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 Ladnophaxi-the 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 you-but 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 Temple-and 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 long-and 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 shadow-the 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-an 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 auto- , matic. "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 stone-and 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! Kill-but 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 thunder-and 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-men-all 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 weight- as 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 Frogwoman 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 God-had 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 lizardmen 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 Dorina- Dorina, 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 Death- Dorina, 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 dais-were 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 something-some one-was 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 evil- ah, 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 won dered 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 silence-alone 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 rust-a 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 quest -without 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 council, they now would be a great people-strong, 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 them- not 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, yes-it 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, Nimir-you'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 logical-reasonable....
	"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 man-remember 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 minute-somebody had helped him. Who was it? No matter-he 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 immortal-aye, deathless as long as the sun endures! Let me share your body, Graydon-strong 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 right-he was drunk, then. That was another funny idea- who wanted to be master of the world if all you got out of it was a drunk? Anybody could get drunk-therefore 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 halfway to the throne of jet-and the Shadow was bending, bending over it, beckoning him, urging him on, and whispering-whispering-
	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 defenses- sensed, 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 me-or 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 one-only to share, Graydon, only to share-and 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.
	God-what 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 veins-he leaped forward....
	Stop! That girl who has stepped out from the others- who 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 midnight-who? 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 halfway to the throne of jet. From it, the Shadow was leaning far out, quivering with eagerness, and whispering-whispering-
	"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 soon-for 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 dog -even to look at one upon whom I had set my seal! And Suarra-to 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 lizardmen, 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, Cadok-the 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 wavered-and 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 Spiderman 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 arose octaves higher in pitch, threatening and-summoning.
	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-as 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 them-a 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 welldefined 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 serpentpeople, serpent-men and serpent-women, their coils twisted round the heads of the gray ape-men like the sun-snake upon the Ureus 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 low-was 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 awhile-the 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 E1 Greco or Davies, portraiture as true as Holbein's or Sargent's, colorful as Botticelli, fantastic- but 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 constellations -he 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 Scorpio-its 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 realities- since 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 doubt-was 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 serpentpeople 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 serpentpeople. 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 dining-squatting 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 side-a 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 you-if 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 escape-how 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. "Lad-you'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 time-keep 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-it 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 strange-strange 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 sealed-indeed, 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. However -answer 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-he 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 do-slay them swiftly before they have a chance to cry out I will leave you two of the Weavers-you 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 tier-proof 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, star ing straight at where they hid, as though-as though she watched them. Graydon drew hastily back.
	"Will that weapon of yours reach her?" Regor's face was black with hate.
	"Easily-but I'd rather try it on Lantlu," answered Graydon.
	"No-on 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 buala- to 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 halfway 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 kangaroos-whose 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- AtIanchans 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 hands-then 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 detail-the 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 hesitated-should 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 machinegun, 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, lad-it'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 him-as 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 crystal-the 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-ofpearl shot up behind the girl; over her shoulder peered a face, heart-shaped, coifed with hair like spun silver, purpleeyed-
	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 ancestors-it is Regor-and 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 long-ah, 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 being- like 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 soft-and he had not even memory of those doubts which had risen in the Painted Cavern; so strong her witchery-if 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, heartshaped 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 know-but 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 Serpentwoman, 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 others-how 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 so-in a way-long, long ago," she answered.
	And suddenly he determined to settle once for all that question which had been tormenting him-he'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, maybe-if 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 twenty-I 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, Graydon-tell me of it. From the moment you saw it appear upon the black throne. Nay wait-I 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 wonder- something, 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 apemen 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 real-I mean, no shadow, no shade, not-immaterial-"
	"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 him -life. And for-ten heartbeats-the 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 this-best 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, Lantlu-I, 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 old-or 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 do-then. Mother, we must save your honor for you, and take them nevertheless. Bural -if 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 forward -like 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! Well-soon 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. Halfway 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-"Lantlu-look at me!"
	She lifted the sistrum. The globe stopped its quick-silver 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 broken-broken 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 cannot-not 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 struck-aye, and worst him again. Aye, utterly destroy him! Go, you beast lower than the Urd-Go!"
	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 all-so 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 lives-maybe. But then he would have had no time to mourn his vanished beauty-nor to eat his vain heart out over it. No, oh no-I 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 Still-it will also give that creeping Evil something to think on besides his deviltries-perhaps."
	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 hate-yes, 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 it-a 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.
	"Welcome-son!" 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, cob-web 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.
	"'Welcome-son!'" 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 party-something 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 en-. lightened 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 but- well, 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 right-but 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 halfway 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 per-. haps 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 avenues 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 Serpentwoman. "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 gods-they'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 for-a hundred years, I think you said, Graydon. Soon, I should think, you would do away with some of your crudities-learn 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 not- then 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 out-or 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 shaken-once 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 dream-and again by a whispering Shadow. If there is not something to man beside body-then 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 different-oh, 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 mind-some reservation, some doubt-she 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 us- precisely 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 is -I do not know. But I do not believe it is any immortal- what do you name it, Graydon-ah, yes, soul. Not his soul! And yet-there must be a beginning in everything .. . perhaps Nimir is pioneer in soul making... who knows! But if so-why 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 Cadok-that far I will go ... but an immortal soul? No!" She dropped into one of her silences; withdrawn-then- "But the seeing thought, I do know, I will show you, Graydon-will 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 lengthened-that 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 flocks-have they come back to say-'See! It was truth I told you! Doubt no more!' Compassionate men, lighteners of burdens, prelates of pity-why 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 did-for 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 be-then 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 know-well, neither do they know the other!
	"And yet-if 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 knows-who 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 fear-that 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 chest-I will show you where it lies-you 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, child-follow 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-so 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 vagueness-he 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 Temple- was 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 him-he 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 happened-that 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 there-and 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 enter-at least not as he is. What he will do, I do not know. But he has some plan-he 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, Graydon-you 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 Kon-Kon must go with you. Suarra, child-summon 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 you-look 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 cob-webs. 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.
	Still-to 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 masks 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 shining-warning 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 feet-and vanished. Of all it had touched, except that figure, there remained-nothing! 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 it-nothing!
	"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. God-if 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, came-Nimir!
	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 One-or 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 him-and 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 ship-and 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 satisfaction-that 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 thus-and 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, never-though the world last forever. My people-oh, my people! And the ship-Well," 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, children-Tyddo 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 prodigies-some 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 price- the 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 formidable-for 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 news-some 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 him-something 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 you-myself, 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 fantastic-yes, 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 Nimir-why?" she asked, when he had ended.
	"Neither have I said anything of you, Mother," he answered. "I have spoken only of the things I know-and 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 Nimir-that 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 others -do 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 rest-does 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 become-if you save another man's life, nurse him through sickness, are you thereafter responsible for what he does? If he slays, tortures -are 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 over-coming 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 out-as 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 away-I have tried to see, but I cannot-he 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 little-and it does no harm; but for any length of time-no."
	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 hell-but 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 behind-still 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 maceheaded 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 flambeaux-pale, 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 ghostfights, 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 glow -brighter 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 suddenly-there 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 dimensions-and as actual as anything he had ever beheld. Had the thought of the Dream Maker created that wrecked universe? And the playful gods-were 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 itself-but 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 suspense-of 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 denser-assuming shape.
	Not only taking shape-taking 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 colors-and no shadow. No-something 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 them-it 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 ray-from 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 frog-and on its shoulders-
	The head of Nimir!
	Graydon thought he heard the laughter of the Serpentwoman!
	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 rage-the 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 closer-closer-to Graydon!


CHAPTER XXIII

The Taking of Suarra

	GRAYDON DROPPED flat behind the parapet; covered there, hiding his face, fear such as he had never known-no, not even in the red cavern-numbing 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 Mother-clung 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 Ken'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 Fellowship-some 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, too-and 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 it-Suarra?"
	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 her-from you!"
	Graydon halted abruptly.
	"From me! Good God-no!" he cried. "How could I have sent her a message? I was at that cursed Feast-forced 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 certain -had 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 it-and 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 not- seeing 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 outset -oh, why justify myself? It was my woman's vanity-I wanted to show him my power. I invited reprisal in kind- and it was not long coming. The fault is mine-and 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 now-after what I beheld at the Feast-it 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 not-but 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, Mother-that he will exchange Suarra for-me. He wanted my body. He knows I would not surrender to him to save myself from torment or death. But to save Suarra-ah, he believes I would. So he binds me helpless, takes her and will offer to return her-for what he wants from me."
	"And if he makes that offer-will 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 risk-if 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 apemen!" she whispered. "And I can offer you little comfort, Graydon, if the truth be that. But this is also true-Nimir 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 disembodied-and 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 you-ah, 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 body-if 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 it-as 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 Suarra-if 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 you-you shall not become the habitation of Nimir. For I, Adana, will blast Yu-Atlanchi and every living thing within it from earth's face-though 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. "God-what'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 fire-flies. 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 use-and for amusement-but always destroyed when their uses were done. Aye, much do I wish it now- who a little time ago hoped as earnestly that Nimir had found it. Ah, well-go to the curb and pass your hand over it."
	Wonderingly, he obeyed, stretched out his hand over the amber curb-felt 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 stilled- there was absolute silence about him. He pressed against the obstacle, beat his closed, fist on it-he 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 matter-of a sort-and a most stubborn matter, child. Oh, most stubborn-Regor, 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. Remember -I 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 barred-at 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 resource-and 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, Graydon-and you must be alone. Also it will be the last thing they will expect-or 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 see-always the veiling murk balks me, Ah-I told you Nimir is more cunning than I had thought -But 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 you-but 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 away- regarded 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? Well-it can't be helped! The tide of things is with you-there is great confusion, and they will not expect attack; certainly, not attack from you, singlehanded. And if you fail-I 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 him-that 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 slain-and they will slay them. Trust them. They have intelligence, Graydon. You cannot understand, but they have it. Trust them-go-"
	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 YuAtlanchan. 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 semed 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, there- bring 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 struck-and 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 Suarra-took 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 soon-ah, soon-Ho, 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 . . . however-one couldn't have everything. After all, he was playing in luck that the Dark Master was absent. Yes-that 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 before-that 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 Graydon-and 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 gun- the 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, laughing-pointing 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 wediding garment torn in its death agony. His eyes passed along the path of flowers, over the dead Emers, to the blossomstrewn 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 known-until 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 rotten-but hard to break.
	He studied the monstrous body, with its face of a fallen angel, the noble head, the imperial power and beauty of it- he 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 peril-save himself if he could!
	The cold eyes of the Lord of Evil were bluer, there was friendliness in them-real 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 you-and 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 halfdozen 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 necessary-if 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 recklessness-nor did it occur to him-then-that the Lord of Evil might be responsible for all that.
	"Neither of you can escape-unless 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, yes-in a way. Send your missiles through it, plunge your poniard into it-they cannot harm me. If you do not believe me-try 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 it-useless 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 stalemate-since I want you, Graydon-let us say, intact."
	"You made that quite clear once before," said Graydon curtly. "Well-then 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 yourself-uninhabitable. No-quite 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 be-permanent. Even if it had not been marred, it would still have been but-temporary. 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 Temple-yes, even with a guard of honor-if-"
	"I was waiting for the-if," 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 yours-I 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 did-well, 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 interesting-to 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 me-or 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. Indeed-I 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 keep-well, to employ a polite phrase-to keep my stake in the contract in usable condition! Therefore, you shall wear-this-"
	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, however-for 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 it-the 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 neck-heard Suarra sobbing.
	"And now," said the Lord of Evil, "for your escort back to Adana-so 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 by-shrank 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 throat-and 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 Evil-and laughed.
	That laughter, still ringing in his ears, they entered theshadows 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.
	"Graydon-Graydon, beloved-I 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...."
	Well-so 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 Mother-and 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 nicked out-once, twice-like 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, regret-and a certain apprehension, or so it seemed to him.
	"So!" she whispered, and dropped her hands. "So-that 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 weapon-until the last. I can meet it, yes. But I, too, am loath to use that power-as reluctant as he. By my ancestors-had I but one of my own
	people to stand beside me! Yes, had I but another of the Lords to stand with Tyddo-I would not fear. Well-there 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? Ah-but 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 cunningly-oh, so cunningly! Well, it was written, I suppose-and 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 else-and 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 her-to 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 can-for at dawn all within the Temple must be awake and at their posts. By another dawn, either I or Nimir will have conquered. Suarra, Graydon-you 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 you-and 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 this-you, 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 whom-to 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 Nimir -and another. He dropped the lens, turned to the Serpentwoman. She nodded, answering his unspoken question.
	"Yes," she said, "Nimir has linked you to him. Part of what he told you was truth, Graydon-but 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 you-there 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 desperate-and I hope will soon be much more desperate-and 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 mark-but 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 know-but 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 sure-Nimir 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-by-then go swiftly. If we meet never again-I 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 kiss-and 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 follow-it 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 off-that is all. What Nimir has hidden in his girdle we don't know. Above us all fights the Mother-who 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 together-under a red sky from which icy shadows dropped and battled with shapes of flame. It is the hour-and 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 beleagured 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 himself-no 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 color-that 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 Serpentwoman, in some secret place directing his mysterious forces?
	Nimir had seemed very certain of winning. He might have lied to him about some things-but 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, and-give 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 God-why not? That would be worth the trying! If he won-he'd have saved Suarra-and the Mother-and Regor-fine 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 Nimir- whispering 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 it -he 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 be-not myself-knock 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-ofmail, 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 blow-no 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 was 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 mead-winged 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 down-and 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 rays-striated. 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 light-the winged serpents. The Messengers of the Mother-no 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 cropped, coils lashing, into the talons of the Urd, the lizardmen, 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 thought-to get into the open; to run and run-away 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 thousandfoot 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 him-but 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 bluecloaked 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 pulsed-once, twice, thrice-as 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 foretold-when 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 another- ashes 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!
	Hell-what 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. Why-it was Regor.
	Regor! Something of the creeping deadness lifted from his brain.
	"Head-Regor! Something wrong!"
	"Yes, lad. It's all right. Come now-with Regor. To the -to 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 from-up from the collar. Ah-but 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 anything-but 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 must-bind him. But I would rather not-for my own reasons. Yet Nimir shall not have him. Ah-I 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 again-from 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 radiance-straight 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 fallingThen 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 Master-I hear!"
	"It is close. Take him, Regor. No-let 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. Regor-I 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! 1 come. Dark Master!" he cried, and tore at the Spider-man's arms.
	"Yes," hissed the Serpent-woman. "But by my way-not Nimir's. Set him down, Kon. Let him go."
	Graydon, eyes still strained sightlessly upward, was turn ing 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 sight-the 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 him-but 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 him-Ah, 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 Master--I 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 Serpentwoman, abruptly became aware of her-as 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 head-and passed on. It struck the car ven 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 glittered-but 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 Nimir-Nimir who for so long -so long-had 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, indifferent-and 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 hate-and 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 another-and 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 vanished-those 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 been-darker 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 child-nuzzling him with his lips-crooning 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 enough-I 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 know-he 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. First -what 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 it-she 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 forest-become 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 them-for 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, or-well, 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 phantoms-and 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 left-I 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, yes-about 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 real-so 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 madness-how 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 one-delivered 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 understandable-etheric 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 shadows-and 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 sleep-oh, for a long, long time. Nay-do 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 myself-and 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 that-if for nothing else. Let you and Regor govern here-with Tyddo to aid you. Nimir is gone forever. Those of his who still lurk, outlaw-destroy as speedily as you can. Let nothing of him nor of Lantlu remain. If any of the Makers of Dream-relapse-kill them. Danger lurks in that-Suarra! 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 building-what is your quaint word-skyscrapers over me. Nor ransacking the caverns for their treasure, nor poking around trying to find out things they're much better off not knowing-and 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 them-nor 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 would-destroy 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-
	"Suarra-that is really fine. Ah-h-but I am tired!" she she yawned, her little pointed tongue flickering in the scarlet, heart-shaped mouth. "It has all been enjoyable-but rather fatiguing. And I think-" she looked again into the mirror- "yes, I am certain I have acquired a few wrinkles. Ah-h-it 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 down-far 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 body-as 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, still-awesome 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 still-but 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 still-and 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 face-that 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.
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0THE FOX WOMAN AND OTHER STORIES
by
Abraham A. Merritt



The Fox Woman

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 them-but 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 wind-or 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-hutzes-they 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 time-time to drink of the waters-time 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 of-You! I am through with-You! 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 on-up 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:
	"Sister-you are a woman! Lead me to safety that I may have vengeance-sister!"
	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 eyes-eyes 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:
	"Sister-help 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 powers-servants 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 minds-and out of them or into them strange spirits come or go. And whether real or unreal, who can say?
	The fox seemed to understand-had seemed to promise-something. 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 been-and 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 dropped-slowly. 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 off-they 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 them-a 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 smiled-it 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 fragrance-disturbing, 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 amused-with 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 vengeance-Sister!" 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 darkness-illimitable, 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 content-I do not want to be born again. Again? That meant that she had been born before ... a word came to her-Jean. 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 her -save 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 was-time?
	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 will-to 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 you-my 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 cord-a promise, a vow, and a desire. When a certain time comes, I must surrender much-must 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-wen-the 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 sixty-or 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 remembered-remembered 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 mind-or 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, Fien-wi, 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 Fien-wi 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 life- as 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 ripples-but 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 know-but I know it is so. The ancients recognized such places. They named those who dwelt unseen there the genii locorum-literally, 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 thought-or what she believed the true thought-flashing 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 illusions-they were not mine. And if they were illusions, then I, like you, am victim to them."
	She asked: "You mean you have seen-her?"
	He answered: "And her sisters. Many times."
	She said shrewdly: "Yet that does not prove her real-she 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 me-vengeance. 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- he was a dreaming boy. Oh, I knew he had lots and lots of money. It didn't matter. I loved him-for 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 died-well, all his money would go to Charles. They never thought he would marry. For the last ten years Charles had looked after his business- his mines, his investments. I really don't blame Charles for hating me-but 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 boy-the desire gripped him. I did not care, if it made him happy. So we came,
	Charles with us as far as Nanking. Hating me, I knew, every mile of the journey. At Nanking-I 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-blank-why? Then he said that Charles was secretly meeting a Chinese captain, by name-Li-kong. I asked what of it, he had a right to pick his friends. Kenwood said Likong 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. Kenwood said: '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 all-the 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 China-the 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 born-here-"
	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 not-human-
	to 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 did-but 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: "Daughter-when you are dead, and all those now living are dead-will it matter?"
	She answered, shaking her head: "But-I 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 them-up and up. I saw a fox-I 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 then-what 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'ien-or 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 here-until 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 weeks-a 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 foxes-knew 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 Fien-wi 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 soul- whether from vague woman of the steps or from Yu Ch'ien-it 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 ambush-know 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 white 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 font. 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 finished-and 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 heavenly-or, 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 Anticipations-so 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 Anticipations-and 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 themselves-or 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 pocket-a 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 privacy-but 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 was-without 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, Likong!"
	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 Foxes-to 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 hear-when 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 child-lived!" 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 me-you 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 one-that is the fool?"
	Meredith said nothing, eyes bleak on him. Li-kong went on: "Also, I have information to impart, advice to give-necessary to you if you determine to go for the child. As you must-if you want her. And finally- is 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 exits-and 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 sword-it 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, Likong. 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 sisterin-law's happiness in Heaven by restoring to them their daughter. You may assume that Yu Ch'ien does suspect-and 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 the-ah, 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 of-ah, 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 men-I mean living men. The dead," observed Li-kong sardonically, "of course know everything."
	Meredith said contemptuously: "What do you mean? Spiritism, divination-that rot?"
	Li-kong considered pensively, answered at last: "No -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's-but 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 modem 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 this-from you!"
	Li-kong said imperturbably: "This from me! I am- what I am. I believe in nothing. Yet I tell you that I would not go up those steps to the Temple of the Foxes for all the gold you could give me. Not-now!"
	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 human-akin to those in Dodona's oaks, Cumae's grotto, Joan of Arc's fairy tree. Believed in-especially in Kansu. These- let us say spirits-have 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 only- that 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 worlds-worlds 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, perhaps-but 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 dies -nor 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 am-to 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. Five-spirits-who 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 go-upon some pretext. I think that whoever sped the third messenger on his way intends that you shall go-yourself. 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 her-a fox stood between her and them. And that fox changed into a woman who changed their leader into a mad dog. At which-they ran. So I think," said Likong 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, highpitched laughter.
	The Chinese lost for a moment his calm, half arose, then dropped back. He said patiently: "If you go up the steps-ride 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 taint-as 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 back-if 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 again-never 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 old-and 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 back-that 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 until-something 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 murderers-although 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. Yah-he knew a lot. I do not like that-quite."
	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 hurt-we would not be to blame. If his men attacked us and were hurt-we would be blameless. One way or another-I 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 Kansu-the 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 passed-the crouching shrubs watched them. They saw no one, heard nothing-but 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 perilhaunted 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 man-gentle, a little feeble, perhaps. The face he saw was old, no doubt of that- but 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'ien-my 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 chamber. Meredith supposed that it was the transition from the sunny .brightness. It was as though the chamber was fflled with silent, watchful brown shadows. There was an altar of green stone on which were five ancient ramps 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 somethinglet 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 back-back 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 command-in 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 not-in an earthly court. And you fear no other. But listen well-you 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 Meredith-it 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 you-do not try to regain this child before she is sent to you, nor attempt to molest her. After she comes to you-the 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 yours-useless at least here-take 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 it-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 bowmen-we 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:
	"Yes-but 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 headman-go 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 something-something 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 quivering-and then was gone. But the wrist dead-as 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 minds-yes, that I know. But I tell you, Franz, that if you had believed that arrow had pierced your heart-your heart would not be alive as your wrist is! I tell you again-he 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 did- why 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 meantime-well, he'd like to see that file of archers in one of the Bronx night clubs! It was a good arrangement-for him. The priest was as senile as Martin...
	He was well satisfied. He went to sleep.



The People of the Pit

	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 thier 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-it'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 hand-listening.
	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 me-it was like a baby crawling upstairs. The forepaws lifted themselves in grotesquely infantile fashion. It was grotesque but it was-terrible. It grew closer. We reached for our guns-and 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 you-unless 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 asleep-yet even in his sleep his arms try to climb and his feet draw themselves up one after the other! And his knees-how 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 own-they 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 was-that'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 peaks-nor 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 was- loathsome!
	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 night-and 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 them-unless 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 Stanton-Sinclair 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 though-the 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 them-far off-was what looked like a low dike of rocks. Then-I 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 right-and 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 was-sheer 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- it 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 leap-but 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 cut-all except the heads which were well marked globes. They were-unutterably 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 see-I 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 think-never 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 sure-all 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 opening-and 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 guardians-but 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 seen-nor 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 know -thousands of miles maybe. I had begun to catch little glints of light far down in the blue. Then I saw the tops of-trees, I suppose they are. But not our kind of trees -unpleasant, 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 surface-or at least I could see the splash and ripple, but what it was that disturbed them I never saw.
	"Straight beneath me was the-city. I looked down upon mile after mile of closely packed cylinders. They lay upon their sides in pyramids of three, of five-of dozens-piled upon each other. It is hard to make you see what that city is like-look, 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 (hey 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 appalling-it 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. Yes-but they can't get me now- they can't!"
	After a time he began as quietly as before.
	"I crossed the span. I went down through the top of that-building. Blue darkness shrouded me for a moment and I felt the steps twist into a spiral. I wound down and then-I was standing high up in-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 colossal-and 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 scrolls-like 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 could-the 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 seals-ideas of hate-of combats between unthinkable monstrous things-victories in a nebulous hell of steaming, obscene jungles-aspirations 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 there-I 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 it-was 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. Yes-those cylinders were like that-and more. They should have gone out with the dinosaurs. They were-monstrous. 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 down-and my hand touched a thing cold and smooth-that moved under it-I turned and ran out of that place-I was filled with a loathing that had in it something of madness-I ran on and on blindly-wringing my hands-weeping 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 everywhere-and 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 lights-they 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 whispered-and there was nothing under them!"
	"Nothing under them!" breathed Anderson.
	"No," he went on, "that was the terrible part of it- there was nothing under them. Yet certainly the lights were living things. They had consciousness, volition, thought-what else I did not know. They were nearly two feet across-the largest. Their center was a bright nucleus-red, blue, green. This nucleus faded off, gradually, into a misty glow that did not end abruptly. It too seemed to fade off into nothingness-but 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 me-if 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 out-the 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 people- on 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 lights-only 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 was-part 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. Think-alone in that place of strange light with the brooding ancient Horror above me-a monstrous Thing, a Thing unthinkable-an 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 went-and 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 lights-I was, in movement and sound, one with the nameless things while my soul sank back sick with horror and powerless. While I whispered I-saw Them!"
	"Saw the lights?" I asked stupidly.
	"Saw the Things under the lights," he answered. "Great transparent snail-like bodies-dozens of waving tentacles stretching from them-round 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 walk- they floated! They floated and were-gone!
	. "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 me-then 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-world-with 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 sounded-and 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 answer-nor 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 then-a nightmare of crawling up infinite stretches of steps-memories of dull horror while hidden within caves with the lights pulsing without and whisperings that called and called me-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, always-a 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 me-memory of passing between the great portals of the pit and of steady withdrawal from it-dreams 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 sleep-how long God alone knows-in 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 moved- that moved--like the Ancient Mariner's ship-without volition of mine, but that carried me from a haunted place. And then-your fire-and this-safety!"
	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.



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 Hemdon 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 pilIage-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 tip's 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 oposite 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 WonderWorker, 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 wonderworker 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, gome 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. 1 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!"
	Hemdon 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 WonderWorker 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 yelloweyed 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 Hemdon, 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 Drone

	FOUR MEN SAT AT A TABLE of the Explorers' Club- Hewitt, 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, foxwomen, 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 some-fox-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 beast-a 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 people-hawk-faced, eagle-faced-predatory. 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 borderline-become 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 vary ing 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 theatre-or 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 moment-but 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, Caranac-what 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 them- did 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 man-you'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 course-or 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 it-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 know-but 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, then-there 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 haze-that 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 been-standing 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 me-thick. I didn't reach for my gun-I never thought of it, my mind in the grip of some incredulous fascination.
	"The beast opened its jaws. It grinned at me. Then it walked-walked is exactly the word-six 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 then-there 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 feet-nor 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 him-what was left of him-a quarter mile away in the bush. Some animal had crept into the camp-neatly crushed his throat and dragged him away without awakening anybody. Without even me knowing it-and 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 consciousness-beast 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 billons 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 named-well, 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 hawk-it 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 they-thought.
	"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 myself-I 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 it-must.'
	"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 fine-almost 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 rather- I thought suddenly-of 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 Mac-there'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 spot-all 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 shuttered-all 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 drink-honey 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 lived-every 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 die- but 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 another-more 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 out-and 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 bee-it was black as it had been when I had first known him. And his hands were white and sinewy and-hairless."



The Last Poet and the Robots

	NARODNY, THE RUSSIAN, sat in his laboratory. Narodny's laboratory was a full mile under earth. It was one of a hundred caverns, some small and some vast, cut out of the living rock. It was a realm of which he was sole ruler. In certain caverns garlands of small suns shone; and in others little moons waxed and waned over earth; and there was a cavern in which reigned perpetual dawn, dewy, over lily beds and violets and roses; and another in which crimson sunsets baptized in the blood of slain day dimmed and died and were born again behind the sparkling curtains of the aurora. And there was one cavern ten miles from side to side in which grew flowering trees and trees which bore fruits unknown to man for many generations. Over this great orchard one yellow sun-like orb shone, and clouds trailed veils of rain upon the trees and miniature thunder drummed at Narodny's summoning.
	Narodny was a poet-the last poet. He did not write his poems in words but in colors, sounds, and visions made material. Also he was a great scientist. In his Peculiar field the greatest. Thirty years before, Russia's Science Council had debated whether to grant him the leave of absence he had asked, or to destroy him. They knew him to be unorthodox. How deadly so they did not know, else after much deliberation they would not have released him. It must be remembered that of all nations, Russia then was the most mechanized; most robot-ridden.
	Narodny did not hate mechanization. He was indifferent to it. Being truly intelligent he hated nothing, Also he was indifferent to the whole civilization man had developed and into which he had been born. He had no feeling of kinship to humanity. Outwardly, in body, he belonged to the species. Not so in mind. Like Loeb, a thousand years before, he considered mankind a race of crazy half-monkeys, intent upon suicide. Now and then, out of the sea of lunatic mediocrity, a wave uplifted that held for a moment a light from the sun of truth-but soon it sank back and the light was gone. Quenched in the sea of stupidity. He knew that he was one of those waves.
	He had gone, and he had been lost to sight by all. In a few years he was forgotten. Fifteen years ago, unknown and under another name, he had entered America and secured rights to a thousand acres in what of old had been called Westchester. He had picked this place because investigation had revealed to him that of ten localities on this planet it was most free from danger of earthquake or similar seismic disturbance. The man who owned it had been whimsical; possibly an atavist-like Narodny, although Narodny would never have thought of himself as that. At any rate, instead of an angled house of glass such as the thirtieth century built, this man had reconstructed a rambling old stone house of the nineteenth century. Few people lived upon the open land in those days; most had withdrawn into the city-states. New York, swollen by its meals of years, was a fat belly full of mankind still many miles away. The land around the house was forest covered.
	A week after Narodny had taken this house, the trees in front of it had melted away leaving a three-acre,
	smooth field. It was not as though they had been cut, but as though they had been dissolved. Later that night a great airship had appeared upon this field-abruptly, as though it had blinked out of another dimension. It was rocket-shaped but noiseless. And immediately a fog had fallen upon airship and house, hiding them. Within this fog, if one could have seen, was a wide tunnel leading from the air-cylinder's door to the door of the house. And out of the airship came swathed figures, ten of them, who walked along that tunnel, were met by Narodny, and the door of the old house closed on them.
	A little later they returned, Narodny with them, and out of an opened hatch of the airship rolled a small flat car on which was a mechanism of crystal cones rising around each other to a central cone some four feet high. The cones were upon a thick base of some glassy material in which was imprisoned a restless green radiance. Its rays did not penetrate that which held it, but it seemed constantly seeking, with suggestion of prodigious force, to escape. For hours the strange thick fog held. Twenty miles up in the far reaches of the stratosphere, a faintly sparkling cloud grew, like a condensation of cosmic dust. And just before dawn the rock of the hill behind the house melted away like a curtain that had covered a great tunnel. Five of the men came out of the house and went into the airship. It lifted silently from the ground, slipped into the aperture and vanished. There was a whispering sound, and when it had died away the breast of the hill was whole again. The rocks had been drawn together like a closing curtain and boulders studded it as before. That the breast was now slightly concave where before it had been convex, none would have noticed.
	For two weeks the sparkling cloud was observed far up in the stratosphere, was commented upon idly, and then was seen no more. Narodny's caverns were finished.
	Half of the rock from which they had been hollowed had gone with that sparkling cloud. The balance, reduced to its primal form of energy, was stored in blocks of the vitreous material that had supported the cones, and within them it moved as restlessly and always with that same suggestion of prodigious force. And it was force, unthinkably potent; from it came the energy that made the little suns and moons, and actuated the curious mechanisms that regulated pressure in the caverns, supplied the air, created the rain, and made of Narodny's realm a mile deep under earth the Paradise of poetry, of music, of color and of form which he had conceived in his brain and with the aid of those ten others had caused to be.
	Now of the ten there is no need to speak further. Narodny was the Master. But three, like him, were Russians; two were Chinese; of the remaining five, three were women-one German in ancestry, one Basque, one an Eurasian; a Hindu who traced his descent from the line of Gautama; a Jew who traced his from Solomon.
	All were one with Narodny in indifference to the world; each with him in his viewpoint on life; and each and all lived in his or her own Eden among the hundred caverns except when it interested them to work with each other. Time meant nothing to them. Their researches and discoveries were solely for their own uses and enjoyments. If they had given them to the outer world they would have only been ammunition for warfare either between men upon Earth or men against some other planet. Why hasten humanity's suicide? Not that they would have felt regret at the eclipse of humanity. But why trouble to expedite it? Time meant nothing to them because they could live
	as long as they desired-barring accident. And while there was rock in the world, Narodny could convert it into energy to maintain his Paradise-or to create others.
	The old house began to crack and crumble. It fell- much more quickly than the elements could have brought about its destruction. Then trees grew among the ruins of its foundations; and the field that had been so strangely cleared was overgrown with trees. The land became a wood in a few short years; silent except for the roar of an occasional rocket passing over it and the songs of birds that had found there a sanctuary.
	But deep down in earth, within the caverns, were music and song and mirth and beauty. Gossamer nymphs circled under the little moons. Pan piped. There was revelry of antique harvesters under the small suns. Grapes grew and ripened, were pressed, and red and purple wine was drunk by Bacchantes who fell at last asleep in the arms of fauns and satyrs. Oreads danced under the pale moon-bows and sometimes Centaurs wheeled and trod archaic measures beneath them to the drums of their hoofs upon the mossy floor. The old Earth lived again.
	Narodny listened to drunken Alexander raving to Thais among the splendors of conquered Persepolis;
	and he heard the crackling of the flames that at the whim of the courtesan destroyed it. He watched the siege of Troy and counted with Homer the Achaean ships drawn up on the strand before Troy's walls; or saw with Herodotus the tribes that marched behind Xerxes-the Caspians in their cloaks of skin with their bows of cane; the Ethiopians in the skins of leopards with spears of antelope horns; the Libyans in their dress of leather with javelins made hard by fire; the Thracians with the heads of foxes upon their heads; the Moschians who wore helmets made of wood and the Cabalians who wore the skulls of men. For him the Eleusinian and the Osirian mysteries were re-enacted, and he watched the women of Thrace tear to fragments Orpheus, the first great musician. At his will, he could see the rise and fall of the Empire of the Aztecs, the Empire of the Incas; or beloved Caesar slain in Rome's Senate; or the archers at Agincourt; or the Americans in Belleau Wood. Whatever man had written-whether poets, historians, philosophers or scientists-his strangely shaped mechanisms could bring before him, changing the words into phantoms real as though living.
	He was the last and greatest of the poets-but also he was the last and greatest of the musicians. He could bring back the songs of ancient Egypt, or the chants of more ancient Ur. The songs that came from Moussorgsky's soul of Mother-earth, the harmonies of Beethoven's deaf ear, or the chants and rhapsodies from the heart of Chopin. He could do more than restore the music of the past. He was master of sound. To him, the music of the spheres was real. He could take the rays of the stars and planets and weave them into symphonies. Or convert the sun's rays into golden tones no earthly orchestras had ever expressed. And the silver music of the moon-the sweet music of the moon of spring, the full-throated music of the harvest moon, the brittle crystalling music of the winter moon with its arpeggios of meteors-he could weave into strains such as no human ears had ever heard.
	So Narodny, the last and greatest of poets, the last and greatest of musicians, the last and greatest of artists-and in his inhuman way, the greatest of scientists-lived with the ten of his choosing in his caverns. And, with them, he consigned the surface of earth and all who dwelt upon it to a negative Hell-- Unless something happening there might imperil his Paradise!
	Aware of the possibility of that danger, among his mechanisms were those which brought to eyes and ears news of what was happening on earth's surface. Now and then, they amused themselves with these.
	It so happened that on that night when the Warper of Space had dealt his blow at the space ships and had flung a part of the great Crater of Copernicus into another dimension, Narodny had been weaving the rays of Moon, Jupiter and Saturn into Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata. The moon was a four-day crescent. Jupiter was at one cusp, and Saturn hung like a pendant below the bow. Shortly Orion would stride across the Heavens and bright Regulus and red Aldebaran, the Eye of the Bull, would furnish him with other chords of starlight remoulded into sound.
	Suddenly the woven rhythms were ripped-hideously. A devastating indescribable dissonance invaded the cavern. Beneath it, the nymphs who had been dancing languorously to the strains quivered like mist wraiths in a sudden blast and were gone: the little moons flared, then ceased to glow. The tonal instruments were dead. And Narodny was felled as though by a blow.
	After a time the little moons began to glow again, but dimly; and from the tonal mechanisms came broken, crippled music. Narodny stirred and sat up, his lean, high-cheeked face more Satanic than ever. Every nerve was numb; then as they revived, agony crept along them. He sat, fighting the agony, until he could summon help. He was answered by one of the Chinese, and soon Narodny was himself again.
	He said: "It was a spatial disturbance, Lao. And it was like nothing I have ever known. It came in upon the rays, of that I am sure. Let us look out upon the moon."
	They passed to another cavern and stood before an immense television screen. They adjusted it, and upon it appeared the moon, rapidly growing larger as though it were hurtling toward them. Then upon the screen appeared a space ship speeding earthward. They focused upon it, and opened it to their vision; searching it until they came to the control room where were Bartholomew, James Tarvish and Martin, their gaze upon Earth rapidly and more rapidly expanding in the heavens. Narodny and the Chinese watched them, reading their lips. Tarvish said: "Where can we land, Martin? The robots will be watching for us everywhere. They will see to it that we are destroyed before we can give our message and our warning to the world. They control the governments-or at least control them sufficiently to seize us upon landing. And if we should escape and gather men around us, then it means civil war and that in turn means fatal delay in the building of the space fleet-even if we should win."
	Martin said: "We must land safely-escape the robots-find some to control or destroy them. God, Tarvish-you saw what that devil they call the Wrongness of Space can do. He threw the side of the crater out of our dimension as a boy would throw a stone into a pond!"
	Bartholomew said: "He could take Earth and break it up piecemeal-"
	Narodny and Lao looked at each other. Narodny said: "That is enough. We know." The Chinese nodded. Narodny said: "I estimated that they would reach Earth in four hours." Again Lao nodded. Narodny said: "We will talk to them, Lao; although I had thought we were done with mankind. I do not like this which they call so quaintly the Wrongness of Space- nor the stone he threw into my music."
	They brought a smaller screen into position before the larger one. They oriented it to the speeding space Ship and stepped in front of it. The small screen shimmered with whirling vortices of pallid blue luminescence; the vortices drew together and became one vast cone that reached on and on to the greater screen as though not feet but thousands of miles separated them. And as the tip of the cone touched the control room of the space ship mirrored in the screen, Tarvish, upon the actual ship, gripped Martin's arm.
	"Look there!"
	There was an eddying in the air, like that over roads on a hot summer day. The eddying became a shimmering curtain of pallid blue luminescence-steadied until it was an oval doorway opening into vast distances. And then abruptly, within that doorway, stood two men-one tall and lean and saturnine with the sensitive face of a dreamer and the other a Chinese, his head a great yellow dome and on his face the calm of Buddha-and it was strange indeed to see in the cavern of earth these same two men standing before the blue-coned screen and upon the greater one their images within the imaged room on which the tip of the cone rested.
	Narodny spoke, and in his voice there was a human indifference and sureness that chilled them, yet gave them courage. He said: "We mean you no harm. You cannot harm us. We have long been withdrawn from men. What happens on the surface of Earth means nothing to us. What may happen beneath the surface means much. Whatever it is you have named the Wrongness of Space has already annoyed me. I perceive that he can do more than annoy. I gather that the robots in one way or another are on his side. You are against him. Therefore, our first step must be to help you against the robots. Place me in possession of all facts. Be brief, for we cannot maintain our position here for more than half an hour without discomfort."
	Martin said: "Whoever you are, wherever you are, we trust you. Here is the story-"
	For fifteen minutes Narodny and the Chinese listened to their tale of struggle against the robots, of their escape and of the blasting of Copernicus in the effort of the Wrongness of Space to prevent their return.
	Narodny said: "Enough. Now I understand. How long can you remain in space? I mean-what are your margins of power and of food?"
	Martin answered: "Six days."
	Narodny said: "Ample time for success-or failure. Remain aloft for that time, then descend to where you started-"
	Suddenly he smiled: "I care nothing for mankind- yet I would not harm them, willingly. And it has occurred to me that I owe them, after all, a great debt. Except for them-I would not be. Also, it occurs to me that the robots have never produced a poet, a musician, an artist-" He laughed: "But it is in my mind that they are capable of one great art at least! We shall see."
	The oval was abruptly empty; then it too was gone. Bartholomew said: "Call the others. I am for obeying. But they must know." And when the others had heard, they too voted to obey, and the space ship, course changed, began to circle, as slowly as it could, the earth. 
	Down in the chamber of the screens, Narodny laughed and laughed again. He said: "Lao, is it that we have advanced so in these few years? Or that men have retrogressed? No, it is this curse of mechanization that destroys imagination. For look you, how easy is this problem of the robots. They began as man-made machines. Mathematical, soulless, insensible to any emotion. So was primal matter of which all on earth are made, rock and water, tree and grass, metal, animal, fish, worm, and men. But somewhere, somehow, something was added to this primal matter, combined with it-used it. It was what we call life. And life is consciousness. And therefore largely emotion. Life established its rhythm-and its rhythm being different in rock and crystal, metal, fish, and so on, and man, we have these varying things.
	"Well, it seems that life has begun to establish its rhythm in the robots. Consciousness has touched them. The proof? They have established the idea of common identity-group consciousness. That in itself involves emotion. But they have gone further. They have attained the instinct of self-preservation. And that, my wise friend, connotes fear-fear of extinction. And fear connotes anger, hatred, arrogance-and many other things. The robots, in short, have become emotional to a degree. And therefore vulnerable to whatever may amplify and control their emotions. They are no longer mechanisms.
	"So, Lao, I have in mind an experiment that will provide me study and amusement through many years. Originally, the robots are the children of mathematics. I ask-to what is mathematics most closely related. I answer-to rhythm-to sound-to sounds which will raise to the nth degree the rhythms to which they will respond. Both mathematically and emotionally."
	Lao said: "The sonic sequences?"
	Narodny answered: "Exactly. But we must have a few with which to experiment. To do that means to dissolve the upper gate. But that is nothing. Tell Maringy and Euphroysne to do it. Net a ship and bring it here. Bring it down gently. You will have to kill the men in it, of course, but do it mercifully. Then let them bring me the robots. Use the green flame on one or two-the rest will follow, I'll warrant you."
	The hill behind where the old house had stood trembled. A circle of pale green light gleamed on its breast. It dimmed, where it had been was the black mouth of a tunnel. An airship, half-rocket, half-winged, making its way to New York, abruptly dropped, circled, and streaked back. It fell gently like a moth, close to the yawning mouth of the tunnel.
	Its door opened, and out came two men, pilots, cursing. There was a little sigh from the tunnel's mouth and a silvery misty cloud sped from it, over the pilots and straight through the opened door. The pilots staggered and crumpled to the ground. In the airship half a dozen other men slumped to the floor, smiled, and died.
	There were a full score robots in the ship. They stood, looking at the dead men and at each other. Out of the tunnel came two figures swathed in metallic glimmering robes. They entered the ship. One said:
	"Robots, assemble."
	The metal men stood, motionless. Then one sent out a shrill call. From all parts of the ship the metal men moved. They gathered behind the one who had sent the call. They stood behind him, waiting.
	In the hand of one of those who had come from the tunnel was what might have been an antique flash-light. From it sped a thin green flame. It struck the foremost robot on the head, sliced down from the head to base of trunk. Another flash, and the green flame cut him from side to side. He fell, sliced by that flame into four parts. The four parts lay, inert as their metal, upon the floor of the compartment.
	One of the shrouded figures said: "Do you want further demonstration-or will you follow us?"
	The robots put heads together; whispered. Then one said: "We will follow."'
	They marched into the tunnel, the robots making no resistance nor effort to escape. Again there was the
	sighing, and the rocks closed the tunnel mouth. They game to a place whose floor sank with them until it had reached the caverns. The machine-men still went docilely. Was it because of curiosity mixed with disdain for these men whose bodies could be broken so easily by one blow of the metal appendages that served them for arms? Perhaps.
	They came to the cavern where Narodny and the others awaited them. Marinoff led them in and halted them. These were the robots used in the flying ships- their heads cylindrical, four arm appendages, legs triple jointed, torsos slender. The robots, it should be understood, were differentiated in shape according to their occupations. Narodny said:
	"Welcome, robots' Who is your leader?"
	One answered: "We have no leaders. We act as one."
	Narodny laughed: "Yet by speaking for them you have shown yourself leader. Step closer. Do not fear- yet."
	The robot said: "We feel no fear. Why should we? Even if you should destroy us who are here, you cannot destroy the billions of us outside. Nor can you breed fast enough, become men soon enough, to cope with us who enter into life strong and complete from the beginning."
	He flecked an appendage toward Narodny and there was contempt in the gesture. But before he could draw it back a bracelet of green flame circled it at the shoulder. It had darted like a thrown loop from something in Narodny's hand. The robot's arm dropped clanging to the floor, cleanly severed. The robot stared at it unbelievingly, threw forward his other three arms to pick it up. Again the green flame encircled them, encircled also his legs above the second joints. The robot crumpled and pitched forward, crying in high-pitched shrill tones to the others.
	Swiftly the green flame played among them. Legless, armless, some decapitated, all the robots fell except two.
	"Two will be enough," said Narodny. "But they will not need arms-only feet."
	The flashing green bracelets encircled the appendages and excised them. The pair were marched away. The bodies of the others were taken apart, studied and under Narodny's direction curious experiments were made. Music filled the cavern, strange chords, unfamiliar progressions, shattering arpeggios and immense vibrations of sound that could be felt but not heard by the human ear. And finally this last deep vibration burst into hearing as a vast drone, hummed up and up into swift tingling tempest of crystalline brittle notes, and still ascending passed into shrill high pipings, and continued again unheard, as had the prelude to the droning. And thence it rushed back, the piping and the crystalline storm reversed, into the drone and the silence-then back and up.
	And the bodies of the broken robots began to quiver, to tremble, as though every atom within them were in ever increasing, rhythmic motion. Up rushed the music and down-again and again. If ended abruptly in midflight with one crashing note.
	The broken bodies ceased their quivering. Tiny starshaped cracks appeared in their metal. Once more the note sounded and the cracks widened. The metal splintered.
	Narodny said: "Well, there is the frequency for the rhythm of our robots. The destructive unison. I hope for the sake of the world outside it is not also the rhythm of many of their buildings and bridges. But after all, in any war there must be casualties on both sides."
	Lao said: "Earth will be an extraordinary spectacle for a few days."
	. Narodny said: "It's going to be an extraordinarily uncomfortable Earth for a few days, and without doubt many will die and many more go mad. But is there any other way?"
	There was no answer. He said; "Bring in the two robots." They brought them in.
	Narodny said: "Robots-were there ever any of you who could poetize?"
	They answered: "What is poetize?" Narodny laughed: "Never mind. Have you ever sung-made music-painted? Have you ever- dreamed?"
	One robot said with cold irony: "Dreamed? No-for we do not sleep. We leave all that to men. It is why we have conquered them."
	Narodny said, almost gently: "Not yet, robot. Have you ever-danced? No? It is an art you are about to learn."
	The unheard note began, droned up and through the tempest and away and back again. And up and down- and up and down, though not so loudly as before. And suddenly the feet of the robots began to move, to shuffle. Their leg-joints bent; their bodies swayed. The note seemed to move now here and now there about the chamber, they always following it, grotesquely. Like huge metal marionettes, they followed it. The music ended in the crashing note. And it was as though every vibrating atom of the robot bodies had met some resistible obstruction. Their bodies quivered and from their voice mechanisms came a shriek that was a hideous blend of machine and life. Once more the drone, and once more and once more and again the abrupt stop. There was a brittle crackling all over the conical heads, all over the bodies. The star-shaped splinterings appeared. Once again the drone-but the two robots stood, unresponding. For through the com plicated mechanisms which under their carapaces animated them were similar splinterings.
	The robots were dead!
	Narodny said: "By tomorrow we can amplify the sonor to make it effective in a 3000-mile circle. We will use the upper cavern, of course. Equally of course, it means we must take the ship out again. In three days, Marinoff, you should be able to cover the other continents. See to it that the ship is completely proof against the vibrations. To work. We must act quickly-before the robots can discover how to neutralize them."
	It was exactly at noon next day that over all North America a deep unexplainable droning was heard. It seemed to come not only from deep within earth, but from every side. It mounted rapidly through a tempest of tingling crystalline notes into a shrill piping and was gone . . . then back it rushed from piping to the drone . . . then up and out and down . . . again and again. And over all North America the hordes of robots stopped in whatever they were doing. Stopped . . . and then began to dance. They danced in the airships and scores of those ships crashed before the human crews could gain control. They danced by the thousands in the streets of the cities-in grotesque rigadoons, in bizarre sarabands, with shuffle and hop, and jig the robots danced while the people fled in panic and hundreds of them were crushed and died in those panics. In the great factories, and in the tunnels of the lower cities, and in the mines-everywhere the sound was heard-and it was heard everywhere-the robots danced ... to the piping of Narodny, the last great poet... the last great musician.
	And then came the crashing note-and over all the country the dance halted. And began again . . . and ceased ... and began again...
	Until at last the streets, the lower tunnels of the lower levels, the mines, the factories, the homes, were littered with metal bodies shot through and through with star-shaped splinterings.
	In the cities the people cowered, not knowing what blow was to fall upon them ... or milled about in fearmaddened crowds, and many more died. . . .
	Then suddenly the dreadful droning, the shattering tempest, the intolerable high piping ended. And everywhere the people fell, sleeping among the dead robots, as though they never had been strung to the point of breaking, sapped of strength and abruptly relaxed.
	As though it had vanished, America was deaf to cables, to all communication beyond the gigantic circle of sound.
	But that midnight over all Europe the drone sounded and Europe's robots began their dance of death . . . and when it had ended a strange and silent rocket ship that had hovered high above the stratosphere sped almost with the speed of light and hovered over Asia- and next day Africa heard the drone while the natives answered it with their tom-toms-then South America heard it and last of all far-off Australia . . . and everywhere terror trapped the peoples and panic and madness took their toll....
	Until of all that animate metal horde that had tethered Earth and humanity there were a few scant hundreds left-escaped from the death dance through some variant in their constitution. And, awakening from that swift sleep, all over Earth those who had feared and hated the robots and their slavery rose against those who had fostered the metal domination, and blasted the robot factories to dust.
	Again the hill above the caverns opened, the strange torpedo ship blinked into sight like a ghost, as silently as a ghost floated into the hill and the rocks closed behind it.
	Narodny and the others stood before the gigantic television screen, shifting upon it images of city after city, country after country, over all Earth's surface. Lao, the Chinese, said: "Many men died, but many are left. They may not understand-but to them it was worth it."
	Narodny mused: "It drives home the lesson, what man does not pay for, he values little. Our friends aloft will have little opposition now I think."
	He shook his head, doubtfully, "But I still do not like that Wrongness of Space. I do not want my music spoiled again by him, Lao. Shall we hurl the Moon out of the universe, Lao?"
	Lao laughed: "And what then would you do for moon-music?"
	Narodny said: "True. Well, let us see what men can do. There is always time-perhaps."
	The difficulties which beset humanity did not interest the poet Narodny. While the world governments were reorganized-factories turned out space ships for Earth's fleet-men were trained in handling these ships
	-supplies were gathered-weapons were perfected- and when the message from Luna, outlining the course to be followed and setting the starting date, arrived, the space fleet of Earth was ready to leave.
	Narodny watched the ships take off. He shook his head, doubtfully. But soon harmonies were swelling through the great cavern of the orchards and nymphs and fauns dancing under the fragrant blossoming trees- and the world again forgotten by Narodny.



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 death-for always, my friend, the distillate from the blood of sacrifice is progress-great 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 psychical-which, although man himself was its creator, made of their maker a moth in a whirlwind-all 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 otherwise-when men and women, gripped by one shattering sorrow or joy, will manifest the hidden depths of spirit-how 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 Club-Hawtry, 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 visions-an 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 ones-all 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 pass-in 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 son- a 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 Laveller-and neither is that the real name of the family, for, like the others, I may not reveal it-he 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 up-I do not know-but 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-or so all thought.
	What had happened then-and 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 important-and 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 night-an early April night in northern France-and 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 move- some to raise themselves, some to gesticulate, to protest. And this was very horrible, for those who moved under the lights were the dead-French and English, Prussian and Bavarian-dregs 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, embracing-and 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 sleep-for 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 repaired-and 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 like-like 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 them-why couldn't a shell drop down and bury them?
	There was a chateau half a mile up there to the right-at 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 sleep-and 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 was-some 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 captain-all 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 wrong-what's wrong-what'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 wrong-why didn't they go away and let him watch in peace?
	"Nothing." It was the surgeon-and again the words kept babbling in Laveller's ears, small, whispering, rapidly repeating themselves over and over; "Nothing -nothing-nothing-nothing."
	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 here--utterly worn, weary-all his consciousness centered upon just one thing-watchfulness . . . consciousness worn to finest point . . . behind it all his subconsciousness crowding to escape . . . consciousness will respond to only one stimulus-movement 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 eyes-for 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 hear-but 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 head-as 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-winger butterflies hovered over them. A gentle breeze blew, warm and fragrant.
	Oddly he felt no sense of strangeness-then-this was a normal home world-a 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 now-too 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 had-but where was it? How had he made his way from it here? Ah, there had been a password-what had it been?
	He had it: "Lucie de Tocquelain!"
	Laveller cried it aloud-still kneeling.
	A soft little hand touched his cheek. A low, sweettoned voice caressed his ears.
	"I am Lucie de Tocquelain," it said. "And the flowers will grow again-yet 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 in-the 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 that-she 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.
	"I-I am the Demoiselle de Tocquelain, messire," she murmured. "And you-"
	He recovered his courtesy with a shock. "Laveller-Peter Laveller-is my name, mademoiselle," he stammered. "Pardon my rudeness-but how I came here I know not-nor from whence, save that it was-it was a place unlike this. And you-you are so beautiful, mademoiselle!"
	The clear eyes raised themselves for a moment, a touch of roguishness in their depths, then dropped demurely once more-but 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 coming-closer, closer; it touched him; it lapped about him; he was sinking under it; being lost-falling-falling-
	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 slowly-and was gone!
	In its wake followed an ineffable, an uncontrollable desire to weep-to 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."
	France-France? 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 danced-what 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 tired-and 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 go-whence 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 demoiselle- and gracious-gracious, 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 knew-but 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 him-they 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 little-up 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 children -when they were not silent and drinking each the other in.
	And ever in Laveller's heart an adoration for this maid, met so perplexingly, grew-grew 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 terrible-in 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 gleam -a 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 return-to 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! See- there 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 memory-memory 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 roses-they 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 snowytressed woman watched-with 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 voice-a bit piteous, the golden tones shaken.
	"I must get back," he groaned-although 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 gazed-gazed 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 was -she was no dream!
	"But I must return-get 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 trench-but your trench centuries ago; yes, twice a hundred years ago, counting time as you do- and 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 call-dead-to 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 true--why, 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 shadow-but 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 night-in whose cellars he had longed to sleep. Death-oh, 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! Death-he 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 this- this-was the truth? He must get back and tell them. Even those two Scots would lie still on the wires when he whispered this to them.
	But he forgot-they knew now. But they could not return to tell-as he could. He was wild with joy, exultant, lifted up to the skies, a demigod-the 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 return-swiftly!"
	A doubt assailed him; he pondered it.
	"But they may not believe me," he whispered. "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 before-but 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 it-for now you must go back."
	She thrust his arms into the garment. She was laughing-but 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 to-come 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 said-and 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 gravely-and 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!" whispared 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 one-but 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 remember-I 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!" be cried. "We must send this message along the lines-at once! At once, do you understand! Tell it to the world-I 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 oddly-then 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 demoiselle-for, 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 then-I 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-we 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. Ah-now 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 held -then, incredulous; brought it close to his own eyesgazed 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.
	No-there 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 Lucie-save in his own mind-no 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 Peter-vicious, 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 intelligence-of education, you could know that by the way he expressed himself-he will understand."
	The major was not a scientist-he 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 halfawakened 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 learn-but 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 and-well, weaves a little romance around it. It does its best to explain-alas! Its best is only a more or less fantastic lie-recognized 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 hours-yes, days-of 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 quickly-his officer was too close, too close. Still-he 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 French-for 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 longing-rushed 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 writing-your 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 things-the ancient cluster, the suggestion in the line of writing, the touch, and the name-a fascinating problem, indeed!
	"And hardly had I withdrawn my hand, almost before my lips closed on the word I had whispered- you had turned to us shouting that there was no such thing as death, and pouring out, like one inspired, that remarkable story of yours-all, 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 eyes-red, 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 understand- I am sorry-I never thought you would take it so seriously."
	Laveller spoke to his officers-quietly. "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 paradise-a dream.
	His Lucie, his brown-eyed demoiselle who had murmured her love for him-a 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 back-and promised to wait for him.
	What was that in his hand? It was the paper that had wrapped the rosebuds-the cursed paper with which that cold devil had experimented with him.
	Laveller crumpled it savagely-raised 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 awe -and 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 lines-in old French-
	Nor grieve, dear heart, nor fear the seeming- Here 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 blank- except for the line I myself had written there.
	"But there was one more bit of-well, 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 flowers-and the signature 'Lucie' was that same signature, curve for curve and quaint, oldfashioned 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 said-and 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 another-I 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 I-patched 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 could-go back-to 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.



Tne White Road

	(EDITOR'S NOTE: When A. Merritt passed away in 1943, he left several unfinished projects on his desk. Two of these literary fragments proved to be the opening chapters of novels. As a service to the great legion of Merritt readers, the editor of this volume is pleased to include these short fragmentary works here. It is believed that "The White Road" was to have been a novel based on the theme of "Thru the Dragon Glass," and "When Old Gods Wake," which, immediately follows this in this book, was to be a sequel to his novel "The Face in the Abyss." Tantalizingly incomplete, we think they show even in their few pages the same delicate Merritt touch that characterizes his best work. - D. A. W.)


CHAPTER I. GATE OF THE WHITE ROAD

	DAVID CORFAX laid down the last torn sheet of the stained old parchment with a wonder that had grown steadily while he read. What he had read was incredible, but the true incredibility lay in that it had been written. Therein was the. heart of his wonder and the indefinable terror of it. For what the writing dealt with was-the White Road!
	All his life he had known the White Road. You saw it first as a slit, a hair-line of white light, just the width of your eyes and somewhere, it seemed behind them- somewhere between your brain and your eyes, in your own head. In childhood, it had been after you had gone to bed; sometimes as soon as your lids closed, sometimes when you were dropping off to sleep. Later it might come in broad daylight, while you sat thinking or reading. But at those times you never got far on the White Road.
	The laws of this world not those of yours.
	All his life he had known the White Road; in all his life he had spoken of it only to three persons. Two of these were dead; the third had been a child whom he had not seen for years and who should long ago have forgotten. Yet it had been she who had sent him the parchment. And out of it had come a voice silent four hundred years, and speaking of the White Road as one who had been a pilgrim upon it.
	How young he had been when first he saw the White Road, David Corfax could not tell. But it was as real to him as was this old house in which he sat, the sun of a September afternoon streaming through the window upon this yellowed manuscript which told him that the White Road was no dream-or if a dream then not his alone.
	And there had been that enigmatic postscript of Deborah's: "I too have seen the White Road!"
	Was it real after all? Whether real or not, it had its mechanics, unchanging, unchangeable. First there was the humming, not heard but felt, a vibration along every nerve, in every cell. Then the slit, the hair-line of white light.
	Then the slit would open-half an inch, an inch. And then the White Road would begin to unroll. You could see straight ahead of you, but that was all. It was as though you stood a little distance back of the slit.
	In a sort of black box that moved smoothly along the road. And yet you seemed to be out on the road, too. Sometimes the sides would sweep past swiftly, as though you were galloping on some effortlessly moving horse; sometimes slowly as though you were walking. But once the road began to unroll you never stopped. And you never looked back, that is until you learned that looking back meant journey's end. When you stopped, the slit went out-like a light and you were back in your room. You looked back into your room. When you turned, the road was gone.
	Nor could you control the motion with which you . went, nor could you, try as you would, by any effort of will cause the window that opened on the road to appear. It was there, without warning-or it was not. Nor could he ever remember clearly what he had seen when on the White Road. The road itself was always plain-wide and smoothly paved, sometimes straight sometimes curving, going on and on and on. There were people, but of what kind he never remem bered. There were forests, colorful and flowered . . . a towering range of mountains, strangely serrated, toothed, pinnacled . . . enormously high, purple and amethyst and looking as though they had been cut from cardboard ... no distance to them and with garlands of little suns circling their peaks . . . there was a city of domes and minarets . . . beside a purple sea. And there were things that terrified . . . that had been in childhood when he had learned to look back to escape them. Later, he faced them . . . but could not remember, waking, what he had faced. Memory of music . . . like Sibelius.
	The road appeared without warning? No, there was always the humming that preceded it. It was a strange sound, not heard but felt. It seemed to vibrate through him, and as it did so his body became weightless. He could not feel the bed he lay in if he clenched his hands he could not feel the fingers . . . the humming seemed to deaden all nerves of touch. It grew louder, swifter rather rising in vibrancy rather than in pitch as the slit widened. He remembered, ah, there was one thing he remembered clearly enough. One night the humming had quickened and the slit had opened wider than ever before-or since. And over it, like a climber, a woman's hand, long-fingered, yellow as old ivory had clawed with talons like a condor had crept. And two unwinking, amber eyes had glared into his. He remembered how he had screamed, and his mother had come to him, and he could see today the fright, the numb horror, that had appeared upon her face when he had wept and sobbed about the White Road ... he had been no more than six then. He remembered.
	When you looked back, and the road came again, you had to begin at the beginning. But if you could hold your nerve, and not look back, after a while you went to sleep. Then, if the dream came again the next night, as sometimes it did, you would go on from where you had stopped the night before. That was how he had gotten as far as sight of the strange city beside the purple sea. Three nights he had been on the road. Yes, there was some system, some law governing it.
	There was a dark: road too. That was an evil road. Even in childhood he knew that it came close to the White Road and was to be avoided. But later, he felt a pull as he put it, to this road. And often yielded. He could see nothing on this, could only hear voices. And he must go so gently, so quietly. There was a hill, and behind it the murmur of voices, the creaking of stays, the sounds of a port. He knew it was a hill, because it loomed blackly against a faintly red sky, as though there were fires burning. He knew that he must never look over that hill, never go over it or he would be utterly lost. Could never return.
	Then his mother had died. He had gone through boarding school, through college, become a wanderer. Two years on the desert.



When Old Gods Wake


CHAPTER I. ALTAR OF KUKULKAN

	THE SILENCE seemed to be focussed within the temple; to have its heart there; a heart that did not need to beat, since all the silence was alive. Outside the heat of the Yucatan midday held the ruins in breathless grip. Barry Manson, crouching at the base of the ancient altar, thought: the silence . . . marched . . . marched into the temple. The shrieks of the parrots were cut off first. .. then the little blue and yellow birds stopped quarreling in the crimson fruited tree at the base of the shattered stairway . . . and then the silence marched up the stairway and into this chamber and crowded against the seaward side . . . and that shut out the swish of the waves.
	He looked at Joan. She sat a few paces away, her back against the massive pedestal of a broken pillar. Her hands were clasped around her knees. Her eyes were intent upon the wall behind the altar. A painting once had covered that wall. The fingers of time, working patiently through the centuries, had plucked away most of the stucco that had carried it. But above the altar, as though protected by its shadow, a large and irregular fragment remained. Upon it, colors still vivid, Were the head and shoulders of Kukulkan, God of the Air of the ancient Mayans-and much more than that.
	The Feathered Serpent, his symbol and his avatar, floated over him, fanged jaws agape, plumed wings spread wide. The face of Kukulkan was the conventionalized one of the New Empire; the nose grotesquely lengthened like that of a tapir, lips thick and protruding, prognathous-jawed, bat-eared; the ears ringed and the labret through the nostrils; head plumed with the sacred panacho.
	The painted gaze of the god seemed fixed as intently upon the girl as hers upon him.
	The pedestal against which Joan leaned was covered with carved figures of priests of Kukulkan who had served him when ruined Tuloom had been one of the great cities of the Mayans, and this its holiest temple. On these figures the colors were also bright. Into them Joan's copper hair melted, merged with their reds and ochres so that for an instant Barry had the illusion that her face was all of her.
	A disembodied face peering out of the stone and holding communion with the god like a summoned priestess.
	Impatiently Barry arose and walked over to her. She dis not look up. She whispered, eyes still absorbed by the painted god:
	"Don't break the silence, Barry! It's like the silence that wraps the city of Jade . . . where the thousand sages of T'zan T'zao sit holding fast to the thought that created the world . . . and that the ghost of a ghost of a sound would destroy . . . and with it the world...."
	He felt increase of revolt against the fantasies gathering about him. He shook his shoulders and laughed. He said, loudly:
	"The silence is broken, Joan-and the world still spins."
	It was true. The silence was broken. It was retreat ing from the chamber, slowly . . . marching away as it had marched in. Faintly came the swish of the waves, growing ever stronger. The silence was marching out of the chamber toward the shattered stairway up which it had come. Joan arose, slowly ... it was odd, Barry thought, how every movement of hers in rising kept to the rhythm, kept to the beat, of the unseen and unheard feet of the retreating silence.
	The silence marched down the stairway. He heard again the quarreling of the little blue and yellow birds . . . then the shrieks of the parrots. . . .
	Joan said, unsteadily: "It was time you did that, Barry. It was . . . doing things to me. Look, Barry- look......!"
	He followed her finger, pointing to the painted face of Kukulkan. For a breath he saw it ... another face looking out from the wall.
	An ageless face . . . the nose long and curved and delicate. The lips full but sharply cut, archaically sensuous . . . hair as red as his own and eyes as blue as. Joan's. A face as devoid of human equivalence as it was timeless ... yet human ... as though the seed from which it had sprung into godhood had been human. Incalculable, unreadable . . . but still within it something that could be read up to that point where the humanness of it merged into the god . . . might be read more plainly if the god would within it merge more fully into the humanness. Nothing of benevolence in it ... but neither was there shade of malevolence, cruelty . . . humanless, in human mask.
	Barry thought: it is like that mountain peak in the City of Jade of which Joan spoke . . . the peak shaped like the head of a man and all of clearest crystal to which the thoughts of men are drawn . . . all their thoughts . . . and pass from its eyes and mouth cleansed of falsehood and of error, prejudice and hatred and love . . . standing naked and stark before T'zan T'wo to be judged...
	Power was in the face, immense power . . . and something of wildness, of freedom ... the freedom of primaeval things . . . like the wind, the waves, the sun...
	And then the face was gone. Upon the wall was the tapir snout of Kukulkan, the protruding lips, the fanged and feathered serpent.
	His hand was clenching Joan's wrist. She whispered:
	"You saw it! You're hurting me!"
	He dropped her wrist. He said: "It is another painting beneath this one. An older painting. Some trick of the light brought it out."
	She said, doubtful: "Maybe. But I think it was Kukulkan as the first Mayans knew him. Kukulkan who came to them from still an older race. Kukulkan when he was worshipped with flowers and fruits and incense and prayer. Before his worship was debased and the cruel human sacrifices began. That was when and why he turned from the Mayans. And so their doom came swiftly upon them. For it was never he who came to them thereafter, Barry. It was an evil god hiding behind his mask and name-"
	She hesitated, seemed listening: "But yes-he did come. Came even to the Aztecs, who steeped his rites in even greater cruelties and renamed him Quetzalcoatl. . . came again and again to thwart that other god when his evil grew too strong ... the Lord of Darkness, the Lord of the Dead..."
	Her voice died; she stood with eyes rapt, face colorless, bent as though listening. He took her by the shoulders, shook her:
	"Snap out of it, Joan. What's the matter with you? You're talking nonsense."
	"Am I, Barry? It was what Kukulkan was telling me."
	She dropped her head on his shoulder; clung to him, trembling. His hands slipped from her shoulders, drew her to him. He said huskily:
	"Coming any closer to loving me, Joan?"
	She raised her eyes to his frankly, yet with something of regret lurking in them.
	"Sorry, Barry dear. But it's still the same. I-"
	He interrupted her, speaking monotonously: "Like you better than any other man I know, except Bill, of course, and I wish I could love you the way you want, but-yes, Joan, I know all that by heart now."
	She flushed and said: "That's not fair. After all, Bill's my brother and why shouldn't I love him? And I do like you better than anyone else. So much so that at times-" she stopped; he repeated eagerly:
	"That at times?"
	"Never mind. Barry, why do you want me7 There are plenty of nice girls who like just the things you do. I know a dozen who would love you-and any one of them would make you a perfect wife. I don't like the 'things you do. Or if I do, to me they're only brief amusements. Why, I'd rather help Bill dig up a cup from some ruin that spans the gap of knowledge between its maker and us than win a thousand sporting trophies."
	He said: "If you loved me that wouldn't make any difference."
	She shook her head: "We've been brought up differently, Barry-and we're both too set in our ways to change. I am anyway. . . ." Suddenly she laughed:
	"And you haven't fooled me by this trip, Barry Manson. I know damned well that it wasn't any abrupt interest in the Mayans that prompted it. I'm mighty
	grateful to you for giving Bill the chance he's always wanted. But I wouldn't marry you out of gratitude, and I don't think you'd want me to-would you, Barry?"
	His gray eyes narrowed: he said, brutally: "Listen, redhead. You don't fool me any either. It's damned little of highbrow or blue-stocking you'd be if you fell in love with a man. Nature didn't build you that way. And it would be damned little you'd be thinking of fossils if that happened. You'd be too busy having babies."
	She said, coldly: "I think that's rather-beastly!" He said, hotly: "Is that so? What's beastly about babies? You'd be getting a slant on the present day with some outlook on the future-instead of burying your red head in the past. What I'm afraid of is that you'll marry some dusty-dry, mummy-minded, scientific grave robber and spend the rest of your life nursing fossils instead of what you are obviously designed for-"
	She interrupted, furiously, eyes snapping blue sparks:
	"I'll let nobody pick my husband! Least of all-you!"
	"Won't you!" Barry's too-quick anger flared. "It seems to me you were ready enough to pick wives for me just now. Not one but a dozen-" He gripped her arms and swung her to him. "You-the highbrow scientist? Like hell you are! Look at that mop of red hair. Those eyes of yours with the devil's twist to the ends of them, that mouth of yours-and I've seen you in your rag of a bathing suit! I tell you again, by God, that once you're awake it's not fossils you'll be thinking of! And maybe this will help wake you-"
	He held her close, kissed eyes and throat, pressed his lips to hers. She lay in his arms, passive, unresisting. She said at last, indifferently:
	"Cave-man stuff, Barry. Too crude. It doesn't interest me at all."
	He released her, stepping back as though out of a dash of cold water. She raised her arms and began to coil her disordered hair. She laughed at him, a little too sweetly-though he did not know it.
	"You see, Barry dear, we're as far apart as the poles. You make love to me by enumerating my-ah, charms, is the cliche for it, I think. You are an-ah, anatomical lover. It is a viewpoint, certainly. A Sultan's viewpoint, but I do not care for Sultans. Nor," went on Joan, still far too sweetly and reasonably, "do I think that my worthinesses are wholly anatomical. But then-you've always been rich-"



The Women of the Wood

	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 moming, 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 flew; 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 Sittings 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 nicker 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 moumfulness, 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 betwee