated by horn blasts, explosions through mufflers—New York's familiar voice.

Was that a halo growing round the ship...And what had become of the traffic's roar.

The room was filling with silence as a vessel is filled with water...

Now a sound broke that silence; a sound like the lapping of little waves, languorous, caressing. The sounds stroked his lids, slumbrously; pressed them down. By enormous effort he half raised them.

A wide mist was opposite him, a globular silvery mist floating down upon him. Within that mist drifted a ship, its oars motionless, its sail half-filled. Wavelets crisped at its sickled bow, wavelets of pale turquoise with laced edges of foam.

Half the room was lost in the ripples of that approaching sea...the part on which he stood was many feet above the waves...so far below were they that the deck of the ship was level with his feet.

Closer drew the ship. He wondered why he heard no rushing winds, no clamoring tempests; no sound save the faint whispering of the foam-tipped waves.

Retreating, he felt his back press against the farther wall. Before him drifted that misty world, the ship upon its breast.

Kenton leaped, straight for the deck.

The winds roared about him now; vast winds howled and shrieked—again he heard but felt them not at all. And suddenly the clamor died.

Kenton's feet struck solid surface.

He stood upon an ivory deck, facing a rosy cabin whose little blossoming trees were filled with cooing crimson billed, vermilion footed, doves. Between him and the cabin's door was a girl, her soft brown eyes filled with wonder and that same startled disbelief he had seen in those of Sharane when first her gaze had fallen upon him at the foot of the emerald mast.

"Are you Lord Nabu' that you came thus out of the air and in his cloak of wisdom, his serpents twining within it?" she whispered. "Nay that cannot be—for Nabu is very old—and you are young. Are you his messenger?"

She dropped to her knees; crossed her hands, palms outward, over her forehead. She leaped to her feet; ran to the closed door of the cabin.

"Kadishtu!" she struck it with clenched hands. "Holy One—a messenger from Nabu!"

The door of the cabin was flung open. Upon its threshold stood the woman called Sharane. Her glance swept him; then darted to the black deck. He followed it. The beater of the serpent drum squatted there; he seemed to sleep.

"Watch, Satalu!" breathed Sharane to the girl.

She caught Kenton's hand; she drew him through the door. Two girls were there who stared at him. She thrust them forward.

"Out!" she whispered. "Out and watch with Satalu."

They slipped from the cabin. She ran to an inner door; dropped a bar across it.

She turned, back against it; then stepped slowly to Kenton. She stretched out slim fingers; with them touched his eyes, his mouth, his heart—as though to assure herself that he was real.

She cupped his hands in hers, and bowed, and set her brows against his wrists; the waves of her hair bathed them. At her touch desire ran through him, swift and flaming. Her hair was a silken net to which his heart flew, eager to be trapped.

He steadied himself; he drew his hands from hers; he braced himself against her lure.

She lifted her head; regarded him.

"What has the Lord Nabu to say to me?" her voice rocked Kenton with perilous sweetnesses, subtle provocations. "What is his word to me, messenger? Surely will I listen—for in his wisdom has not the Lord of Wisdom sent one to whom to listen ought not be—difficult?"

There was a flash of coquetry like the flirt of a roguish fan in the misty eyes turned for an instant to his.

Thrilling to her closeness, groping for some firm ground, Kenton sought for words to answer her. Playing for time, he looked about the cabined space. There was an altar at the far end. It was sown with luminous gems, with pearls and pale moonstones and curdled, milky crystals. From seven crystal basins set before it arose still silvery flames. There was an alcove behind the altar, but the glow of the seven lights hid whatever was within. He had a swift sense of tenancy of that flame veiled alcove—something dwelt there.

At the far side was a low, wide divan of ivory inlaid with the milky crystals and patterned with golden arabesques. Silken tapestries fell from the walls, multicolored, flower woven. Soft deep silken rugs covered the cabin's floor, and piles of cushions. At back, at left, two wide low windows opened; through them streamed silver light.

A bird flew upon the sill of one; a snowy bird with scarlet beak and feet; it scanned him, it preened itself, it cooed and flew away—

Soft hands touched him; Sharane's face was close, eyes now with doubt more deeply shadowed.

"You—do come from Nabu?" she asked, and waited for reply; and still he found no words to answer her. "Messenger you must be," she faltered, "else—how could you board the Ship of Ishtar?...And you are clad in Nabu's cloak...and wear his sword...many times have I seen them in his shrine at Uruk...and I am weary of the Ship," she whispered. "I would see Babylon again! Ah dearly, do I long for Babylon."

Now words came to Kenton.

"Sharane," he said boldly. "I do bear a message for you. It is the truth, and our Lord Nabu is Lord of Truth—therefore it must be from him. But before I give it to you, tell me—what is this ship?"

"What is the Ship!" she drew back from him, doubt enough now in her face—"But if you come indeed from Nabu—you must know that!"

"I do not know," he told her, "I do not even know the meaning of the message I carry—it is for you to interpret. Yet here am I, upon the ship, before you. And in my ears I hear command—whispered it may be by Nabu himself—that I must not speak until you have told me—what is this ship."

For a long moment she stood, scanning him, studying him.

"The ways of the gods are strange," she sighed at last. "They are hard to understand. Yet—I obey."

PART II—The Sin of Zarpanit

CHAPTER 4.

She slipped down upon the divan and beckoned him beside her. She laid a hand lightly upon his heart. His heart leaped beneath the touch; she felt it, too, and moved a little from him, smiling, watching him through downcast, curving lashes. She drew her slender, sandaled feet beneath her; mused with white hands clasped between rounded knees. When she spoke her voice was low, words half intoned.

"The sin of Zarpanit; the tale of her sin against Ishtar; Ishtar the Mighty Goddess; Mother of the Gods and of men; Lady of the Heavens and of Earth—who loved her!"

"High Priestess of Ishtar at her Great House in Uruk was Zarpanit. Kadishtu, Holy One, was she. And I, Sharane, who come from Babylon, was closest to her; her priestess; loved by her even as she was loved by Ishtar. Through Zarpanit the Goddess counseled and warned, rewarded and punished. Kings and men. Into the body of Zarpanit the Goddess came as to a shrine, seeing through her eyes, speaking with her lips.

"Now the temple in which we dwelt was named the House of the Seven Zones. In it was the sanctuary of Sin, God of Gods, who lives in the Moon; of Shamash his son; whose home is the Sun, of Nabu, the Lord of Wisdom; of Ninib, the Lord of War; of Nergal, the Dark Hornless one, Ruler of the Dead; and of Bel-Merodach, the Mighty Lord. Yet most of all was it the House of Ishtar, who dwelt there of his own right—temple themselves within her holy home.

"From Cuthaw in the north, from the temple there which Dark Nergal ruled as Ishtar ruled at Uruk, came a priest to sit over the Zone of Nergal in the House of the Seven Zones. His name was Alusar—and close as was Zarpanit to Ishtar as close was he to the Lord of the Dead. Nergal made himself manifest through Alusar, spoke through him and dwelt at times within him even as did Ishtar within her Priestess Zarpanit. With Alusar came retinue of priests, and among them that spawn of Nergal's slime—Klaneth. And Klaneth was close to Alusar as I to Zarpanit."

She raised her head and looked at Kenton through, narrowed lids.

"I know you now," she cried. "A while ago you lay upon the ship and watched my strife with Klaneth! Now I know you—although then you had no cloak nor sword; and vanished as I looked upon you!"

Kenton smiled at her.

"You lay with frightened face," she said. "And stared at me with fearful eyes—and fled!"

She half arose; he saw suspicion sweep her anew; the scorn in her voice lashed him into quick, hot rage. He drew her down beside him.

"I was that man," he said. "Nor was it fault of mine that then I went away—I who have returned as quickly as I could? And your own eyes lied to you. Nor ever think again that mine hold fear of you! Look into them!" he bade her, fiercely.

She looked—long; sighed and bent away, sighed again and swayed toward him, languorously. His arms gripped her.

"Enough," she thrust him away. "I read no hasty script in new eyes. Yet I retract—you were not fearful. You did not flee! And when you speak I shall no doubt understand. Let be!"

"Between Ishtar and Nergal," she took up the interrupted tale, "is and ever must be unending hatred and strife. For Ishtar is Bestower of Life and Nergal is Taker of Life; she is the Lover of Good and he is the Lover of Evil. And how shall ever Heaven and Hell be linked; or life and death; or good and evil?

"Yet she, Zarpanit, Kadishtu, the Holy One of Ishtar, her best beloved, did link all these. For where she should have turned away—she looked with desire; and where she should have hated—she loved!

"Yea—the Priestess of the Lady of Life loved Alusar the Priest of the Lord of Death! Her love was a strong flame by whose light she could see only him—and him only. Had Zarpanit been Ishtar she would have gone to the Dwelling Place of the Lost for Alusar, even as did the Goddess for her lover Tammuz—to draw him forth or to dwell there with him.

"Yea—even to dwell with him there in the cold darkness where the dead creep feebly, calling with the weak voices of birds. In the cold of Nergal's domain, in the famine of Nergal's abode, in the blackness of his city where the deepest shade of earth would be a ray of sunlight, Zarpanit would have been happy—knowing that she was with Alusar.

"So greatly did she love!

"I helped her in her love—for love of her," she whispered. "But Klaneth crept ever behind Alusar waiting for chance to betray him and to take his place. Yet Alusar trusted him. There came a night—"

She paused, her face drawn with memoried terror.

"There came...a night when Alusar lay with Zarpanit...within her chamber. His arms were about her...hers around his neck...their lips together...

"And that night down came Ishtar from her Heavens and entered and possessed her!...

"While at the same instant from his dark city came Nergal...and passed into Alusar...

"And in each others arms, looking into each other's eyes, caught in the fire of mortal love...were...Ishtar and Nergal...Heaven and Hell...the Soul of Life mated to the Soul of Death!"

She quivered and wept and long minutes went slowly by before again she spoke.

"Straightway those two who clasped were torn from each other. We were buffeted as by hurricanes, blinded by lightnings; scourged and thrown broken to the walls. And when we knew consciousness the priests and priestesses of all the Seven Zones had us. All the sin was known!

"Yea, even though Ishtar and Nergal had not...met...that night still would the sinning of Zarpanit and Alusar have been known. For Klaneth, whom we had thought on guard, had betrayed them and brought down upon them the pack!

"Let Klaneth be cursed!" Sharane raised arms high, and the pulse of her hate beat upon Kenton like a hammer of flame. "Let Klaneth crawl blind and undying in the cold blackness of Nergal's abode! But Goddess Ishtar! Wrathful Ishtar! Give him to me first that I may send him there as I would have him go!"

CHAPTER 5. How The Gods Judged

"For a time," she said, "we lay in darkness, Zarpanit and I together—and Alusar we knew not where. Great had been the sin of those two, and in it I had shared. Not quickly was our punishment to be decided. I comforted her as best I might, loving her, caring naught for myself—for her heart was close to breaking, knowing not what they did with him she loved.

"There fell another night when the priests came to us. They drew us from our cell and bore us in silence to the portal of the Du-azzaga, the Brilliant Chamber, the Council Room of the Gods. There stood other priests with Alusar. They opened the portal, fearfully, and thrust us three within.

"Now in truth my spirit shrank and was afraid, and beside mine I felt the shuddering soul of Zarpanit.

"For the Du-azzaga was filled with light, and in the places of the Gods sat not their images but the Gods themselves! Hidden each behind a sparkling cloud the Gods looked at us. In the place of Nergal was a fiery darkness.

"Out of the shining azure mist before the Shrine of Nabu came the voice of the Lord of Wisdom.

"'So great is your sin, woman,' it said, 'and yours, priest, that it has troubled even us the Gods! Now what have you to say before we punish?'

"The voice of Nabu was cold and passionless as the light of far flung stars—yet in it was understanding.

"And suddenly my love for Zarpanit swelled, and I held fast to it and it gave me strength; while beside me I felt her soul stand erect, defiant, her love flinging itself before her as a shield. She did not answer—only held out her arms to Alusar. His love stood forth unafraid even as hers. He clasped her.

"Their lips met—and the judging Gods were forgotten!

"Then Nabu spoke again:

"'These two bear a flame that none but Ishtar can quench—and it may be not even she!'

"At this Zarpanit drew from her lover's arms; came close to the glory in which hid Ishtar; did homage and addressed her:

"'Yea, O Mother, are you not the mother of that fire we call love? Did you not create it and set it as a torch above Chaos? And having made it, did you not know how mighty was the thing you made? It was that love of which you are the mother, O Holy Ishtar, that came uncalled into this temple of my body which was yours, and still is yours though you have abandoned it. Is it my fault that so strong was love that it broke the doors of your temple, or my fault that its light blinded me to all save him on whom it shone? You are the creator of love, O Ishtar; and if you did not mean it to conquer then why made you it so mighty? Or if love be grown stronger than you who made it can we—a man and woman—be blamed that we could not overcome it? And if love be not stronger than you, still did you make it stronger than man. Therefore punish love, your child, O Ishtar—not us!'

"It was the Lord Nabu who broke the silence of the Gods:

"'Truth is in what she says. The flame they bear is one whose ways you know, O Ishtar, far better than do we. Therefore it is for you to answer her.'

"'From the glory veiling the Goddess a voice came, sweet but small with bitter anger:

"'There is truth in what you say Zarpanit, whom once I called daughter. Now because of that truth I will temper my anger. You have asked me whether love is stronger than I who created it. We shall learn! You and your lover shall dwell in a certain place that shall be opened to you. Ever together shall you be. You may look upon each other, your eyes may meet—but never lips nor hands! You may speak to each other—but never of this flame called love! For when it leaps and draws you together then I, Ishtar, will enter you, Zarpanit, and give it battle! Nor shall it be the Ishtar you have known. Nay, that Sister-Self of mine whom men name the Wrathful, the Destroyer—she shall possess you. And so it shall be until the flame within you conquers her, or that flame perishes!'

"The voice of Ishtar was still. The gods sat, silent. Then out of the fiery blackness of Nergal's shrine bellowed the voice of the Lord of Death!

"'So say you, Ishtar! Then I, Nergal, tell you this—I stand with this man who is my priest! Nor am I much displeased with him, since it was by him that I looked so closely into your eyes, O Mother of Life!'—the Blackness shook with laughter—'I shall be with him, and I will meet you, Ishtar the Destroyer! Yea, with craft to match yours and strength to grapple with you—until I, not you, have blown out that flame. For in my abode is no such fire—and I would quench it in them that my darkness be not affrighted when at last these two come to me!'

"And again the laughter shook the ebon cloud, while the glory that covered the Goddess quivered with her wrath.

"But the three of us listened with despair—for ill as it had gone with us, far worse was it to hear this jesting of the Dark Hornless One with the Mother of the Heavens.

"Came Ishtar's voice, smaller still:

"'Be it so, O Nergal!'

"There was silence for a little time among the other gods; and I thought that behind their veils they looked at each other askance. Came at last the passionless voice of Nabu:

"'What of this other woman—?

"The voice of Ishtar, impatient:

"'Let her fate be bound with Zarpanit's. Let Zarpanit have her retinue in that place to which she goes.'

"Then Nabu again:

"'The priest Klaneth—is he to go free?'

"'What! Shall not my Alusar have his retinue as well?' mocked Nergal. 'Nay, set Klaneth and others beside him to minister to him.'

"'Again I thought that the Gods looked at each other askance; then Nabu asked:

"'Shall it be so, O Ishtar?'

"And Ishtar answered:

"'Let it be so!'

"The Du-azwsa faded; I was one with the nothingness.

"When we awoke we were on this haunted ship, on this strange sea, in this strange world and all the gods had decreed in the Du-azzaga had come to pass. With Zarpanit was I and half a score of the temple girls she had loved. And with Alusar was Klaneth and a pack of his black acolytes. They had given us oarsmen, sturdy temple slaves—a twain for each oar. They had made the ship beautiful, and they had seen to it that we lacked nothing."

A flame of anger pulsed for an instant through her eyes.

"Yea," she said, "the kindly gods did all for our comfort—and then they launched the ship on this strange sea in this strange world as battleground for Love and Hate, arena for Wrathful Ishtar and Dark Nergal, torture chamber for their priestess and priest.

"It was in this cabin that Zarpanit awakened—with the name of Alusar upon her lips. Then straightway she ran out the door, and from the black cabin came Alusar calling her name. I saw her reach that line where black deck meets this—and, lo, she was hurled back as though by thrust of arms. For there is a barrier there, messenger—a barrier built by the gods over which none of us upon the ship may pass—but then we knew nothing of that. And Alusar, too, was hurled back.

"Then as they arose, calling, stretching hands, striving to touch finger to finger, straightway into Zarpanit poured that Sister-Self of Ishtar, the Angry One, the Destroyer, while around Alusar black shadows deepened and hid him. At last—the shadows parted—and what had been the face of Alusar peered from them and it was the face of Nergal, Lord of the Dead!

"So it was—even as the gods had decreed. And that immortal twain within the bodies of those mortal two who loved each other so—battled and flung their hates like brands against each other, while the slaves chained to their oars in the pit cowered and raved or fell senseless under the terrors loosed above them. And the temple girls cast themselves upon the deck or ran screaming into the cabin that they might not see. Only I did not cry out or flee—who, since I had faced the gods in the Du-azzaga, could never again feel fear.

"And so it fared; how long, how long I do not know, in this place where time seems not to be, since there is neither night nor day as we knew them in Babylon.

"Yet ever Zarpanit and Alusar strove to meet, and ever Wrathful Ishtar and Dark Nergal thrust them apart. Many are the wiles of the Lord of the Shades and countless are his weapons. Many are the arts of Ishtar, and is not her quiver always full? Messenger, how long the pair endured I know not. Yet always they strove to break that barrier through, driven by their love. And always—

"The flames within them burned on," she whispered. "Nergal nor Ishtar could dim them. Their love did but grow stronger. There came a day—

"It was in mid-battle. Ishtar had taken possession of Zarpanit and stood where this deck touches the pit of the oarsmen. Nergal had poured himself into Alusar and hurled his evil spawn across the pit against the goddess's lightnings.

"And as I crouched, watching, at this cabin's door, I saw the radiance that covered Ishtar tremble and dull. I saw the face of Ishtar waver and fade—the face of Zarpanit look out from where the face of Ishtar had been.

"The darkness that shrouded the Lord of the Dead lightened as though a strong flame had shot up within it!

"Then Ishtar took one step—and another and another—toward the barrier between black deck and this. But it came to me that not by her will did she so move. No! She went haltingly, reluctantly, as though something stronger than herself pushed her on. And as she moved, so moved Nergal within his shadows to meet her!

"Closer they came and closer. And ever the radiance of Ishtar would wax and wane. Ever the shadows clothing Nergal would lighten, darken, lighten again. Yet ever-slowly, unwillingly, but inexorably they drew closer and closer to each other. I could see the face of Alusar, the priest, thrusting itself into sight, stripping itself of Nergal's mask.

"Slowly, slowly the white feet of Zarpanit carried Ishtar to the barrier; and slowly, slowly, ever matching her tread, came Alusar to meet her. And they met!

"They touched hands, touched lips, clasped—ere conquered god and goddess could withdraw from them.

"They kissed and clasped. They fell upon the deck—dead. Dead—in each other's arms.

"Nor Ishtar nor Nergal had conquered! Nay! Love of man and love of woman—these had conquered. Victors over god and goddess—the flames were free!

"The priest had fallen on the hither side of the barrier. We did not unclasp their arms. We set them adrift, alock, face to face—their bodies.

"Then I ran forth to slay Klaneth. But I had forgotten that neither Ishtar nor Nergal had conquered one the other. Lo, into me poured the goddess, and into Klaneth returned Nergal! As of old these two powers battled. And again as of old the unseen barrier was strong, holding back from each other those on ivory deck and black.

"Yet I was happy—for by this I knew that Zarpanit and Alusar had been forgotten by them. It came to me that the strife had gone beyond those two who had escaped. That now it mattered not either to Wrathful Ishtar or to Nergal that priestess and priest had gone—since in my body and in Klaneth's they could still strive against each other for possession of the ship...

"And so we sail—and fight, and sail—and fight... How long, I do not know. Many, many years must have passed since we faced the gods in Uruk—but see, I am still as young as then and as fair! Or so my mirror tells me," she sighed.

CHAPTER 6. "Am I Not—Woman!"

Kenton sat silent, unanswering Young and fair she was indeed—and Uruk and Babylon mounds of timeworn sands these thousands of years!

"Tell me, Lord"—her voice roused him; "tell me, has the Temple at Uruk great honor among the nations still? And is Babylon proud in her supremacy?"

He did not speak, belief that he had been thrust into some alien, reality wrestling with outraged revolt of reason.

And Sharane, raising her eyes to his troubled face, stared at him with ever growing doubt. She leaped from beside him, stood quivering like a blade of wrath in a sweetly flowered sheath.

"Have you word for me?" she cried. "Speak—and quickly!"

Dream woman or woman meshed in ancient sorceries, there was but one answer for Sharane—the truth.

And tell her truth Kenton did, beginning from the arrival of the block from Babylon into his house; glossing no detail that might make all plain to her. She listened, her gaze steadfast upon him, drinking in his words—amazement alternating with stark disbelief; and these in turn replaced by horror, by despair.

"For even the site of ancient Uruk is well-nigh lost," he ended. "The House of the Seven Zones is a windswept heap of desert sand. And Babylon, mighty Babylon, has been level with the wastes for thousands of years!"

She leaped to her feet—leaped and rushed upon him, eyes blazing, red-gold hair streaming.

"Liar!" she shrieked. "Liar! Now I know you—you phantom of Nergal!"

A dagger flashed in her hand; he caught the wrist just in time; struggled with her; bore her down upon the couch.

She relaxed, hung half fainting in his arms.

"Uruk dust!" she whimpered. "The House of Ishtar dust! Babylon a desert! And Sargon of Akkad dead six thousand years ago, you said—six thousand years ago!" She shuddered, sprang from his embrace. "But if that is so, then what am I?" she whispered, white lipped. "What—am I? Six thousand years and more gone since I was born—and I alive! Then what am I?"

Panic overpowered her; her eyes dulled; she clutched at the cushions. He bent over her; she threw white arms around him.

"I am alive?" she cried. "I am—human? I am—woman?"

Her soft lips clung to his, supplicating; the perfumed tent of her hair covered him. She held him, her lithe body pressed tight, imperatively desperate. Against his racing heart he felt the frightened pulse of hers. And ever between her kisses she whispered: "Am I not a woman—and alive? Tell me—am I not alive?"

Desire filled him; he gave her kiss for kiss; tempering the flame of his desire was clear recognition that neither swift love for him nor passion had swept her into his arms.

It was terror that lay behind her caresses. She was afraid—appalled by that six-thousand-year-wide abyss between the life she had known and his. Clinging to him she fought for assurance. She had been driven back to woman's last intrenchment—the primal assertion of the woman-self—the certainty of her womanhood and its unconquerable lure.

No, it was not to convince him that her kisses burned his lips—it was to convince herself.

He did not care. She was in his arms. He gave her kiss for kiss.

She thrust him from her; sprang to her feet.

"I am a woman, then?" she cried triumphantly. "A woman—and alive?"

"A woman!" he answered thickly, his whole body quivering toward her. "Alive! God—yes!"

She closed her eyes; a great sigh shook her.

"And that is truth," she cried, "and it is the one truth you have spoken. Nay—be silent!" she checked him. "If I am a woman and alive, it follows that all else you have told me are lies—since I could be neither were Babylon dust and it six thousand years since first I saw the ship. You lying dog!" she shrilled, and with one ringed hand struck Kenton across the lips.

The rings cut deep. As he fell back, dazed both by blow and sudden shift of fortune, she threw open the inner door.

"Luarda! Athnal! All!" wrathfully she summoned. "Quick! Bind me this dog! Bind him—but slay him not!"

Streamed from the cabin seven warrior maids, short kirtled, bare to their waists, in their hands light javelins. They flung themselves upon him. And as they wound about him Sharane darted in and tore the sword of Nabu from his hand.

And now young, fragrant bodies crushed him in rings of woman flesh, soft, yet inexorable as steel. The blue cloak was thrown over his head, twisted around his neck. Kenton awoke from his stupor—awoke roaring with rage. He tore himself loose, hurled the cloak from him, leaped toward Sharane. Quicker than he, the lithe bodies of the maids screened her from his rush. They thrust him with their javelins, pricking him as do the matadors to turn a charging bull. Back and back they drove him, ripping his clothing, bringing blood now here, now there.

Through his torment he heard her laughter.

"Liar!" she mocked. "Liar, coward and fool! Tool of Nergal, sent to me with a lying tale to sap my courage! Back to Nergal you go with another tale!"

The warrior maids dropped their javelins, surged forward as one. They clung to him; twined legs and arms around him, dragged him down. Cursing, flailing with his fists, kicking—caring no longer that they were women—Kenton fought them. Berserk, he staggered to his feet. His foot struck the lintel of the rosy cabin's door. Down he plunged, dragging his wildcat burden with him. Falling they drove against the door. Open it flew, and out through it they rolled, battling down the ivoried deck.

There was a shouting close behind him, a shrill cry of warning from Sharane—some urgent command, for grip of arms and legs relaxed; clutching hands were withdrawn.

Sobbing with rage, Kenton swung to his feet. He saw that he was almost astride the line between ivoried deck and black. It came to him that this was why Sharane had whistled her furies from him; that he had dragged them too close to its mysterious menace.

Again her laughter lashed him. She stood upon the gallery of little blossoming trees, her doves winging about her. The sword of Nabu was in her hand; derisively she lifted it.

"Ho, lying messenger!" mocked Sharane. "Ho, dog beaten by women! Come, get your sword!"

"I'll come, damn you!" he shouted, and leaped forward.

The ship pitched. Thrown off his balance, Kenton staggered back, reeled to the line where black and ivory decks met.

Reeled over it—unhurt!

Something deeper than his consciousness registered that fact; registered it as of paramount importance. Whatever the power of the barrier, to it Kenton was immune. He poised himself to leap back to the ivory deck.

"Stop him!" came the voice of Klaneth.

In mid-spring long, sinewy fingers gripped his shoulder, swung him round. He looked into the face of the beater of the serpent drum. The drummer's talons lifted him and cast Kenton like a puppy behind him.

And panting like some outraged puppy, Kenton swayed up on his feet. A ring of black-robed men was closing in upon him, black-robed men whose faces were dead white, impassive; black-robed men closing in upon him with clutching hands. Beyond the ring stood the mailed warrior with the red beard and the pale agate eyes; and beside him the Black Priest.

Naught cared Kenton for any or all of them. He rushed. The black robes curled over him, overwhelming him, pinned him down.

Again the ship lurched, this time more violently. Kenton, swept off his feet, slid sidewise. A wave swished over him. The hands that clutched him were washed away. Another wave lifted him, flung him up and out. Deep he sank; fought his way upward; dashed the water from his eyes and looked for the ship.

A roaring wind had risen. Under it the ship was scudding—a hundred yards away. He shouted; swam toward her. Down went the sail, down dipped the oars, straining to keep her before the wind. Faster, faster flew the ship before the blast.

She was lost in the silvery mists.

Kenton ceased his efforts; floated, abandoned in an unknown world.

A wave smote him; he came up behind it, choking. The spindrift whipped him. He heard the booming surf, the hiss of combers thrown back by ramparts of rock. Another wave caught him. Struggling on its crest he saw just ahead of him a pinnacle of yellow stone rising from a nest of immense boulders upon which the billows broke in fountains of spume.

He was lifted by a gigantic comber; dashed straight against the yellow pillar.

The shock of his impact was no greater than that of breaking through thick cobweb. For infinite distances it seemed to him he rushed on and on through a soft thick darkness. With him went the shrieking clamor of vast tempests. Abruptly his motion ended, the noise of the tempests ceased.

He lay prone; his fingers clenched some coarse fabric that crumpled stubbornly in his grip. He rolled over, hands thrust out; one of them gripped cool, polished wood. He sat up—

He was back in his own room!

Kenton dragged himself to his feet, stood swaying, dazed.

What was that darkening the rug at his feet? It was water—water that was dripping from him, strangely colored water—crimsoned water.

He realized that he was wet to the skin, drenched. He licked his lips—there was salt upon them. His clothing was ripped and torn, the salt water dripped from it.

And from a score of wounds his blood mingled with the water!

He stumbled over to the jewelled ship. On the black deck was a little group of manikins, leaning and looking over the rail.

Upon the gallery of the rosy cabin one tiny figure stood—

Sharane!

He touched her—jewel hard, jewel cold, a toy!

And yet—Sharane!

Like returning wave his berserk rage swept him. Echoes of her laughter in his ears, Kenton, cursing, sought for something to shatter the shining ship. Never again should Sharane mock him!

He caught a heavy chair by the legs, swung it high overhead, poised for an instant to send it crashing down—

And suddenly beneath the salt upon his lips Kenton tasted the honey musk of her kisses—the kisses of Sharane!

The chair fell from his hands.

"Ishtar! Nabu!" he whispered, and dropped upon his knees. "Set me again upon the ship! Ishtar! Do with me as you will—only set me again upon your ship!"

CHAPTER 7. Slave Of The Ship

Swift was his answer. He heard far away a bellowing roar as of countless combers battering against a rock-ribbed coast. Louder it grew.

With a thunder of vast waters the outward wall of his room disappeared. Where wall had been was the crest of an enormous leaping wave. The wave curled down over Kenton, lifted him up, rolled him far under it; shot him at last, gasping for breath up and up through it.

He was afloat again upon the turquoise sea!

The ship was close. Close! Its scimitared bow was striking down by his head; was flying past him. A golden chain hung from it, skittering over the crests. Kenton clutched at it—missed it.

Back he fell. Swift raced the shining side of the ship past him. Again he threw himself high. There was another chain; a black one spattering over the wave tips and hanging from the stem.

He gripped it. The sea tore at his thighs, his legs, his feet. Grimly he held fast. Hand over hand, cautiously, he drew himself up. Now he was just below the rail. Slowly he raised his head to peer over.

Long arms swept down upon him; long hands gripped his shoulders, lifted him, hurled him down upon the deck, pinned him there. A thong was drawn round his ankles, his arms were pinioned to his sides.

He looked into the face of the frog-mouthed beater of the serpent drum. And over one of the drummer's enormous shoulders stared the white face of Klaneth. He heard his voice:

"Carry him in, Gigi."

He felt himself lifted by the drummer as easily as though he had been a babe; and cradled in the huge hands he was carried through the black cabin's door.

The drummer set Kenton on his feet, regarding him with curious, half-amused eyes. Agate eyes of the red-bearded warrior and pale eyes of Klaneth dwelt upon him as curiously.

Kenton took stock of the three. First the black priest—massive, elephant thewed; flesh pallid and dead as though the blood flowed through veins too deeply imbedded to reveal the creep of its slow tide; the face of Nero remodelled from cold clay by numbed hands.

Then Gigi—the drummer. His froglike face with the pointed ears; his stunted and bowed legs; his giant's body above the hips; the gigantic shoulders whence swung the long and sinewy and apish arms whose strength Kenton had felt; the slit of a mouth in whose corners a malicious humor dwelt. Something of old earth gods about him; a touch of Pan.

Red beard—a Persian out of that time when Persia's hordes were to the world what later the Roman legions were to be. Or so Kenton judged him by his tunic of linked light mail, the silken-sheathed legs, the high buskins and the curved daggers and the scimitar in his jewelled belt. And human as Kenton himself. About him was none of the charnel flavor of Klaneth nor the grotesqueness of Gigi. The full red lips beneath the carefully trimmed beard were sensual, life loving; the body was burly and muscular; the face whiter than Kenton's own. But it was sullen and stamped deep with a half-resigned, half-desperate boredom that even his lively and frank curiosity about Kenton lightened little.

In front of him was a wide slab of bloodstone. Six priests knelt upon it, worshipping something that stood within a niche just above the slab. What it was he could not tell—except that it breathed out evil. A little larger than a man, the thing within the niche was black and formless as though made of curdling shadows. It quivered, pulsated—as though the shadows that were its substance thickened constantly about it, passed within it and were replaced swiftly by others.

Dark was that cabin, the walls somber as dull black marble. Other shadows clung to the dark walls and clustered in the corners; shadows that seemed only to await command to deepen into substance.

Unholy shadows—like those that clothed the thing within the niche.

Beyond, as in the cabin of Sharane, was another chamber, and crowding at the door between were a dozen or more of the black-robed, white-faced priests.

"Go to your places," Klaneth turned to them, breaking the silence. They slipped away. The black priest closed the door upon them. He touched the nearest of the kneeling priests with his foot.

"Our Lord Nergal has had enough of worship," he said. "See—he has swallowed your prayers!"

Kenton looked at the thing within the niche. It was no longer misty, shadowed. It stood out, clear cut. Its body was that of a man and its face was that same awesome visage of evil into which he had seen the black priest's turn on that first adventure of his upon the ship.

The face of Nergal—Lord of the Dead!

What had been the curdled, quivering shades enveloping the statue?

He felt the eyes of Klaneth searching him, covertly. A trick! A trick to frighten him. He met the black priest's gaze squarely; smiled.

The Persian laughed.

"Hai, Klaneth," he said. "There was a bolt that fell short. Mayhap this stranger has seen such things before. Mayhap he is a sorcerer himself and can do better things. Change your play, Klaneth."

He yawned and seated himself upon a low settle. The black priest's face grew grimmer.

"Best be silent, Zubran," he said. "Else it may be that Nergal will change his play for you in a way to banish forever your disbelief."

"Disbelief?" echoed the Persian. "Oh, Nergal is real enough. It is not disbelief that irks me. It is the eternal monotony. Can you do nothing new, Klaneth? Can Nergal do nothing new? Change his play for me, eh? By Ahriman—that is just what I wish he would do, if he can."

He yawned again, ostentatiously. The black priest growled; turned to the six worshippers.

"Go," he ordered, "and send Zachel to me."

They filed through the outer door. The black priest dropped upon another settle, studying Kenton; the drummer squatted, also watching him; the Persian muttered to himself, playing with his dagger hilts. The door opened and into the cabin stepped a priest who held in one hand a long whip whose snaky lash, metal topped, was curled many times around his forearm. He bowed before Klaneth.

Kenton recognized him. When he had lain on the deck close to the mast he had seen this man sitting on a high platform at the foot of that mast. Overseer of the galley slaves, the oarsmen, was Zachel, and that long lash was measured to flick the furtherest of them if they lagged.

"Is this he whom you saw upon the deck some sleeps ago?" asked Klaneth. "He who lay there and, you say, vanished when the drab of Ishtar yonder bent over to touch him?"

"He is the same, master," answered the overseer, coming close to Kenton and scanning him.

"Where went he then?" asked Klaneth, more to himself than to the other. "To Sharane's cabin? But if so, why did she drive him out, her cats clawing him? And whence came that sword she waved and bade him come retake? I know that sword—"

"He did not go into her cabin at that time, master," interrupted Zachel. "I saw her seek for him. She went back to her place alone. He had vanished."

"And his driving forth," mused Klaneth, "that was two sleeps ago. And the ship has sailed far since then. We saw him struggling in the waves far behind us. Yet here he is upon the ship again—and with his wounds still fresh, still bleeding as though it had been but a moment gone. And how passed he the barrier? Yea—how passed he the barrier?"

"Ah, at last you have stumbled on a real question," cried the Persian. "Let him but tell me that—and, by the Nine Hells, not long will you have me for companion, Klaneth."

Kenton saw the drummer make a covert warning gesture to Zuhran; saw the black priest's eyes narrow.

"Ho! Ho!" laughed Gigi. "Zubran jests. Would he not find life there as tiresome as he pretends to find it with us? Is it not so, Zubran?"

Again he made the fleet, warning sigh. And the Persian heeded it.

"Yes, I suppose that is so," he answered grudgingly. "At any rate—am I not sworn to Nergal? Nevertheless," he muttered, "the gods gave women one art that has not grown tiresome since first they made the world."

"They lose that art in Nergal's abode," said the black priest, grimly. "Best remember that and curb that tongue of yours lest you find yourself in a worse place than here—where at least you have your body."

"May I speak, master?" asked Zachel; and Kenton felt threat in the glance the overseer shot at him.

The black priest nodded.

"I think he passed the barrier because he knows naught of our Lord," said Zachel. "Indeed—may be an enemy of our Lord. If not—why was he able to shake off the hands of your priests, vanish in the sea—and return?"

"Enemy of Nergal!" Klaneth muttered.

"But it does not follow that he is friend of Ishtar," put in the drummer, smoothly. "True if he were sworn to the Dark One he could not pass the barrier. But true is it also that were he sworn to Ishtar equally would that have been impossible."

"True!" Klaneth's face cleared. "And I know that sword—Nabu's own blade."

He was silent for a moment; thoughtful. When he spoke there was courtesy in the thick voice.

"Stranger," he said, "if we have used you roughly, forgive us. Visitors are rare upon this craft. You—let me say—startled us out of our manners. Zachel, loose his bonds."

The overseer bent and sullenly set Kenton free of his thongs.

"If, as I think, you come from Nabu," went on the black priest, "I tell you that I have no quarrel with the Wise One or his people. Nor is my Master, the Lord of Death, ever at odds with the Lord of Wisdom. How could he be when one carries the keys of knowledge of this life, and the other the key that unlocks the door of the ultimate knowledge? Nay, there is no quarrel there. Are you a favored one of Nabu? Did he set you on the ship? And—why?"

Silent was Kenton, searching desperately for some way to answer the black priest. Temporize with him as he had with Sharane, he knew he could not. Nor, he knew, was it of any use to tell him the truth as he had told her—and been driven out like a hunted rat for it. Here was danger; peril, greater than he had faced in the rosy cabin. Klaneth's voice cut in:

"But favored of Nabu as you may be, it seems that could not save you from losing his sword, nor from the javelins of Ishtar's women. And if that is so—can it save you from my whip, my chains?"

And as Kenton stood, still silent, wolf light flared in the dead pupils and the black priest leaped to his feet crying:

"Answer me!"

"Answer Klaneth!" roared Gigi. "Has fear of him killed your tongue?"

Under the apparent anger of the drummer's voice Kenton sensed a warning; friendliness.

"If that favor could have saved me, at least it did not," he said sullenly.

The black priest dropped back upon the settle, chuckling.

"Nor could it save you if I decreed your death," he said.

"Death—if he decrees it," croaked Gigi. "Whoever you are," went on the black priest, "whence you come, or how—one thing seems true. You have power to break a chain that irks me. Nay, Zachel, stay," he spoke to the overseer who had made a move to go. "Your counsel is also good. Stay!"

"There is a slave dead at the oars," said the overseer. "I would loose his chains and cast him over."

"Dead," there was new interest in Klaneth's voice. "Which was he? How did he die?"

"Who knows?" Zachel shrugged his shoulders. "Of weariness, maybe. He was one of those who first set sail with us. He who sat beside the yellow-haired slave from the North whom we bought at Emakhtila."

"Well—he had served long," said the black priest. "Nergal has him. Let his body bear his chains a little longer. Stay with me."

He spoke again to Kenton, deliberately, finally:

"I offer you freedom. I will give you honors and wealth in Emakhtila, where we shall sail as soon as you have done my bidding. There you shall have priesthood and a temple if you want them. Gold and women and rank—if you will do what I desire."

"What must I do to win me all this?" asked Kenton. The black priest arose and bent his head so that his eyes looked straight into Kenton's own. "Slay Sharane!" he said.

"Little meat in that, Klaneth," the Persian spoke, mockingly. "Did you not see her girls beat him? As well send to conquer a lioness a man who has already been whipped by her cubs."

"Nay," said Klaneth, "I did not mean for him to pass over the open deck where surely her watchers would see him. He can clamber round the ship's hull—from chain, ledge to ledge. There is a window behind the cabin wherein she sleeps. He can creep up and through it."

"Best swear him to Nergal before he takes that road, master," Zachel interrupted. "Else we may never have him back again."

"Fool!" Gigi spoke. "If he makes his vows to Nergal perhaps he cannot go at all. How do we know that then the barrier will not be closed to him as it is to us who are sworn to the Dark One, even as it is to those who are sworn to Ishtar?"

"True," nodded the black priest. "We dare not risk that. Well spoken, Gigi."

"Why should Sharane be slain?" asked Kenton. "Let me take her for slave that I may repay her for her mockery and her blows. Give her to me—and you may keep all the riches and honors you have offered."

"No!" The black priest leaned closer, searching more intently his eyes. "She must be slain. While she lives the Goddess has a vial into which to pour herself. Sharane dead—Ishtar has none on this ship through whom she may make herself manifest. This, I, Klaneth, know. Sharane dead, Nergal rules—through me! Nergal wins—through me!"

In Kenton's mind a plan had formed. He would promise to do this—to slay Sharane. He would creep into her cabin, tell her of the black priest's plot. Some way, somehow, make her believe him.

Too late he saw by the black priest's face that Klaneth had caught his thought! Too late remembered that the sharp eyes of the overseer had been watching him, losing no fleeting change of expression; interpreting.

"Look, master!" Zachel snarled. "Look! Can you not read his thought, even as I? He cannot be trusted. You have held me here for counsel and have called my counsel good—then let me speak what is in my mind. I thought that this man had vanished from beside the mast, even as I told you. But did he? The gods come and go upon the ship as they will. But no man does. We thought we saw him struggling in the waves far behind the ship. But did we? By sorcery he may have lain all this while, hid in Sharane's cabin. Out of her cabin we saw him come—"

"But driven forth by her women, Zachel," broke in the drummer. "Cast out. Beaten. Remember that. There was no friendship there, Klaneth. They were at his throat like hounds tearing down a deer."

"A play!" cried Zachel. "A play to trick you, master. They could have killed him. Why did they not? His wounds are but pin pricks. They drove him, yes, but where? Over to us! Sharane knew he could cross the barrier. Would she have made gift to us of new strength unless—she had a purpose? And what could that purpose have been, master? Only one. To place him here to slay you—even as you now plan to send him to slay her!

"He is a strong man—and lets himself be beaten by girls! He had a sword, a sharp blade and a holy one—and he lets a woman take it. Ho! Ho!" laughed Zachel. "Do you believe all this, master? Well—I do not!"

"By Nergal!" Klaneth swore, livid. "Now by Nergal—!"

He gripped Kenton by the shoulders, hurled him through the cabin door and out upon the deck. Swiftly he followed him.

"Sharane!" he howled. "Sharane!"

Kenton raised his head, dizzily; saw her standing beside the cabin door, arms around the slim waists of two of her damsels.

"Nergal and Ishtar are busy elsewhere," mocked the black priest. "Life on the ship grows dull. There is a slave under my feet. A lying slave. Do you know him, Sharane?"

He bent and lifted Kenton high, as a man a child. Her face, cold, contemptuous, did not change.

"He is nothing to me—Worm," she answered.

"Nothing to you, eh?" roared Klaneth. "Yet it was by your will that he came to me. Well—he has a lying tongue, Sharane. By the old law of the slaves shall he be punished for it. I will pit four of my men against him. If he master them I shall keep him for awhile—to amuse us further. But if they master him—then shall his lying tongue be torn from him. And I will give it to you as a token of my love—O, Sacred Vessel of Ishtar!"

"Ho! Ho!" laughed the black priest as Sharane shrank, paling. "A test for your sorceries, Sharane. To make that tongue speak! Make it—" the thick voice purred—"make it whisper of love to you. Tell you how beautiful you are, Sharane. How wonderful—ah, sweet Sharane! Reproach you a little, too, perhaps for sending it to me to be torn out!"

"Ho! Ho!" laughed Klaneth; then as though he spat the words, "You temple slut!"

He thrust a light whip in Kenton's hands. "Now fight, slave!" he snarled, "fight for your lying tongue!"

Four of the priests leaped forward, drawing from beneath their robes thongs tipped with metal. They circled, and before Kenton could gather his strength they were upon him. They darted about him like four lank wolves; slashing at him with their whips. Blows flailed upon his head, his naked shoulders. Awkwardly he tried to parry to return them. The metal tips bit deep. From shoulders, chest, back, a slow rain of blood began to drip.

A thong caught him across the face, half blinding him.

Far away, he heard the golden voice of Sharane, shrill with scorn.

"Slave—can you not even fight?"

Cursing, he dropped his useless whip. Close before him was the grinning face of the priest who had struck him. Ere his lash could be raised again the fist of Kenton had smashed squarely on the leering mouth. He felt beneath his knuckles the bones of the nose crumble, the teeth shatter. The priest crashed back; went rolling to the rail.

Instantly the other three were upon him; tearing at his throat, clawing him, striving to drag him down. He broke loose. The three held back for an instant; then rushed. One there was a little in front of the others. Kenton. caught him by an arm, twisted that arm over his shoulder, set hip to prisoned flank, heaved and hurled the priest through air against the pair poised to strike. Out flung the body; fell short. The head crashed against the deck. There was a sharp snap, like a breaking faggot. For a moment the body stood, shoulders touching deck, legs writhing as though in grotesque mid-somersault. Then crumpled and lay still.

"Well thrown!" he heard the Persian shout.

Long fingers clutched his ankles; his feet flew from beneath him. As he fell he caught glimpse of a face staring up at him, a face that was but one red smear; the face of the first priest he had battered down. Falling, Kenton swept out his arms. Claws clutched his throat. There flashed into Kenton's mind a dreadful thing he had seen done in another unequal combat upon a battlefield in France. Up swept his right hand, the first two fingers extended. They found place in the eye sockets of the throttler; pressed there cruelly; pressed there relentlessly. He heard a howl of agony; tears of blood spurted over his hands; the choking fingers dropped from his throat. Where eyes had been were now two raw red sockets with dreadful pendants.

Kenton leaped to his feet. He stamped upon the crimson smeared face looking up at him stamped once, twice, thrice—and the grip about his ankles was gone.

He caught a glimpse of Sharane, white-faced, wide-eyed; realized that the laughter of the black priest was stilled.

At him rushed the fourth acolyte, a broad-leafed knife gleaming in his grip. Kenton bent his head, rushed to meet him. He caught the hand that held the blade; bent the arm back; heard the bone snap. The fourth priest shrieked and fell.

He saw Klaneth, mouth loose, staring at him.

Straight for the black priest's throat he leaped, right fist swinging upward to the jaw as he sprang. But the black priest thrust out his arms, caught him in mid-leap; lifted him high, over his head; balanced him to dash him down upon the deck.

Kenton closed his eyes—this, then, was the end.

He heard the voice of the Persian, urgent:

"Hai, Klaneth! Hai! Kill him not! By Ishak of the Hollow Hell—kill him not. Klaneth! Save him to fight again!"

Then the drummer—

"Nay, Klaneth! Nay!" He felt the talons of Gigi catch him; hold him tight in double grasp. "Nay, Klaneth! He fought fairly and well. He would be a rare one to have with us. Mayhap he will change his mind—with discipline. Remember, Klaneth—he can pass the barrier."

The great bulk of the black priest trembled. Slowly his hands began to lower Kenton.

"Discipline? Ha!" it was the snarling voice of the overseer. "Give him to me, master, in the place of the slave who died at the oar. I will teach him—discipline."

The black priest dropped Kenton on the deck; stood over him for a moment. Then he nodded, turned and stalked into his cabin. Kenton, reaction seizing him, huddled; hands clasping knees.

"Unchain the dead slave and cast him over, Zachel," he heard Gigi say. "I will watch this man till you return."

Kenton heard the overseer patter away. The drummer bent over him.

"Well fought, wolf cub," he whispered. "Well fought! Now to your chains. Obey. Your chance shall come. Do as I say, wolf cub—and I will do what I may."

He walked away. Kenton, wondering, raised his head. He saw the drummer stoop, lift the body of the priest with the broken neck and with one sweep of his long arm send it whirling over the ship's rail. Bending again he sent after it the body of him upon whose face Kenton had stamped.

He paused speculatively before the wailing, empty-socketed horror stumbling and falling about the deck. Then. grinning cheerfully, he lifted it by the knees and tossed it overboard.

"Three less to worry about hereafter," muttered Gigi,

A tremor shook Kenton; his teeth chattered; he sobbed. The drummer looked down on him with amused wonder.

"You fought well, wolf cub," he said. "Then why do you quiver like a whipped hound whose half-chewed bone has been cast away?"

He laid both hands on Kenton's bleeding shoulders. Under their touch he steadied. It was as though through Gigi's hands flowed some current of strength of which his soul drank. As though he had tapped some ancient spring, some still pool of archaic indifference both to life and death, the current ran through him.

"Good!" said Gigi, and stood up. "Now Zachel comes for you."

The overseer was beside Kenton; he touched his shoulder; pointed down a short flight of steps that led from the black deck to the galley-pit. Zachel behind him, Kenton groped down those steps into the half darkness of the pit. He stumbled along a narrow passage-way; was brought to halt at a great oar over whose shank a head, golden-haired, long-haired as any woman's, bent from musclegnarled shoulders. This golden-haired oarsman slept. Around his waist was a thick bronze ring. From this ring a strong chain swung, its end fastened to a staple sunk deep in the back of the bench on which he sat. His wrists were manacled. The oar on which his head rested was manacled, too. Between manacled wrists and manacled oar two other strong chains stretched.

There was an empty chained circlet at the sleeper's left side; on the oar at his left two empty manacles hung from chains.

Zachel pushed Kenton down on the bench beside the sleeping oarsman; girdled his waist with the empty bronze circlet; snapped it close; locked it.

He thrust Kenton's unresisting hands through the manacles dangling from the oar; closed them on him; locked them.

And suddenly Kenton felt warmth of eyes upon him: looked behind him; saw leaning over the rail the face of Sharane. There was pity in her face; and dawning of something that set his heart to beating wildly.

"I'll discipline you—never fear!" said Zachel.

Kenton looked behind him again.

Sharane was gone.

He bent over his oar beside the sleeping giant.

Bent over his oar—

Chained to it.

Slave of the ship!

CHAPTER 8. The Tale Of Sigurd

Kenton awakened to the shrilling of a whistle. Something flicked his shoulder like the touch of a hot iron. He jerked his head up from the bed of his arms; looked stupidly at the chained wrists. Again the flick upon the shoulder, biting into the flesh.

"Up, slave!" he heard a snarling voice say—a voice he knew and struggled with deep drugged mind to place. "Up! Stand to your oar!"

Then another voice, close beside him, whispering, hoarse, but with warmth of comradeship in it:

"On your feet before his whip covers your back with the blood runes."

He struggled upright; hands falling mechanically into two smooth, worn hollows in the wooden shaft to which he was chained. Standing thus upon the bench, his eyes looked out upon a tranquil, turquoise ocean, waveless, within a huge inverted bowl of silver mists. In front of him were four men, two standing, two sitting, at shanks of great oars which, like that he clutched, thrust through the side of a ship. Beyond them sloped a black deck—

Memory rushed upon him, banishing the last of sleep. The first voice had been that of Zachel, and the hot touches on his skin the bite of his whip. He turned his head. A score of other men, black and brown, sat and stood at other great sweeps, bending and rising, sending the Ship of Ishtar cutting through the still blue sea. And there on a platform at the mast step was Zachel, grinning derisively, out at Kenton flicked the long lash once more.

"Look not back! Row!" snarled Zachel.

"I will row," whispered the second voice. "Stand and sway with the oar till strength comes to you."

He looked down on a head fair-haired, long-haired as any woman's. But there was nothing womanish in the face that was lifted for an instant to his. Ice cold and ice blue were the eyes in it, though thawed now by a rough kindliness. The skin was storm beaten, tempest tanned. Nor was there aught womanish in the muscles that swelled on shoulders, back, and arms as he swung the great sweep, handling it as easily as a woman a broom.

Norseman from tip to toe; a Viking straight out of some ancient Saga—and, like Kenton, a slave to the ship; the giant who had been asleep over the oar when Kenton's own chains had been locked upon him.

"Sigurd, Trygg's son, I," muttered the Norseman. "What Norn of ill-luck set you on this ship of warlocks? Speak low—bend to your oar. The devil with the lash has sharp ears."

To the motion of the oar Kenton bent and rose, standing there on the bench. The benumbment that had held his mind was passing: passed ever more swiftly as his tightened grip on the oar began to send the blood more swiftly through his veins. The man beside him grunted approval,

"No weakling, you," he whispered. "The oar wearies—yet up it flows strength from the sea. But sip that strength slowly. Grow strong—slowly. Then it may be that you and I together—"

He paused; shot a wary side glance at Kenton.

"By your looks, you are a man of Eirnn, of the Southern Isles," he whispered. "No grudge bear I against them. They met us always sword to sword and breast to breast. Many the blows we have struck between us, and the hovering Valkyries went never empty-handed back to Valhalla where we met the men of Eirnn. Brave men, strong men, men who died shouting, kissing sword blade and spear point as gayly as a bride. Are you one of these?"

Kenton thought swiftly. He must shape his answer cunningly to bind this comradeship so plainly offered him neither bewilder by whole truth nor be so vague as to rouse suspicion.

"Kenton, my name," he answered softly. "My fathers were of the Eirnn. They knew well the Vikings and their ships—nor have they handed down to me any grudge against them. I would be friend of yours, Sigurd, Trygg's son, since for how long neither of us knows I must labor here beside you. And since you and I—together—"

He paused meaningly, as had the Viking. The Norseman nodded, then again shot that keen side glance at him.

"How fell this bane upon you?" he muttered. "Since they drove me aboard this ship at Isle of Sorcerers we have entered no harbor. You were not here when they chained me to the oar."

"Sigurd—by Odin All-Father—I do not know!" The Norseman's hand quivered at the name of his god. "A hand that I could not see plucked me out of my own land and set me here. That son of Hela who rules the black deck offered me freedom—if I would do a thing of shame. I would not. I battled with his men. Three I slew. And then they chained me to this oar."

"You slew three!" The Viking looked up at Kenton, eyes blazing, teeth bared. "You slew three! Skoal! Comrade! Skoal!" he shouted.

Something like a flying serpent hissed by Kenton; hissed and struck the Norseman's back. It withdrew, blood spurting from where it had bitten. It struck and struck again.

Zachel's voice snarled through the hissing of the lash:

"Dog! Sow spittle! Have you gone mad? Shall I flay you then!"

Under the lash the body of Sigurd, Trygg's son, shuddered. He looked up at Kenton, bloody froth on his lips. Suddenly, Kenton knew that it was not from the pain of the blows—that it was from the shame of them and from rage; that the whiplash was drawing redder drops from his heart, threatening to break it.

And Kenton, leaning over, thrust his own bare back between that lash and the bloody shoulders; took the blows itself.

"Ha!" shouted Zachel. "You want them, do you? Jealous of my whip's kisses, are you? Well, then—take your fill of them!"

Mercilessly the lash hissed and struck, hissed and struck. Kenton endured its bite stoically, never shifting the shield of his body from the Norseman; meeting each sharp agony by thought of what he would do to repay when his time had come—

When he had mastered the ship!

"Stop!" Through pain-misted eyes he saw the drummer leaning over the pit. "Would you kill the slave, Zachel? By Nergal, if you do I'll ask Klaneth as gift to me to chain you to his oar for a while!"

Then Zachel, sullenly:

"Row, slave!"

Silently, half fainting, Kenton bent over the oar. The Norseman caught a hand, held it in iron grip.

"Sigurd, Trygg's son, am I! Jarl's grandson! Master of Dragons!" His voice was low, yet in it was a clanging echo of smiting swords; and he spoke with eyes closed as though he stood before some altar. "Blood brotherhood is there now between us, Kenton of the Eirnn. Blood brothers—you and I. By the red runes upon your back written there when you thrust it between me and the whip. I shall be your shield as you have been mine. Our swords shall be as one sword. Your friend shall be my friend, and your enemy my enemy. And my life for yours when need be! This by Odin All-Father and by all the Aesir I swear—I, Sigurd, Trygg's son! And if ever I break faith with you, then may I lie under the poison of Hela's snakes until Yggdrasill, the Tree of Life, withers, and Ragnarak, the Night of the Gods, has come!"

The heart of Kenton swelled and grew warm.

The grip of the Norseman tightened. He withdrew his hand and bent once more to the oar. Nothing more said he—but Kenton knew the vow was sealed.

The whip of the overseer cracked, a shrill whistle sounded. The four rowers in front lifted high their oars shunted them into a niche. The Viking raised his sweep, set it in a similar rest.

"Sit," he said. "They wash us now and feed."

A cascade of water fell over Kenton, and another. The salt of it stung his wounds, brought tears to his eyes,

"Quiet!" warned Sigurd. "Soon the pain passes, and the salt will heal."

Then down over him swished the water. Two brown men, naked to the waists, backs scarred, went by. In each hand they held buckets, raised them, and poured the water over two of the men at the stroke oars. They turned and went back along the narrow way between the benches.

Powerful were their bodies. Their faces were those of men come to life out of some ancient Assyrian frieze, narrow, hook-nosed, full-lipped. No mind dwelt behind those faces. Their eyes were staring, empty.

The pair came back with other buckets which they dashed over the floor of the rowers' pit, washing it clean. And when this was done two other slaves set upon the bench between Kenton and the Norseman a rough platter and a bowl. On the platter were a dozen long pods and a heap of round cakes resembling the cassava bread the tropical folk press out and bake in the sun. The bowl was filled with a dark, thick liquid, purplish red.

He munched the pods; they were fleshy, with a curious meaty flavor. The round cakes tasted exactly like what they resembled—cassava bread. The liquid was strong, pungent, a trace of fermentation in it. There was strength in that food and drink. The Norseman smiled at him.

"No lash now, so we speak not too loudly," he said. "It is the rule. So while we eat and drink ask what you will of me without fear, blood brother."

"Two things I would first know of many," said Kenton. "How came you on the ship, Sigurd? And how comes this food here?"

"From here and there comes the food," answered the Viking. "It is a ship of warlocks and a cursed one. Not long may it stop at any place, nor at any place is it welcome. Nay, not even at Emakhtila, which is full of warlocks. Where it harbors they bring food and gear quickly and with fear. Quickly do they give to speed it quickly away, lest the demons who possess it grow angry and destroy. They have strong magic—that pale son of Helan and the woman on the white deck. Sometimes I think her a daughter of Loki, whom Odin chained for his wickedness. And sometimes I think her a daughter of Freya, the Mother of Gods. But whatever she be, she is very fair and has a great soul. I have no hatred toward her."

He lifted the bowl to his lips.

"And as for how I came here," he went on, "that is a short tale enough. Southward I had sailed with the fleet of Kagnor Red Spear. Twelve great dragons had we when we set forth. Southward sailed we through many seas. raiding as we went. Then after long, with six of our twelve dragons left us, we came to a city in the land of the Egyptians. It was a very great city and full of temples to all the gods in the world—except our gods.

"It irked us that among all these temples Odin All-Father had none. It irked us, and we grew wroth. So one night when we had drunk overdeep of the Egyptian wine six of us set forth to take a temple, cast out its god and give it to Odin for a home.

"We came to a temple and entered. It was a dark temple and full of black robes like these on board the ship. When we told them what we meant to do, they buzzed like bees and rushed us like a wolfpack. Many then we slew, shouting. And we would have won that temple for Odin, the six of us fighting in a ring, but—a horn blew!"

"Summoning too many for you?" asked Kenton.

"Not at all, blood brother," said Sigurd. "It was a warlock horn. A horn of sleep. It blew sleep through us as the storm wind blows the spray through a sail. It turned our bones to water, and our red swords dropped from hands that could not longer feel their hilts. And down we all dropped, sodden with sleep, among the slain.

"When we awoke we were in a temple. We thought it the same temple, for it was as dark and the same black-robed priests filled it. We were in chains, and they whipped us and made us slaves. Then we found we were no longer in the land of the Egyptians, but in a city named Emakhtila, on an isle of warlocks set in a sea of what I think a warlock world. Long I slaved for the black robes, I and my comrades, till they dragged me to this ship that had dropped anchor in Emakhtila harbor. And here ever since I have bent over my oar, watching their wizardries and fighting to keep my soul from being sucked from me."

"A horn that poured out sleep!" said Kenton, puzzled. "But that I do not understand, Sigurd."

"You will, comrade," Sigurd said grimly. "Soon enough you will. Zachel plays it well—listen—it begins."

From behind them a deep, droning, mellow horn note sounded. Low pitched, vibrant, continuous, it crept into the ears, and seemed to pour through them along every nerve, touching them, caressing them with the soft fingers of the very soul of poppied sleep.

The note droned on, dripping sleep.

The Viking's eyes were fierce and strained with struggle against slumber. Slowly, slowly the lids closed over them.

His hands relaxed, the fingers opened, his body swayed, his head dropped upon his chest. He slumped down upon the bench.

The note droned on.

Fight as hard as Kenton might, he could not thrust away the soft, clinging slumber that pressed inexorably in on him from every side. A numbness crept through his body. Sleep, sleep—swarms of infinite particles of sleep were drifting through him, drifting with his blood through every vein, along every nerve, clogging his brain.

Lower and lower dropped his own lids.

And suddenly he could no longer fight. Chains rattling, down against Sigurd he fell...

Something deep within Kenton whispered to him to awaken; something reached down into the abysses of his charmed slumber and drew to its surface his consciousness. Slowly his heavy lids began to rise—then stopped, obeying some subtle warning. He looked out through narrowest slits. The chains that bound his wrists to the riveted manacles of the oar were long. He had moved in his sleep and now lay with head on arm stretched along the back of the low bench. He faced the ivory deck.

There, at its edge, looking down upon him was Sharane. Veils of palest blue, through which the hands of long dead Assyrian maids had woven golden lotuses, draped her breast, coiled round her slender waist, and fell to the delicate, sandaled feet. Her black-haired maiden Satalu beside her, she leaned over, scanning him.

"Mistress," he heard Satalu say, "he cannot be man of Nergal, since Nergal's men have chained him there."

"No" mused Sharane. "No—in that I was wrong. And had he been of Nergal, never could he have crossed the barrier. Nor would Klaneth have taunted me—as he did—"

"He is very handsome and young," sighed Satalu—"and strong. He fought the priests like a lion lord."

"Even a cornered rat will fight," answered Sharane, scornful. "He let himself be led to his chains like a whipped dog. And he lied to me! He came to me in borrowed plumes, bearing a sword he could not use!"

"Oh," cried Sharane—and half of that cry was a sob—"oh, Satalu, I am ashamed! Liar and coward and slave—still he stirs something in my heart that never yet stirred for man. Oh, I am ashamed—I am ashamed, Satalu!"

"Lady Sharane, do not weep!" Satalu caught the fluttering hands. "He may be none of these. How do you know? Perhaps he did speak the truth. How know we what has happened in that world of ours so long lost to us? And he is very handsome—and young!"

"At least," said Sharane and bitterly, "he is a slave."

"Sh-h!" warned Satalu. "Zachel comes."

They turned; walked toward Sharane's cabin out of Kenton's vision.

The wakening whistle shrilled. There was a stir among the slaves, and Kenton groaned, raised himself, rubbed eyes, and gripped the oar.

Exultation was in his heart. There could be no mistaking Sharane's words. He held her. By a slender thread, it might be; but still—he held her. And if he were not a slave—when slave he ceased to be—what then? By no slender thread then would he hold her. He laughed—but softly, lest Zachel hear. Sigurd looked at him curiously.

"The sleep horn must have brought you gay dream," he murmured.

"Gay, indeed, Sigurd," he answered. "The kind of dream that will thin our chains until we can snap them."

"Odin send more dreams like it," grunted the Norseman.

CHAPTER 9. The Bargaining Of Sharane

WHEN Zachel blew the horn again Kenton had no need of it to send him to sleep. The sharp eyes of the overseer had seen through Sigurd's self-sacrificing stratagem, and he had watched Kenton continually, lashing him when he faltered or let the whole burden of the oar fall upon the Norseman. His hands were blistered, every bone and muscle ached, and his mind lay dulled in his weary body. And thus it was between the next five sleeps.

Once he roused himself enough to ask Sigurd a question that had been going round and round in his brain. Half the rowers in the pit were behind the line that separated black deck from ivory—that line which neither Klaneth and his crew nor Sharane and her women could cross. Yet Zachel roamed at will from one end of that pit to the other; other priests, too, for he had seen them. And although he had not seen Klaneth or Gigi or the Persian there, he did not doubt that they could come and go if they so wished. Why, then, did not the black robes swarm up the farther side and overwhelm the rosy cabin? Why did not Sharane and her women drop into the pit and lay siege to the ebon cabin? Why did they not launch their javelins, their arrows, over the pit of the rowers into the wolfpack of the black priest?

It was a warlock ship, the Viking had repeated, and the spell upon it no simple one. The slave who had died had told him that he had been on the ship since the gods had launched her, and that the same unseen, mysterious barrier shut off the side of the rowers that rimmed Sharane's deck. Nor could javelin or arrow or other missile other than those hurled by god and goddess penetrate it.

Humanly, each opposing camp was helpless against the other. There were other laws, too, the slave had told Sigurd. Neither Sharane nor Klaneth could leave the ship when it hove to in harbor. Sharane's women could. The black priest's men, yes—but not for long. Soon they must return. The ship drew them back. What would happen to them if they did not return? The slave had not known, had said that such thing was impossible, the ship would draw them back.

Kenton pondered over all this as with aching back he pushed and pulled at the oar. Decidedly these were practical, efficient deities who had doomed the ship overlooking no detail, he thought, half amused.

Well, they had created the game, and certainly they had the right to make that game's rules. He wondered whether Sharane could roam at will from stem to stern when he had conquered the ship. Wondering still, he heard the drone of Zachel's horn begin, and pitched, content, into the bottomless oubliette of sleep it opened.

He awoke from that sixth sleep with mind crystal clear, an astonishing sense of well being, and a body once more free from pain and flexible and vigorous. He pulled at his oar strongly and easily.

"Strength flows up to you from the sea even as I foretold," grunted Sigurd.

Kenton nodded absently, his sharpened mind grappling with the problem of escape from his chains.

What went on in the pit and on the ship while the rowers were asleep? What chance would offer then to free himself and the Viking if he could stay awake?

If he could stay awake!

But how could he close his ears to that horn which poured sleep into them as the sirens of old poured with their songs fatal fascination into the ears of sailors strayed within their ken?

The sirens! The story of crafty Ulysses' adventure with those sea women flashed into his memory. How desire had come upon that wanderer to hear the siren song—yet no desire to let it draw him to them. How he had sailed into their domain; had filled his oarsmen's ears with melted wax; had made them bind him to the mast with open ears, and then, cursing, straining at his bonds, mad with desire to leap into their white arms, had heard their enchanted measures—and sailed safe away.

A wind arose—a steady wind that filled the sail and drove the ship through gently cresting waves. Came command to rest oars. Kenton slouched down upon the bench. Sigurd was in one of his silent moods, face brooding, gaze far away, filled with dreams of other days when his dragons cleft the Northern Ocean.

Kenton dropped his hands upon the silken rags upon his legs; his fingers began, seemingly idly, to unravel their threads, twist and knot them into little silken cylinders. He worked on, the Viking unheeding. Now two were finished. He palmed one, rubbed as idly the side of his face, and so rubbing slipped the little silken cylinder into an ear. He waited for a time; slipped in the other ear the second plug. The roaring of the wind sank to a loud whispering.

Carefully, unhurrying, he drew them out; twisted more threads around them. Again he set them in place. Now the wind's roar was only a murmuring, faint and far away. Satisfied, he slipped the silken cylinders under his torn girdle.

On sped the ship. And after a while the slaves came and dashed their buckets over him and the Viking; brought them food and drink.

On the very edge of the sleep-horn drone Kenton slumped down upon the bench, face on forearms, the silken cylinders hidden under thumbs. Swiftly he slipped them in his ears. Then he let every muscle go limp. The droning diminished to a faint, hardly heard humming. Even so, a languor crept through him. He fought it. He beat the languor back. The humming ceased. He heard the overseer go by him; looked after him through half-raised lids; saw him ascend that pit's steps and pass over the deck to Klaneth's cabin.

The black deck was empty. As though shifting in slumber Kenton rolled over, threw an arm across the back of the bench, rested his head upon it, and through lowered lashes took stock of what lay behind him.

He heard laughter, golden, chiming. To the edge of her deck, black-haired Satalu beside her, walked Sharane. She seated herself there, unbound her hair, shook the flaming red gold cloud of it over face and shoulders; sat within it as though within a perfumed, silken red gold tent. Satalu raised a shining tress; began to comb it.

Through that web of loveliness he felt Sharane's eyes upon him. Involuntarily his own opened wide; clung to her hidden ones. She gasped, half rose, parted the curtains of her hair, stared at him in wonder. "He is awake!" she whispered. "Sharane!" he breathed.

He watched shame creep again into her eyes—her face grow cold. She raised her head, sniffed daintily.

"Satalu," she said, "is there not a stronger taint from the pit?" Again she silted her nose. "Yes—I am sure there is. Like the old slave market at Uruk when they brought the new slaves in."

"I—I notice it not, mistress," faltered Satalu. "Why yes—of course." Sharane's voice was merciless. "See there he sits. A new slave; a strange slave who sleeps with open eyes."

"Yet he—he looks not like a slave," again faltered her handmaiden.

"No" questioned Sharane sweetly. "What has happened to your memory, girl? What is the badge of a slave?"

The black-haired girl did not answer; bent low over the locks of her mistress.

"A chain and the brand of whips," mocked Sharane. "These are the slave's badge. And this new slave has both—in plenty."

Still Kenton was silent beneath her mockery; made no movement; indeed scarce heard her, his burning eyes drinking in her beauty.

"Ah, but I dreamed one came to me with great words, a bearer of promises, fanning hope in my heart," sighed Sharane. "I opened my heart to him—in that dream, Satalu. All my heart! And he repaid me with lies—and his promises were empty—and he was a weakling—and my girls beat him. And now it seems to me that there sits that liar and weakling of my dreams with brand of whip upon his back and weak hands chained. A slave!"

"Mistress! Oh, Mistress!" whispered Satalu. But Kenton kept silence, although now her mockery began to sting.

And suddenly she rose, thrust hands through shining locks.

"Satalu," she murmured, "would you not think that sight of me would awaken even a slave? That any slave, so he were young and strong, would break his chains—for me?"

She swayed, turned; through her thin robes gleamed exquisite, rosy curves of breast and thigh; lithe loveliness. She spread wide the nets of her hair, peered through them at him with wanton eyes; preened herself, thrust out a tiny, rosy foot, a dimpled knee.

He raised his head recklessly, the hot blood rushing through.

"The chains will break, Sharane!" he called. "I will break them—never fear! And then—"

"And then—" she echoed, "and then my girls shall beat you as before!" she mocked, and sped away.

He watched her go, pulse beating like drums. He saw her halt and whisper to Satalu. The black-haired girl turned, made him a warning gesture. He closed his eyes, dropped head on arm. And soon he heard the feet of Zachel striding down the steps, go by him. The waking whistle shrilled.

Why, if her mockery had been real, had she warned him?

Sharane looked down upon him again from her deck.

Time had gone by since she had stood there mocking him. Time had gone, but how measured in his own lost world Kenton had no means of telling, meshed as he was in the ship's timeless web.

Sleep after sleep he had lain on his bench, watching for her. She had kept to her cabin—or if she had not, she had kept herself from his sight.

Nor had he told the Viking that he had broken the spell of the sleep horn. Sigurd he trusted, heart and soul. Yet he was not sure of the Norseman's subtlety; not certain that he could feign the charmed slumber as Kenton did. He could not take the risk.

And now again Sharane stood and looked down upon him from the platform close to the emerald mast. The slaves slept. There was none at watch on the black deck. There was no mockery now in Sharane's face. And when she spoke she struck straight home to the heart of her purpose.

"Whoever you are, whatever you may be," she whispered, "two things can you do. Cross the barrier. Remain awake when the other slaves must sleep. You have told me that you can break your chains. Since those two things you can do—I find belief within me that of the third you also speak the truth. Unless—"

She paused; he read her thought.

"Unless I lied to you about that as I lied to you before," he said levelly. "Well, those were no lies I told you."

"If you break your chains," she said, "will you slay Klaneth?"

He feigned to consider.

"Why should I kill Klaneth?" he asked at last.

"Why? Why?" Scorn tinged her voice. "Has he not set his chains upon you? Had you whipped? Made you slave?"

"Did not Sharane drive me forth with javelins?" he asked. "Did not Sharane pour salt in my wounds with her mockery—her laughter?"

"But—you lied to me!" she cried.

Again he feigned consideration.

"What will this liar, weakling, and slave gain if he kills the black priest for you?" he asked bluntly.

"Gain?" she repeated blankly.

"What will you pay me for it?" he said.

"Pay you? Pay you! Oh!" The scorn in her eyes scorched him. "You shall be paid. You shall have freedom—the pick of my jewels—all of them—"

"Freedom I shall have when I have slain Klaneth," he answered. "And of what use to me are your jewels on this cursed ship?"

"You do not understand," she said. "The black priest slain, I can set you on any land you wish in this world. In all of them jewels have value."

She paused, then: "And have they no worth in that land from whence you come, and to which, unchained, it seems you can return whenever danger threatens?"

Her voice was honeyed poison. But Kenton only laughed.

"What more do you want?" she asked. "If they be not enough—what more?"

"You!" he said.

"Me!" she gasped incredulously. "I give myself to any man—for a price! I—give myself to you! You whipped dog!" She stormed. "Never!"

Up to this Kenton's play with her had been calculated; but now he spoke with wrath as real and hot as hers.

"No!" cried Kenton. "No! You'll not give yourself to me! For, by God, Sharane, I'll take you!"

He thrust a clenched, chained hand out to her.

"Master of this ship I'll be, and with no help from you—you who have called me a liar and slave and now would throw me butcher's pay. No! When I master the ship it will be by my own hand. And that same hand shall master—you!"

"You threaten me!" Her face flamed wrath. "You!"

She thrust a hand into her breast, drew out a slender knife—hurled it at him. As though it had struck some adamantine wall, invisible, it clanged, fell to her feet, blade snapped from hilt.

She paled, shrank.

"Hate me!" jeered Kenton. "Hate me, Sharane; For what is hate but the flame that cleans the cup for wine of love!"

With no soft closing of her cabin door did she go within it. And Kenton, laughing grimly, bent his head over his oar; was soon as sound asleep as the Norseman snoring beside him.

CHAPTER 10. On The Ship A-Sailing

HE AWAKENED to a stirring and humming through all the ship. On ivory deck and black the ship's folk stood, pointing, talking, gesticulating. A flock of birds, the first he had seen in this strange world, hovered above him. Their wings were shaped like those of great butterflies. Their plumage shone as though lacquered in glowing vermilions and pale golds. From their opened beaks came a chiming tumult as of little tinkling bells.

"Land!" the Viking exclaimed. "We run into harbor. Food and water must be low."

There was a brisk wind blowing and the oars at rest. Careless of Zachel's lash, Kenton leaped upon the bench, looking over the bow. The overseer gave no heed, his own eyes intent upon what lay before.

It was a sun yellow isle, high and rounded, and splashed with craters of color like nests of rainbows. Save for these pansied dapplings, the island curved all glowing topaz, from its base in the opalescent shallows of the azure sea to its crest, where feathered trees drooped branches like immense panaches of ostrich plumes dyed golden amber. Over and about that golden isle shot flashes of iridescences from what seemed luminous flying flowers.

Closer drew the ship. At the bow the damsels of Sharane clustered, laughing and chattering. And upon her balcony was Sharane, watching the isle with wistful eyes.

Now it was close indeed. Down ran the peacock sail. The ship rowed slowly and more slowly to the shore; not until the curved prow had almost touched that shore did the steersman shift the rudder and bring the ship sharply about. As they drifted, the plumes of the strange trees swept the deck with long leaves, delicately feathered as those the frost etches on the winter pane. Topaz yellow and sun amber were those leaves; the branches from which they hung glistened as though cut from yellow chrysolite. Immense clusters of flowers dropped from them, lily shaped, flame scarlet.

Slowly, ever more slowly, drifted the ship. It crept by a wide cleft that cut into the heart of the isle. The sides of this vale were harlequined with the cratered colors, and Kenton saw that these were fields of flowers, clustered as though they filled deep circled amphitheaters. The flashing iridescences were birds—birds of every size from smallest dragon flies to those whose wing-spread was that of condors in the high Andes. Large and small, on each glittered the lacquered butterfly wings.

The isle breathed fragrance. Of green upon it there was none, save for the emerald glintings of the birds.

The valley slid behind them. Ever more slowly the feathered trees brushed the deck. The ship slipped into the mouth of a glen at whose end a cataract dropped rain of pearl into a golden-ferned pool. There was the rattling of a chain; an anchor splashed. The bow of the ship swung in; nosed through the foliage; touched the bank.

Over the rail climbed the women of Sharane, upon their heads great baskets. From her balcony Sharane looked after them with deeper wistfulness. The women melted within the flower-spangled boskage; fainter and fainter came their voices; died away. Sharane, chin cupped in white hands, drank in the land and with wide and longing eyes. Above her red gold hair streaming through the silver crescent a bird hovered—a bird all gleaming emeralds and flashing blues, chiming peals of fairy bells. Kenton saw tears upon her cheeks. She caught his gaze, dashed them away angrily. She half turned as though to go; then slipped down woefully behind one of her balcony's tiny blossoming trees where he could no longer see her weeping.

Now her women filed back along the bank, their baskets filled with plunder; fruits, gourds purple and white, and great clusters of those pods he had eaten when first he had broken fast upon the ship. Into the cabin they trooped, and out again with baskets empty. Time upon time they came and went. At last they bore away skins instead of the woven hampers; water bags which they filled from the pool of the cataract. Time upon time they brought them back, swollen full, upon their shoulders.

They trooped out once more, burdenless; darted joyously over the rail; doffed their scanty enough robes and plunged into the pool. Like water nymphs they swam and played, the pearly flow caressing, streaming from delicately delicious curves—pale ivory, warm rose, soft olive. They sprang from the pool, wove flower crowns and with sprays of the fragrant lily blooms in arms clambered, reluctant, over the side and into the rosy cabin.

Now crawled over the rail the men of Klaneth. They slipped on and off the ship with their burdens, poured their last water skins into the casks.

Again there was stir upon the ship. The chains rattled, the anchor lifted. Up and down flashed the oars, drawing the ship from the bank. Up rose the peacock sail. The ship veered, caught the wind, swam slowly through the amethystine shallows. Faster swung the sweeps. The golden isle diminished, was saffron shadow in the mists; vanished.

On sailed the ship. And on and on—by what signs or reckonings or to what port Kenton could not know. Sleep after sleep it sailed. The huge bowl of silver mists whose edge was the horizon, contracted or expanded as those mists thickened or thinned. Storms they met and weathered; roaring storms that changed the silver of the mists to lurid copper, ambered jet, darkness deeper than night. Sudden storms threaded with lightnings weird and beautiful. Lightnings that were like the shatterings of immense prisms, the breakings of rainbows of jewels. Storms that trod on feet of thunder. Thunder that was metallic, tintinnabulary; hurricanes of clashing cymbals following showers of multicolored, flaming gems.

Steadily strength of the sea poured into Kenton up his oar blade, even as Sigurd had promised; remaking him, hardening him, turning all his body into a machine as finely tempered as a rapier and as flexible.

Between sleeps Sigurd chanted to him Viking tales, Sagas unsung, lost epics of the Norse.

Twice the black priest sent for him; questioned him, threatened him, cajoled him—vainly. And each time with blacker face sent him back to his chains.

Strife of god and goddess there was none. And Sharane during the sleep time of the slaves kept to her cabin. Awake, he could not turn his head to seek her without inviting the bite of Zachel's lash. So often he let the horn of sleep have its way—what use to keep awake while Sharane hid?

There came a time when, lying awake, he heard steps coming down the pit's stair. He turned, face against the back of his bench, as though in troubled slumber. The steps paused beside him.

"Zubran," it was the voice of Gigi, "this man has become a young lion."

"Strong enough," grunted the Persian. "It is a pity that his strength is wasted here—driving this ship from one place of weariness to another as bad."

"I think as you," said Gigi. "Strength he now has. Also he has courage. You remember how he slew the priests."

"Remember!" There was no boredom in Zubran's voice now. "Can I forget! By the heart of Rustam—could I forget! It was the first draft of life given me, it seemed, for centuries. I owe him something for that."

"Also," went on Gigi, "he has loyalty where his heart turns. I told you how he shielded with his own back the man who sleeps beside him. I liked him well for that, Zubran."

"As a gesture," said the Persian, "it was excellent. A trifle florid, perhaps, for perfect taste. But still—excellent."

"Courage, loyalty, strength," mused the drummer; then slowly, a hint of mirth in his voice, "and cunning. Unusual cunning, Zubran, since he has found a way to shut his ears to the sleep horn—and lies here now wide awake."

Kenton's heart stopped; began to beat furiously. How did the drummer know? Did he know? Was it only a guess? Desperately he strove against quivering nerves; forced his body to remain inert.

"What!" exclaimed the Persian, incredulously. "Awake! Gigi—you dream!"

"Nay," said Gigi quietly. "I have watched him when he saw me not. He is awake, Zubran."

Suddenly Kenton felt his paw upon his breast, pressing upon his pounding heart. The drummer chuckled; withdrew the hand.

"Also," he said, approvingly, "he has caution. A little he trusts me—but not too much. Nor does he know you well enough as yet, Zubran, to give you any trust at all. Therefore he lies quiet, saying to himself: 'Gigi cannot really know. He cannot be sure as long as I do not open my eyes.' Yes, he has caution. But see, Zubran, he cannot keep the blood from stealing up into his face, nor slow his heart to the calm rhythm of sleep." Again he chuckled, half-maliciously. "And there is other proof of his caution, in that he has not told his comrade that the horn has no power over him. Hear the long-haired one snore? No mistaking that for wakefulness. I like that too—he knows that a secret shared by two runs risk of being none."

"He seems sound asleep to me." Kenton felt the Persian bend down over him doubtfully.

His eyelids fought to rise; by sheer will he kept them down, breathing regularly, motionless. How long would they stand there looking at him? At last Gigi broke the silence.

"Zubran," he said, quietly, "like you, I tire of the black priest and this fruitless strife between Ishtar and Nergal. Yet bound by our vows neither you nor I may come to grips with Klaneth, nor may we harm his men. It matters not that by trickery those vows were gotten from us. We made them—and they bind. As long as Nergal's priest rules Nergal's deck we may not give him battle. But suppose Klaneth no longer ruled—that another hand thrust him to his dark master?"

"A mighty hand that! Where on these seas could we find such a hand? And if found, how persuade it to close on Klaneth?" jeered the Persian.

"I think—it is here." Kenton felt again the drummer's touch. "Courage and loyalty and strength, quick wit and caution. He has all these. Besides—he can pass the barrier!"

"By Ahriman! That is so!" whispered the Persian. "Now I would make another vow," said Gigi. "A vow in which you would join. If this man's chains were—broken, easily then could he pass to Sharane's cabin; easily now, I think, regain his sword."

"Well, what then?" asked Zubran. "He would still have Klaneth to meet and all his pack. And we could not help him."

"No," answered the drummer. "But neither would we hinder him. Our vows do not bind us to fight for the black priest, Zubran. Were I this man—with my chains broke—and sword regained—I would find way to release this comrade sleeping beside him. He, I think, could keep off the pack while this wolf cub, who is now no longer cub but grown, could match himself against Klaneth."

"Well—" the Persian began doubtfully; then changed to cheerfulness—"I would see him loosed, Gigi. At the least, it would give break to this cursed monotony. But you spoke of a vow."

"A vow for a vow," answered Gigi. "If broken were his chains, if he regained sword, if he met Klaneth and we fought not against him at Klaneth's side, and if he slew Klaneth, would he vow comradeship with you and me, Zubran? I wonder?"

"Why should he make that vow to us," asked Zubran, "unless—we loosed his chains?"

"Exactly," whispered Gigi. "For if he made that vow—I would loose them!"

Hope sprang flaming up in Kenton. Cold doubt followed. Was this all a trap? A trick to torment him? He would take no chance—and yet—freedom!

Gigi again bent over him.

"Trust me, Wolf," he said, low. "Vow for vow. If you accept—look at me."

The dice were offered him. Were they straight or weighted, he would cast them. Kenton opened his eyes, stared straight for an instant into the twinkling beads of jet so close. Then he closed them tight; resumed his slow breathing; his semblance of deepest slumber.

And Gigi rose from him, laughing. He heard the two move away, up the pit's steps.

Freedom again! Could it be true? And when would Gigi—were it true and no trap—when would Gigi loose his chains? Long he lay between fiery hope and chilling doubt. Could it be true?

Freedom! And—

Sharane!

CHAPTER 11. Gigi Snaps The Chains

NOT LONG did Kenton have to wait. Hardly had the next faint hum of the sleep horn died than he felt a touch on his shoulder. Longer fingers twitched his ears, raised his eyelids. He looked into the face of Gigi. Kenton pulled out the little silken cylinders that shut off the compelling slumber of the horn.

"So that is how you do it." Gigi examined them with interest. He squatted down beside him.

"Wolf," he said, "I have come to have a talk with you, so that you may know me a little better. I would continue to sit here beside you, but some of those cursed priests may come prowling around. Therefore, in a moment I shall seat myself on Zachel's stool. When I have done so, turn you around facing me, taking that highly deceptive attitude I have so often watched you assume."

He stepped up on the bench. "Zubran is with Klaneth, arguing about the gods. Zubran, although sworn to Nergal, thinks him a rather inferior copy of Ahriman, the Persian god of darkness. He is also convinced that this whole matter of warfare between Nergal and Ishtar for the ship lacks not only originality and ingenuity, but taste—something, indeed, that his own gods and goddesses would not do; or if they did, would do much better. This angers Klaneth, which greatly rejoices Zubran."

Once more he arose and looked about him.

"However," he went on, "this time he is arguing to keep Klaneth and especially Zachel away while we talk, since Klaneth leans a great deal upon Zachel in these arguments. I have told them that I cannot bear their talk and that I will watch on Zachel's seat until it is finished. And it will not be finished until I return, for Zubran is clever, oh, very clever and he expects our talk to lead, ultimately, to permanent relief of his bore—"

He glanced slyly at the ivory deck.

"So do not fear, Wolf." He swayed upon his dwarfed legs. "Only as I go, slip sideways and keep your eyes on me. I will give you warning if warning is needed."

He waddled away, climbed into the overseer's seat. Kenton, obeying him, turned sleepily; rested arm on bench and head on arm.

"Wolf," said Gigi suddenly, "is there a shrub called the chilquor in the place from whence you came?"

Kenton stared at him, struck dumb by such a question. Yet Gigi must have some reason for asking it. Had he ever heard of such a shrub? He searched his memory.

"Its leaves are about so large." Gigi parted finger-tips for inches three. "It grows only upon the edge of the desert and it is rare—sorrowfully rare. Look you—perhaps you know it by another name. Perhaps this will enlighten you. You bruise the buds just before they open. Then you mix them with sesamum oil and honey and a little burned ivory and spread it like a paste over your head. Then you rub and rub and rub—so and so and so—" he illustrated vigorously upon his bald and shining pate.

"And after a little," he said, "the hair begins to sprout; like grain under the rains of spring it grows, until soon—lo—naked dome is covered. Instead of the light flying off affrighted from shining dome it plays within new hair. And once more the man who was bald is beautiful in the eyes of woman!

"By Nadak of the Goats; by Tanith, the dispenser of delights!" cried Gigi with enthusiasm. "That paste grows hair! How it does grow hair! Upon a melon would it grow it. Yes, even those planks rightly rubbed by it would sprout hair like grass. You are sure you do not know it?"

Struggling with his amazement Kenton shook his head. "Well," said Gigi, sorrowfully. "All this the chilquor buds can do. And so I search for them—" here he sighed mightily—"who would once more be beautiful in woman's eyes."

He sighed again. Then one by one he flecked the backs of the sleeping slaves with Zachel's whip—even the back of Sigurd.

"Yes," he murmured, "yes, they sleep."

His black eyes twinkled on Kenton, the slit mouth grinned.

"You wonder," he said, "why I talk of such trivial matters as shrubs and hair and bald pates, while you lie chained. Well, Wolf, these matters are far from trivial. They brought me here. And were I not here—would you have hope of freedom, think you? Ah, no," said Gigi. "Life is a serious matter. Therefore all parts of it must be serious. And therefore no part of it can be trivial. Let us rest for a moment, Wolf, while you absorb that great truth."

Again, one by one, he flecked the backs of the sleeping slaves.

"Well, Wolf," he went on, "now I shall tell you how I came aboard this ship because of the chilquor, its effect on hair and because of my bald pate. And you shall see how your fortune rests upon them. Wolf, when I was but a child in Nineveh, girls found me singularly attractive.

"'Gigi!' they would cry as I passed by them. 'Gigi, little love, little darling! Kiss me, Gigi!'"

Gigi's voice was ludicrously languishing; Kenton laughed.

"You laugh, Wolf!" observed the drummer. "Well—that makes us understand each other better."

His eyes twinkled impishly.

"Yes," he said, "'Kiss me,' they cried. And I would kiss them, because I found them all as singularly attractive as each found me. And as I grew, this mutual attraction increased. You have no doubt noticed," said Gigi complacently, "that I am an unusual figure of a man. But as I passed from adolescence my greatest beauty was, perhaps, my hair. It was long and black and ringleted, and it fell far over my shoulders. I perfumed it and cared for it, and the tender little vessels of joy who loved me would twine their fingers in it when I lifted them upon my head or when my head was on their knees. They joyed in it even as I.

"And then I had a fever. When I recovered, all my beautiful hair was gone!"

He paused to sigh again.

"There was a woman of Nineveh who pitied me. She it was who anointed my head with the chilquor paste; told me how to make it; showed me the growing shrub. After years of—ah, mutual attraction—I had fever again. And again my hair vanished. I was in Tyre then, Wolf, and made what haste I could to return to Nineveh. When I did return, the kindly woman was dead and a sand storm had covered the spot where she had pointed out to me the chilquor shrubs!"

He sighed, prodigiously. Kenton, amused and fascinated by his tale as he was, could not forbear a suspicious glance after that melancholy exhalation. It seemed overdone.

"Then before I could search further," went on Gigi, hurriedly, "word came to me that one who loved me—a princess,—was on her way to Nineveh to see me. Shame was mine and anguish! I could not meet her with a bald pate. For no one loves a bald man!"

"Nobody loves a fat man," grinned Kenton. He had spoken, it seemed, in his own tongue for the drummer apparently had not understood.

"What did you say?" he asked.

"I said," answered Kenton, gravely, "that for one whose excellencies are as great as yours, the loss of your hair should have been of no more consequence to a woman than the falling of one feather from a pet bird."

"That is a fine tongue of yours," remarked Gigi, stolidly. "That it can say so much in so few sounds."

"Well," he continued. "I was distressed indeed. I could have hidden—but I feared my will would not be strong enough to keep me hid. She was a very lovely princess, Wolf. Besides, I knew that if she found that I was in Nineveh, as find out she surely would, she would rout me out. She was a fair woman. And this is the one difference between the fair women and the dark—that the latter wait for you to come for them, but the former search for you. And I could go to no other city to hide—for in each of them were other women who admired me. What was I to do?"

"Why didn't you get a wig?" asked Kenton, so interested now in Gigi's tale that his chains were forgotten.

"I told you, Wolf, that they loved to thread their fingers through my locks," answered Gigi, severely. "Could any wig stay in place under such treatment? Not when the women were such as loved me—No! No! I will tell you what I did. And here is where you will see how my lost hair and you are entangled. The High Priest of Nergal in Nineveh was a friend of mine. I went to him and asked him first to work a magic that would plant my head afresh with hair. He was indignant—said that his art was not to be debased for such a common purpose.

"It was then. Wolf, that I began to have my suspicions of the real power of these sorcerers. I had seen this priest perform great magic. He had raised phantoms that had raised my hair—when I had it. How much easier then ought it to have been for him to have raised my hair without the trouble of raising the phantoms too? I suggested this. He grew more indignant—said that he dealt with gods, not barbers!

"But now I know better. He could not do it! I made the best of the matter, however, and asked him to put me for a while where my princess could not find me and where, weak willed as I am, I could not go to her. He smiled, and said he knew just the place. He inducted me as an acolyte to Nergal and gave me a token that he said would insure me recognition and good will from one he named Klaneth. Also he sealed me with certain vows, not to be broken. I took them cheerfully, thinking them but temporary, and his friend Klaneth the high priest of some hidden temple where I would be safe. I went to sleep that night trustfully, happy as a child. I awakened, Wolf—here!

"It was a sorry jest," muttered Gigi, angrily. "And a sorry jest would it be for that Ninevite priest if I knew the way back to him!

"But here I have been ever since," he added, briskly. "Barred by my acolytage to Nergal from crossing to that other deck where there is a little vessel of joy named Satalu whom I would fain take within my hands. Barred by other vows from leaving the ship wherever it may touch for food and gear—since it was sanctuary I asked from which I could not go nor my princess come to me."

"By Tiamat of the Abyss—I got the sanctuary I asked!" he exclaimed, ruefully enough. "And by Bel who conquered Tiamat—I am as weary of the ship as Zubran himself. Yet were I not here," he added, as by afterthought, "who would loose you of your chains? A shrub and lack of hair, an amorous princess and my vanity—these brought me on the ship to set you free when you came. Of such threads do the gods weave our destinies."

He leaned forward, all malice gone from twinkling eyes, a grotesque tenderness on the frog-like mouth.

"I like you. Wolf," he said, simply.

"I like you, Gigi," all Kenton's defenses were down. "Greatly, indeed, do I like you. And trust fully. But—Zubran—"

"Have no doubts about Zubran," snapped Gigi. "He, too, was tricked upon this ship and is even more eager than I to be free. Some day he shall tell you his story, as I have mine. Ho! Ho!" laughed the drummer. "Ever seeking the new, ever tiring of the known is Zubran. And this is his fate—to be shot into a whole new world and find it worse than his old. Nay, Wolf, fear not Zubran. With shield and sword will he stand beside you—until he tires even of you. But even then will he be loyal."

He grew solemn, kept unwinking gaze on Kenton, searching, it seemed, his soul.

"Consider well, Wolf," he whispered. "The odds are all against you. We two may not help you as long as Klaneth is lord of his deck. It may be that you cannot free the long-haired one beside you, You have Klaneth to face and twenty of his men—and, it may be, Nergal! And if you lose—death for you—and after long, long torture. Here, chained to your oar, you are at least alive. Consider well!"

Kenton held out to him his prisoned wrists.

"When will you loose my chains, Gigi?" was all he said.

Gigi's face lighted, his black eyes blazed, he sprang upright, the golden loops in his pointed ears dancing.

"Now!" he said. "By Sin, the Father of Gods! By Shamash his Son and by Bel the Smiter—now!"

He thrust his hands between Kenton's waist and the great circlet of bronze that bound it; pulled it apart as though it had been made of putty; he broke the locks of the manacles on Kenton's wrists.

"Run free. Wolf!" he whispered. "Run free!"

With never a look behind him, he waddled to the pit's steps and up them. Slowly Kenton stood upon his feet. His chains dropped from him. He looked down at the sleeping Viking. How could he unfasten his links? How, if he could unfasten, awaken him before Zachel came hurrying down among the slaves?

Again be looked about him. At the foot of the overseer's high stool lay a shining knife, long-bladed, thin-bladed, dropped there by Gigi—for him? He did not know. But he did know that with it he might pick the Viking's locks. He took a step toward it—

How long he was in taking the second step.

And there was a mist before his eyes.

Through that mist the sleeping forms of the oarsmen wavered—were like phantoms. And now he could no longer see the knife.

He rubbed his eyes, looked down on Sigurd. He was a wraith!

He looked at the sides of the ship. They melted away even as he sought them. He had a glimpse of sparkling turquoise sea. And then—it became vaporous. Was not!

Cease to be!

And now Kenton floated for an instant in thick mist shot through with silvery light. The light snapped out. He hurtled through a black void filled with tumult of vast winds.

The blackness snapped out! Through his closed lids he saw light. And he was no longer falling. He stood, rocking, upon his feet. He opened his eyes—Once more he was within his own room! Outside hummed the traffic of the Avenue, punctuated by blasts of auto horns.

Kenton rushed over to the jeweled ship. Except for the slaves, on it was but one little figure—one toy. A manikin who stood half way down the pit steps, mouth open, whip at feet, stark astonishment in every rigid line.

Zachel, the overseer!

He looked down into the galley pit. The slaves lay asleep, oars at rest—

And suddenly he caught sight of himself in the long mirror! Stood, wondering, before it!

For what he saw was never the Kenton who had been borne out of that room upon the breast of the inrushing mystic sea. His mouth had hardened, eyes grown fearless, falcon bright. Over all his broadened chest the muscles ran not bulging, bound—but graceful, flexible, and steel hard. He flexed his arms, and the muscles ran rippling along them. He turned, scanned his back in the mirror.

Scars covered it, healed teeth marks of the lash. The lash of Zachel—Zachel—the toy?

No toy had made those scars!

No oars of toy had brought into being those muscles!

And suddenly all Kenton's mind awoke. Awoke and was filled with shame, with burning longing, despair.

What would Sigurd think of him when he awakened and found him gone—Sigurd with whom he had sworn blood brothership? What would Gigi think—Gigi, who had made vow for vow with him; and trusting him, had broken his chains?

A frenzy shook him. He must get back! Get back before Sigurd or Gigi knew that he was no longer on the ship.

How long had he been away? As though in answer a clock began chiming. He counted. Eight strokes!

Two hours of his own time had passed while he had been on the ship. Two hours only? And in those two hours all these things had happened? His body changed to—this?

But in those two minutes he had been back in his room what had happened on the ship?

He must get back! He must...

He thought of the fight before him. Could he take his automatics with him when he went back—if he could go back? With them he could match any sorceries of the black priest. But they were in another room, in another part of his house. Again he looked at himself in the glass. If his servants saw him—thus! They would not know him. How could he explain? Who would believe him?

And they might tear him away—away from this room where the ship lay. This room that held his only doorway back into Sharane's world!

He dared not risk going from that room.

Kenton threw himself upon the floor; grasped the golden chains that hung from the ship's bow—so thin they were, so small on the ship of jeweled toys!

He threw his will upon the ship! Summoning it! Commanding it!

The golden chains stirred within his grasp. They swelled. He felt a tearing wrench. Thicker grew the chains. They were lifting him. Again the dreadful wrenching, tearing at every muscle, nerve and bone.

His feet swung free.

The vast winds howled around him—for a heartbeat only. They were gone. In their place was the rushing of wind driven waves. He felt the kisses of their spray.

Beneath him was a racing azure sea. High above him curved the prow of the Ship of Ishtar. But not the ship of jeweled toys. No! The ensorcelled ship of which the toy ship was the symbol; the real ship on which blows were actual and death lurked—death that even now might be watching him, poised to strike!

The chain he clutched passed up the side of the bow and into the hawser port painted like a great eye between the bow-ward wall of the cabin and the curved prow. Behind him the great oars rose and fell. He could not be seen from them; the oarsmen's backs were toward him and the oar ports were covered with strong leather, through which the shanks slipped; shields to protect the rowers from waves dashing past those ports. Nor, under the hang of the hull as he was, could he be seen from the black deck.

Slowly, silently, hand over hand, pressing his body as close to the hull as he could, he began to creep up the chain. Up to Sharane's cabin. Up to that little window that opened into her cabin from the closed bit of deck beneath the great scimitar.

Slowly, more slowly, he crept; pausing every few links to listen; he reached at last the hawser port; he threw a leg over the bulwark, and dropped upon the little deck. He rolled beneath the window; flattened himself against the cabin wall; hidden now from every eye upon the ship; hidden even from Sharane, should she peer through that window.

Crouched there—waiting.

CHAPTER 12. Master Of The Ship:

Kenton raised his head, cautiously. The chains passed through a hawser port, wound around a crude windlass and were fastened to a thin, double hook that was more like a grappling iron than anchor. Evidently, although control of steering gear, mast and rowers' pit was in the hands of the black priest, the women of Sharane looked after anchorage. He noted, with some anxiety, a door leading out of the cabin's farther side—the portion that housed her warrior maids. But it was not likely, he thought, that any would come out as long as the ship was under sail and oar. At any rate he would have to take that risk.

Through the opened window above him he could hear the hum of voices. Then that of Sharane came to him scornful.

"He broke his chains, even as he had promised—and then fled!"

"But mistress," it was Satalu. "Where could he go? He did not come here. How do we know that Klaneth did not take him?"

"No mistaking Klaneth's wrath," answered Sharane. "No mistaking the scourging he gave Zachel. Both were real, Satalu."

So the black priest had scourged Zachel had he, well, that, at any rate, was good news.

"Nay, Satalu," said Sharane, "why argue? He had grown strong. He broke his chains. He fled. And so proved himself the coward I called him—and never believed he was—till now!"

There was silence in the cabin. Then Sharane spoke again.

"I am weary, Luarda—watch outside the door. You others to your cabin to sleep—or what you will. Satalu, brush my hair a little and then leave me."

Another silence; a longer one. Then Satalu's voice:

"Mistress, you are half asleep. I go."

Kenton waited—but not long. The sill of the window was about as high above the anchor deck as his chin. He raised himself gently; peered within. His gaze rested first on the shrine of the luminous gems, the pearls and pale moonstones, the milky curdled crystals. He had the feeling that it was empty, tenantless. There were no flames in the seven little crystal basins.

He looked down. The head of the wide divan of ivory with its golden arabesques was almost beneath him. Upon it lay Sharane, face down upon its cushions, clothed only in one thin silken veil and the floods of her red gold hair, and weeping; weeping like any woman with bruised heart.

Weeping for—him?

A gleam of sapphire, a glint of steel caught his eyes. It was his sword—the sword of Nabu. The sword he had vowed he would not take from her hands—would take, unaided, with his own. It hung upon a low rack on the wall just above her head; so close that she need but reach up a hand to grasp it.

He drew back, waited impatiently for her weeping to cease. Love for her—or lust—he had in full. But search his heart now as he might—no pity.

And soon her sobbing lessened; died away. And after another while of waiting he slowly thrust his head again through the window. She lay asleep, face turned toward the cabin door, tears still on the long lashes—breast rising and falling softly in the measured respiration of slumber.

Kenton gripped the sill, drew himself softly up until shoulders and breast were within. Then he bent over until his waist rested on the ledge. Now his hands touched the softnesses of one of the rugs upon the floor. He slid down, gripping the sill with his insteps. Slowly, like a tumbler, he brought his legs down; lay prone, full length, at the head of Sharane's bed.

Again he waited. Her measured breathing did not change. He drew himself up on his feet. He slipped to the door that lay between this cabin and that of the warrior maids. There was a low murmuring of voices there. He saw a bar that, lowered, slipped into a metal clutch on the other side, securing it. Noiselessly he dropped it, fastened it. Those cats were caged, he thought, grinning.

He glanced over the cabin. Upon a low stool lay a small piece of silk; over a settle a long one, scarf-like. He picked up the small piece and rolled it deftly into a serviceable gag. He took the long piece and tested it. It was heavy and strong, just what he needed, he reflected —but not enough. He slipped to a wall, unhooked a similar hanging.

He tiptoed over to Sharane's bed. She stirred, uneasily, as though she felt his eyes on her; as though she were awakening.

Before she could raise her lids Kenton had opened her mouth and thrust the silken gag within. Then throwing himself over her, holding her down by sheer weight, he jerked up her head, wound the scarf tightly around her mouth, tied it. As swiftly he raised her from the hips and wound the balance of the scarf around her arms, pinioning them to her sides.

Eyes blazing with wrathful recognition, she tried to roll from beneath him, struck up at him with her knees. He shifted his weight, lay across her thighs, bound knees and ankles with the second scarf that he had torn from the wall.

Now she lay motionless, glaring at him. He sent her a kiss, mockingly. She tried to throw herself upon the floor. Noiselessly still, he took other hangings, wrapped her round and round with them. And finally he passed a pair of heavy cords under and over the bed; bound her fast with them to the divan.

Heedless of her now, he walked to the outer door. In some way he must get the handmaiden she called Luarda within the cabin, make her as helpless as her mistress—and as silent. He opened the door the merest slit, peered through it. Luarda sat close beside it, back turned to him, gaze upon the black deck.

He stole away, found another small piece of silk; snatched from the wall another hanging. The small piece he fashioned into another gag. Then he opened the door as before, placed his lips to the crack, pitched his voice high and softly; as femininely as he could, called to her:

"Luarda! The mistress wants you! Quick!" She leaped to her feet. He shrank back, pressing himself against the wall close beside the door frame. Unsuspiciously, she opened the door; stepped within it, and paused for an instant, open-mouthed, at the sight of Sharane, bound and helpless.

That instant was all Kenton needed. One arm was around her neck, throttling her. With his free hand he thrust the gag into her mouth; in the same moment closed the door with his foot. The girl in his arms wriggled like a snake. He managed to keep her mouth closed until he had wound the hanging around jaws and throat. Her hands swept up, clawing him; she strove to wind her legs around his. He drew the silk tighter around her neck, strangling her. When her struggles grew feeble, he bound her arms to her side. He laid her on the floor, and pinioned, as he had Sharane's, her ankles and knees.

Helpless as her mistress now she lay. He picked her up; carried her over to the divan; rolled her under it.

Not till then did he reach up and take down his sword. He stood before Sharane.

There was no fear in the burning eyes that stared up at him. Rage enough and to spare was there—but no fear.

And Kenton laughed low, bent over her, and pressed his lips to her own gagged and bound ones. He kissed each wrathful eye.

"And now, Sharane," he laughed. "I go to take the ship—without your help! And when I have taken it, I'll come back and take—you!"

He walked to the door, opened it softly, swept gaze over the ship.

Upon the black deck squatted Gigi, forehead resting on the edge of the serpent drum, long arms trailing disconsolately down its sides. There was a forlornness about the drummer that made Kenton want to cry out to him. It was an impulse to which the sight of Zachel's head put speedy check. He could see just the top of it over the low rail between Sharane's deck and the rowers' pit.

He crouched low, until the head was out of sight—knowing that in that position Zachel could not see him. He knotted the sword in his girdle. On hands and knees he crept out of the cabin door. He saw that there was a window in the place where Sharane's women slept. But there was no outward door. They must pass through her cabin to gain the deck. If they suspected something amiss with their mistress, found the door barred, undoubtedly they would come through that window. Well—he would have to take his chances on that; only hope that he could get most of the work ahead of him done before they were aroused.

And if he could surprise Klaneth in his den, strike swiftly and silently—then he and the Viking could make short work of the rest, and the women could do what they pleased. They could neither help nor hinder. It would be too late.

He flattened himself to the deck; wriggled beneath the window; listened. There was no sound of voices now. Slowly raising himself he saw that from this point the overseer was hidden from him by the mast. Keeping a cautious eye on the disconsolate Gigi. he stood up and peered within the second cabin. There were eight girls there asleep; some pillowed on each other's breasts, some curled up on the silken cushions. He reached in, closed the window noiselessly.

Again he lay flat and squirmed along the side of the cabin to the starboard rail. He slipped over it. He hung for a moment, fingers gripping the top, feet feeling for the chain that stretched below. He swung along it. When he came to its end, he raised himself, caught the rail again and swung along that, swiftly hand over hand.

Now the mast was directly in front of him; he had reached the spot from which he planned to strike his first blow. He chinned himself, and streamed over the rail like a snake; lay flat against the bulwarks until breath came once more easily.

He was in plain sight of Gigi—and as he lay there Gigi's head came up with a jerk from his drum, his eyes stared straight into Kenton's own. The ugly face broke into a thousand wrinkles of amazement; then instantly became indifferent, immobile. He yawned, got upon his feet; then, hand over eyes, peered intently over the port side as though he had sighted something far away upon the sea.

"By Nergal, but Klaneth must know of this!" he said.

He waddled over to the black cabin.

Kenton wriggled to the edge of the pit. He had glimpse of Zachel standing upon his platform stool, peering, searching for whatever it was that seemingly had so aroused the drummer's interest.

Kenton dropped into the pit. One leap he took and was beside the mast. The overseer turned sharply. He opened mouth to yell and swept hand down to belt where his poniard was sheltered.

The sword of Kenton hissed through air and through his neck.

The sheared head of Zachel leaped from his shoulders, mouth stretched open, eyes glaring. For three heartbeats the body of Zachel stood upright, blood spouting from the severed arteries, hand still gripping at the dagger.

The body of Zachel squattered.

The sleep horn fell from his girdle. Kenton snatched at it. The knees of Zachel's body crumpled down on it; crushed it.

From the benches of the oarsmen came no sound, no outcry; they sat, mouths agape, blades idle.

He groped in Zachel's belt for the overseer's keys, the keys that would free Sigurd. He found them, snatched them loose, tore the dagger from Zachel's stiffening fingers and raced down the narrow passage way to the Viking.

"Brother! I thought you gone! Sigurd forgotten..." the Norseman babbled. "By Odin what a blow! The dog's head leaped from his shoulders as though Thor had smitten him with his hammer..."

"Quiet, Sigurd! Quiet!" Kenton was working with desperate haste among the keys, trying to find that which would fit the Viking's fetters. "We must fight for the ship...stand together, you and I...Hell, damn these keys...which is the right one! If we can reach Klaneth's den before alarm is raised stand you between me and his priests. Leave Klaneth to me. Touch not Gigi nor Zubran the red beard. They cannot help us but they have given vow not to fight against us...remember, Sigurd...ah..."

The manacles at Sigurd's wrists clicked and opened; the lock on the metal belt flew open. Sigurd shook his hands free of the chains, reached down and wrenched the cincture from his waist. He stood upright, flaxen mane streaming in the wind.

"Free!" he howled. "Free!"

"Close your jaws!" Kenton thrust his hands against the shouting mouth. "Do you want the pack down on us before we have chance to move!"

He pressed Zachel's dagger into the Viking's hand.

"Use that," he said, "until you have won a better weapon."

"That! Ho-ho!" laughed Sigurd. "A woman's toy! Nay, Kenton—Sigurd can do better than that!"

He dropped the dagger. He gripped the great oar; lifted it out of the thole pins. He bent forward sharply, bringing its shaft against the side of the port there was a sharp crackling, a rending of wood. He drew back, bringing the oar against the opposite side of the port. There was another crackling, and Sigurd drew the oar in, broken squarely in the middle, a gigantic club all of ten feet long. He gripped it by the splintered end, whirled it round his head, the chains and the dangling manacles spinning like battle mace.

"Come!" barked Kenton, and stooped to pick up the dagger.

Now from all the pit came clamor; the slaves straining at their bonds and crying to be freed.

And from Sharane's deck came the shrilling of women. Out of the window poured her warrior maids.

No chance now to surprise the black priest. No chance but in battle—fang and claw. His sword and the club of Sigurd against Klaneth and his pack.

"Quick, Sigurd!" he shouted. "To the deck!"

"I first," grunted Sigurd. "Shield to you!"

He pushed Kenton aside, rushed past him. Before he could reach the foot of the stairway its top was filled with priests, white-faced, snarling, swords in their hands, and short stabbing spears.

Kenton's foot fell on something that rolled away-from beneath it, sending him to his knees. He looked down into the grinning face of Zachel. His severed head it was that had tripped him. He lifted it by the hair, swung it round and hurled it straight at the face of the foremost priest at the stairway top. It caught the priest a glancing blow, fell among the others; rolled and bounced away.

They shrank back from it. Before they could muster again the Viking was up the steps and charging them, oar club flinging like a flail. And at his heels came Kenton, making for the black cabin's door.

There were eight of the black robes facing them. The Norseman's oar struck, shattering the skull of one like an egg shell. Before he could raise it again two of the priests had darted in upon him, stabbing, thrusting with their spears. Kenton's sword swept down, bit deep into the bone of an arm whose point was touching Sigurd's breast. With quick upward thrust he ripped that priest from navel to chin. The Viking dropped one hand from the oar, caught the half of the second spear, twisted it out of the black robe's grip and ran it through his heart. Down went another under bite of Kenton's blade.

Other priests came streaming from every passageway and corner of the black deck, armed with swords and spears and bearing shields. Out they streamed, screaming. And out of the black cabin rushed Klaneth, roaring, a great sword in hand. Behind him were Gigi and the Persian. The black priest came straight on, charging like a bull through the half ring of his servitors. But Gigi and the Persian slipped over to the serpent drum, stood there watching.

For an instant the black priest stood towering over Kenton. Then he struck downward, a lightning blow designed to cleave Kenton from shoulder to hip.

But Kenton was not there when the blow fell. Swifter than the sword of Klaneth he had leaped aside, thrust out his own blade—

Felt it bite deep into the black priest's side! The black priest howled and fell back. Instantly his acolytes streamed in between him and the besieged pair. They circled them.

"Back to back," shouted the Viking. Kenton heard the great club hum, saw three of the black robes mowed down by it as by giant flail. With sweep and thrust he cleared away the priests ravening at him.

Now the fighting had carried them close to the drum. He saw the Persian, scimitar unsheathed and held by rigid arm. And he was cursing, sobbing, quivering like a hound held in leash and held back from his quarry. Gigi, froth upon the corners of wide-open mouth, face contorted, stood with long arms outstretched, hands trembling, shaking with that same eagerness.

Desire, Kenton knew, to join with him and Sigurd in that battle; both held back by vows not to be broken.

Gigi pointed downward. Kenton followed the gesture, saw a priest crawling, sword in hand, and almost within reach of the Viking's feet. One sweep of the sword against Sigurd's legs and he was done for; hamstrung. Forgetting his own defense, Kenton leaned forward, cut downward. The head of the creeping priest jumped from his shoulders, rolled away.

But as he straightened he saw Klaneth again above him, poised to strike!

"The end!" thought Kenton. He dropped flat, rolled away from the falling edge.

He had not counted on the Viking. Sigurd had seen that swift by-play. He swept his oar, held horizontally, in a gigantic punch. It crashed into Klaneth's chest.

The sword stroke fell short, the black priest was hurled backward, half falling for all his strength and massive bulk.

"Gigi! Zubran! To me!" he howled. Before Kenton could rise, two priests were on him, clawing him, stabbing at him. He released his grip on his sword; drew the poniard of Zachel. He thrust upward; felt a body upon him stiffen, then collapse like a pricked balloon, felt too, the edge of a sword slice into his shoulder. He struck again, blindly; was drenched with sudden flood of blood. He heard a bubbling whispering and the second weight was gone.

He gripped his sword, staggered upright. Of all Klaneth's pack not more than half a dozen were on their feet. They had drawn back, out of reach of the Viking's club. Sigurd stood, drawing in great breaths. And the black priest was gasping too, holding his broad chest where the oar of Sigurd had struck. At his feet was a little pool of blood, dripping from where the sword of Nabu had pierced him. "Gigi! Zubran!" he panted. "Take these dogs!"

The drummer leered at him. "Nay, Klaneth," he answered. "There was no vow to aid you."

He bent over the tall drum, with heave of broad shoulders he hurled it over the side.

From the priests arose a groan. Klaneth stood, silent, struck dumb.

There came from the waves touching the ship a sound—sonorous and sinister.

A thunderous drumming, menacing, malignant—summoning! Br-oom-rr-oom-oom!

The serpent drum swinging against the side of the ship! Lifted by the waves and by their arms beaten against the ship!

The Summoner of Nergal!

The ship trembled. A shadow fell upon the sea. Around Klaneth a darkness began to gather.

More angrily thundered the wave-beaten drum. The mists about the black priest thickened, writhed; beginning that hellish transmutation of Nergal's priest into the dread self of the Lord of the Dead.

"Strike!" howled Gigi. "Quick! Bite deep!"

He ran to the rail; dropped over it.

Kenton rushed straight upon that cloudy horror within which the black priest moved. His sword swept into it; struck. He heard a shriek, agonized, unbelieving. The voice of Klaneth. He struck again.

And striking realized that the drumming had ceased, that the voice of the drum was stilled. He heard Gigi's shout:

"Bite again. Wolf! Bite deep!"

The dark mist around Klaneth cleared. He stood there, dead eyes closed, hand holding an arm from which dark blood welled through clasping fingers.

And as Kenton raised his sword to strike again the black priest dashed into his eyes the blood from the hand that had held the wounded arm. Blinded, Kenton held his sword at mid-stroke. The black priest rushed upon him. Mechanically, through dimmed sight, he thrust out his blade to meet that rush; saw Sigurd driving down upon the remaining priests; heard the crack of bone as red stained oar met their bodies.

His sword struck against Klaneth's, and was beaten down.

Kenton's foot slipped on a gout of blood. He fell. The black priest crashed on him; his arms encircled him. Over and over they rolled. He saw Sigurd, whimpering with eagerness, striving to strike...

Suddenly Klaneth rolled over, Kenton on top of him; his grip relaxed; he grew limp; lay inert.

Kenton knelt upon him; looked up at the Norseman.

"Not yours," he gasped. "Mine!"

He sought for the dagger at his belt. The body of the black priest stiffened. Then, like a released spring, he leaped upon his feet, throwing Kenton away.

Before the Viking could raise his club Klaneth was at the rail.

He hurled himself over it into the sea!

A hundred feet away, the serpent drum floated, its top slit across by Gigi's knife. The head of Klaneth arose beside it, his hands gripped it. Under the touch the huge cylinder dipped to him with grotesque genuflection. From it came a dismal sound, like a lament.

Out of the silver haze a shadow moved. It darkened over black priest and drum. It shrouded them and withdrew. Where it had been was neither black priest nor Summoner! Man and drum—both had gone!

CHAPTER 13. Master Of—Sharane!

Battle fury still in his veins, Kenton looked about him. The black deck was strewn with Klaneth's men; men crushed and broken under Sigurd's mace; men from whom his own sword had let out the life; men in twisted heaps; men—but not many—who still writhed and groaned. He turned to Sharane's deck. Her women, white-faced, clustered at the cabin door.

And on the very verge of the barrier between the two decks stood Sharane. Proudly she faced him, but with misty eyes on whose long lashes tears still trembled. Diadem of shining crescent was gone; gone too that aura of the goddess which even when Ishtar was afar lingered like a splendor around this, her living shrine.

She was but a woman. Nay—only a girl! A girl all human, exquisite—

He was lifted high on the shoulders of Gigi and the Persian.

"Hail!" cried Gigi. "Hail! Master of the ship!"

"Master of the ship!" shouted the Persian.

Master of the ship! "Put me down," he ordered. And when they had set him on his feet he strode from Klaneth's deck to Sharane's.

He stood over her.

"Master of the ship!" he laughed. "And master of—you! Sharane!" He gripped her slender wrists, drew her to him.

There was a cry from Gigi, a groan echoed by the Persian. Sharane's face paled...

Out of the black cabin strode Sigurd, and in his arms was that dark statue of cloudy evil that had stood in Klaneth's shrine.

"Stop!" cried Gigi, and sprang. Before the Ninevite could reach him Sigurd had lifted the idol and cast it over into the waves.

"The last devil gone!" he shouted. The ship trembled—trembled as though far beneath its keel a hand had risen and was shaking it. It stopped. Around it the waters darkened. Deep, deep down in those darkened waters began to glow a scarlet cloud. Deep, deep beneath them the cloud moved and widened as widens the thunderhead. It vortexed into a crimson storm cloud blotted with blacknesses. It floated up; ever growing, its scarlets deepening ever more angrily, its blacks shading ever more menacingly'

The lifting cloud swirled; from it shot out strangely ordered rays, horizontal, fan-shaped. From those slant planed luminescences now whirling like a tremendous wheel in the abyss, immense bubbles, black and crimson, began to break. They arose, growing swiftly in girth as they neared the surface.

Within them Kenton glimpsed figures, misty figures; bodies of crouching men clad in armor that glimmered jet and scarlet.

Men within the bubbles!

Armored men! Men who crouched with heads on knees, clothed all in glittering scales. Warriors in whose hands were misty swords, misty bows, misty javelins.

Up rushed the bubble hosts, myriad after myriad. Now they were close to sea surface. Now they broke through.

The bubbles burst!

Out of their shattered sides the warriors sprang. All in their checkered mail, pallid-faced, pupilless eyes half closed and dead, they leaped out upon the darkened blue of the sea. From crest to crest of waves they vaulted. They ran over the waters as though over a field of withered violets. Silently they poured down upon the ship!

"Men of Nergal!" wailed Sharane. "Warriors of the Black One! Ishtar! Ishtar—help us!"

"Phantoms!" cried Kenton, and held high his blood-stained sword. Phantoms!"

And he knew in his soul that whatever they were—phantoms they were not!

The front rank poised themselves upon the tip of a curling wave as though upon a long land barrow. They thrust down bows no longer misty. To their cheeks they drew the tips of long arrows. Came a twang of strings, a pattering as of hail against the sides of the ship. A dozen shafts quivered along the side of the mast; one fell at his feet—serpent scaled, black and crimson, its head buried deep within the deck.

"Ishtar! Mother Ishtar! Deliver us from Nergal!" wailed Sharane.

As though in answer the ship leaped as if another hand had thrown it forward.

From the hosts still breaking through the bubbles arose a shouting. They raced after the flying ship. Another rain of arrows fell upon it.

"Ishtar! Mother Ishtar!" sobbed Sharane. The hovering darkness split. For an instant out of it peered an immense orb circled with garlands of little moons. From it poured silver fire; living, throbbing, jubilant. The pulsing flood struck the sea and melted through it. The shadows closed; the orb was gone.

The moon flames it had poured dropped down and down. Up to meet them sparkled other great bubbles all rosy, pearl and silver, shimmering with glints and glimmerings of tenderest nacre, gleamings of mother-of-pearl, cream of roses.

In each of them Kenton sensed a form, a body—wondrous, delicate and delicious; a woman's body from whose beauty the shining sides of the bubbles drew their glory!

Women within the bubbles! Up rushed the spheres of glamour; they touched the surface of the wan sea. They opened.

Out of them flowed hosts of women. Naked, save for tresses black as midnight, silvery as the moon, golden as the wheat and poppy red, they stepped from the shimmering pyxes that had borne them upward.

They lifted white arms and brown arms, arms shell pink and arms pale amber, beckoning to the rushing, sea-born men-at-arms. Their eyes gleamed like little lakes of jewels—sapphires blue, black and pale sapphires, velvet jet, sun stone yellow, witched amber; eyes gray as sword blades beneath winter moons.

Round hipped and slender hipped, high-breasted and virginal, they swayed upon their wave crests, beckoning, calling to Nergal's warriors.

At their calling—dove sweet, gull plaintive, hawk eager, sweet and poignant—the scaled hosts wavered; halted. The bows that had been drawn dropped; swords splashed; javelins twirled through the deeps. Within their dead eyes a flame sprang.

The warriors shouted. They leaped forward...to the women...

Wave crests on which mailed men raced met crests on which the wondrous women poised. Into the mailed arms the women were swept. For a breath, tresses brown and black, silver as the moon and golden as the wheat, swirled round mail ebon and scarlet.

Then warriors and women melted into the form behind the racing ship; became one with the jeweled and sparkling wake of it; a wake that rolled and sighed as though it were the soul of amorous seas.

"Ishtar! Mother Beloved!" prayed the Lady Sharane. "To Ishtar—homage!"

"To Ishtar—homage!" echoed Kenton, and bent his knee. Rising, he caught her to him.

"Sharane!" he breathed. Her soft arms wreathed his neck. "My lord—I pray you forgiveness," she sighed. "I pray you forgiveness! Yet how could I have known—when first you lay upon the deck and seemed afraid and fled? I loved you! Yet how could I have known how mighty a lord you are?"

Her fragrance shook him; the softness of her against his breath closed his throat.

"Sharane!" he murmured. "Sharane!"

His lips sought hers and clung; mad wine of life raced through his veins; in the sweet fire of her mouth memory of all save this moment was burned away.

"I—give myself—to you!" she sighed.

He remembered...

"You give nothing, Sharane," he answered her. "I—take!" He lifted her in his arms; he strode through the rosy cabin's door; shut it with thrust of foot and hurled down its bar.

Sigurd, Trygg's son, came and sat at the threshold of the rosy cabin. He polished the black priest's sword, chanting low some ancient bridal lay.

Upon the black deck Gigi and Zubran moved, casting the bodies of the slain into the sea; ending the pain of those not yet dead; casting them then after the others.

One dove and then another fluttered down from the balcony of the little blossoming trees. The Viking watched them, still chanting. Quick after the first dropped others, twain upon twain. They cooed and bent inquisitive heads; they billed and murmured. They formed a half ring before the cabin's closed door.

The white-breasted doves—red-beaked, vermilion-footed; the murmuring, the wooing, the caressing doves—they set their snowy seal upon the way to Kenton and Sharane.

The doves of Ishtar wedded them!

PART III—The Black Priest Strikes

CHAPTER 14.

"Dear lord of mine—Kenton" whispered Sharane. "I think that even you do not know how greatly I love you!" They sat within the rosy cabin, her head upon his breast. It was a new Kenton who looked down upon the lovely face upturned to his. All that had been modern had fallen from him. He had gained in height, and brown as his face was the broad chest bared by open tunic. His blue eyes were clear and fearless, filled with a laughing recklessness; touched, too, with half fierce ruthlessness. Above the elbow of his left arm was a wide bracelet of thin gold, graven with symbols Sharane had cut there. Upon his feet were sandals that Sharane had embellished with woven Babylonian charms—to keep his feet upon a path of love that led to her and her alone.

How long had it been since that battle with the black priest, he wondered, as he drew her closer to him. Eternities it seemed—and but yesterday! How long?

He could not know—in that timeless world where eternities and yesterdays were as one.

And whether yester-moment or eternities ago, he had ceased to care!

On and on they had sailed. And ever as they slipped through the azure seas, memory of that other life of his had dwindled and sunk beneath the horizon of consciousness, as the land sinks behind the watcher on an outward bound ship. He thought of it, when at all, with a numbing fear that he might be thrust back into it again—that old life of his.

Away from the ship! Away from Sharane—never to return!

On and on they had sailed. The black cabin, swept clean of evil, housed now the Viking, Gigi and the Persian. Sigurd or Gigi handled the two great oars that, fastened to each side of the stern, steered the ship. Sometimes, in fair weather, maids of Sharane took their place at the rudder bars. The Viking had found an anvil in the hold under the black cabin; had made a forge and on it hammered out swords. One he had made for Gigi, full nine feet long, that the dwarf-legged giant handled like a wand. Better, though, Gigi liked the mace that Sigurd had also made for him—long as the sword, with huge bronze ball studded with nails at its end. Zubran clung to his scimitar. But the Viking labored at his forge, beating out lighter brands for Sharane's warrior maids. He made them shields and taught them to use both sword and shield as they had been used on his dragons in the old Viking days.

Part fruit of that instruction, sword play with Sigurd, wrestling with Gigi, fencing with his own blade against the scimitar of Zubran, was Kenton now.

All this Gigi had encouraged.

"No safety while Klaneth lives!" he would croak. "Make the ship strong."

"We have done with Klaneth!" Kenton had said, a little boastfully.

"Not so," Gigi had answered. "He will come with many men. Sooner or later the black priest will come."

There had been recent confirmation of this. Soon after his battle Kenton had taken one of the blacks, a Nubian, and set him in Zachel's seat. But this had made them short one slave at the oars. They had met a ship, hailed it, and demanded an oarsman. Its captain had given them one—fearfully, quickly, and had sped away.

"He did not know that Klaneth was no longer here," chuckled Gigi.

But not long after this they had met another ship. Its captain would not halt when hailed and they had been forced to pursue and to fight. It was a small vessel, easily overhauled and easily captured. And that same captain had told them, sullenly, that Klaneth was at Emakhtila, High Priest of a temple of Nergal there, and one of the council of the House of Nergal in the temple of the Seven Zones. And more, the black priest was high in favor with one he called the Lord of the Two Deaths—the ruler, so they gathered, of Emakhtila.

Klaneth, said the captain, had sent forth word that the Ship of Ishtar was no longer to be feared, that it now held neither Nergal nor Ishtar but only men and women. It was to be sunk when met, but its men and women were to be saved. For them he offered a reward.

"And had my boat been but a little bigger and my men more, I would have claimed that reward," he had ended, bluntly.

They took what they wanted from him and let him go. But as the ship drew away, he shouted to them to take what joy of life they could at once, since Klaneth on a great ship and with many men was searching for them and their shift was apt to be short!

"Ho-ho!" grunted Gigi, and—"Oh-ho! Klaneth searches for us, does he? Well, I warned you he would, Wolf. What now?"

"Make for one of the isles, pick our vantage ground and let him come," answered Kenton. "We can build a fort, raise defenses. Better chance we would have against him than on the ship—if it be true that he pursues us in a great vessel with many soldiers."

They had found Kenton's word good, and they were sailing toward such an isle, Sigurd at the helm, Gigi and the Persian and the women of Sharane on watch, alert.

"Yea—dear lord of me—even you do not know how greatly I love you," whispered Sharane again, eyes worshipping, arms fettering his neck. His lips clung to hers. Even in the sweet fire of their touch he marvelled, blind to his own renaissance, at this changed Sharane—Love's changeling since that time he had carried her within her bower, disdaining her as gift, taking her by right of his two strong arms.

Swift memories shook him; of Sharane—conquered; of some unearthly wonder that had flamed over the shrine and with fingers of pure fire had woven his soul with hers in threads of flaming ecstasies!

"Tell me, lord of me—how much you love me," she murmured, languorously.

There came a shout from Sigurd:

"Waken the slaves! Drop oars! Storm comes!" Imperceptibly, the cabin had darkened. He heard the shrilling of the overseer's whistle, a shouting and patter of feet. He unclasped Sharane's arms; gave her one kiss that answered her questioning better than words; passed out upon the deck.

Swiftly the sky blackened. There was a splintering flash of the prismatic lightning, a clashing of cymbaled thunder. A wind arose and roared. Down came the sail. Before the blast, held steady by the hands of Sigurd, the ship flew.

Then fell the rain. Through it scudded the ship, hemmed in by blacknesses which when the lightnings fell were threaded by myriads of multi-colored serpents of glass from sky to sea.

A tremendous gust of wind swept down upon the ship, careening her far over. It buffeted at Sharane's door; tore it open. Kenton staggered over to Gigi, shouted to the women to leave their watch, go inside. He watched them stumble in.

"Zubran and I will watch," he cried in Gigi's ear. "Go you and help Sigurd at the helm."

But Gigi had not gone a yard before the wind died as quickly as it had risen.

"To the right!" he heard Sigurd shout. "Look to the right!"

To the starboard rail the three ran. Within the darkness was a broad faint disk of luminescence, like a far away searchlight in a fog. Rapidly its diameter decreased, growing ever brighter as its size diminished,

The disk burst out of the mists; it became a blazing beam that shot over the rushing waves and glared upon the ship. Kenton glimpsed double banks of oars that drove a huge bulk down upon them with prodigious speed. Beneath the light was a gleaming ram, lance tipped. It jutted out from the prow like the horn on a charging rhinoceros.

"Klaneth!" roared Gigi, and ran shouting to the black cabin, Zubran at his heels.

"Sharane!" shouted Kenton, and raced to her door. The ship veered abruptly, careening until the sea poured over the port rail. Kenton's feet flew from under him; he rolled head over heels to the bulwarks; struck and lay for an instant stunned.

Sigurd's manoeuvre could not save the ship. The bireme had changed course, swept down parallel with it to shear off its starboard bank of oars. The Viking had thought to escape the impact. But the attacking vessel's oarsmen were too many, its speed too great for the ship of Ishtar's single banks of seven. Down dipped the bireme's sweeps, checking its rush. It swung broadside on straight against the ship, crushing the starboard oars, like sticks!

Kenton reeled to his feet; saw Gigi leaping down to him, battle mace in hand; beside him Zubran, scimitar gleaming. And close behind them, the useless tiller abandoned, was Sigurd the Viking, shields under arm, his great sword held high.

They were beside him. His giddiness was gone. The Viking thrust him a shield. He drew his own sword.

"To Sharane!" he gasped. Forward they ran.

Before they could reach her door, defend it, a score of soldiers, chain mailed and armed with short swords, had poured down the side of the bireme and closed the way to the cabin. And behind them poured other scores.

Out whirled Gigi's giant mace, striking them down. Blue blade of Nabu, scimitar of Zubran, brand of Sigurd rose and fell, struck and thrust. In a breath were dripping red!

Yet not a step could they advance! For every soldier they slew, another took his place. And still the bireme rained men.

An arrow whistled, stood quivering in Sigurd's shield. Another flew and hung from Zubran's shoulder.

Came the bellowing of Klaneth: "No arrows! Take the black-haired dog and yellow-hair alive! Slay the others—if you must—with swords!"

Now the fighting men from the bireme were all around them. Back to back in hollow square the four fought, Upon the deck the mail clad men fell. Steadily growing mounds of dead around them, they fought on. There was a sword gash across Gigi's hairy chest from which blood ran in little trickling streams. Sigurd was bleeding from a dozen cuts. But Zubran, save for the arrow wound, was untouched. He fought silently, but Sigurd chanted and howled as he struck and Gigi laughed as his giant mace crushed bone and sinew.

Yet still the barrier of the black priest's men held fast between them and Sharane!

What of Sharane! Kenton's heart sank. He cast a swift glance up at the balcony. She stood there with three of her warrior maids, swords in hands, battling against soldiers who crept two by two down a narrow bridge of planks that had been dropped from the bireme's deck.

But that glance had been no wise one. A sword bit into his unguarded side, paralyzing him. He would have fallen but for the Viking's hand.

"Steady, blood-brother!" he heard him say. "My shield is before you. Take breath!"

There came a triumphant shouting from the ship of Klaneth. Out from its deck two long poles had been thrust. There had been a tugging of ropes and from their ends a net had fallen—squarely over Sharane and her three women!

They were struggling to cut the meshes. They bound them, fettered them. The women beat against those meshes as helplessly as butterflies.

And suddenly the net tightened, was drawn together by cords. Slowly the poles began to lift carrying the net's burden upward to the deck of the attacking ship!

"Ho! Sharane!" mocked Klaneth, "Ho! Vessel of Ishtar! Welcome to my ship!"

"Christ!" groaned Kenton. Strength renewed by his fury and despair, he charged. Before his onslaught the warriors gave way. Again he rushed. Something whirled through, struck him upon the temple. He fell. The men of Klaneth swarmed upon him, clutching at his hands, his feet, smothering him.

They were hurled from him. The dwarf legs of Gigi were astride of him, his mace whistling, men dropping under its stroke. Dizzily he raised his head; saw Sigurd guarding him at right, Zubran at left and rear.

He looked upward. The net that held the struggling women was being dropped upon the bireme's deck.

Again he heard the bellow of Klaneth:

"Welcome, sweet Sharane! Welcome!"

He staggered up, broke from the Viking's grip, staggered forward—toward her.

"Seize him!" came the howl of the black priest. "His weight in gold to the men who bring him to me—alive!"

And now there was a ring of Klaneth's men around him, sweeping him away. Between him and the three who had fought beside him eddied another stream of warriors, falling smitten by mace and sword and scimitar—but their places taken by others; others wedging in, widening steadily the distance between Kenton and his comrades.

He ceased to struggle. After all—this was what he wanted! This was best. They could take him—he would be with Sharane!

"Hold him up!" roared Klaneth. "Let the slut of Ishtar see him!"

He was lifted high in the hands of his captors. He heard a wail from Sharane...

A dizziness seized him! It was as though he had been caught in some vortex and was being sucked away—away!

He had a vision of Sigurd, the Persian and Gigi staring at him, their faces incredulous bloody masks. And they had stopped fighting. There were other faces, scores of them, staring at him with that same incredulity—though now, it seemed, shaded with terror.

Now they were all staring at him as though over the edge of a prodigious funnel through which he had begun to drop!

And now clutching hands had melted away from him! The faces were gone.

"Gigi!" he called. "Sigurd! Zubran! Help me!"

He heard the howling of winds!

They changed into a trumpet note. The trumpeting changed. It became some familiar sound—some sound known in another life of his, ages and ages gone! What was it? Louder it grew, rasping, peremptory—

The shriek of an auto horn!

Shuddering, he opened his eyes.

He looked upon his own room!

There lay the shining jeweled ship—the ship of toys!

And there was a knocking at the door, agitated, frantic; the murmuring of frightened voices.

Then the voice of Jevins, faltering, panic stricken: "Mr. John! Mr. John!"

CHAPTER 15. Down The Rope Of Sound

KENTON fought back his faintness; reached out a trembling hand, and snapped on the electrics. "Mr. John! Mr. John!"

The old servant's voice was sharp with terror; he rattled the door knob; beat against the panels.

Kenton steadied himself against the table; forced himself to speak.

"Why—Jevins—" he strove to lighten the dragging words, inject some naturalness into them—"What's the matter?"

He heard a little gasp of relief, another murmuring from the servants and then Jevins spoke again.

"I was passing and heard you cry out, sir. A dreadful cry! Are you ill?"

Desperately Kenton strove against the racking weakness; managed a laugh.

"Why, no—I fell asleep. Had a nightmare. Don't worry! Go to bed."

"Oh—it was that?"

The relief in Jevins' voice was greater, but the doubt was not altogether gone. He did not withdraw; stood there hesitating.

There was a mist before Kenton's eyes, a thin veil of crimson. His knees bent suddenly; barely he saved himself from falling. He stumbled to the couch and sank upon it. A panic impulse urged him to cry out to Jevins to bring help—to break down the door. Fast upon it came warning that he must not do this; that he must fight his battle out alone—if he were to tread the ship's deck again!

"Go, Jevins!" he cried harshly. "Hell, man—didn't I tell you I wasn't to be disturbed tonight? Get away!"

Too late he realized that never before had he spoken so to this old servant who loved him, he knew, like a son. Had he betrayed himself—crystallized Jevins' suspicions into certainty that within that room something was wrong indeed? Fear spurred his tongue.

"I'm all right!" He forced laughter into the words. "Of course, I'm all right!"

Damn that mist in front of his eyes! What was it? He passed a hand over them, brought it away wet with blood. He stared at it, stupidly.

"Oh, very well, Mr. John." There was no more doubt, nothing but affection in the voice. "But hearing you cry—"

God! Would the man never go! His eyes travelled from his hand up his arm. Crimson it was, red with blood to the shoulder. The fingers dripped.

"Only a nightmare," he interrupted quietly. "I won't sleep again until I'm done and go to bed—so run along."

"Then—good night, Mr. John."

"Good night," he answered.

Swaying he sat until the footsteps of Jevins and the others had died away. Then he tried to rise. His weakness was too great. He slid from the couch to his knees, crawled across the floor to a low cabinet, fumbled at its doors and drew down a bottle of brandy. He raised it to his lips and drank deep. The fiery stuff raced through him, gave him strength. He arose.

A sickening pang stabbed his side. He raised his hand to clutch the agony, covered it and felt trickle through his fingers a slow, warm stream!

He remembered—a sword had bitten him there—the sword of one of Klaneth's men!

Flashed before him pictures—the arrow quivering in the Viking's shield, the mace of Gigi, the staring warriors, the great net dropping over Sharane and her women, the wondering faces...

Then—this!

Again he lifted the bottle. Half way to his mouth he stopped, every muscle rigid, every nerve taut. Confronting him was a shape—a man splashed red from head to foot! He saw a strong, fierce face from which glared eyes filled with murderous menace; long tangled elf locks of black writhed round it down to the crimson-stained shoulders. From hair edge to ear down across the forehead was a wound, from which blood dripped. Bare to the waist was this man and from the nipple of his left breast to mid-side ran a red wide-mouthed slash, open to the ribs!

Gory, menacing, dreadful in its red lacquer of life, a living phantom from some pirate deck of death it glared at him.

Stop! There was something familiar about the face—the eyes! His gaze was caught by a shimmer of gold on the right arm above the elbow. It was a bracelet. And he knew that bracelet—

The bridal gift of Sharane!

Who was this man? He could not think clearly—how could he—with numbness in his brain, the red mists before his eyes, this weakness that was creeping back upon him?

Sudden rage swept through him. He swung the bottle to hurl it straight at the wild fierce face.

The left hand of the figure swung up, clutching a similar bottle—

It was he, John Kenton, reflected in the long mirror on the wall. That ensanguined, fearfully wounded, raging shape was—himself!

A clock chimed ten.

As though the slow strokes had been an exorcism, a change came over Kenton. His mind cleared, purpose and will clicked back in place. He took another deep drink of the liquor, and without another look in the mirror, without a glance toward the jeweled ship, he walked to the door.

Hand on the key he paused, considering. No, that would not do. He could not risk going out into the hallway. Jevins might still be hovering near; or some of the other servants might see him. And if he had not known himself, what would be the effect of seeing him on them?

He could not go where water was to cleanse his hurts, wash away the blood. He must do with what was here.

He turned back to the cabinet, stripping the table of its cloth as he passed. His foot struck something on the floor. The blade of Nabu lay there, no longer blue but stained as was he from tip of blade to hilt. For the moment he left it lie. He poured spirits upon the cloth, made shift to cleanse himself with them. From another cabinet he drew out his emergency medical kit. There was lint there and bandages and iodine. Stiff-lipped with the torture of its touch, he poured the latter into the great wound in his side, daubed it into the cut across his forehead. He made compresses of the lint and wound the linen tapes around brow and chest. The blood flow stopped. The fiery agony of the iodine diminished. He stepped again to the mirror and scanned himself.

The clock struck the half hour.

Half past ten! What had it been when he had clutched the golden chains of the ship—had summoned the ship and been lifted by those chains out of the room and into the mysterious world in which it sailed?

Just nine o'clock!

Only an hour and a half ago! Yet during that time in that other and timeless world he had been slave and conqueror, had fought great fights, had won both ship and the woman who had mocked him, had become—what now he was!

And all this in less than two short hours!

He walked over to the ship, picking up the sword as he went. He wiped the hilt clean of blood, the blade he did not touch. He drained the bottle before he dared drop his eyes.

He looked first on Sharane's cabin. There were gaps in the little blossoming trees. The door was down, flung broken on the deck. The casements of the window were shattered. Upon the roof's edge a row of doves perched, heads a-droop, mourning.

From the oar ports four sweeps instead of seven dipped on each side. And in the pit were no longer the eight and twenty rowers. Only ten were left, two to each of the stroke oars, one each to the other.

On the starboard side of the hull were gashes and deep dents—the marks of the bireme's combing of that ship of Ishtar now sailing somewhere on that unknown world from which he had been whirled.

And at the tiller bar a manikin stood—a toy steering the toy ship. A toy man, long-haired, fair-haired. At his feet sat two other toys; one with shining, hairless head, and apelike arms; the other red bearded, agate-eyed, a shining scimitar across his knees.

Longing shook him, heartache, such homesickness as some human soul might feel marooned upon alien star on outskirts of space.

"Gigi!" he groaned. "Sigurd! Zubran! Bring me back to you!"

He bent over the three, touching them with tender fingers, breathing on them, as though to give them warmth of life. Long he paused over Gigi—instinctively he felt that in the Ninevite more than the others dwelt the power to help. Sigurd was strong, the Persian subtle—but in the dwarf-legged giant ran tide of earth gods in earth's shouting youth; archaic, filled with unknown power long lost to man.

"Gigi!" he whispered, face close—and again and again—"Gigi! Hear me! Gigi!"

Did the manikin move?

Breaking his passion of concentration came a cry. Newsboys shouting some foolish happening of importance on this foolish world on which he was cast away! It broke the threads, shattered the fragile links that he had felt forming between himself and the manikin. Cursing, he straightened. His sight dimmed; he fell. Effort had told upon him; the treacherous weakness crept back. He dragged himself to the cabinet, knocked the head off a second bottle, let half of it pour down his throat.

The whipped blood sang in his ears; strength flowed through him. He snapped off the lights. A ray from the street came through the heavy curtains, outlining the three toy figures. Once more Kenton gathered himself for a mighty effort of will.

"Gigi! It is I! Calling you! Gigi! Answer me! Gigi!" The manikin stirred, its body trembled, its head raised! Far, far away, thin and cold as tip of frost lance upon glass, ghostly and unreal, coming from immeasurable distances, he heard Gigi's voice.

"Wolf, I hear you! Wolf! Where are you?"

His mind clung to that thread of sound as though it were a line flung to him over vast abysses.

"Wolf—come to us!" The voice was stronger. "Gigi! Gigi! Help me to you!"

The two voices—that far flung, thin, cold one and his own met and clung and knit. They stretched over that gulf which lay between where he stood and the unknown dimension in which sailed the ship.

Now the little figure no longer squatted! It was upright! Louder rang Gigi's voice:

"Wolf! Come to us! We hear you! Come to us!" Then as though it chanted words of power:

"Sharane! Sharane! Sharane!"

Under the lash of the loved name his will now streamed fiercely.

"Gigi! Gigi. Keep calling!"

He was no longer conscious of his room. He saw the ship far, far beneath him. He was but a point of life floating high above it, yearning to it and calling, calling to Gigi to help him. The strand of sound that linked them strained and shook like a cobweb thread. But it held and ever drew him down.

And now the ship was growing. It was misty, nebulous; but steadily it grew and steadily Kenton dropped down that rope of sound to meet it. Strengthening the two voices came other sounds weaving themselves within their threads—the chanting of Sigurd, the calling of Zubran, the thrumming of the fingers of the wind on the harpstring of the ship's stays, the murmuring litany of the breaking waves telling their beads of foam.

Ever more real grew the ship. Striking through its substance came the wavering image of his room. It seemed to struggle against the ship, to strive to cover it. But the ship beat it back, crying out to him with the voices of his comrades and the voices of wind and sea in one.

"Wolf! We feel you near! Come to us—Sharane! Sharane! Sharane!"

The phantom outlines leaped into being; they enclosed him.

The arms of Gigi reached out to him, gripped him, plucked him out of space!

And as they gripped, he heard a chaotic whirling, a roaring as of another world spinning from under him and lashed by mighty winds.

He stood again upon the ship.

He was clasped tight to Gigi's hairy chest. Sigurd's hands were on his shoulders. Zubran was clasping and patting Kenton's own hands clutching Gigi's back, singing in his joy strange intricate Persian curses.

"Wolf!" roared Gigi, tears filling the furrows of his wrinkled face. "Where did you go? In the name of all the gods—where have you been?"

"Never mind!" sobbed Kenton. "Never mind where I've been, Gigi! I'm back! Oh, thank God, I'm back!"

CHAPTER 16. How The Ship Was Manned

FAINTNESS conquered him. The wounds and the effort of will had sapped his strength to its limit. When he came back to consciousness he was on the divan in Sharane's raped cabin. His bandages had been replaced, his wounds re-dressed. The three men and four of Sharane's maids were looking down upon him. There was no reproach on any of their faces—only curiosity, tempered with awe.

"It must be a strange place to which you go, Wolf," Gigi said at last. "For see! The slash across my chest is healed, Sigurd's cuts, too—yet your wounds are as fresh as though made but a moment ago."

Kenton looked and saw that it was so; the slash across Gigi's breast was now only a red scar.

"Also it was a strange way to leave us, blood-brother," rumbled the Viking.

"By the fire of Ormuzd!" swore the Persian. "It was a very good way! A good thing for us that you left as you did. Cyrus the King taught us that it was a good general who knew how to retreat to save his troops. And that retreat of yours was a masterly one, comrade, Without it we would not be here now to welcome you."

"It was no retreat! I could not help but go!" whispered Kenton.

"Well," the Persian shook a dubious head, "whatever it was, it saved us. One instant there you were lifted on the paws of the black priest's dogs. Another instant you had faded into a shadow. And then, lo, even the shadow was gone!"

"How those dogs who had held you shrieked and ran," laughed Zubran. "And the dogs who were biting at us ran too—back to their kennels on the bireme they ran, for all Klaneth's cursing. They had great fear, comrade—and so in fact for a moment had I. Then down went their oars, and away sped their ship with Klaneth's cursing still sounding even after they had gotten safely out of sight of us."

"Sharane!" groaned Kenton. "What did they do to her? Where have they taken her?"

"To Emakhtila, or Sorcerers' Isle, I think," answered Gigi. "Fear not for her, Wolf. The black priests want you both. To torture her without your eyes looking on, or to slay you without hers beholding your agonies would be no revenge for Klaneth. No—until he lays hands on you Sharane is safe enough."

"Not comfortable, perhaps, nor happy, but assuredly safe enough," confirmed the Persian.

"Three of her maids they took with her in the nets," said Sigurd. "Three they slew. These four they left when you vanished."

"They took Satalu, my little vessel of joy," mourned Gigi. "And for that Klaneth shall also pay when reckoning comes."

"Half the slaves were killed when the bireme crashed against us," went on the Viking. "Oars crushed in ribs, broke backs. Others died later. The black-skin we put in Zachel's place is a man! He fought those who dropped into the pit and slew his share. Only eight oars have we now instead of twice seven. The black-skin sits at one of them—unchained. When we take new slaves he shall be overseer again and honored."

"And I remember now," it was Gigi, dropping back to his first thought, "that when I dragged you up the side of Klaneth's cabin that day you fought his priests, you still bled from the bites of Sharane's girls. Yet with us there had been time and time again for them to have healed, And here you are once more with old wounds fresh. It must be a strange place indeed, that you go to, Wolf, is there no time there?"

"It is your own world," he answered. "The world from whence all of you came."

And as they stared at him, he leaped up from the divan.

"Sail to Emakhtila! At once! Find Sharane! Free her! How soon, Gigi? How soon?"

He felt the wound in his side open, fell back, his spurt of strength exhausted.

"Not till your wounds are healed," said Gigi, and began to unfasten the reddening bandages. "And we must make the ship strong again before we take that journey. We must have new slaves for the oars. Now lie quiet, until you heal. Klaneth will do Sharane no harm as long as there is hope of taking you. I, Gigi, tell you this. So set your heart at ease."

And now began for Kenton a most impatient time of waiting. To be chained here by his wounds when, despite Gigi's assurances, the black priest might be wreaking his ultimate vengeance upon Sharane! It was not to be borne.

Fever set in. His wounds had been more serious than he had known. Gigi nursed him.

The fever passed, and as he grew stronger he told him of that lost world of theirs; what had passed there during the centuries they had sailed on the timeless ship; of its machinery and its wars, its new laws and its customs.

"And none now go viking!" mused Sigurd. "Clearly then I see that there is no place for me there. Best for Sigurd, Trygg's son, to end his days where he is."

The Persian nodded.

"And no place for me," he echoed. "For a man of taste such as I, it seems no world at all to live in, I like not your way of waging wars. nor could I learn to like it—I who seem to be a soldier of an old, old school, indeed."

Even Gigi was doubtful.

"I do not think I would care for it," he said. "The customs seem so different. And I notice, Wolf, that you were willing to risk chains and death to get out of that world—and lose no time getting back to this."

"The new gods seem so stupid," urged Zubran. "They do nothing. By the Nine Hells, the gods of this place are stupid enough—still they do something. Although perhaps it is better to do nothing than to do the same stupid things over and over," he ruminated.

"I will make me a steading on one of these islands," said Sigurd, "after we have carried away Kenton's woman and slain the black priest. I will take me a strong wife and breed many younglings. I will teach them to build ships. Then we shall go viking as I did of old. Skoal! Skoal to the dragons slipping through Ran's bath with the red ravens on their sails and the black ones flying overhead!"

"Say, blood-brother," he turned to Kenton, "when you have your woman back will you make a steading beside mine? With Zubran taking wives and he and Gigi—if he is not too old—breeding young, and with those who will join us—by Odin, but we could all be great Jarls in this world!"

"That is not to my liking," replied the Persian promptly. "For one thing it takes too long to rear strong sons to fight for us. No—after we have finished our business with Klaneth I will go back to Emakhtila where there are plenty of men already made. It will be strange if I find there no discontented ones, men who can be stirred to revolt. If there be not enough of them—well, discontent is the easiest thing in the world to breed; much easier than sons, Sigurd. Also I am a great soldier. Cyrus the King himself told me so. With my army of discontented men I shall take his nest of priests and rule Emakhtila myself! And after that—beware how you raid my ships, Sigurd!"

Thus they talked among themselves, telling Kenton things of their own lives as strange to him as his own tales must have been to them. Steadily, swiftly his wounds healed until they were at last only red welts, and strength flowed back in his veins.

Now for many sleeps, while he grew well, they had lain hidden within a land-locked cove of one of the golden isles. Its rock-jawed mouth had been barely wide enough for them to enter. Safe enough this place seemed from pursuit or prying eyes. Nevertheless they had drawn the ship close against a high bank whose water side dropped straight down to the deep bottom. The oars had been taken in. The branches of the feathery trees drooped over the craft, covered it.

The time came when Kenton, awakening, felt full tide of health. He walked back to the rudder bar where Sigurd, Gigi and the Persian were stretched out talking. He paused for the hundredth time beside the strange compass that was the helmsman's guide in this world, where there was neither sun nor moon nor stars, no east or west, north or south. Set within the top of a wooden standee was a silver bowl covered with a sheet of clear crystal. Around the lip of this bowl were inlaid sixteen symbols, cuneiform, scarlet. Attached to a needle rising vertically from the bowl's bottom were two slender pointers, serpent shaped, blue. The larger, he knew, pointed always toward Emakhtila, that land to which, were Gigi right, Sharane had been carried by the black priest. The smaller pointed toward the nearest land.

As always, he wondered what mysterious currents stirred them in this poleless world; what magnetic flow from the scattered isles pulled the little one; what constant flow from Emakhtila kept the big one steady? Steadier far than compass needles of earth pointed to the north.

And as he looked it seemed to him that the little blue needle spun in its scarlet pool and lay parallel with the greater one—both pointing to the Isle of Sorcerers!

"An omen!" he cried. "Look, Sigurd! Gigi—Zubran—look!"

They bent over the compass, but in the instant between his call and their response the smaller needle had shifted again; again pointed to the isle where they lay moored!

"An omen?" they asked, puzzled. "What omen?"

"Both the needles pointed to Emakhtila!" he told them. "To Sharane! It was an omen—a summons! We must go! Quick, Gigi—Sigurd—cast loose! We sail for Emakhtila!"

They looked at him, doubtfully; down at the compass once more; at each other covertly.

"I saw it, I tell you.'" Kenton repeated. "It was no illusion—I am well! Sharane is in peril! We must go!"

"Sh-h-h!" Gigi held up a warning hand, listened intently, parted the curtains of the leaves and peered out.

"A ship," he whispered, drawing back his head. "Bid the maids get arrows and javelins. Arm—all of you. Quiet now—and speed!"

They could hear the drop of oars; voices: the low tapping of a hammer, beating the stroke for the rowers. The maids of Sharane silently ranged themselves along the port rail near the bow, bows standing, arrows at strings, beside them their stabbing javelins, their swords, too; their shields at feet.

The four men crouched, peeping out through the trees. What was coming? Questing ship of Klaneth that had nosed them out? Hunters searching the sea for them spurred on by the black priest's promises of reward?

Through the narrow entrance to the hidden harbor drifted a galley. Twice the length of the ship of Ishtar, it was single tiered, fifteen oars to the side and double banked—two men to each sweep. There were a dozen or more men standing on the bow deck; how many others not visible there was no knowing. The galley crept in. It nosed along the shore. When less than two hundred feet away from the hidden watchers grapnels were thrown over the side and the boat made fast.

"Good water here, and all we need," they heard one say.

Gigi put his arms around the three, drew them close to him.

"Wolf," he whispered, "now do I believe in your omen. For lo! close upon its heels follows another and better one. A summons indeed. There are the slaves we must have for our vacant oars! And gold too, I'll warrant, that we shall want when we reach Emakhtila."

"Slaves and gold, yes," muttered Kenton; then sardonically as half a dozen more men came up from below and joined the group on the bow—"only remains to find the way to take them, Gigi."

"Nay, but that will be easy," whispered Zubran. "They suspect nothing, and men surprised are already half beaten. We four will creep along the bank until we are just opposite their bow. When we have been away for as long as Zala there—" he motioned to one of the warrior maids—"can count two hundred, the maids shall pour their arrows into that group, shooting fast as they can but taking careful aim and bringing down as many as they can. Then we will leap aboard and upon those left. But when the maids hear us shout they must shoot no longer at the bow, lest we be struck. Thereafter let them keep any others from joining those forward. Is it a good plan? I'll warrant we shall have their ship in less time than it has taken me to tell it."

A qualm shook Kenton.

"Now by the gods!" came the voice, evidently of the captain of the galley. "Would that cursed Ship of Ishtar had been here. Had it been—well, I think none of us would need go faring out of Emakhtila again. Gods! If we might only have crept upon her here and won Klaneth's reward!"

Kenton's compunction fled; here were the hunters, and delivered into the hands of the hunted.

"Right, Zubran," he whispered fiercely. "Beckon Zala to us and tell her the plan."

And when that had been done he led them over to the side of the ship into the covert. There was a ledge that helped them in their going and it seemed to Kenton, watching hungrily the craft which, won, might mean Sharane, that the maids' arrows would never fly.

At last they came, buzzing like bees and swarming among the cluster of men on the strange ship. And the maids were aiming straight. Of the near score fully half were down, spitted, before they broke for shelter, crying crazily. Kenton shouted and leaped upon the deck, cutting with his sword, while the mace of Gigi struck, and the blade of Sigurd, the scimitar of Zubran look toll. Beaten ere they could raise a hand, those left alive knelt and cried for mercy. A little band running to their aid from the stern met an arrow storm from the maids, threw down their arms, raised hands of submission.

They herded their captives together, disarmed them and thrust them into the forward cabin. They locked them in, first making sure there were no weapons there and no way for them to escape. They took the keys to the rowers' chains. The Viking went down into the pit, picked out nineteen of the sturdiest slaves, loosed and drove them two by two over to the ship. He manacled them to its empty oars.

Much gold they found, too, and other things that might prove useful in Emakhtila—clothes of seamen in the fashion of the place, long robes to cover them and make them less open to detection.

Arose then the question of what was so be done with their prize—and the men aboard her. Gigi was for putting them all to the sword. The Persian thought that it would be best to bring back the slaves, leave their ship where she was, and after killing all those on the captive galley, put forth to Emakhtila on her. There was much in his plan to be commended. The Ship of Ishtar was a marked vessel. There was no mistaking her. This other craft would arouse no suspicion in the minds of those who saw it sailing. And once landed at Emakhtila, and what lay before them done, they could sail back on it and recover their own.

But Kenton would not have it. And the upshot was that the captain was called out for questioning and told that if he answered truthfully his life and those of the others would be spared.

There was little he could tell them—but that little was enough to quicken Kenton's heart—bring new dread to it also. Yes, there had been a woman brought to Emakhtila by Klaneth, the Priest of Nergal. He had won her in a fight, Klaneth had said, a sea battle in which many men had been slain. He had not said where, or with whom this battle had taken place, and his soldiers had been warned to be silent. But it began to be whispered that the woman was the woman of the Ship of Ishtar. The priestesses of Ishtar had claimed her. But Klaneth who had great power had resisted them, and as a compromise the Council of Priests had made her priestess of the God Bel and placed her in Bel's Bower on top of the Temple of the Seven Zones.

"I know that Temple and the Bower of Bel," Sigurd had nodded. "And why its priestess must live there," he had whispered, looking askance at Kenton.

This woman appeared now and then, heavily veiled, attending certain ceremonies to the God Bel, the captain went on. But she seemed to be a woman in a dream. Her memory had been taken from her—or so it was reported. Beyond that he knew nothing—except that Klaneth had doubled his reward for three of them—he pointed to Gigi, Zubran and the Persian; and had trebled it for him-he pointed to Kenton.

When they were done with him they unloosed the remaining slaves and sent them ashore. They hailed the ship and the Nubian brought her over. They watched the captain and his men pass over the side of the galley and disappear among the trees.

"Plenty of water and food," grumbled Gigi. "They fare far better at our hands than we would have fared at theirs."

They hitched the captured galley to the ship; slowly pulled it out of the harbor through the rock-lipped mouth. And after they had gone a mile or so Sigurd dropped into it, did a few things with an axe, and climbing back cut it loose. Rapidly the galley filled and sank.

"Now," cried Kenton, and took the rudder bar, steering the ship straight to where the long blue arrow pointed.

Pointed to Emakhtila and to Sharane—

Sharane!

CHAPTER 17. They Seek Sorcerers' Isle

LUCK clung to them. The silver mists hung close about the ship, shrouding her so that she sailed within a circle not more than double her length. Ever the mists hid her. Kenton, sleeping little, drove the slaves at the oar to point of exhaustion.

"There is a great storm brewing," warned Sigurd.

"Pray Odin that it may hold back till we are well within Emakhtila," answered Kenton.

"If we but had a horse I would sacrifice it to the All-Father," said Sigurd. "Then he would hold that storm till our needs called it."

"Speak low, lest the sea horses trample us!" warned Kenton.

He had questioned the Viking about that interruption of his when the captain of the captured galley had said that the captured woman was Priestess of Bel's Bower.

"She will be safe there, even from Klaneth—so long as she takes no other lover than the god," Sigurd had said.

"No other lover than the god!" Kenton had roared, hand dropping to sword and glaring at Sigurd. "She shall have no lover but me—god or man, Sigurd! What do you mean?"

"Take hand from sword. Wolf," Sigurd had replied. "I meant not to offend you. Only—gods are gods! And there was something in that captain's talk about your woman walking in dream, memory withdrawn from her—was there not? If that be so—blood-brother—you are in those memories she has lost!"

Kenton winced.

"Nergal once tried to part a man and a woman who loved," he said, "even as Sharane and I. He could not. I do not think Nergal's priest can succeed where his master failed."

"Not well reasoned, Wolf." It was Zubran who had come quietly upon them. "The gods are strong. Therefore they have no reason for subtlety or cunning. They smite—and all is done. It is not artistic, I admit—but it is unanswerable. And man, who has not the strength of the gods, must resort to cunning and subtlety. That is why man will do worse things than the gods. Out of his weakness he is forced to it. The gods should not be blamed—except for making man weaker than they. And therefore Klaneth is more to be feared by you than Nergal, his master."

"He cannot drive me out of Sharane's heart!" Kenton cried.

The Viking bent his head down to the compass.

"You may be right," he muttered. "Zubran may be right. All I know is that while your woman is faithful to Bel, no man may harm her!"

Vague as he might be on that one point, the Viking was direct and full of meat upon others. The Norseman had been observant while slave to the priests of Nergal. He knew the city and the Temple of the Seven Zones intimately. Best of all he knew a way of entering Emakhtila by another road than that of its harbor.

This was indeed all important, since it was not within the bounds of possibility that they could enter that harbor without instant recognition.

"Look, comrades," Sigurd scratched with point of sword a rude map on the planks of the deck. "Here lies the city. It is at the end of a fjord. The mountains rise on each side of it and stretch in two long spits far out to sea. But here"—he pointed to a spot in the coast line close to the crotch where the left hand mountain barrier shot out from the coast—"is a bay with a narrow entrance from the sea. It is used by the priests of Nergal for a certain secret sacrifice. Between it and the city a hidden way runs through the hills. That path brings you out to the great temple. I have traveled the hidden way and have stood on the shores of that bay. I went there with other slaves, bearing priests in litters and things for the sacrifice. While it would take two good sleeps for a ship to make the journey from Emakhtila to this place, it is by the hidden way only half so far as a strong man could walk in my own land between the dawn and noon of a winter day. Also there are many places there where the ship can be hidden. Few galleys pass by and no one lives near—which is why the priests of Nergal picked it.

"Also I know well the Temple of the Seven Zones—since long it was my home," went on Sigurd. "Its height is thirty times the ship's mast."

Kenton swiftly estimated. That would make the temple six hundred feet—a respectable height indeed.

"Its core," said the Viking, "is made up of the sanctuaries of the gods and the goddess Ishtar, one upon each other. Around this core are the quarters of the priests and priestesses and lesser shrines. These secret sanctuaries are seven, the last being the house of Bel. From Bel's House a stairway leads up into his Bower. At the base of the temple is a vast court with altars and other shrines where the people come to worship. Its entrances are strongly guarded. Even we four could not enter—there!

"But around the temple, which is shaped thus"—he scratched the outline of a truncated cone—"a great stone stairway runs thus"—he drew a spiral from base to top of cone. "At intervals, along that stairway, are sentinels. There is a garrison where it begins. Is this all clear?"

"What is clear," grunted Gigi, "is that we would need an army to take it!"

"Not so," the Viking answered. "Remember how we took the galley—although they outnumbered us? We will row the ship into that secret harbor. If priests are there we must do what we can—slay or flee. But if the Norns decree that no priests be there, we will hide the ship and leave the slaves in care of the black-skin. Then the four of us, dressed as seamen in the clothes and the long cloaks we took from the galley, will take the hidden way and go into the city.

"For as to that stairway—I have another plan. It is high walled—up to a man's chest. If we can pass without arousing the guards at its base, we can creep up under shadow of that wall, slaying the sentinels as we go, until we reach the Bower of Bel and entering, bear Sharane away.

"But not in fair weather could we do this," he ended. "There must be darkness or storm that they see us not from the streets. And that is why I pray to Odin, that this brewing tempest may not boil until we have reached the city and looked upon that stairway. For in that storm that is surely coming we could do as I have said and swiftly."

"But in all this I see no chance of slaying Klaneth," growled Zubran. "We creep in, we creep up, we creep out again with Sharane—if we can. And that is all. By Ormuzd, my knees are too tender for creeping! Also my scimitar itches to scratch itself on the black priest's hide."

"No safety while Klaneth lives!" croaked Gigi, playing upon his old tune.

"I have no thought of Klaneth now," rumbled the Viking. "First comes Kenton's woman. After that—we take up the black priest."

"I am ashamed," said Zubran. "I should have remembered. Yet in truth, I would feel easier if we could kill Klaneth on our way to her. For I agree with Gigi—while he lives, no safety for your blood-brother or any of us, However—Sharane first, of course."

The Viking had been peering down into the compass. He looked again, intently, and drew back, pointing to it.

Both the blue serpents in the scarlet bath were parallel, their heads turned to one point.

"We head straight to Emakhtila," said Sigurd. "But are we within the jaws of that fjord or out of them? Wherever we are we must be close."

He swung the rudder to port. The ship veered. The large needle slipped a quarter of the space to the right between the red symbols on the bowl edge. The smaller held steady.

"That proves nothing," grunted the Viking, "except that we are no longer driving straight to the city. But we may be close upon the mounts. Check the oarsmen."

Slower went the ship, and slower, feeling her way through the mists. And suddenly they darkened before them. Something grew out of them slowly, slowly. It lay revealed as a low shore, rising sharply and melting into deeper shadows behind. The waves ran gently to it, caressing its rocks. Sigurd swore a great oath of thankfulness.

"We are on the other side of the mounts," he said. "Somewhere close is that secret bay of which I told you. Bid the overseer drive the ship along as we are."

He swung the rudder sharply to starboard. The ship turned; slowly followed the shore. Soon in front of them loomed a high ridge of rock. This they skirted, circled its end and still sculling silently came at last to another narrow strait into which the Viking steered.

"A place for hiding," he said. "Send the ship into that cluster of trees ahead. Nay—there is water there, the trees rise out of it. Once within them the ship can be seen neither from shore nor sea."

They drifted into the grove. Long, densely leaved branches covered them.

"Now lash her to the tree trunks," whispered Sigurd. "Go softly. Priests may be about. We will look for them later, when we are on our way. We leave the ship in charge of the women. The black-skin stays behind. Let them all lie close till we return—"

"There would be better chance for you to return if you cut off that long hair of yours and your beard, Sigurd," said the Persian, and added: "Better chance for us, also."

"What!" cried the Viking, outraged. "Cut my hair! Why, even when I was slave they left that untouched!"

"Wise counsel!" said Kenton. "And Zubran—that naming beard of yours and your red hair. Better for you and us, too, if you shaved them both—or changed their color."

"By Ormuzd, no!" exclaimed the Persian, as outraged as Sigurd.

"The fowler sets the net and is caught with the bird!" laughed the Viking. "Nevertheless, it is good counsel. Better hair off face and head than head off shoulders!"

The maids brought shears. Laughing, they snipped Sigurd's mane to nape of neck, trimmed the long beard into short spade shape. Amazing was the transformation of Sigurd, Trygg's son, brought about by that shearing.

"There is one that Klaneth will not know if he sees him," grunted Gigi.

Now the Persian put himself in the women's hands.

They dabbled at beard and head with cloths dipped in a bowl of some black liquid. The red faded, then darkened into brown. Not so great was the difference between him and the old Zubran as there was between the new and old Sigurd. But Kenton and Gigi nodded approvingly—at least the red that made him as conspicuous as the Norseman's long hair was gone.

Remained Kenton and Gigi. Little could be done for either of them. There was no changing Gigi's frog slit of a mouth, the twinkling beady eyes, the bald pate, the immense shoulders.

"Take out your earrings, Gigi," bade Kenton.

"Take off that bracelet on your arm," replied Gigi,

"Sharane's gift! Never!" exclaimed Kenton, as outraged as had been both the Norseman and the Persian.

"My earrings were put there by one who loved me as much as she does you." For the first time since Kenton had known Gigi there was anger in his voice.

The Persian laughed softly. It broke the tension. Kenton grinned at the drummer, somewhat guiltily. Gigi grinned back.

"Well," he said. "It seems that we must all make our sacrifices—" he began to unscrew the earrings.

"No, Gigi!" Kenton could not bring himself to break that golden band upon which Sharane had graven the symbols of her love. "Leave them be. Rings and bracelet—both can be hidden."

"I do not know—" Gigi paused doubtfully. "It seems to me to be better. That idea of sacrifice—it grows stronger."

"There is little sense in what you say," said Kenton stubbornly.

"No?" mused Gigi. "Yet many men must have seen that bracelet of yours that time you fought the black priest's men and lost Sharane. Klaneth must have seen it. Something whispers to me that token is more perilous than the rings in my ears."

"Well, nothing whispers to me," said Kenton, shortly, He led the way into what had been Klaneth's cabin and began stripping to clothe himself in the sailors' gear they had taken from the captured galley. He slipped on a loose shirt of finely tanned, thin leather whose loose sleeves fastened around his wrists.

"You see," he said to Gigi, "the bracelet is hidden."

Next came loose hose of the same material drawn tight by a girdle around the waist. He drew on high, laced buskins. Over the shirt he fastened a sleeveless tunic of mail. On his head he placed a conical metal covered cap from whose padded sides dropped, shoulder deep, folds of heavy oiled silk.

The others dressed with him in similar garments. Only the Persian would not leave off his own linked mail. He knew its strength, he said, and the others were new to him It was an old friend, often tried and always faithful he said he would not cast it off for new ones whose loyalty was still untried. But over it he drew one of the shirts and a tunic. And Gigi, after he had set the cap upon his head, drew close the folds of silk so that they hid his ears and their pendants. Also he fastened around his neck another long fold of silk, binding the others fast and hiding his mouth.

And when they had covered themselves with the long cloaks they scanned each other with lightened hearts. The Viking and the Persian were true changelings. Little fear of recognition there. Changed enough by his new garb, it seemed to them, was Kenton. The cloak hid Gigi's stumpy legs and the cloths around his face, the close fitting, conical cap altered it curiously into one not easily recognziable.

"It is good!" murmured the Viking.

"It is very good!" echoed Kenton.

They belted themselves and thrust into the belts both their own swords and short ones of Sigurd's forging. Only Gigi would take neither that nine foot blade the Norseman had made for him nor the great mace. The latter was too well known; the other too cumbersome for their journey; impossible, like the mace, to hide. He took two swords of average length. Last he picked up a long, thin piece of rope, swiftly spliced to it a small grappling hook. He coiled the rope around his waist, hanging the grapple to his belt.

"Lead, Sigurd," said Kenton.

One by one they dropped over the ship's bow, waded through shallow water and stood upon the shore while Sigurd cast about for his bearings. The mists had grown thicker. The golden leaves, the panicles of crimson and yellow blooms were etched against them as though upon some ancient Chinese screen. In the mists Sigurd moved, shadowy.

"Come," the Viking joined them. "I have found the way."

Silently they followed him through the mists, under the silver shadows of the trees.

PART IV In the Sorcerers' City

CHAPTER 18.

THERE was a hidden way, in truth. How Sigurd followed it in the glimmering fog, by what signs led, Kenton could not tell. But the Viking walked along, unhesitant.

Between high rocks covered with the golden ferns the narrow road ran, and through thickets where the still air was languorous with the scent of myriads of strange blossoms; through dense clumps of slender trunks which were like bamboo stems all lacquered scarlet, and through groves where trees grew primly in park-like precision and under which the tarnished silver shadows were thick. Their steps made no sound on the soft moss. They had long lost the murmur of the sea. Sound of any kind around them there was none.

At the skirt of one of the ordered groves the Viking paused.

"The place of sacrifice," he whispered. "I go to see if any of Nergal's black dogs are about. Wait for me here."

He melted into the mists. They waited, silent. Each felt that something evil lay sleeping within those trees and if they spoke or moved it would awaken, draw them to it. And out of it, as though the sleeping evil breathed, pulsed the sickly sweet and charnel odor that had hung in Klaneth's cabin.

Silently as he had gone, Sigurd returned.

"No black robes there," he said. "Yet—something of their dark god dwells in that grove always. Eager am I to pass this place. Go softly and quickly."

They pushed on. At last Sigurd paused, exhaled a vast sigh of relief.

"We have passed," he told them.

He led them with increased speed. And now the way began to climb steeply. They passed through a long and deep ravine in which the glimmering, misty light was hardly strong enough for them to pick their way over the boulders that strewed it.

They passed out of it between two huge monoliths-and halted. Abruptly the silence that had enveloped them had been broken. Before them was nothing but the wall of the mists, but from them and far, far below came a murmuring, a humming of a great city, the creaking of masts, the rattle of gear, the splashing of oars and now and then a shouting, darting up like a kite from the vague clamor.

"The harbor," said Sigurd, and pointed downward to the right. "Emakhtila lies beneath us—close. And there,"—he pointed again downward and a little to the left-"there is the temple of the Seven Zones."

Kenton followed the pointing finger. A mighty mass loomed darkly in the silvery haze, its nebulous outlines cone-shaped, its top flattened. His heart quickened.

Down they went, and down. The murmuring of the city came to them ever louder and louder. Ever the great bulk of the temple grew plainer, climbing higher and higher into the heavens as they descended. And ever the mists hid this city from them.

They came to a high stone wall. Here Sigurd turned and led them into a grove of trees, thick, heavily shadowed. Through the trees they slipped, following the Viking who now went on with greater caution.

At last he peered out from behind an enormous trunk, beckoned them. Beyond the trees was a deep rutted, broad roadway.

"A road into the city," he said. "A free road on which we can walk without fear."

They clambered down a high bank and took that road, walking now side by side. Soon the trees cave way to fields, cultivated as far as the mists would let them see; fields filled with high plants whose leaves were shaped like those of the corn, but saffron yellow instead of green and instead of ears long panicles of gleaming white grains; rows of bushes on whose branches shone berries green as emeralds: strange fruits; three-stemmed vines from which fell star-shaped gourds.

They saw houses, two-storied; block-like with smaller cubes for wings like those a child makes. They were painted startlingly—both in colors and patterns; facades striped with alternate vertical, yard-wide bands of blue, and yellow facades of dull blue through which darted scarlet zigzags like the conventionalized lightning bolt; broad horizontal bands of crimson barred with stripes of green.

The road narrowed, became a thoroughfare paved with blocks. The painted houses became thicker. Men and women passed them, brown faced and black, clad alike in one sleeveless white garment cut short just below the knees. On the right wrist of each of these was a bronze ring from which fell a half dozen links of chain. They carried burdens—jugs, baskets of the fruits and gourds, loaves of bread colored ruddy brown, flat cakes a foot across. They glanced at the four curiously as they passed.

"Slaves," said Sigurd.

Now the painted houses stood solidly, side by side. These were galleried and on the galleries were flowering trees and plants like those upon the rosy cabin of the ship. From some of them women leaned and called out to them as they went by.

They passed out of this street into a roaring avenue thronged with people. And here Kenton halted in sheer amazement.

At its far end loomed the huge bulk of the terraced temple. Its sides were lined with shops. At their doors stood men crying out their wares. Banners fell from them on which in woven silk ran the cuneiform letters that told their goods.

Past him walked Assyrians, men of Nineveh and Babylon with curled heads and ringleted beards; hook-nosed, fierce-eyed Phoenicians; sloe-eyed, muslin-skirted Egyptians; Ethiopians with great golden circles in their ears, almond-lidded, smiling yellow men. Soldiers in cuirasses of linked mail, archers with quivers on back and bows in hand strode by; priests in robes of black and crimson and blue. There stood in front of him for an instant a ruddy-skinned, smooth-muscled warrior who carried upon one shoulder the double-bladed ax of ancient Crete. Over his other shoulder lay the white arm of a sandalled woman in oddly modern pleated and patterned skirt, snake-girdled and with high, white breasts peeping from her opened and as oddly modern blouse. A Minoan and his mate he knew the pair to be, two who had perhaps watched youths and maids who were Athen's tribute to the Minotaur go through the door of the labyrinth to the lair where the monstrous man-bull awaited them.

And there went a cuirassed Roman, gripping a short sword of bronze that might have helped cut out the paths the first Caesar trod. Behind him strode a giant Gaul with twisted locks and eyes as coldly blue as Sigurd's own.

Up and down along the center of the thoroughfare rode men and women in litters borne on the shoulders of slaves. His eyes followed a Grecian girl, long limbed and lithe, with hair as yellow as the ripened wheat. They followed, too, a hot-eyed Carthaginian lovely enough to be a bride of Baal who leaned over the side of her litter and smiled at him.

"I am hungry and I thirst," grunted Sigurd. "Why do we stand here? Let us be going."

And Kenton realized that this pageant of past ages could be no strange thing to these comrades who were also of that past. He nodded assent. They swung into the crowd and stopped before a place wherein men sat eating and drinking.

"Better for us to enter two by two," said Gigi. "Klaneth seeks four men and we are four strangers. Wolf, go you in first with Sigurd. Zubran and I will follow—but do not notice us when we enter."

The shopkeeper set food before them and high beakers of red wine. He was garrulous; he asked them when they had made harbor, if their voyage had been a good one.

"It is a good time to be off the sea," he gossiped. "Storm comes—and a great one. I pray to the Dispenser of Waters, that he hold it until Bel's worship is ended. I close my shop soon to see that new priestess they talk so much about."

Kenton's face had been bent over, his cap veils hiding it. But at this he raised it and stared full into the man's face.

The shopkeeper blanched, faltered, stared back at him with wide eyes.

Had he been recognized? Kenton's hand sought stealthily his sword.

"Pardon!" gasped the shopkeeper, "I knew you not—'" Then he peered closer, straightened and laughed. "By Bel! I thought you were—another—Gods!"

He hurried away, Kenton looked after him. Was his departure a ruse? Had he recognized him as the man Klaneth sought? It could not be. His fright had been too real; his relief too sincere. Who was it then that Kenton so resembled to bring forth this fright and relief?

They finished their food quickly, paid from the gold they had taken from the galley; passed out into the street. Almost at once Gigi and the Persian joined them.

Two by two they passed down the street, not hurrying, like men just in from a long voyage. But as they went Kenton, with an ever growing puzzlement and apprehension, saw now one and now another glance at him, pause as though in wonder and then, averting eyes go swiftly by. The others saw it, too.

"Draw the cap cloths about your face," said Gigi, uneasily. "I like not the way they stare."

Briefly Kenton told him of the shopkeeper.

"That is bad," Gigi shook his head. "Now who can it be you so resemble that those who look at you grow frightened? Well—hide your face as best you can."

And this Kenton did, keeping his head bent as he walked. Nevertheless heads still turned.

The street entered a broad park. People were strolling over its sward, sitting on benches of stone, and gigantic roots of trees whose trunks were thick as the sequoia and whose tops were lost in the slowly thickening mists. And when they had gone a little way Sigurd turned off the highway into this park.

"Wolf," he said. "Gigi is right. They stare at you too much. It comes to me that it will be better for all if you go no further. Sit upon this bench. Bow your head as though asleep or drunken. There are few here and they will be fewer as the temple court fills. The mists hide you from those who pass along the street. The three of us will go on to the temple and study that stairway. Then we will return to you and we will take counsel."

Kenton knew the Viking was right. Steadily his own unease had grown. And yet—it was hard to stay behind, not to see for himself that place where Sharane lay captive, leave to others the chance of finding way to her.

"Courage, brother," said Sigurd as they left him. "Odin has held off the storm for us. Odin will help us get your woman."

Now for a time, a long, long time, it seemed to him, he sat upon that bench with face covered by hands. Stronger and stronger grew that desire to see for himself Sharane's prison, study its weaknesses. After all, his comrades were not as interested as he; their eyes not sharpened by love. He might succeed where they would fail; his eyes see what theirs would miss. And at last the desire mastered him. He arose from the bench, made his way back to the thronged street. When it was a few steps away, he turned and went along through the park, paralleling the street but not going out on it.

And in a short while he came to the end of the park and stood, half hidden, looking out.

Directly before him, not fifty yards away, arose the immense bulk of the Temple of the Seven Zones.

It blocked his vision like a Cyclopean cone. The great stairway coiled round it like a serpent. For a hundred feet up from its base the temple shone like burnished silver. There a circular terrace bit into the cone. Above that terrace for another hundred feet the surface was covered with some metal of red gold color, rich orange. Another terrace and above that a facade of jet black, dull and dead. Again a terrace. The mists hid the walls above this last, but he thought that through them he could see a glint of flaming scarlet and over it a blue shadow.

His eyes followed the girdling stairway. He stepped forward that he might see a little better. Broad steps led up from its base to a wide platform on which stood many men on armor. That, he realized, was the garrison which they must either trick or overcome. His heart sank as he counted the soldiers that guarded it.

He looked beyond them. The rise of the stairway from the platform of the guards was gradual. About five thousand feet away the park came close to the side of the temple. There was a clump of high trees whose branches almost touched the stairway at that point.

Gigi's rope and grapple! Ah, wise had been the Ninevite, anticipating some such chance. Kenton was lightest of the four—he could climb those trees, drop to the stairway, or if that were not possible, cast the grapple over the wall of it, swing in and climb up the rope and over!

Then he could drop that rope for the three to swarm it. It could be done! And if in such a storm as Sigurd prophesied, with certainty of giving no alarm to the garrison below.

Suddenly he had the sense of being watched. He saw that the space between him and the temple was empty of people; saw an officer of the garrison standing at the base of the steps staring.

Kenton turned; swiftly skirted the street until he was back to the bench. He seated himself on it as he had been before—bent over, face in hands.

And as he sat there some one dropped down beside him.

"What is the matter, sailor?" came a voice, roughly kind. "If you are sick why not go home?"

Kenton spoke huskily, keeping his face covered.

"Too much of Emakhtila wine," he answered. "Leave me be. It will pass."

"Ho!" laughed the other, and gripped an arm about the elbow. "Look up. Better seek home before the tempest breaks."

"No, no," said Kenton, thickly. "Never mind the tempest. Water will help me."

The hand dropped from his arm. For a time, whoever it was beside him, was silent. Then he arose.

"Right, sailor," he said heartily. "Stay here. Stretch out on the bench and sleep a little. The gods be with you!"

"And with you," muttered Kenton. He heard the footsteps of that brief companionship retreating. Cautiously he turned his head, looked in their direction. There were several figures walking there among the trees. One was an old man in a long blue cloak; another an officer dressed like the one who had watched him from the base of the great stairway; a sailor; a hurrying citizen. Which had it been?

The man who had sat beside him had gripped his arm, gripped it where Sharane's bracelet was bound! And that officer—the watching soldier of the garrison! Had it been he? Had he been followed?

He sat bolt upright, clapped his right hand on the sleeve of the leather shirt. His hand touched—the bracelet! The sleeve had been slit by a knife to reveal it!

Kenton leaped to his feet—to run. Before he could take a step there was a rustling behind him, a trampling. A heavy cloth was thrown over his head like a bag. Hands clutched his throat. Other hands wound strand after strand of rope around his arms, pinioning them to his sides.

"Take that cloth off his face—but keep your hands around his throat," said a cold dead voice.

His head was freed. He looked straight into the pale eyes of Klaneth!

Then from the double ring of soldiers around him came a gasp of amazement, a movement of terror. An officer stepped forward, stared at him incredulously.

"Mother of the Gods!" he groaned, and knelt at Kenton's feet. "Lord—I did not know—" He leaped up, set knife to his bonds.

"Stop!" Klaneth spoke. "It is the slave! Look again!"

Trembling, the officer studied Kenton's face, lifted the cap veils; swore.

"Gods!" he exclaimed, "but I thought he was—"

"And he is not," interposed Klaneth smoothly. His eyes gloated over Kenton. He reached down into his belt, drew from it the sword of Nabu.

"Hold!" the officer quietly took it from him. "This man is my prisoner until I deliver him to the king. And till then I keep his sword."

The feral light in the pupils of the black priest glowed.

"He goes to Nergal's House," he rumbled. "Best beware, captain, how you cross Klaneth."

"Cross or no cross," replied the officer, "I am the king's man. His orders I obey. And you know as well as I do that he has commanded all prisoners to be brought before him first—no matter what even high priests may say. Besides," he added slyly, "there is that matter of the reward. Best to get this capture a matter of record. The king is a just man."

The black priest stood silent, fingering his mouth. The officer laughed.

"March!" he snapped. "To the temple. If this man escapes—all your lives for his!"

In a triple ring of the soldiers walked Kenton. On one side of him strode the officers; on the other the black priest, gloating gaze never leaving him; Klaneth, licking his merciless lips.

Thus they passed through the wooded park, out into the street and at last through a high archway, and were swallowed up within a gateway of the temple.

CHAPTER 19. The Lord Of The Two Deaths

THE KING of Emakhtila, Lord of the Two Deaths, sat, legs crooked, on a high divan. He was very like Old King Cole of the nursery rhyme, even to that monarch's rubicund jollity, his apple-round, pippin-red cheeks. Merriment shone in his somewhat watery blue eyes. He wore one loose robe of scarlet. His long, white beard, stained here and there with drops of red and purple and yellow wine, wagged roguishly.

The judgment chamber of the King of Emakhtila was some hundred feet square. His divan rested on a platform five feet high that stretched from side to side like a stage. The chequered floor raised in a sharp concave curve to build it. The curved front was cut through by a broad flight of low wide steps ascending from the lower floor and ending about five feet from the divan of the king.

Two and ten archers in belted kirtles of silver and scarlet stood on the lowest step, shoulder to shoulder, bows at stand, arrows at strings, ready on the instant to be raised to ears and loosed. Four and twenty archers knelt at their feet. Six and thirty shafts of death were leveled at Kenton, black priest and the captain.

Out from each side of the steps and along the curved wall to where it met the sides of the chamber another file of bowmen stretched, scarlet and silver, shoulder to shoulder, arrows alert. The twinkling eyes of the king could see the backs of the heads ranged over the edge of his stage like footlights.

Along the other three walls, shoulder to shoulder, arrows at strings, eyes fixed on the King of Emakhtila, ran an unbroken silver and scarlet frieze of archers. They stood silent; tense as automatons tightly wound and waiting for touch upon some hidden spring.

The chamber was windowless. Pale blue tapestries covered all its walls. A hundred lamps lighted it with still, yellow flames.

Twice a tall man's height away from the king's left hand a veiled shape stood, motionless as the bowmen. Even through its thick veils came subtle hints of beauty.

At the same distance from the king's right hand another veiled shape stood. Nor could its veils check hint of horror seeping forth from what they covered.

One shape set the pulses leaping.

One shape checked them.

On the floor, at the king's feet, crouched a giant Chinese with a curved and crimson sword.

Close to each end of the divan stood girls, fair and young and naked to their waists. Six to this side—six to that. They held ewers filled with wine. At their feet were great bowls of wine, red and purple and yellow, in larger bowls of snow.

At the right hand of the Lord of the Two Deaths knelt a girl with golden cup on outstretched palms. At his left hand another knelt, a golden flagon on her palms. And the king to drink used equally well his left hand and his right, raising cup or flagon, setting them to his lips, putting them back. Whereupon at once they were refilled.

Through many passages the captain and the black priest had hurried Kenton to this place. And now the king drank deep, set down his cup and clapped his hands.

"The King of Emakhtila judges!" intoned the Chinese, sonorously.

"He judges!" whispered the bowmen ranged along the walls.

Kenton, black priest and captain stepped forward until their breasts touched the foremost arrow points. The king leaned, merry eyes twinkling on Kenton.

"What jest is this, Klaneth?" he cried in a high, thin treble. "Or have the Houses of Bel and Nergal declared war upon each other?"

"They are not at war, lord," answered Klaneth. "This is the slave for whom I have offered great reward and whom I now claim since I have taken—"

"Since I have taken, Mighty One," interrupted the captain, kneeling as he spoke. "And so have earned Klaneth's reward, O Just One!"

"You lie, Klaneth!" chuckled the king. "If you are not at war why have you trussed up—"

"Look again, lord," interrupted Klaneth. "I do not lie."

The watery eyes peered closer at Kenton.

"No!" laughed the king. "You are right. He is what the other man would be were he half as much a man. Well well—"

He raised the flagon; before he had half lifted it to his lips he paused and looked into it.

"Half full!" giggled the king. "Only half full!"

He glanced from the flagon to the girl who stood closest to the kneeling girl at his left. His round face beamed on her.

"Insect!" chuckled the king. "You forgot to fill my flagon!"

He raised a finger.

A bow string sang along the left wall, an arrow shrilled. It struck the trembling girl in the shoulder on the right side. She swayed, eyes closed.

"Bad!" the king cried merrily, and again held up a finger.

From the frieze along the right wall another bow string sang; an arrow whittled across the room. The shaft cleft the heart of the first archer. Before his body touched the floor the same bow sang once more.

A second shaft leaped into sight deep within the left side of the wounded girl.

"Good!" laughed the king.

"Our lord has granted death!" chanted the Chinese. "Praise him!"

"Praise him!" echoed the bowmen and the cup maidens.

But Kenton, mad with swift rage at that heartless killing, leaped forward. Instantly the bow strings of the six and thirty archers before him were drawn taut, arrow shafts touched ears. Black priest and captain caught him, threw him down.

The Chinese drew a small hammer and struck the blade of his sword. It rang like a bell. Two slaves came out on the dais and carried the dead girl away. Another girl took her place. The slaves dragged off the dead archer. Another slipped through the curtains and stood where he had been.

"Let him up," crowed the king—and drained his filled flagon.

"Lord—he is my slave." All the black priest's will could not keep the arrogant impatience out of his voice. "He has been brought before you in obedience to your general command. You have seen him. Now I claim my right to take him to his place of punishment."

"Oh-ho!" the king set down his cup, beamed at Klaneth. "Oh-ho! Sh-so you won't let him up? And you will take him away? Oh-ho!

"Toe nail of a rotting flea!" he shrilled. "Am I King of Emakhtila or am I not? Answer me!"

From all around the chamber came the sigh of tight drawn bow strings. Every arrow of the silver and scarlet frieze of bowmen was pointed at the black priest's great body. The captain threw himself down beside Kenton.

"Gods!" muttered that shoulder. "Hell take you and the reward. Why did I ever see you!"

The black priest spoke, voice strangled between rage and fear—

"King of Emakhtila you are!"

He knelt. The king waved his hand. The bow strings dropped loose.

"Stand up!" cried the king. The three arose. The King of Emakhtila shook a finger at Kenton.

"Why were you so angered," he chuckled, "by my boon of death to those two? Man—how many times, think you, will you beseech death to come, and pray for my swift archers before Klaneth is done with you?"

"It was slaughter," said Kenton, eyes steady on the watery ones.

"My cup must be kept filled," answered the king gently. "The girl knew the penalty. She broke my law. She was slain. I am just."

"Our lord is just!" chanted the Chinese.

"He is just!" echoed the archers and the cup maidens.

"The bowman made her suffer when I meant painless death for her. Therefore he was slain," said the king. "I am merciful."

"Our lord is merciful!" chanted the Chinese. "He is merciful!" echoed the bowmen and the cup maidens.

"Death!" the king's face wrinkled jovially. "Why, man—death is the first of boons. It is the one thing out of which the gods cannot cheat us. It is the one thing that is stronger than the fickleness of the gods. It is the only thing that is man's own. Above the gods, heedless of the gods, stronger than the gods—since even gods in their due time must die!

"Ah!" sighed the king—and for a fleeting instant all King Cole jocundity was gone. "Ah! There was a poet in Chaldea when I dwelt there—a man who knew death and how to write of it. Maldronah, his name. None here knows him—"

And then softly:

"'Tis better be dead than alive, he said—But best is never to be!"

Kenton listened, interest in this strange personality banishing his anger. He too knew Maldronah of ancient Ur; had run across that very poem from which the king had quoted while going through some of the inscribed clay tablets recovered by Heilprecht in the sands of Nineveh—back in that old life, half forgotten. And involuntarily he spoke the beginning of the last macabresque stanza:

"Life is a game, he said; Its end we know not—nor care, And we yawn ere we come to its end—"

"What!" the king cried. "You know Maldronah! You—"

Old King Cole again, he shook with laughter. "Go on!" he ordered. Kenton felt the bulk of Klaneth beside him tremble with wrath. And Kenton laughed, too—meeting the twinkling eyes of the king; and while the Lord of the Two Deaths beat time with cup and flagon he finished Maldronah's verse, with its curious jigging lilt entangled in slow measure of marche funerale:

"Yet it pleases to play with the snare,
To skirt the pit, and the peril dare,
And lightly the gains to spend;
There's a door that has opened, he said,
A space where ye may tread—
But the things ye have seen and the things ye have done,
What are these things when the race is run—

And ye pause at the farthest door?
As though they never had been, he said—
Utterly passed as the pulse of the dead!
Then tread on lightly with nothing to mourn!
Shall he who had nothing fear for the score?
Ah—better be dead than alive, he said—
But best is ne'er to be born!"

Long sat the king in silence. At last he stirred, raised his flagon and beckoned one of the maidens.

"He drinks with me!" he said, pointing to Kenton.

The archers parted; let the cup maiden pass. She stood before Kenton; held the flagon to his lips. He drank deep; lifted head and bowed thanks.

"Klaneth," said the king, "no man who knows Maldronah of Ur is a slave."

"Lord," answered the black priest, stubbornly. "Yet this man is my slave."

The king again sat silent, drinking now from cup and now from flagon; eyes now on Kenton, now at Klaneth.

"Come here," he ordered at last—and pointed with one finger at Kenton, with another at the side of the Chinese.

"Lord!" said Klaneth, more uneasily yet as stubbornly. "My slave stays beside me."

"Does he?" laughed the king. "Ulcer on a gnat's belly! Does he?"

All around the chamber the bow strings sighed.

"Lord," panted Klaneth, with bowed head. "He goes to you."

As he passed him, Kenton heard the black priest's teeth grate; heard him sob as does a man after a long race. And Kenton, grinning, stepped through the opened space of archers; stood before the king.

"Man who knows Maldronah," smiled the king. "You wonder how I, alone, have greater power than these priests and all their gods? Well—it is because in all Emakhtila I am the only one who has neither gods nor superstitions. I am the one man who knows there are only three realities. Wine—which up to a certain point makes man see more clearly than the gods. Power—which being combined with man's cunning makes him superior to the gods. Death—which no god can abolish and which I deal at will."

"Wine! Power! Death!" chanted the Chinese.

"These priests have many gods—each of them jealous of all the others. Ho! Ho!" laughed the king. "I have no gods. Therefore I am just to all. The just judge must be without prejudice; without belief."

"Our lord is without prejudice!" chanted the Chinese. "He has no beliefs!" intoned the bowmen. "I am on one side of the scales," nodded the king. "On the other side are many gods and priests. There are only three things that I am sure are real. Wine, power, death! Those who try to outweigh me have beliefs many times three. Therefore I outweigh them. If there were but one god, one belief opposite me—lo, I would be outweighed! Yea—three to one! That is paradox—also it is truth."

"The Lord of Emakhtila speaks truth!" whispered the bowmen.

"Better three straight arrows in your quiver than threescore crooked ones. And if there should arise one man in Emakhtila with but one arrow and that arrow straighter than my three—that man would soon rule in my place," beamed the king.

"Archers—hear ye the king!" chanted the Chinese. "And so," the king said, briskly, "since all the gods and all the priests are jealous of each other, they make me-who gives not a curse for any god or priest—king of Emakhtila—to keep peace among them and hold them back from destroying each other! And this, since I now have ten bowmen to every one of theirs, and twenty swordsmen to each swordman of the priests, I do very well. Ho! Ho!" laughed the king. "That is power." "Our lord has power!" cried the Chinese.

"And having power I can get drunk at will," chuckled the king.

"Our lord is drunken!" whispered the archers, all around the chamber.

"Drunken or sober—I am King of the Two Deaths!" tittered the ruler of Emakhtila.

"The Two Deaths!" whispered the archers, nodding to each other.

"To you—man who knows Maldronah—I unveil them," said the king.

"Bowmen at sides and back—bend your heads!" shouted the Chinese. The heads of the archers along three sides of the living frieze dropped immediately upon their breasts.

The veils fell from the shape upon the left hand of the king.

There, looking at Kenton with deep eyes in which were tenderness of the mother, shyness of the maid, passion of the beloved mistress, stood a woman. Her naked body was flawless. In it, harmonies of mother, maid and mistress flowed in one compelling chord. From her breathed all springtides that ever caressed earth. She was the doorway to enchanted worlds, the symbol of everything that life could offer both of beauty and of joy. She was all the sweetnesses of life, its promises, its ecstasies, its lure and its reason. Looking on her Kenton knew that life was something to be held fast. That it was dear and filled with wonders. Exquisite—not to be let go!

And that death was very dreadful!

He had no desire toward her. But she fanned to roaring flame desire for life in full continuance.

In her right hand she held a strangely shaped instrument, long, with sharp fangs and rows of tearing claws.

"To her," chuckled the king, "I give only those whom I greatly dislike. She kills them slowly. Looking upon her, they cling to life; fiercely, terribly they cling to it. Each moment of life that she draws from them with those claws and teeth is an eternity through which they battle against death. Slowly she draws them out of life—wailing, clinging to it, turning stubborn faces from death! And now—look!"

The veils fell from the shape at his right hand.

There crouched a black dwarf, misshapen, warped, hideous. He stared at Kenton out of dull eyes that held every sorrow and sadness and disillusionment of life; held all of life's uselessness, its weariness, its empty labor. And looking at him, Kenton forgot that other shape—knew that life was dreadful, not to be borne.

And that death was the one good thing!

In his right hand the dwarf held a slender sword, rapier thin, needle pointed. Kenton fought increasing desire to hurl himself upon that point—die upon it!

"To him," laughed the king, "I give those who have greatly pleased me. Swift is their death and a sweet cup to their lips."

"You there—" the king pointed to the captain who had trapped Kenton. "Not too pleased am I with you for taking this man who knows Maldronah, even if he be Klaneth's slave. Go up before my left hand death!"

Face bloodless white, the captain marched to the steps; rigid he marched through the archers, marched without pause until he stood before the woman. The Chinese struck his sword. Two slaves entered, heads bent low, carrying a lattice of metal. They stripped the captain of his armor, strapped him naked to the grate. The woman leaned over him, tenderness, love, all life's promise in her wondrous face. She thrust the fanged instrument against his breast—so lovingly!

From his lips came a shrieking, anguished, despairing; prayers and curses; the wailing of the newly damned.

Still the woman leaned over him, smiling, tender, her eyes brooding upon his.

"Let be!" giggled the king. She lifted the thing of torment from the soldier's breast; bent to her veils and threw them over her. The slaves unbound the captain; dressed his shaking body. Sobbing, he staggered back, sank on knees at the black priest's side.

"I am displeased," said the king, merrily. "Yet you did your duty. Therefore—live for a while, since that is your desire. I am just."

"Just is our lord," echoed the chamber. "You—" he pointed to the archer who had slain cup maiden and a fellow bowman—"I am much pleased with you. You shall have your reward. Come to my right hand death!"

Slowly at first the archer stepped forward. Faster he moved as the dull eyes of the dwarf met his and clung to them. Faster and faster—he raced up the steps, hurling the archers aside and leaped upon the slender sword!

"I am generous," said the king.

"Our lord is generous," intoned the Chinese.

"Generous!" whispered the bowmen.

"I am thirsty," laughed the king. He drank deep from left hand and right. His head nodded; he swayed a bit; quite drunkenly.

"My command!" he opened and closed one twinkling eye after the other. "Hear me, Klaneth! I am sleepy. I will sleep. When I was awaken—bring this man who knows Maldronah to me again. Let no harm come to him before then. It is my command. Also he shall have a guard of bowmen. Take him away. Keep him safe. It is my command!"

He reached for his cup. It dropped from his lax hand.

"By my Deaths!" he whimpered. "What shame that casks can hold so much and man so little!"

He sank upon the divan.

The Lord of the Two Deaths snored.

"Our lord sleeps!" chanted the Chinese, softly.

"He sleeps!" whispered the bowmen and cup maidens.

The Chinese arose, bent over the king. He raised him on his shoulders like a child. The Two Deaths followed him. The two and ten archers upon the lowest step turned, marched up and circled the four. The four and twenty turned, marched and circled them. The bowmen beside the curved wall swung round and six abreast marched up the steps. The living frieze of scarlet and silver swung six by six out from their walls and followed them.

The double ring stepped forward, passed through the curtains at the rear. After them strode the bowmen.

Six fell out of the ranks, ranged themselves beside Kenton.

The cup maidens picked up ewers and bowls. They tripped through the curtains.

One of the six bowmen pointed to the lower floor. Kenton walked down the steps.

Black priest on one side of him, white-faced captain on the other, three archers marching before them, three after them, he passed out of the judgment chamber of the king.

CHAPTER 20. Behind The Wall

THEY LED Kenton to a narrow room in whose high walls were slitted windows. Its heavy door was solid bronze. Around its sides ran stone benches. In its center was another bench. The bowmen sat him on it, tied his ankles with leathern thongs, threw cloaks on its top and pressed him down upon them. They seated themselves two by two on three sides of the room, eyes fixed on black priest and captain, now ready.

The captain tapped the black priest on the shoulder.

"My reward?" he asked. "When do I get it?" "When the slave is in my hands and not before," answered Klaneth, savagely, "If you had been—wiser, you would have had it by now."

"Much good it would be doing me, with an arrow through my heart or—" he shuddered—"wailing even now at the feet of the king's left hand death!"

The black priest looked at Kenton evilly; bent over him. "Put no hope in the king's favor," he muttered. "It was his drunkenness that was speaking. When he awakens he will have forgotten. He will give you to me without question. No hope there!"

"No?" sneered Kenton, meeting the malignant eyes steadily. "Yet twice have I beaten you—you black swine."

"But not a third time," spat Klaneth. "And when the king awakens I will have not only you but that temple drab you love! Ho!" rumbled the black priest as Kenton winced, "that touches you, does it? Yes, I will have you both. And together you shall die—slowly, ah, so slowly, watching each other's agonies. Side by side—side by side until slowly, slowly, my torturers have destroyed the last of your bodies. Nay, the last of your souls! Never before has man or woman died as you two shall!"

"You cannot harm Sharane," answered Kenton. "Carrion eater whose filthy mouth drips lies! She is Bel's priestess and safe from you."

"Ho! You know that do you?" grunted Klaneth; then bent, whispering close to Kenton's ear so softly that no one but him could hear. "Listen—here then is a sweet thought to carry you while I am away. Only while the priestess is faithful to the god is she beyond my reach. Now listen—listen—before the king awakes your Sharane shall have taken another lover! Yea! Your love shall lie in the arms of an earthly lover! And he will not be—you!"

Kenton writhed, striving to break his bonds. "Sweet Sharane!" whispered Klaneth leering. "Holy Vase of Joy! And mine now to break as I will—while the King sleeps!"

He stepped back to the soldier who had taken Kenton. "Come," he said.

"Not I," answered the soldier, hastily. "By the gods, I prefer this company. Also if I lose sight of this man—I might forever lose sight of that reward you owe me for him."

"Give me his sword," ordered Klaneth, reaching toward the blade of Nabu which the officer had retained.

"The sword goes with the man," answered the captain, setting it behind him; he looked at the archers.

"That is true," the bowmen nodded to each other. "Priest, you cannot have the sword."

Klaneth snarled; his hands flew out. Six bows bent, six arrows pointed at his heart. Without word, the black priest strode out of the cell. An archer arose, dropped into place a bar, sealing the door. A silence fell. The officer brooded; now and then he shivered as though cold, and Kenton knew he was thinking of that Death who with smiling, tender eyes had pressed teeth of torture in his breast. The six bowmen watched him unwinkingly.

And at last Kenton closed his own eyes—fighting to keep back the terror of Klaneth's last threat against his beloved; fighting against despair.

What plot had the black priest set going against her, what trap had he laid, to make him so sure that so soon he would have her in his hands—to break! And where were Gigi and Sigurd and Zubran? Did they know how he had been taken? A great loneliness swept over him.

How long his eyes were closed, or whether he had slept—he never could tell. But he heard as though from infinite distances away a still, passionless voice.

"Arise!" it bade him.

He opened his lids; lifted his head. A priest stood beside him, a priest whose long blue robes covered him from head to foot. Nothing could he see of the priest's face.

He knew that his arms and ankles were free. He sat up. Ropes and thongs lay on the floor. On the stone benches the bowmen leaned one against the other asleep. The officer was asleep.

The priest pointed to his sword, the sword of Nabu lying across the sleeping soldier's knees. Kenton took it. The priest pointed to the bar that held the door. Kenton lifted it and swung the door open. The blue priest glided through the doorway, Kenton close behind.

The blue priest drifted along the corridor for a hundred paces or so and then pressed against what, to Kenton's sight, was a blank wall. A panel opened. Now they stood in a long corridor, dimly lighted. Along it they went in a great curve. It came to Kenton that this hidden passage followed the huge arc of the temple, that it ran behind the temple's outer wall.

Now a massive bronze door closed the way. The blue priest seemed only to touch it. Yet it swung open; it closed behind them.

Kenton stood in a crypt some ten feet square. At one end was the massive door through which he had come; at the other was a similar one. At his left was a ten-foot slab of smooth, pallid stone.

The blue priest spoke—if indeed it were he speaking, since the passionless, still voice Kenton heard seemed, like that which had bidden him arise, to come from infinite distance.

"The mind of the woman you love—sleeps!" it said. "She is a woman walking in dream—moving among dreams that another mind has made for her. Evil creeps upon her. It is not well to let that evil conquer—Yet the issue rests on you—on your wisdom, your strength, your courage. When your wisdom tells you it is the time—open that farther door. Your way lies through it. And remember—her mind sleeps. You must awaken it—before the evil leaps upon her."

Something tinkled on the floor. At Kenton's feet lay a little wedge-shaped key. He stooped to pick it up. As he raised his head he saw the blue priest beside the far door.

The blue priest seemed but a wisp of wind-drawn smoke that, even as he looked, faded through the bronze and vanished!

Kenton heard the murmur of many voices, muffled, vague. He slipped from door to door, listening. The voices were not within the passage. They seemed to seep through the slab of pallid smooth stone. He placed an ear against it. The sounds came to him more distinctly, but still he could distinguish no words. The stone must be exceedingly thin here, he thought, that he could hear at all. He saw at his right a little shining lever. He drew it down.

A three-foot-wide, misty disc of light began to glow within the stone. It seemed to eat through the stone; it flashed out dazzlingly. Where the disc had been was a circular opening, a window. Silhouetted against it were the heads of a woman and two men. Their voices came now as clearly to his ears as though they stood beside him; over them came the wavelike murmur of a multitude. He drew back, fearing to be seen. The little lever snapped back into place. The window faded; with its fading the voices muted. He stared again at the smooth, pale wall.

Slowly he drew down the lever; once more he watched the apparent burning out of the solid stone; saw the three heads reappear. He had his free hand over the visible wall to the edge of the circle; higher he lifted it, into the disc itself. And ever he touched cold stone. Even that which was to his eyes an opening was to the questing fingers—stone!

He understood—this was some device of the sorcerers—the priests. A device to give them a peeping place, a listening post, within the crypt. Some knowledge of the properties of light not yet learned by the science of Kenton's own world, control of a varying vibration that made the rock transparent from within but not from without. Whatever the secret, the stone was made as porous to the aerial waves of sound as to the etheric waves of light.

Keeping his grip upon the handle, Kenton peered out between the heads and over the shoulders of those so close to and still so unconscious of him.

CHAPTER 21. Before The Altar Of Bel

THE MISTS had lifted. They had become dense lurid clouds pressing down almost upon the top of the Zoned Temple. In front of him was a huge court paved with immense octagons of black and white marble. Trooping down upon this court like a forest of faery, halting in a wide semicircle around it, were hosts of slender pillars, elfin shafts all gleaming red and black whose tapering tops were crowned with carven, lace-tipped fronds glistening like gigantic ferns wet with dew of diamonds and sapphires. Upon the black and scarlet columns shone mysterious symbolings in gold and azure, in emerald and vermilion and silver. In halted myriads these pillars reached up toward the sullen, smouldering sky.

Hardly a hundred feet away was a golden altar, guarded by crouching Kerubs, man-headed, eagle-winged, lion-bodied, carven from some midnight metal. They watched at each corner of the altar with cruel, bearded faces set between paws and as alert as though alive. From the tripod on the altar a single slender crimson flame lifted, lance tipped and motionless.

In a vast crescent, a dozen yards in the van of the columns stood a double ring of bowmen and spearmen. They held back a multitude; men and women and children pouring out of the ordered grove of pillars and milling against the soldiers like wind-driven leaves against a well. Score upon score of men and women and children plucked from their own times and set down in this timeless world.

"The new priestess—they say she is very beautiful?" One of the men in front of Kenton had spoken. He was thin, white-faced, a Phrygian cap over his lank hair. The woman was of a bold and blown comeliness, black tressed, black-eyed. The man at her right was an Assyrian, bearded, wolf visaged.

"She was a princess, they say," the woman spoke. "They say she was a princess in Babylon."

"Princess in Babylon!" echoed the Assyrian, wolf face softening, homesickness in his voice—"Oh, to be back in Babylon!"

"The Priest of Bel loves her—so they say," the woman broke the silence.

"The priestess?" whispered the Phrygian; the woman nodded. "But that is forbidden," he muttered. "It is—death!" The woman laughed again.

"Hush!" it was the Assyrian, cautioning.

"And Narada—the God's Dancer—loves the Priest of Bel!" the woman went on, unheeding. "And so—as always one must speed to Nergal!"

"Hush!" whispered the Assyrian.

There was a rumbling ruffle of drums, the sweet piping of a flute. Kenton sought the sounds. His gaze rested on half a score of temple girls. Five crouched beside little tambours upon whose heads rested their rosy thumbs; two held to red lips pierced reeds; three bent over harps. Within their circle lay what at first seemed to him a mound of shimmering spider web spun all of threads of jet, in which swarms of golden butterflies were snared. The mound quivered, lifted.

The sable silken strands had meshed a woman, a woman so lovely that for a heartbeat Kenton forgot Sharane. Dark she was, with the velvety darkness of the midsummer night; her eyes were pools of midnight skies in which shone no stars; her hair was mists of tempests snared in nets of silken gold. Sullen indeed was that gold, and in all of her something sullen that menaced the more because of its sweetness.

"There is a woman!" the bold eyes turned to the Assyrian. "She'll have what she wants—my bed on it!"

There came a voice from beside her, wistful, dreamy, worshipping:

"Ah, yes! But the new priestess—she is no woman! She is Ishtar!"

Kenton craned his neck, looking for the speaker. He saw a youth, hardly more than nineteen, saffron-robed and slight. His eyes and face were those of a beautiful dreaming child.

"He is half mad," the dark woman whispered to the Assyrian. "Ever since the new priestess came, he haunts this place."

"We are going to have a storm. The sky is like a bowl of brass," muttered the Phrygian. "The air is frightened."

The Assyrian answered:

"They say Bel comes to his house in the storm. Perhaps the priestess will not be alone tonight."

The woman laughed, slyly. Kenton felt desire to take her throat in his hands. There came a low clashing of thunder.

"Perhaps that is he, rising," said the woman, demurely.

There was a throbbing of the harp-strings, a complaining from the tambours. A dancing girl sang softly:

"Born was Nala for delight,
Never danced there feet so white;
Every heart on which she trod.
Dying owned her heel its god;
Loose her girdle day or night—
Born was Nala for delight!"

The brooding eyes of Narada flashed angrily. "Be quiet!" Kenton heard her whisper. There was a ripple of laughter among the girls; the two with the pipes trilled them softly; the drums murmured. But she who had sung sat silent over her harp with downcast eyes.

The Phrygian asked: "Is this priestess then really so beautiful?"

The Assyrian said: "I do not know. No man has ever seen her unveiled." The youth whispered:

"When she walks I tremble! I tremble like the little blue lake of the temple when the breeze walks on it! Only my eyes live, and something grips my throat."

"Peace!" a brown-eyed girl with kindly face and babe in arms spoke. "Not so loud—or it will be a bowstring."

"She is no woman! She is Ishtar! Ishtar!" cried the youth.

The soldiers nearby turned. Through them strode a grizzled officer, short sword in hand. Before his approach the others drew back; only the youth stood motionless. Right and left the sword carrier peered beneath bushy brows. Ere he could fix gaze on the youth a man in sailor's cap and tunic of mail had walked between the two, gripped the youth's wrist, held him hidden behind him. Kenton caught a glimpse of agate eyes, black beard—It was Zubran!

Zubran! But would he pass on? Could Kenton make him hear if he called? If his body could not be seen from without, could his voice penetrate the stone?

The sword bearer scanned the silent group, uncertainly. The Persian saluted him gravely.

"Silence here!" grunted the officer at last, and passed back among his men.

The Persian grinned; pushed the youth from him; stared at the dark woman with eyes bolder than her own. He jostled the Phrygian from his place; laid a hand upon the woman's arm.

"I was listening," he said. "Who is this priestess? I am newly come to this land and know nothing of its customs. Yet by Ormuzd!" he swore and dropped his arm around the woman's shoulders. "It was worth the journey to meet you! Who is this priestess that you say is so beautiful?"

"She is the keeper of Bel's Bower," the woman nestled close to him.

"But what does she there?" asked Zubran. "Now if it were—you—I could understand without asking. And why does she come here?"

"The priestess lives in Bel's Bower upon the top of the temple," the Assyrian spoke. "She comes here to worship at his altar. When her worship is done she returns."

"For such beauty as you say is hers," remarked Zubran, "her world seems small indeed. Why, if she is so beautiful, is she content to dwell in so small a world?"

"She is the god's," answered the Assyrian. "She is the keeper of his house. If the god entered he might be hungry. There must be food for him in his house and a woman to serve it. Or he might be amor—"

"And so there must be a woman there," interrupted the bold-eyed wench, smiling up at him.

"We have something like that in my country," the Persian drew her closer. "But the priestesses seldom wait alone. The priests see to that—Ho! Ho!"

God! Would Zubran never come close enough to the wall? So close that Kenton might call to him? And yet—if he did! Would not those others hear him also—? And then—

"Have any of these priestesses who—wait—" Zubran's voice purred—"Have any of these waiting priestesses ever—ah, entertained—the god?"

The youth spoke: "They say the doves speak to her—the doves of Ishtar! They say she is more beautiful than Ishtar!"

"Fool!" whispered the Assyrian. "Fool, be still! Will you bring bad luck upon us? No woman can be more beautiful than Ishtar!"

"No woman can be more beautiful than Ishtar," sighed the youth. "Therefore she is—Ishtar!"

The Phrygian said: "He is mad!"

But the Persian stretched out his right arm, drew the youth to him.

"Have any of these priestesses ever held the god?" he asked.

"Wait" murmured the woman. "I will ask Narodach the archerer. He comes sometimes to my house. He knows. He has seen many priestesses." she held the Persian's arm fast about her girdle, leaned forward—"Narodach! Come to me!"

An archer turned; whispered to the men on each side of him; slipped from between them. They closed up behind him.

"Narodach," asked the woman. "Tell us—have any of the priestesses ever held—Bel?"

The archer hesitated, uneasily.

"I do not know," slowly he answered at last. "They tell many tales. Yet are they but tales? When first I came here there was a priestess in Bel's house. She was like the crescent moon of our old world. Many men desired her."

"Ho, archer," rumbled the Persian. "But did she—hold the god?"

Narodach said: "I do not know. They said so—they said that she had been withered by his fires. The wife of the charioteer of the Priest of Ninib told me that her face was very old when they took away her body. She was a date tree that had withered before it had borne fruit, she said."

"If I were a priestess—and so beautiful—I would not wait for a god!" the woman's eyes clung to Zubran. "I would have a man. Yea—I would have many men!"

"There was another who followed," said the archer. "She said the god had come to her. But she was mad—and being mad, the priests of Nergal took her."

"Give me men, I say!" whispered the woman.

Said Narodach the archer musing: "One there was who threw herself from the Bower. One there was who vanished. One there was—"

The Persian interrupted: "It seems that these priestesses who wait for Bel are not—fortunate."

Said the woman with intense conviction:

"Give me—men!"

There was a nearer clashing of thunder. In the lurid, ever-darkening sky, the clouds began a slow churning.

"There will be a great storm," muttered the Phrygian.

The girl Narada had rebuked thrummed against her harp strings; she sang half maliciously, half defiantly:

"Every heart that sought a nest,
Flew straightway to Nala's breast—
Bornwas Nala for delight—"

She checked her song. From afar came the faint sound of chanting; the tread of marching feet. Bowman and spearmen raised bows and spears in salute. Behind them the milling multitudes dropped to their knees. The Persian drew close to the wall. And his was now the only head in the circular window whose pane was stone.

"Zubran!" called Kenton, softly. The Persian turned startled face to the wall, then leaned against it, cloak tight around his face.

"Wolf!" he whispered. "Are you safe? Where are you?"

"Behind the wall," whispered Kenton. "Speak softly."

"Are you hurt? In chains?" muttered the Persian.

"I am safe," answered Kenton. "But Gigi—Sigurd?"

"Searching for you," the Persian said. "Our hearts have been well-nigh broken—"

"Listen," said Kenton. "There is a clump of trees—close to the stairway above the garrison—"

"We know," answered Zubran. "It is from them we make the steps and scale the temple. But you—"

"I will be in the Bower of Bel," said Kenton. "Soon as the storm breaks—go there. If you do not find me—take Sharane, carry her back to the ship. I will follow."

"We will not go without you," whispered Zubran.

"I hear a voice speaking through the stone." It was the Assyrian, kneeling. Zubran dropped from Kenton's sight.

The chanting had grown louder; the marching feet were close. Then from some secret entrance of the temple there swept out into the open space a company of archers and a company of swordsmen. Behind them paced as many shaven, yellow-robed priests, swinging smoking golden censers and chanting as they walked. The soldiers formed a wide arc before the altar. The priests were silent upon a somber chord. They threw themselves flat on the ground.

Into the great court strode a single figure, tall as Kenton himself. A robe of shining gold covered him and a fold of this he held on raised left arm, completely covering his face.

"The Priest of Bel!" whispered the kneeling woman.

There was a movement among the temple girls. Narada had half risen. Never had there been such yearning, such bittersweet desire as that in her midnight eyes as the Priest of Bel passed her, unheeding. Her slender fingers gripped the cobwebs that meshed her; their webs were lifted by the swelling breast of her; shuddered with the sighs that shook her.

The Priest of Bel reached the golden altar. He dropped the arm that held the shrouding fold. And then Kenton's stiff fingers almost loosed the shining lever.

He looked, as in a mirror, into his own face!

CHAPTER 22. How Narada Danced

BREATHLESSLY Kenton stared at this strange twin. There was the same square jaw, firm-lipped dark face, the same clear blue eyes.

His mind groped toward the black priest's plot. Was this to be—Sharane's lover? Some flash of understanding half illumined his mind—too brief to be more than half caught. It left him groping again.

Through the stone he heard the Persian cursing. Then—

"Wolf, are you behind me?" he muttered. "Are you truly behind me, Wolf?"

"Yes," he whispered. "I am here, Zubran. That is not I! It is some sorcery."

His gaze flew back to the Priest of Bel; began now to take note of subtle differences in their two faces. The lips were not so firm, the corners of the mouth drew down, there was hint of indecision about them and the chin. And the eyes were strained, shadowed with half wild, half agonized longing. Silent, tense, the Priest of Bel stared over the lifted head of Narada, her lithe body as rigid as his own, unheeding her, intent upon that hidden portal through which he had come.

The lanced, crimson flame upon the altar flickered; swayed.

"The gods guard us!" he heard the bold-eyed woman say.

"Be silent! What is the matter?" said the Assyrian.

The woman whispered: "Did you see the Kerubs? They glared at the priest! They moved toward him!"

The woman with the babe said: "I saw it! I am frightened!"

The Assyrian said: "It was the light on the altar. It flickered."

Said the Phrygian low: "Perhaps it was the Kerubs. Are they not Bel's messengers? Did you not say the priest loved Bel's woman?"

"Silence there!" rang the voice of the officer from behind the double ring. The priests began a low chanting. In the eyes of the priest a fire began to glow; his lips quivered; his body bent forward as though drawn by an unseen cord. Across the wide place walked a woman—alone. She was cloaked from neck to feet in purple; her head was swathed in golden veils.

Kenton knew her!

His heart leaped toward her; his blood raced. He quivered under such shock of longing that it seemed as though his leaping heart must break beneath it.

"Sharane!" he called, forgetting; and again—"Sharane!"

She glided through the opened ranks of the men-at-arms kneeling to her as she passed. Straight to the altar she paced and stood silent, motionless beside the Priest of Bel.

There was a louder rolling of the metallic thunder. As it died away the priest turned to the altar, lifted his hands high. From his attendants droned a long, sustained humming upon a single deep note. Up and out swept the priest's arms; seven times he bowed low before the crimson flame. He stood upright. Down upon their knees dropped archers and spearmen; with a rustling of bows, a muffled beating of spear shafts.

Still to that weird humming the Priest of Bel began his invocation:

"Oh merciful among the gods!
O bullnecked among the gods!
Bel Merodach, king of the heavens and the worlds!
Heavens and earths are thine!
Breather of life art thou!
Thy house is prepared for thee!
We worship and await."

Kenton heard a whisper—tremulous, golden—"I worship and await!"

Sharane's voice! The golden voice of Sharane playing upon every taut nerve of him like myriads of little fingers over stretched harp strings!

Again the Priest of Bel:

"O begetter! O self-begotten!
O beautiful one who givest life to the babe!
O merciful one who givest life to the dead!
King art thou of Ezida!
Lord of Emakhtila!
A resting place for the King of Heaven is thy house!
A resting place for the Lord of Worlds is thy house!
We worship and await thee!"

And once more Sharane—tremulous—"I worship and await Thee!" The priest intoned:

"Lord of the Silent Weapon!
Look favorably on thy house,
O Lord of Rest!
May Ezida speak peace to thee in thy house!
May Emakhtila speak rest to thee in thy house!
We worship and await thee!"

And again Sharane: "I worship and await Thee!" Now Kenton saw the priest make toward the altar a gesture in which lurked an inexplicable defiance. He turned and faced Sharane. His voice rang loudly, jubilantly:

"Full of delight is thy supremacy!
Opener of the lock of morning art thou!
Opener of the lock of evening art thou!
To open the lock of the Heavens is thy supremacy!
I worship and await thee!"

At the first words the humming of the priests ceased; Kenton saw them stir, glance at each other uncertainly; saw a ripple pass through kneeling soldiers and worshippers as their heads raised; heard murmuring, astonished, uneasy.

Beneath him the kneeling Assyrian muttered: "That was not in the ritual!"

The Persian asked: "What was not in the ritual?"

The woman said: "That the priest cried last. It is not Bel's. It belongs to Our Lady Ishtar!"

The youth whispered: "Yes! Yes—he knows her too! She is Ishtar!"

The woman with the babe sobbed: "Did you see the Kerubs stretch their claws? I am frightened. I am frightened, and it is not good for the child's milk. The light on the altar is like spilled blood!"

Said the Assyrian, uneasily: "I do not like it! It was not of Bel's ritual! And the storm is coming fast!"

Narada arose, abruptly. Her handmaids bent over drums and harps; set their pipes to lips. A soft and amorous theme beat up from them, delicate, clinging—like the beating of the wings of countless doves, the clinging of countless little soft arms, the throbbing of countless little rosy hearts. Under it the body of Narada swayed like a green reed at the first touch of roving winds of spring. The multitude looked, sighed once and was still.

But Kenton saw that the priest's eyes never left Sharane, standing like a woman asleep beneath her veils.

Louder the music sounded; quicker, throbbing with all love longing, laden with all passion; hot as the simoon. To it, as though her body drank in each calling, imperious note, turned it into motion, made it articulate in flesh, Narada began to dance.

In the midnight eyes that had been so sorrowful, many little leaping joyous stars danced. The scarlet mouth was a luring, honey-sweet flame promising unknown raptures; and the swarms of golden butterflies meshed within her gossamer nets of jet hovered, swept down, clung to and caressed the rose and pearl of her body as though she were some wondrous flower. They were clouds of golden butterflies darting upon her, covering with kisses all her loveliness, gleaming within the cloudy nets that swirled about her, yet hiding no single exquisite contour. Maddening, breathless, grew dance and music, and in music and dance Kenton watched mating stars, embracing suns, moons swollen with birth. Gathered in them he sensed all passion, all desire of all women under stars and suns and moons...

The music slowed, softened; the dancer was still; from all the multitude a soft sighing arose. He heard Zubran, his voice hoarse:

"Who is that dancer? She is like a flame! She is like the flame that dances before Ormuzd on the Altar of Ten Thousand Sacrifices!"

The woman jealously: "She danced the wooing of Bel by Ishtar. She has danced it many times. Nothing new in that."

The Phrygian said, maliciously: "He asked who she is?" The woman said, spitefully: "Gods! That dance is no new thing, I tell you. Many women have danced it."

The Assyrian said: "She is Narada. She belongs to Bel."

The Persian said wrathfully: "Are all the fair women in this country Bel's? By the Nine Hells—Cyrus the King would have given ten talents of gold for her!"

"Hush!" whimpered the Assyrian; and the other two echoed him—"Hush!"

Narada had begun once more to dance. The music grew louder. But now it was languorous; dripping sweetness; distilling the very dew of desire.

The blood hammered hot in Kenton's veins—"She dances the surrender of Ishtar to Bell" It was the Assyrian, gloating.

The Persian stood upright.

"Aie!" he cried. "Cyrus would have given fifty talents of gold for her! She is a flame!" cried Zubran, and his voice was thick, clogged. "And if she is Bel's—why then does she look so upon the priest?"

None heard him in the roaring of the multitude; soldiers and worshippers, none of them had eyes or ears for anything but the dancer.

Nor had Kenton!

Then witchery of the midnight woman was gone; raging at himself he beat against the stone. For the tranquillity of Sharane had broken. Her white hand thrust aside the shrouding purple folds. She turned; moved swiftly away toward that hidden entrance from which she had come.

The dancer stopped; the music died; again came the uneasy movement of the multitude; a louder murmuring.

"That was not in the ritual!" The Assyrian sprang to his feet. "The dance is not yet finished."

There was a clashing of thunder almost overhead.

"She grows impatient for the god," the woman said, cynically.

"She is Ishtar! She is the moon hiding her face behind a little cloud!" The youth took a step toward the men-at-arms guarding the priestess.

The bold-eyed woman arose, caught his arm; spoke to the soldiers.

"He is mad! He lives at my house. Do not hurt him! I will take him away!"

But the youth broke away from her; thrust her aside. He darted through the guards and raced across the square to meet the advancing priestess. He threw himself at her hurrying feet. He hid his face in the hem of her cloak.

She paused, regarding him through her veils. Instantly Bel's priest was at her side. He thrust a foot against the youth's face; sent him rolling a yard away.

"Ho! Alrac! Druchar! Take this man!" he shouted. Two officers came running to him, swords drawn; the attendant priests clustered, whispering; all the multitude was silent.

The youth twisted, sprang upon his feet, faced the priestess.

"Ishtar!" he cried. "Show me your face. Then let me die!"

She stood silent, as though she neither heard nor saw. The soldiers seized him, drew back his arms. And then, visibly, strength flowed into the youth's slight frame. He seemed to expand, to grow in height. He threw the soldiers from him; he struck the Priest of Bel across the eyes. He gripped the veils of the priestess.

"I will not die until I see your face, O Ishtar!" he cried—and so crying tore the veils away...

Kenton looked upon the face of Sharane.

But not the Sharane of the ship—vital, filled with the fire of life.

Here was a Sharane of wide, unseeing eyes; upon whose white brows dream sat throned; a mind that floated through linked labyrinths of illusion.

The Priest of Bel's voice shrilled:

"Slay that man!"

The swords of the two captains bit through the youth's breast.

He fell, still holding tight the veils. Sharane looked down upon him, unconcerned.

"Ishtar!" he gasped. "I have seen you—Ishtar!"

His eyes glazed. Sharane tore the veils from his stiffening hands; threw the tattered remnants over her face. She swept on to the temple—was gone from Kenton's straining sight.

From the multitude a clamor arose. Archers and spearmen began to push back the throng through the forest of the slender, lacquered pillars; sifted among them; vanished with those they herded. Past the Priest of Bel went his soldiers and acolytes; and after them slipped the harpers, the pipers and the drum girls of Narada.

Within that vast court circled by the elfin shafts remained only dancer and priest. The lurid sky darkened steadily. The slow, churning movement of the clouds had become more rapid. The lanced flame on the altar of Bel shone brighter—angrily; like a lifted, scarlet sword. Around the crouching Kerubs the shadows thickened. The metallic thundering had become continuous, marching closer.

With the passing of Sharane, Kenton would have opened that other door of bronze. Something counselled him that the time had not yet come; that a little longer he must wait. And as he waited dancer and priest drifted to that strange window through which he peered.

Close to him they paused.

PART V—Dancer and Priest

CHAPTER 23.

"BEL should be pleased with his worship, priest!" Kenton heard the dancer say.

The priest asked, dully: "What do you mean?"

Narada drew closer to him; her hands fluttered out to him.

"Shalamu," she whispered. "Did I dance for the god? You know I danced for—you. And whom did you worship, Shalamu? The god? No—the priestess. And whom, think you, did she worship?"

"She worshipped Bel! Our Lord Bel who has—all," the priest answered, bitterly.

Said the dancer, mockingly: "She worshipped herself, Shalamu!"

He repeated, stubbornly, wearily: "She worshipped Bel."

Closer came Narada, touched him with fluttering, yearning hands.

"Does any woman worship a god, Shalamu?" she asked. "Ah—no! I am a woman—and I know. This priestess would be a god's woman—no man's. She holds herself too high, too precious, for man. She loves herself. She worships herself. She would bow down to herself as a god's woman. Women make gods of men and then love them. But no woman loves any god she has not made, Shalamu!"

The priest said, sullenly: "Well—I worshipped her!"

The dancer said: "As she worshipped—herself! Shalamu—does she long to give joy to Bel? To our Lord Bel who has Ishtar? Can we give joy to the gods—to the gods who have all? The lotus rises to the sun—but is it to give joy to the sun that she rises? No! It is to give joy to herself. So the priestess! I am a woman—and I know."

Her hands were on his shoulders; he took them in his own: "Why do you say these things to me?"

"Shalamu!" she murmured. "Look in my eyes. Look on my mouth—my breasts. Like the priestess I am the god's, But I give myself to you—beloved!"

He said, dreamily: "Yea—you are beautiful!"

Her arms were round his neck, her lips close to his.

"Do I love the god?" she whispered. "When I dance is it to delight his eyes? It is for you I dance—beloved. It is for you I dare Bel's wrath—" Softly she drew his head down on her breast—"Am I not fair? Fairer than this priestess who is Bel's and worships herself nor will ever give herself to you? Are not my perfumes pleasing? No god possesses me—beloved!"

Dreamily he answered her again: "Yea—you are very fair."

"I love you—Shalamu!"

He thrust her from him: "Her eyes are like the Pools of Peace in the Valley of Forgetfulness! When she comes near me the doves of Ishtar beat their wings above my head! She walks upon my heart!"

Narada drew back, scarlet lips pale, brows a menacing straight line:

"The priestess?"

"The priestess," he answered. "Her hair is like the cloud that veils the sun at dusk. The wave of her robe scorches me as the wind from the desert noon scorches the palm The wave of her robe makes me cold as the wind of the desert night makes cold the palm."

She said:

"That youth was bolder far than you, Shalamu."

Kenton saw the red rush through the priest's face.

"What do you mean?" he snarled.

"Why did you have the youth slain?" coldly as before come her voice.

He answered, hotly: "He did sacrilege. He—"

She stopped him, contemptuously: "Because he was bolder than you. Because he dared to tear the veils from her. Because you knew yourself the coward. This is why you had him slain!"

His hands twitched to her throat: "You lie! You lie! I would dare!"

Again she laughed; "You did not even dare to slay him—yourself!"

His hands were at her throat; she thrust them carelessly aside.

"Coward!" she said. "He dared to lift the veil from what he loved. He dared the wrath both of Ishtar and of Bel!"

The priest cried brokenly: "Would I not dare? Do I fear death? Do I fear Bel?"

Her eyes mocked him.

"Hai! You love so greatly!" she taunted. "The priestess awaits the god—in his lonely house! Perhaps he is not in the storm! Perchance he tarries with another maid—Oh, fearless one! Bold lover—take his place!"

He shrank back from her.

"Take—his—place!" he whispered.

"You know where the armor of the god is hidden. Go to her as the god!" she said.

For a long moment the priest stood, quivering. Then Kenton saw irresolution fly; decision take its place. He strode to the altar—down went the lanced flame; wavered; died. In the sudden dark the crouching Kerubs seemed monstrously to take wing.

There came a flash of the weird lightning,

By its irised flare he saw the Priest of Bel passing swiftly along that way Sharane had come and gone; saw Narada lying huddled in her nets of jet, the sipping flocks of golden butterflies at rest upon her; heard a low, heartbroken wailing.

Slowly Kenton's hand began to slip from the lever. Now was the time to use that key, pass on where the blue priest had pointed. His hand froze upon the lever.

A shadow, blacker than the dusk without, had passed the window; stood over the dancer; a huge and unwieldy bulk—familiar,

Klaneth!

"Good!" rumbled the black priest, and touched her with his foot. "Now soon neither he nor Sharane shall trouble you more. And you have well earned that reward I promised you."

Narada looked up at him with white and piteous face, stretched shaking hands out to him.

"If he had loved me," she wailed, "never would he have gone. If he had loved me but a little—never would I have let him go. But he angered me—he shamed me, throwing back to me the love I offered him. Not for you, black snake, despite our bargain, did I send him to her—and to death!"

The black priest stared at her, then laughed.

"Whatever your reason—you sent him," he said. "And Klaneth pays his debts."

He dropped a handful of flashing jewels into her outstretched palms. She screamed, opened fingers as though the gems burned her; they fell and rolled about the chequered stones.

"If he had loved me! If he had loved me but a little!" sobbed Narada—and crouched again, a huddled heap, among her butterflies.

Kenton, to him now clear all the black priest's plot, let the lever go; raced to the farther door of bronze, thrust the wedged key into it; slipped past the slowly opening edge, and ran down the passageway it had barred. Two flames burned in him as he raced along that passage—white flame of love for his woman, black flame of hate against Klaneth. He knew that wherever the Priest of Bel was bound there must be Sharane. The end—unless Kenton could reach the Bower of Bel in time and conquer—inevitable.

Narada had repented—but too late! The black priest had gambled—and the black priest had won!

Kenton cursed as he ran. If Sharane, meshed in ensorcelled dream, saw the Priest of Bel as the god himself—still would she have taken earthly lover! Her innocence could not save her. Klaneth would see to that.

And if Sharane should awaken—God! Would she not in the dawn of that awakening take the Priest of Bel for him—for Kenton!

But either way—the presence of priest and priestess in Bel's Bower would be enough to damn them both. Yes—Klaneth would see to that.

He crossed a traverse passage: ran blindly down a sloping corridor along whose sides glared guarding chimera; stopped in front of a wide portal from which hung, motionless and rigid, folds that seemed carved from solid silver. Caution whispered to him; he put out a hand, parted the metallic curtainings, peered within...

He looked into his own room.

There it lay before him, his old room in his old world!

He saw the jeweled ship, glimmering, glittering—but as though he saw it through a fog; through a mist of fiery particles, half veiling it. The long mirror glinted behind that same luminous vapor. Infinitely small, in infinite numbers, the sparkling atoms hung between him and that room of his—back in New York!

And he—here in this strange world!

Misty was the room, nebulous, quivering now into plainer sight; now withdrawing into indefiniteness.

And as he stared at it, incredulous, the old bleak despair clutching him, he felt within his hands the curtains grow light as silken gauze, stiffen back into metal—alternately; slip from his hands, strengthen within them as his room steadied in the sparkling mist, dissolved within it into phantom outlines!

Yet ever as his room swung inward clearer, swung back dimmer, the outlines of the jeweled ship hardened, crystallized, shone forth brighter—summoning him, dragging him back!

CHAPTER 24. The Gods—And Man's Desire

KENTON braced himself; he held tight to the curtains. He fought with all his will to check their melting. The curtains were like bars between his old world and this of his great adventure.

A force, a pull like a strong undertow, dragged him forward each time they melted in his hands and the nebulous outlines of his room crisped into steadiness. Plainly he could pick out every detail of that room, the long mirror, the cabinets, the divan—the stains of his blood still wet upon the floor.

And always, whether room were melting mist or clear outline, the jeweled ship shining steadily—watchful.

Now he swung out and over that room; the ancient Chinese rug on its floor was below him—at once close and infinite distances away. He heard the first voices of those shrieking winds of space!

In that brief instant he realized that it was the shining toy itself drawing him back!

Something was reaching up and out to him from the dark deck of the ship! Something malignant and mocking—dragging him, dragging him to it!

Darker grew the black deck—stronger its pull—"Ishtar!" he prayed, gaze upon the rosy cabin. "Ishtar!" Did the cabin flash as though filled with sudden light? The outlines of his room melted; again the curtains were heavy in his hands; he stood once more on firm feet at the threshold of the House of the Moon God.

Once, twice, thrice more the room pulled back—but each time less real, more spectral. And against each pulse Kenton set his will; closed eyes and thrust away the vision of it with all his strength.

His will won. The room vanished; in that envanishment a finality not to be mistaken. The spell was broken, the subtle links snapped.

Caught by the reaction he clung to the curtains, knees weak and shaking. Slowly he found himself, resolutely parted the folds.

He looked now into a vast hall filled with mist of argent light; still was this mist, yet palpable—as though the rays that formed it were woven. Interlaced and luminous, the webbed mist made of the chamber a home of immensities, of tremendous distances. He thought, but was not sure, that there was motion within these silver webs—shadowy shapes half appearing, vanishing, never quite coming into full sight. Far away he caught another movement; a figure was coming forward; steadily, inexorably. It drew closer, slowly; it swam into sight—a man, golden-helmeted, over his shoulder a short cloak of gold shot through with scarlet, in his hand a golden sword; head bent, pushing on as though against some strong current.

It was the Priest of Bel clad in the raiment of his god!

Scarce breathing, Kenton watched him. The eyes so like his own were black with dread and awe—yet filled with will and purpose; indomitable. The mouth was set, the lips white, and in all the priest's body Kenton sensed a tremor, a shuddering—deep as the priest's soul. Whether real or but phantoms, he knew the terrors of this place were realities to this strange double of his.

The Priest of Bel passed, and Kenton, waiting until he was half hidden in the shining mists, slipped through the curtains, followed him.

Now Kenton heard a voice; a still voice, passionless as that which had bidden him arise from his bed of stone; and like that voice neither was it in the place wherein he trod nor within him. It was as though borne to him out of farthest space...

The voice of Nabu, God of Wisdom!

Listening, he felt himself not one man, but three—a single purposed Kenton who followed the priest and would follow him through hell so he led to Sharane; a Kenton who, tied by some inexplicable link to the mind of the priest, felt and saw and heard, suffered and feared even as he; and a Kenton who hearkened to the words of Nabu as coldly, as dispassionately as they were uttered, watched as coldly, as detachedly, all they pictured.

"The House of Sin!" the voice rang. "Chief of the Gods! Nannar! Begetter of Gods and men! Lord of the Moon! Lord of the Brilliant Crescent! Great of Horns! Nannar Perfect of Form! Decreer of Destiny! Self Created! Whose House is the first of the Zones and Whose Color is Silver!

"He passes through the House of Sin!

"He goes by the altars of chalcedon and of sard which are set with the great moonstones and with rock crystals, the altars where burn the white flames from which Sin the Fashioner created Ishtar! He sees the pale and shining serpents of Nannar writhe toward him and from the silver mists that veil the crescented horns of sin he sees the winged white scorpions dart upon him!

"He hears the sound of the tramping of myriads of feet, the feet of all the men to be born beneath the Moon! And he hears the sound of the sobbing of myriads of women, the sobbing of all the women to be born and to bear! He hears the clamor of the Uncreate!

"And he passes!

"For lo! Not the Begetter of Gods nor the awe of him may stand before man's desire!"

So the voice rang—and was silent. And Kenton saw all these things, saw the shimmering white serpents writhe through the silver mists and strike at the priest; saw the winged scorpions dart upon him; visioned within the mists a vast and awful shape upon whose clouded brows the crescent of the moon was bound. In his own ears he heard the tramping of armies of the unborn, the sobbing of worlds of women yet unborn, the clamor of the Uncreate! Saw and heard—even, he knew, as did the Priest of Bel!

And followed.

The golden helm flashed high above him. Kenton paused at the base of a winding stairway whose broad steps circled upward, changing as they arose from pallid silver to glowing orange. He waited until the priest—never hastening, never looking back—had ascended; he passed into the place to which the stairway led; slipped after him.

He looked into a temple filled with crocused light even as that through which he had just come had been filled with webs of moonbeams. A hundred paces away marched the priest, and as Kenton moved on the still voice resumed its whispering:

"The House of Shamash! Offspring of the Moon! God of the Day! Dweller in the House of Luster! Banisher of Darkness! King of Judgment! Judge of Mankind! On Whose Head Resteth the Crown with the High Horns! In Whose Hands are Life and Death! Who cleanseth Man with His Hands like a Tablet of Burnished Copper! Whose House is the Second of the Zones and Whose Color is Orange!

"He passes through the House of Shamash!

"Here are the altars of opal set with diamonds and the altars of gold set with amber and the yellow sunstones. Upon the altars of Shamash burn sandalwood and cardamon and verbena. He goes by the altars of opal and of gold; and he goes by the birds of Shamash whose heads are wheels of flame and who guard the wheel that turns within the House of Shamash and is a potter's wheel upon which all the souls of men are shaped.

"He hears the noise of myriads of voices, the wailing of those who have been judged and the shouting of those who have been judged!

"And he passes!

"For lo! Not the King of Judgment nor the fear of him may stand before man's desire!"

Again Kenton saw and heard all these things; and following the priest came to a second stairway whose steps merged from glowing orange into ebony black. And still following he stood, at last, in a great hall of gloom, the name of whose dread master he knew even before the still voice came murmuring to him out of hidden, secret space:

"The House of Nergal! The Mighty One of the Great Dwelling Place! King of the Dead! He who Scattereth the Pestilence! He Who Ruleth over the Lost! The Dark One without Horns! Whose House is the Third of the Zones and Whose Color is Black!

"He passes through the House of Nergal!

"He goes by Nergal's altars of jet and of bloodstone! He goes by the red fires of civet and of bergamot that burn thereon! He goes by the altars of Nergal and the lions that guard them! The black lions whose eyes are as rubies and whose claws are blood red, the red lions whose claws are as black iron and whose eyes are as jet; and he passes the sable vultures of Nergal whose eyes are as carbuncles and whose heads are the fleshless heads of women!

"He hears the whimpering of the People of the Great Dwelling Place and he tastes the ashes of their passion!

"And he passes!

"For lo! Not the Lord of the Dead nor the dread of him may swerve man from his desire!"

Now the steps of the stairway by which Kenton ascended from the House of Nergal faded from ebon into crimson, and fiery, wrathful scarlet was the light that filled the place in which he stood, watching the Priest of Bel go steadily on.

"The House of Ninib!" whispered the voice. "Lord of Spears! Lord of the Battle! Master of the Shields! Master of the Hearts of Warriors! Ruler of the Strife! Destroyer of Opposition! Breaker of the Lock! The Smiter! Whose Color is Scarlet, Whose House is the Fourth of the Zones! Of shields and of spears are builded the altars of Ninib and their fires are fed with the blood of men and the tears of women, and upon the altars of Ninib burn the gates of fallen cities and the hearts of conquered kings! He goes by the altars of Ninib. He sees threaten him the crimson fangs of the boars of Ninib whose heads are wreathed with the right hands of warriors, the crimson tusks of the elephants of Ninib whose feet are ankleted with the skulls of kings, and the crimson tongues of the snakes of Ninib which lick up the cities!

"He hears the clashing of spears, the smiting of swords, the falling of walls, the crying of the conquered!

"And he passes!

"For lo! Since ever man was, the altars of Ninib have been fed with the fruits of man's desire!"

Upon the fourth stairway he set his feet; ascended steps that ran from the vermilion of licking flame to the clear serene blue of untroubled skies, stood within a chamber all filled with calm, azure light. Closer now seemed the voice.

"The House of Nabu! Lord of Wisdom! Bearer of the Staff! Mighty One of the Waters! Lord of the Fields Who Openeth up the Subterranean Streams! The Proclaimer! He who Openeth the Ears of Understanding! Whose Color is Blue and Whose House is the Fifth of the Zones!

"The altars of Nabu are of blue sapphire and of emerald and from them shine clear amethysts! The flames that burn on the altars of Nabu are blue fires in whose light only the truth has shadow! And the flames of Nabu are cold flames nor is there any scent over his altars! He passes by the altars of sapphire and of emerald and their cold fires! He passes the fishes of Nabu which have women's breasts but silent mouths! He passes the seeing eyes of Nabu which look forth from behind his altars and he touches not the staff of Nabu which holdeth up with wisdom the feet!

"Yea—he passes!

"For lo!—when did Wisdom stand before man's desire!"

Up from the blue of Nabu's House went the priest, and behind him on a stairway that merged from sapphire into rosy pearl and ivory climbed Kenton. Little, caressing tendrils of incense reached out to him as he went and all about him beat little languorous, linked notes of amorous sound; coaxing, calling, infinitely alluring, perilously sweet. Slowly, slowly Kenton followed him, listening to the voice, yet half heeding it, half forgetful of his quest, struggling with a vast desire to heed the calling, linked and amorous music; surrender to the spirit of this ensorcelled chamber—go no further—forget—Sharane!

"The House of Ishtar!" came the voice. "Mother of the Gods and of Men! The Great Goddess! Lady of the Morning and of the Evening! Full Bosomed! The Producer! She who Hearkeneth to Petition! The Mighty Weapon of the Gods! She who Slays and She Who Creates Love! Whose Color is Rose—pearl. And the House of Ishtar is the Sixth of the Zones!

"He passes through the House of Ishtar! Of white marble and of rose coral are her altars and the white marble is streaked with blue like a woman's breast! Upon her altars burn ever myrrh and frankincense, attar and ambergris! And the altars of Ishtar are set with pearls both white and rose, with hyacinths and with turquoise and with beryls!

"He goes by the altars of Ishtar, and, like the pink palms of maidens desirous, the rose wreaths of the incense steal toward him. The white doves of Ishtar beat their wings about his eyes! He hears the sound of the meeting of lips, the throbbing of hearts, the sighs of women, and the tread of white feet!

"Yet he passes!

"For lo! Whenever did Love stand before man's desire!"

From that chamber of amorous witcheries the stairway climbed, reluctant; shifting from its rosy pearl to flaming, flashing gold. And scaling it he stood within another vast place radiant as though it were the heart of the sun. Faster and faster the priest of Bel moved onward as though here all his terrors were concentrated, were crowding upon his hurrying heels!

"The House of Bel!" Rang the voice. "Merodach! Ruler of the Four Regions, Lord of the Lands! Child of the Day! Bull Necked! Elephant Thewed! Mighty One! Conqueror of Tiamat! Lord of the Igigi! King of Heavens and Earth! Bringer of Things to Completeness. Lover of Ishtar.

"Bel-Merodach, Whose House is the Seventh of the Zones, and Whose Color is Golden! Swiftly he passes through the House of Bel!

"The altars of Bel are of gold and rayed like the sun! On them burn the golden fires of the summer lightnings and the smoke of the incense hangs over them like the clouds of the thunderstorm! The Kerubs whose bodies are lions and whose heads are eagle heads, and the Kerubs whose bodies are bulls and whose heads are the heads of men guard the golden altars of Bel, and both are winged with mighty wings! And the altars of Bel are reared upon thews of elephants and are held upon the necks of buijs and the paws of lions!

"He goes by them! He sees the fires of the lightnings sink and the altar shake! In his ears is the sound of worlds crushed by the fist of Bel; of worlds breaking beneath the smiting of Bel!

"Yet he passes!

"For lo! Not even the Might of God may crush the desire of man!"

The voice ceased, it seemed to retreat to those far regions whence it had come. In its withdrawal Kenton sensed finality; knew it would sound no more for him there; that now he was thrown on his own wit and strength; must captain his own way henceforward.

Out from one side of the House of Bel jutted a squared buttress, perpendicular, fifty feet or more wide. It thrust itself into this temple within a temple like the gigantic pier of a bridge. Its top was hidden.

Down its smooth facade darted a broad and angled streak of gold that Kenton for an instant took to be a colossal ornament, a symboling of the darting lightning bolt of Bel. Closer he came to it, following the priest. And now he saw that the golden streak was no ornament. It was a stairway, fashioned to represent the leaping levin but—a stairway. A stepped stairway of sharply angled flights that, clinging to the mighty buttress wall, climbed from the floor of the House of Bel up to—what?

At the foot the priest of Bel faltered; for the first time he looked behind him; seemed half moved to retreat. Then with the same despairing gesture of defiance with which he had turned from the altar, he began to creep cautiously, silently up the angled stairs.

And Kenton, waiting again, until he was but a shadow in the shining mists, followed.

CHAPTER 25. In The Bower Of Bel

THE TEMPEST had struck. Kenton, climbing, heard thunderings like the clashing of armied shields; clanging of countless cymbals, tintamarre of millions of gongs of brass. Ever louder grew the clangor as he ascended; with it mingled now the diapason of mighty winds, staccato of cataracts of rain.

The stairway climbed the sheer wall of the buttress as a vine a tower. It was not wide—three men might march abreast up it; no more. Up it went, dizzily. Five sharp angled flights of forty steps, four lesser-angled flights of fifteen steps he trod before he reached its top. Guarding the outer edge was only a thick rope of twisted gold supported by pillars five feet apart.

So high was it that when Kenton neared its end and looked down he saw Bel's house only as a place of golden mists—as though he looked from some high mountain ledge upon a valley whose cloudy coverlet had just been touched by rays of morning sun.

The clinging stairway's last step was a slab some ten feet long and six wide. Upon it a doorway opened—a narrow arched portal barely wide enough for two men to pass within it side by side. The doorway looked out, over the little platform, into the misty space of the inner temple.

The hidden chamber into which it led rested upon the head of the gigantic buttress.

One man might hold that stair end against hundreds. The doorway was closed by a single fold of golden curtains as heavy and metallic as those which had covered the portal of the Moon God's Silver House. Involuntarily he shrank back from parting them—remembering what the parting of those argent hangings had revealed to him.

He mastered that fear; drew a corner of them aside.

He looked into a quadrangular chamber, perhaps thirty feet square, filled with the dancing peacock plumes of the lightnings. He knew it for his goal—Bel's place of pleasance where Kenton's love waited, fettered by dream.

He glimpsed the priest crouched against the further wall, rapt upon a white veiled woman standing, arms stretched wide, beside a deep window close to the chamber's right hand corner. The window was closed by one wide, clear crystal pane on which the rain beat and the wind lashed. With thousands of brushes dipped in little irised flame the lightnings limned the loves of Bel broidered on hangings on the walls.

In the chamber were a table and two stools of gold; a massive, ivoried wooded couch. Beside the couch was a wide bellied brazier and a censer shaped like a great hour glass. From the brazier arose a tall yellow flame. Upon the table were small cakes, saffron colored, in plates of yellow amber and golden flagons filled with wine. Around the walls were little lamps and under each lamp a ewer filled with fragrant oil for their filling.

Kenton waited, motionless. Danger was gathering below him like a storm cloud with Klaneth stirring it in wizard's caldron. Perforce he waited, knowing that he must fathom this dream of Sharane's—must measure the fantasy in which she moved, mind asleep, before he could awaken her. The blue priest had so told him.

To him came her voice:

"Who has seen the beatings of his wings? Who has heard the tramplings of his feet like the sound of many chariots setting forth for battle? What woman has looked into the brightness of his eyes?"

There was a searing flash, a clashing of thunder—within the chamber itself it seemed. When his own sight had cleared he saw Sharane, hands over eyes, groping from the window.

And in front of the window stood a shape, looming gigantic against the nickering radiance, and helmed and bucklered all in blazing gold—a god-like shape!

Bel-Merodach himself who had leaped there from his steeds of storm and still streaming with his lightnings!

So Kenton for one awed instant thought—then knew it to be the Priest of Bel in the stolen garments of his god.

The white figure, that was Sharane, slowly drew hands from eyes; as slowly let them fall, eyes upon that shining form. Half she dropped to her knees, then raised herself proudly; she searched the partly hidden face with her wide, green dreaming eyes.

"Bel!" she whispered, and again: "Lord Bel!"

The priest spoke: "O beautiful one—for whom await you?"

She answered: "For whom but thee, Lord of the Lightnings!"

"But why await you—me?" the priest asked, nor took step toward her. Kenton, poised to leap and strike, drew back at the question. What was in the mind of the Priest of Bel that he thus temporized?

Sharane spoke, perplexed, half-shamed:

"This is thy house, Bel. Should there not be a woman here to await thee? I—I am a king's daughter. And I have long awaited thee!"

The priest said: "You are fair!" His eyes burned upon her—"Yes—many men must have found you fair. Yet I—am a god!"

"I was fairest among the princesses of Babylon. Who but the fairest should wait for thee in thy house? I am fairest of all—" So Sharane, all tranced passion.

Again the priest spoke:

"Princess, how has it been with those men who thought you fair? Say—did not your beauty slay them like swift, sweet poison?"

"Have I thought of men?" she asked, tremulously.

He answered, sternly. "Yet many men must have thought of you—king's daughter. And poison, be it swift and sweet, must still bear pain. I am—a god! Yet I know that!"

There was a silence; abruptly he asked: "How have you awaited me?"

She said: "I have kept the lamps filled with oil; I have prepared cakes for thee and set out the wine. I have been handmaiden to thee."

The priest said: "Many women have done all this—for men, king's daughter—I am a god!"

She murmured: "I am most beautiful. The princes and the kings have desired me. See—O Great One!"

The irised lightnings caressed the silver wonder of her body, hardly hidden in the nets of her red gold hair unbound and fallen free.

The priest leaped from the window. Kenton, mad with jealousy that another should behold that white beauty, darted through the curtains to strike him down. Halfway he stopped short, understanding, even pity for the priest of Bel holding him back.

For the priest's soul stood forth naked before his inner sight—and that soul was even as his own would have been he knew, had he been priest and the priest been Kenton.

"No!" cried Bel's priest, and tore the golden helm of his god from his head, hurled sword away, ripped off buckler and cloak—

"No! Not one kiss for Bel! Not one heart beat for Bel!"

"What—shall I pander for Bel? No! It is the man you shall kiss—I! It is a man's heart that shall beat against yours—mine! I—I! No god shall have you."

He caught her in his arms, set burning lips to hers.

Kenton was upon him.

He thrust an arm under the priest's chin; bent back the head until the neck cracked. The priest's eyes glared up into his; his hands left Sharane and battered up at Kenton's face; he twisted to break the latter's grip. Then his body became limp; awe and terror visibly swept away his blind rage. For now the priest's consciousness had taken in Kenton's face—saw it as his own!

His own face was looking down upon him and promising him—death!

The god he had defied, betrayed—had struck! Kenton read his thoughts as accurately as though they had been spoken. He shifted grip, half lifted, half swung the priest high above the floor and hurled him against a wall. He struck; crashed down; lay there twitching.

Sharane crouched—veils caught up, held fast to her by rigid hands—on the edge of the ivoried couch. She stared at him, piteously; her wide eyes clung to his, bewildered; deep within her he sensed grapple of awakening will against the webs of dream.

One great throb of love and pity for her pulsed through him; in it no passion; to him at that moment she was no more than child, bewildered, forsaken, piteous.

"Sharane!" he whispered, and took her in his arms. "Sharane—beloved! Beloved—awaken!"

He kissed her on the cold lips, the frightened eyes.

"Kenton!" she murmured. "Kenton!"—and then so low he could barely hear—"Ah yes—I remember—you were lord of me—ages—ages—ago!"

"Wake, Sharane!" cried Kenton, and again his lips met and clung to hers. And now her lips warmed and clung to his!

"Kenton!" she whispered. "Dear lord—of me!"

She drew back, thrust into his arms little fingers that clutched like ten slow closing fingers of steel; in her eyes he saw the dream breaking as break the last storm clouds before the sun; in her eyes the dream lightened and darkened; lightened—became but cloudy, racing wisps.

"Beloved!" cried Sharane, and all awake, freed from all dream, threw arms around his neck, pressed lips all alive to his: "Beloved one! Kenton!"

"Sharane! Sharane!" he whispered, the veils of her hair covering him as she drew his face to her cheeks, her throat, her breast.

"Oh, where have you been, Kenton?" she sobbed. "What have they done to me? And where is the ship—and where have they taken me? Yet—what does it matter since you are with me!"

"Sharane! Sharane! Beloved!" was all he could say, over and over again, his mouth on hers.

Hands gripped his throat, strong hands, shutting off his breath. Choking, he glared into the mad eyes of the Priest of Bel. Broken, Kenton had thought him—and broken he had not been!

He threw right leg behind the priest's; hurled himself back against the priest with all his strength. The priest fell, dragging Kenton with him. His hands relaxed just enough to let Kenton thrust one of his own between the strangling fingers and his throat. Like a snake the priest slid from under him, threw him aside, sprang to his feet. Quick as he, Kenton leaped up. Before he could draw sword the Priest of Bel was upon him again, one arm around him prisoning his right arm, the other with the elbow fending off Kenton's left arm and tearing at his throat.

Far below, through the drumming of the blood in his ears, Kenton heard the faint throb of another drum, awakening, summoning, menacing—as though it had been a beat of the ziggurat's own heart, alarmed and angry!

And far below Gigi, swinging with long apelike arms from the grapnel he had cast over the outer stairway's edge, hears it, too; swarms with frantic speed up the rope, and with the same tremendous speed follow him first Zubran and close behind him the Viking.

"Alarm!" mutters Sigurd, and draws them under the protection of the skirting wall that they may hear him. "Pray Thor that the sentinels have not heard! Swift now!"

Hugging the wall, the three climb up and around the silver terrace of Sin, the Moon God. The lightnings have almost ceased, but the rain sweeps down in stinging sheets and the winds roar. The stairway is a rushing torrent half knee deep. Blackness of the great storms shrouds them.

Breasting wind and rain, stemming the torrent, they climb—the three.

About Bel's high bower reeled Kenton and the priest, locked tight in each other's arms, each struggling to break the other's hold. Around them circled Sharane, the priest's stolen sword in hand, panting, seeking opening to strike; finding none, so close were the two locked, so swiftly did back of priest, back of lover swirl before her.

"Shalamu! Shalamu!" the dancer of Bel stood at the golden curtains—whipped up through the terrors of the secret shrines by love, remorse, despair! White-faced, trembling, she clung to those curtains.

"Shalamu!" shrilled the dancer. "They come for you! The Priest of Nergal leads."

The priest's back was toward her, Kenton facing her. The priest's head was bent forward, straining to sink teeth in his neck, tear out the arteries; deaf; blind to all but the lust to kill, his ears were closed to Narada.

And Narada, seeing Kenton's face in the fitful light of the brazier, thought it that of the man she loved.

Before Sharane could move she had sped across the room.

She drove her dagger to the hilt in the back of the Priest of Bel!

Huddled for shelter in an alcove cut for them in the ziggurat's wall, the sentinels of the silver zone feel arms thrust out of the storm. Two fall with necks snapped by Gigi's talons, two fall under swift thrusts of Sigurd's sword, two drop beneath the scimitar of the Persian, in that niche now lie only six dead men.

"Swift! Swift!" Sigurd leads the way past the silver zone. They round the orange zone of Shamash the Sun God.

Three deaths reach out of the void, and the sentinels of the orange zone lie dead behind the hurrying feet of the three.

They sense a deeper darkness at their left—the black walls of the zone of Nergal, God of the Dead—

"Swift! Swift!"

The Priest of Bel slid from Kenton's opening arms; he dropped to his knees; he fell backward, dying eyes staring into those of the dancer.

"Narada!" he gasped, through bloody froth, "Narada—you—" The froth turned to a red stream.

The Priest of Bel was dead.

One look the dancer gave him, gave Kenton, and knew—

"Shalamu!" she wailed—and wailing flew at Kenton, dagger poised to strike. Before he could draw sword, before he could raise hands to beat her off, even before he could fall back, she was upon him. Down swept the blade, straight for his heart. He felt the bite of its point—

The point swerved, ripped down through the skin over his ribs. In that same instant Sharane had sprung, had caught the dancer's hand, had wrested the dagger from it and driven it deep into Narada's breast.

Like a young tree at the ax's last blow the dancer stood for a heartbeat, shuddering, then down she dropped, prone upon the priest. She moaned and with the last flare of life flung arms around his head and laid lips to his.

Dead lips now on lips of the dead!

They stared at each other—Sharane with red blade in hand, Kenton with red rune on chest written by that blade—they stared down at the Priest of Bel and at Bel's dancer; there was pity in Kenton's eyes; there was no pity in Sharane's.

"She would have killed you!" she whispered, and again;

"She would have killed you!"

A blinding flash filled the chamber: fast on its heels chaotic shatterings. The lightnings had begun afresh. Kenton ran to the doorway; parted, the curtains: listened. Below him the House of Bel lay tranquil in its misty aureate glow. He heard nothing—and yet; had there been sound could he have heard it in the tumult of the thundering's? He saw nothing, heard nothing—and yet—

He sensed that danger was close; stealing up to them: perhaps even now creeping up the zigzags of those steps whose base was hidden. Torment and death for Sharane and for him—creeping, stealing, ever closer.

He ran back to the window. Gigi—Sigurd—Zubran! Where were they? Had they failed to make the outer stairway? Or were they marching up to him, cutting their way through the sentries? Were close?

Could they not meet them—Sharane and he?

The window was deep. Three feet of masonry stretched between the inner sill and the yard-wide, single pane that closed it. He drew himself in; saw that the pane was thick, transparent crystal held by a circle of metal, kept shut by levers thrust into niches within the casement of stone. One by one he lifted the levers. The window flew open; he was half pushed, half washed back into the chamber by the wind and rain volleying through. He battled forward against them; looked down over the outer sill—

The steps of the great stairway were full forty feet below him!

Between window and steps fell an almost perpendicular wall, streaming with storm, impossible to descend, equally as impossible to be scaled.

He peered on each side and above him.

The Bower of Bel was a huge cube set on the top of the conical temple. The window through which he peered was close to the edge of a side of this cube. Not more than a yard from his right hand was a corner of that cube; for twenty feet to his left its black wall stretched; its top was twenty feet above him.

He felt Sharane beside him; knew that she was trying to tell him something. Could not hear her in the shrieking of the tempest.

Set within the breast of a lightning flare the sentinels of Nergal see three silhouettes of doom spring out of the blackness. Swords bite among them. One shrieks and tries to flee. His cry is torn to tatters by the roaring gale; he is caught by long arms, long talons snap his neck; he goes whirling with the wind over the stairway's wall.

And now the red zone's sentries are dead within their niche.

And now the three pass by the blue zone of Nabu, the God of Wisdom and find no guards to challenge them; nor are there sentries before Ishtar's white house, and none outside the golden zone of Bel. And here the curving stairway abruptly ends! Now they take counsel there, the three, scanning the smooth masonry rising above them without break. A wail that not even the tempest can still shudders past them—the heartbroken wailing of Bel's dancer as she hurls herself on Kenton.

"That cry came from there!" Thus Sigurd, pointing outward where the window of Bel's bower, hidden to them, faces the lightnings. And now they see that the wall of the great stairway merges into the side of the topping structure close to its corner. But the wall's slope is such that none may stand upon it to peer round that comer; nor can one standing on the highest step see round that corner's edge. "Use for your long arms, Gigi," grunts the Viking:

"Stand close as you can to stair wall end. Here! Grip me by knees and thrust me outward. My back is strong and I can twist round that corner."

Gigi takes him by the knees, lifts him; throws one muscle-gnarled dwarf leg over the wall for balance; thrusts Sigurd out with mighty arms.

And Sigurd, held against the side by the wind like a leaf, looks straight into the face of Kenton little more than a foot from him!

"Wait there!" howls the Viking, and signals Gigi with kick of foot to draw him back.

"The Wolf!" he tells them. "There—in a window so close he can draw me through to him! Lift me again, Gigi. When I kick—let me go! Then let Zubran follow by the same road. Stay you here, Gigi—for without you to draw us back there will be no return. Stay where you are with arms outstretched, ready to bear in to you whatever you touch. Quick now!"

Again he is swung outward; his wrists are caught in Kenton's grip. Gigi loosens him. For an instant he swings in space and then is drawn up to the sill and over.

"Zubran comes!" he shouts to Kenton and runs to the doorway where Sharane stands, sword in hand.

And now the Persian, held by Gigi's long arms, swings round the bower's edge, is caught by Kenton; stands beside him.

Fanned by the gale rushing through the open window the brazier flamed like a torch: the heavy golden curtains were bellying; the little lights along the wall all blown out. The Persian leaned back, found the levers and snapped enough of them to hold the window shut. He gave Kenton's hand one swift clasp; looked curiously at the bodies of priest and dancer.

"Gigi!" cried Kenton. "Is he safe there? Did none follow you?"

"None," answered the Persian, grimly. "Or if they did—their hands are too shadowy to hold swords, Wolf. Gigi is safe enough. He waits to swing us to him as we crawl from the window—all except one of us," he added, under his breath.

Kenton, thoughts on Gigi, the way to freedom, did nor hear that last odd phrase. He leaped to the door on one side of which stood watchful Sharane, on the other tense Sigurd. He drew her to him in fierce caress; loosed her and peered through the curtains. Far below him were dull gleamings, reflection from armored caps and coats of mail, glints of swords. A quarter of the way up the angled stair that led from Bel's House to his Bower they were—soldiers, moving slowly, cautiously, silently; creeping to surprise, as they thought, Bel's priest in dreaming Sharane's arms!

There was time, minutes still, for him to put in action the thought swift-born within his brain. He set the golden helm of Bel on his head, fastened buckler, threw the scarlet threaded mantle, over his shoulders.

"Sigurd!" he whispered—"Zubran! Those who come must believe that here are only Sharane and—that man who lies there. Else before we could pass the middle terrace they will have given the alarm, soldiers will be pouring up the outer stairway and—we are done! Therefore when those below are close upon the door Sharane and I. will leap out on them with swords. They will not try to slay us—only capture us. They will be confused—fall back. Then take Sharane swiftly and pass her out to Gigi. We will follow—"

"The first part of the plan is good, Wolf," interrupted the Persian, smoothly. "But not the last. Nay—one must remain here until the others are safely away from the temple. Else when they had entered here, quickly will the black priest's wit tell him what has happened. And there will be a ring around the place through which a regiment could not break. Nay—one must remain; stay behind for—a time."

"I will stay," said Kenton.

"Beloved!" whispered Sharane. "You go with me—or I go not at all!"

"Sharane—" began Kenton.

"Dear lord of mine—" she stayed him, serenely. "Do you think that ever again I will let you go from me—be parted from you? Never! In life or death—never!"

"Nay, Wolf—I stay," said the Persian. "Sharane will not go without you. So that bars you—since go she must. Gigi cannot well remain—since he cannot get here to remain. That you will admit? Good! And Sigurd must go to show us the road back, since none but him knows it. Who is left? Zubran! The gods have spoken. Their argument is unanswerable."

"But how will you get away? How find us?" groaned Kenton. "You say yourself that without Gigi's help you cannot swing from the window!"

"No," answered Zubran. "But I can make me a rope out of these bed coverings and the hangings. I can slip down that rope to the steps I glimpsed beneath me. And one may escape where five could not. I remember the road through the city and that road we took when we came out of the trees. Wait you there for me."

"They are very close, Kenton!" called Sharane softly. Kenton ran to the doorway. A dozen steps below crept the soldiers, a score of them, treading noiselessly two by two, small shields ready, swords in hands; behind them a little knot of priests, yellow-robed and black-robed and among the black robes—Klaneth.

Crouched against the wall at Sharane's right was Sigurd, hidden but set for swift guarding of her. The Persian dropped at Kenton's left, pressed close to the wall where those who came forward might not see him.

"Cover the brazier," whispered Kenton. "Put it out. Best have no light behind us."

The Persian took it, but he did not touch the cover that would have killed the fires within. Instead, he shook it, covered the flame with embers, set it in a corner where the faint glow of the coals could not be seen.

The feet of the first pair of soldiers were almost on the top step, their hands reached out to draw aside the coverings of the narrow door.

"Now!" breathed Kenton to Sharane. He tore the curtains down. They stood, she in her white robes of priestess, he in the golden panoply of the god, confronting the soldiers. And they, paralyzed by that unexpected apparition, gaped at the twain.

Before they could recover from surprise Sharane's blade flashed, Kenton's sword struck like bolt of thin blue lightning. Down went the two leaders. Ere the man he had slain could fall, Kenton had snatched the shield from his arm, passed it to Sharane; slashed down again at the warriors behind.

"For Ishtar!" he heard Sharane cry—and saw her sword bite deep.

"The woman! The priest! Take them!" came the roar of Klaneth.

Down bent Kenton, raised a fallen soldier in his arms and hurled him straight into the pack. The body flailed them—as though alive! Down they went before it—rolling, cursing; down the flight they fell, soldiers and priests, Some there were who crashed into the slender railing, tore gaps in it, dropped and plunged like plummets through the mists to be broken on the floor of Bel's House so far below.

Back Kenton leaped; caught Sharane in his arms, tossed her to Sigurd.

"To the window!" he bade. "Give her to Gigi!"

He darted before them; opened the pane. Far away now the lightnings glimmered; blackness had given way to darkest twilight; the rain still hissed in sheets driven by the howling wind. In that dark twilight he saw the dripping arms of Gigi stretched out round the Bower's corner. He dropped back. The Viking slid past him, Sharane in his grip. For an instant she hung in air; she was caught by Gigi. She was drawn from sight.

There was a shouting from the inner stairway. The soldiers had rallied; were rushing up. Kenton saw Sigurd and the Persian lifting the heavy couch, throwing off its coverings, tilting it. They rocked it to the doorway, shoved it through, sent it crashing down the steps. There was another shouting, cries of agony, groanings. The bed had swept the men before it as a well hurled ball does the wooden pins. It had swept and crushed them—had swung across the stairway at turn of the highest lesser-angled ledge and had jammed there against the golden-roped rail —a barricade.

"Go Sigurd," cried Kenton. "Wait for us by the woods. I fight here with Zubran."

The Persian looked at him, a light of affection such as Kenton had never before seen there softening the agate eyes. He nodded to Sigurd.

As though it had been a signal prearranged, the Viking's arms were instantly around Kenton. Strong as he had grown, Kenton could not break their grip. And Zubran whisked the golden helm of Bel from his head and set it on his own; tore loose the golden buckler, dropped his own coat of mail and fastened it in its place; took the scarlet-threaded mantle of the god and wrapped it half around his mouth, hiding his beard.

Then Kenton was carried like a struggling child to the window; was thrust out of it; was caught by Gigi and dropped beside the weeping Sharane.

The Viking turned and folded the Persian in his arms.

"No waiting, Northman! No sentiment now!" Zubran snapped, breaking away. "There can be no escape for me—you know that, Sigurd. The rope? Words—to satisfy the Wolf! I love him. The rope? Why, they would slide down it behind me like snakes. Am I a trembling hare to lead the hounds to the hiding places of my kind? Not I! Now go, Sigurd—and when you have gotten clear of the city tell them. And make for the ship as quickly as you can."

Said the Viking, solemn: "Shield maidens are close! Odin takes the hero, no matter what his race! You sup with Odin All-Father in Valhalla soon, Persian!"

"May he have dishes that I have never tasted," jested the Persian. "Out of the window, Norseman!"

And Zubran holding his knees, the Viking crawled out, and was caught by Gigi.

Then down the terraces, Sigurd leading, Sharane covered by Gigi's great cloak, Kenton cursing still, flew the four of them.

CHAPTER 26. The Passing Of Zubran

THE PERSIAN did not close the window after them. He let the wind stream through. He swaggered back through Bel's Bower.

"By all the Daevas!" swore Zubran, "never have I known such feeling of freedom as now! Lo—I am all alone-the last man in the world! None can help me, none can counsel me, none can weary me! Life is simple at last—all there is to it is for me to slay until I am slain. By Ormuzd —how my spirit stands on tiptoe—"

He peered around the doorway.

"Never has that couch given man such trouble to mount!" he chuckled as he watched the soldiers below working to clear away the barrier.

Turning, he piled in the middle of Bel's Bower the silken coverings of the bed. He ripped down the wall hangings and threw them on the heap. One by one he took the lamps and emptied them on the pyre; the oil in the ewers beneath them he poured upon it.

"That old world of mine," mused the Persian as he worked, "how it wearied me! And this world has wearied me—by the Flame of Sacrifice, but it has! And I am sure that new world of the Wolf's would weary me most of all. I am done with the three of them."

He picked up the body of the Priest of Bel, carried it to the window.

"It will puzzle Klaneth more to find you outside than within," he laughed, and slid the body over the sill.

He stood over the dancer.

"So beautiful!" whispered Zubran, and touched her lips, her breasts. "I wonder how you died—and why. It must have been amusing—that! I had no time to ask the Wolf. Well—you shall sleep with me, dancer. And perhaps when we awaken—if we do—you shall tell me."

He stretched Narada out upon the oil-soaked pile. He took the smoking brazier and placed it close beside her...

There was a roaring from below; a trampling of feet on the stairway. Up streamed the soldiers, stronger now by scores. An instant Zubran showed himself at the doorway, Bel's golden mantle twisted round his neck, half hiding his face.

"The priest! The priest!" they cried—and Klaneth's voice bellowed over all—

"The priest! Slay him!"

The Persian stepped back to the cover of the wall, smiling. He picked up the shield Sharane had dropped.

Through the narrow doorway a soldier leaped, a second on his heels.

The scimitar hissed twice, swift as swiftest snake. The two fell under the feet of those pressing from behind, tripping them, confusing them.

And now up and down, thrusting, ripping, slashing, danced Zubran's blade until its red sweat dyed his arm from hand to shoulder. In front of him grew a barricade of the dead.

Two by two only could they set foot upon the Bower's threshold—and two by two steadily they fell, blocking that threshold from side to side with a steadily rising wall of bodies. At last their swords glinted toward him no more; he heard the forward ranks cry out behind the barrier; leaping upon the slain he saw them turn and press back those who, marching upward, tried to sweep them on.

The Persian flexed the weary muscles of his arm; laughed as he heard the voice of Klaneth:

"There is but one man there! Kill him—and bring me the woman. Ten times her weight in gold for him who takes her!"

They mustered; they rushed up the stairway like a racing snake; they clambered over the wall of the dead. The red drip of Zubran's scimitar became a running rivulet—

An agony bit deep into his side, above the groin. A fallen swordsman had raised himself, thrust up his blade.

The Persian knew the wound was mortal!

He cut down at the grinning face, leaped again upon the dead, cleared the doorway with storm of strokes. He thrust his shoulder against the wall of bodies, threw them out. They spewed upon the steps, rolled down. They fell upon the climbing men, tripped them; pitched them off the railless edge of the stairway; sent them hurtling down through the mists, clutching at the air.

For twenty steps the stairway was clear!

An arrow whistled.

It cut through the twisted mantle around Zubran's neck; pierced him where helm and gorget met. He drank the salt blood pouring down his throat.

The Persian staggered to the silken pile on which lay Narada. He caught a leg of the brazier and overturned its coals upon the oil-soaked cloths.

Thin flames arose. The blast from the opened window caught them and turned them into roaring fans of fire.

Through them Zubran crept; stretched himself out beside the body of the dancer; twisted, and gathered her in his arms.

"A clean death," he whispered. "At the last...like all men...I return to the...gods of my fathers. A clean death! Take me—O Fire Immortal!"

A flame shot up beside him. It hovered, then bent.

The tip of the flame broadened.

It became a cup of fire filled with wine of flames!

Into that cup the Persian dipped his lips; he drank of its wine of fire; he breathed its incense.

His head fell back, unmarred; the dead face smiling. His head dropped upon Narada's breasts.

The flames made a canopy over them; the flames tented them.

CHAPTER 27. How They Fared Back To The Ship

Now the four for whose freedom the Persian had died were far away. Safely they had passed the terraces; the dead sentries lay as they had fallen. But as they went the four heard a humming begin inside the ziggurat like that of a disturbed and colossal hive, heard the great drum resume its throbbing and sped faster under cover of the wall of stone to where the grapnel of Gigi hung. One by one they slipped down its rope and into the sheltering trees. The tempest scourged them—but it shielded them. None was on the wide street to challenge their going. Emakhtila lay within its painted houses hiding from the storm.

When the cup of flame had dipped to the Persian's lip they were well along the other way upon which opened the hidden path back to the ship.

When the soldiers had at last mustered courage to swarm the stairs once more, and with the black priest on their heels had poured within the silent Bower, the four were far beyond the clustered houses, stumbling through the deep mud of the farmside, the Viking at lead, Kenton guarding the rear—and watching, ever watching, for Zubran.

And back in that chamber where Zubran's ashes lay mixed with the dancer's, the black priest stood, mazed and with something of fear touching his wicked heart—until his wandering gaze caught gleam of the butterflies in Narada's veils that had slipped from her when the Persian had lifted her, caught, too, the trail of blood that led to the open window. Staring out that window the black priest saw in the livid dusk the crumpled body of Bel's priest—dead, white face raised to his own, forty feet below.

The priest! Then whose were the charred bodies on the pyre? Who had been the man fighting in golden helm and buckler, face hidden in the god's mantle? So swift had been the sword play, so much had that man been hidden by the soldiers, so much by cover of the wall, that Klaneth watching from below had caught few glimpses of him; had taken it for granted that he was Bel's priest.

Back ran the black priest; kicked savagely at the ashes of the pyre and what still lay among them.

Something clanged upon the floor—a broken scimitar! He knew that hilt—Zubran's, the Persian!

Something glittered at his feet—a buckle, gems undulled by their bath of fire! He knew that, too—the buckle of Narada's girdle!

Why then—these blackened forms were the Persian—the dancer!

Sharane had been freed!

The black priest stood rigid, face so dreadful that the soldiers shrank back from him, threw themselves against the walls, out of his way.

Then Klaneth plunged howling out of Bel's Bower, down the angled stairway, through the secret shrines, on and on until he reached that cell where he had left Kenton with the six archers. He threw open the door, saw archers and officer deep in sleep and Kenton—gone!

And shrieking curses, staggered out of the cell, roaring for men to go forth to search the city for the temple drab and the slave; offering all he owned for them—all, all! If only they brought their pair back to him alive!

Alive!

By now the four had left the road and had halted in that wood where the hidden path began and where the Persian, in his craft, had bade them wait for him. And here Sigurd told them of Zubran's sacrifice and why that sacrifice had been necessary. And Sharane wept and Kenton's throat ached with sorrow and Gigi's beady black eyes grew soft and his tears ran down the furrows of his wrinkles.

"What's done—is done," said Sigurd. "He sups, by now, with Odin and the heroes!"

Brusquely he shouldered by them and took the way.

On they went and on. The rain drenched them, the wind beat them. When storm lightened they went swiftly; when it darkened so that the Viking could no longer see the trail, they halted. On and on—beating back to the ship.

Now Sharane faltered and fell, nor could she rise again; and the three, clustering round her, saw that her thin sandals were in rags and that her slim feet were bare and bleeding and that for long each step must have been an agony. So Kenton took her in his arms and carried her, and when he tired Gigi took her; and Gigi was untiring.

And at last they came to where the ship lay hid. They hailed her and found the warrior maids on watch. To them they gave Sharane and they carried their mistress into her cabin and ministered to her.

Now arose discussion as to whether they should stay hid until the tempest had abated. At last they decided that they would not; that it was better to push out to sea than stay so close to Emakhtila and Nergal's haunted place. So the chains were unshackled from the trees, the ship drawn out of shelter, her bow warped round and pointed to harbor's mouth.

Then up came the hook; down dipped the oars. Slowly the ship gathered speed. She swung out round the point of rocks and, Sigurd at the steering oar, shot into the eye of the wind, breasted the roaring combers and leaped like a racer out into the open ocean,

Kenton, utterly spent, dropped where he stood. To him came Gigi, lifted and carried him into the black cabin.

Long squatted Gigi beside him, wide awake, though weary as he was, peering here and there with bright eyes; listening, watchful. For it seemed to Gigi that the black cabin was not as it had been when they had left it; it seemed to Gigi that he heard a whispering, ghosts of whispers, coming and going.

And now Kenton moaned and muttered in his deep sleep, gasped as though hands sought his throat. Gigi, pressing paw on Kenton's heart, stilled him.

But after a time the watchful eyes of Gigi dulled, their lids dropped, his head nodded.

In the empty niche where the idol of Nergal had stood above the bloodstone slab of worship a darkness gathered, a cloudy shape of curdled shadows.

The shape darkened. Within it began to form the semblance of a face, a face that brooded upon the sleeping pair, hate filled, menacing—

Again Kenton groaned and fought for breath against nightmare terror. And the drummer threshed out long arms, leaped to his feet, glared about him—

Swiftly as it had come, before Gigi's sleep-heavy eyes could open, the shadowy face had vanished—the niche was empty.

CHAPTER 28. The Vision Of Kenton

When Kenton awakened, it was the Viking and not Gigi who lay beside him, stripped and snoring. He must have slept long, for the drenched garments the Ninevite had taken off him were dry. He put on clout and tunic, slipped feet in sandals, threw over his shoulders a short cloak and softly opened the door. Blackness and dark twilight had given way to a pallid dusk that turned the sea a sullen grey. The rain had ceased, but all the world of the ship vibrated to the steady roar of a mighty wind pouring over it.

Before that wind the ship was flying, riding like a gull on the crests of giant waves; slipping back, as the swells passed, through smoothly onrushing floors of water like liquid slate; rising to fly again upon the crest of the next racing wave.

Kenton struggled up to the steersman's place, the spindrift stinging his face like sleet. To one of the rudder oars clung Gigi, at the other were two slaves from the rowers' pit. The Ninevite grinned at him; pointed to the compass. He looked and saw that the needle which held constant to Emakhtila pointed straight astern.

"Far behind us now is that den!" shouted Gigi.

"Go below!" cried Kenton in a pointed ear, and would have taken the oar from him. But Gigi only laughed, shook his head and pointed toward the cabin of Sharane.

"That is your course," he roared. "Steer it!"

And buffeting the gale Kenton came to the door of the rosy cabin; opened it. Sharane lay asleep, cheek cradled in one slim hand, tresses covering her like a silken net of red gold. Two maids, watchful, crouched at her bedside.

As though he had called to her, she opened sleepy eyes—sleepy eyes that as she looked at him grew sweetly languorous.

"My own dear lord!" whispered Sharane.

She sat up, motioned the girls to go. And when they had gone she held out white arms to him. His own arms were around her. Like a homing bird she nestled in them; raised red lips to his.

"Dear lord of me!" whispered Sharane.

He heard no more the roaring wind—heard nothing but the whisperings, the sighings of Sharane; forgot all worlds save that which lay within Sharane's tender arms.

Long they flew on the tempest's wings. Twice Kenton took Gigi's place at the rudder oars, twice the Viking relieved him before the great wind died and they sailed once more on dimpling, sparkling turquoise sea,

Then for those upon the ship a hunted life began—and a haunted one.

Far, far behind them must lie Emakhtila by now, and yet on all the four rested clear certainty of pursuit. No fear, no terror—but knowledge that the ship was a hunted thing; knowledge that they could outwit, outsail the fleet they knew must be combing these strange seas until they found a safe and secret harbor, there could be but one end for them. Nor did one of them believe, deep in his heart, that there was such sanctuary,

Yet they were happy. Full tide of life beat round Kenton and Sharane. They took their fill of Jove. And Sigurd sang old Sagas, and a new one he had made of Zubran the Persian, while he and Gigi beat out huge shields and arrows for the bows. The shields they set around the bulwarks at the ship's bow and pierced them with rifts through which arrows could be winged. Two they fastened on each side of the stern to guard helmsman.

And Sigurd would chant of battle to come, and shield maidens who would hover over the ship ready to bear the soul of Sigurd, Trygg's son, to his seat in Valhalla where Zubran awaited him. He sang of place for Kenton there, and Gigi too—but not when Sharane was in earshot, since in Valhalla was no place for women.

Hunted and—haunted!

Within the black cabin the shadows thickened and faded, grew stronger, passed and returned. Something of the dark Lord of the Dead was there, had retaken seizing of his deck. Nor Gigi nor the Viking cared to sleep in the black cabin now; they sought the open deck or the cabin of the warrior maids.

And the slaves murmured of shadows that flitted over the black deck and clustered at the rail and stared down upon them!

Once, while Sigurd drowsed over the tiller bar, he awakened to find that unaware to all the course of the ship had changed, that the greater needle of the compass pointed straight over the bow to—Emakhtila; that the ship was moving under the oars back to Sorcerers' Isle!

Thereafter they steered two by two—Kenton and Sharane, Gigi and the Viking.

Nor was there power within Sharane to banish the shadows.

One isle they made and replenished food and water. There was good harbor there, a hidden cover and, beyond, a great forest beckoned them. Here they stopped for a time; talked of drawing the ship up shore, concealing her; then finding place within the woods to build fort; meet there whatever attack might come.

The Ship of Ishtar drew them back to her.

Restless were they all, uneasy on the land, each afraid in secret heart that the other three would make up minds to stay; and gay as children they were when the ship drove out again and dipped her bow to the crested waves while the clean sea wind shouted to them and the isle. dropped behind.

"A prison," laughed Kenton.

"No life, that!" growled Sigurd. "Hiding in a burrow till the dogs come to dig us out! Now we can see what comes."

They met a long ship, a unireme like their own, but of twenty oars. It was a merchant carrier and heavily laden, and it would have fled from them. But the Viking cried that she must not escape to carry tidings to Emakhtila. So they pursued and rammed and sunk her with the chained slaves wailing at the oars—Kenton and Gigi and Sigurd ruthlessly, Sharane white-faced and weeping.

They met another—a light vessel no larger than the ship, but this time a war boat, a hunter. They feigned to flee and it gave chase. And when it was close to them the Viking swerved and fell astern; then drove the Ship of Ishtar swiftly against the other's side, shearing the oars. Those on that vessel fought bravely; yet, hampered by the black priest's command to take but not slay, they were no match for Gigi's great mace, the Viking's blade and Kenton's sword of blue lightnings. They fell before them and the arrow storm from Sharane and her maids. But they took toll before they were ended. One of the warrior maids died with an arrow through her heart and both Gigi and Sigurd had their wounds.

In this craft they found store of metal for the Viking's forge. Better still, balls of tow and oils to soak them in and flint to light them, strong shafts to carry the balls when blazing and oddly shaped crossbows to hurl the shafts with their heads of fire. All these and the metal they took. Then they sank that vessel with its living and its dead.

On sailed the ship and on; while Sigurd hammered out his long shields and Gigi and Kenton set the crossbows in place by rosy cabin and dark, with tow and oils and flint ready for the firing.

And time passed; nor did the tides of life that flowed strong through Kenton of the ship wane ever; waned not—grew stronger and more strong for him and for Sharane.

Lying beside his sleeping love Kenton awoke—or thought that he awakened—and opening his eyes saw not the cabin but two faces gazing down upon him from some unknown space; vast faces, vague and nebulous. Their shadowy eyes dwelt upon him.

One spoke—and lo, it was the voice that had guided him through the temple's secret shrines! The voice of Nabu!

"Again Nergal centers his wrath upon the ship, O Ishtar!" it said. "The strife between him and your Sister-Self once more will trouble gods and men, deepening the shadows in myriad worlds. Great Mother—only you may end it!"

"My word went forth"—the other voice was like the wind rippling over thousands of harp strings—"my word went forth; and that Sister-Self of mine whom of old men have called the Wrathful Ishtar—has she not her rights? She has not conquered Nergal. Nor has Nergal conquered her. There has been no settlement such as I decreed. How, then, can my Sister-Self rest when the word I spoke in anger has not yet been resolved? And as long as she contends, so long must Nergal also who, too, is bound by that word."

"Yet the flames you kindled within the souls of Zarpanit and Alusar, the flames that were the life of those souls—they did not perish," the still voice whispered. "Did they not escape both your Wrathful Sister and Dark Nergal? And why, Ishtar? Was it not because you willed it so? Did you not hide them? What of that word of yours then?"

"Wise are you, Nabu!" came the voice of Ishtar. "Now let this man whose eyes we have opened see what that my priestess and her lover wreaked of ill when they brought into each other's arms the Mother of Life and the Lord of Death! Let the man judge whether my anger were just or not!"

"Let the man judge!" echoed the voice of Nabu.

The vast faces faded. Kenton looked out upon depth upon depth, infinity upon infinity of space. Myriads of suns were hived therein and around them spun myriad; upon myriads of worlds. Throughout that limitless space two powers moved; mingled yet ever separate. One was a radiance that fructified, that gave birth and life and joy of life; the other was a darkness that destroyed, that drew ever from the radiance that which it had created; stilling them, hiding them in its blackness. Within the radiance was a shape of ineffable light and Kenton knew that this was the soul of it. In the darkness brooded a deep shadow, and he knew that this was its darker soul.

Before him arose the shapes of a man and a woman; and something whispered to him that the woman's name was Zarpanit and the man's Alusar, the priestess of Ishtar and the priest of Nergal. He saw in each of their hearts a wondrous, clear white flame. He saw the two flames waver, bend toward each other. And as they did so, shining threads of light streamed out from the radiance, linking the priestess with its spirit; while from the black core of the darkness threads of shadow ran out and cooled about the priest.

As the bending flames touched suddenly the shining threads and shadow threads were joined—for an instant were merged!

And in that instant all space shuddered, the suns rocked, the worlds reeled and all the rushing tides of life paused!

"Behold the sin!" rippled the voice of harp strings.

"Open his eyes wider!" came the still, cold voice.

And now Kenton beheld a radiant chamber in which sat dread powers, veiled in glories of light—all save one who hid in the darkness. Before them stood the priest and priestess and at the side of the priestess—Sharane!

Again he saw the white flames within the hearts of those two—untroubled, serene, indifferent to gods or angry goddess! Bending toward each other, unquenchable, immutable, indifferent to wrath of gods or their punishments!

That picture wavered, faded. Now upon the floor of that radiant chamber he saw priest and priestess, Sharane and Klaneth and around them the bodies of many women and men. There was a high altar half hidden by a cloud of sparkling azure mist. Within the mist, upon that altar, a wondrous ship was being built by unseen hands.

And ever as that ship grew Kenton saw, far beyond it as though it were its shadow cast into another dimension, another ship growing; a ship that seemed to build itself out of a turquoise sea in a world of silver clouds! Step by step that shadow ship followed the building of the puppet ship upon the altar.

He knew that the shadow was the real—the toy being shaped upon the altar was the symbol.

Knew, too, that symbol and reality were one; things linked by an ancient wisdom; things created by ancient powers, of which the fate and fortune of one must be the fate and fortune of the other.

Duoform! One a puppet and one real! And each the same!

Now the unseen hands within the mists of azure had finished the ship. They reached down and touched, one by one, the bodies of Ishtar's priestess and Nergal's priest, Sharane and Klaneth and all who lay around them. And as they touched, those still forms vanished. The unseen hands lifted and placed, one by one, little puppets on the puppet ship.

Upon the decks of the shadow ship on the turquoise sea in the world of silver clouds bodies lay—one by one they appeared there as the toys were set in place upon the toy ship on the altar!

At last there were no more still forms upon the floor of the council chamber of the gods. The ship was made and manned!

A beam shot out from the radiance that veiled Ishtar and touched the ship's bow. A tendril of darkness uncoiled from the blackness in which brooded the Lord of the Dead and this darkness touched the ship's stern. That picture wavered and fled,

There appeared another chamber; small, almost a crypt. In it stood a single altar. Over the altar hung a lamp nimbused by an aureole of azure; and the altar was of lapis lazuli and turquoise and studded with sapphires of clearest blue. And Kenton knew that this was some secret shrine of Nabu, Lord of Wisdom. On the altar rested the ship. As Kenton looked upon it, it was borne to him again that this jeweled toy, a gleaming symbol, was linked inseparably with that other; ship sailing in another space, another dimension; sailing on strange seas in an unknown world—

The ship on which he sailed!

And that as the toy fared, so fared the Ship of Ishtar; and as the Ship of Ishtar fared, so fared the toy; each threatened when one was threatened; sharing each the other's fate.

That picture faded. He looked upon a walled city out of which towered a high temple, a terraced temple, a ziggurat. A host besieged city; its walls were covered with its defenders. He knew that the city was ancient Uruk and the high temple that in which the ships had been built. And as he looked, the besiegers broke through the walls; overwhelmed the defenders. He had a glimpse of red carnage—that picture fled.

Again he saw the crypt of Nabu. There were two priests there now. The ship rested upon the floor of a lattice of silvery metal. Over the altar hovered a little shining blue cloud. It came to him that the two priests were obeying a voice in that cloud; saving the ship and those who sailed on it from the invaders. They poured over it from huge basins a fine mortar that was like powder of ivory flecked with dust of pearls. It covered and hid the toy. Where the puppet ship had been was now a block of stone. The cloud vanished. Other priests entered; dragged the block out, through corridors and into the court of the temple. There they left it.

Into the court swarmed the victors, looting and slaying. But ever, unheeding, they passed the rough block by.

Now he looked upon another walled city, great and beautiful. He knew it for Babylon in the full moon of its power. Another ziggurat took its place. That melted and Kenton looked upon another secret shrine of Nabu. The block lay within it.

Flickered thereafter before him fleeting pictures of battles and of triumphs; pageant and disasters; quick, broken scenes of temple and city lost and won and lost once more; destroyed only to be built again in greater grandeur—

Then fallen—abandoned by the gods. Then crumbling—abandoned by man; the desert creeping on it; at the last covering it.

Then—forgotten!

There came a whirlpool of images, grey and indistinct in the swiftness of their passing. They steadied. He saw men working in the sands that were Babylon's shroud. He recognized among them—Forsyth! He saw the block unearthed; borne away by tall Arabs; saw it crated into a primitive cart drawn by patient little rough-coated ponies; watched it tossing in the hold of a ship that sailed a sea he knew; watched it carried into his own house—He saw himself as he freed the ship! He looked again into the shadowy eyes. "Judge!" sighed the harp strings. "Not yet!" whispered the still voice. Kenton looked again into that immeasurable space wherein he had first seen radiant power and dark. But now he saw within it countless flames like those which had burned in the breasts of Ishtar's priestess and the Lord of Death's priest; saw infinity flecked and flaming with them. They burned deep down through the shadows, and by their light up from the darkness came groping multitude upon multitude of other flames that had been shrouded by the darkness. He saw that without those flames the radiance itself would be but a darkness!

He saw the ship as though it floated in that same space. As he gazed a deeper shadow flitted from the soul of the blackness and brooded over it. Instantly something of the soul of the radiance rayed out and met it. They strove, one against the other. The ship was a focus of hatred and of wrath from which, visibly, waves swung out in ever widening circles. As the waves circled outward from the ship the shadow lines that ran from the core of darkness grew darker, thicker, as though they sucked strength from those waves. But under their beat the radiance dulled and the countless flames flickered and swayed, and were troubled.

"Judge!" whispered the cold tones of Nabu. Now Kenton in this dream of his—if dream it was—faced dilemma; hesitated. No trivial matter was it to indict this power—Ishtar, goddess or whatever that power might be in this alien world where, certainly, it was powerful indeed. Besides, had he not prayed to Ishtar and had she not answered his prayer? Yes, but he had prayed to Nabu, too, and Nabu was Lord of Truth—

His thoughts shaped themselves into words of his own tongue, his familiar idioms.

"If I were a god," he said, simply enough, "and had made things with life, things with lives to live, men and women or whatever they might be, I would not make them imperfect, so that they must, perforce through their imperfections, break my laws. Not if I were all powerful and all wise, as I have gathered gods—and goddesses—are supposed to be. Unless, of course, I had made them only for toys, to play with. And if I found that I had made them imperfect and that therefore they did wrong, I would think that it was I who was responsible for their sinning—since being all powerful and all wise I could have made them perfect but did not. And if I had made them for my toys I surely would not heap upon their heartbreak and misery, pain and sorrow—no punishments, O Ishtar—not if they were toys that could feel these things. For what would they be but puppets dancing through their day as I had fashioned them to do?"

"Of course," said Kenton naively, and with no ironic intention, "I am no god—and most certainly could not be a goddess—nor until I came into this world have I had any conscious experience with either. Yet, speaking as a man, even if I had punished any one who had broken my laws I would not let my anger run on and hurt any number of people who had nothing whatever to do with the original cause of my anger. Yet that, if what I have just beheld was true, is what this strife for the ship seems to bring about.

"No," said Kenton, very earnestly, and quite forgetting the vague faces hovering about him. "I can't see any justice in the torment of that priest and priestess, and if the struggle for the ship does the damage it appears to, I certainly would stop it if I could. For one thing I would be afraid that the shadow might get too thick some time and put all the little flames out. And for another—if I had spoken a word in anger that made all that misery I wouldn't let that word be stronger than myself. I wouldn't as a man. And if I were a god or goddess—very certainly, indeed, I would not!"

There was a silence; then—

"The man has judged!" whispered the still voice.

"He has judged!" the vast ripple of the harp strings was almost as cold as that other. "I will recall my word! Let the strife end!"

The two faces vanished. Kenton raised his head and saw around him the familiar walls of the rosy cabin. Had it been all a dream? Not all—those scenes he had beheld had been too clear cut, too consecutive, too convincing.

Beside him Sharane stirred, turned his face to hers.

"What are you dreaming, Jonkenton?" she asked. "You were murmuring and muttering—strange words that I could not understand."

He bent and kissed her.

"I greatly fear, heart of mine, that I have offended that goddess of yours," he said.

"Oh—Jonkenton—but no! How!" Sharane's eyes were terrified.

"By telling her the truth," answered Kenton; then unveiled to Sharane all of his vision.

"I forgot she is—a woman!" he ended. "Oh—but beloved, she is all women!" cried Sharane.

"Well—that makes it all the worse then!" said Kenton, ruefully.

He leaped up; threw his cloak about him and went out to talk to Gigi.

But Sharane sat thinking, long after he had gone, with troubled eyes; at last walked to the empty shrine; threw herself before it, prostrate; praying.

CHAPTER 29. How The Strife Was Ended

"WHAT BEGAN on the ship must end on the ship!" said Gigi, nodding bald head wisely when Kenton had told him also of that vision of the two faces. "Nor do I think we shall have long to wait before we see that end."

"And after?" asked Kenton.

"Who knows?" Gigi shrugged broad shoulders. "No rest for us. Wolf, while Klaneth lives. Nay—I think I know What this darkening of shadows on black deck means. By those shadows Klaneth watches us. They are the thread by which he follows us. Also my skin is sensitive, and it tells me the black priest is not so far away. When he comes—well, we conquer him or he conquers us, that is all. Also, I do not think that you can count on any help from Ishtar. Remember that in your vision she promised only that the strife of the Wrathful One and the Dark One should end. She made no promises, I gather, as to Sharane or you—or the rest of us."

"That will be well," said Kenton cheerfully. "As long as I am given chance to stand fairly, face to face with that swine bred from hell swill Klaneth, I am content."

"But I think you gathered that she was not mightily pleased with what you had to say to her," grinned Gigi slyly.

"That is no reason for her punishing Sharane," answered Kenton, harking back to his old thought.

"How else could she punish you?" asked Gigi, maliciously—then suddenly grew serious, all impishness gone. "Nay, Wolf," he said and laid paw on Kenton's shoulder; "there is little chance for us. And yet—if all your vision were true, and the little flames you saw were real—what matters it...

"Only," said Gigi, wistfully, "when those flames that were you and Sharane journey forth into space and another flame comes to you that once was Gigi of Nineveh—will you let it journey with you?"

"Gigi!" there were tears in Kenton's eyes. "Where ever we go in this place or any other, no matter what may happen—you go with us as long as you will." "Good!" muttered Gigi.

Sigurd shouted at the rudder; he pointed over the ship's bow. To Sharane's door they sped and with her through the cabin of the maids and out beneath the sickled prow. Across the horizon ran a far flung line of towers and minarets, turrets and spires and steeples, skyscrapers and mosques; a huge chevaux-de-frise. From where they stood, the outlines of this bristling barrier seemed too regular, too smoothly shaped, to be other than the work of man.

Was it another city—the refuge they had sought? A place where they might stay, safe from Klaneth and his pack until they could sally forth to meet that pack and its master on more equal terms?

Yet if a city—what giants were they who had reared it?

The oars dipped faster; the ship sped; closer came the barrier—It was no city!

Up from the depths of the turquoise sea thrust thousands of rocks. Rocks blue and yellow, rocks striped crimson and vivid malachite; rocks all glowing ochre and rocks steeped in the scarlet of autumn sunsets; a polychrome Venice of a lost people of stone, sculptured by stone Titans. Here a slender minaret arose two hundred feet in air yet hardly more than ten in thickness; here a pyramid as great as Cheops', its four sides as accurately faced—by thousands, far as eye could reach, the rocks arose in fantasies of multi-colored cone and peak, aiguille and minaret and obelisk, campanile and tower.

Straight up from the depths they lifted, and between them the sea flowed in a maze of channels both narrow and broad; in some of the channels smoothly, in others with swift eddies and whirlpools and racing torrents; and in others the sea lay like placid lakes.

There came another shout from the Viking, urgent, summoning—and with it the clangor of his sword beating upon the shield.

Down upon the ship and little more than a mile away rushed a long line of other ships, a score or more of them both single and double banked—boats of war racing on oars that dipped and rose with swiftness of sword blade stroke. Between them and the Ship of Ishtar drove a lean and black bireme leaping the waves like a wolf.

The pack of Klaneth with the black priest in the lead!

The pack, breaking out of the mists unseen by Sigurd, eyes like the others fast upon that colossal fantasy of stone that seemed to be the end of this strange world!

"In among the rocks!" cried Kenton—"Quick!"

"A trap!" said Sigurd.

"A trap for them as well as us then," answered Kenton. "At the least, they cannot ring us there with their boats." "The only chance!" grunted Gigi.

The slaves bent their backs; through a wide channel between two painted monolithic minarets they flew. Behind them they heard a shouting, a baying as of hungry hounds in sight of a deer.

Now they were within the maze and the rowers must go slowly and the Viking's rudder-craft was needed indeed, for the currents swung them. gripping at bow and stern and the sheer rocks menaced. Twisting, turning, on and on they went until the painted decks closed from them sight of the open sea. Yet now, too, Klaneth and his fleet were in the maze. They heard the creak of the oars, the commands of the helmsmen, searching, ferreting them out.

Abruptly as though snapped out, light vanished and darkness fell! Darkness blotted out the channel they were following, blotted out the towering rocks. From the pursuing boats came horn blasts, orders shrill with fear, outcries.

A purplish glow sprang up within the blackness.

"Nergal!" whispered Sharane. "Nergal comes!"

The whole of the black deck was blotted out as though an inky cloud had dropped upon it and out of that cloud leaped Sigurd and ran to where the others stood.

And now from every quarter of the horizon whirled pillars of darkness. Their feet were in the sullen sea, their heads lost in the pall that spread above. Ahead of them drove a charnel odor, the breath of death.

"Nergal in all his might!" shuddered Sharane.

"But Ishtar—Ishtar promised the strife should end!" groaned Kenton.

"But she did not say how it would end!" wailed Sharane. "And, O Beloved—Ishtar comes no more to me—and all my power is gone!"

"Ishtar! Ishtar!" she cried—and caught Kenton in her arms. "Mother—my life for this man's! My soul for his! Mother Ishtar—!"

The van of the whirling pillars was close; the circle between them and the ship swiftly narrowing. On the echo of Sharane's cry a blinding light, pearl white and pearl rose flashed down upon them—on Sharane, the three men and the warrior maids crouched white-faced at Sharane's feet.

High over their heads, thrice the height of the mast, a great globe of moon fire hung poised, effulgent, serene, and brighter, far brighter than a score of moons at full. From its periphery poured rays, enclosing the whole fore part of the ship as in a tent of light; a radiance that ringed them and in whose center they stood as though prisoned in a hollow cone whose top was the moon globe.

Around that radiant tent the pillared darknesses, churned, pressing for entrance; finding none.

Faint at first and far away began a keen-edged shrieking; louder it grew as though from racing hordes fresh loosed from Abaddon. The purple darkness lightened, turned to a lurid violet. It was pricked by countless points of crimson fire.

And now the myriads of fiery points were at the ship; striking like little snakes of fire at globe and sides of radiant tent, shooting at them like arrow heads of fire, thrusting like little lance tips of fire.

There was the whir and rustle of thousands of wings. Around calm globe and cone of light whirled doves of Ishtar in thousands. And as the points of fire struck and stabbed the doves darted to meet them. Like little living shields of shining silver they caught the thrusts of the fiery javelins upon their breasts.

Where were the doves coming from? Cloud upon cloud of them poured from above the moon orb yet, for each whose ashes were whirled away a score rushed in to meet the striking fires, and all the air was palpitant with the tumult of their wings.

The shrieking raised itself a full octave. The inky cloud that had leaped upon the black deck shot up towering, gigantic, into the heavens. The countless points of fire rushed together, coalesced. They became a crimson scimitar of fire that struck down upon shining orb and ship!

Before the first stroke could fall the phalanxes of the doves had wheeled; had formed themselves into a shield mighty enough to have been held and wielded by Ishtar's own arm!

And ever as the scimitar of fire slashed and thrust at the radiant globe and ship, the shield of the doves met it. Fiery point and fiery edge struck and blackened the living argent—but could not pierce. And ever the seared wounds of that shield shimmered moon white, as soft, untouched silver breasts darted in and healed them.

In mid-sweep it met another sword of brilliant light—a sword forged all of those white flames he had seen in his vision and that were the life of that radiance that fructified the swarms of worlds!

The scimitar was dimming! No longer was its fire so crimson bright!

The moon orb pulsed; its radiance flamed wide, dazzling, blindingly, hurling back the darknesses. Swiftly as it had come it vanished! With it went the doves!

Kenton saw the gigantic scimitar pause, quiver uncertainly—as though the dread hand that held it had been stilled with sudden doubt—then down it swept once more.

The red scimitar fell shattered!

He heard a voice—the voice of Ishtar—

"I have beaten you, Nergal!"

And Nergal, snarling—

"A trick, Ishtar! Not with you, but with your Sister-Self was my warfare to be!"

And again Ishtar—

"No trick, Nergal! I never said that I would not fight you. Yet this I will grant—though you have lost the ship—I will not take it! The ship is free!"

Then Nergal, grudgingly, snarling still—

"The strife is ended! The ship is free!"

For one beat in time Kenton seemed to see a vast vague face gazing down upon the ship, a face in which were all the tendernesses of all mothers, all loving women beneath the sun—the shadowy eyes dwelt softly on Sharane, softly but enigmatically upon him—

The face was gone!

As when a shutter is dropped before a closed lamp, so the darkness had fallen; and abruptly as when the shutter is lifted so the darkness fled; light took its place.

The ship lay in a wide channel; around it the phantasmagoria of the sea floored city of stone. At port a thicket of obelisks all dull greens and glaring vermilions raised tops on high. Three arrow flights on starboard a pointed monolith arose, pyramidal, its pointed tip hundreds of feet in air.

Around an edge of it crept the black bireme of Klaneth!

CHAPTER 30. The Last Battle

SIGHT of that lean boat that like a lank hound leaped at them was like wine to Kenton; like strong wine to all. Heavy upon them had hung the conflict just passed—they but midges, dancing helplessly now in the fierce radiance of life's spirit, now stilling as helplessly in the blackness of life's negation. The charnel odor was still in Kenton's nostrils; the chill of the grave on his heart; the touch of the worm upon his eyes.

But there—there on the black priest's ship—were things he knew!

Sword edges and arrow point; death—it might be; death with pulse beating like war drums; hot death striking in as the red tides of life rushed out; things understandable; reality.

He heard the golden clarion of Sharane's defiance, the roar of Gigi, the shouting of Sigurd. And he was shouting too—challenging the black priest, taunting him, menacing him.

Silently the lean ship drove down on them. "Sigurd, to the helm!" Sanity returned to Kenton. "Make for a narrow channel. One we can row but one that will force them to draw in their upper bank of oars. Thus shall we equal their speed—at the least!"

The Norseman ran back to the tiller. The whistle of the overseer shrilled in the pit; the ship leaped forward.

It swept round the obelisks, the bireme now only two arrow flights behind, and into a wide lake of blue water bordered by a hundred domes, magenta set on huge cubes of damask; the turquoise tides ran between the mathematically spaced sides of the cubes in a hundred canals, each barely wide enough for the oars of the ship to dip without touching the stone.

"In there! Take any channel!" shouted Kenton. The ship heeled, darted to the closest opening. A flight of arrows from the bireme whistled into their wake—five ship lengths short!

The huge blocks with their mosqued tops bordered the narrow canal into which they had passed; for a full mile the open way stretched, straight ahead of them. A third through and they heard the bireme's sweeps clanking, saw it come swinging on a single bank of oars into the entrance. Quicker, at Kenton's command, dipped the ship's blades; heavier than the ship, the bireme fell behind.

And as they flew through the blue water Kenton and Sharane took swift counsel with Gigi and Sigurd back at the stern.

"Ravens gather!" chanted Sigurd, eyes brightening with fey fires. "Shield maidens ride from Valhalla! I hear the feet of their horses!"

"They may return empty handed!" exclaimed Kenton. "Nay, Sigurd—now we have our only chance. None but Klaneth has smelled us out. Let us pick our place and give battle to him."

"We are but seven, and there are many times seven on that bireme, Wolf," said Gigi, doubtful it seemed—although his little eyes sparkled.

"I run no longer from the black swine!" cried Kenton, hotly. "I am weary of dodging and skulking. I say let us play the game out now! What does your thought tell you, Sharane?" he asked.

"My thought is as yours," she told him, tranquilly. "As you will it, so is my will, beloved!"

"What do you say, Norseman?" asked Gigi. "Quick now—decide!"

"I am with the Wolf," replied Sigurd. "No time better than now. In the old days when I was a dragon master there was a trick we played when we were chased. Have you seen the dog when the cat turns on him—ho! ho!" laughed Sigurd. "Swift flies the cat until it has reached a corner. And there it lurks until dog yelps past. Then out springs cat, digging deep its claws, striking at eyes, raking dog's sides. Ho! Ho!" roared Sigurd. "Swift we would fly like the cat until we had found a place to turn and skulk. Then as other dragon sped by, out we would spring upon it; like the dog, loud would it howl while we clung and tore! Ho—let us find such a corner where we may lurk till this hell dog leaps past. Then we shall spring. Give me two of the maids to guard me here as I steer. You three with the other maid, stand by the crossbows and when I shear their oars, loose the fire shafts upon them."

"In the meantime," asked Gigi, face wrinkling, "what about their own arrows?"

"We must take our luck as it comes," said Kenton. "Gigi, I am one with Sigurd—unless you have a better plan to offer."

"No," answered Gigi—"No—I have none, Wolf"—he lifted his great body, shook long arms on high.

"By the Hollow Hells and Ischak their Keeper," roared Gigi, "I, too, am weary of running away! I ran away from my princess because of my bald head—and what luck did it bring me. By Nazzur the Eater of Hearts—by Zubran." his voice softened—"who gave his life for us—I run no more! Pick your place, Wolf—you and Sigurd—and let us fight!"

He waddled away; then turned.

"The end of the channel draws close," he said. "Sharane, between the hearts of you and your maids and their arrow points are only soft breasts and a fold of cloth. Don coats of mail like ours and caps and buskins and greaves for your knees. I go to put on another linked shirt and get me my mace."

He dropped down the steps; Kenton nodded, and after Gigi trooped Sharane and her three women to doff their robes and kirtles, don battle garb.

"And after you have shorn their oars—if you do?" asked Kenton of the Viking, lingering.

"Then we return and ram," said Sigurd. "So we did in the old days. The ship is lighter than the black priest's galley and far more quickly can she turn. When we ram, be all of you at the bow ready to beat off any who try to drop abroad. After Klaneth's galley is both shorn and rammed we can tear at it as we will—like the cat."

The end of the canal was near; half a mile behind, the bireme clung to the ship's wake.

Out of her cabin came Sharane and her three maids, four slender warriors in coats of mail, hair hidden under brown-linked caps, leathern buskins on legs and greaves at knees. They piled arrows on stern and bow; with Gigi seeing to it that crossbows were in order, tow and oil and flints ready.

The ship swept out of the canal, hung on reverse oars while Kenton and the Viking took survey. At left and right, in two great arcs, ran high walls of unbroken crimson rock. Smooth and precipitous, continuing they would make a circle a mile or more in diameter—but whether they did so continue Kenton could not see.

Out of the waters they walled, in its center if they encircled it, a huge pinnacle lifted, its needle point thrice the height of the walls, shutting off the further view. Its pedestal was one colossal block, octahedral, shaped like a star. But from it rayed the star points, long and narrow like titanic wedges, their ends fifty feet high and edged like a knife.

"We go to the left," said Sigurd. "Let the black dog know which way we turn."

Kenton leaped to the cabin's top; waved derisive arms; heard shouting.

"Good!" rumbled Sigurd. "Now let them come. For here Wolf, we make our stand! Look"—he pointed as the ship drove past the first star point—"between the tip of stone and wall there is a little more than room for ship and galley to pass each other. Also the stone is high and hides us when we have passed. Yes, it is the place! Yet not here beyond the first star shall we lurk—Klaneth may expect that and come by it slowly and alert; nor beyond the second—for again he may come slowly though surely not so slowly as before. But not finding us there he will believe that we have but one thought—and that to run. So he will pass the third tip at speed to close in on us. And it is there that we shall leap out upon him!"

"Good!" Kenton, and dropped down to the deck; stood beside Sharane and Gigi.

And Gigi grunted approval and walked away to test once more the crossbows. But Sharane locked mailed arms around Kenton's neck and drew his face close to hers and drank him with wistful eyes that seemed as though they could not drink enough of him. "Is it the end, beloved?" she whispered. "There shall be no end—for us, O heart of mine," he answered.

They stood so, silent, while the second star point wheeled by. And now the third leveled its tip at them and Sigurd cried out to raise oars; and when the ship had swam a hundred yards or so, brought her sharply around. He called to him the overseer.

"We strike at the bireme's left bank of oars," he said. "No wish have I to run risk of splitting the ship on that edge of rock. When I shout, draw in your left sweeps. When we have sheared and passed, whip the slaves again into full speed. When we have rammed, reverse oars and pull free. Is it clear?"

The black's eyes glistened; he bared white teeth; ran back to the pit.

Now from beyond the great stone wedge came faint rasp of sweeps, splashings of oars. Two of the warrior women sped back to Sigurd, crouched beside him, arrows ready at slits of the high shields. A tenseness gripped the ship.

"One kiss," whispered Sharane, eyes now misty. Their lips clung.

Nearer came the oar sounds, closer, closer—faster-speeding—

A low whistle from the Viking, and the rowers bent back under sting of whip. A dozen strong strokes and the ship leaped like a dolphin straight for the star tip.

Past tip it shot; heeled as the Viking threw the rudder sharp to port.

Ten ship lengths ahead of them was the bireme, racing on its four fold multiple feet of oars like an enormous water spider. And as the ship flashed out and at it a roar arose from its crowded decks, a shouting confused and clamorous, medley of wild commands—and filling all that clamor, bewilderment.

The oars of the bireme faltered; stopped at midstroke; held rigid, just touching sea.

"Faster!" howled Sigurd and as the pit's whip cracked, he drove with a twist of the rudder the ship down parallel to the course of the galley.

"In oars!" he howled again—

The prow of the Ship of Ishtar struck the bireme's port oars. It swept through them like a blade through brittle stubble. Broken, splintered, the long shafts fell, holding back the rush of the Ship of Ishtar as little as though they had been straws. But in the bireme those who gripped the great handles fell back with ribs crushed, backs snapped, as the heavy stocks were flung against them.

Up from the ship's side as it passed, up into the ranks staring down on it, ranks turned wooden with surprise of that unexpected attack, hissed the fireballs from the crossbows. Hissing like serpents of fire, expanding as the air fanned them, the fire-balls struck—hurling back the soldiers, searing them, flaming up as they fell on deck and into open hold and touching with fingers of inextinguishable flame all that would burn.

Again the galley roared—and now with terror in its voice.

The Ship of Ishtar was clear; down thrust the withdrawn oars of it; straight ahead she flew into the wider space beyond the star tip of stone and circling wall. Swift once more the Viking turned her. Back. raced the ship upon the bireme.

And the bireme swung helplessly, sidled grotesquely like a huge spider from one of whose sides all legs have been cut, slithered like that same spider toward the knife-edged tip of the stone star ray. From hold and deck little columns of smoke swirled.

Now Sigurd realized all that galley's peril; saw that it was close to piercing stone ray; saw that he might drive it upon that ray; send stone blade biting into it; destroy it.

"Guard bow!" shouted Sigurd.

He threw back the rudder, made wider turn, hurtled upon the galley not at stern as he had planned but far toward midship. The ram of Ishtar's ship struck and bit deep; prow too. Under the shock Kenton and the others toppled over and before they could set foot on bow fell prone on faces, clutching at deck.

Beneath the blow the bireme reeled, heeled until the seas sucked over its farther side. Down dipped its starboard oars seeking to thrust back from the menacing stone. The sweeps churned, but under the weight of the ship clinging to its flank, its bow turned sharply in.

It struck the knife edge of the rock.

There was a crackling as rock bit through hull.

"Ho!" roared the Viking. "Drown, you rats!"

Down upon the ship whistled an arrow cloud. The shafts shrilled over Kenton, staggering to his feet. They pierced deck and pit. Before the rowers could back sweeps, pull free, they dropped, hung limp over oars, bristling with quivering bolts.

On the ship's bow fell a dozen grapples, holding it fast to the wrecked galley. Ropes whirled and sliding down them came the swordsmen.

"Back! Back to me!" shouted Sigurd.

The bireme shuddered, its gashed bow slid down the rock edge for a dozen feet or more, the water pouring over its fore deck. Up from the sea bobbed heads of soldiers, washed away and swimming for the ship. On the deck of the bireme a milling began as those on it fought to drop upon the ship.

"Back!" cried Kenton.

He caught Sharane's arm; they ran with heads bent low as from the steerman's place the arrows of Sigurd and his flanking maids winged into the mass of men swarming over the rosy cabin.

The bireme slipped again along the cleaving edge of stone; checked fall with bow half under water, yet held by the ship's ram. But that last slipping had wrenched sharply down the ship's own prisoned bow. As the deck tilted Kenton fell, dragging Sharane with him. He caught swift glimpse of men dropping from the bireme's side; throwing themselves into the sea, striking for the ship.

He scrambled to his feet as the soldiers at the bow rushed. And now Gigi sprang past him, twirling his great mace. Kenton leaped to his side, Sharane at his heels,

"Back! Back to Sigurd!" grunted the Ninevite, club sweeping the soldiers before it like a flail among wheat.

"Too late!" cried Sharane.

Too late!

Men were swarming up the stern chains, clambering up from the sea, tearing away the shields.

From the bireme came a howling, frenzied and beastlike. At its sound even the soldiers halted, Gigi's mace hung in air.

Then upon the Ship of Ishtar leaped—the black priest!

Pale eyes pools of hell fire, mouth an open square from which black hate flew screaming, he hurled himself through the swordsmen, dived under Gigi's falling mace and flung himself on Kenton.

But Kenton was ready.

Out flashed the blue blade and met the thrust of the black priest's sword. Quicker than he, that sword swept back, bit into that old wound in his side!

Kenton staggered, hilt half dropping from his hand.

Howling triumph Klaneth swept down the death blow.

Before it could fall Sharane had thrown herself between Kenton and priest, had parried the stroke with her own sword.

The left hand of the black priest shot out, dagger in its grip. He buried that dagger in Sharane's breast!

Now all the world was but one red flame before Kenton—one red flame in which was nothing but Klaneth's face. Ere the black priest could move, swifter than the lightning stroke, Kenton had struck.

His sword bit down, shearing away half the black priest's face, leaving in place of cheek and jowl, only a red smear—swept on half through his shoulder.

The black priest's sword clanged upon the deck.

The sword of Kenton bit again—straight through his neck.

The head of Klaneth leaped from his shoulders, struck the rail and whirled into the sea. For another instant the gross bulk of the body stood, the neck spouting. The body crashed.

No further heed paid Kenton to him nor to the bireme's men. He bent over Sharane, raised her.

"Beloved!" he called, and kissed the pale lips, the closed eyes. "Come back to me!"

Her eyes opened, her slim hands made effort to caress him.

"Beloved!" whispered Sharane. "I...Can not...I will...Wait..." Her head dropped upon his breast.

Kenton, standing there with his dead love in his arms, looked about the ship. Circling him were those who were left of the black galley's crew, staring at him, silent, making no move.

"Sigurd!" he cried, paying no heed to them. On the helmsman's deck where the Viking had fought was only a heap of slain.

"Gigi!" he whispered.

There was no Gigi! Where Gigi had wielded his giant flail the dead were thick.

"Sharane! Gigi! Sigurd!" Kenton sobbed. "Gone! All gone!"

The ship lurched; shuddered. He took a step forward, Sharane clasped to his breast.

A bow twanged; an arrow caught him in his side.

He did not care...let them kill him...Sharane was gone...and Gigi...

Why was it that he could no longer feel Sharane's body in his arms?

Where had the staring soldiers gone?

Where was—the ship!

There was nothing around him but darkness—darkness and a roaring tempest sweeping toward him out of farthest space.

Through that darkness, seeking as he fled for sight of Sharane, reaching faltering bands for touch of her, whirled Kenton...

Swaying, weeping with heartbreak and weakness, he opened his eyes...

To look again upon his old room!

PART VI The Ship Goes Break"

CHAPTER 31.

KENTON stood there, half in stupor seeing less the room than swift fleeting pictures of that last battle. A bell struck three times.

Three o'clock! Of course...this was a world of time...not like the world of the ship...

The ship!

He staggered over to the shining mystery that had given him everything he had desired of life—and at the end had taken everything away.

Sharane!

There she lay...on the ivory deck...close to the rowers' pit...a gleaming toy, a jeweled puppet with hilt of tiny dagger in breast...

Sharane who had held for him all joy, all sweetnesses, all desirable delicious things.

The headless manikin so close to her—

Klaneth!

He looked upon the black deck—why, where were all the dead? There on the rubber platform lay only three puppets, one with yellow hair and battered armor. Sigurd and the two warrior maids who had fought beside him! But where were the soldiers they had slain?

And there beyond the headless body of the black priest...was Gigi! Gigi with his great arms a-sprawl and his dwarf legs doubled under him! His dead—they too were gone!

Gigi! Kenton's hand left Sharane, caressed him.

An agony bit deep into his side. It brought him to his knees. He thrust down his hand and clutched a feathered shaft. The arrow! Suddenly he knew that life was ebbing fast.

Beneath the other hand he felt the ship tremble. He stared at it, bewildered. In that brief moment of agony its bow had vanished, melted away—and with it the rosy cabin!

The ship lurched. As cabin had gone, so went the ivory deck almost up to the rowers' pit and with it—Gigi!

"Sharane!" he sobbed and gripped the puppet tight. "Beloved!"

The ship crumbled to within an inch of where the toy lay.

"Sharane!" wailed Kenton—and above him the servants wakened to that heartbroken cry and came hurrying to his door.

He threw the last of his strength into his fingers, wrenched at the toy...it was loose...in his hand...he raised it to his lips...

And now where the ship had been was nothing but the oblong base of pearl-crested, lapis luzuli waves!

He knew what that meant. Down into the depths of the strange sea of that other world had gone the bireme, dragging with it as it went the Ship of Ishtar. As fared the symbol, so must fare the ship—and as the ship fared, so must fare the symbol. And had so fared!

There was a hammering at the door, and cries. He gave them no heed.

"Sharane!" they heard him cry, but now with voice that sang with joy.

Kenton fell forward, the toy woman at his lips, gripped tight in stiffening hand.

The base of little waves dissolved. Where ship and it had been something stirred and took form—a shadowy great bird with silver wings and breast and feet and bill of scarlet. It arose. It hovered over Kenton.

A dove of Ishtar.

It hovered—and was gone.

In crashed the door; the servants clustered at the threshold, peering into the darkened room.

"Mr. John!" quavered old Jevins. There was no answer.

"There's something there—on the floor! Turn on the light!" whispered one.

The electrics gleamed upon a body stretched face down upon a bloodstained rug; a body in cut and torn mail dyed crimson; in its side the shaft of a black arrow; on one strong arm a wide bracelet of gold. Back from that body they shrank, looking at each other with fearful wondering eyes.

One bolder than the others advanced, turned the still form over.

Kenton's dead face smiled up at them, peace upon it and a great happiness.

"Mr. John!" wept old Jevins, and kneeling lifted the head in his arms.

"What's he got in his hand?" whispered a servant. The hand was at Kenton's lips, clenched. They pried open the stubborn fingers.

But Kenton's hand was—

Empty!

THE END

THREE LINES OF OLD FRENCH

"BUT RICH AS WAS THE WAR for surgical science," ended Hawtry, "opening up through mutilation and torture unexplored regions which the genius of man was quick to enter, and, entering, found ways to checkmate suffering and deator always, my friend, the distillate from the blood of sacrifice is progresreat as all this was, the world tragedy has opened up still another region wherein even greater knowledge will be found. It was the clinic unsurpassed for the psychologist even more than for the surgeon."

Latour, the great little French doctor, drew himself out of the depths of the big chair; the light from the fireplace fell ruddily upon his keen face.

"That is true," he said. "Yes, that is true. There in the furnace the mind of man opened like a flower beneath a too glowing sun. Beaten about in that colossal tempest of primitive forces, caught in the chaos of energies both physical and psychicahich, although man himself was its creator, made of their maker a moth in a whirlwinll those obscure, those mysterious factors of mind which men, for lack of knowledge, have named the soul, were stripped of their inhibitions and given power to appear.

"How could it have been otherwishen men and women, gripped by one shattering sorrow or joy, will manifest the hidden depths of spiriow could it have been otherwise in that steadily maintained crescendo of emotion?" McAndrews spoke.

"Just which psychological region do you mean, Hawtry?" he asked.

There were four of us in front of the fireplace of the Science Cluawtry, who rules the chair of psychology in one of our greatest colleges, and whose name is an honored one throughout the world; Latour, an immortal of France; McAndrews, the famous American surgeon whose work during the war has written a new page in the shining book of science; and myself. These are not the names of the three, but they are as I have described them; and I am pledged to identify them no further.

"I mean the field of suggestion," replied the psychologist.

"The mental reactions which reveal themselves as visionn accidental formation in the clouds that becomes to the over-wrought imaginations of the beholders the so-eagerly-prayed-for hosts of Joan of Arc marching out from heaven; moonlight in the cloud rift that becomes to the besieged a fiery cross held by the hands of archangels; the despair and hope that are transformed into such a legend as the bowmen of Mons, ghostly archers who with their phantom shafts overwhelm the conquering enemy; wisps of cloud over No Man's Land that are translated by the tired eyes of those who peer out into the shape of the Son of Man himself walking sorrowfully among the dead. Signs, portents, and miracles, the hosts of premonitions, of apparitions of loved onell dwellers in this land of suggestion; all born of the tearing loose of the veils of the subconscious. Here, when even a thousandth part is gathered, will be work for the psychological analyst for twenty years."

"And the boundaries of this region?" asked McAndrews.

"Boundaries?" Hawtry plainly was perplexed.

McAndrews for a moment was silent. Then he drew from his pocket a yellow slip of paper, a cablegram.

"Young Peter Laveller died today," he said, apparently irrelevantly. "Died where he had set forth to pasn the remnants of the trenches that cut through the ancient domain of the Seigniors of Tocquelain, up near Bethune."

"Died there!" Hawtry's astonishment was profound. "But I read that he had been brought home; that, indeed, he was one of your triumphs, McAndrews!"

"I said he went there to die," repeated the surgeon slowly.

So that explained the curious reticence of the Lavellers as to what had become of their soldier so secrecy which had puzzled the press for weeks. For young Peter Laveller was one of the nation's heroes. The only boy of old Peter Lavellend neither is that the real name of the family, for, like the others, I may not reveal ie was the heir to the grim old coal king's millions, and the secret, best loved pulse of his heart.

Early in the war he had enlisted with the French. His father's influence might have abrogated the law of the French army that every man must start from the bottom u do not knout young Peter would have none of it. Steady of purpose, burning with the white fire of the first Crusaders, he took his place in the ranks.

Clean-cut, blue-eyed, standing six feet in his stocking feet, just twenty-five, a bit of a dreamer, perhaps, he was one to strike the imagination of the poilus, and they loved him. Twice was he wounded in the perilous days, and when America came into the war he was transferred to our expeditionary forces. It was at the siege of Mount Kemmel that he received the wounds that brought him back to his father and sister. McAndrews had accompanied him overseas, I knew, and had patched him together so all thought.

What had happened thend why had Laveller gone back to France, to die, as McAndrews put it?

He thrust the cablegram back into his pocket.

"There is a boundary, John," he said to Hawtry. "Laveller's was a borderland case. I'm going to tell it to you." He hesitated. "I ought not to, maybe; and yet I have an idea that Peter would like it told; after all, he believed himself a discoverer." Again he paused; then definitely made up his mind, and turned to me.

"Merritt, you may make use of this if you think it interesting enough. But if you do so decide, then change the names, and be sure to check description short of any possibility of ready identification. After all, it is what happened that is importannd those to whom it happened do not matter."

I promised, and I have observed my pledge. I tell the story as he whom I call McAndrews reconstructed it for us there in the shadowed room, while we sat silent until he had ended.

Laveller stood behind the parapet of a first-line trench. It was nighn early April night in northern Francnd when that is said, all is said to those who have been there.

Beside him was a trench periscope. His gun lay touching it. The periscope is practically useless at night; so through a slit in the sand-bags he peered out over the three-hundred-foot-wide stretch of No Man's Land.

Opposite him he knew that other eyes lay close to similar slits in the German parapet, watchful as his were for the least movement.

There were grotesque heaps scattered about No Man's Land, and when the star-shells burst and flooded it with their glare these heaps seemed to stir to movome to raise themselves, some to gesticulate, to protest. And this was very horrible, for those who moved under the lights were the dearench and English, Prussian and Bavariaregs of a score of carryings to the red wine-press of war set up in this sector.

There were two Jocks on the entanglements; kilted Scots, one colandered by machine-gun hail just as he was breaking through. The shock of the swift, manifold death had hurled his left arm about the neck of the comrade close beside him; and this man had been stricken within the same second. There they leaned, embracinnd as the star-shells flared and died, flared and died, they seemed to rock, to try to break from the wire, to dash forward, to return.

Laveller was weary, weary beyond all understanding. The sector was a bad one and nervous. For almost seventy-two hours he had been without sleeor the few minutes now and then of dead stupor broken by constant alarms was worse than sleep.

The shelling had been well-nigh continuous, and the food scarce and perilous to get; three miles back through the fire they had been forced to go for it; no nearer than that could the ration dumps be brought.

And constantly the parapets had to be rebuilt and the wires repairend when this was done the shells destroyed again, and once more the dreary routine had to be gone through; for the orders were to hold this sector at all costs.

All that was left of Laveller's consciousness was concentrated in his eyes; only his seeing faculty lived. And sight, obeying the rigid, inexorable will commanding every reserve of vitality to concentrate on the duty at hand, was blind to everything except the strip before it that Laveller must watch until relieved. His body was numb; he could not feel the ground with his feet, and sometimes he seemed to be floating in air likike the two Scots upon the wire!

Why couldn't they be still? What right had men whose blood had drained away into a black stain beneath them to dance and pirouette to the rhythm of the flares? Damn thehy couldn't a shell drop down and bury them?

There was a chateau half a mile up there to the right least it had been a chateau. Under it were deep cellars into which one could creep and sleep. He knew that, because ages ago, when first he had come into this part of the line, he had slept a night there.

It would be like reentering paradise to crawl again into those cellars, out of the pitiless rain; sleep once more with a roof over his head.

"I will sleep and sleep and sleend sleep and sleep and sleep," he told himself; then stiffened as at the slumber-compelling repetition of the word darkness began to gather before him.

The star-shells flared and died, flared and died; the staccato of a machine gun reached him. He thought that it was his teeth chattering until his groping consciousness made him realize what it really waome nervous German riddling the interminable movement of the dead.

There was a squidging of feet through the chalky mud. No need to look; they were friends, or they could not have passed the sentries at the angle of the traverse. Nevertheless, involuntarily, his eyes swept toward the sounds, took note of three cloaked figures regarding him.

There were half a dozen of the lights floating overhead now, and by the gleams they cast into the trench he recognized the party.

One of them was that famous surgeon who had come over from the base hospital at Bethune to see made the wounds he healed; the others were his major and his captaill of them bound for those cellars, no doubt. Well, some had all the luck! Back went his eyes to the slit.

"What's wrong?" It was the voice of the major addressing the visitor.

"What's wronhat's wronhat's wrong?" The words repeated themselves swiftly, insistently, within his brain, over and over again, striving to waken it.

Well, what was wrong? Nothing was wrong! Wasn't he, Laveller, there and watching? The tormented brain writhed angrily. Nothing was wronhy didn't they go away and let him watch in peace?

"Nothing." It was the surgeond again the words kept babbling in Laveller's ears, small, whispering, rapidly repeating themselves over and over; "Nothinothinothinothing."

But what was this the surgeon was saying? Fragmentarily, only half understood, the phrases registered:

"Perfect case of what I've been telling you. This lad hertterly worn, wearll his consciousness centered upon just one thinatchfulness . . . consciousness worn to finest point . . . behind it all his subconsciousness crowding to escape . . . consciousness will respond to only one stimuluovement from without . . . but the subconsciousness, so close to the surface, held so lightly in leash . . . what will it do if that little thread is loosed . . . a perfect case."

What were they talking about? Now they were whispering.

"Then, if I have your permission--" It was the surgeon speaking again. Permission for what? Why didn't they go away and not bother him? Wasn't it hard enough just to watch without having to hear? Some thing passed before his eyes. He looked at it blindly, unrecognizing. His sight must be clouded.

He raised a hand and brushed at his lids. Yes, it must have been his eyeor it had gone.

A little circle of light glowed against the parapet near his face. It was cast by a small flash. What were they looking for? A hand appeared in the circle, a hand with long, flexible fingers which held a piece of paper on which there was writing. Did they want him to read, too? Not only watch and heaut read! He gathered himself together to protest.

Before he could force his stiffened lips to move he felt the upper button of his greatcoat undone, a hand slipped through the opening and thrust something into his tunic pocket just above the heart.

Someone whispered "Lucie de Tocquelain." What did it mean? That was not the password. There was a great singing in his heas though he were sinking through water. What was that light that dazzled him even through his closed lids? Painfully he opened his eyes.

Laveller looked straight into the disk of a golden sun slowly setting over a row of noble oaks. Blinded, he dropped his gaze. He was standing ankle-deep in soft, green grass, starred with small clumps of blue flowerets. Bees buzzed about in their chalices. Little yellow-winged butterflies hovered over them. A gentle breeze blew, warm and fragrant.

Oddly he felt no sense of strangeneshehis was a normal home worl world as it ought to be. But he remembered that he had once been in another world, far, far unlike this; a place of misery and pain, of blood-stained mud and filth, of cold and wet; a world of cruelty, whose nights were tortured hells of glaring lights and fiery, slaying sounds, and tormented men who sought for rest and sleep and found none, and dead who danced. Where was it? Had there ever really been such a world? He was not sleepy now.

He raised his hands and looked at them. They were grimed and cut and stained. He was wearing a greatcoat, wet, mud-bespattered, filthy. High boots were on his legs. Beside one dirt-incrusted foot lay a cluster of the blue flowerets, half-crushed. He groaned in pity, and bent, striving to raise the broken blossoms.

"'Too many dead nooo many dead," he whispered; then paused. He had come from that nightmare world! How else in this happy, clean one could he be so unclean?

Of course he haut where was it? How had he made his way from it here? Ah, there had been a passworhat had it been?

He had it: "Lucie de Tocquelain!"

Laveller cried it aloutill kneeling.

A soft little hand touched his cheek. A low, sweet-toned voice caressed his ears.

"I am Lucie de Tocquelain," it said. "And the flowers will grow agaiet it is dear of you to sorrow for them."

He sprang to his feet. Beside him stood a girl, a slender maid of eighteen, whose hair was a dusky cloud upon her proud little head and in whose great, brown eyes, resting upon his, tenderness and a half-amused pity dwelt.

Peter stood silent, drinking her ihe low, broad, white forehead; the curved, red lips; the rounded, white shoulders, shining through the silken web of her scarf; the whole lithe sweet body of her in the clinging, quaintly fashioned gown, with its high, clasping girdle.

She was fair enough; but to Peter's starved eyes she was more than thahe was a spring gushing from the arid desert, the first cool breeze of twilight over a heat-drenched isle, the first glimpse of paradise to a soul fresh risen from centuries of hell. And under the burning worship of his eyes her own dropped; a faint rose stained the white throat, crept to her dark hair.

" am the Demoiselle de Tocquelain, messire," she murmured. "And you--"

He recovered his courtesy with a shock. "Lavelleeter Lavelles my name, mademoiselle," he stammered. "Pardon my rudenesut how I came here I know noor from whence, save that it wat was a place unlike this. And yoou are so beautiful, mademoiselle!"

The clear eyes raised themselves for a moment, a touch of roguishness in their depths, then dropped demurely once morut the blush deepened.

He watched her, all his awakening heart in his eyes; then perplexity awoke, touched him insistently.

"Will you tell me what place this is, mademoiselle," he faltered, "and how I came here, if you--" He stopped. From far, far away, from league upon league of space, a vast weariness was sweeping down upon him. He sensed it cominloser, closer; it touched him; it lapped about him; he was sinking under it; being losallinalling--

Two soft, warm hands gripped his. His tired head dropped upon them. Through the little palms that clasped so tightly pulsed rest and strength. The weariness gathered itself, began to withdraw slowly, so slowlnd was gone!

In its wake followed an ineffable, an uncontrollable desire to weeo weep in relief that the weariness had passed, that the devil world whose shadows still lingered in his mind was behind him, and that he was here with this maid. And his tears fell, bathing the little hands.

Did he feel her head bent to his, her lips touch his hair? Peace came to him. He rose shamefacedly.

"I do not know why I wept, mademoiselle--" he began; and then saw that her white fingers were clasped now in his blackened ones. He released them in sudden panic.

"I am sorry," he stammered. "I ought not touch you--"

She reached out swiftly, took his hands again in hers, patted them half savagely.

Her eyes flashed.

"I do not see them as you do, Messire Pierre," she answered. "And if I did, are not their stains to me as the stains from hearts of her brave sons on the gonfalons of France? Think no more of your stains save as decorations, messire."

Francrance? Why, that was the name of the world he had left behind; the world where men sought vainly for sleep, and the dead danced.

The dead dancehat did that mean? He turned wistful eyes to her.

And with a little cry of pity she clung to him for a moment.

"You are so tirend you are so hungry," she mourned. "And think no more, nor try to remember, messire, till you have eaten and drunk with us and rested for a space."

They had turned. And now Laveller saw not far away a chateau. It was pinnacled and stately, serene in its gray stone and lordly with its spires and slender turrets thrust skyward from its crest like plumes flung high from some proud prince's helm. Hand in hand like children the Demoiselle de Tocquelain and Peter Laveller approached it over the greensward.

"It is my home, messire," the girl said. "And there among the roses my mother awaits us. My father is away, and he will be sorrowful that he met you not, but you shall meet him when you return."

He was to return, then? That meant he was not to stay. But where was he to ghence was he to return? His mind groped blindly; cleared again. He was walking among roses; there were roses everywhere, great, fragrant, opened blooms of scarlets and of saffrons, of shell pinks and white; clusters and banks of them, climbing up the terraces, masking the base of the chateau with perfumed tide.

And as he and the maid, still hand in hand, passed between them, they came to a table dressed with snowy napery and pale porcelains beneath a bower.

A woman sat there. She was a little past the prime of life, Peter thought. Her hair, he saw, was powdered white, her cheeks as pink and white as a child's, her eyes the sparkling brown of those of the demoisellnd graciouracious, Peter thought, as some grande dame of old France.

The demoiselle dropped her a low curtsy.

"Ma mere," she said, "I bring you the Sieur Pierre la Valliere, a very brave and gallant gentleman who has come to visit us for a little while."

The clear eyes of the older woman scanned him, searched him. Then the stately white head bowed, and over the table a delicate hand was stretched toward him.

It was meant for him to kiss, he kneut he hesitated awkwardly, miserably, looking at his begrimed own.

"The Sieur Pierre will not see himself as we do," the girl said in half merry reproof; then she laughed, a caressing, golden chiming, "Ma mere, shall he see his hands as we do?"

The white-haired woman smiled and nodded, her eyes kindly and, Laveller noted, with that same pity in them as had been in those of the demoiselle when first he had turned and beheld her.

The girl touched Peter's eyes lightly, held his palms up before hihey were white and fine and clean and in some unfamiliar way beautiful!

Again the indefinable amaze stifled him, but his breeding told. He conquered the sense of strangeness, bowed from the hips, took the dainty fingers of the stately lady in his, and raised them to his lips.

She struck a silver bell. Through the roses came two tall men in livery, who took from Laveller his greatcoat. They were followed by four small black boys in gay scarlet slashed with gold. They bore silver platters on which were meat and fine white bread and cakes, fruit, and wine in tall crystal flagons.

And Laveller remembered how hungry he was. But of that feast he remembered littlp to a certain point. He knows that he sat there filled with a happiness and content that surpassed the sum of happiness of all his twenty-five years.

The mother spoke little, but the Demoiselle Lucie and Peter Laveller chattered and laughed like childrehen they were not silent and drinking each the other in.

And ever in Laveller's heart an adoration for this maid, met so perplexingly, grerew until it seemed that his heart could not hold his joy. Ever the maid's eyes as they rested on his were softer, more tender, filled with promise; and the proud face beneath the snowy hair became, as it watched them, the essence of that infinitely gentle sweetness that is the soul of the madonnas.

At last the Demoiselle de Tocquelain, glancing up and meeting that gaze, blushed, cast down her long lashes, and hung her head; then raised her eyes bravely.

"Are you content, my mother?" she asked gravely.. "My daughter, I am well content," came the smiling answer.

Swiftly followed the incredible, the terribln that scene of beauty and peace it was, said Laveller, like the flashing forth of a gorilla's paw upon a virgin's breast, a wail from deepest hell lancing through the song of angels.

At his right, among the roses, a light began to glea fitful, flaring light that glared and died, glared and died. In it were two shapes. One had an arm clasped about the neck of the other; they leaned embracing in the light, and as it waxed and waned they seemed to pirouette, to try to break from it, to dash forward, to returo dance!

The dead who danced!

A world where men sought rest and sleep, and could find neither, and where even the dead could find no rest, but must dance to the rhythm of the star-shells!

He groaned; sprang to his feet; watched, quivering in every nerve. Girl and woman followed his rigid gaze; turned to him again with tear-filled, pitiful eyes.

"It is nothing!" said the maid. "It is nothing! Sehere is nothing there!"

Once more she touched his lids; and the light and the swaying forms were gone. But now Laveller knew. Back into his consciousness rushed the full tide of memoremory of the mud and the filth, the stenches, and the fiery, slaying sounds, the cruelty, the misery and the hatreds; memory of torn men and tormented dead; memory of whence he had come, the trenches.

The trenches! He had fallen asleep, and all this was but a dream! He was sleeping at his post, while his comrades were trusting him to watch over them. And those two ghastly shapes among the rosehey were the two Scots on the wires summoning him back to his duty; beckoning, beckoning him to return. He must waken! He must waken!

Desperately he strove to drive himself from his garden of illusion; to force himself back to that devil world which during this hour of enchantment had been to his mind only as a fog bank on a far horizon. And as he struggled, the brown-eyed maid and the snowy-tressed woman watcheith ineffable pity, tears falling.

"The trenches!" gasped Laveller. "O God, wake me up! I must get back! O God, make me wake."

"Am I only a dream, then, ma mie?"

It was the Demoiselle Lucie's voic bit piteous, the golden tones shaken.

"I must get back," he groanelthough at her question his heart seemed to die within him. "Let me wake!"

"Am I a dream?" Now the voice was angry; the demoiselle drew close. "Am I not real?"

A little foot stamped furiously on his, a little hand darted out, pinched him viciously close above his elbow. He felt the sting of the pain and rubbed it, gazing at her stupidly.

"Am I a dream, think you?" she murmured, and, raising her palms, set them on his temples, bringing down his head until his eyes looked straight into hers.

Laveller gazeazed down, down deep into their depths, lost himself in them, felt his heart rise like the spring from what he saw there. Her warm, sweet breath fanned his cheek; whatever this was, wherever he wahe was no dream!

"But I must returet back to my trench!" The soldier in him clung to the necessity.

"My son"--it was the mother speaking now--"my son, you are in your trench."

Laveller gazed at her, bewildered. His eyes swept the lovely scene about him. When he turned to her again it was with the look of a sorely perplexed child. She smiled.

"Have no fear," she said. "Everything is well. You are in your trencut your trench centuries ago; yes, twice a hundred years ago, counting time as you dnd as once we did."

A chill ran through him. Were they mad? Was he mad? His arm slipped down over a soft shoulder; the touch steadied him.

"And you?" he forced himself to ask. He caught a swift glance between the two, and in answer to some unspoken question the mother nodded. The Demoiselle Lucie pressed soft hands against Peter's face, looked again into his eyes.

"Ma mie," she said gently, "we have been"--she hesitated--"what you caleao your world these two hundred years!"

But before she had spoken the words Laveller, I think, had sensed what was coming. And if for a fleeting instant he had felt a touch of ice in every vein, it vanished beneath the exaltation that raced through him, vanished as frost beneath a mist-scattering sun. For if this were truhy, then there was no such thing as death! And it was true!

It was true! He knew it with a shining certainty that had upon it not the shadow of a shadout how much his desire to believe entered into this certainty who can tell?

He looked at the chateau. Of course! It was that whose ruins loomed out of the darkness when the flares split the nighn whose cellars he had longed to sleep. Death, the foolish, fearful hearts of men!--this death? This glorious place of peace and beauty? And this wondrous girl whose brown eyes were the keys of heart's desire! Deate laughed and laughed again.

Another thought struck him, swept through him like a torrent. He must get back, must get back to the trenches and tell them this great truth he had found. Why, he was like a traveler from a dying world who unwittingly stumbles upon a secret to turn that world dead to hope into a living heaven!

There was no longer need for men to fear the splintering shell, the fire that seared them, the bullets, or the shining steel. What did they matter when thihias the truth? He must get back and tell them. Even those two Scots would lie still on the wires when he --ered this to them.

But he forgohey knew now. But they could not return to tels he could. He was wild with joy, exultant, lifted up to the skies, a demigohe bearer of a truth that would free the devil-ridden world from its demons; a new Prometheus who bore back to mankind a more precious flame than had the old.

"I must go!" he cried. "I must tell them! Show me how to returwiftly!"

A doubt assailed him; he pondered it.

"But they may not believe me," he --ered. "No. I must show them proof. I must carry something back to prove this to them."

The Lady of Tocquelain smiled. She lifted a little knife from the table and, reaching over to a rose-tree, cut from it a cluster of buds; thrust it toward his eager hand.

Before he could grasp it the maid had taken it.

"Wait!" she murmured. "I will give you another message."

There was a quill and ink upon the table, and Peter wondered how they had come; he had not seen them beforut with so many wonders, what was this small one? There was a slip of paper in the Demoiselle Lucie's hand, too. She bent her little, dusky head and wrote; blew upon the paper, waved it in the air to dry; sighed, smiled at Peter, and wrapped it about the stem of the rosebud cluster; placed it on the table, and waved back Peter's questing hand.

"Your coat," she said. "You'll need ior now you must go back."

She thrust his arms into the garment. She was laughinut there were tears in the great, brown eyes; the red mouth was very wistful.

Now the older woman arose, stretched out her hand again; Laveller bent over it, kissed it.

"We shall be here waiting for you, my son," she said softly. "When it is time for you tome back."

He reached for the roses with the paper wrapped about their stem. The maid darted a hand over his, lifted them before he could touch them.

"You must not read it until you have gone," she saind again the rose flame burned throat and cheeks.

Hand in hand, like children, they sped over the greensward to where Peter had first met her. There they stopped, regarding each other gravelnd then that other miracle which had happened to Laveller and that he had forgotten in the shock of his wider realization called for utterance.

"I love you!" whispered Peter Laveller to this living, long-dead Demoiselle de Tocquelain.

She sighed, and was in his arms.

"Oh, I know you do!" she cried. "I know you do, dear onut I was so afraid you would go without telling me so."

She raised her sweet lips, pressed them long to his; drew back.

"I loved you from the moment I saw you standing here," she told him, "and I will be here waiting for you when you return. And now you must go, dear love of mine; but wait--"

He felt a hand steal into the pocket of his tunic, press something over his heart.

"The messages," she said. "Take them. And remembe will wait. I promise. I, Lucie de Tocquelain--"

There was a singing in his head. He opened his eyes. He was back in his trench, and in his ears still rang the name of the demoiselle, and over his heart he felt still the pressure of her hand. His head was half turned toward three men who were regarding him.

One of them had a watch in his hand; it was the surgeon. Why was he looking at his watch? Had he been gone long? he wondered.

Well, what did it matter, when he was the bearer of such a message? His weariness had gone; he was transformed, jubilant; his soul was shouting paeans. Forgetting discipline, he sprang toward the three.

"There is no such thing as death!" he cried. "We must send this message along the linet once! At once, do you understand! Tell it to the worl have proof--"

He stammered and choked in his eagerness. The three glanced at each other. His major lifted his electric flash, clicked it in Peter's face, started oddlhen quietly walked over and stood between the lad and his rifle.

"Just get your breath a moment, my boy, and then tell us all about it," he said.

They were devilishly unconcerned, were they not? Well, wait till they had heard what he had to tell them!

And tell them Peter did, leaving out only what had passed between him and the demoisellor, after all, wasn't that their own personal affair? And gravely and silently they listened to him. But always the trouble deepened in his major's eyes as Laveller poured forth the story.

"And the came back, came back as quickly as I could, to help us all; to lift us out of all this"--his hands swept out in a wide gesture of disgust--"for none of it matters! When we die live!" he ended.

Upon the face of the man of science rested profound satisfaction.

"A perfect demonstration; better than I could ever have hoped!" he spoke over Laveller's head to the major. "Great, how great is the imagination of man!"

There was a tinge of awe in his voice.

Imagination? Peter was cut to the sensitive, vibrant soul of him.

They didn't believe him! He would show them!

"But I have the proof!" he cried.

He threw open his greatcoat, ran his hand into his tunic-pocket; his fingers closed over a bit of paper wrapped around a stem. Aow he would show them!

He drew it out, thrust it toward them.

"Look!" His voice was like a triumphal trumpet-call.

What was the matter with them? Could they not see? Why did their eyes search his face instead of realizing what he was offering them? He looked at what he helhen, incredulous; brought it close to his own eyes gazed and gazed, with a sound in his ears as though the universe were slipping away around him, with a heart that seemed to have forgotten to beat. For in his hand, stem wrapped in paper, was no fresh and fragrant rosebud cluster his brown-eyed demoiselle's mother had clipped for him in the garden.

Nhere was but a sprig of artificial buds, worn and torn and stained, faded and old!

A great numbness crept over Peter.

Dumbly he looked at the surgeon, at his captain, at the major whose face was now troubled indeed and somewhat stern.

"What does it mean?" he muttered.

Had it all been a dream? Was there no radiant Luciave in his own mino brown-eyed maid who loved him and whom he loved?

The scientist stepped forward, took the worn little sprig from the relaxed grip. The bit of paper slipped off, remained in Peter's fingers.

"You certainly deserve to know just what you've been through, my boy," the urbane, capable voice beat upon his dulled hearing, "after such a reaction as you have provided to our little experiment." He laughed pleasantly.

Experiment? Experiment? A dull rage began to grow in Peteicious, slowly rising.

"Messieur!" called the major appealingly, somewhat warningly, it seemed, to his distinguished visitor.

"Oh, by your leave, major," went on the great man, "here is a lad of high intelligencf education, you could know that by the way he expressed himsele will understand."

The major was not a scientise was a Frenchman, human, and with an imagination of his own. He shrugged; but he moved a little closer to the resting rifle.

"We had been discussing, your officers and I," the capable voice went on, "dreams that are the half-awakened mind's effort to explain some touch, some unfamiliar sound, or what not that has aroused it from its sleep. One is slumbering, say, and a window nearby is broken. The sleeper hears, the consciousness endeavors to learut it has given over its control to the subconscious. And this rises accommodatingly to its mate's assistance. But it is irresponsible, and it can express itself only in pictures.

"It takes the sound anell, weaves a little romance around it. It does its best to explailas! Its best is only a more or less fantastic liecognized as such by the consciousness the moment it becomes awake.

"And the movement of the subconsciousness in this picture production is inconceivably rapid. It can depict in the fraction of a second a series of incidents that if actually lived would take houres, dayf time. You follow me, do you not? Perhaps you recognize the experience I outline?"

Laveller nodded. The bitter, consuming rage was mounting within him steadily. But he was outwardly calm, all alert. He would hear what this self-satisfied devil had done to him, and then--

"Your officers disagreed with some of my conclusions. I saw you here, weary, concentrated upon the duty at hand, half in hypnosis from the strain and the steady flaring and dying of the lights. You offered a perfect clinical subject, a laboratory test unexcelled--"

Could he keep his hands from his throat until he had finished? Laveller wondered. Lucie, his Lucie, a fantastic lie--

"Steady, mon vieux"--it was his major whispering. Ah, when he struck, he must do it quicklis officer was too close, too close. Stile must keep his watch for him through the slit. He would be peering there, perhaps, when he, Peter, leaped.

"And so"--the surgeon's tones were in his best student-clinic manner--"and so I took a little sprig of artificial flowers that I had found pressed between the leaves of an old missal I had picked up in the ruins of the chateau yonder. On a slip of paper I wrote a line of Frencor then I thought you a French soldier. It was a simple line from the ballad of Aucassin and Nicolette--"

And there she waits to greet him when all his days are run.

"Also, there was a name written on the title-page of the missal, the name, no doubt, of its long-dead owner--'Lucie de Tocquelain'--"

Lucie! Peter's rage and hatred were beaten back by a great surge of longinushed back stronger than ever.

"So I passed the sprig of flowers before your unseeing eyes; consciously unseeing, I mean, for it was certain your subconsciousness would take note of them. I showed you the line of writinour subconsciousness absorbed this, too, with its suggestion of a love troth, a separation, an awaiting. I wrapped it about the stem of the sprig, I thrust them both into your pocket, and called the name of Lucie de Tocquelain into your ear.

"The problem was what your other self would make of those four thinghe ancient cluster, the suggestion in the line of writing, the touch, and the nam fascinating problem, indeed!

"And hardly had I withdrawn my hand, almost before my lips closed on the word I had whispereou had turned to us shouting that there was no such thing as death, and pouring out, like one inspired, that remarkable story of yourll, all built by your imagination from--"

But he got no further. The searing rage in Laveller had burst all bounds, had flared forth murderously and hurled him silently at the surgeon's throat. There were flashes of flame before his eyeed, sparkling sheets of flame. He would die for it, but he would kill this cold-blooded fiend who could take a man out of hell, open up to him heaven, and then thrust him back into hell grown now a hundred times more cruel, with all hope dead in him for eternity.

Before he could strike strong hands gripped him, held him fast. The scarlet, curtained flares before his eyes faded away. He thought he heard a tender, golden voice whispering to him:

"It is nothing! It is nothing! See as I do!"

He was standing between his officers, who held him fast on each side. They were silent, looking at the now white-faced surgeon with more than somewhat of cold, unfriendly sternness in their eyes.

"My boy, my boy"--that scientist's poise was gone; his voice trembling, agitated. "I did not understan am sorr never thought you would take it so seriously."

Laveller spoke to his officers----ly. "It is over, sirs. You need not hold me."

They looked at him, released him, patted him on the shoulder, fixed again their visitor with that same utter contempt.

Laveller turned stumblingly to the parapet. His eyes were full of tears. Brain and heart and soul were nothing but a blind desolation, a waste utterly barren of hope or of even the ghost of the wish to hope. That message of his, the sacred truth that was to set the feet of a tormented world on the path to paradis dream.

His Lucie, his brown-eyed demoiselle who had murmured her love for hi thing compounded of a word, a touch, a writing, and an artificial flower!

He could not, would not believe it. Why, he could feel still the touch of her soft lips on his, her warm body quivering in his arms. And she had said he would come bacnd promised to wait for him.

What was that in his hand? It was the paper that had wrapped the rosebudhe cursed paper with which that cold devil had experimented with him.

Laveller crumpled it savagelaised it to hurl it at his feet.

Someone seemed to stay his hand.

Slowly he opened it.

The three men watching him saw a glory steal over his face, a radiance like that of a soul redeemed from endless torture. All its sorrow, its agony, was wiped out, leaving it a boy's once more.

He stood wide-eyed, dreaming.

The major stepped forward, gently drew the paper from Laveller.

There were many star-shells floating on high now, the trench was filled with their glare, and in their light he scanned the fragment.

On his face when he raised it there was a great awnd as they took it from him and read this same awe dropped down upon the others like a veil.

For over the line the surgeon had written were now three other linen old French--

Nor grieve, dear heart, nor fear the seeminere is waking after dreaming.

She who loves you, Lucie.

That was McAndrews's story, and it was Hawtry who finally broke the silence that followed his telling of it.

"The lines had been on the paper, of course," he said; "they were probably faint, and your surgeon had not noticed them. It was drizzling, and the dampness brought them out."

"No," answered McAndrews; "they had not been there."

"But how can you be so sure?" remonstrated the Psychologist.

"Because I was the surgeon," said McAndrews quietly. "The paper was a page torn from my note book. When I wrapped it about the sprig it was blanxcept for the line I myself had written there.

"But there was one more bit oell, shall we call it evidence, John?--the hand in which Laveller's message was penned was the hand in the missal in which I had found the flowernd the signature 'Lucie' was that same signature, curve for curve and quaint, old-fashioned angle for angle."

A longer silence fell, broken once more by Hawtry, abruptly.

"What became of the paper?" he asked. "Was the ink analyzed? Was--"

"As we stood there wondering," interrupted McAndrews, "a squall swept down upon the trench. It tore the paper from my hand; carried it away. Laveller watched it go; made no effort to get it.

"'It does not matter. I know now,' he saind smiled at me, the forgiving, happy smile of a joyous boy. 'I apologize to you, doctor. You're the best friend I ever had. I thought at first you had done to me what no other man would do to anothe see now that you have done for me what no other man could.'

"And that is all. He went through the war neither seeking death nor avoiding it. I loved him like a son. He would have died after that Mount Kemmel affair had it not been for me. He wanted to live long enough to bid his father and sister goodby, and atched him up. He did it, and then set forth for the trench beneath the shadow of the ruined old chateau where his brown-eyed demoiselle had found him."

"Why?" asked Hawtry.

"Because he thought that from there he coulo baco her more quickly."

"To me an absolutely unwarranted conclusion," said the psychologist, wholly irritated, half angry. "There is some simple, natural explanation of it all."

"Of course, John," answered McAndrews soothingly--"of course there is. Tell us it, can't you?"

But Hawtry, it seemed, could not offer any particulars.

THE END

THROUGH THE DRAGON GLASS

Herndon helped loot the Forbidden City when the Allies turned the suppression of the Boxers into the most gorgeous burglar-party since the days of Tamerlane. Six of his sailormen followed faithfully his buccaneering fancy. A sympathetic Russian highness whom he had entertained in New York saw to it that he got to the coast and his yacht. That is why Herndon was able to sail through the Narrows with as much of the Son of Heaven's treasures as the most accomplished laborer in Peking's mission vineyards.

Some of the loot he gave to charming ladies who had dwelt or were still dwelling on the sunny side of his heart. Most of it he used to fit up those two astonishing Chinese rooms in his Fifth Avenue house. And a little of it, following a vague religious impulse, he presented to the Metropolitan Museum. This, somehow, seemed to put the stamp of legitimacy on his part of the pillage—like offerings to the gods and building hospitals and peace palaces and such things.

But the Dragon Glass, because he had never seen anything quite so wonderful, he set up in his bedroom Where he could look at it the first thing in the morning, and he placed shaded lights about it so that he could wake up in the night and look at it! Wonderful? It is more than wonderful, the Dragon Glass! Whoever made it lived when the gods walked about the earth creating something new every day. Only a man who lived in that sort of atmosphere could have wrought it. There was never anything like it.

I was in Hawaii when the cables told of Herndon's first disappearance. There wasn't much to tell. His man had gone to his room to awaken him one morning—and Herndon wasn't there. All his clothes were, though, Everything was just as if Herndon ought to be somewhere in the house—only he wasn't.

A man worth ten millions can't step out into thin air and vanish without leaving behind him the probability of some commotion, naturally. The newspapers attend to the commotion, but the columns of type boiled down to essentials contained just two facts—that Herndon had come home the night before, and in the morning he was undiscoverable.

I was on the high seas, homeward bound to help the search, when the wireless told the story of his reappearance. They had found him on the floor of his bedroom, shreds of a silken robe on him, and his body mauled as though by a tiger. But there was no more explanation of his return than there had been of his disappearance.

The night before he hadn't been there—and in the morning there he was. Herndon, when he was able to talk, utterly refused to confide even in his doctors. I went straight through to New York, and waited until the men of medicine decided that it was better to let him see me than have him worry any longer about not seeing me.

Herndon got up from a big invalid chair when I entered. His eyes were clear and bright, and there was no weakness in the way he greeted me, nor in the grip of his hand. A nurse slipped from the room.

"What was it, Jim?" I cried. "What on earth happened to you?"

"Not so sure it was on earth," he said. He pointed to what looked like a tall easel hooded with a heavy piece of silk covered with embroidered Chinese characters. He hesitated for a moment and then walked over to a closet. He drew out two heavy-bore guns, the very ones, I remembered, that he had used in his last elephant hunt.

"You won't think me crazy if I ask you to keep one of these handy while I talk, will you, Ward?" he asked rather apologetically. "This looks pretty real, doesn't it?"

He opened his dressing gown and showed me his chest swathed in bandages. He gripped my shoulder as I took without question one of the guns. He walked to the easel and drew off the hood.

"There it is," said Herndon.

And then, for the first time, I saw the Dragon Glass!

There never has been anything like that thing! Never! At first all you saw was a cool, green, glimmering translucence, like the sea when you are swimming under water on a still summer day and look up through it. Around its edges ran flickers of scarlet and gold, flashes of emerald, shimmers of silver and ivory. At its base a disk of topaz rimmed with red fire shot up dusky little vaporous yellow flames.

Afterward you were aware that the green translucence was an oval slice of polished stone. The flashes and flickers became dragons. There were twelve of them. Their eyes were emeralds, their fangs were ivory, their claws were gold. There were scaled dragons, and each scale was so inlaid that the base, green as the primeval jungle, shaded off into vivid scarlet, and the scarlet into tips of gold. Their wings were of silver and vermilion, and were folded close to their bodies.

But they were alive, those dragons. There was never so much life in metal and wood since Al-Akram, the Sculptor of ancient Ad, carved the first crocodile, and the jealous Almighty breathed life into it for a punishment!

And last you saw that the topaz disk that sent up the little yellow flames was the top of a metal sphere around which coiled a thirteenth dragon, thin and red, and biting its scorpion-tipped tail.

It took your breath away, the first glimpse of the Dragon Glass. Yes, and the second and third glimpse, too—and every other time you looked at it.

"Where did you get it?" I asked, a little shakily.

Herndon said evenly: "It was in a small hidden crypt in the Imperial Palace. We broke into the crypt quite by"—he hesitated—"well, call it accident. As soon as I saw it I knew I must have it. What do you think of it?"

"Think!" I cried. "Think! Why, it's the most marvelous thing that the hands of man ever made! What is that stone? Jade?"

"I'm not sure," said Herndon. "But come here. Stand just in front of me."

He switched out the lights in the room. He turned another switch, and on the glass opposite me three shaded electrics threw their rays into its mirror-like oval.

"Watch!" said Herndon. "Tell me what you see!"

I looked into the glass. At first I could see nothing but the rays shining farther, farther—back into infinite distances, it seemed. And then.

"Good God!" I cried, stiffening with horror. "Jim, what hellish thing is this?"

"Steady, old man," came Herndon's voice. There was relief and a curious sort of joy in it. "Steady; tell me what you see."

I said: "I seem to see through infinite distances—and yet what I see is as close to me as though it were just on the other side of the glass. I see a cleft that cuts through two masses of darker green. I see a claw, a gigantic, hideous claw that stretches out through the cleft. The claw has seven talons that open and close—open and close. Good God, such a claw, Jim! It is like the claws that reach out from the holes in the lama's hell to grip the blind souls as they shudder by!"

"Look, look farther, up through the cleft, above the claw. It widens. What do you see?"

I said: "I see a peak rising enormously high and cutting the sky like a pyramid. There are flashes of flame that dart from behind and outline it. I see a great globe of light like a moon that moves slowly out of the flashes; there is another moving across the breast of the peak; there is a third that swims into the flame at the farthest edge—"

"The seven moons of Rak," whispered Herndon, as though to himself. "The seven moons that bathe in the rose flames of Rak which are the fires of life and that circle Lalil like a diadem. He upon whom the seven moons of Rak have shone is bound to Lalil for this life, and for ten thousand lives."

He reached over and turned the switch again. The lights of the room sprang up.

"Jim," I said, "it can't be real! What is it? Some devilish illusion in the glass?"

He unfastened the bandages about his chest.

"The claw you saw had seven talons," he answered quietly. "Well, look at this."

Across the white flesh of his breast, from left shoulder to the lower ribs on the right, ran seven healing furrows. They looked as though they had been made by a gigantic steel comb that had been drawn across him. They gave one the thought they had been ploughed.

"The claw made these," he said as quietly as before.

"Ward," he went on, before I could speak, "I wanted you to see—what you've seen. I didn't know whether you would see it. I don't know whether you'll believe me even now. I don't suppose I would if I were in your place—still—"

He walked over and threw the hood upon the Dragon Glass.

"I'm going to tell you," he said. "I'd like to go through it—uninterrupted. That's why I cover it.

"I don't suppose," he began slowly—"I don't suppose, Ward, that you've ever heard of Rak the Wonder-Worker, who lived somewhere back at the beginning of things, nor how the Greatest Wonder-Worker banished him somewhere outside the world?"

"No," I said shortly, still shaken by the sight.

"It's a big part of what I've got to tell you," he went on. "Of course you'll think it rot, but—I came across the legend in Tibet first. Then I ran across it again—with the names changed, of course—when I was getting away from China.

"I take it that the gods were still fussing around close to man when Rak was born. The story of his parentage is somewhat scandalous. When he grew older Rak wasn't satisfied with just seeing wonderful things being done. He wanted to do them himself, and he—well, he studied the method. After a while the Greatest Wonder-Worker ran across some of the things Rak had made, and he found them admirable—a little too admirable. He didn't like to destroy the lesser wonder-worker because, so the gossip ran, he felt a sort of responsibility. So he gave Rak a place somewhere—outside the world—and he gave him power over every one out of so many millions of births to lead or lure or sweep that soul into his domain so that he might build up a people—and over his people Rak was given the high, the low, and the middle justice.

"And outside the world Rak went. He fenced his domain about with clouds. He raised a great mountain, and on its flank he built a city for the men and women who were to be his. He circled the city with wonderful gardens, and he placed in the gardens many things, some good and some very—terrible. He set around the mountain's brow seven moons for a diadem, and he fanned behind the mountain a fire which is the fire of life, and through which the moons pass eternally to be born again." Herndon's voice sank to a whisper.

"Through which the moons pass," he said. "And with them the souls of the people of Rak. They pass through the fires and are born again—and again—for ten thousand lives. I have seen the moons of Rak and the souls that march with them into the fires. There is no sun in the land—only the new-born moons that shine green on the city and on the gardens."

"Jim," I cried impatiently. "What in the world are you talking about? Wake up, man! What's all that nonsense got to do with this?"

I pointed to the hooded Dragon Glass.

"That," he said. "Why, through that lies the road to the gardens of Rak!"

The heavy gun dropped from my hand as I stared at him, and from him to the glass and back again. He smiled and pointed to his bandaged breast.

He said: "I went straight through to Peking with the Allies. I had an idea what was coming, and I wanted to be in at the death. I was among the first to enter the Forbidden City. I was as mad for loot as any of them. It was a maddening sight, Ward. Soldiers with their arms full of precious stuff even Morgan couldn't buy; soldiers with wonderful necklaces around their hairy throats and their pockets stuffed with jewels; soldiers with their shirts bulging treasures the Sons of Heaven had been hoarding for centuries! We were Goths sacking imperial Rome. Alexander's hosts pillaging that ancient gemmed courtezan of cities, royal Tyre! Thieves in the great ancient scale, a scale so great that it raised even thievery up to something heroic.

"We reached the throne-room. There was a little passage leading off to the left, and my men and I took it. We came into a small octagonal room. There was nothing in it except a very extraordinary squatting figure of jade. It squatted on the floor, its back turned toward us. One of my men stooped to pick it up. He slipped. The figure flew from his hand and smashed into the wall. A slab swung outward. By a—well, call it a fluke, we had struck the secret of the little octagonal room!

"I shoved a light through the aperture. It showed a crypt shaped like a cylinder. The circle of the floor was about ten feet in diameter. The walls were covered with paintings, Chinese characters, queer-looking animals, and things I can't well describe. Around the room, about seven feet up, ran a picture. It showed a sort of island floating off into space. The clouds lapped its edges like frozen seas full of rainbows. There was a big pyramid of a mountain rising out of the side of it. Around its peak were seven moons, and over the peak —a face!

"I couldn't place that face and I couldn't take my eyes off it. It wasn't Chinese, and it wasn't of any other race I'd ever seen. It was as old as the world and as young as tomorrow. It was benevolent and malicious, cruel and kindly, merciful and merciless, saturnine as Satan and as joyous as Apollo. The eyes were as yellow as buttercups, or as the sunstone on the crest of the Feathered Serpent they worship down in the Hidden Temple of Tuloon. And they were as wise as Fate.

"'There's something else here, sir,' said Martin—you remember Martin, my first officer. He pointed to a shrouded thing on the side. I entered, and took from the thing a covering that fitted over it like a hood. It was the Dragon Glass!

"The moment I saw it I knew I had to have it—and I knew I would have it. I felt that I did not want to get the thing away any more than the thing itself wanted to get away. From the first I thought of the Dragon Glass as something alive. Just as much alive as you and I are. Well, I did get it away. I got it down to the yacht, and then the first odd thing happened.

"You remember Wu-Sing, my boat steward? You know the English Wu-Sing talks. Atrocious! I had the Dragon Glass in my stateroom. I'd forgotten to lock the door. I heard a whistle of sharply indrawn breath. I turned, and there was Wu-Sing. Now, you know that Wu-Sing isn't what you'd call intelligent-looking. Yet as he stood there something seemed to pass over his face, and very subtly change it. The stupidity was wiped out as though a sponge had been passed over it. He did not raise his eyes, but he said, in perfect English, mind you; 'Has the master augustly counted the cost of his possession?'

"I simply gaped at him.

"'Perhaps,' he continued, 'the master has never heard of the illustrious Hao-Tzan? Well, he shall hear.'"

"Ward, I couldn't move or speak. But I know now it wasn't sheer astonishment that held me. I listened while Wu-Sing went on to tell in polished phrase the same story that I had heard in Tibet, only there they called him Rak instead of Hao-Tzan. But it was the same story."

"'And,' he finished, 'before he journeyed afar, the illustrious Hao-Tzan caused a great marvel to be wrought. He called it the Gateway.' Wu-Sing waved his hand to the Dragon Glass. 'The master has it. But what shall he who has a Gateway do but pass through it? Is it not better to leave the Gateway behind—unless he dare go through it?'"

"He was silent. I was silent, too. All I could do was wonder where the fellow had so suddenly got his command of English. And then Wu-Sing straightened. For a moment his eyes looked into mine. They were as yellow as buttercups, Ward, and wise, wise! My mind rushed back to the little room behind the panel. Ward—. The eyes of Wu-Sing were the eyes of the face that brooded over the peak of the moons!"

"And all in a moment, the face of Wu-Sing dropped back into its old familiar stupid lines. The eyes he turned to me were black and clouded. I jumped from my chair."

"'What do you mean, you yellow fraud!' I shouted. 'What do you mean by pretending all this time that you couldn't talk English?'"

"He looked at me stupidly, as usual. He whined in his pidgin that he didn't understand; that he hadn't spoken a word to me until then. I couldn't get anything else out of him, although I nearly frightened his wits out. I had to believe him. Besides, I had seen his eyes. Well, I was fair curious by this time, and I was more anxious to get the glass home safely than ever."

"I got it home. I set it up here, and I fixed those lights as you saw them. I had a sort of feeling that the glass was waiting—for something. I couldn't tell just what. But that it was going to be rather important, I knew—"

He suddenly thrust his head into his hands, and rocked to and fro.

"How long, how long," he moaned, "how long, Santhu?"

"Jim!" I cried. "Jim! What's the matter with you?"

He straightened. "In a moment you'll understand," he said.

And then, as quietly as before: "I felt that the glass was waiting. The night I disappeared I couldn't sleep. I turned out the lights in the room; turned them on around the glass and sat before it. I don't know how long I sat, but all at once I jumped to my feet. The dragons seemed to be moving! They were moving! They were crawling round and round the glass. They moved faster and faster. The thirteenth dragon spun about the topaz globe. They circled faster and faster until they were nothing but a halo of crimson and gold flashes. As they spun, the glass itself grew misty, mistier, mistier still, until it was nothing but a green haze. I stepped over to touch it. My hand went straight on through it as though nothing were there.

"I reached in—up to the elbow, up to the shoulder. I felt my hand grasped by warm little fingers. I stepped through—"

"Stepped through the glass?" I cried.

"Through it," he said, "and then—I felt another little hand touch my face. I saw Santhu!

"Her eyes were as blue as the corn flowers, as blue as the big sapphire that shines in the forehead of Vishnu, in his temple at Benares. And they were set wide, wide apart. Her hair was blue-black, and fell in two long braids between her little breasts. A golden dragon crowned her, and through its paws slipped the braids. Another golden dragon girded her. She laughed into my eyes, and drew my head down until my lips touched hers. She was lithe and slender and yielding as the reeds that grow before the Shrine of Hathor that stands on the edge of the Pool of Djeeba. Who Santhu is or where she came from—-how do I know? But this I know—she is lovelier than any woman who ever lived on earth. And she is a woman!

"Her arms slipped from about my neck and she drew me forward. I looked about me. We stood in a cleft between two great rocks. The rocks were a soft green, like the green of the Dragon Glass. Behind us was a green mistiness. Before us the cleft ran only a little distance. Through it I saw an enormous peak jutting up like a pyramid, high, high into a sky of chrysoprase. A soft rose radiance pulsed at its sides, and swimming slowly over its breast was a huge globe of green fire. The girl pulled me towards the opening. We walked on silently, hand in hand. Quickly it came to me—Ward, I was in the place whose pictures had been painted in the room of the Dragon Glass!

"We came out of the cleft and into a garden. The Gardens of Many-Columned Iram, lost in the desert because they were too beautiful, must have been like that place. There were strange, immense trees whose branches were like feathery plumes and whose plumes shone with fires like those that clothe the feet of Indra's dancers. Strange flowers raised themselves along our path, and their hearts glowed like the glow-worms that are fastened to the rainbow bridge to Asgard. A wind sighed through the plumed trees, and luminous shadows drifted past their trunks. I heard a girl laugh, and the voice of a man singing.

"We went on. Once there was a low wailing far in the garden, and the girl threw herself before me, her arms outstretched. The wailing ceased, and we went on. The mountain grew plainer. I saw another great globe of green fire swing out of the rose flashes at the right of the peak. I saw another shining into the glow at the left. There was a curious trail of mist behind it. It was a mist that had tangled in it a multitude of little stars. Everything was bathed in a soft green light—such a light as you would have if you lived within a pale emerald.

"We turned and went along another little trail. The little trail ran up a little hill, and on the hill was a little house. It looked as though it was made of ivory. It was a very odd little house. It was more like the Jain pagodas at Brahmaputra than anything else. The walls glowed as though they were full light. The girl touched the wall, and a panel slid away. We entered, and the panel closed after us.

"The room was filled with a whispering yellow light. I say whispering because that is how one felt about it. It was gentle and alive. A stairway of ivory ran up to another room above. The girl pressed me toward it. Neither of us had uttered a word. There was a spell of silence upon me. I could not speak. There seemed to be nothing to say. I felt a great rest and a great peace—as though I had come home. I walked up the stairway and into the room above. It was dark except for a bar of green light that came through the long and narrow window. Through it I saw the mountain and its moons. On the floor was an ivory head-rest and some silken cloths. I felt suddenly very sleepy. I dropped to the cloths, and at once was asleep.

"When I awoke the girl with the cornflower eyes was beside me! She was sleeping. As I watched, her eyes opened. She smiled and drew me to her—"

"I do not know why, but a name came to me. 'Santhu!' I cried. She smiled again, and I knew that I had called her name. It seemed to me that I remembered her, too, out of immeasurable ages. I arose and walked to the window. I looked toward the mountain. There were now two moons on its breast. And then I saw the city that lay on the mountain's flank. It was such a city as you see in dreams, or as the tale-tellers of El-Bahara fashion out of the mirage. It was all of ivory and shining greens and flashing blues and crimsons. I could see people walking about its streets. There came the sound of little golden bells chiming.

"I turned toward the girl. She was sitting up, her hands clasped about her knees, watching me. Love came, swift and compelling. She arose—I took her in my arms—

"Many times the moons circled the mountains, and the mist held the little, tangled stars passing with them. I saw no one but Santhu; no thing came near us. The trees fed us with fruits that had in them the very essences of life. Yes, the fruit of the Tree of Life that stood in Eden must have been like the fruit of those trees. We drank of green water that sparkled with green fires, and tasted like the wine Osiris gives the hungry souls in Amenti to strengthen them. We bathed in pools of carved stone that welled with water yellow as amber. Mostly we wandered in the gardens. There were many wonderful things in the gardens. They were very unearthly. There was no day nor night. Only the green glow of the ever-circling moons. We never talked to each other. I don't know why. Always there seemed nothing to say.

"Then Santhu began to sing to me. Her songs were strange songs. I could not tell what the words were. But they built up pictures in my brain. I saw Rak the Wonder-Worker fashioning his gardens, and filling them with things beautiful and things—evil. I saw him raise the peak, and knew that it was Lalil; saw him fashion the seven moons and kindle the fires that are the fires of life. I saw him build his city, and I saw men and women pass into it from the world through many gateways.

"Santhu sang—and I knew that the marching stars in the mist were the souls of the people of Rak which sought rebirth. She sang, and I saw myself ages past walking in the city of Rak with Santhu beside me. Her song wailed, and I felt myself one of the mist-entangled stars. Her song wept, and I felt myself a star that fought against the mist, and, fighting, break away—a star that fled out and out through immeasurable green space—

"A man stood before us. He was very tall. His face was both cruel and kind, saturnine as Satan and joyous as Apollo. He raised his eyes to us, and they were yellow as buttercups, and wise, so wise! Ward, it was the face above the peak in the room of the Dragon Glass! The eyes that had looked at me out of Wu-Sing's face! He smiled on us for a moment and then—he was gone!

"I took Santhu by the hand and began to run. Quite suddenly it came to me that I had enough of the haunted gardens of Rak; that I wanted to get back to my own land. But not without Santhu. I tried to remember the road to the cleft. I felt that there lay the path back. We ran. From far behind came a wailing. Santhu screamed—but I knew the fear in her cry was not for herself. It was for me. None of the creatures of that place could harm her who was herself one of its creatures. The wailing drew closer. I turned.

"Winging down through the green air was a beast, an unthinkable beast, Ward! It was like the winged beast of the Apocalypse that is to bear the woman arrayed in purple and scarlet. It was beautiful even in its horror. It closed its scarlet and golden wings, and its long, gleaming body shot at me like a monstrous spear.

"And then—just as it was about to strike—a mist threw itself between us! It was a rainbow mist, and it was—cast. It was cast as though a hand had held it and thrown it like a net. I heard the winged beast shriek its disappointment, Santhu's hand gripped mine tighter. We ran through the mist.

"Before us was the cleft between the two green rocks. Time and time again we raced for it, and time and time again that beautiful shining horror struck at me—and each time came the thrown mist to baffle it. It was a game! Once I heard a laugh, and then I knew who was my hunter. The master of the beast and the caster of the mist. It was he of the yellow eyes—and he was playing me—playing me as a child plays with a cat when he tempts it with a piece of meat and snatches the meat away again and again from the hungry jaws!

"The mist cleared away from its last throw, and the mouth of the cleft was just before us. Once more the thing swooped—and this time there was no mist. The player had tired of the game! As it struck, Santhu raised herself before it. The beast swerved—and the claw that had been stretched to rip me from throat to waist struck me a glancing blow. I fell—fell through leagues and leagues of green space.

"When I awoke I was here in this bed, with the doctor men around me and this—" He pointed to his bandaged breast again.

"That night when the nurse was asleep I got up and looked into the Dragon Glass, and I saw—the claw, even as you did. The beast is there. It is waiting for me!"

Herndon was silent for a moment.

"If he tires of the waiting he may send the beast through for me," he said. "I mean the man with the yellow eyes. I've a desire to try one of these guns on it. It's real, you know, the beast is—and these guns have stopped elephants."

"But the man with the yellow eyes, Jim," I whispered—"who is he?"

"He," said Herndon—"why, he's the Wonder-Worker himself!"

"You don't believe such a story as that!" I cried. "Why, it's—it's lunacy! It's some devilish illusion in the glass. It's like the—crystal globe that makes you hypnotize yourself and think the things your own mind creates are real. Break it, Jim! It's devilish! Break it!"

"Break it!" he said incredulously. "Break it? Not for the ten thousand lives that are the toll of Rak! Not real? Aren't these wounds real? Wasn't Santhu real? Break it! Good God, man, you don't know what you say! Why, it's my only road back to her! If that yellow-eyed devil back there were only as wise as he looks, he would know he didn't have to keep his beast watching there. I want to go, Ward; I want to go and bring her back with me. I've an idea, somehow, that he hasn't—well, full control of things. I've an idea that the Greatest Wonder-Worker wouldn't put wholly in Rak's hands the souls that wander through the many gateways into his kingdom. There's a way out, Ward; there's a way to escape him. I won away from him once, Ward. I'm sure of it. But then I left Santhu behind. I have to go back for her. That's why I found the little passage that led from the throne-room. And he knows it, too. That's why he had to turn his beast on me."

"And I'll go through again, Ward. And I'll come back again—with Santhu!"

But he has not returned. It is six months now since he disappeared for the second time. And from his bedroom, as he had done before. By the will that they found—the will that commended that in event of his disappearing as he had done before and not returning within a week I was to have his house and all that was within it—I came into possession of the Dragon Glass. The dragons had spun again for Herndon, and he had gone through the gateway once more. I found only one of the elephant guns, and I knew that he had had time to take the other with him.

I sit night after night before the glass, waiting for him to come back through it—with Santhu. Sooner or later they will come. That I know.

THE END

McKAY SAT ON THE BALCONY of the little inn that squatted like a brown gnome among the pines on the eastern shore of the lake.

It was a small and lonely lake high up in the Vosges; and yet, lonely is not just the word with which to tag its spirit; rather was it aloof, withdrawn. The mountains came down on every side, making a great tree-lined bowl that seemed, when McKay first saw it, to be filled with the still wine of peace.

McKay had worn the wings in the world war with honor, flying first with the French and later with his own country's forces. And as a bird loves the trees, so did McKay love them. To him they were not merely trunks and roots, branches and leaves; to him they were personalities. He was acutely aware of differences in character even among the same species—that pine was benevolent and jolly; that one austere and monkish; there stood a swaggering bravo, and there dwelt a sage wrapped in green meditation; that birch was a wanton—the birch near her was virginal, still a-dream.

The war had sapped him, nerve and brain and soul. Through all the years that had passed since then the wound had kept open. But now, as he slid his car down the vast green bowl, he felt its spirit reach out to him; reach out to him and caress and quiet him, promising him healing. He seemed to drift like a falling leaf through the clustered woods; to be cradled by gentle hands of the trees.

He had stopped at the little gnome of an inn, and there he had lingered, day after day, week after week.

The trees had nursed him; soft whisperings of leaves, slow chant of the needled pines, had first deadened, then driven from him the re-echoing clamor of the war and its sorrow. The open wound of his spirit had closed under their green healing; had closed and become scar; and even the scar had been covered and buried, as the scars on Earth's breast are covered and buried beneath the falling leaves of Autumn. The trees had laid green healing hands on his eyes, banishing the pictures of war. He had sucked strength from the green breasts of the hills.

Yet as strength flowed back to him and mind and spirit healed, McKay had grown steadily aware that the place was troubled; that its tranquillity was not perfect; that there was ferment of fear within it.

It was as though the trees had waited until he himself had become whole before they made their own unrest known to him. Now they were trying to tell him something; there was a shrillness as of apprehension, of anger, in the whispering of the leaves, the needled chanting of the pines.

And it was this that had kept McKay at the inn—a definite consciousness of appeal, consciousness of something wrong—something wrong that he was being asked to right. He strained his ears to catch words in the rustling branches, words that trembled on the brink of his human understanding.

Never did they cross that brink.

Gradually he had orientated himself, had focused himself, so he believed, to the point of the valley's unease.

On all the shores of the lake there were but two dwellings. One was the inn, and around the inn the trees clustered protectively, confiding; friendly. It was as though they had not only accepted it, but had made it part of themselves.

Not so was it of the other habitation. Once it had been the hunting lodge of long dead lords; now it was half ruined, forlorn. It stood across the lake almost exactly opposite the inn and back upon the slope a half mile from the shore. Once there had been fat fields around it and a fair orchard.

The forest had marched down upon them. Here and there in the fields, scattered pines and poplars stood like soldiers guarding some outpost; scouting parties of saplings lurked among the gaunt and broken fruit trees. But the forest had not had its way unchecked; ragged stumps showed where those who dwelt in the old lodge had cut down the invaders, blackened patches of the woodland showed where they had fired the woods.

Here was the conflict he had sensed. Here the green folk of the forest were both menaced and menacing; at war. The lodge was a fortress beleaguered by the woods, a fortress whose garrison sallied forth with axe and torch to take their toll of the besiegers.

Yet McKay sensed the inexorable pressing-in of the forest; he saw it as a green army ever filling the gaps in its enclosing ranks, shooting its seeds into the cleared places, sending its roots out to sap them; and armed always with a crushing patience, a patience drawn from the stone breasts of the eternal hills.

He had the impression of constant regard of watchfulness, as though night and day the forest kept its myriads of eyes upon the lodge; inexorably, not to be swerved from its purpose. He had spoken of this impression to the inn keeper and his wife, and they had looked at him oddly.

"Old Polleau does not love the trees, no," the old man had said. "No, nor do his two sons. They do not love the trees—and very certainly the trees do not love them."

Between the lodge and the shore, marching down to the verge of the lake was a singularly beautiful little coppice of silver birches and firs. The coppice stretched for perhaps a quarter of a mile, was not more than a hundred feet or two in depth, and it was not alone the beauty of its trees but their curious grouping that aroused McKay's interest so vividly. At each end of the coppice were a dozen or more of the glistening needled firs, not clustered but spread out as though in open marching order; at widely spaced intervals along its other two sides paced single firs. The birches, slender and delicate, grew within the guard of these sturdier trees, yet not so thickly as to crowd each other.

To McKay the silver birches were for all the world like some gay caravan of lovely demoiselles under the protection of debonair knights. With that odd other sense of his he saw the birches as delectable damsels, merry and laughing—the pines as lovers, troubadours in their green-needled mail. And when the winds blew and the crests of the trees bent under them, it was as though dainty demoiselles picked up fluttering, leafy skirts, bent leafy hoods and danced while the knights of the firs drew closer round them, locked arms with theirs and danced with them to the roaring horns of the winds. At such times he almost heard sweet laughter from the birches, shoutings from the firs.

Of all the trees in that place McKay loved best this little wood; had rowed across and rested in its shade, had dreamed there and, dreaming, had heard again elfin echoes of the sweet laughter; eyes closed, had heard mysterious whisperings and the sound of dancing feet light as falling leaves; had taken dream draught of that gaiety which was the soul of the little wood.

And two days ago he had seen Polleau and his two sons. McKay had been dreaming in the coppice all that afternoon. As dusk began to fall he had reluctantly arisen and begun the row back to the inn. When he had been a few hundred feet from shore three men had come out from the trees and had stood watching him—three grim, powerful men taller than the average French peasant.

He had called a friendly greeting to them, but they had not answered it; stood there, scowling. Then as he bent again to his oars, one of the sons had raised a hatchet and had driven it savagely into the trunk of a slim birch beside him. He thought he heard a thin wailing cry from the stricken tree, a sigh from all the little wood.

McKay had felt as though the keen edge had bitten into his own flesh.

"Stop that!" he had cried. "Stop it, damn you!"

For answer the son had struck again—and never had McKay seen hate etched so deep as on his face as he struck. Cursing, a killing rage in heart, had swung the boat around, raced back to shore. He had heard the hatchet strike again and again and, close now to shore, had heard a crackling and over it once more the thin, high wailing. He had turned to look.

The birch was tottering, was falling. But as it had fallen he had seen a curious thing. Close beside it grew one of the firs, and, as the smaller tree crashed over, it dropped upon the fir like a fainting maid in the arms of a lover. And as it lay and trembled there, one of the great branches of the fir slipped from under it, whipped out and smote the hatchet wielder a crushing blow upon the head, sending him to earth.

It had been, of course, only the chance blow of a bough, bent by pressure of the fallen tree and then released as that tree slipped down. But there had been such suggestion of conscious action in the branch's recoil, so much of bitter anger in it, so much, in truth, had it been like the vengeful blow of a man that McKay had felt an eerie prickling of his scalp, his heart had missed its beat.

For a moment Polleau and the standing son had stared at the sturdy fir with the silvery birch lying on its green breast and folded in, shielded by, its needled boughs as though—again the swift impression came to McKay—as though it were a wounded maid stretched on breast, in arms, of knightly lover. For a long moment father and son had stared.

Then, still wordless but with that same bitter hatred on both their faces, they had stopped and picked up the other and with his arms around the neck of each had borne him limply away.

McKay, sitting on the balcony of the inn that morning, went over and over that scene; realized more and more clearly the human aspect of fallen birch and clasping fir, and the conscious deliberateness of the fir's blow. And during the two days that had elapsed since then, he had felt the unease of the trees increase, their whispering appeal became more urgent.

What were they trying to tell him? What did they want him to do?

Troubled, he stared across the lake, trying to pierce the mists that hung over it and hid the opposite shore. And suddenly it seemed that he heard the coppice calling him, felt it pull the point of his attention toward it irresistibly, as the lodestone swings and holds the compass needle.

The coppice called him, bade him come to it.

Instantly McKay obeyed the command; he arose and walked down to the boat landing; he stepped into his skin and began to row across the lake. As his oars touched the water his trouble fell from him. In its place flowed peace and a curious exaltation.

The mist was thick upon the lake. There was no breath of wind, yet the mist billowed and drifted, shook and curtained under the touch of unfelt airy hands.

They were alive—the mists; they formed themselves into fantastic palaces past whose opalescent facades he saw; they built themselves into hills and valleys and circled plains whose floors were rippling silk. Tiny rainbows gleamed out among them, and upon the water prismatic patches shone and spread like spilled wine of opals. He had the illusion of vast distances—the hills of mist were real mountains, the valleys between them were not illusory. He was a colossus cleaving through some elfin world. A trout broke, and it was like leviathan leaping from the fathomless deep. Around the arc of its body rainbows interlaced and then dissolved into rain of softly gleaming gems—diamonds in dance with sapphires, flame-hearted rubies and pearls with shimmering souls of rose. The fish vanished, diving cleanly without sound; the jewelled bows vanished with it; a tiny irised whirlpool swirled for an instant where trout and flashing arcs had been.

Nowhere was there sound. He let his oars drop and leaned forward, drifting. In the silence, before him and around him, he felt opening the gateways of an unknown world.

And suddenly he heard the sound of voices, many voices; faint at first and murmurous; louder they became, swiftly; women's voices sweet and lilting and mingled with them the deeper tones of men. Voices that lifted and fell in a wild, gay chanting through whose joyesse ran undertones both of sorrow and of rage—as though faery weavers threaded through silk spun of sunbeams sombre strands dipped in the black of graves and crimson strands stained in the red of wrathful sunsets.

He drifted on, scarce daring to breathe lest even that faint sound break the elfin song. Closer it rang and clearer; and now he became aware that the speed of his boat was increasing, that it was no longer drifting; that it was as though the little waves on each side were pushing him ahead with soft and noiseless palms. His boat grounded and as it rustled along over the smooth pebbles of the beach the song ceased.

McKay half arose and peered before him. The mists were thicker here but he could see the outlines of the coppice. It was like looking at it through many curtains of fine gauze; its trees seemed shifting, ethereal, unreal. And moving among the trees were figures that threaded the boles and flitted in rhythmic measures like the shadows of leafy boughs swaying to some cadenced wind.

He stepped ashore and made his way slowly toward them. The mists dropped behind him, shutting off all sight of shore.

The rhythmic flittings ceased; there was now no movement as there was no sound among the trees—yet he felt the little woods abrim with watching life. McKay tried to speak; there was a spell of silence on his mouth.

"You called me. I have come to listen to you—to help you if I can."

The words formed within his mind, but utter them he could not. Over and over he tried, desperately; the words seemed to die before his lips could give them life.

A pillar of mist whirled forward and halted, eddying half an arm length away. And suddenly out of it peered a woman's face, eyes level with his own. A woman's face—yes; but McKay, staring into those strange eyes probing his, knew that face though it seemed it was that of no woman of human breed. They were without pupils, the irises deer-like and of the soft green of deep forest dells; within them sparkled tiny star points of light like motes in a moon beam. The eyes were wide and set far apart beneath a broad, low brow over which was piled braid upon braid of hair of palest gold, braids that seemed spun of shining ashes of gold. Her nose was small and straight, her mouth scarlet and exquisite. The face was oval, tapering to a delicately pointed chin.

Beautiful was that face, but its beauty was an alien one; elfin. For long moments the strange eyes thrust their gaze deep into his. Then out of the mist two slender white arms stole, the hands long, fingers tapering. The tapering fingers touched his ears.

"He shall hear," whispered the red lips.

Immediately from all about him a cry arose; in it was the whispering and rustling of the leaves beneath the breath of the winds, the shrilling of the harp strings of the boughs, the laughter of hidden brooks, the shoutings of waters flinging themselves down to deep and rocky pools—the voices of the woods made articulate.

"He shall hear!" they cried.

The long white fingers rested on his lips, and their touch was cool as bark of birch on cheek after some long upward climb through forest; cool and subtly sweet.

"He shall speak," whispered the scarlet lips.

"He shall speak!" answered the wood voices again, as though in litany.

"He shall see," whispered the woman and the cool fingers touched his eyes.

"He shall see!" echoed the wood voices.

The mists that had hidden the coppice from McKay wavered, thinned and were gone. In their place was a limpid, translucent, palely green ether, faintly luminous—as though he stood within some clear wan emerald. His feet pressed a golden moss spangled with tiny starry bluets. Fully revealed before him was the woman of the strange eyes and the face of elfin beauty. He dwelt for a moment upon the slender shoulders, the firm small tip-tilted breasts, the willow litheness of her body. From neck to knees a smock covered her, sheer and silken and delicate as though spun of cobwebs; through it her body gleamed as though fire of the young Spring moon ran in her veins.

Beyond her, upon the golden moss were other women like her, many of them; they stared at him with the same wide set green eyes in which danced the clouds of sparkling moonbeam motes; like her they were crowned with glistening, pallidly golden hair; like hers too were their oval faces with the pointed chins and perilous elfin beauty. Only where she stared at him gravely, measuring him, weighing him—there were those of these her sisters whose eyes were mocking; and those whose eyes called to him with a weirdly tingling allure, their mouths athirst; those whose eyes looked upon him with curiosity alone and those whose great eyes pleaded with him, prayed to him.

Within that pellucid, greenly luminous air McKay was abruptly aware that the trees of the coppice still had a place. Only now they were spectral indeed; they were like white shadows cast athwart a glaucous screen; trunk and bough, twig and leaf they arose around him and they were as though etched in air by phantom craftsmen—thin, unsubstantial; they were ghost trees rooted in another space.

Suddenly he was aware that there were men among the women; men whose eyes were set wide apart as were theirs, as strange and pupilless as were theirs but with irises of brown and blue; men with pointed chins and oval faces, broad shouldered and clad in kirtles of darkest green; swarthy-skinned men muscular and strong, with that same little grace of the women—and like them of a beauty alien and elfin.

McKay heard a little wailing cry. He turned. Close beside him lay a girl clasped in the arms of one of the swarthy, green-clad men. She lay upon his breast. His eyes were filled with a black flame of wrath, and hers were misted, anguished. For an instant McKay had a glimpse of the birch old Polleau's son had sent crashing down into the boughs of the fir. He saw birch and fir as immaterial outlines around the man and girl. For an instant girl and man and birch and fir seemed one and the same. The scarlet-lipped woman touched his shoulder, and the confusion cleared.

"She withers," sighed the woman, and in her voice McKay heard a faint rustling as of mournful leaves. "Now is it not pitiful that she withers—our sister who was so young, so slender and so lovely?"

McKay looked again at the girl. The white skin seemed shrunken; the moon radiance that gleamed through the bodies of the others in hers was dim and pallid; her slim arms hung listlessly; her body drooped. The mouth too was wan and parched, the long and misted green eyes dull. The palely golden hair lustreless, and dry. He looked on slow death—a withering death.

"May the arm that struck her down wither!" the green-clad man who held her shouted, and in his voice McKay heard a savage strumming as of winter winds through bleak boughs: "May his heart wither and the sun blast him! May the rain and the waters deny him and the winds scourge him!"

"I thirst," whispered the girl.

There was a stirring among the watching women. One came forward holding a chalice that was like thin leaves turned to green crystal. She paused beside the trunk of one of the spectral trees, reached up and drew down to her a branch. A slim girl with half-frightened, half-resentful eyes glided to her side and threw her arms around the ghostly bole. The woman with the chalice bent the branch and cut it deep with what seemed an arrow-shaped flake of jade. From the wound a faintly opalescent liquid slowly filled the cup. When it was filled the woman beside McKay stepped forward and pressed her own long hands around the bleeding branch. She stepped away and McKay saw that the stream had ceased to flow. She touched the trembling girl and unclasped her arms.

"It is healed," said the woman gently. "And it was your turn, little sister. The wound is healed. Soon, you will have forgotten."

The woman with the chalice knelt and set it to the wan, dry lips of her who was—withering. She drank of it, thirstily, to the last drop. The misty eyes cleared, they sparkled; the lips that had been so parched and pale grew red, the white body gleamed as though the waning light had been fed with new.

"Sing, sisters," she cried, and shrilly. "Dance for me, sisters!"

Again burst out that chant McKay had heard as he had floated through the mists upon the lake. Now, as then, despite his opened ears, he could distinguish no words, but clearly he understood its mingled themes—the joy of Spring's awakening, rebirth, with the green life streaming singing up through every bough, swelling the buds, burgeoning with tender leaves the branches; the dance of the trees in the scented winds of Spring; the drums of the jubilant rain on leafy hoods; passion of Summer sun pouring its golden flood down upon the trees; the moon passing with stately step and slow and green hands stretching up to her and drawing from her breast milk of silver fire; riot of wild gay winds with their mad pipings and strummings;—soft interlacing of boughs, the kiss of amorous leaves—all these and more, much more that McKay could not understand since it dealt with hidden, secret things for which man has no images, were in that chanting.

And all these and more were in the measures, the rhythms of the dancing of those strange, green eyed women and brown skinned men; something incredibly ancient yet young as the speeding moment, something of a world before and beyond man.

McKay listened, McKay watched, lost in wonder; his own world more than half forgotten; his mind meshed in web of green sorcery.

The woman beside him touched his arm. She pointed to the girl.

"Yet she withers," she said. "And not all our life, if we poured it through her lips, could save her."

He looked; he saw that the red was draining slowly from the girl's lips, the luminous life tides waning; the eyes that had been so bright were misting and growing dull once more, suddenly a great pity and a great rage shook him. He knelt beside her, took her hands in his.

"Take them away! Take away your hands! They burn me!" she moaned.

"He tries to help you," whispered the green-clad man, gently. But he reached over and drew McKay's hands away.

"Not so can you help her," said the woman.

"What can I do?" McKay arose, looked helplessly from one to the other. "What can I do to help?"

The chanting died, the dance stopped. A silence fell and he felt upon him the eyes of all. They were tense—waiting. The woman took his hands. Their touch was cool and sent a strange sweetness sweeping through his veins.

"There are three men yonder," she said. "They hate us. Soon we shall be as she is there—withering. They have sworn it, and as they have sworn so will they do. Unless—"

She paused; and McKay felt the stirrings of a curious unease. The moonbeam dancing motes in her eyes had changed to tiny sparklings of red. In a way, deep down, they terrified him—those red sparklings.

"Three men?"—in his clouded mind was the memory of Polleau and his two strong sons. "Three men," he repeated, stupidly—"But what are three men to you who are so many? What could three men do against those stalwart gallants of yours?"

"No," she shook her head. "No—there is nothing our—men—can do; nothing that we can do. Once, night and day, we were gay. Now we fear—night and day. They mean to destroy us. Our kin have warned us. And our kin cannot help us. Those three are masters of blade and flame. Against blade and flame we are helpless."

"Blade and flame!" echoed the listeners. "Against blade and flame we are helpless."

"Surely will they destroy us," murmured the woman. "We shall wither all of us. Like her there, or burn—unless—"

Suddenly she threw white arms around McKay's neck. She pressed her lithe body close to him. Her scarlet mouth sought and found his lips and clung to them. Through all McKay's body ran swift, sweet flames, green fire of desire. His own arms went round her, crushed her to him.

"You shall not die!" he cried. "No—by God, you shall not!"

She drew back her head, looked deep into his eyes.

"They have sworn to destroy us," she said, "and soon. With blade and flame they will destroy us—these three—unless—"

"Unless?" he asked, fiercely.

"Unless you—slay them first!" she answered.

A cold shock ran through McKay, chilling the green sweet fires of his desire. He dropped his arm from around the woman; thrust her from him. For an instant she trembled before him.

"Slay!" he heard her whisper—and she was gone. The spectral trees wavered; their outlines thickened out of immateriality into substance. The green translucence darkened. He had a swift vertiginous moment as though he swung between two worlds. He closed his eyes. The vertigo passed and he opened them, looked around him.

McKay stood on the lakeward skirts of the little coppice. There were no shadows flitting, no sign of the white women and the swarthy, green-clad men. His feet were on green moss; gone was the soft golden carpet with its blue starlets. Birches and firs clustered solidly before him. At his left was a sturdy fir in whose needled arms a broken birch tree lay withering. It was the birch that Polleau's men had so wantonly slashed down. For an instant he saw within the fir and birch the immaterial outlines of the green-clad man and the slim girl who withered. For that instant birch and fir and girl and man seemed one and the same. He stepped back, and his hands touched the smooth, cool bark of another birch that rose close at his right.

Upon his hands the touch of that bark was like—was like?—yes, curiously was it like the touch of the long slim hands of the woman of the scarlet lips. But it gave him none of that alien rapture, that pulse of green life her touch had brought. Yet, now as then, the touch steadied him. The outlines of girl and man were gone.

He looked upon nothing but a sturdy fir with a withering birch fallen into its branches.

McKay stood there, staring, wondering, like a man who has but half awakened from dream. And suddenly a little wind stirred the leaves of the rounded birch beside him. The leaves murmured, sighed. The wind grew stronger and the leaves whispered.

"Slay!" he heard them whisper—and again: "Slay! Help us! Slay!"

And the whisper was the voice of the woman of the scarlet lips!

Rage, swift and unreasoning, sprang up in McKay. He began to run up through the coppice, up to where he knew was the old lodge in which dwelt Polleau and his sons. And as he ran the wind blew stronger, and louder and louder grew the whisperings of the trees.

"Slay!" they whispered. "Slay them! Save us! Slay!"

"I will slay! I will save you!" McKay, panting, hammer pulse beating in his ears, rushing through the woods heard himself answering that ever louder, ever more insistent command. And in his mind was but one desire—to clutch the throats of Polleau and his sons, to crack their necks; to stand by them then and watch them wither; wither like that slim girl in the arms of the green-clad man.

So crying, he came to the edge of the coppice and burst from it out into a flood of sunshine. For a hundred feet he ran, and then he was aware that the whispering command was stilled; that he heard no more that maddening rustling of wrathful leaves. A spell seemed to have been loosed from him; it was as though he had broken through some web of sorcery. McKay stopped, dropped upon the ground, buried his face in the grasses.

He lay there, marshalling his thoughts into some order of sanity. What had he been about to do? To rush berserk upon those three who lived in the old lodge and—kill them! And for what? Because that elfin, scarlet-lipped woman whose kisses he still could feel upon his mouth had bade him! Because the whispering trees of the little wood had maddened him with that same command!

And for this he had been about to kill three men!

What were that woman and her sisters and the green-clad swarthy gallants of theirs? Illusions of some waking dream—phantoms born of the hypnosis of the swirling mists through which he had rowed and floated across the lake? Such things were not uncommon. McKay knew of those who by watching the shifting clouds could create and dwell for a time with wide open eyes within some similar land of fantasy; knew others who needed but to stare at smoothly falling water to set themselves within a world of waking dream; there were those who could summon dreams by gazing into a ball of crystal, others found their phantoms in saucers of shining ebon ink.

Might not the moving mists have laid those same hypnotic fingers upon his own mind—and his love for the trees the sense of appeal that he had felt so long and his memory of the wanton slaughter of the slim birch have all combined to paint upon his drugged consciousness the phantasms he had beheld?

Then in the flood of sunshine the spell had melted, his consciousness leaped awake?

McKay arose to his feet, shakily enough. He looked back at the coppice. There was no wind now, the leaves were silent, motionless. Again he saw it as the caravan of demoiselles with their marching knights and troubadours. But no longer was it gay. The words of the scarlet-lipped woman came back to him—that gaiety had fled and fear had taken its place. Dream phantom or—dryad, whatever she was, half of that at least was truth.

He turned, a plan forming in his mind. Reason with himself as he might, something deep within him stubbornly asserted the reality of his experience. At any rate, he told himself, the little wood was far too beautiful to be despoiled. He would put aside the experience as dream—but he would save the little wood for the essence of beauty that it held in its green cup.

The old lodge was about a quarter of a mile away. A path led up to it through the ragged fields. McKay walked up the path, climbed rickety steps and paused, listening. He heard voices and knocked. The door was flung open and old Polleau stood there, peering at him through half shut, suspicious eyes. One of the sons stood close behind him. They stared at McKay with grim, hostile faces.

He thought he heard a faint, far off despairing whisper from the distant wood. And it was as though the pair in the doorway heard it too, for their gaze shifted from him to the coppice, and he saw hatred flicker swiftly across their grim faces; their gaze swept back to him.

"What do you want?" demanded Polleau, curtly.

"I am a neighbor of yours, stopping at the inn—" began McKay, courteously.

"I know who you are," Polleau interrupted brusquely. "But what is it that you want?"

"I find the air of this place good for me," McKay stifled a rising anger. "I am thinking of staying for a year or more until my health is fully recovered. I would like to buy some of your land and build me a lodge upon it."

"Yes, M'sieu?" there was acid politeness now in the powerful old man's voice. "But is it permitted to ask why you do not remain at the inn? Its fare is excellent and you are well liked there."

"I have desire to be alone," replied McKay. "I do not like people too close to me. I would have my own land, and sleep under my own roof."

"But why come to me?" asked Polleau. "There are many places upon the far side of the lake that you could secure. It is happy there, and this side is not happy, M'sieu. But tell me, what part of my land is it that you desire?"

"That little wood yonder," answered McKay, and pointed to the coppice.

"Ah! I thought so!" whispered Polleau, and between him and his sons passed a look of bitter understanding. He looked at McKay, sombrely.

"That wood is not for sale, M'sieu," he said at last. "I can afford to pay well for what I want," said McKay. "Name your price."

"It is not for sale," repeated Polleau, stolidly, "at any price."

"Oh, come," laughed McKay, although his heart sank at the finality in that answer. "You have many acres and what is it but a few trees? I can afford to gratify my fancies. I will give you all the worth of your other land for it."

"You have asked what that place that you so desire is, and you have answered that it is but a few trees," said Polleau, slowly, and the tall son behind him laughed, abruptly, maliciously. "But it is more than that, M'sieu—Oh, much more than that. And you know it, else why would you pay such price? Yes, you know it—since you know also that we are ready to destroy it, and you would save it. And who told you all that, M'sieu?" he snarled.

There was such malignance in the face thrust suddenly close to McKay's, teeth bared by uplifted lip, that involuntarily he recoiled.

"But a few trees!" snarled old Polleau. "Then who told him what we mean to do—eh, Pierre?"

Again the son laughed. And at that laughter McKay felt within him resurgence of his own blind hatred as he had fled through the whispering wood. He mastered himself, turned away, there was nothing he could do—now. Polleau halted him.

"M'sieu," he said. "Wait. Enter. There is something I would tell you; something too I would show you. Something, perhaps, that I would ask you."

He stood aside, bowing with a rough courtesy. McKay walked through the doorway. Polleau with his son followed him. He entered a large, dim room whose ceiling was spanned with smoke blackened beams. From these beams hung onion strings and herbs and smoke cured meats. On one side was a wide fireplace. Huddled beside it sat Polleau's other son. He glanced up as they entered and McKay saw that a bandage covered one side of his head, hiding his left eye. McKay recognized him as the one who had cut down the slim birch. The blow of the fir, he reflected with a certain satisfaction, had been no futile one.

Old Polleau strode over to that son.

"Look, M'sieu," he said and lifted the bandage.

McKay with a faint tremor of horror, saw a gaping blackened socket, red rimmed and eyeless.

"Good God, Polleau!" he cried. "But this man needs medical attention. I know something of wounds. Let me go across the lake and bring back my kit. I will attend him."

Old Polleau shook his head, although his grim face for the first time softened. He drew the bandages back in place.

"It heals," he said. "We have some skill in such things. You saw what did it. You watched from your boat as the cursed tree struck him. The eye was crushed and lay upon his cheek. I cut it away. Now he heals. We do not need your aid, M'sieu."

"Yet he ought not have cut the birch," muttered McKay, more to himself than to be heard.

"Why not?" asked old Polleau, fiercely. "Since it hated him."

McKay stared at him. What did this old peasant know? The words strengthened that deep stubborn conviction that what he had seen and heard in the coppice had been actuality—no dream. And still more did Pollearu's next words strengthen that conviction.

"M'sieu," he said, "you come here as ambassador—of a sort. The wood has spoken to you. Well, as ambassador I shall speak to you. Four centuries my people have lived in this place. A century we have owned this land. M'sieu, in all those years there has been no moment that the trees have not hated us—nor we the trees.

"For all those hundred years there have been hatred and battle between us and the forest. My father, M'sieu, was crushed by a tree; my elder brother crippled by another. My father's father, woodsman that he was, was lost in the forest—he came back to us with mind gone, raving of wood women who had bewitched and mocked him, luring him into swamp and fen and tangled thicket, tormenting him. In every generation the trees have taken their toll of us—women as well as men—maiming or killing us."

"Accidents," interrupted McKay. "This is childish, Polleau. You cannot blame the trees."

"In your heart you do not believe so," said Polleau. "Listen, the feud is an ancient one. Centuries ago it began when we were serfs, slaves of the nobles. To cook, to keep us warm in winter, they let us pick up the fagots, the dead branches and twigs that dropped from the trees. But if we cut down a tree to keep us warm, to keep our women and our children warm, yes, if we but tore down a branch—they hanged us, or they threw us into dungeons to rot, or whipped us till our backs were red lattices.

"They had their broad fields, the nobles—but we must raise our food in the patches where the trees disdained to grow. And if they did thrust themselves into our poor patches, then, M'sieu, we must let them have their way—or be flogged, or be thrown into the dungeons or be hanged.

"They pressed us in—the trees," the old man's voice grew sharp with fanatic hatred. "They stole our fields and they took the food from the mouths of our children; they dropped their fagots to us like dole to beggars; they tempted us to warmth when the cold struck our bones—and they bore us as fruit a-swing at the end of the foresters' ropes if we yielded to their tempting.

"Yes, M'sieu—we died of cold that they might live! Our children died of hunger that their young might find root space! They despised us—the trees! We died that they might live—and we were men!

"Then, M'sieu came the Revolution and the freedom. Ah, M'sieu, then we took our toll! Great logs roaring in the winter cold—no more huddling over the alms of fagots. Fields where the trees had been—no more starving of our children that theirs might live. Now the trees were the slaves and we the masters.

"And the trees knew and they hated us!

"But blow for blow, a hundred of their lives for each life of ours—we have returned their hatred. With axe and torch we have fought them—

"The trees!" shrieked Polleau, suddenly, eyes blazing red rage, face writhing, foam at the corners of his mouth and gray hair clutched in rigid hands—"The cursed trees! Armies of the trees creeping—creeping—closer, ever closer—crushing us in! Stealing our fields as they did of old! Building their dungeon round us as they built of old the dungeons of stone! Creeping—creeping! Armies of trees! Legions of trees! The trees! The cursed trees!"

McKay listened, appalled. Here was crimson heart of hate. Madness! But what was at the root of it? Some deep inherited instinct, coming down from forefathers who had hated the forest as the symbol of their masters. Forefathers whose tides of hatred had overflowed to the green life on which the nobles had laid their tabu—as one neglected child will hate the favorite on whom love and gifts are lavished? In such warped minds the crushing fall of a tree, the maiming sweep of a branch, might well appear as deliberate, the natural growth of the forest seem the implacable advance of an enemy.

And yet—the blow of the fir as the cut birch fell had been deliberate! and there had been those women of the wood—

"Patience," the standing son touched the old man's shoulder. "Patience! Soon we strike our blow."

Some of the frenzy died out of Polleau's face.

"Though we cut down a hundred," he whispered, "By the hundred they return! But one of us, when they strike—he does not return. No! They have numbers and they have—time. We are now but three, and we have little time. They watch us as we go through the forest, alert to trip, to strike, to crush!

"But M'sieu," he turned blood-shot eyes to McKay. "We strike our blow, even as Pierre has said. We strike at the coppice that you so desire. We strike there because it is the very heart of the forest. There the secret life of the forest runs at full tide. We know—and you know! Something that, destroyed, will take the heart out of the forest—will make it know us for its masters."

"The women!" the standing son's eyes glittered, "I have seen the women there! The fair women with the shining skins who invite—and mock and vanish before hands can seize them."

"The fair women who peer into our windows in the night—and mock us!" muttered the eyeless son.

"They shall mock no more!" shouted Polleau, the frenzy again taking him. "Soon they shall lie, dying! All of them—all of them! They die!"

He caught McKay by the shoulders, shook him like a child.

"Go tell them that!" he shouted. "Say to them that this very day we destroy them. Say to them it is we who will laugh when winter comes and we watch their round white bodies blaze in this hearth of ours and warm us! Go—tell them that!"

He spun McKay around, pushed him to the door, opened it and flung him staggering down the steps. He heard the tall son laugh, the door close. Blind with rage he rushed up the steps and hurled himself against the door. Again the tall son laughed. McKay beat at the door with clenched fists, cursing. The three within paid no heed. Despair began to dull his rage. Could the trees help him—counsel him? He turned and walked slowly down the field path to the little wood.

Slowly and ever more slowly he went as he neared it. He had failed. He was a messenger bearing a warrant of death. The birches were motionless; their leaves hung listlessly. It was as though they knew he had failed. He paused at the edge of the coppice. He looked at his watch, noted with faint surprise that already it was high noon. Short shrift enough had the little wood. The work of destruction would not be long delayed.

McKay squared his shoulders and passed in between the trees. It was strangely silent in the coppice. And it was mournful. He had a sense of life brooding around him, withdrawn into itself; sorrowing. He passed through the silent, mournful wood until he reached the spot where the rounded, gleaming barked tree stood close to the fir that held the withering birch. Still there was no sound, no movement. He laid his hands upon the cool bark of the rounded tree.

"Let me see again!" he whispered. "Let me hear! Speak to me!"

There was no answer. Again and again he called. The coppice was silent. He wandered through it, whispering, calling. The slim birches stood, passive with limbs and leaves adroop like listless arms and hands of captive maids awaiting with dull woe the will of conquerors. The firs seemed to crouch like hopeless men with heads in hands. His heart ached to the woe that filled the little wood, this hopeless submission of the trees.

When, he wondered, would Polleau strike. He looked at his watch again; an hour had gone by. How long would Polleau wait? He dropped to the moss, back against a smooth bole.

And suddenly it seemed to McKay that he was a madman—as mad as Polleau and his sons. Calmly, he went over the old peasant's indictment of the forest; recalled the face and eyes filled with the fanatic hate. Madness! After all, the trees were—only trees. Polleau and his sons—so he reasoned—had transferred to them the bitter hatred their forefathers had felt for those old lords who had enslaved them; had laid upon them too all the bitterness of their own struggle to exist in this high forest land. When they struck at the trees, it was the ghosts of these forefathers striking at the nobles who had oppressed them; it was themselves striking against their own destiny. The trees were but symbols. It was the warped minds of Polleau and his sons that clothed them in false semblance of conscious life in blind striving to wreak vengeance against the ancient masters and the destiny that had made their lives hard and unceasing battle against Nature. The nobles were long dead; destiny can be brought to grips by no man. But the trees were here and alive. Clothed in mirage, through them the driving lust for vengeance could be sated.

And he, McKay, was it not his own deep love and sympathy for the trees that similarly had clothed them in that false semblance of conscious life? Had he not built his own mirage? The trees did not really mourn, could not suffer, could not—know. It was his own sorrow that he had transferred to them; only his own sorrow that he felt echoing back to him from them.

The trees were—only trees.

Instantly, upon the heels of that thought, as though it were an answer, he was aware that the trunk against which he leaned was trembling; that the whole coppice was trembling; that all the little leaves were shaking, tremulously.

McKay, bewildered, leaped to his feet. Reason told him that it was the wind—yet there was no wind!

And as he stood there, a sighing arose as though a mournful breeze were blowing through the trees—and again there was no wind!

Louder grew the sighing and within it now faint wailings.

"They come! They come! Farewell, sisters! Sisters—farewell!"

Clearly he heard the mournful whispers.

McKay began to run through the trees to the trail that led out to the fields of the old lodge. And as he ran the wood darkened as though clear shadows gathered in it, as though vast unseen wings hovered over it. The trembling of the coppice increased; bough touched bough, clung to each other; and louder became the sorrowful crying:

"Farewell, sister! Sister—farewell!"

McKay burst out into the open. Halfway between him and the lodge were Polleau and his sons. They saw him; they pointed and lifted mockingly to him bright axes. He crouched, waiting for them to come, all fine spun theories gone and rising within him that same rage that hours before had sent him out to slay.

So crouching, he heard from the forested hills a roaring clamor. From every quarter it came, wrathful, menacing; like the voices of legions of great trees bellowing through the horns of tempest. The clamor maddened McKay; fanned the flame of rage to white heat.

If the three men heard it, they gave no sign. They came on steadily, jeering at him, waving their keen blades. He ran to meet them.

"Go back!" he shouted. "Go back, Polleau! I warn you!"

"He warns us!" jeered Polleau. "He—Pierre, Jean—he warns us!"

The old peasant's arm shot out and his hand caught McKay's shoulder with a grip that pinched to the bone. The arm flexed and hurled him against the unmaimed son. The son caught him, twisted him about and whirled him headlong a dozen yards, crashing him through the brush at the skirt of the wood.

McKay sprang to his feet howling like a wolf. The clamor of the forest had grown stronger.

"Kill!" it roared. "Kill!"

The unmaimed son had raised his axe. He brought it down upon the trunk of a birch, half splitting it with one blow. McKay heard a wail go up from the little wood. Before the axe could be withdrawn he had crashed a fist in the axe wielder's face. The head of Polleau's son rocked back; he yelped, and before McKay could strike again had wrapped strong arms around him, crushing breath from him. McKay relaxed, went limp, and the son loosened his grip. Instantly McKay slipped out of it and struck again, springing aside to avoid the rib breaking clasp. Polleau's son was quicker than he, the long arms caught him. But as the arms tightened, there was the sound of sharp splintering and the birch into which the axe had bitten toppled. It struck the ground directly behind the wrestling men. Its branches seemed to reach out and clutch at the feet of Polleau's son.

He tripped and fell backward, McKay upon him. The shock of the fall broke his grip and again McKay writhed free. Again he was upon his feet, and again Polleau's strong son, quick as he, faced him. Twice McKay's blows found their mark beneath his heart before once more the long arms trapped him. But their grip was weaker; McKay felt that now his strength was equal.

Round and round they rocked, McKay straining to break away. They fell, and over they rolled and over, arms and legs locked, each striving to free a hand to grip the other's throat. Around them ran Polleau and the one-eyed son, shouting encouragement to Pierre, yet neither daring to strike at McKay lest the blow miss and be taken by the other.

And all that time McKay heard the little wood shouting. Gone from it now was all mournfulness, all passive resignation. The wood was alive and raging. He saw the trees shake and bend as though torn by a tempest. Dimly he realized that the others must hear none of this, see none of it; as dimly wondered why this should be.

"Kill!" shouted the coppice—and over its tumult he heard the roar of the great forest:

"Kill! Kill!"

He became aware of two shadowy shapes, shadowy shapes of swarthy green-clad men, that pressed close to him as he rolled and fought.

"Kill!" they whispered. "Let his blood flow! Kill! Let his blood flow!"

He tore a wrist free from the son's clutch. Instantly he felt within his hand the hilt of a knife.

"Kill!" whispered the shadowy men.

"Kill!" shrieked the coppice.

"Kill!" roared the forest.

McKay's free arm swept up and plunged the knife into the throat of Polleau's son! He heard a choking sob; heard Polleau shriek; felt the hot blood spurt in face and over hand; smelt its salt and faintly acrid odor. The encircling arms dropped from him; he reeled to his feet.

As though the blood had been a bridge, the shadowy men leaped from immateriality into substances. One threw himself upon the man McKay had stabbed; the other hurled upon old Polleau. The maimed son turned and fled, howling with terror. A white woman sprang out from the shadow, threw herself at his feet, clutched them and brought him down. Another woman and another dropped upon him. The note of his shrieking changed from fear to agony; then died abruptly into silence.

And now McKay could see none of the three, neither old Polleau or his sons, for the green-clad men and the white women covered them!

McKay stood stupidly, staring at his red hands. The roar of the forest had changed to a deep triumphal chanting. The coppice was mad with joy. The trees had become thin phantoms etched in emerald translucent air as they had been when first the green sorcery had enmeshed him. And all around him wove and danced the slim, gleaming women of the wood.

They ringed him, their song bird-sweet and shrill; jubilant. Beyond them he saw gliding toward him the woman of the misty pillars whose kisses had poured the sweet green fire into his veins. Her arms were outstretched to him, her strange wide eyes were rapt on his, her white body gleamed with the moon radiance, her red lips were parted and smiling—a scarlet chalice filled with the promise of undreamed ecstasies. The dancing circle, chanting, broke to let her through.

Abruptly, a horror filled McKay. Not of this fair woman, not of her jubilant sisters—but of himself.

He had killed! And the wound the war had left in his soul, the wound he thought had healed, had opened.

He rushed through the broken circle, thrust the shining woman aside with his blood-stained hands and ran, weeping, toward the lake shore. The singing ceased. He heard little cries, tender, appealing; little cries of pity; soft voices calling on him to stop, to return. Behind him was the sound of little racing feet, light as the fall of leaves upon the moss.

McKay ran on. The coppice lightened, the beach was before him. He heard the fair woman call him, felt the touch of her hand upon his shoulder. He did not heed her. He ran across the narrow strip of beach, thrust his boat out into the water and wading through the shallows threw himself into it.

He lay there for a moment, sobbing; then drew himself up, caught at the oars. He looked back at the shore now a score of feet away. At the edge of the coppice stood the woman, staring at him with pitying, wise eyes. Behind her clustered the white faces of her sisters, the swarthy faces of the green-clad men.

"Come back!" the woman whispered, and held out to him slender arms.

McKay hesitated, his horror lessening in that clear, wise, pitying gaze. He half swung the boat around. His gaze dropped upon his blood-stained hands and again the hysteria gripped him. One thought only was in his mind—to get far away from where Polleau's son lay with his throat ripped open, to put the lake between that body and him.

Head bent low, McKay bowed to the oars, skimming swiftly outward. When he looked up a curtain of mist had fallen between him and the shore. It hid the coppice and from beyond it there came to him no sound. He glanced behind him, back toward the inn. The mists swung there, too, concealing it.

McKay gave silent thanks for these vaporous curtains that hid him from both the dead and the alive. He slipped limply under the thwarts. After a while he leaned over the side of the boat and, shuddering, washed the blood from his hands. He scrubbed the oar blades where his hands had left red patches. He ripped the lining out of his coat and drenching it in the lake he cleansed his face. He took off the stained coat, wrapped it with the lining round the anchor stone in the skiff and sunk it in the lake. There were other stains upon his shirt; but these he would have to let be.

For a time he rowed aimlessly, finding in the exertion a lessening of his soul sickness. His numbed mind began to function, analyzing his plight, planning how to meet the future—how to save him.

What ought he do? Confess that he had killed Polleau's son? What reason could he give? Only that he had killed because the man had been about to cut down some trees—trees that were his father's to do with as he willed!

And if he told of the wood woman, the wood women, the shadowy shapes of their green gallants who had helped him—who would believe?

They would think him mad—mad as he half believed himself to be.

No, none would believe him. None! Nor would confession bring back life to him he had slain. No; he would not confess.

But stay—another thought came! Might he not be—accused? What actually had happened to old Polleau and his other son? He had taken it for granted that they were dead; that they had died under those bodies white and swarthy. But had they? While the green sorcery had meshed him he had held no doubt of this—else why the jubilance of the little wood, the triumphant chanting of the forest?

Were they dead—Polleau and the one-eyed son? Clearly it came to him that they had not heard as he had, had not seen as he had. To them McKay and his enemy had been but two men battling, in a woodland glade; nothing more than that—until the last! Until the last? Had they seen more than that even then?

No, all that he could depend upon as real was that he had ripped out the throat of one of old Poileau's sons. That was the one unassailable verity. He had washed the blood of that man from his hands and his face.

All else might have been mirage—but one thing was true. He had murdered Polleau's son!

Remorse? He had thought that he had felt it. He knew now that he did not; that he had no shadow of remorse for what he had done. It had been panic that had shaken him, panic realization of the strangenesses, reaction from the battle lust, echoes of the war. He had been justified in that—execution. What right had those men to destroy the little wood; to wipe wantonly its beauty away?

None! He was glad that he had killed!

At that moment McKay would gladly have turned his boat and raced away to drink of the crimson chalice of the wood woman's lips. But the mists were raising, He saw that he was close to the landing of the inn.

There was no one about. Now was his time to remove the last of those accusing stains. After that—

Quickly he drew up, fastened the skiff, slipped unseen to his room. He locked the door, started to undress. Then sudden sleep swept over him like a wave, drew him helplessly down into ocean depths of sleep.

A knocking at the door awakened McKay, and the innkeeper's voice summoned him to dinner. Sleepily, he answered, and as the old man's footsteps died away, he roused himself. His eyes fell upon his shirt and the great stains now rusty brown. Puzzled, he stared at them for a moment, then full memory clicked back in place.

He walked to the window. It was dusk. A wind was blowing and the trees were singing, all the little leaves dancing; the forest hummed a cheerful vespers. Gone was all the unease, all the inarticulate trouble and the fear. The forest was tranquil and it was happy.

He sought the coppice through the gathering twilight. Its demoiselles were dancing lightly in the wind, leafy hoods dipping, leafy skirts ablow. Beside them marched the green troubadours, carefree, waving their needled arms. Gay was the little wood, gay as when its beauty had first drawn him to it.

McKay undressed, hid the stained shirt in his travelling trunk, bathed and put on a fresh outfit, sauntered down to dinner. He ate excellently. Wonder now and then crossed his mind that he felt no regret, no sorrow even, for the man he had killed. Half he was inclined to believe it all a dream—so little of any emotion did he feel. He had even ceased to think of what discovery might mean.

His mind was quiet; he heard the forest chanting to him that there was nothing he need fear; and when he sat for a time that night upon the balcony a peace that was half an ecstasy stole in upon him from the murmuring woods and enfolded him. Cradled by it he slept dreamlessly.

McKay did not go far from the inn that next day. The little wood danced gaily and beckoned him, but he paid no heed. Something whispered to wait, to keep the lake between him and it until word came of what lay or had lain there. And the peace still was on him.

Only the old innkeeper seemed to grow uneasy as the hours went by. He went often to the landing, scanning the further shore.

"It is strange," he said at last to McKay as the sun was dipping behind the summits. "Polleau was to see me here today. He never breaks his word. If he could not come he would have sent one of his sons."

McKay nodded, carelessly.

"There is another thing I do not understand," went on the old man. "I have seen no smoke from the lodge all day. It is as though they were not there."

"Where could they be?" asked McKay, indifferently.

"I do not know," the voice was more perturbed. "It all troubles me, M'sieu. Polleau is hard, yes; but he is my neighbor. Perhaps an accident—"

"They would let you know soon enough if there was anything wrong," McKay said.

"Perhaps, but—" the old man hesitated. "If he does not come tomorrow and again I see no smoke I will go to him," he ended.

McKay felt a little shock run through him—tomorrow then he would know, definitely know, what it was that had happened in the little wood.

"I would if I were you," he said. "I'd not wait too long either. After all—well, accidents do happen."

"Will you go with me, M'sieu," asked the old man.

"No!" whispered the warning voice within McKay. "No! Do not go!"

"Sorry," he said, aloud. "But I've some writing to do. If you should need me send back your man. I'll come."

And all that night he slept, again dreamlessly, while the crooning forest cradled him.

The morning passed without sign from the opposite shore. An hour after noon he watched the old innkeeper and his man row across the lake. And suddenly McKay's composure was shaken, his serene certainty wavered. He unstrapped his field glasses and kept them on the pair until they had beached the boat and entered the coppice. His heart was beating uncomfortably, his hands felt hot and his lips dry. He scanned the shore. How long had they been in the wood? It must have been an hour! What were they doing there? What had they found? He looked at his watch, incredulously. Less than fifteen minutes had passed.

Slowly the seconds ticked by. And it was all of an hour indeed before he saw them come out upon the shore and drag their boat into the water. McKay, throat curiously dry, a deafening pulse within his ears, steadied himself; forced himself to stroll leisurely down to the landing.

"Everything all right?" he called as they were near. They did not answer; but as the skiff warped against the landing they looked up at him and on their faces were stamped horror and a great wonder.

"They are dead, M'sieu," whispered the innkeeper. "Polleau and his two sons—all dead!"

McKay's heart gave a great leap, a swift faintness took him.

"Dead!" he cried. "What killed them?"

"What but the trees, M'sieu?" answered the old man, and McKay thought his gaze dwelt upon him strangely. "The trees killed them. See—we went up the little path through the wood, and close to its end we found it blocked by fallen trees. The flies buzzed round those trees, M'sieu, so we searched there. They were under them, Polleau and his sons. A fir had fallen upon Polleau and had crushed in his chest. Another son we found beneath a fir and upturned birches. They had broken his back, and an eye had been torn out—but that was no new wound, the latter." He paused.

"It must have been a sudden wind," said his man. "Yet I never knew of a wind like that must have been. There were no trees down except those that lay upon them. And of those it was as though they had leaped out of the ground! Yes, as though they had leaped out of the ground upon them. Or it was as though giants had torn them out for clubs. They were not broken—their roots were bare—"

"But the other son—Polleau had two?"—try as he might, McKay could not keep the tremor out of his voice.

"Pierre," said the old man, and again McKay felt that strange quality in his gaze. "He lay beneath a fir. His throat was torn out!"

"His throat torn out!" whispered McKay, His knife! The knife that had been slipped into his hand by the shadowy shapes!

"His throat was torn out," repeated the innkeeper. "And in it still was the broken branch that had done it. A broken branch, M'sieu, pointed as a knife. It must have caught Pierre as the fir fell and ripping through his throat—been broken off as the tree crashed."

McKay stood, mind whirling in wild conjecture. "You said—a broken branch?" McKay asked through lips gone white.

"A broken branch, M'sieu," the innkeeper's eyes searched him. "It was very plain—what it was that happened. Jacques," he turned to his man. "Go up to the house."

He watched until the man shuffled out of sight. "Yet not all plain, M'sieu," he spoke low to McKay. "For in Pierre's hand I found—this."

He reached into a pocket and drew out a button from which hung a strip of cloth. Cloth and button had once been part of that blood-stained coat which McKay had sunk within the lake; torn away no doubt when death had struck Polleau's son!

McKay strove to speak. The old man raised his hand. Button and cloth fell from it, into the water. A wave took it and floated it away; another and another. They watched it silently until it had vanished.

"Tell me nothing, M'sieu," the old innkeeper turned to him, "Polleau was hard and hard men, too, were his sons. The trees hated them. The trees killed them. And now the trees are happy. That is all. And the—souvenir—is gone. I have forgotten I saw it. Only M'sieu would better also—go."

That night McKay packed. When dawn had broken he stood at his window, looked long at the little wood. It was awakening, stirring sleepily like drowsy delicate demoiselles. He drank in its beauty—for the last time; waved it farewell.

McKay breakfasted well. He dropped into the driver's seat; set the engine humming. The old innkeeper and his wife, solicitous as ever for his welfare, bade him Godspeed. On both their faces was full friendliness—and in the old man's eyes somewhat of puzzled awe.

His road lay through the thick forest. Soon inn and lake were far behind him.

And singing went McKay, soft whisperings of leaves following him, glad chanting of needled pines; the voice of the forest tender, friendly, caressing—the forest pouring into him as farewell gift its peace, its happiness, its strength.

THE END