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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Moon Pool, by A. Merritt
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Moon Pool
+
+Author: A. Merritt
+
+Posting Date: August 16, 2008 [EBook #765]
+Release Date: December, 1996
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MOON POOL ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Judith Boss.  HTML version by Al Haines.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+The Moon Pool
+
+A. MERRITT
+
+
+
+
+Foreword
+
+The publication of the following narrative of Dr. Walter T. Goodwin
+has been authorized by the Executive Council of the International
+Association of Science.
+
+First:
+
+To end officially what is beginning to be called the Throckmartin
+Mystery and to kill the innuendo and scandalous suspicions which have
+threatened to stain the reputations of Dr. David Throckmartin, his
+youthful wife, and equally youthful associate Dr. Charles Stanton ever
+since a tardy despatch from Melbourne, Australia, reported the
+disappearance of the first from a ship sailing to that port, and the
+subsequent reports of the disappearance of his wife and associate from
+the camp of their expedition in the Caroline Islands.
+
+Second:
+
+Because the Executive Council have concluded that Dr. Goodwin's
+experiences in his wholly heroic effort to save the three, and the
+lessons and warnings within those experiences, are too important
+to humanity as a whole to be hidden away in scientific papers
+understandable only to the technically educated; or to be presented
+through the newspaper press in the abridged and fragmentary form
+which the space limitations of that vehicle make necessary.
+
+For these reasons the Executive Council commissioned Mr. A. Merritt
+to transcribe into form to be readily understood by the layman the
+stenographic notes of Dr. Goodwin's own report to the Council,
+supplemented by further oral reminiscences and comments by Dr.
+Goodwin; this transcription, edited and censored by the Executive
+Council of the Association, forms the contents of this book.
+
+Himself a member of the Council, Dr. Walter T. Goodwin, Ph.D.,
+F.R.G.S. etc., is without cavil the foremost of American botanists, an
+observer of international reputation and the author of several epochal
+treaties upon his chosen branch of science. His story, amazing in the
+best sense of that word as it may be, is fully supported by proofs
+brought forward by him and accepted by the organization of which I
+have the honor to be president. What matter has been elided from
+this popular presentation--because of the excessively menacing
+potentialities it contains, which unrestricted dissemination might
+develop--will be dealt with in purely scientific pamphlets of
+carefully guarded circulation.
+
+THE INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF SCIENCE
+  Per J. B. K., President
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+       I  The Thing on the Moon Path
+      II  "Dead!  All Dead!"
+     III  The Moon Rock
+      IV  The First Vanishings
+       V  Into the Moon Pool
+      VI  "The Shining Devil Took Them!"
+     VII  Larry O'Keefe
+    VIII  Olaf's Story
+      IX  A Lost Page of Earth
+       X  The Moon Pool
+      XI  The Flame-Tipped Shadows
+     XII  The End of the Journey
+    XIII  Yolara, Priestess of the Shining One
+     XIV  The Justice of Lora
+      XV  The Angry, Whispering Globe
+     XVI  Yolara of Muria vs. the O'Keefe
+    XVII  The Leprechaun
+   XVIII  The Amphitheatre of Jet
+     XIX  The Madness of Olaf
+      XX  The Tempting of Larry
+     XXI  Larry's Defiance
+    XXII  The Casting of the Shadow
+   XXIII  Dragon Worm and Moss Death
+    XXIV  The Crimson Sea
+     XXV  The Three Silent Ones
+    XXVI  The Wooing of Lakla
+   XXVII  The Coming of Yolara
+  XXVIII  In the Lair of the Dweller
+    XXIX  The Shaping of the Shining One
+     XXX  The Building of the Moon Pool
+    XXXI  Larry and the Frog-Men
+   XXXII  "Your Love; Your Lives; Your Souls!"
+  XXXIII  The Meeting of Titans
+   XXXIV  The Coming of the Shining One
+    XXXV  "Larry--Farewell!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+The Thing on the Moon Path
+
+For two months I had been on the d'Entrecasteaux Islands gathering
+data for the concluding chapters of my book upon the flora of the
+volcanic islands of the South Pacific. The day before I had reached
+Port Moresby and had seen my specimens safely stored on board the
+Southern Queen. As I sat on the upper deck I thought, with homesick
+mind, of the long leagues between me and Melbourne, and the longer
+ones between Melbourne and New York.
+
+It was one of Papua's yellow mornings when she shows herself in her
+sombrest, most baleful mood. The sky was smouldering ochre. Over the
+island brooded a spirit sullen, alien, implacable, filled with the
+threat of latent, malefic forces waiting to be unleashed. It seemed an
+emanation out of the untamed, sinister heart of Papua herself--sinister
+even when she smiles. And now and then, on the wind, came a breath from
+virgin jungles, laden with unfamiliar odours, mysterious and menacing.
+
+It is on such mornings that Papua whispers to you of her immemorial
+ancientness and of her power. And, as every white man must, I fought
+against her spell. While I struggled I saw a tall figure striding down
+the pier; a Kapa-Kapa boy followed swinging a new valise. There was
+something familiar about the tall man. As he reached the gangplank he
+looked up straight into my eyes, stared for a moment, then waved his
+hand.
+
+And now I knew him.  It was Dr. David Throckmartin--"Throck" he was to
+me always, one of my oldest friends and, as well, a mind of the first
+water whose power and achievements were for me a constant inspiration
+as they were, I know, for scores other.
+
+Coincidentally with my recognition came a shock of surprise,
+definitely--unpleasant. It was Throckmartin--but about him was
+something disturbingly unlike the man I had known long so well and to
+whom and to whose little party I had bidden farewell less than a month
+before I myself had sailed for these seas. He had married only a few
+weeks before, Edith, the daughter of Professor William Frazier,
+younger by at least a decade than he but at one with him in his ideals
+and as much in love, if it were possible, as Throckmartin. By virtue
+of her father's training a wonderful assistant, by virtue of her own
+sweet, sound heart a--I use the word in its olden sense--lover. With
+his equally youthful associate Dr. Charles Stanton and a Swedish
+woman, Thora Halversen, who had been Edith Throckmartin's nurse from
+babyhood, they had set forth for the Nan-Matal, that extraordinary
+group of island ruins clustered along the eastern shore of Ponape in
+the Carolines.
+
+I knew that he had planned to spend at least a year among these ruins,
+not only of Ponape but of Lele--twin centres of a colossal riddle of
+humanity, a weird flower of civilization that blossomed ages before
+the seeds of Egypt were sown; of whose arts we know little enough and
+of whose science nothing. He had carried with him unusually complete
+equipment for the work he had expected to do and which, he hoped,
+would be his monument.
+
+What then had brought Throckmartin to Port Moresby, and what was that
+change I had sensed in him?
+
+Hurrying down to the lower deck I found him with the purser.  As I
+spoke he turned, thrust out to me an eager hand--and then I saw what
+was that difference that had so moved me. He knew, of course by my
+silence and involuntary shrinking the shock my closer look had given
+me. His eyes filled; he turned brusquely from the purser, hesitated--then
+hurried off to his stateroom.
+
+"'E looks rather queer--eh?" said the purser.  "Know 'im well, sir?
+Seems to 'ave given you quite a start."
+
+I made some reply and went slowly up to my chair.  There I sat,
+composed my mind and tried to define what it was that had shaken me
+so. Now it came to me. The old Throckmartin was on the eve of his
+venture just turned forty, lithe, erect, muscular; his controlling
+expression one of enthusiasm, of intellectual keenness, of--what shall
+I say--expectant search. His always questioning brain had stamped its
+vigor upon his face.
+
+But the Throckmartin I had seen below was one who had borne some
+scaring shock of mingled rapture and horror; some soul cataclysm that
+in its climax had remoulded, deep from within, his face, setting on it
+seal of wedded ecstasy and despair; as though indeed these two had
+come to him hand in hand, taken possession of him and departing left
+behind, ineradicably, their linked shadows!
+
+Yes--it was that which appalled.  For how could rapture and horror,
+Heaven and Hell mix, clasp hands--kiss?
+
+Yet these were what in closest embrace lay on Throckmartin's face!
+
+Deep in thought, subconsciously with relief, I watched the shore line
+sink behind; welcomed the touch of the wind of the free seas. I had
+hoped, and within the hope was an inexplicable shrinking that I would
+meet Throckmartin at lunch. He did not come down, and I was sensible
+of deliverance within my disappointment. All that afternoon I lounged
+about uneasily but still he kept to his cabin--and within me was no
+strength to summon him. Nor did he appear at dinner.
+
+Dusk and night fell swiftly.  I was warm and went back to my
+deck-chair. The Southern Queen was rolling to a disquieting swell and
+I had the place to myself.
+
+Over the heavens was a canopy of cloud, glowing faintly and testifying
+to the moon riding behind it. There was much phosphorescence. Fitfully
+before the ship and at her sides arose those stranger little swirls of
+mist that swirl up from the Southern Ocean like breath of sea
+monsters, whirl for an instant and disappear.
+
+Suddenly the deck door opened and through it came Throckmartin.  He
+paused uncertainly, looked up at the sky with a curiously eager,
+intent gaze, hesitated, then closed the door behind him.
+
+"Throck," I called.  "Come!  It's Goodwin."
+
+He made his way to me.
+
+"Throck," I said, wasting no time in preliminaries. "What's wrong?
+Can I help you?"
+
+I felt his body grow tense.
+
+"I'm going to Melbourne, Goodwin," he answered.  "I need a few
+things--need them urgently. And more men--white men--"
+
+He stopped abruptly; rose from his chair, gazed intently toward the
+north. I followed his gaze. Far, far away the moon had broken through
+the clouds. Almost on the horizon, you could see the faint
+luminescence of it upon the smooth sea. The distant patch of light
+quivered and shook. The clouds thickened again and it was gone. The
+ship raced on southward, swiftly.
+
+Throckmartin dropped into his chair.  He lighted a cigarette with a
+hand that trembled; then turned to me with abrupt resolution.
+
+"Goodwin," he said.  "I do need help.  If ever man needed it, I do.
+Goodwin--can you imagine yourself in another world, alien, unfamiliar,
+a world of terror, whose unknown joy is its greatest terror of all;
+you all alone there, a stranger! As such a man would need help, so I
+need--"
+
+He paused abruptly and arose; the cigarette dropped from his fingers.
+The moon had again broken through the clouds, and this time much
+nearer. Not a mile away was the patch of light that it threw upon the
+waves. Back of it, to the rim of the sea was a lane of moonlight; a
+gigantic gleaming serpent racing over the edge of the world straight
+and surely toward the ship.
+
+Throckmartin stiffened to it as a pointer does to a hidden covey.  To
+me from him pulsed a thrill of horror--but horror tinged with an
+unfamiliar, an infernal joy. It came to me and passed away--leaving me
+trembling with its shock of bitter sweet.
+
+He bent forward, all his soul in his eyes.  The moon path swept
+closer, closer still. It was now less than half a mile away. From it
+the ship fled--almost as though pursued. Down upon it, swift and
+straight, a radiant torrent cleaving the waves, raced the moon stream.
+
+"Good God!" breathed Throckmartin, and if ever the words were a prayer
+and an invocation they were.
+
+And then, for the first time--I saw--_it_!
+
+The moon path stretched to the horizon and was bordered by darkness.
+It was as though the clouds above had been parted to form a lane-drawn
+aside like curtains or as the waters of the Red Sea were held back to
+let the hosts of Israel through. On each side of the stream was the
+black shadow cast by the folds of the high canopies And straight as a
+road between the opaque walls gleamed, shimmered, and danced the
+shining, racing, rapids of the moonlight.
+
+Far, it seemed immeasurably far, along this stream of silver fire I
+sensed, rather than saw, something coming. It drew first into sight as
+a deeper glow within the light. On and on it swept toward us--an
+opalescent mistiness that sped with the suggestion of some winged
+creature in arrowed flight. Dimly there crept into my mind memory of
+the Dyak legend of the winged messenger of Buddha--the Akla bird
+whose feathers are woven of the moon rays, whose heart is a living
+opal, whose wings in flight echo the crystal clear music of the white
+stars--but whose beak is of frozen flame and shreds the souls of
+unbelievers.
+
+Closer it drew and now there came to me sweet, insistent
+tinklings--like pizzicati on violins of glass; crystal clear; diamonds
+melting into sounds!
+
+Now the Thing was close to the end of the white path; close up to the
+barrier of darkness still between the ship and the sparkling head of
+the moon stream. Now it beat up against that barrier as a bird against
+the bars of its cage. It whirled with shimmering plumes, with swirls
+of lacy light, with spirals of living vapour. It held within it odd,
+unfamiliar gleams as of shifting mother-of-pearl. Coruscations and
+glittering atoms drifted through it as though it drew them from the
+rays that bathed it.
+
+Nearer and nearer it came, borne on the sparkling waves, and ever
+thinner shrank the protecting wall of shadow between it and us. Within
+the mistiness was a core, a nucleus of intenser light--veined,
+opaline, effulgent, intensely alive. And above it, tangled in the
+plumes and spirals that throbbed and whirled were seven glowing
+lights.
+
+Through all the incessant but strangely ordered movement of
+the--_thing_--these lights held firm and steady. They were seven--like
+seven little moons. One was of a pearly pink, one of a delicate
+nacreous blue, one of lambent saffron, one of the emerald you see in
+the shallow waters of tropic isles; a deathly white; a ghostly
+amethyst; and one of the silver that is seen only when the flying fish
+leap beneath the moon.
+
+The tinkling music was louder still.  It pierced the ears with a
+shower of tiny lances; it made the heart beat jubilantly--and checked
+it dolorously. It closed the throat with a throb of rapture and
+gripped it tight with the hand of infinite sorrow!
+
+Came to me now a murmuring cry, stilling the crystal notes.  It was
+articulate--but as though from something utterly foreign to this
+world. The ear took the cry and translated with conscious labour into
+the sounds of earth. And even as it compassed, the brain shrank from
+it irresistibly, and simultaneously it seemed reached toward it with
+irresistible eagerness.
+
+Throckmartin strode toward the front of the deck, straight toward the
+vision, now but a few yards away from the stern. His face had lost all
+human semblance. Utter agony and utter ecstasy--there they were side
+by side, not resisting each other; unholy inhuman companions blending
+into a look that none of God's creatures should wear--and deep, deep
+as his soul! A devil and a God dwelling harmoniously side by side! So
+must Satan, newly fallen, still divine, seeing heaven and
+contemplating hell, have appeared.
+
+And then--swiftly the moon path faded!  The clouds swept over the sky
+as though a hand had drawn them together. Up from the south came a
+roaring squall. As the moon vanished what I had seen vanished with
+it--blotted out as an image on a magic lantern; the tinkling ceased
+abruptly--leaving a silence like that which follows an abrupt thunder
+clap. There was nothing about us but silence and blackness!
+
+Through me passed a trembling as one who has stood on the very verge
+of the gulf wherein the men of the Louisades says lurks the fisher of
+the souls of men, and has been plucked back by sheerest chance.
+
+Throckmartin passed an arm around me.
+
+"It is as I thought," he said.  In his voice was a new note; the calm
+certainty that has swept aside a waiting terror of the unknown. "Now I
+know! Come with me to my cabin, old friend. For now that you too have
+seen I can tell you"--he hesitated--"what it was you saw," he ended.
+
+As we passed through the door we met the ship's first officer.
+Throckmartin composed his face into at least a semblance of normality.
+
+"Going to have much of a storm?" he asked.
+
+"Yes," said the mate.  "Probably all the way to Melbourne."
+
+Throckmartin straightened as though with a new thought. He gripped the
+officer's sleeve eagerly.
+
+"You mean at least cloudy weather--for"--he hesitated--"for the next
+three nights, say?"
+
+"And for three more," replied the mate.
+
+"Thank God!" cried Throckmartin, and I think I never heard such relief
+and hope as was in his voice.
+
+The sailor stood amazed.  "Thank God?" he repeated. "Thank--what d'ye
+mean?"
+
+But Throckmartin was moving onward to his cabin.  I started to follow.
+The first officer stopped me.
+
+"Your friend," he said, "is he ill?"
+
+"The sea!" I answered hurriedly.  "He's not used to it.  I am going to
+look after him."
+
+Doubt and disbelief were plain in the seaman's eyes but I hurried on.
+For I knew now that Throckmartin was ill indeed--but with a sickness
+the ship's doctor nor any other could heal.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+"Dead!  All Dead!"
+
+He was sitting, face in hands, on the side of his berth as I entered.
+He had taken off his coat.
+
+"Throck," I cried.  "What was it?  What are you flying from, man?
+Where is your wife--and Stanton?"
+
+"Dead!" he replied monotonously.  "Dead!  All dead!" Then as I
+recoiled from him--"All dead. Edith, Stanton, Thora--dead--or worse.
+And Edith in the Moon Pool--with them--drawn by what you saw on the
+moon path--that has put its brand upon me--and follows me!"
+
+He ripped open his shirt.
+
+"Look at this," he said.  Around his chest, above his heart, the skin
+was white as pearl. This whiteness was sharply defined against the
+healthy tint of the body. It circled him with an even cincture about
+two inches wide.
+
+"Burn it!" he said, and offered me his cigarette.  I drew back.  He
+gestured--peremptorily. I pressed the glowing end of the cigarette
+into the ribbon of white flesh. He did not flinch nor was there odour
+of burning nor, as I drew the little cylinder away, any mark upon the
+whiteness.
+
+"Feel it!" he commanded again.  I placed my fingers upon the band.  It
+was cold--like frozen marble.
+
+He drew his shirt around him.
+
+"Two things you have seen," he said.  "_It_--and its mark. Seeing,
+you must believe my story. Goodwin, I tell you again that my wife is
+dead--or worse--I do not know; the prey of--what you saw; so, too, is
+Stanton; so Thora. How--"
+
+Tears rolled down the seared face.
+
+"Why did God let it conquer us?  Why did He let it take my Edith?" he
+cried in utter bitterness. "Are there things stronger than God, do you
+think, Walter?"
+
+I hesitated.
+
+"Are there?  Are there?" His wild eyes searched me.
+
+"I do not know just how you define God," I managed at last through my
+astonishment to make answer. "If you mean the will to know, working
+through science--"
+
+He waved me aside impatiently.
+
+"Science," he said.  "What is our science against--that? Or against
+the science of whatever devils that made it--or made the way for it to
+enter this world of ours?"
+
+With an effort he regained control.
+
+"Goodwin," he said, "do you know at all of the ruins on the Carolines;
+the cyclopean, megalithic cities and harbours of Ponape and Lele, of
+Kusaie, of Ruk and Hogolu, and a score of other islets there?
+Particularly, do you know of the Nan-Matal and the Metalanim?"
+
+"Of the Metalanim I have heard and seen photographs," I said.  "They
+call it, don't they, the Lost Venice of the Pacific?"
+
+"Look at this map," said Throckmartin.  "That," he went on, "is
+Christian's chart of Metalanim harbour and the Nan-Matal. Do you see
+the rectangles marked Nan-Tauach?"
+
+"Yes," I said.
+
+"There," he said, "under those walls is the Moon Pool and the seven
+gleaming lights that raise the Dweller in the Pool, and the altar and
+shrine of the Dweller. And there in the Moon Pool with it lie Edith
+and Stanton and Thora."
+
+"The Dweller in the Moon Pool?" I repeated half-incredulously.
+
+"The Thing you saw," said Throckmartin solemnly.
+
+A solid sheet of rain swept the ports, and the Southern Queen began to
+roll on the rising swells. Throckmartin drew another deep breath of
+relief, and drawing aside a curtain peered out into the night. Its
+blackness seemed to reassure him. At any rate, when he sat again he
+was entirely calm.
+
+"There are no more wonderful ruins in the world," he began almost
+casually. "They take in some fifty islets and cover with their
+intersecting canals and lagoons about twelve square miles. Who built
+them? None knows. When were they built? Ages before the memory of
+present man, that is sure. Ten thousand, twenty thousand, a hundred
+thousand years ago--the last more likely.
+
+"All these islets, Walter, are squared, and their shores are frowning
+seawalls of gigantic basalt blocks hewn and put in place by the hands
+of ancient man. Each inner water-front is faced with a terrace of
+those basalt blocks which stand out six feet above the shallow canals
+that meander between them. On the islets behind these walls are
+time-shattered fortresses, palaces, terraces, pyramids; immense
+courtyards strewn with ruins--and all so old that they seem to wither
+the eyes of those who look on them.
+
+"There has been a great subsidence.  You can stand out of Metalanim
+harbour for three miles and look down upon the tops of similar
+monolithic structures and walls twenty feet below you in the water.
+
+"And all about, strung on their canals, are the bulwarked islets with
+their enigmatic walls peering through the dense growths of
+mangroves--dead, deserted for incalculable ages; shunned by those who
+live near.
+
+"You as a botanist are familiar with the evidence that a vast shadowy
+continent existed in the Pacific--a continent that was not rent
+asunder by volcanic forces as was that legendary one of Atlantis in
+the Eastern Ocean.[1] My work in Java, in Papua, and in the Ladrones
+had set my mind upon this Pacific lost land. Just as the Azores are
+believed to be the last high peaks of Atlantis, so hints came to me
+steadily that Ponape and Lele and their basalt bulwarked islets were
+the last points of the slowly sunken western land clinging still to
+the sunlight, and had been the last refuge and sacred places of the
+rulers of that race which had lost their immemorial home under the
+rising waters of the Pacific.
+
+"I believed that under these ruins I might find the evidence
+that I sought.
+
+"My--my wife and I had talked before we were married of making this
+our great work. After the honeymoon we prepared for the expedition.
+Stanton was as enthusiastic as ourselves. We sailed, as you know, last
+May for fulfilment of my dreams.
+
+"At Ponape we selected, not without difficulty, workmen to help
+us--diggers. I had to make extraordinary inducements before I could
+get together my force. Their beliefs are gloomy, these Ponapeans. They
+people their swamps, their forests, their mountains, and shores, with
+malignant spirits--ani they call them. And they are afraid--bitterly
+afraid of the isles of ruins and what they think the ruins hide. I do
+not wonder--now!
+
+"When they were told where they were to go, and how long we expected
+to stay, they murmured. Those who, at last, were tempted made what I
+thought then merely a superstitious proviso that they were to be
+allowed to go away on the three nights of the full moon. Would to God
+we had heeded them and gone too!"
+
+"We passed into Metalanim harbour.  Off to our left--a mile away arose
+a massive quadrangle. Its walls were all of forty feet high and
+hundreds of feet on each side. As we drew by, our natives grew very
+silent; watched it furtively, fearfully. I knew it for the ruins that
+are called Nan-Tauach, the 'place of frowning walls.' And at the
+silence of my men I recalled what Christian had written of this place;
+of how he had come upon its 'ancient platforms and tetragonal
+enclosures of stonework; its wonder of tortuous alleyways and
+labyrinth of shallow canals; grim masses of stonework peering out from
+behind verdant screens; cyclopean barricades,' and of how, when he had
+turned 'into its ghostly shadows, straight-way the merriment of guides
+was hushed and conversation died down to whispers.'"
+
+He was silent for a little time.
+
+"Of course I wanted to pitch our camp there," he went on again
+quietly, "but I soon gave up that idea. The natives were
+panic-stricken--threatened to turn back. 'No,' they said, 'too great
+ani there. We go to any other place--but not there.'
+
+"We finally picked for our base the islet called Uschen-Tau.  It was
+close to the isle of desire, but far enough away from it to satisfy
+our men. There was an excellent camping-place and a spring of fresh
+water. We pitched our tents, and in a couple of days the work was in
+full swing."
+
+
+[1] For more detailed observations on these points refer to G. Volkens,
+Uber die Karolinen Insel Yap, in Verhandlungen Gesellschaft Erdkunde
+Berlin, xxvii (1901); J. S. Kubary, Ethnographische Beitrage zur
+Kentniss des Karolinen Archipel (Leiden, 1889-1892); De Abrade
+Historia del Conflicto de las Carolinas, etc. (Madrid, 1886).--W. T. G.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+The Moon Rock
+
+"I do not intend to tell you now," Throckmartin continued, "the
+results of the next two weeks, nor of what we found. Later--if I am
+allowed, I will lay all that before you. It is sufficient to say that
+at the end of those two weeks I had found confirmation for many of my
+theories.
+
+"The place, for all its decay and desolation, had not infected us with
+any touch of morbidity--that is not Edith, Stanton, or myself. But
+Thora was very unhappy. She was a Swede, as you know, and in her blood
+ran the beliefs and superstitions of the Northland--some of them so
+strangely akin to those of this far southern land; beliefs of spirits
+of mountain and forest and water werewolves and beings malign. From
+the first she showed a curious sensitivity to what, I suppose, may be
+called the 'influences' of the place. She said it 'smelled' of ghosts
+and warlocks.
+
+"I laughed at her then--
+
+"Two weeks slipped by, and at their end the spokesman for our natives
+came to us. The next night was the full of the moon, he said. He
+reminded me of my promise. They would go back to their village in the
+morning; they would return after the third night, when the moon had
+begun to wane. They left us sundry charms for our 'protection,' and
+solemnly cautioned us to keep as far away as possible from Nan-Tauach
+during their absence. Half-exasperated, half-amused I watched them go.
+
+"No work could be done without them, of course, so we decided to spend
+the days of their absence junketing about the southern islets of the
+group. We marked down several spots for subsequent exploration, and on
+the morning of the third day set forth along the east face of the
+breakwater for our camp on Uschen-Tau, planning to have everything in
+readiness for the return of our men the next day.
+
+"We landed just before dusk, tired and ready for our cots.
+It was only a little after ten o'clock that Edith awakened me.
+
+"'Listen!' she said.  'Lean over with your ear close to the ground!'
+
+"I did so, and seemed to hear, far, far below, as though coming up
+from great distances, a faint chanting. It gathered strength, died
+down, ended; began, gathered volume, faded away into silence.
+
+"'It's the waves rolling on rocks somewhere,' I said.  'We're probably
+over some ledge of rock that carries the sound.'
+
+"'It's the first time I've heard it,' replied my wife doubtfully.  We
+listened again. Then through the dim rhythms, deep beneath us, another
+sound came. It drifted across the lagoon that lay between us and
+Nan-Tauach in little tinkling waves. It was music--of a sort; I won't
+describe the strange effect it had upon me. You've felt it--"
+
+"You mean on the deck?" I asked.  Throckmartin nodded.
+
+"I went to the flap of the tent," he continued, "and peered out.
+As I did so Stanton lifted his flap and walked out into the moonlight,
+looking over to the other islet and listening. I called to him.
+
+"'That's the queerest sound!' he said.  He listened again.
+'Crystalline! Like little notes of translucent glass. Like the bells
+of crystal on the sistrums of Isis at Dendarah Temple,' he added
+half-dreamily. We gazed intently at the island. Suddenly, on the
+sea-wall, moving slowly, rhythmically, we saw a little group of
+lights. Stanton laughed.
+
+"'The beggars!' he exclaimed.  'That's why they wanted to get away, is
+it? Don't you see, Dave, it's some sort of a festival--rites of some
+kind that they hold during the full moon! That's why they were so
+eager to have us _keep_ away, too.'
+
+"The explanation seemed good.  I felt a curious sense of relief,
+although I had not been sensible of any oppression.
+
+"'Let's slip over,' suggested Stanton--but I would not.
+
+"'They're a difficult lot as it is,' I said.  'If we break into one of
+their religious ceremonies they'll probably never forgive us. Let's
+keep out of any family party where we haven't been invited.'
+
+"'That's so,' agreed Stanton.
+
+"The strange tinkling rose and fell, rose and fell--
+
+"'There's something--something very unsettling about it,' said Edith
+at last soberly. 'I wonder what they make those sounds with. They
+frighten me half to death, and, at the same time, they make me feel as
+though some enormous rapture were just around the corner.'
+
+"'It's devilish uncanny!' broke in Stanton.
+
+"And as he spoke the flap of Thora's tent was raised and out into the
+moonlight strode the old Swede. She was the great Norse type--tall,
+deep-breasted, moulded on the old Viking lines. Her sixty years had
+slipped from her. She looked like some ancient priestess of Odin.
+
+"She stood there, her eyes wide, brilliant, staring.  She thrust her
+head forward toward Nan-Tauach, regarding the moving lights; she
+listened. Suddenly she raised her arms and made a curious gesture to
+the moon. It was--an archaic--movement; she seemed to drag it from
+remote antiquity--yet in it was a strange suggestion of power, Twice
+she repeated this gesture and--the tinklings died away! She turned to
+us.
+
+"'Go!' she said, and her voice seemed to come from far distances.  'Go
+from here--and quickly! Go while you may. It has called--' She pointed
+to the islet. 'It knows you are here. It waits!' she wailed. 'It
+beckons--the--the--"
+
+"She fell at Edith's feet, and over the lagoon came again the
+tinklings, now with a quicker note of jubilance--almost of triumph.
+
+"We watched beside her throughout the night.  The sounds from
+Nan-Tauach continued until about an hour before moon-set. In the
+morning Thora awoke, none the worse, apparently. She had had bad
+dreams, she said. She could not remember what they were--except that
+they had warned her of danger. She was oddly sullen, and throughout
+the morning her gaze returned again and again half-fascinatedly,
+half-wonderingly to the neighbouring isle.
+
+"That afternoon the natives returned.  And that night on Nan-Tauach
+the silence was unbroken nor were there lights nor sign of life.
+
+"You will understand, Goodwin, how the occurrences I have related
+would excite the scientific curiosity. We rejected immediately, of
+course, any explanation admitting the supernatural.
+
+"Our--symptoms let me call them--could all very easily be accounted
+for. It is unquestionable that the vibrations created by certain
+musical instruments have definite and sometimes extraordinary effect
+upon the nervous system. We accepted this as the explanation of the
+reactions we had experienced, hearing the unfamiliar sounds. Thora's
+nervousness, her superstitious apprehensions, had wrought her up to a
+condition of semi-somnambulistic hysteria. Science could readily
+explain her part in the night's scene.
+
+"We came to the conclusion that there must be a passage-way between
+Ponape and Nan-Tauach known to the natives--and used by them during
+their rites. We decided that on the next departure of our labourers we
+would set forth immediately to Nan-Tauach. We would investigate during
+the day, and at evening my wife and Thora would go back to camp,
+leaving Stanton and me to spend the night on the island, observing
+from some safe hiding-place what might occur.
+
+"The moon waned; appeared crescent in the west; waxed slowly toward
+the full. Before the men left us they literally prayed us to accompany
+them. Their importunities only made us more eager to see what it was
+that, we were now convinced, they wanted to conceal from us. At least
+that was true of Stanton and myself. It was not true of Edith. She was
+thoughtful, abstracted--reluctant.
+
+"When the men were out of sight around the turn of the harbour, we
+took our boat and made straight for Nan-Tauach. Soon its mighty
+sea-wall towered above us. We passed through the water-gate with its
+gigantic hewn prisms of basalt and landed beside a half-submerged
+pier. In front of us stretched a series of giant steps leading into a
+vast court strewn with fragments of fallen pillars. In the centre of
+the court, beyond the shattered pillars, rose another terrace of
+basalt blocks, concealing, I knew, still another enclosure.
+
+"And now, Walter, for the better understanding of what
+follows--and--and--" he hesitated. "Should you decide later to return
+with me or, if I am taken, to--to--follow us--listen carefully to my
+description of this place: Nan-Tauach is literally three rectangles.
+The first rectangle is the sea-wall, built up of monoliths--hewn and
+squared, twenty feet wide at the top. To get to the gateway in the
+sea-wall you pass along the canal marked on the map between Nan-Tauach
+and the islet named Tau. The entrance to the canal is bidden by dense
+thickets of mangroves; once through these the way is clear. The steps
+lead up from the landing of the sea-gate through the entrance to the
+courtyard.
+
+"This courtyard is surrounded by another basalt wall, rectangular,
+following with mathematical exactness the march of the outer
+barricades. The sea-wall is from thirty to forty feet high--originally
+it must have been much higher, but there has been subsidence in parts.
+The wall of the first enclosure is fifteen feet across the top and its
+height varies from twenty to fifty feet--here, too, the gradual
+sinking of the land has caused portions of it to fall.
+
+"Within this courtyard is the second enclosure.  Its terrace, of the
+same basalt as the outer walls, is about twenty feet high. Entrance is
+gained to it by many breaches which time has made in its stonework.
+This is the inner court, the heart of Nan-Tauach! There lies the great
+central vault with which is associated the one name of living being
+that has come to us out of the mists of the past. The natives say it
+was the treasure-house of Chau-te-leur, a mighty king who reigned long
+'before their fathers.' As Chan is the ancient Ponapean word both for
+sun and king, the name means, without doubt, 'place of the sun king.'
+It is a memory of a dynastic name of the race that ruled the Pacific
+continent, now vanished--just as the rulers of ancient Crete took the
+name of Minos and the rulers of Egypt the name of Pharaoh.
+
+"And opposite this place of the sun king is the moon rock that hides
+the Moon Pool.
+
+"It was Stanton who discovered the moon rock.  We had been inspecting
+the inner courtyard; Edith and Thora were getting together our lunch.
+I came out of the vault of Chau-te-leur to find Stanton before a part
+of the terrace studying it wonderingly.
+
+"'What do you make of this?' he asked me as I came up. He pointed to
+the wall. I followed his finger and saw a slab of stone about fifteen
+feet high and ten wide. At first all I noticed was the exquisite
+nicety with which its edges joined the blocks about it. Then I
+realized that its colour was subtly different--tinged with grey and of
+a smooth, peculiar--deadness.
+
+"'Looks more like calcite than basalt,' I said.  I touched it and
+withdrew my hand quickly for at the contact every nerve in my arm
+tingled as though a shock of frozen electricity had passed through it.
+It was not cold as we know cold. It was a chill force--the phrase I
+have used--frozen electricity--describes it better than anything else.
+Stanton looked at me oddly.
+
+"'So you felt it too,' he said.  'I was wondering whether I was
+developing hallucinations like Thora. Notice, by the way, that the
+blocks beside it are quite warm beneath the sun.'
+
+"We examined the slab eagerly.  Its edges were cut as though by an
+engraver of jewels. They fitted against the neighbouring blocks in
+almost a hair-line. Its base was slightly curved, and fitted as
+closely as top and sides upon the huge stones on which it rested. And
+then we noted that these stones had been hollowed to follow the line
+of the grey stone's foot. There was a semicircular depression running
+from one side of the slab to the other. It was as though the grey rock
+stood in the centre of a shallow cup--revealing half, covering half.
+Something about this hollow attracted me. I reached down and felt it.
+Goodwin, although the balance of the stones that formed it, like all
+the stones of the courtyard, were rough and age-worn--this was as
+smooth, as even surfaced as though it had just left the hands of the
+polisher.
+
+"'It's a door!' exclaimed Stanton.  'It swings around in that little
+cup. That's what makes the hollow so smooth.'
+
+"'Maybe you're right,' I replied.  'But how the devil can we open it?'
+
+"We went over the slab again--pressing upon its edges, thrusting
+against its sides. During one of those efforts I happened to look
+up--and cried out. A foot above and on each side of the corner of the
+grey rock's lintel was a slight convexity, visible only from the angle
+at which my gaze struck it.
+
+"We carried with us a small scaling-ladder and up this I went.  The
+bosses were apparently nothing more than chiseled curvatures in the
+stone. I laid my hand on the one I was examining, and drew it back
+sharply. In my palm, at the base of my thumb, I had felt the same
+shock that I had in touching the slab below. I put my hand back. The
+impression came from a spot not more than an inch wide. I went
+carefully over the entire convexity, and six times more the chill ran
+through my arm. There were seven circles an inch wide in the curved
+place, each of which communicated the precise sensation I have
+described. The convexity on the opposite side of the slab gave exactly
+the same results. But no amount of touching or of pressing these spots
+singly or in any combination gave the slightest promise of motion to
+the slab itself.
+
+"'And yet--they're what open it,' said Stanton positively.
+
+"'Why do you say that?' I asked.
+
+"'I--don't know,' he answered hesitatingly.  'But something tells me
+so. Throck,' he went on half earnestly, half laughingly, 'the purely
+scientific part of me is fighting the purely human part of me. The
+scientific part is urging me to find some way to get that slab either
+down or open. The human part is just as strongly urging me to do
+nothing of the sort and get away while I can!'
+
+"He laughed again--shamefacedly.
+
+"'Which shall it be?' he asked--and I thought that in his tone the
+human side of him was ascendant.
+
+"'It will probably stay as it is--unless we blow it to bits,' I said.
+
+"'I thought of that,' he answered, 'and I wouldn't dare,' he added
+soberly enough. And even as I had spoken there came to me the same
+feeling that he had expressed. It was as though something passed out
+of the grey rock that struck my heart as a hand strikes an impious
+lip. We turned away--uneasily, and faced Thora coming through a breach
+on the terrace.
+
+"'Miss Edith wants you quick,' she began--and stopped. Her eyes went
+past me to the grey rock. Her body grew rigid; she took a few stiff
+steps forward and then ran straight to it. She cast herself upon its
+breast, hands and face pressed against it; we heard her scream as
+though her very soul were being drawn from her--and watched her fall
+at its foot. As we picked her up I saw steal from her face the look I
+had observed when first we heard the crystal music of
+Nan-Tauach--that unhuman mingling of opposites!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+The First Vanishings
+
+"We carried Thora back, down to where Edith was waiting. We told her
+what had happened and what we had found. She listened gravely, and as
+we finished Thora sighed and opened her eyes.
+
+"'I would like to see the stone,' she said.  'Charles, you stay here
+with Thora.' We passed through the outer court silently--and stood
+before the rock. She touched it, drew back her hand as I had; thrust
+it forward again resolutely and held it there. She seemed to be
+listening. Then she turned to me.
+
+"'David,' said my wife, and the wistfulness in her voice hurt
+me--'David, would you be very, very disappointed if we went from
+here--without trying to find out any more about it--would you?'
+
+"Walter, I never wanted anything so much in my life as I wanted to
+learn what that rock concealed. Nevertheless, I tried to master my
+desire, and I answered--'Edith, not a bit if you want us to do it.'
+
+"She read my struggle in my eyes.  She turned back toward the grey
+rock. I saw a shiver pass through her. I felt a tinge of remorse and
+pity!
+
+"'Edith,' I exclaimed, 'we'll go!'
+
+"She looked at me again.  'Science is a jealous mistress,' she quoted.
+'No, after all it may be just fancy. At any rate, you can't run away.
+No! But, Dave, I'm going to stay too!'
+
+"And there was no changing her decision.  As we neared the others she
+laid a hand on my arm.
+
+"'Dave,' she said, 'if there should be something--well--inexplicable
+tonight--something that seems--too dangerous--will you promise to go
+back to our own islet tomorrow, if we can--and wait until the natives
+return?'
+
+"I promised eagerly--the desire to stay and see what came with the
+night was like a fire within me.
+
+"We picked a place about five hundred feet away from the steps leading
+into the outer court.
+
+"The spot we had selected was well hidden.  We could not be seen, and
+yet we had a clear view of the stairs and the gateway. We settled down
+just before dusk to wait for whatever might come. I was nearest the
+giant steps; next me Edith; then Thora, and last Stanton.
+
+"Night fell.  After a time the eastern sky began to lighten, and we
+knew that the moon was rising; grew lighter still, and the orb peeped
+over the sea; swam into full sight. I glanced at Edith and then at
+Thora. My wife was intently listening. Thora sat, as she had since we
+had placed ourselves, elbows on knees, her hands covering her face.
+
+"And then from the moonlight flooding us there dripped down on me a
+great drowsiness. Sleep seemed to seep from the rays and fall upon my
+eyes, closing them--closing them inexorably. Edith's hand in mine
+relaxed. Stanton's head fell upon his breast and his body swayed
+drunkenly. I tried to rise--to fight against the profound desire for
+slumber that pressed on me.
+
+"And as I fought, Thora raised her head as though listening; and
+turned toward the gateway. There was infinite despair in her face--and
+expectancy. I tried again to rise--and a surge of sleep rushed over
+me. Dimly, as I sank within it, I heard a crystalline chiming; raised
+my lids once more with a supreme effort.
+
+"Thora, bathed in light, was standing at the top of the stairs.
+
+"Sleep took me for its very own--swept me into the heart of oblivion!
+
+"Dawn was breaking when I wakened.  Recollection rushed back; I thrust
+a panic-stricken hand out toward Edith; touched her and my heart gave
+a great leap of thankfulness. She stirred, sat up, rubbing dazed eyes.
+Stanton lay on his side, back toward us, head in arms.
+
+"Edith looked at me laughingly.  'Heavens!  What sleep!' she said.
+Memory came to her.
+
+"'What happened?' she whispered.  'What made us sleep like that?'
+
+"Stanton awoke.
+
+"'What's the matter!' he exclaimed.  'You look as though you've been
+seeing ghosts.'
+
+"Edith caught my hands.
+
+"'Where's Thora?' she cried.  Before I could answer she had run out
+into the open, calling.
+
+"'Thora was taken,' was all I could say to Stanton, 'together we went
+to my wife, now standing beside the great stone steps, looking up
+fearfully at the gateway into the terraces. There I told them what I
+had seen before sleep had drowned me. And together then we ran up the
+stairs, through the court and to the grey rock.
+
+"The slab was closed as it had been the day before, nor was there
+trace of its having opened. No trace? Even as I thought this Edith
+dropped to her knees before it and reached toward something lying at
+its foot. It was a little piece of gay silk. I knew it for part of the
+kerchief Thora wore about her hair. She lifted the fragment. It had
+been cut from the kerchief as though by a razor-edge; a few threads
+ran from it--down toward the base of the slab; ran on to the base of
+the grey rock and--under it!
+
+"The grey rock was a door!  And it had opened and Thora had passed
+through it!
+
+"I think that for the next few minutes we all were a little insane.
+We beat upon that portal with our hands, with stones and sticks. At
+last reason came back to us.
+
+"Goodwin, during the next two hours we tried every way in our power to
+force entrance through the slab. The rock resisted our drills. We
+tried explosions at the base with charges covered by rock. They made
+not the slightest impression on the surface, expending their force, of
+course, upon the slighter resistance of their coverings.
+
+"Afternoon found us hopeless.  Night was coming on and we would have
+to decide our course of action. I wanted to go to Ponape for help. But
+Edith objected that this would take hours and after we had reached
+there it would be impossible to persuade our men to return with us
+that night, if at all. What then was left? Clearly only one of two
+choices: to go back to our camp, wait for our men, and on their return
+try to persuade them to go with us to Nan-Tauach. But this would mean
+the abandonment of Thora for at least two days. We could not do it; it
+would have been too cowardly.
+
+"The other choice was to wait where we were for night to come; to wait
+for the rock to open as it had the night before, and to make a sortie
+through it for Thora before it could close again.
+
+"Our path lay clear before us.  We had to spend that night on
+Nan-Tauach!
+
+"We had, of course, discussed the sleep phenomena very fully.  If our
+theory that lights, sounds, and Thora's disappearance were linked with
+secret religious rites of the natives, the logical inference was that
+the slumber had been produced by them, perhaps by vapours--you know as
+well as I, what extraordinary knowledge these Pacific peoples have of
+such things. Or the sleep might have been simply a coincidence and
+produced by emanations either gaseous or from plants, natural causes
+which had happened to coincide in their effects with the other
+manifestations. We made some rough and ready but effective
+respirators.
+
+"As dusk fell we looked over our weapons.  Edith was an excellent shot
+with both rifle and pistol. We had decided that my wife was to remain
+in the hiding-place. Stanton would take up a station on the far side
+of the stairway and I would place myself opposite him on the side near
+Edith. The place I picked out was less than two hundred feet from her,
+and I could reassure myself now and then as to her safety as it looked
+down upon the hollow wherein she crouched. From our respective
+stations Stanton and I could command the gateway entrance. His
+position gave him also a glimpse of the outer courtyard.
+
+"A faint glow in the sky heralded the moon.  Stanton and I took our
+places. The moon dawn increased rapidly; the disk swam up, and in a
+moment it was shining in full radiance upon ruins and sea.
+
+"As it rose there came a curious little sighing sound from the inner
+terrace. Stanton straightened up and stared intently through the
+gateway, rifle ready.
+
+"'Stanton, what do you see?' I called cautiously.  He waved a
+silencing hand. I turned my head to look at Edith. A shock ran through
+me. She lay upon her side. Her face, grotesque with its nose and mouth
+covered by the respirator, was turned full toward the moon. She was
+again in deepest sleep!
+
+"As I turned again to call to Stanton, my eyes swept the head of the
+steps and stopped, fascinated. For the moonlight had thickened. It
+seemed to be--curdled--there; and through it ran little gleams and
+veins of shimmering white fire. A languor passed through me. It was
+not the ineffable drowsiness of the preceding night. It was a sapping
+of all will to move. I tried to cry out to Stanton. I had not even the
+will to move my lips. Goodwin--I could not even move my eyes!
+
+"Stanton was in the range of my fixed vision.  I watched him leap up
+the steps and move toward the gateway. The curdled radiance seemed to
+await him. He stepped into it--and was lost to my sight.
+
+"For a dozen heart beats there was silence.  Then a rain of tinklings
+that set the pulses racing with joy and at once checked them with tiny
+fingers of ice--and ringing through them Stanton's voice from the
+courtyard--a great cry--a scream--filled with ecstasy insupportable
+and horror unimaginable! And once more there was silence. I strove to
+burst the bonds that held me. I could not. Even my eyelids were fixed.
+Within them my eyes, dry and aching, burned.
+
+"Then Goodwin--I first saw the--inexplicable!  The crystalline music
+swelled. Where I sat I could take in the gateway and its basalt
+portals, rough and broken, rising to the top of the wall forty feet
+above, shattered, ruined portals--unclimbable. From this gateway an
+intenser light began to flow. It grew, it gushed, and out of it walked
+Stanton.
+
+"Stanton!  But--God!  What a vision!"
+
+A deep tremor shook him.  I waited--waited.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+Into the Moon Pool
+
+"Goodwin," Throckmartin went on at last, "I can describe him only as a
+thing of living light. He radiated light; was filled with light;
+overflowed with it. A shining cloud whirled through and around him in
+radiant swirls, shimmering tentacles, luminescent, coruscating
+spirals.
+
+"His face shone with a rapture too great to be borne by living man,
+and was shadowed with insuperable misery. It was as though it had been
+remoulded by the hand of God and the hand of Satan, working together
+and in harmony. You have seen that seal upon my own. But you have
+never seen it in the degree that Stanton bore it. The eyes were wide
+open and fixed, as though upon some inward vision of hell and heaven!
+
+"The light that filled and surrounded him had a nucleus, a
+core--something shiftingly human shaped--that dissolved and changed,
+gathered itself, whirled through and beyond him and back again. And as
+its shining nucleus passed through him Stanton's whole body pulsed
+radiance. As the luminescence moved, there moved above it, still and
+serene always, seven tiny globes of seven colors, like seven little
+moons.
+
+"Then swiftly Stanton was lifted--levitated--up the unscalable wall
+and to its top. The glow faded from the moonlight, the tinkling music
+grew fainter. I tried again to move. The tears were running down now
+from my rigid lids and they brought relief to my tortured eyes.
+
+"I have said my gaze was fixed.  It was.  But from the side,
+peripherally, it took in a part of the far wall of the outer
+enclosure. Ages seemed to pass and a radiance stole along it. Soon
+drifted into sight the figure that was Stanton. Far away he was--on
+the gigantic wall. But still I could see the shining spirals whirling
+jubilantly around and through him; felt rather than saw his tranced
+face beneath the seven moons. A swirl of crystal notes, and he had
+passed. And all the time, as though from some opened well of light,
+the courtyard gleamed and sent out silver fires that dimmed the
+moonrays, yet seemed strangely to be a part of them.
+
+"At last the moon neared the horizon.  There came a louder burst of
+sound; the second, and last, cry of Stanton, like an echo of his
+first! Again the soft sighing from the inner terrace. Then--utter
+silence!
+
+"The light faded; the moon was setting and with a rush life and power
+to move returned to me. I made a leap for the steps, rushed up them,
+through the gateway and straight to the grey rock. It was closed--as I
+knew it would be. But did I dream it or did I hear, echoing through it
+as though from vast distances a triumphant shouting?
+
+"I ran back to Edith.  At my touch she wakened; looked at me
+wanderingly; raised herself on a hand.
+
+"'Dave!' she said, 'I slept--after all.' She saw the despair on my
+face and leaped to her feet. 'Dave!' she cried. 'What is it? Where's
+Charles?'
+
+"I lighted a fire before I spoke.  Then I told her.  And for the
+balance of that night we sat before the flames, arms around each
+other--like two frightened children."
+
+Abruptly Throckmartin held his hands out to me appealingly.
+
+"Walter, old friend!" he cried.  "Don't look at me as though I were
+mad. It's truth, absolute truth. Wait--" I comforted him as well as I
+could. After a little time he took up his story.
+
+"Never," he said, "did man welcome the sun as we did that morning.  A
+soon as it had risen we went back to the courtyard. The walls whereon
+I had seen Stanton were black and silent. The terraces were as they
+had been. The grey slab was in its place. In the shallow hollow at its
+base was--nothing. Nothing--nothing was there anywhere on the islet
+of Stanton--not a trace.
+
+"What were we to do?  Precisely the same arguments that had kept us
+there the night before held good now--and doubly good. We could not
+abandon these two; could not go as long as there was the faintest hope
+of finding them--and yet for love of each other how could we remain? I
+loved my wife,--how much I never knew until that day; and she loved me
+as deeply.
+
+"'It takes only one each night,' she pleaded.  'Beloved, let it take
+me.'
+
+"I wept, Walter.  We both wept.
+
+"'We will meet it together,' she said.  And it was thus at last that
+we arranged it."
+
+"That took great courage indeed, Throckmartin," I interrupted.  He
+looked at me eagerly.
+
+"You do believe then?" he exclaimed.
+
+"I believe," I said.  He pressed my hand with a grip that nearly
+crushed it.
+
+"Now," he told me.  "I do not fear.  If I--fail, you will follow with
+help?"
+
+I promised.
+
+"We talked it over carefully," he went on, "bringing to bear all our
+power of analysis and habit of calm, scientific thought. We considered
+minutely the time element in the phenomena. Although the deep chanting
+began at the very moment of moonrise, fully five minutes had passed
+between its full lifting and the strange sighing sound from the inner
+terrace. I went back in memory over the happenings of the night
+before. At least ten minutes had intervened between the first
+heralding sigh and the intensification of the moonlight in the
+courtyard. And this glow grew for at least ten minutes more before the
+first burst of the crystal notes. Indeed, more than half an hour must
+have elapsed, I calculated, between the moment the moon showed above
+the horizon and the first delicate onslaught of the tinklings.
+
+"'Edith!' I cried.  'I think I have it!  The grey rock opens five
+minutes after upon the moonrise. But whoever or whatever it is that
+comes through it must wait until the moon has risen higher, or else it
+must come from a distance. The thing to do is not to wait for it, but
+to surprise it before it passes out the door. We will go into the
+inner court early. You will take your rifle and pistol and hide
+yourself where you can command the opening--if the slab does open. The
+instant it opens I will enter. It's our best chance, Edith. I think
+it's our only one.'
+
+"My wife demurred strongly.  She wanted to go with me. But I convinced
+her that it was better for her to stand guard without, prepared to
+help me if I were forced again into the open by what lay behind the
+rock.
+
+"At the half-hour before moonrise we went into the inner court.  I
+took my place at the side of the grey rock. Edith crouched behind a
+broken pillar twenty feet away; slipped her rifle-barrel over it so
+that it would cover the opening.
+
+"The minutes crept by.  The darkness lessened and through the breaches
+of the terrace I watched the far sky softly lighten. With the first
+pale flush the silence of the place intensified. It deepened; became
+unbearably--expectant. The moon rose, showed the quarter, the half,
+then swam up into full sight like a great bubble.
+
+"Its rays fell upon the wall before me and suddenly upon the
+convexities I have described seven little circles of light sprang out.
+They gleamed, glimmered, grew brighter--shone. The gigantic slab
+before me glowed with them, silver wavelets of phosphorescence pulsed
+over its surface and then--it turned as though on a pivot, sighing
+softly as it moved!
+
+"With a word to Edith I flung myself through the opening. A tunnel
+stretched before me. It glowed with the same faint silvery radiance.
+Down it I raced. The passage turned abruptly, passed parallel to the
+walls of the outer courtyard and then once more led downward.
+
+"The passage ended.  Before me was a high vaulted arch. It seemed to
+open into space; a space filled with lambent, coruscating,
+many-coloured mist whose brightness grew even as I watched. I passed
+through the arch and stopped in sheer awe!
+
+"In front of me was a pool.  It was circular, perhaps twenty feet
+wide. Around it ran a low, softly curved lip of glimmering silvery
+stone. Its water was palest blue. The pool with its silvery rim was
+like a great blue eye staring upward.
+
+"Upon it streamed seven shafts of radiance.  They poured down upon the
+blue eye like cylindrical torrents; they were like shining pillars of
+light rising from a sapphire floor.
+
+"One was the tender pink of the pearl; one of the aurora's green; a
+third a deathly white; the fourth the blue in mother-of-pearl; a
+shimmering column of pale amber; a beam of amethyst; a shaft of molten
+silver. Such are the colours of the seven lights that stream upon the
+Moon Pool. I drew closer, awestricken. The shafts did not illumine the
+depths. They played upon the surface and seemed there to diffuse, to
+melt into it. The Pool drank them?
+
+"Through the water tiny gleams of phosphorescence began to dart,
+sparkles and coruscations of pale incandescence. And far, far below I
+sensed a movement, a shifting glow as of a radiant body slowly rising.
+
+"I looked upward, following the radiant pillars to their source.  Far
+above were seven shining globes, and it was from these that the rays
+poured. Even as I watched their brightness grew. They were like seven
+moons set high in some caverned heaven. Slowly their splendour
+increased, and with it the splendour of the seven beams streaming from
+them.
+
+"I tore my gaze away and stared at the Pool.  It had grown milky,
+opalescent. The rays gushing into it seemed to be filling it; it was
+alive with sparklings, scintillations, glimmerings. And the
+luminescence I had seen rising from its depths was larger, nearer!
+
+"A swirl of mist floated up from its surface.  It drifted within the
+embrace of the rosy beam and hung there for a moment. The beam seemed
+to embrace it, sending through it little shining corpuscles, tiny rosy
+spiralings. The mist absorbed the rays, was strengthened by them,
+gained substance. Another swirl sprang into the amber shaft, clung and
+fed there, moved swiftly toward the first and mingled with it. And now
+other swirls arose, here and there, too fast to be counted; hung
+poised in the embrace of the light streams; flashed and pulsed into
+each other.
+
+"Thicker and thicker still they arose until over the surface of the
+Pool was a pulsating pillar of opalescent mist steadily growing
+stronger; drawing within it life from the seven beams falling upon it;
+drawing to it from below the darting, incandescent atoms of the Pool.
+Into its centre was passing the luminescence rising from the far
+depths. And the pillar glowed, throbbed--began to send out questing
+swirls and tendrils--
+
+"There forming before me was That which had walked with Stanton, which
+had taken Thora--the thing I had come to find!
+
+"My brain sprang into action.  My hand threw up the pistol and I fired
+shot after shot into the shining core.
+
+"As I fired, it swayed and shook; gathered again.  I slipped a second
+clip into the automatic and another idea coming to me took careful aim
+at one of the globes in the roof. From thence I knew came the force
+that shaped this Dweller in the Pool--from the pouring rays came its
+strength. If I could destroy them I could check its forming. I fired
+again and again. If I hit the globes I did no damage. The little motes
+in their beams danced with the motes in the mist, troubled. That was
+all.
+
+"But up from the Pool like little bells, like tiny bursting bubbles of
+glass, swarmed the tinkling sounds--their pitch higher, all their
+sweetness lost, angry.
+
+"And out from the Inexplicable swept a shining spiral.
+
+"It caught me above the heart; wrapped itself around me. There rushed
+through me a mingled ecstasy and horror. Every atom of me quivered
+with delight and shrank with despair. There was nothing loathsome in
+it. But it was as though the icy soul of evil and the fiery soul of
+good had stepped together within me. The pistol dropped from my hand.
+
+"So I stood while the Pool gleamed and sparkled; the streams of light
+grew more intense and the radiant Thing that held me gleamed and
+strengthened. Its shining core had shape--but a shape that my eyes and
+brain could not define. It was as though a being of another sphere
+should assume what it might of human semblance, but was not able to
+conceal that what human eyes saw was but a part of it. It was neither
+man nor woman; it was unearthly and androgynous. Even as I found its
+human semblance it changed. And still the mingled rapture and terror
+held me. Only in a little corner of my brain dwelt something
+untouched; something that held itself apart and watched. Was it the
+soul? I have never believed--and yet--
+
+"Over the head of the misty body there sprang suddenly out seven
+little lights. Each was the colour of the beam beneath which it
+rested. I knew now that the Dweller was--complete!
+
+"I heard a scream.  It was Edith's voice.  It came to me that she had
+heard the shots and followed me. I felt every faculty concentrate into
+a mighty effort. I wrenched myself free from the gripping tentacle and
+it swept back. I turned to catch Edith, and as I did so slipped--fell.
+
+"The radiant shape above the Pool leaped swiftly--and straight into it
+raced Edith, arms outstretched to shield me from it! God!
+
+"She threw herself squarely within its splendour," he whispered.  "It
+wrapped its shining self around her. The crystal tinklings burst forth
+jubilantly. The light filled her, ran through and around her as it had
+with Stanton; and dropped down upon her face--the look!
+
+"But her rush had taken her to the very verge of the Moon Pool.  She
+tottered; she fell--with the radiance still holding her, still
+swirling and winding around and through her--into the Moon Pool! She
+sank, and with her went--the Dweller!
+
+"I dragged myself to the brink.  Far down was a shining, many-coloured
+nebulous cloud descending; out of it peered Edith's face,
+disappearing; her eyes stared up at me--and she vanished!
+
+"'Edith!' I cried again.  'Edith, come back to me!'
+
+"And then a darkness fell upon me.  I remember running back through
+the shimmering corridors and out into the courtyard. Reason had left
+me. When it returned I was far out at sea in our boat wholly estranged
+from civilization. A day later I was picked up by the schooner in
+which I came to Port Moresby.
+
+"I have formed a plan; you must hear it, Goodwin--" He fell upon his
+berth. I bent over him. Exhaustion and the relief of telling his story
+had been too much for him. He slept like the dead.
+
+All that night I watched over him.  When dawn broke I went to my room
+to get a little sleep myself. But my slumber was haunted.
+
+The next day the storm was unabated.  Throckmartin came to me at
+lunch. He had regained much of his old alertness.
+
+"Come to my cabin," he said.  There, he stripped his shirt from him.
+"Something is happening," he said. "The mark is smaller." It was as he
+said.
+
+"I'm escaping," he whispered jubilantly, "Just let me get to Melbourne
+safely, and then we'll see who'll win! For, Walter, I'm not at all
+sure that Edith is dead--as we know death--nor that the others are.
+There is something outside experience there--some great mystery."
+
+And all that day he talked to me of his plans.
+
+"There's a natural explanation, of course," he said.  "My theory is
+that the moon rock is of some composition sensitive to the action of
+moon rays; somewhat as the metal selenium is to sun rays. The little
+circles over the top are, without doubt, its operating agency. When
+the light strikes them they release the mechanism that opens the slab,
+just as you can open doors with sun or electric light by an ingenious
+arrangement of selenium-cells. Apparently it takes the strength of the
+full moon both to do this and to summon the Dweller in the Pool. We
+will first try a concentration of the rays of the waning moon upon
+these circles to see whether that will open the rock. If it does we
+will be able to investigate the Pool without interruption
+from--from--what emanates.
+
+"Look, here on the chart are their locations.  I have made this in
+duplicate for you in the event--of something happening--to me. And if
+I lose--you'll come after us, Goodwin, with help--won't you?"
+
+And again I promised.
+
+A little later he complained of increasing sleepiness.
+
+"But it's just weariness," he said.  "Not at all like that other
+drowsiness. It's an hour till moonrise still," he yawned at last.
+"Wake me up a good fifteen minutes before."
+
+He lay upon the berth.  I sat thinking.  I came to myself with a
+guilty start. I had completely lost myself in my deep preoccupation.
+What time was it? I looked at my watch and jumped to the port-hole. It
+was full moonlight; the orb had been up for fully half an hour. I
+strode over to Throckmartin and shook him by the shoulder.
+
+"Up, quick, man!" I cried.  He rose sleepily.  His shirt fell open at
+the neck and I looked, in amazement, at the white band around his
+chest. Even under the electric light it shone softly, as though little
+flecks of light were in it.
+
+Throckmartin seemed only half-awake.  He looked down at his breast,
+saw the glowing cincture, and smiled.
+
+"Yes," he said drowsily, "it's coming--to take me back to Edith!
+Well, I'm glad."
+
+"Throckmartin!" I cried.  "Wake up!  Fight!"
+
+"Fight!" he said.  "No use; come after us!"
+
+He went to the port and sleepily drew aside the curtain. The moon
+traced a broad path of light straight to the ship. Under its rays the
+band around his chest gleamed brighter and brighter; shot forth little
+rays; seemed to writhe.
+
+The lights went out in the cabin; evidently also throughout the ship,
+for I heard shoutings above.
+
+Throckmartin still stood at the open port.  Over his shoulder I saw a
+gleaming pillar racing along the moon path toward us. Through the
+window cascaded a blinding radiance. It gathered Throckmartin to it,
+clothed him in a robe of living opalescence. Light pulsed through and
+from him. The cabin filled with murmurings--
+
+A wave of weakness swept over me, buried me in blackness.  When
+consciousness came back, the lights were again burning brightly.
+
+But of Throckmartin there was no trace!
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+"The Shining Devil Took Them!"
+
+My colleagues of the Association, and you others who may read this my
+narrative, for what I did and did not when full realization returned I
+must offer here, briefly as I can, an explanation; a defense--if you
+will.
+
+My first act was to spring to the open port.  The coma had lasted
+hours, for the moon was now low in the west! I ran to the door to
+sound the alarm. It resisted under my frantic hands; would not open.
+Something fell tinkling to the floor. It was the key and I remembered
+then that Throckmartin had turned it before we began our vigil. With
+memory a hope died that I had not known was in me, the hope that he
+had escaped from the cabin, found refuge elsewhere on the ship.
+
+And as I stooped, fumbling with shaking fingers for the key, a thought
+came to me that drove again the blood from my heart, held me rigid. I
+could sound no alarm on the Southern Queen for Throckmartin!
+
+Conviction of my appalling helplessness was complete. The ensemble of
+the vessel from captain to cabin boy was, to put it conservatively,
+average. None, I knew, save Throckmartin and myself had seen the first
+apparition of the Dweller. Had they witnessed the second? I did not
+know, nor could I risk speaking, not knowing. And not seeing, how
+could they believe? They would have thought me insane--or worse;
+even, it might be, his murderer.
+
+I snapped off the electrics; waited and listened; opened the door with
+infinite caution and slipped, unseen, into my own stateroom. The hours
+until the dawn were eternities of waking nightmare. Reason, resuming
+sway at last, steadied me. Even had I spoken and been believed where
+in these wastes after all the hours could we search for Throckmartin?
+Certainly the captain would not turn back to Port Moresby. And even if
+he did, of what use for me to set forth for the Nan-Matal without the
+equipment which Throckmartin himself had decided was necessary if one
+hoped to cope with the mystery that lurked there?
+
+There was but one thing to do--follow his instructions; get the
+paraphernalia in Melbourne or Sydney if it were possible; if not sail
+to America as swiftly as might be, secure it there and as swiftly
+return to Ponape. And this I determined to do.
+
+Calmness came back to me after I had made this decision. And when I
+went up on deck I knew that I had been right. They had not seen the
+Dweller. They were still discussing the darkening of the ship, talking
+of dynamos burned out, wires short circuited, a half dozen
+explanations of the extinguishment. Not until noon was Throckmartin's
+absence discovered. I told the captain that I had left him early in
+the evening; that, indeed, I knew him but slightly, after all. It
+occurred to none to doubt me, or to question me minutely. Why should
+it have? His strangeness had been noted, commented upon; all who had
+met him had thought him half mad. I did little to discourage the
+impression. And so it came naturally that on the log it was entered
+that he had fallen or leaped from the vessel some time during the
+night.
+
+A report to this effect was made when we entered Melbourne.  I slipped
+quietly ashore and in the press of the war news Throckmartin's
+supposed fate won only a few lines in the newspapers; my own presence
+on the ship and in the city passed unnoticed.
+
+I was fortunate in securing at Melbourne everything I needed except a
+set of Becquerel ray condensers--but these were the very keystone of
+my equipment. Pursuing my search to Sydney I was doubly fortunate in
+finding a firm who were expecting these very articles in a consignment
+due them from the States within a fortnight. I settled down in
+strictest seclusion to await their arrival.
+
+And now it will occur to you to ask why I did not cable, during this
+period of waiting, to the Association; demand aid from it. Or why I
+did not call upon members of the University staffs of either Melbourne
+or Sydney for assistance. At the least, why I did not gather, as
+Throckmartin had hoped to do, a little force of strong men to go with
+me to the Nan-Matal.
+
+To the first two questions I answer frankly--I did not dare. And this
+reluctance, this inhibition, every man jealous of his scientific
+reputation will understand. The story of Throckmartin, the happenings
+I had myself witnessed, were incredible, abnormal, outside the facts
+of all known science. I shrank from the inevitable disbelief, perhaps
+ridicule--nay, perhaps even the graver suspicion that had caused me to
+seal my lips while on the ship. Why I myself could only half believe!
+How then could I hope to convince others?
+
+And as for the third question--I could not take men into the range of
+such a peril without first warning them of what they might encounter;
+and if I did warn them--
+
+It was checkmate!  If it also was cowardice--well, I have atoned for
+it. But I do not hold it so; my conscience is clear.
+
+That fortnight and the greater part of another passed before the ship
+I awaited steamed into port. By that time, between my straining
+anxiety to be after Throckmartin, the despairing thought that every
+moment of delay might be vital to him and his, and my intensely eager
+desire to know whether that shining, glorious horror on the moon path
+did exist or had been hallucination, I was worn almost to the edge of
+madness.
+
+At last the condensers were in my hands.  It was more than a week
+later, however, before I could secure passage back to Port Moresby and
+it was another week still before I started north on the Suwarna, a
+swift little sloop with a fifty-horsepower auxiliary, heading straight
+for Ponape and the Nan-Matal.
+
+We sighted the Brunhilda some five hundred miles south of the
+Carolines. The wind had fallen soon after Papua had dropped astern.
+The Suwarna's ability to make her twelve knots an hour without it had
+made me very fully forgive her for not being as fragrant as the Javan
+flower for which she was named. Da Costa, her captain, was a
+garrulous Portuguese; his mate was a Canton man with all the marks of
+long and able service on some pirate junk; his engineer was a
+half-breed China-Malay who had picked up his knowledge of power
+plants, Heaven alone knew where, and, I had reason to believe, had
+transferred all his religious impulses to the American built deity of
+mechanism he so faithfully served. The crew was made up of six huge,
+chattering Tonga boys.
+
+The Suwarna had cut through Finschafen Huon Gulf to the protection of
+the Bismarcks. She had threaded the maze of the archipelago
+tranquilly, and we were then rolling over the thousand-mile stretch of
+open ocean with New Hanover far behind us and our boat's bow pointed
+straight toward Nukuor of the Monte Verdes. After we had rounded
+Nukuor we should, barring accident, reach Ponape in not more than
+sixty hours.
+
+It was late afternoon, and on the demure little breeze that marched
+behind us came far-flung sighs of spice-trees and nutmeg flowers. The
+slow prodigious swells of the Pacific lifted us in gentle, giant hands
+and sent us as gently down the long, blue wave slopes to the next
+broad, upward slope. There was a spell of peace over the ocean,
+stilling even the Portuguese captain who stood dreamily at the wheel,
+slowly swaying to the rhythmic lift and fall of the sloop.
+
+There came a whining hail from the Tonga boy lookout draped lazily
+over the bow.
+
+"Sail he b'long port side!"
+
+Da Costa straightened and gazed while I raised my glass. The vessel
+was a scant mile away, and must have been visible long before the
+sleepy watcher had seen her. She was a sloop about the size of the
+Suwarna, without power. All sails set, even to a spinnaker she
+carried, she was making the best of the little breeze. I tried to read
+her name, but the vessel jibed sharply as though the hands of the man
+at the wheel had suddenly dropped the helm--and then with equal
+abruptness swung back to her course. The stern came in sight, and on
+it I read Brunhilda.
+
+I shifted my glasses to the man at wheel.  He was crouching down over
+the spokes in a helpless, huddled sort of way, and even as I looked
+the vessel veered again, abruptly as before. I saw the helmsman
+straighten up and bring the wheel about with a vicious jerk.
+
+He stood so for a moment, looking straight ahead, entirely oblivious
+of us, and then seemed again to sink down within himself. It came to
+me that his was the action of a man striving vainly against a
+weariness unutterable. I swept the deck with my glasses. There was no
+other sign of life. I turned to find the Portuguese staring intently
+and with puzzled air at the sloop, now separated from us by a scant
+half mile.
+
+"Something veree wrong I think there, sair," he said in his curious
+English. "The man on deck I know. He is captain and owner of the
+Br-rwun'ild. His name Olaf Huldricksson, what you say--Norwegian. He
+is eithair veree sick or veree tired--but I do not undweerstand where
+is the crew and the starb'd boat is gone--"
+
+He shouted an order to the engineer and as he did so the faint breeze
+failed and the sails of the Brunhilda flapped down inert. We were now
+nearly abreast and a scant hundred yards away. The engine of the
+Suwarna died and the Tonga boys leaped to one of the boats.
+
+"You Olaf Huldricksson!" shouted Da Costa.  "What's a matter wit'
+you?"
+
+The man at the wheel turned toward us.  He was a giant; his shoulders
+enormous, thick chested, strength in every line of him, he towered
+like a viking of old at the rudder bar of his shark ship.
+
+I raised the glass again; his face sprang into the lens and never have
+I seen a visage lined and marked as though by ages of unsleeping
+misery as was that of Olaf Huldricksson!
+
+The Tonga boys had the boat alongside and were waiting at the oars.
+The little captain was dropping into it.
+
+"Wait!" I cried.  I ran into my cabin, grasped my emergency medical
+kit and climbed down the rope ladder. The Tonga boys bent to the oars.
+We reached the side and Da Costa and I each seized a lanyard dangling
+from the stays and swung ourselves on board. Da Costa approached
+Huldricksson softly.
+
+"What's the matter, Olaf?" he began--and then was silent, looking down
+at the wheel. The hands of Huldricksson were lashed fast to the spokes
+by thongs of thin, strong cord; they were swollen and black and the
+thongs had bitten into the sinewy wrists till they were hidden in the
+outraged flesh, cutting so deeply that blood fell, slow drop by drop,
+at his feet! We sprang toward him, reaching out hands to his fetters
+to loose them. Even as we touched them, Huldricksson aimed a vicious
+kick at me and then another at Da Costa which sent the Portuguese
+tumbling into the scuppers.
+
+"Let be!" croaked Huldricksson; his voice was thick and lifeless as
+though forced from a dead throat; his lips were cracked and dry and
+his parched tongue was black. "Let be! Go! Let be!"
+
+The Portuguese had picked himself up, whimpering with rage and knife
+in hand, but as Huldricksson's voice reached him he stopped.
+Amazement crept into his eyes and as he thrust the blade back into
+his belt they softened with pity.
+
+"Something veree wrong wit' Olaf," he murmured to me. "I think he
+crazee!" And then Olaf Huldricksson began to curse us. He did not
+speak--he howled from that hideously dry mouth his imprecations. And
+all the time his red eyes roamed the seas and his hands, clenched and
+rigid on the wheel, dropped blood.
+
+"I go below," said Da Costa nervously.  "His wife, his daughter--" he
+darted down the companionway and was gone.
+
+Huldricksson, silent once more, had slumped down over the wheel.
+
+Da Costa's head appeared at the top of the companion steps.
+
+"There is nobody, nobody," he paused--then--"nobody--nowhere!" His
+hands flew out in a gesture of hopeless incomprehension. "I do not
+understan'."
+
+Then Olaf Huldricksson opened his dry lips and as he spoke a chill ran
+through me, checking my heart.
+
+"The sparkling devil took them!" croaked Olaf Huldricksson, "the
+sparkling devil took them! Took my Helma and my little Freda! The
+sparkling devil came down from the moon and took them!"
+
+He swayed; tears dripped down his cheeks.  Da Costa moved toward him
+again and again Huldricksson watched him, alertly, wickedly, from his
+bloodshot eyes.
+
+I took a hypodermic from my case and filled it with morphine.  I drew
+Da Costa to me.
+
+"Get to the side of him," I whispered, "talk to him." He moved over
+toward the wheel.
+
+"Where is your Helma and Freda, Olaf?" he said.
+
+Huldricksson turned his head toward him.  "The shining devil took
+them," he croaked. "The moon devil that spark--"
+
+A yell broke from him.  I had thrust the needle into his arm just
+above one swollen wrist and had quickly shot the drug through. He
+struggled to release himself and then began to rock drunkenly. The
+morphine, taking him in his weakness, worked quickly. Soon over his
+face a peace dropped. The pupils of the staring eyes contracted. Once,
+twice, he swayed and then, his bleeding, prisoned hands held high and
+still gripping the wheel, he crumpled to the deck.
+
+With utmost difficulty we loosed the thongs, but at last it was done.
+We rigged a little swing and the Tonga boys slung the great inert body
+over the side into the dory. Soon we had Huldricksson in my bunk. Da
+Costa sent half his crew over to the sloop in charge of the Cantonese.
+They took in all sail, stripping Huldricksson's boat to the masts and
+then with the Brunhilda nosing quietly along after us at the end of a
+long hawser, one of the Tonga boys at her wheel, we resumed the way so
+enigmatically interrupted.
+
+I cleansed and bandaged the Norseman's lacerated wrists and sponged
+the blackened, parched mouth with warm water and a mild antiseptic.
+
+Suddenly I was aware of Da Costa's presence and turned. His unease was
+manifest and held, it seemed to me, a queer, furtive anxiety.
+
+"What you think of Olaf, sair?" he asked.  I shrugged my shoulders.
+"You think he killed his woman and his babee?" He went on. "You think
+he crazee and killed all?"
+
+"Nonsense, Da Costa," I answered.  "You saw the boat was gone.  Most
+probably his crew mutinied and to torture him tied him up the way you
+saw. They did the same thing with Hilton of the Coral Lady; you'll
+remember."
+
+"No," he said.  "No.  The crew did not.  Nobody there on board when
+Olaf was tied."
+
+"What!" I cried, startled.  "What do you mean?"
+
+"I mean," he said slowly, "that Olaf tie himself!"
+
+"Wait!" he went on at my incredulous gesture of dissent. "Wait, I show
+you." He had been standing with hands behind his back and now I saw
+that he held in them the cut thongs that had bound Huldricksson. They
+were blood-stained and each ended in a broad leather tip skilfully
+spliced into the cord. "Look," he said, pointing to these leather
+ends. I looked and saw in them deep indentations of teeth. I snatched
+one of the thongs and opened the mouth of the unconscious man on the
+bunk. Carefully I placed the leather within it and gently forced the
+jaws shut on it. It was true. Those marks were where Olaf
+Huldricksson's jaws had gripped.
+
+"Wait!" Da Costa repeated, "I show you." He took other cords and
+rested his hands on the supports of a chair back. Rapidly he twisted
+one of the thongs around his left hand, drew a loose knot, shifted the
+cord up toward his elbow. This left wrist and hand still free and with
+them he twisted the other cord around the right wrist; drew a similar
+knot. His hands were now in the exact position that Huldricksson's had
+been on the Brunhilda but with cords and knots hanging loose. Then Da
+Costa reached down his head, took a leather end in his teeth and with
+a jerk drew the thong that noosed his left hand tight; similarly he
+drew tight the second.
+
+He strained at his fetters.  There before my eyes he had pinioned
+himself so that without aid he could not release himself. And he was
+exactly as Huldricksson had been!
+
+"You will have to cut me loose, sair," he said.  "I cannot move them.
+It is an old trick on these seas. Sometimes it is necessary that a man
+stand at the wheel many hours without help, and he does this so that
+if he sleep the wheel wake him, yes, sair."
+
+I looked from him to the man on the bed.
+
+"But why, sair," said Da Costa slowly, "did Olaf have to tie his
+hands?"
+
+I looked at him, uneasily.
+
+"I don't know," I answered.  "Do you?"
+
+He fidgeted, avoided my eyes, and then rapidly, almost surreptitiously
+crossed himself.
+
+"No," he replied.  "I know nothing.  Some things I have heard--but
+they tell many tales on these seas."
+
+He started for the door.  Before he reached it he turned. "But this I
+do know," he half whispered, "I am damned glad there is no full moon
+tonight." And passed out, leaving me staring after him in amazement.
+What did the Portuguese know?
+
+I bent over the sleeper.  On his face was no trace of that unholy
+mingling of opposites the Dweller stamped upon its victims.
+
+And yet--what was it the Norseman had said?
+
+"The sparkling devil took them!"  Nay, he had been even more
+explicit--"The sparkling devil that came down from the moon!"
+
+Could it be that the Dweller had swept upon the Brunhilda, drawing
+down the moon path Olaf Huldricksson's wife and babe even as it had
+drawn Throckmartin?
+
+As I sat thinking the cabin grew suddenly dark and from above came a
+shouting and patter of feet. Down upon us swept one of the abrupt,
+violent squalls that are met with in those latitudes. I lashed
+Huldricksson fast in the berth and ran up on deck.
+
+The long, peaceful swells had changed into angry, choppy waves from
+the tops of which the spindrift streamed in long stinging lashes.
+
+A half-hour passed; the squall died as quickly as it had arisen.  The
+sea quieted. Over in the west, from beneath the tattered, flying edge
+of the storm, dropped the red globe of the setting sun; dropped slowly
+until it touched the sea rim.
+
+I watched it--and rubbed my eyes and stared again.  For over its
+flaming portal something huge and black moved, like a gigantic
+beckoning finger!
+
+Da Costa had seen it, too, and he turned the Suwarna straight toward
+the descending orb and its strange shadow. As we approached we saw it
+was a little mass of wreckage and that the beckoning finger was a wing
+of canvas, sticking up and swaying with the motion of the waves. On
+the highest point of the wreckage sat a tall figure calmly smoking a
+cigarette.
+
+We brought the Suwarna to, dropped a boat, and with myself as coxswain
+pulled toward a wrecked hydroairplane. Its occupant took a long puff
+at his cigarette, waved a cheerful hand, shouted a greeting. And just
+as he did so a great wave raised itself up behind him, took the
+wreckage, tossed it high in a swelter of foam, and passed on. When we
+had steadied our boat, where wreck and man had been was--nothing.
+
+There came a tug at the side--, two muscular brown hands gripped it
+close to my left, and a sleek, black, wet head showed its top between
+them. Two bright, blue eyes that held deep within them a laughing
+deviltry looked into mine, and a long, lithe body drew itself gently
+over the thwart and seated its dripping self at my feet.
+
+"Much obliged," said this man from the sea.  "I knew somebody was sure
+to come along when the O'Keefe banshee didn't show up."
+
+"The what?" I asked in amazement.
+
+"The O'Keefe banshee--I'm Larry O'Keefe.  It's a far way from Ireland,
+but not too far for the O'Keefe banshee to travel if the O'Keefe was
+going to click in."
+
+I looked again at my astonishing rescue.  He seemed perfectly serious.
+
+"Have you a cigarette?  Mine went out," he said with a grin, as he
+reached a moist hand out for the little cylinder, took it, lighted it.
+
+I saw a lean, intelligent face whose fighting jaw was softened by the
+wistfulness of the clean-cut lips and the honesty that lay side by
+side with the deviltry in the laughing blue eyes; nose of a
+thoroughbred with the suspicion of a tilt; long, well-knit, slender
+figure that I knew must have all the strength of fine steel; the
+uniform of a lieutenant in the Royal Flying Corps of Britain's navy.
+
+He laughed, stretched out a firm hand, and gripped mine.
+
+"Thank you really ever so much, old man," he said.
+
+I liked Larry O'Keefe from the beginning--but I did not dream as the
+Tonga boys pulled us back to the Suwarna bow that liking was to be
+forged into man's strong love for man by fires which souls such as his
+and mine--and yours who read this--could never dream.
+
+Larry!  Larry O'Keefe, where are you now with your leprechauns and
+banshee, your heart of a child, your laughing blue eyes, and your
+fearless soul? Shall I ever see you again, Larry O'Keefe, dear to me
+as some best beloved younger brother? Larry!
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+Larry O'Keefe
+
+Pressing back the questions I longed to ask, I introduced myself.
+Oddly enough, I found that he knew me, or rather my work. He had
+bought, it appeared, my volume upon the peculiar vegetation whose
+habitat is disintegrating lava rock and volcanic ash, that I had
+entitled, somewhat loosely, I could now perceive, Flora of the
+Craters. For he explained naively that he had picked it up, thinking
+it an entirely different sort of a book, a novel in fact--something
+like Meredith's Diana of the Crossways, which he liked greatly.
+
+He had hardly finished this explanation when we touched the side of
+the Suwarna, and I was forced to curb my curiosity until we reached
+the deck.
+
+"That thing you saw me sitting on," he said, after he had thanked the
+bowing little skipper for his rescue, "was all that was left of one of
+his Majesty's best little hydroairplanes after that cyclone threw it
+off as excess baggage. And by the way, about where are we?"
+
+Da Costa gave him our approximate position from the noon reckoning.
+
+O'Keefe whistled.  "A good three hundred miles from where I left the
+H.M.S. Dolphin about four hours ago," he said. "That squall I rode in
+on was some whizzer!
+
+"The Dolphin," he went on, calmly divesting himself of his soaked
+uniform, "was on her way to Melbourne. I'd been yearning for a joy
+ride and went up for an alleged scouting trip. Then that blow shot out
+of nowhere, picked me up, and insisted that I go with it.
+
+"About an hour ago I thought I saw a chance to zoom up and out of it,
+I turned, and _blick_ went my right wing, and down I dropped."
+
+"I don't know how we can notify your ship, Lieutenant O'Keefe," I
+said. "We have no wireless."
+
+"Doctair Goodwin," said Da Costa, "we could change our course,
+sair--perhaps--"
+
+"Thanks--but not a bit of it," broke in O'Keefe.  "Lord alone knows
+where the Dolphin is now. Fancy she'll be nosing around looking for
+me. Anyway, she's just as apt to run into you as you into her. Maybe
+we'll strike something with a wireless, and I'll trouble you to put me
+aboard." He hesitated. "Where are you bound, by the way?" he asked.
+
+"For Ponape," I answered.
+
+"No wireless there," mused O'Keefe.  "Beastly hole. Stopped a week ago
+for fruit. Natives seemed scared to death at us--or something. What
+are you going there for?"
+
+Da Costa darted a furtive glance at me.  It troubled me.
+
+O'Keefe noted my hesitation.
+
+"Oh, I beg your pardon," he said.  "Maybe I oughn't to have asked
+that?"
+
+"It's no secret, Lieutenant," I replied.  "I'm about to undertake some
+exploration work--a little digging among the ruins on the Nan-Matal."
+
+I looked at the Portuguese sharply as I named the place. A pallor
+crept beneath his skin and again he made swiftly the sign of the
+cross, glancing as he did so fearfully to the north. I made up my mind
+then to question him when opportunity came. He turned from his quick
+scrutiny of the sea and addressed O'Keefe.
+
+"There's nothing on board to fit you, Lieutenant."
+
+"Oh, just give me a sheet to throw around me, Captain," said O'Keefe
+and followed him. Darkness had fallen, and as the two disappeared into
+Da Costa's cabin I softly opened the door of my own and listened.
+Huldricksson was breathing deeply and regularly.
+
+I drew my electric-flash, and shielding its rays from my face, looked
+at him. His sleep was changing from the heavy stupor of the drug into
+one that was at least on the borderland of the normal. The tongue had
+lost its arid blackness and the mouth secretions had resumed action.
+Satisfied as to his condition I returned to deck.
+
+O'Keefe was there, looking like a spectre in the cotton sheet he had
+wrapped about him. A deck table had been cleated down and one of the
+Tonga boys was setting it for our dinner. Soon the very creditable
+larder of the Suwarna dressed the board, and O'Keefe, Da Costa, and I
+attacked it. The night had grown close and oppressive. Behind us the
+forward light of the Brunhilda glided and the binnacle lamp threw up a
+faint glow in which her black helmsman's face stood out mistily.
+O'Keefe had looked curiously a number of times at our tow, but had
+asked no questions.
+
+"You're not the only passenger we picked up today," I told him.  "We
+found the captain of that sloop, lashed to his wheel, nearly dead with
+exhaustion, and his boat deserted by everyone except himself."
+
+"What was the matter?" asked O'Keefe in astonishment.
+
+"We don't know," I answered.  "He fought us, and I had to drug him
+before we could get him loose from his lashings. He's sleeping down in
+my berth now. His wife and little girl ought to have been on board,
+the captain here says, but--they weren't."
+
+"Wife and child gone!" exclaimed O'Keefe.
+
+"From the condition of his mouth he must have been alone at the wheel
+and without water at least two days and nights before we found him," I
+replied. "And as for looking for anyone on these waters after such a
+time--it's hopeless."
+
+"That's true," said O'Keefe.  "But his wife and baby!  Poor, poor
+devil!"
+
+He was silent for a time, and then, at my solicitation, began to tell
+us more of himself. He had been little more than twenty when he had
+won his wings and entered the war. He had been seriously wounded at
+Ypres during the third year of the struggle, and when he recovered the
+war was over. Shortly after that his mother had died. Lonely and
+restless, he had re-entered the Air Service, and had remained in it
+ever since.
+
+"And though the war's long over, I get homesick for the lark's land
+with the German planes playing tunes on their machine guns and their
+Archies tickling the soles of my feet," he sighed. "If you're in love,
+love to the limit; and if you hate, why hate like the devil and if
+it's a fight you're in, get where it's hottest and fight like hell--if
+you don't life's not worth the living," sighed he.
+
+I watched him as he talked, feeling my liking for him steadily
+increasing. If I could but have a man like this beside me on the path
+of unknown peril upon which I had set my feet I thought, wistfully. We
+sat and smoked a bit, sipping the strong coffee the Portuguese made so
+well.
+
+Da Costa at last relieved the Cantonese at the wheel. O'Keefe and I
+drew chairs up to the rail. The brighter stars shone out dimly through
+a hazy sky; gleams of phosphorescence tipped the crests of the waves
+and sparkled with an almost angry brilliance as the bow of the Suwarna
+tossed them aside. O'Keefe pulled contentedly at a cigarette. The
+glowing spark lighted the keen, boyish face and the blue eyes, now
+black and brooding under the spell of the tropic night.
+
+"Are you American or Irish, O'Keefe?" I asked suddenly.
+
+"Why?" he laughed.
+
+"Because," I answered, "from your name and your service I would
+suppose you Irish--but your command of pure Americanese makes me
+doubtful."
+
+He grinned amiably.
+
+"I'll tell you how that is," he said.  "My mother was an American--a
+Grace, of Virginia. My father was the O'Keefe, of Coleraine. And these
+two loved each other so well that the heart they gave me is half Irish
+and half American. My father died when I was sixteen. I used to go to
+the States with my mother every other year for a month or two. But
+after my father died we used to go to Ireland every other year. And
+there you are--I'm as much American as I am Irish.
+
+"When I'm in love, or excited, or dreaming, or mad I have the brogue.
+But for the everyday purpose of life I like the United States talk,
+and I know Broadway as well as I do Binevenagh Lane, and the Sound as
+well as St. Patrick's Channel; educated a bit at Eton, a bit at
+Harvard; always too much money to have to make any; in love lots of
+times, and never a heartache after that wasn't a pleasant one, and
+never a real purpose in life until I took the king's shilling and
+earned my wings; something over thirty--and that's me--Larry
+O'Keefe."
+
+"But it was the Irish O'Keefe who sat out there waiting for the
+banshee," I laughed.
+
+"It was that," he said somberly, and I heard the brogue creep over his
+voice like velvet and his eyes grew brooding again. "There's never an
+O'Keefe for these thousand years that has passed without his warning.
+An' twice have I heard the banshee calling--once it was when my
+younger brother died an' once when my father lay waiting to be carried
+out on the ebb tide."
+
+He mused a moment, then went on: "An' once I saw an Annir Choille, a
+girl of the green people, flit like a shade of green fire through
+Carntogher woods, an' once at Dunchraig I slept where the ashes of the
+Dun of Cormac MacConcobar are mixed with those of Cormac an' Eilidh
+the Fair, all burned in the nine flames that sprang from the harping
+of Cravetheen, an' I heard the echo of his dead harpings--"
+
+He paused again and then, softly, with that curiously sweet, high
+voice that only the Irish seem to have, he sang:
+
+    Woman of the white breasts, Eilidh;
+    Woman of the gold-brown hair, and lips of the red, red rowan,
+    Where is the swan that is whiter, with breast more soft,
+    Or the wave on the sea that moves as thou movest, Eilidh.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+Olaf's Story
+
+There was a little silence.  I looked upon him with wonder. Clearly he
+was in deepest earnest. I know the psychology of the Gael is a curious
+one and that deep in all their hearts their ancient traditions and
+beliefs have strong and living roots. And I was both amused and
+touched.
+
+Here was this soldier, who had faced war and its ugly realities
+open-eyed and fearless, picking, indeed, the most dangerous branch of
+service for his own, a modern if ever there was one, appreciative of
+most unmystical Broadway, and yet soberly and earnestly attesting to
+his belief in banshee, in shadowy people of the woods, and phantom
+harpers! I wondered what he would think if he could see the Dweller
+and then, with a pang, that perhaps his superstitions might make him
+an easy prey.
+
+He shook his head half impatiently and ran a hand over his eyes;
+turned to me and grinned:
+
+"Don't think I'm cracked, Professor," he said.  "I'm not. But it takes
+me that way now and then. It's the Irish in me. And, believe it or
+not, I'm telling you the truth."
+
+I looked eastward where the moon, now nearly a week past the full, was
+mounting.
+
+"You can't make me see what you've seen, Lieutenant," I laughed.  "But
+you can make me hear. I've always wondered what kind of a noise a
+disembodied spirit could make without any vocal cords or breath or any
+other earthly sound-producing mechanism. How does the banshee sound?"
+
+O'Keefe looked at me seriously.
+
+"All right," he said.  "I'll show you." From deep down in his throat
+came first a low, weird sobbing that mounted steadily into a keening
+whose mournfulness made my skin creep. And then his hand shot out and
+gripped my shoulder, and I stiffened like stone in my chair--for from
+behind us, like an echo, and then taking up the cry, swelled a wail
+that seemed to hold within it a sublimation of the sorrows of
+centuries! It gathered itself into one heartbroken, sobbing note and
+died away! O'Keefe's grip loosened, and he rose swiftly to his feet.
+
+"It's all right, Professor," he said.  "It's for me.  It found me--all
+this way from Ireland."
+
+Again the silence was rent by the cry.  But now I had located it.  It
+came from my room, and it could mean only one thing--Huldricksson had
+wakened.
+
+"Forget your banshee!" I gasped, and made a jump for the cabin.
+
+Out of the corner of my eye I noted a look of half-sheepish relief
+flit over O'Keefe's face, and then he was beside me. Da Costa shouted
+an order from the wheel, the Cantonese ran up and took it from his
+hands and the little Portuguese pattered down toward us. My hand on
+the door, ready to throw it open, I stopped. What if the Dweller were
+within--what if we had been wrong and it was not dependent for its
+power upon that full flood of moon ray which Throckmartin had thought
+essential to draw it from the blue pool!
+
+From within, the sobbing wail began once more to rise. O'Keefe pushed
+me aside, threw open the door and crouched low within it. I saw an
+automatic flash dully in his hand; saw it cover the cabin from side to
+side, following the swift sweep of his eyes around it. Then he
+straightened and his face, turned toward the berth, was filled with
+wondering pity.
+
+Through the window streamed a shaft of the moonlight. It fell upon
+Huldricksson's staring eyes; in them great tears slowly gathered and
+rolled down his cheeks; from his opened mouth came the woe-laden
+wailing. I ran to the port and drew the curtains. Da Costa snapped the
+lights.
+
+The Norseman's dolorous crying stopped as abruptly as though cut.  His
+gaze rolled toward us. And at one bound he broke through the leashes I
+had buckled round him and faced us, his eyes glaring, his yellow hair
+almost erect with the force of the rage visibly surging through him.
+Da Costa shrunk behind me. O'Keefe, coolly watchful, took a quick step
+that brought him in front of me.
+
+"Where do you take me?" said Huldricksson, and his voice was like the
+growl of a beast. "Where is my boat?"
+
+I touched O'Keefe gently and stood before the giant.
+
+"Listen, Olaf Huldricksson," I said.  "We take you to where the
+sparkling devil took your Helma and your Freda. We follow the
+sparkling devil that came down from the moon. Do you hear me?" I spoke
+slowly, distinctly, striving to pierce the mists that I knew swirled
+around the strained brain. And the words did pierce.
+
+He thrust out a shaking hand.
+
+"You say you follow?" he asked falteringly.  "You know where to
+follow? Where it took my Helma and my little Freda?"
+
+"Just that, Olaf Huldricksson," I answered.  "Just that!  I pledge you
+my life that I know."
+
+Da Costa stepped forward.  "He speaks true, Olaf.  You go faster on
+the Suwarna than on the Br-rw-un'ilda, Olaf, yes."
+
+The giant Norseman, still gripping my hand, looked at him.  "I know
+you, Da Costa," he muttered. "You are all right. Ja! You are a fair
+man. Where is the Brunhilda?"
+
+"She follow be'ind on a big rope, Olaf," soothed the Portuguese.
+"Soon you see her. But now lie down an' tell us, if you can, why you
+tie yourself to your wheel an' what it is that happen, Olaf."
+
+"If you'll tell us how the sparkling devil came it will help us all
+when we get to where it is, Huldricksson," I said.
+
+On O'Keefe's face there was an expression of well-nigh ludicrous doubt
+and amazement. He glanced from one to the other. The giant shifted his
+own tense look from me to the Irishman. A gleam of approval lighted in
+his eyes. He loosed me, and gripped O'Keefe's arm. "Staerk!" he said.
+"Ja--strong, and with a strong heart. A man--ja! He comes too--we
+shall need him--ja!"
+
+"I tell," he muttered, and seated himself on the side of the bunk.
+"It was four nights ago. My Freda"--his voice shook--"Mine Yndling!
+She loved the moonlight. I was at the wheel and my Freda and my Helma
+they were behind me. The moon was behind us and the Brunhilda was like
+a swanboat sailing down with the moonlight sending her, ja.
+
+"I heard my Freda say: 'I see a nisse coming down the track of the
+moon.' And I hear her mother laugh, low, like a mother does when her
+Yndling dreams. I was happy--that night--with my Helma and my Freda,
+and the Brunhilda sailing like a swan-boat, ja. I heard the child say,
+'The nisse comes fast!' And then I heard a scream from my Helma, a
+great scream--like a mare when her foal is torn from her. I spun
+around fast, ja! I dropped the wheel and spun fast! I saw--" He
+covered his eyes with his hands.
+
+The Portuguese had crept close to me, and I heard him panting like a
+frightened dog.
+
+"I saw a white fire spring over the rail," whispered Olaf
+Huldricksson. "It whirled round and round, and it shone like--like
+stars in a whirlwind mist. There was a noise in my ears. It sounded
+like bells--little bells, ja! Like the music you make when you run
+your finger round goblets. It made me sick and dizzy--the hell noise.
+
+"My Helma was--indeholde--what you say--in the middle of the white
+fire. She turned her face to me and she turned it on the child, and my
+Helma's face burned into my heart. Because it was full of fear, and it
+was full of happiness--of glaede. I tell you that the fear in my
+Helma's face made me ice here"--he beat his breast with clenched
+hand--"but the happiness in it burned on me like fire. And I could
+not move--I could not move.
+
+"I said in here"--he touched his head--"I said, 'It is Loki come out
+of Helvede. But he cannot take my Helma, for Christ lives and Loki has
+no power to hurt my Helma or my Freda! Christ lives! Christ lives!' I
+said. But the sparkling devil did not let my Helma go. It drew her to
+the rail; half over it. I saw her eyes upon the child and a little she
+broke away and reached to it. And my Freda jumped into her arms. And
+the fire wrapped them both and they were gone! A little I saw them
+whirling on the moon track behind the Brunhilda--and they were gone!
+
+"The sparkling devil took them!  Loki was loosed, and he had power.  I
+turned the Brunhilda, and I followed where my Helma and mine Yndling
+had gone. My boys crept up and asked me to turn again. But I would
+not. They dropped a boat and left me. I steered straight on the path.
+I lashed my hands to the wheel that sleep might not loose them. I
+steered on and on and on--
+
+"Where was the God I prayed when my wife and child were taken?" cried
+Olaf Huldricksson--and it was as though I heard Throckmartin asking
+that same bitter question. "I have left Him as He left me, ja! I pray
+now to Thor and to Odin, who can fetter Loki." He sank back, covering
+again his eyes.
+
+"Olaf," I said, "what you have called the sparkling devil has taken
+ones dear to me. I, too, was following it when we found you. You shall
+go with me to its home, and there we will try to take from it your
+wife and your child and my friends as well. But now that you may be
+strong for what is before us, you must sleep again."
+
+Olaf Huldricksson looked upon me and in his eyes was that something
+which souls must see in the eyes of Him the old Egyptians called the
+Searcher of Hearts in the Judgment Hall of Osiris.
+
+"You speak truth!" he said at last slowly.  "I will do what you say!"
+
+He stretched out an arm at my bidding.  I gave him a second injection.
+He lay back and soon he was sleeping. I turned toward Da Costa. His
+face was livid and sweating, and he was trembling pitiably. O'Keefe
+stirred.
+
+"You did that mighty well, Dr. Goodwin," he said.  "So well that I
+almost believed you myself."
+
+"What did you think of his story, Mr. O'Keefe?" I asked.
+
+His answer was almost painfully brief and colloquial.
+
+"Nuts!" he said. I was a little shocked, I admit. "I think he's crazy,
+Dr. Goodwin," he corrected himself, quickly. "What else could I
+think?"
+
+I turned to the little Portuguese without answering.
+
+"There's no need for any anxiety tonight, Captain," I said. "Take my
+word for it. You need some rest yourself. Shall I give you a sleeping
+draft?"
+
+"I do wish you would, Dr. Goodwin, sair," he answered gratefully.
+"Tomorrow, when I feel bettair--I would have a talk with you."
+
+I nodded.  He did know something then!  I mixed him an opiate of
+considerable strength. He took it and went to his own cabin.
+
+I locked the door behind him and then, sitting beside the sleeping
+Norseman, I told O'Keefe my story from end to end. He asked few
+questions as I spoke. But after I had finished he cross-examined me
+rather minutely upon my recollections of the radiant phases upon each
+appearance, checking these with Throckmartin's observations of the
+same phenomena in the Chamber of the Moon Pool.
+
+"And now what do you think of it all?" I asked.
+
+He sat silent for a while, looking at Huldricksson.
+
+"Not what you seem to think, Dr. Goodwin," he answered at last,
+gravely. "Let me sleep over it. One thing of course is certain--you
+and your friend Throckmartin and this man here saw--something. But--"
+he was silent again and then continued with a kindness that I found
+vaguely irritating--"but I've noticed that when a scientist gets
+superstitious it--er--takes very hard!
+
+"Here's a few things I can tell you now though," he went on while I
+struggled to speak--"I pray in my heart that we'll meet neither the
+Dolphin nor anything with wireless on board going up. Because, Dr.
+Goodwin, I'd dearly love to take a crack at your Dweller.
+
+"And another thing," said O'Keefe.  "After this--cut out the
+trimmings, Doc, and call me plain Larry, for whether I think you're
+crazy or whether I don't, you're there with the nerve, Professor, and
+I'm for _you_.
+
+"Good night!" said Larry and took himself out to the deck hammock he
+had insisted upon having slung for him, refusing the captain's
+importunities to use his own cabin.
+
+And it was with extremely mixed emotions as to his compliment that I
+watched him go. Superstitious. I, whose pride was my scientific
+devotion to fact and fact alone! Superstitious--and this from a man
+who believed in banshees and ghostly harpers and Irish wood nymphs and
+no doubt in leprechauns and all their tribe!
+
+Half laughing, half irritated, and wholly happy in even the part
+promise of Larry O'Keefe's comradeship on my venture, I arranged a
+couple of pillows, stretched myself out on two chairs and took up my
+vigil beside Olaf Huldricksson.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+A Lost Page of Earth
+
+When I awakened the sun was streaming through the cabin porthole.
+Outside a fresh voice lilted. I lay on my two chairs and listened. The
+song was one with the wholesome sunshine and the breeze blowing
+stiffly and whipping the curtains. It was Larry O'Keefe at his matins:
+
+  The little red lark is shaking his wings,
+  Straight from the breast of his love he springs
+
+Larry's voice soared.
+
+  His wings and his feathers are sunrise red,
+  He hails the sun and his golden head,
+  Good morning, Doc, you are long abed.
+
+This last was a most irreverent interpolation, I well knew. I opened
+my door. O'Keefe stood outside laughing. The Suwarna, her engines
+silent, was making fine headway under all sail, the Brunhilda skipping
+in her wake cheerfully with half her canvas up.
+
+The sea was crisping and dimpling under the wind.  Blue and white was
+the world as far as the eye could reach. Schools of little silvery
+green flying fish broke through the water rushing on each side of us;
+flashed for an instant and were gone. Behind us gulls hovered and
+dipped. The shadow of mystery had retreated far over the rim of this
+wide awake and beautiful world and if, subconsciously, I knew that
+somewhere it was brooding and waiting, for a little while at least I
+was consciously free of its oppression.
+
+"How's the patient?" asked O'Keefe.
+
+He was answered by Huldricksson himself, who must have risen just as I
+left the cabin. The Norseman had slipped on a pair of pajamas and,
+giant torso naked under the sun, he strode out upon us. We all of us
+looked at him a trifle anxiously. But Olaf's madness had left him. In
+his eyes was much sorrow, but the berserk rage was gone.
+
+He spoke straight to me: "You said last night we follow?"
+
+I nodded.
+
+"It is where?" he asked again.
+
+"We go first to Ponape and from there to Metalanim Harbour--to the
+Nan-Matal. You know the place?"
+
+Huldricksson bowed--a white gleam as of ice showing in his blue eyes.
+
+"It is there?" he asked.
+
+"It is there that we must first search," I answered.
+
+"Good!" said Olaf Huldricksson.  "It is good!"
+
+He looked at Da Costa inquiringly and the little Portuguese, following
+his thought, answered his unspoken question.
+
+"We should be at Ponape tomorrow morning early, Olaf."
+
+"Good!" repeated the Norseman.  He looked away, his eyes tear-filled.
+
+A restraint fell upon us; the embarrassment all men experience when
+they feel a great sympathy and a great pity, to neither of which they
+quite know how to give expression. By silent consent we discussed at
+breakfast only the most casual topics.
+
+When the meal was over Huldricksson expressed a desire to go aboard
+the Brunhilda.
+
+The Suwarna hove to and Da Costa and he dropped into the small boat.
+When they reached the Brunhilda's deck I saw Olaf take the wheel and
+the two fall into earnest talk. I beckoned to O'Keefe and we stretched
+ourselves out on the bow hatch under cover of the foresail. He lighted
+a cigarette, took a couple of leisurely puffs, and looked at me
+expectantly.
+
+"Well?" I asked.
+
+"Well," said O'Keefe, "suppose you tell me what you think--and then
+I'll proceed to point out your scientific errors." His eyes twinkled
+mischievously.
+
+"Larry," I replied, somewhat severely, "you may not know that I have a
+scientific reputation which, putting aside all modesty, I may say is
+an enviable one. You used a word last night to which I must interpose
+serious objection. You more than hinted that I hid--superstitions. Let
+me inform you, Larry O'Keefe, that I am solely a seeker, observer,
+analyst, and synthesist of facts. I am not"--and I tried to make my
+tone as pointed as my words--"I am not a believer in phantoms or
+spooks, leprechauns, banshees, or ghostly harpers."
+
+O'Keefe leaned back and shouted with laughter.
+
+"Forgive me, Goodwin," he gasped.  "But if you could have seen
+yourself solemnly disclaiming the banshee"--another twinkle showed in
+his eyes--"and then with all this sunshine and this wide-open
+world"--he shrugged his shoulders--"it's hard to visualize anything
+such as you and Huldricksson have described."
+
+"I know how hard it is, Larry," I answered.  "And don't think I have
+any idea that the phenomenon is supernatural in the sense
+spiritualists and table turners have given that word. I do think it is
+supernormal; energized by a force unknown to modern science--but that
+doesn't mean I think it outside the radius of science."
+
+"Tell me your theory, Goodwin," he said.  I hesitated--for not yet
+had I been able to put into form to satisfy myself any explanation of
+the Dweller.
+
+"I think," I hazarded finally, "it is possible that some members of
+that race peopling the ancient continent which we know existed here in
+the Pacific, have survived. We know that many of these islands are
+honeycombed with caverns and vast subterranean spaces, literally
+underground lands running in some cases far out beneath the ocean
+floor. It is possible that for some reason survivors of this race
+sought refuge in the abysmal spaces, one of whose entrances is on the
+islet where Throckmartin's party met its end.
+
+"As for their persistence in these caverns--we know they possessed a
+high science. They may have gone far in the mastery of certain
+universal forms of energy--especially that we call light. They may
+have developed a civilization and a science far more advanced than
+ours. What I call the Dweller may be one of the results of this
+science. Larry--it may well be that this lost race is planning to
+emerge again upon earth's surface!"
+
+"And is sending out your Dweller as a messenger, a scientific dove
+from their Ark?" I chose to overlook the banter in his question.
+
+"Did you ever hear of the Chamats?" I asked him.  He shook his head.
+
+"In Papua," I explained, "there is a wide-spread and immeasurably old
+tradition that 'imprisoned under the hills' is a race of giants who
+once ruled this region 'when it stretched from sun to sun before the
+moon god drew the waters over it'--I quote from the legend. Not only
+in Papua but throughout Malaysia you find this story. And, so the
+tradition runs, these people--the Chamats--will one day break through
+the hills and rule the world; 'make over the world' is the literal
+translation of the constant phrase in the tale. It was Herbert Spencer
+who pointed out that there is a basis of fact in every myth and legend
+of man. It is possible that these survivors I am discussing form
+Spencer's fact basis for the Malaysian legend.[1]
+
+"This much is sure--the moon door, which is clearly operated by the
+action of moon rays upon some unknown element or combination and the
+crystals through which the moon rays pour down upon the pool their
+prismatic columns, are humanly made mechanisms. So long as they are
+humanly made, and so long as it _is_ this flood of moonlight from which
+the Dweller draws its power of materialization, the Dweller itself, if
+not the product of the human mind, is at least dependent upon the
+product of the human mind for its appearance."
+
+"Wait a minute, Goodwin," interrupted O'Keefe.  "Do you mean to say
+you think that this thing is made of--well--of moonshine?"
+
+"Moonlight," I replied, "is, of course, reflected sunlight. But the
+rays which pass back to earth after their impact on the moon's surface
+are profoundly changed. The spectroscope shows that they lose
+practically all the slower vibrations we call red and infra-red, while
+the extremely rapid vibrations we call the violet and ultra-violet are
+accelerated and altered. Many scientists hold that there is an unknown
+element in the moon--perhaps that which makes the gigantic luminous
+trails that radiate in all directions from the lunar crater
+Tycho--whose energies are absorbed by and carried on the moon rays.
+
+"At any rate, whether by the loss of the vibrations of the red or by
+the addition of this mysterious force, the light of the moon becomes
+something entirely different from mere modified sunlight--just as the
+addition or subtraction of one other chemical in a compound of several
+makes the product a substance with entirely different energies and
+potentialities.
+
+"Now these rays, Larry, are given perhaps still another mysterious
+activity by the globes through which Throckmartin said they passed in
+the Chamber of the Moon Pool. The result is the necessary factor in
+the formation of the Dweller. There would be nothing scientifically
+improbable in such a process. Kubalski, the great Russian physicist,
+produced crystalline forms exhibiting every faculty that we call vital
+by subjecting certain combinations of chemicals to the action of
+highly concentrated rays of various colours. Something in light and
+nothing else produced their pseudo-vitality. We do not begin to know
+how to harness the potentialities of that magnetic vibration of the
+ether we call light."
+
+"Listen, Doc," said Larry earnestly, "I'll take everything you say
+about this lost continent, the people who used to live on it, and
+their caverns, for granted. But by the sword of Brian Boru, you'll
+never get me to fall for the idea that a bunch of moonshine can handle
+a big woman such as you say Throckmartin's Thora was, nor a two-fisted
+man such as you say Throckmartin was, nor Huldricksson's wife--and
+I'll bet she was one of those strapping big northern women too--you'll
+never get me to believe that any bunch of concentrated moonshine could
+handle them and take them waltzing off along a moonbeam back to
+wherever it goes. No, Doc, not on your life, even Tennessee moonshine
+couldn't do that--nix!"
+
+"All right, O'Keefe," I answered, now very much irritated indeed.
+"What's your theory?" And I could not resist adding: "Fairies?"
+
+"Professor," he grinned, "if that Thing's a fairy it's Irish and when
+it sees me it'll be so glad there'll be nothing to it. 'I was lost,
+strayed, or stolen, Larry avick,' it'll say, 'an' I was so homesick
+for the old sod I was desp'rit,' it'll say, an' 'take me back quick
+before I do any more har-rm!' it'll tell me--an' that's the truth.
+
+"Now don't get me wrong.  I believe you all saw something all right.
+But what I think you saw was some kind of gas. All this region is
+volcanic and islands and things are constantly poking up from the sea.
+It's probably gas; a volcanic emanation; something new to us and that
+drives you crazy--lots of kinds of gas do that. It hit the
+Throckmartin party on that island and they probably were all more or
+less delirious all the time; thought they saw things; talked it over
+and--collective hallucination--just like the Angels of Mons and other
+miracles of the war. Somebody sees something that looks like something
+else. He points it out to the man next him. 'Do you see it?' asks he.
+'Sure I see it,' says the other. And there you are--collective
+hallucination.
+
+"When your friends got it bad they most likely jumped overboard one by
+one. Huldricksson sails into a place where it is and it hits his wife.
+She grabs the child and jumps over. Maybe the moon rays make it
+luminous! I've seen gas on the front under the moon that looked like a
+thousand whirling dervish devils. Yes, and you could see the devil's
+faces in it. And if it got into your lungs nothing could ever make you
+think you hadn't seen real devils."
+
+For a time I was silent.
+
+"Larry," I said at last, "whether you are right or I am right, I must
+go to the Nan-Matal. Will you go with me, Larry?"
+
+"Goodwin," he replied, "I surely will.  I'm as interested as you are.
+If we don't run across the Dolphin I'll stick. I'll leave word at
+Ponape, to tell them where I am should they come along. If they report
+me dead for a while there's nobody to care. So that's all right. Only
+old man, be reasonable. You've thought over this so long, you're going
+bug, honestly you are."
+
+And again, the gladness that I might have Larry O'Keefe with me, was
+so great that I forgot to be angry.
+
+
+[1] William Beebe, the famous American naturalist and ornithologist,
+recently fighting in France with America's air force, called attention
+to this remarkable belief in an article printed not long ago in the
+Atlantic Monthly. Still more significant was it that he noted a
+persistent rumour that the breaking out of the buried race was
+close.--W.J. B., Pres. I. A. of S.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+The Moon Pool
+
+Da Costa, who had come aboard unnoticed by either of us, now tapped me
+on the arm.
+
+"Doctair Goodwin," he said, "can I see you in my cabin, sair?"
+
+At last, then, he was going to speak.  I followed him.
+
+"Doctair," he said, when we had entered, "this is a veree strange
+thing that has happened to Olaf. Veree strange. An' the natives of
+Ponape, they have been very much excite' lately.
+
+"Of what they fear I know nothing, nothing!" Again that quick, furtive
+crossing of himself. "But this I have to tell you. There came to me
+from Ranaloa last month a man, a Russian, a doctair, like you. His
+name it was Marakinoff. I take him to Ponape an' the natives there
+they will not take him to the Nan-Matal where he wish to go--no! So I
+take him. We leave in a boat, wit' much instrument carefully tied up.
+I leave him there wit' the boat an' the food. He tell me to tell no
+one an' pay me not to. But you are a friend an' Olaf he depend much
+upon you an' so I tell you, sair."
+
+"You know nothing more than this, Da Costa?" I asked. "Nothing of
+another expedition?"
+
+"No," he shook his head vehemently.  "Nothing more."
+
+"Hear the name Throckmartin while you were there?" I persisted.
+
+"No," his eyes were steady as he answered but the pallor had crept
+again into his face.
+
+I was not so sure.  But if he knew more than he had told me why was he
+afraid to speak? My anxiety deepened and later I sought relief from it
+by repeating the conversation to O'Keefe.
+
+"A Russian, eh," he said.  "Well, they can be damned nice, or
+damned--otherwise. Considering what you did for me, I hope I can look
+him over before the Dolphin shows up."
+
+Next morning we raised Ponape, without further incident, and before
+noon the Suwarna and the Brunhilda had dropped anchor in the harbour.
+Upon the excitement and manifest dread of the natives, when we sought
+among them for carriers and workmen to accompany us, I will not dwell.
+It is enough to say that no payment we offered could induce a single
+one of them to go to the Nan-Matal. Nor would they say why.
+
+Finally it was agreed that the Brunhilda should be left in charge of a
+half-breed Chinaman, whom both Da Costa and Huldricksson knew and
+trusted. We piled her long-boat up with my instruments and food and
+camping equipment. The Suwarna took us around to Metalanim Harbour,
+and there, with the tops of ancient sea walls deep in the blue water
+beneath us, and the ruins looming up out of the mangroves, a scant
+mile from us, left us.
+
+Then with Huldricksson manipulating our small sail, and Larry at the
+rudder, we rounded the titanic wall that swept down into the depths,
+and turned at last into the canal that Throckmartin, on his map, had
+marked as that which, running between frowning Nan-Tauach and its
+satellite islet, Tau, led straight to the gate of the place of ancient
+mysteries.
+
+And as we entered that channel we were enveloped by a silence; a
+silence so intense, so--weighted that it seemed to have substance; an
+alien silence that clung and stifled and still stood aloof from
+us--the living. It was a stillness, such as might follow the long
+tramping of millions into the grave; it was--paradoxical as it may
+be--filled with the withdrawal of life.
+
+Standing down in the chambered depths of the Great Pyramid I had known
+something of such silence--but never such intensity as this. Larry
+felt it and I saw him look at me askance. If Olaf, sitting in the bow,
+felt it, too, he gave no sign; his blue eyes, with again the glint of
+ice within them, watched the channel before us.
+
+As we passed, there arose upon our left sheer walls of black basalt
+blocks, cyclopean, towering fifty feet or more, broken here and there
+by the sinking of their deep foundations.
+
+In front of us the mangroves widened out and filled the canal.  On
+our right the lesser walls of Tau, sombre blocks smoothed and squared
+and set with a cold, mathematical nicety that filled me with vague
+awe, slipped by. Through breaks I caught glimpses of dark ruins and of
+great fallen stones that seemed to crouch and menace us, as we passed.
+Somewhere there, hidden, were the seven globes that poured the moon
+fire down upon the Moon Pool.
+
+Now we were among the mangroves and, sail down, the three of us pushed
+and pulled the boat through their tangled roots and branches. The
+noise of our passing split the silence like a profanation, and from
+the ancient bastions came murmurs--forbidding, strangely sinister. And
+now we were through, floating on a little open space of shadow-filled
+water. Before us lifted the gateway of Nan-Tauach, gigantic, broken,
+incredibly old; shattered portals through which had passed men and
+women of earth's dawn; old with a weight of years that pressed
+leadenly upon the eyes that looked upon it, and yet was in some
+curious indefinable way--menacingly defiant.
+
+Beyond the gate, back from the portals, stretched a flight of enormous
+basalt slabs, a giant's stairway indeed; and from each side of it
+marched the high walls that were the Dweller's pathway. None of us
+spoke as we grounded the boat and dragged it upon a half-submerged
+pier. And when we did speak it was in whispers.
+
+"What next?" asked Larry.
+
+"I think we ought to take a look around," I replied in the same low
+tones. "We'll climb the wall here and take a flash about. The whole
+place ought to be plain as day from that height."
+
+Huldricksson, his blue eyes alert, nodded.  With the greatest
+difficulty we clambered up the broken blocks.
+
+To the east and south of us, set like children's blocks in the midst
+of the sapphire sea, lay dozens of islets, none of them covering more
+than two square miles of surface; each of them a perfect square or
+oblong within its protecting walls.
+
+On none was there sign of life, save for a few great birds that
+hovered here and there, and gulls dipping in the blue waves beyond.
+
+We turned our gaze down upon the island on which we stood.  It was, I
+estimated, about three-quarters of a mile square. The sea wall
+enclosed it. It was really an enormous basalt-sided open cube, and
+within it two other open cubes. The enclosure between the first and
+second wall was stone paved, with here and there a broken pillar and
+long stone benches. The hibiscus, the aloe tree, and a number of small
+shrubs had found place, but seemed only to intensify its stark
+loneliness.
+
+"Wonder where the Russian can be?" asked Larry.
+
+I shook my head.  There was no sign of life here.  Had Marakinoff
+gone--or had the Dweller taken him, too? Whatever had happened, there
+was no trace of him below us or on any of the islets within our range
+of vision. We scrambled down the side of the gateway. Olaf looked at
+me wistfully.
+
+"We start the search now, Olaf," I said.  "And first, O'Keefe, let us
+see whether the grey stone is really here. After that we will set up
+camp, and while I unpack, you and Olaf search the island. It won't
+take long."
+
+Larry gave a look at his service automatic and grinned. "Lead on,
+Macduff," he said. We made our way up the steps, through the outer
+enclosures and into the central square, I confess to a fire of
+scientific curiosity and eagerness tinged with a dread that O'Keefe's
+analysis might be true. Would we find the moving slab and, if so,
+would it be as Throckmartin had described? If so, then even Larry
+would have to admit that here was something that theories of gases and
+luminous emanations would not explain; and the first test of the whole
+amazing story would be passed. But if not--And there before us, the
+faintest tinge of grey setting it apart from its neighbouring blocks
+of basalt, was the moon door!
+
+There was no mistaking it.  This was, in very deed, the portal through
+which Throckmartin had seen pass that gloriously dreadful apparition
+he called the Dweller. At its base was the curious, seemingly polished
+cup-like depression within which, my lost friend had told me, the
+opening door swung.
+
+What was that portal--more enigmatic than was ever sphinx?  And what
+lay beyond it? What did that smooth stone, whose wan deadness
+whispered of ages-old corridors of time opening out into alien,
+unimaginable vistas, hide? It had cost the world of science
+Throckmartin's great brain--as it had cost Throckmartin those he
+loved. It had drawn me to it in search of Throckmartin--and its shadow
+had fallen upon the soul of Olaf the Norseman; and upon what thousands
+upon thousands more I wondered, since the brains that had conceived it
+had vanished with their secret knowledge?
+
+What lay beyond it?
+
+I stretched out a shaking hand and touched the surface of the slab.  A
+faint thrill passed through my hand and arm, oddly unfamiliar and as
+oddly unpleasant; as of electric contact holding the very essence of
+cold. O'Keefe, watching, imitated my action. As his fingers rested on
+the stone his face filled with astonishment.
+
+"It's the door?" he asked.  I nodded.  There was a low whistle from
+him and he pointed up toward the top of the grey stone. I followed the
+gesture and saw, above the moon door and on each side of it, two
+gently curving bosses of rock, perhaps a foot in diameter.
+
+"The moon door's keys," I said.
+
+"It begins to look so," answered Larry.  "If we can find them," he
+added.
+
+"There's nothing we can do till moonrise," I replied.  "And we've none
+too much time to prepare as it is. Come!"
+
+A little later we were beside our boat.  We lightered it, set up the
+tent, and as it was now but a short hour to sundown I bade them leave
+me and make their search. They went off together, and I busied myself
+with opening some of the paraphernalia I had brought with me.
+
+First of all I took out the two Becquerel ray-condensers that I had
+bought in Sydney. Their lenses would collect and intensify to the
+fullest extent any light directed upon them. I had found them most
+useful in making spectroscopic analysis of luminous vapours, and I
+knew that at Yerkes Observatory splendid results had been obtained
+from them in collecting the diffused radiance of the nebulae for the
+same purpose.
+
+If my theory of the grey slab's mechanism were correct, it was
+practically certain that with the satellite only a few nights past the
+full we could concentrate enough light on the bosses to open the rock.
+And as the ray streams through the seven globes described by
+Throckmartin would be too weak to energize the Pool, we could enter
+the chamber free from any fear of encountering its tenant, make our
+preliminary observations and go forth before the moon had dropped so
+far that the concentration in the condensers would fall below that
+necessary to keep the portal from closing.
+
+I took out also a small spectroscope, and a few other instruments for
+the analysis of certain light manifestations and the testing of metal
+and liquid. Finally, I put aside my emergency medical kit.
+
+I had hardly finished examining and adjusting these before O'Keefe and
+Huldricksson returned. They reported signs of a camp at least ten days
+old beside the northern wall of the outer court, but beyond that no
+evidence of others beyond ourselves on Nan-Tauach.
+
+We prepared supper, ate and talked a little, but for the most part
+were silent. Even Larry's high spirits were not in evidence; half a
+dozen times I saw him take out his automatic and look it over. He was
+more thoughtful than I had ever seen him. Once he went into the tent,
+rummaged about a bit and brought out another revolver which, he said,
+he had got from Da Costa, and a half-dozen clips of cartridges. He
+passed the gun over to Olaf.
+
+At last a glow in the southeast heralded the rising moon. I picked up
+my instruments and the medical kit; Larry and Olaf shouldered each a
+short ladder that was part of my equipment, and, with our electric
+flashes pointing the way, walked up the great stairs, through the
+enclosures, and straight to the grey stone.
+
+By this time the moon had risen and its clipped light shone full upon
+the slab. I saw faint gleams pass over it as of fleeting
+phosphorescence--but so faint were they that I could not be sure of
+the truth of my observation.
+
+We set the ladders in place.  Olaf I assigned to stand before the door
+and watch for the first signs of its opening--if open it should. The
+Becquerels were set within three-inch tripods, whose feet I had
+equipped with vacuum rings to enable them to hold fast to the rock.
+
+I scaled one ladder and fastened a condenser over the boss; descended;
+sent Larry up to watch it, and, ascending the second ladder, rapidly
+fixed the other in its place. Then, with O'Keefe watchful on his
+perch, I on mine, and Olaf's eyes fixed upon the moon door, we began
+our vigil. Suddenly there was an exclamation from Larry.
+
+"Seven little lights are beginning to glow on this stone!" he cried.
+
+But I had already seen those beneath my lens begin to gleam out with a
+silvery lustre. Swiftly the rays within the condenser began to thicken
+and increase, and as they did so the seven small circles waxed like
+stars growing out of the dusk, and with a queer--curdled is the best
+word I can find to define it--radiance entirely strange to me.
+
+Beneath me I heard a faint, sighing murmur and then the voice of
+Huldricksson:
+
+"It opens--the stone turns--"
+
+I began to climb down the ladder.  Again came Olaf's voice:
+
+"The stone--it is open--" And then a shriek, a wail of blended anguish
+and pity, of rage and despair--and the sound of swift footsteps racing
+through the wall beneath me!
+
+I dropped to the ground.  The moon door was wide open, and through it
+I caught a glimpse of a corridor filled with a faint, pearly vaporous
+light like earliest misty dawn. But of Olaf I could see--nothing! And
+even as I stood, gaping, from behind me came the sharp crack of a
+rifle; the glass of the condenser at Larry's side flew into fragments;
+he dropped swiftly to the ground, the automatic in his hand flashed
+once, twice, into the darkness.
+
+And the moon door began to pivot slowly, slowly back into its place!
+
+I rushed toward the turning stone with the wild idea of holding it
+open. As I thrust my hands against it there came at my back a snarl
+and an oath and Larry staggered under the impact of a body that had
+flung itself straight at his throat. He reeled at the lip of the
+shallow cup at the base of the slab, slipped upon its polished curve,
+fell and rolled with that which had attacked him, kicking and
+writhing, straight through the narrowing portal into the passage!
+
+Forgetting all else, I sprang to his aid.  As I leaped I felt the
+closing edge of the moon door graze my side. Then, as Larry raised a
+fist, brought it down upon the temple of the man who had grappled with
+him and rose from the twitching body unsteadily to his feet, I heard
+shuddering past me a mournful whisper; spun about as though some
+giant's hand had whirled me--
+
+The end of the corridor no longer opened out into the moonlit square
+of ruined Nan-Tauach. It was barred by a solid mass of glimmering
+stone. The moon door had closed!
+
+O'Keefe took a stumbling step toward the barrier behind us. There was
+no mark of juncture with the shining walls; the slab fitted into the
+sides as closely as a mosaic.
+
+"It's shut all right," said Larry.  "But if there's a way in, there's
+a way out. Anyway, Doc, we're right in the pew we've been heading
+for--so why worry?" He grinned at me cheerfully. The man on the floor
+groaned, and he dropped to his knees beside him.
+
+"Marakinoff!" he cried.
+
+At my exclamation he moved aside, turning the face so I could see it.
+It was clearly Russian, and just as clearly its possessor was one of
+unusual force and intellect.
+
+The strong, massive brow with orbital ridge unusually developed, the
+dominant, high-bridged nose, the straight lips with their more than
+suggestion of latent cruelty, and the strong lines of the jaw beneath
+a black, pointed beard all gave evidence that here was a personality
+beyond the ordinary.
+
+"Couldn't be anybody else," said Larry, breaking in on my thoughts.
+"He must have been watching us over there from Chau-ta-leur's vault
+all the time."
+
+Swiftly he ran practised hands over his body; then stood erect,
+holding out to me two wicked-looking magazine pistols and a knife. "He
+got one of my bullets through his right forearm, too," he said. "Just
+a flesh wound, but it made him drop his rifle. Some arsenal, our
+little Russian scientist, what?"
+
+I opened my medical kit.  The wound was a slight one, and Larry stood
+looking on as I bandaged it.
+
+"Got another one of those condensers?" he asked, suddenly.  "And do
+you suppose Olaf will know enough to use it?"
+
+"Larry," I answered, "Olaf's not outside!  He's in here somewhere!"
+
+His jaw dropped.
+
+"The hell you say!" he whispered.
+
+"Didn't you hear him shriek when the stone opened?" I asked.
+
+"I heard him yell, yes," he said.  "But I didn't know what was the
+matter. And then this wildcat jumped me--" He paused and his eyes
+widened. "Which way did he go?" he asked swiftly. I pointed down the
+faintly glowing passage.
+
+"There's only one way," I said.
+
+"Watch that bird close," hissed O'Keefe, pointing to Marakinoff--and
+pistol in hand stretched his long legs and raced away. I looked down
+at the Russian. His eyes were open, and he reached out a hand to me. I
+lifted him to his feet.
+
+"I have heard," he said.  "We follow, quick.  If you will take my arm,
+please, I am shaken yet, yes--" I gripped his shoulder without a word,
+and the two of us set off down the corridor after O'Keefe. Marakinoff
+was gasping, and his weight pressed upon me heavily, but he moved with
+all the will and strength that were in him.
+
+As we ran I took hasty note of the tunnel.  Its sides were smooth and
+polished, and the light seemed to come not from their surfaces, but
+from far within them--giving to the walls an illusive aspect of
+distance and depth; rendering them in a peculiarly weird
+way--spacious. The passage turned, twisted, ran down, turned again. It
+came to me that the light that illumined the tunnel was given out by
+tiny points deep within the stone, sprang from the points ripplingly
+and spread upon their polished faces.
+
+There was a cry from Larry far ahead.
+
+"Olaf!"
+
+I gripped Marakinoff's arm closer and we sped on.  Now we were coming
+fast to the end of the passage. Before us was a high arch, and through
+it I glimpsed a dim, shifting luminosity as of mist filled with
+rainbows. We reached the portal and I looked into a chamber that might
+have been transported from that enchanted palace of the Jinn King that
+rises beyond the magic mountains of Kaf.
+
+Before me stood O'Keefe and a dozen feet in front of him,
+Huldricksson, with something clasped tightly in his arms. The
+Norseman's feet were at the verge of a shining, silvery lip of stone
+within whose oval lay a blue pool. And down upon this pool staring
+upward like a gigantic eye, fell seven pillars of phantom light--one
+of them amethyst, one of rose, another of white, a fourth of blue, and
+three of emerald, of silver, and of amber. They fell each upon the
+azure surface, and I knew that these were the seven streams of
+radiance, within which the Dweller took shape--now but pale ghosts of
+their brilliancy when the full energy of the moon stream raced through
+them.
+
+Huldricksson bent and placed on the shining silver lip of the Pool
+that which he held--and I saw that it was the body of a child! He set
+it there so gently, bent over the side and thrust a hand down into the
+water. And as he did so he moaned and lurched against the little body
+that lay before him. Instantly the form moved--and slipped over the
+verge into the blue. Huldricksson threw his body over the stone, hands
+clutching, arms thrust deep down--and from his lips issued a
+long-drawn, heart-shrivelling wail of pain and of anguish that held in
+it nothing human!
+
+Close on its wake came a cry from Marakinoff.
+
+"Catch him!" shouted the Russian.  "Drag him back! Quick!"
+
+He leaped forward, but before he could half clear the distance,
+O'Keefe had leaped too, had caught the Norseman by the shoulders and
+toppled him backward, where he lay whimpering and sobbing. And as I
+rushed behind Marakinoff I saw Larry lean over the lip of the Pool and
+cover his eyes with a shaking hand; saw the Russian peer into it with
+real pity in his cold eyes.
+
+Then I stared down myself into the Moon Pool, and there, sinking, was
+a little maid whose dead face and fixed, terror-filled eyes looked
+straight into mine; and ever sinking slowly, slowly--vanished! And I
+knew that this was Olaf's Freda, his beloved yndling!
+
+But where was the mother, and where had Olaf found his babe?
+
+The Russian was first to speak.
+
+"You have nitroglycerin there, yes?" he asked, pointing toward my
+medical kit that I had gripped unconsciously and carried with me
+during the mad rush down the passage. I nodded and drew it out.
+
+"Hypodermic," he ordered next, curtly; took the syringe, filled it
+accurately with its one one-hundredth of a grain dosage, and leaned
+over Huldricksson. He rolled up the sailor's sleeves half-way to the
+shoulder. The arms were white with somewhat of that weird
+semitranslucence that I had seen on Throckmartin's breast where a
+tendril of the Dweller had touched him; and his hands were of the same
+whiteness--like a baroque pearl. Above the line of white, Marakinoff
+thrust the needle.
+
+"He will need all his heart can do," he said to me.
+
+Then he reached down into a belt about his waist and drew from it a
+small, flat flask of what seemed to be lead. He opened it and let a
+few drops of its contents fall on each arm of the Norwegian. The
+liquid sparkled and instantly began to spread over the skin much as
+oil or gasoline dropped on water does--only far more rapidly. And as
+it spread it drew a sparkling film over the marbled flesh and little
+wisps of vapour rose from it. The Norseman's mighty chest heaved with
+agony. His hands clenched. The Russian gave a grunt of satisfaction at
+this, dropped a little more of the liquid, and then, watching closely,
+grunted again and leaned back. Huldricksson's laboured breathing
+ceased, his head dropped upon Larry's knee, and from his arms and
+hands the whiteness swiftly withdrew.
+
+Marakinoff arose and contemplated us--almost benevolently.
+
+"He will all right be in five minutes," he said.  "I know.  I do it to
+pay for that shot of mine, and also because we will need him. Yes." He
+turned to Larry. "You have a poonch like a mule kick, my young
+friend," he said. "Some time you pay me for that, too, eh?" He smiled;
+and the quality of the grimace was not exactly reassuring. Larry
+looked him over quizzically.
+
+"You're Marakinoff, of course," he said.  The Russian nodded,
+betraying no surprise at the recognition.
+
+"And you?" he asked.
+
+"Lieutenant O'Keefe of the Royal Flying Corps," replied Larry,
+saluting. "And this gentleman is Dr. Walter T. Goodwin."
+
+Marakinoff's face brightened.
+
+"The American botanist?" he queried.  I nodded.
+
+"Ah," cried Marakinoff eagerly, "but this is fortunate. Long I have
+desired to meet you. Your work, for an American, is most excellent;
+surprising. But you are wrong in your theory of the development of the
+Angiospermae from Cycadeoidea dacotensis. Da--all wrong--"
+
+I was interrupting him with considerable heat, for my conclusions from
+the fossil Cycadeoidea I knew to be my greatest triumph, when Larry
+broke in upon me rudely.
+
+"Say," he spluttered, "am I crazy or are you?  What in damnation kind
+of a place and time is this to start an argument like that?
+
+"Angiospermae, is it?" exclaimed Larry.  "HELL!"
+
+Marakinoff again regarded him with that irritating air of benevolence.
+
+"You have not the scientific mind, young friend," he said. "The
+poonch, yes! But so has the mule. You must learn that only the fact is
+important--not you, not me, not this"--he pointed to Huldricksson--"or
+its sorrows. Only the fact, whatever it is, is real, yes. But"--he
+turned to me--"another time--"
+
+Huldricksson interrupted him.  The big seaman had risen stiffly to his
+feet and stood with Larry's arm supporting him. He stretched out his
+hands to me.
+
+"I saw her," he whispered.  "I saw mine Freda when the stone swung.
+She lay there--just at my feet. I picked her up and I saw that mine
+Freda was dead. But I hoped--and I thought maybe mine Helma was
+somewhere here, too, So I ran with mine yndling--here--" His voice
+broke. "I thought maybe she was _not_ dead," he went on. "And I saw
+that"--he pointed to the Moon Pool--"and I thought I would bathe her
+face and she might live again. And when I dipped my hands within--the
+life left them, and cold, deadly cold, ran up through them into my
+heart. And mine Freda--she fell--" he covered his eyes, and dropping
+his head on O'Keefe's shoulder, stood, racked by sobs that seemed to
+tear at his very soul.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+The Flame-Tipped Shadows
+
+Marakinoff nodded his head solemnly as Olaf finished.
+
+"Da!" he said.  "That which comes from here took them both--the woman
+and the child. Da! They came clasped within it and the stone shut upon
+them. But why it left the child behind I do not understand."
+
+"How do you know that?" I cried in amazement.
+
+"Because I saw it," answered Marakinoff simply.  "Not only did I see
+it, but hardly had I time to make escape through the entrance before
+it passed whirling and murmuring and its bell sounds all joyous. Da!
+It was what you call the squeak close, that."
+
+"Wait a moment," I said--stilling Larry with a gesture. "Do I
+understand you to say that you were within this place?"
+
+Marakinoff actually beamed upon me.
+
+"Da, Dr. Goodwin," he said, "I went in when that which comes from it
+went out!"
+
+I gaped at him, stricken dumb; into Larry's bellicose attitude crept a
+suggestion of grudging respect; Olaf, trembling, watched silently.
+
+"Dr.  Goodwin and my impetuous young friend, you," went on Marakinoff
+after a moment's silence and I wondered vaguely why he did not include
+Huldricksson in his address--"it is time that we have an
+understanding. I have a proposal to make to you also. It is this; we
+are what you call a bad boat, and all of us are in it. Da! We need all
+hands, is it not so? Let us put together our knowledge and our brains
+and resources--and even a poonch of a mule is a resource," he looked
+wickedly at O'Keefe, "and pull our boat into quiet waters again. After
+that--"
+
+"All very well, Marakinoff," interjected Larry, "but I don't feel very
+safe in any boat with somebody capable of shooting me through the
+back."
+
+Marakinoff waved a deprecatory hand.
+
+"It was natural that," he said, "logical, da!  Here is a very great
+secret, perhaps many secrets to my country invaluable--" He paused,
+shaken by some overpowering emotion; the veins in his forehead grew
+congested, the cold eyes blazed and the guttural voice harshened.
+
+"I do not apologize and I do not explain," rasped Marakinoff.  "But I
+will tell you, da! Here is my country sweating blood in an experiment
+to liberate the world. And here are the other nations ringing us like
+wolves and waiting to spring at our throats at the least sign of
+weakness. And here are you, Lieutenant O'Keefe of the English wolves,
+and you Dr. Goodwin of the Yankee pack--and here in this place may be
+that will enable my country to win its war for the worker. What are
+the lives of you two and this sailor to that? Less than the flies I
+crush with my hand, less than midges in the sunbeam!"
+
+He suddenly gripped himself.
+
+"But that is not now the important thing," he resumed, almost coldly.
+"Not that nor my shooting. Let us squarely the situation face. My
+proposal is so: that we join interests, and what you call see it
+through together; find our way through this place and those secrets
+learn of which I have spoken, if we can. And when that is done we will
+go our ways, to his own land each, to make use of them for our lands
+as each of us may. On my part, I offer my knowledge--and it is very
+valuable, Dr. Goodwin--and my training. You and Lieutenant O'Keefe do
+the same, and this man Olaf, what he can of his strength, for I do not
+think his usefulness lies in his brains, no."
+
+"In effect, Goodwin," broke in Larry as I hesitated, "the professor's
+proposition is this: he wants to know what's going on here but he
+begins to realize it's no one man's job and besides we have the drop
+on him. We're three to his one, and we have all his hardware and
+cutlery. But also we can do better with him than without him--just as
+he can do better with us than without us. It's an even break--for a
+while. But once he gets that information he's looking for, then look
+out. You and Olaf and I are the wolves and the flies and the midges
+again--and the strafing will be about due. Nevertheless, with three to
+one against him, if he can get away with it he deserves to. I'm for
+taking him up, if you are."
+
+There was almost a twinkle in Marakinoff's eyes.
+
+"It is not just as I would have put it, perhaps," he said, "but in its
+skeleton he has right. Nor will I turn my hand against you while we
+are still in danger here. I pledge you my honor on this."
+
+Larry laughed.
+
+"All right, Professor," he grinned.  "I believe you mean every word
+you say. Nevertheless, I'll just keep the guns."
+
+Marakinoff bowed, imperturbably.
+
+"And now," he said, "I will tell you what I know.  I found the secret
+of the door mechanism even as you did, Dr. Goodwin. But by
+carelessness, my condensers were broken. I was forced to wait while I
+sent for others--and the waiting might be for months. I took certain
+precautions, and on the first night of this full moon I hid myself
+within the vault of Chau-ta-leur."
+
+An involuntary thrill of admiration for the man went through me at the
+manifest heroism of this leap in the dark. I could see it reflected in
+Larry's face.
+
+"I hid in the vault," continued Marakinoff, "and I saw that which
+comes from here come out. I waited--long hours. At last, when the moon
+was low, it returned--ecstatically--with a man, a native, in embrace
+enfolded. It passed through the door, and soon then the moon became
+low and the door closed.
+
+"The next night more confidence was mine, yes.  And after that which
+comes had gone, I looked through its open door. I said, 'It will not
+return for three hours. While it is away, why shall I not into its
+home go through the door it has left open?' So I went--even to here. I
+looked at the pillars of light and I tested the liquid of the Pool on
+which they fell. That liquid, Dr. Goodwin, is not water, and it is not
+any fluid known on earth." He handed me a small vial, its neck held in
+a long thong.
+
+"Take this," he said, "and see."
+
+Wonderingly, I took the bottle; dipped it down into the Pool.  The
+liquid was extraordinarily light; seemed, in fact, to give the vial
+buoyancy. I held it to the light. It was striated, streaked, as though
+little living, pulsing veins ran through it. And its blueness, even in
+the vial, held an intensity of luminousness.
+
+"Radioactive," said Marakinoff.  "Some liquid that is intensely
+radioactive; but what it is I know not at all. Upon the living skin it
+acts like radium raised to the nth power and with an element most
+mysterious added. The solution with which I treated him," he pointed
+to Huldricksson, "I had prepared before I came here, from certain
+information I had. It is largely salts of radium and its base is
+Loeb's formula for the neutralization of radium and X-ray burns.
+Taking this man at once, before the degeneration had become really
+active, I could negative it. But after two hours I could have done
+nothing."
+
+He paused a moment.
+
+"Next I studied the nature of these luminous walls.  I concluded that
+whoever had made them, knew the secret of the Almighty's manufacture
+of light from the ether itself! Colossal! Da! But the substance of
+these blocks confines an atomic--how would you say--atomic
+manipulation, a conscious arrangement of electrons, light-emitting and
+perhaps indefinitely so. These blocks are lamps in which oil and wick
+are electrons drawing light waves from ether itself! A Prometheus,
+indeed, this discoverer! I looked at my watch and that little guardian
+warned me that it was time to go. I went. That which comes forth
+returned--this time empty-handed.
+
+"And the next night I did the same thing.  Engrossed in research, I
+let the moments go by to the danger point, and scarcely was I replaced
+within the vault when the shining thing raced over the walls, and in
+its grip the woman and child.
+
+"Then you came--and that is all.  And now--what is it you know?"
+
+Very briefly I went over my story.  His eyes gleamed now and then, but
+he did not interrupt me.
+
+"A great secret!  A colossal secret!" he muttered, when I had ended.
+"We cannot leave it hidden."
+
+"The first thing to do is to try the door," said Larry, matter of
+fact.
+
+"There is no use, my young friend," assured Marakinoff mildly.
+
+"Nevertheless we'll try," said Larry.  We retraced our way through the
+winding tunnel to the end, but soon even O'Keefe saw that any idea of
+moving the slab from within was hopeless. We returned to the Chamber
+of the Pool. The pillars of light were fainter, and we knew that the
+moon was sinking. On the world outside before long dawn would be
+breaking. I began to feel thirst--and the blue semblance of water
+within the silvery rim seemed to glint mockingly as my eyes rested on
+it.
+
+"Da!" it was Marakinoff, reading my thoughts uncannily. "Da!  We will
+be thirsty. And it will be very bad for him of us who loses control
+and drinks of that, my friend. Da!"
+
+Larry threw back his shoulders as though shaking a burden from them.
+
+"This place would give an angel of joy the willies," he said.  "I
+suggest that we look around and find something that will take us
+somewhere. You can bet the people that built it had more ways of
+getting in than that once-a-month family entrance. Doc, you and Olaf
+take the left wall; the professor and I will take the right."
+
+He loosened one of his automatics with a suggestive movement.
+
+"After you, Professor," he bowed, politely, to the Russian. We parted
+and set forth.
+
+The chamber widened out from the portal in what seemed to be the arc
+of an immense circle. The shining walls held a perceptible curve, and
+from this curvature I estimated that the roof was fully three hundred
+feet above us.
+
+The floor was of smooth, mosaic-fitted blocks of a faintly yellow
+tinge. They were not light-emitting like the blocks that formed the
+walls. The radiance from these latter, I noted, had the peculiar
+quality of _thickening_ a few yards from its source, and it was this
+that produced the effect of misty, veiled distances. As we walked, the
+seven columns of rays streaming down from the crystalline globes high
+above us waned steadily; the glow within the chamber lost its
+prismatic shimmer and became an even grey tone somewhat like moonlight
+in a thin cloud.
+
+Now before us, out from the wall, jutted a low terrace.  It was all of
+a pearly rose-coloured stone, slender, graceful pillars of the same
+hue. The face of the terrace was about ten feet high, and all over it
+ran a bas-relief of what looked like short-trailing vines, surmounted
+by five stalks, on the tip of each of which was a flower.
+
+We passed along the terrace.  It turned in an abrupt curve. I heard a
+hail, and there, fifty feet away, at the curving end of a wall
+identical with that where we stood, were Larry and Marakinoff.
+Obviously the left side of the chamber was a duplicate of that we had
+explored. We joined. In front of us the columned barriers ran back a
+hundred feet, forming an alcove. The end of this alcove was another
+wall of the same rose stone, but upon it the design of vines was much
+heavier.
+
+We took a step forward--there was a gasp of awe from the Norseman, a
+guttural exclamation from Marakinoff. For on, or rather within, the
+wall before us, a great oval began to glow, waxed almost to a flame
+and then shone steadily out as though from behind it a light was
+streaming through the stone itself!
+
+And within the roseate oval two flame-tipped shadows appeared, stood
+for a moment, and then seemed to float out upon its surface. The
+shadows wavered; the tips of flame that nimbused them with flickering
+points of vermilion pulsed outward, drew back, darted forth again, and
+once more withdrew themselves--and as they did so the shadows
+thickened--and suddenly there before us stood two figures!
+
+One was a girl--a girl whose great eyes were golden as the fabled
+lilies of Kwan-Yung that were born of the kiss of the sun upon the
+amber goddess the demons of Lao-Tz'e carved for him; whose softly
+curved lips were red as the royal coral, and whose golden-brown hair
+reached to her knees!
+
+And the second was a gigantic frog--A _woman_ frog, head helmeted with
+carapace of shell around which a fillet of brilliant yellow jewels
+shone; enormous round eyes of blue circled with a broad iris of green;
+monstrous body of banded orange and white girdled with strand upon
+strand of the flashing yellow gems; six feet high if an inch, and with
+one webbed paw of its short, powerfully muscled forelegs resting upon
+the white shoulder of the golden-eyed girl!
+
+Moments must have passed as we stood in stark amazement, gazing at
+that incredible apparition. The two figures, although as real as any
+of those who stood beside me, unphantomlike as it is possible to be,
+had a distinct suggestion of--projection.
+
+They were there before us--golden-eyed girl and grotesque
+frog-woman--complete in every line and curve; and still it was as
+though their bodies passed back through distances; as though, to try
+to express the wellnigh inexpressible, the two shapes we were looking
+upon were the end of an infinite number stretching in fine linked
+chain far away, of which the eyes saw only the nearest, while in the
+brain some faculty higher than sight recognized and registered the
+unseen others.
+
+The gigantic eyes of the frog-woman took us all in--unwinkingly.
+Little glints of phosphorescence shone out within the metallic green
+of the outer iris ring. She stood upright, her great legs bowed; the
+monstrous slit of a mouth slightly open, revealing a row of white
+teeth sharp and pointed as lancets; the paw resting on the girl's
+shoulder, half covering its silken surface, and from its five webbed
+digits long yellow claws of polished horn glistened against the
+delicate texture of the flesh.
+
+But if the frog-woman regarded us all, not so did the maiden of the
+rosy wall. Her eyes were fastened upon Larry, drinking him in with
+extraordinary intentness. She was tall, far over the average of women,
+almost as tall, indeed, as O'Keefe himself; not more than twenty years
+old, if that, I thought. Abruptly she leaned forward, the golden eyes
+softened and grew tender; the red lips moved as though she were
+speaking.
+
+Larry took a quick step, and his face was that of one who after
+countless births comes at last upon the twin soul lost to him for
+ages. The frog-woman turned her eyes upon the girl; her huge lips
+moved, and I knew that she was talking! The girl held out a warning
+hand to O'Keefe, and then raised it, resting each finger upon one of
+the five flowers of the carved vine close beside her. Once, twice,
+three times, she pressed upon the flower centres, and I noted that her
+hand was curiously long and slender, the digits like those wonderful
+tapering ones the painters we call the primitive gave to their
+Virgins.
+
+Three times she pressed the flowers, and then looked intently at Larry
+once more. A slow, sweet smile curved the crimson lips. She stretched
+both hands out toward him again eagerly; a burning blush rose swiftly
+over white breasts and flowerlike face.
+
+Like the clicking out of a cinematograph, the pulsing oval faded and
+golden-eyed girl and frog-woman were gone!
+
+And thus it was that Lakla, the handmaiden of the Silent Ones, and
+Larry O'Keefe first looked into each other's hearts!
+
+Larry stood rapt, gazing at the stone.
+
+"Eilidh," I heard him whisper; "Eilidh of the lips like the red, red
+rowan and the golden-brown hair!"
+
+"Clearly of the Ranadae," said Marakinoff, "a development of the
+fossil Labyrinthodonts: you saw her teeth, da?"
+
+"Ranadae, yes," I answered.  "But from the Stegocephalia; of the order
+Ecaudata--"
+
+Never such a complete indignation as was in O'Keefe's voice as he
+interrupted.
+
+"What do you mean--fossils and Stego whatever it is?" he asked.  "She
+was a girl, a wonder girl--a real girl, and Irish, or I'm not an
+O'Keefe!"
+
+"We were talking about the frog-woman, Larry," I said, conciliatingly.
+
+His eyes were wild as he regarded us.
+
+"Say," he said, "if you two had been in the Garden of Eden when Eve
+took the apple, you wouldn't have had time to give her a look for
+counting the scales on the snake!"
+
+He strode swiftly over to the wall.  We followed.  Larry paused,
+stretched his hand up to the flowers on which the tapering fingers of
+the golden-eyed girl had rested.
+
+"It was here she put up her hand," he murmured.  He pressed
+caressingly the carved calyxes, once, twice, a third time even as she
+had--and silently and softly the wall began to split; on each side a
+great stone pivoted slowly, and before us a portal stood, opening into
+a narrow corridor glowing with the same rosy lustre that had gleamed
+around the flame-tipped shadows!
+
+"Have your gun ready, Olaf!" said Larry.  "We follow Golden Eyes," he
+said to me.
+
+"Follow?" I echoed stupidly.
+
+"Follow!" he said.  "She came to show us the way!  Follow? I'd follow
+her through a thousand hells!"
+
+And with Olaf at one end, O'Keefe at the other, both of them with
+automatics in hand, and Marakinoff and I between them, we stepped over
+the threshold.
+
+At our right, a few feet away, the passage ended abruptly in a square
+of polished stone, from which came faint rose radiance. The roof of
+the place was less than two feet over O'Keefe's head.
+
+A yard at left of us lifted a four-foot high, gently curved barricade,
+stretching from wall to wall--and beyond it was blackness; an utter
+and appalling blackness that seemed to gather itself from infinite
+depths. The rose-glow in which we stood was cut off by the blackness
+as though it had substance; it shimmered out to meet it, and was
+checked as though by a blow; indeed, so strong was the suggestion of
+sinister, straining force within the rayless opacity that I shrank
+back, and Marakinoff with me. Not so O'Keefe. Olaf beside him, he
+strode to the wall and peered over. He beckoned us.
+
+"Flash your pocket-light down there," he said to me, pointing into the
+thick darkness below us. The little electric circle quivered down as
+though afraid, and came to rest upon a surface that resembled nothing
+so much as clear, black ice. I ran the light across--here and there.
+The floor of the corridor was of a substance so smooth, so polished,
+that no man could have walked upon it; it sloped downward at a slowly
+increasing angle.
+
+"We'd have to have non-skid chains and brakes on our feet to tackle
+that," mused Larry. Abstractedly be ran his hands over the edge on
+which he was leaning. Suddenly they hesitated and then gripped
+tightly.
+
+"That's a queer one!" he exclaimed.  His right palm was resting upon a
+rounded protuberance, on the side of which were three small circular
+indentations.
+
+"A queer one--" he repeated--and pressed his fingers upon the circles.
+
+There was a sharp click; the slabs that had opened to let us through
+swung swiftly together; a curiously rapid vibration thrilled through
+us, a wind arose and passed over our heads--a wind that grew and grew
+until it became a whistling shriek, then a roar and then a mighty
+humming, to which every atom in our bodies pulsed in rhythm painful
+almost to disintegration!
+
+The rosy wall dwindled in a flash to a point of light and disappeared!
+
+Wrapped in the clinging, impenetrable blackness we were racing,
+dropping, hurling at a frightful speed--where?
+
+And ever that awful humming of the rushing wind and the lightning
+cleaving of the tangible dark--so, it came to me oddly, must the newly
+released soul race through the sheer blackness of outer space up to
+that Throne of Justice, where God sits high above all suns!
+
+I felt Marakinoff creep close to me; gripped my nerve and flashed my
+pocket-light; saw Larry standing, peering, peering ahead, and
+Huldricksson, one strong arm around his shoulders, bracing him. And
+then the speed began to slacken.
+
+Millions of miles, it seemed, below the sound of the unearthly
+hurricane I heard Larry's voice, thin and ghostlike, beneath its
+clamour.
+
+"Got it!" shrilled the voice.  "Got it!  Don't worry!"
+
+The wind died down to the roar, passed back into the whistling shriek
+and diminished to a steady whisper. In the comparative quiet O'Keefe's
+tones now came in normal volume.
+
+"Some little shoot-the-chutes, what?" he shouted.  "Say--if they had
+this at Coney Island or the Crystal Palace! Press all the way in these
+holes and she goes top-high. Diminish pressure--diminish speed. The
+curve of this--dashboard--here sends the wind shooting up over our
+heads--like a windshield. What's behind you?"
+
+I flashed the light back.  The mechanism on which we were ended in
+another wall exactly similar to that over which O'Keefe crouched.
+
+"Well, we can't fall out, anyway," he laughed.  "Wish to hell I knew
+where the brakes were! Look out!"
+
+We dropped dizzily down an abrupt, seemingly endless slope; fell--fell
+as into an abyss--then shot abruptly out of the blackness into a
+throbbing green radiance. O'Keefe's fingers must have pressed down
+upon the controls, for we leaped forward almost with the speed of
+light. I caught a glimpse of luminous immensities on the verge of
+which we flew; of depths inconceivable, and flitting through the
+incredible spaces--gigantic shadows as of the wings of Israfel, which
+are so wide, say the Arabs, the world can cower under them like a
+nestling--and then--again the living blackness!
+
+"What was that?" This from Larry, with the nearest approach to awe
+that he had yet shown.
+
+"Trolldom!" croaked the voice of Olaf.
+
+"Chert!"  This from Marakinoff.  "What a space!"
+
+"Have you considered, Dr. Goodwin," he went on after a pause, "a
+curious thing? We know, or, at least, is it not that nine out of ten
+astronomers believe, that the moon was hurled out of this same region
+we now call the Pacific when the earth was yet like molasses; almost
+molten, I should say. And is it not curious that that which comes from
+the Moon Chamber needs the moon-rays to bring it forth; is it not? And
+is it not significant again that the stone depends upon the moon for
+operating? Da! And last--such a space in mother earth as we just
+glimpsed, how else could it have been torn but by some gigantic
+birth--like that of the moon? Da! I do not put forward these as
+statements of fact--no! But as suggestions--"
+
+I started; there was so much that this might explain--an unknown
+element that responded to the moon-rays in opening the moon door; the
+blue Pool with its weird radioactivity, and the force within it that
+reacted to the same light stream--
+
+It was not inconceivable that a film had drawn over the world wound, a
+film of earth-flesh which drew itself over that colossal abyss after
+our planet had borne its satellite--that world womb did not close
+when her shining child sprang forth--it was possible; and all that we
+know of earth depth is four miles of her eight thousand.
+
+What is there at the heart of earth?  What of that radiant unknown
+element upon the moon mount Tycho? What of that element unknown to us
+as part of earth which is seen only in the corona of the sun at
+eclipse that we call coronium? Yet the earth is child of the sun as
+the moon is earth's daughter. And what of that other unknown element
+we find glowing green in the far-flung nebulae--green as that we had
+just passed through--and that we call nebulium? Yet the sun is child
+of the nebulae as the earth is child of the sun and the moon is child
+of the earth.
+
+And what miracles are there in coronium and nebulium which, as the
+child of nebula and sun, we inherit? Yes--and in Tycho's enigma which
+came from earth heart?
+
+We were flashing down to earth heart!  And what miracles were hidden
+there?
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+The End of the Journey
+
+"Say Doc!" It was Larry's voice flung back at me.  "I was thinking
+about that frog. I think it was her pet. Damn me if I see any
+difference between a frog and a snake, and one of the nicest women I
+ever knew had two pet pythons that followed her around like kittens.
+Not such a devilish lot of choice between a frog and a snake--except
+on the side of the frog? What? Anyway, any pet that girl wants is
+hers, I don't care if it's a leaping twelve-toed lobster or a
+whale-bodied scorpion. Get me?"
+
+By which I knew that our remarks upon the frog woman were still
+bothering O'Keefe.
+
+"He thinks of foolish nothings like the foolish sailor!" grunted
+Marakinoff, acid contempt in his words. "What are their women
+to--this?" He swept out a hand and as though at a signal the car
+poised itself for an instant, then dipped, literally dipped down into
+sheer space; skimmed forward in what was clearly curved flight, rose
+as upon a sweeping upgrade and then began swiftly to slacken its
+fearful speed.
+
+Far ahead a point of light showed; grew steadily; we were within
+it--and softly all movement ceased. How acute had been the strain of
+our journey I did not realize until I tried to stand--and sank back,
+leg-muscles too shaky to bear my weight. The car rested in a slit in
+the centre of a smooth walled chamber perhaps twenty feet square. The
+wall facing us was pierced by a low doorway through which we could see
+a flight of steps leading downward.
+
+The light streamed through a small opening, the base of which was
+twice a tall man's height from the floor. A curving flight of broad,
+low steps led up to it. And now it came to my steadying brain that
+there was something puzzling, peculiar, strangely unfamiliar about
+this light. It was silvery, shaded faintly with a delicate blue and
+flushed lightly with a nacreous rose; but a rose that differed from
+that of the terraces of the Pool Chamber as the rose within the opal
+differs from that within the pearl. In it were tiny, gleaming points
+like the motes in a sunbeam, but sparkling white like the dust of
+diamonds, and with a quality of vibrant vitality; they were as though
+they were alive. The light cast no shadows!
+
+A little breeze came through the oval and played about us. It was
+laden with what seemed the mingled breath of spice flowers and pines.
+It was curiously vivifying, and in it the diamonded atoms of light
+shook and danced.
+
+I stepped out of the car, the Russian following, and began to ascend
+the curved steps toward the opening, at the top of which O'Keefe and
+Olaf already stood. As they looked out I saw both their faces
+change--Olaf's with awe, O'Keefe's with incredulous amaze. I hurried
+to their side.
+
+At first all that I could see was space--a space filled with the same
+coruscating effulgence that pulsed about me. I glanced upward, obeying
+that instinctive impulse of earth folk that bids them seek within the
+sky for sources of light. There was no sky--at least no sky such as we
+know--all was a sparkling nebulosity rising into infinite distances as
+the azure above the day-world seems to fill all the heavens--through
+it ran pulsing waves and flashing javelin rays that were like shining
+shadows of the aurora; echoes, octaves lower, of those brilliant
+arpeggios and chords that play about the poles. My eyes fell beneath
+its splendour; I stared outward.
+
+Miles away, gigantic luminous cliffs sprang sheer from the limits of a
+lake whose waters were of milky opalescence. It was from these cliffs
+that the spangled radiance came, shimmering out from all their
+lustrous surfaces. To left and to right, as far as the eye could see,
+they stretched--and they vanished in the auroral nebulosity on high!
+
+"Look at that!" exclaimed Larry.  I followed his pointing finger.  On
+the face of the shining wall, stretched between two colossal columns,
+hung an incredible veil; prismatic, gleaming with all the colours of
+the spectrum. It was like a web of rainbows woven by the fingers of
+the daughters of the Jinn. In front of it and a little at each side
+was a semi-circular pier, or, better, a plaza of what appeared to be
+glistening, pale-yellow ivory. At each end of its half-circle
+clustered a few low-walled, rose-stone structures, each of them
+surmounted by a number of high, slender pinnacles.
+
+We looked at each other, I think, a bit helplessly--and back again
+through the opening. We were standing, as I have said, at its base.
+The wall in which it was set was at least ten feet thick, and so, of
+course, all that we could see of that which was without were the
+distances that revealed themselves above the outer ledge of the oval.
+
+"Let's take a look at what's under us," said Larry.
+
+He crept out upon the ledge and peered down, the rest of us following.
+A hundred yards beneath us stretched gardens that must have been like
+those of many-columned Iram, which the ancient Addite King had built
+for his pleasure ages before the deluge, and which Allah, so the Arab
+legend tells, took and hid from man, within the Sahara, beyond all
+hope of finding--jealous because they were more beautiful than his in
+paradise. Within them flowers and groves of laced, fernlike trees,
+pillared pavilions nestled.
+
+The trunks of the trees were of emerald, of vermilion, and of
+azure-blue, and the blossoms, whose fragrance was borne to us, shone
+like jewels. The graceful pillars were tinted delicately. I noted that
+the pavilions were double--in a way, two-storied--and that they were
+oddly splotched with circles, with squares, and with oblongs
+of--opacity; noted too that over many this opacity stretched like a
+roof; yet it did not seem material; rather was it--impenetrable
+shadow!
+
+Down through this city of gardens ran a broad shining green
+thoroughfare, glistening like glass and spanned at regular intervals
+with graceful, arched bridges. The road flashed to a wide square,
+where rose, from a base of that same silvery stone that formed the lip
+of the Moon Pool, a titanic structure of seven terraces; and along it
+flitted objects that bore a curious resemblance to the shell of the
+Nautilus. Within them were--human figures! And upon tree-bordered
+promenades on each side walked others!
+
+Far to the right we caught the glint of another emerald-paved road.
+
+And between the two the gardens grew sweetly down to the hither side
+of that opalescent water across which were the radiant cliffs and the
+curtain of mystery.
+
+Thus it was that we first saw the city of the Dweller; blessed and
+accursed as no place on earth, or under or above earth has ever
+been--or, that force willing which some call God, ever again shall be!
+
+"Chert!" whispered Marakinoff.  "Incredible!"
+
+"Trolldom!" gasped Olaf Huldricksson.  "It is Trolldom!"
+
+"Listen, Olaf!" said Larry.  "Cut out that Trolldom stuff! There's no
+Trolldom, or fairies, outside Ireland. Get that! And this isn't
+Ireland. And, buck up, Professor!" This to Marakinoff. "What you see
+down there are people--_just plain people_. And wherever there's people
+is where I live. Get me?
+
+"There's no way in but in--and no way out but out," said O'Keefe.
+"And there's the stairway. Eggs are eggs no matter how they're
+cooked--and people are just people, fellow travellers, no matter what
+dish they are in," he concluded. "Come on!"
+
+With the three of us close behind him, he marched toward the entrance.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+Yolara, Priestess of the Shining One
+
+"You'd better have this handy, Doc." O'Keefe paused at the head of the
+stairway and handed me one of the automatics he had taken from
+Marakinoff.
+
+"Shall I not have one also?" rather anxiously asked the latter.
+
+"When you need it you'll get it," answered O'Keefe.  "I'll tell you
+frankly, though, Professor, that you'll have to show me before I trust
+you with a gun. You shoot too straight--from cover."
+
+The flash of anger in the Russian's eyes turned to a cold
+consideration.
+
+"You say always just what is in your mind, Lieutenant O'Keefe," he
+mused. "Da--that I shall remember!" Later I was to recall this odd
+observation--and Marakinoff was to remember indeed.
+
+In single file, O'Keefe at the head and Olaf bringing up the rear, we
+passed through the portal. Before us dropped a circular shaft, into
+which the light from the chamber of the oval streamed liquidly; set in
+its sides the steps spiralled, and down them we went, cautiously. The
+stairway ended in a circular well; silent--with no trace of exit! The
+rounded stones joined each other evenly--hermetically. Carved on one
+of the slabs was one of the five flowered vines. I pressed my fingers
+upon the calyxes, even as Larry had within the Moon Chamber.
+
+A crack--horizontal, four feet wide--appeared on the wall; widened,
+and as the sinking slab that made it dropped to the level of our eyes,
+we looked through a hundred-feet-long rift in the living rock! The
+stone fell steadily--and we saw that it was a Cyclopean wedge set
+within the slit of the passageway. It reached the level of our feet
+and stopped. At the far end of this tunnel, whose floor was the
+polished rock that had, a moment before, fitted hermetically into its
+roof, was a low, narrow triangular opening through which light
+streamed.
+
+"Nowhere to go but out!" grinned Larry.  "And I'll bet Golden Eyes is
+waiting for us with a taxi!" He stepped forward. We followed,
+slipping, sliding along the glassy surface; and I, for one, had a
+lively apprehension of what our fate would be should that enormous
+mass rise before we had emerged! We reached the end; crept out of the
+narrow triangle that was its exit.
+
+We stood upon a wide ledge carpeted with a thick yellow moss.  I
+looked behind--and clutched O'Keefe's arm. The door through which we
+had come had vanished! There was only a precipice of pale rock, on
+whose surfaces great patches of the amber moss hung; around whose base
+our ledge ran, and whose summits, if summits it had, were hidden, like
+the luminous cliffs, in the radiance above us.
+
+"Nowhere to go but ahead--and Golden Eyes hasn't kept her date!"
+laughed O'Keefe--but somewhat grimly.
+
+We walked a few yards along the ledge and, rounding a corner, faced
+the end of one of the slender bridges. From this vantage point the
+oddly shaped vehicles were plain, and we could see they were, indeed,
+like the shell of the Nautilus and elfinly beautiful. Their drivers
+sat high upon the forward whorl. Their bodies were piled high with
+cushions, upon which lay women half-swathed in gay silken webs. From
+the pavilioned gardens smaller channels of glistening green ran into
+the broad way, much as automobile runways do on earth; and in and out
+of them flashed the fairy shells.
+
+There came a shout from one.  Its occupants had glimpsed us. They
+pointed; others stopped and stared; one shell turned and sped up a
+runway--and quickly over the other side of the bridge came a score of
+men. They were dwarfed--none of them more than five feet high,
+prodigiously broad of shoulder, clearly enormously powerful.
+
+"Trolde!" muttered Olaf, stepping beside O'Keefe, pistol swinging free
+in his hand.
+
+But at the middle of the bridge the leader stopped, waved back his
+men, and came toward us alone, palms outstretched in the immemorial,
+universal gesture of truce. He paused, scanning us with manifest
+wonder; we returned the scrutiny with interest. The dwarf's face was
+as white as Olaf's--far whiter than those of the other three of us;
+the features clean-cut and noble, almost classical; the wide set eyes
+of a curious greenish grey and the black hair curling over his head
+like that on some old Greek statue.
+
+Dwarfed though he was, there was no suggestion of deformity about him.
+The gigantic shoulders were covered with a loose green tunic that
+looked like fine linen. It was caught in at the waist by a broad
+girdle studded with what seemed to be amazonites. In it was thrust a
+long curved poniard resembling the Malaysian kris. His legs were
+swathed in the same green cloth as the upper garment. His feet were
+sandalled.
+
+My gaze returned to his face, and in it I found something subtly
+disturbing; an expression of half-malicious gaiety that underlay the
+wholly prepossessing features like a vague threat; a mocking deviltry
+that hinted at entire callousness to suffering or sorrow; something of
+the spirit that was vaguely alien and disquieting.
+
+He spoke--and, to my surprise, enough of the words were familiar to
+enable me clearly to catch the meaning of the whole. They were
+Polynesian, the Polynesian of the Samoans which is its most ancient
+form, but in some indefinable way--archaic. Later I was to know that
+the tongue bore the same relation to the Polynesian of today as does
+_not_ that of Chaucer, but of the Venerable Bede, to modern English.
+Nor was this to be so astonishing, when with the knowledge came the
+certainty that it was from it the language we call Polynesian sprang.
+
+"From whence do you come, strangers--and how found you your way here?"
+said the green dwarf.
+
+I waved my hand toward the cliff behind us.  His eyes narrowed
+incredulously; he glanced at its drop, upon which even a mountain goat
+could not have made its way, and laughed.
+
+"We came through the rock," I answered his thought. "And we come in
+peace," I added.
+
+"And may peace walk with you," he said half-derisively--"if the
+Shining One wills it!"
+
+He considered us again.
+
+"Show me, strangers, where you came through the rock," he commanded.
+We led the way to where we had emerged from the well of the stairway.
+
+"It was here," I said, tapping the cliff.
+
+"But I see no opening," he said suavely.
+
+"It closed behind us," I answered; and then, for the first time,
+realized how incredible the explanation sounded. The derisive gleam
+passed through his eyes again. But he drew his poniard and gravely
+sounded the rock.
+
+"You give a strange turn to our speech," he said.  "It sounds
+strangely, indeed--as strange as your answers." He looked at us
+quizzically. "I wonder where you learned it! Well, all that you can
+explain to the Afyo Maie." His head bowed and his arms swept out in a
+wide salaam. "Be pleased to come with me!" he ended abruptly.
+
+"In peace?" I asked.
+
+"In peace," he replied--then slowly--"with me at least."
+
+"Oh, come on, Doc!" cried Larry.  "As long as we're here let's see the
+sights. Allons mon vieux!" he called gaily to the green dwarf. The
+latter, understanding the spirit, if not the words, looked at O'Keefe
+with a twinkle of approval; turned then to the great Norseman and
+scanned him with admiration; reached out and squeezed one of the
+immense biceps.
+
+"Lugur will welcome you, at least," he murmured as though to himself.
+He stood aside and waved a hand courteously, inviting us to pass. We
+crossed. At the base of the span one of the elfin shells was waiting.
+
+Beyond, scores had gathered, their occupants evidently discussing us
+in much excitement. The green dwarf waved us to the piles of cushions
+and then threw himself beside us. The vehicle started off smoothly,
+the now silent throng making way, and swept down the green roadway at
+a terrific pace and wholly without vibration, toward the
+seven-terraced tower.
+
+As we flew along I tried to discover the source of the power, but I
+could not--then. There was no sign of mechanism, but that the shell
+responded to some form of energy was certain--the driver grasping a
+small lever which seemed to control not only our speed, but our
+direction.
+
+We turned abruptly and swept up a runway through one of the gardens,
+and stopped softly before a pillared pavilion. I saw now that these
+were much larger than I had thought. The structure to which we had
+been carried covered, I estimated, fully an acre. Oblong, with its
+slender, vari-coloured columns spaced regularly, its walls were like
+the sliding screens of the Japanese--shoji.
+
+The green dwarf hurried us up a flight of broad steps flanked by great
+carved serpents, winged and scaled. He stamped twice upon mosaicked
+stones between two of the pillars, and a screen rolled aside,
+revealing an immense hall scattered about with low divans on which
+lolled a dozen or more of the dwarfish men, dressed identically as he.
+
+They sauntered up to us leisurely; the surprised interest in their
+faces tempered by the same inhumanly gay malice that seemed to be
+characteristic of all these people we had as yet seen.
+
+"The Afyo Maie awaits them, Rador," said one.
+
+The green dwarf nodded, beckoned us, and led the way through the great
+hall and into a smaller chamber whose far side was covered with the
+opacity I had noted from the aerie of the cliff. I examined
+the--blackness--with lively interest.
+
+It had neither substance nor texture; it was not matter--and yet it
+suggested solidity; an entire cessation, a complete absorption of
+light; an ebon veil at once immaterial and palpable. I stretched,
+involuntarily, my hand out toward it, and felt it quickly drawn back.
+
+"Do you seek your end so soon?" whispered Rador.  "But I forget--you
+do not know," he added. "On your life touch not the blackness, ever.
+It--"
+
+He stopped, for abruptly in the density a portal appeared; swinging
+out of the shadow like a picture thrown by a lantern upon a screen.
+Through it was revealed a chamber filled with a soft rosy glow. Rising
+from cushioned couches, a woman and a man regarded us, half leaning
+over a long, low table of what seemed polished jet, laden with flowers
+and unfamiliar fruits.
+
+About the room--that part of it, at least, that I could see--were a
+few oddly shaped chairs of the same substance. On high, silvery
+tripods three immense globes stood, and it was from them that the rose
+glow emanated. At the side of the woman was a smaller globe whose
+roseate gleam was tempered by quivering waves of blue.
+
+"Enter Rador with the strangers!" a clear, sweet voice called.
+
+Rador bowed deeply and stood aside, motioning us to pass.  We entered,
+the green dwarf behind us, and out of the corner of my eye I saw the
+doorway fade as abruptly as it had appeared and again the dense shadow
+fill its place.
+
+"Come closer, strangers.  Be not afraid!" commanded the bell-toned
+voice.
+
+We approached.
+
+The woman, sober scientist that I am, made the breath catch in my
+throat. Never had I seen a woman so beautiful as was Yolara of the
+Dweller's city--and none of so perilous a beauty. Her hair was of the
+colour of the young tassels of the corn and coiled in a regal crown
+above her broad, white brows; her wide eyes were of grey that could
+change to a cornflower blue and in anger deepen to purple; grey or
+blue, they had little laughing devils within them, but when the storm
+of anger darkened them--they were not laughing, no! The silken webs
+that half covered, half revealed her did not hide the ivory whiteness
+of her flesh nor the sweet curve of shoulders and breasts. But for all
+her amazing beauty, she was--sinister! There was cruelty about the
+curving mouth, and in the music of her voice--not conscious cruelty,
+but the more terrifying, careless cruelty of nature itself.
+
+The girl of the rose wall had been beautiful, yes!  But her beauty was
+human, understandable. You could imagine her with a babe in her
+arms--but you could not so imagine this woman. About her loveliness
+hovered something unearthly. A sweet feminine echo of the Dweller was
+Yolara, the Dweller's priestess--and as gloriously, terrifyingly evil!
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+The Justice of Lora
+
+As I looked at her the man arose and made his way round the table
+toward us. For the first time my eyes took in Lugur. A few inches
+taller than the green dwarf, he was far broader, more filled with the
+suggestion of appalling strength.
+
+The tremendous shoulders were four feet wide if an inch, tapering down
+to mighty thewed thighs. The muscles of his chest stood out beneath
+his tunic of red. Around his forehead shone a chaplet of bright-blue
+stones, sparkling among the thick curls of his silver-ash hair.
+
+Upon his face pride and ambition were written large--and power still
+larger. All the mockery, the malice, the hint of callous indifference
+that I had noted in the other dwarfish men were there, too--but
+intensified, touched with the satanic.
+
+The woman spoke again.
+
+"Who are you strangers, and how came you here?"  She turned to Rador.
+"Or is it that they do not understand our tongue?"
+
+"One understands and speaks it--but very badly, O Yolara," answered
+the green dwarf.
+
+"Speak, then, that one of you," she commanded.
+
+But it was Marakinoff who found his voice first, and I marvelled at
+the fluency, so much greater than mine, with which he spoke.
+
+"We came for different purposes.  I to seek knowledge of a kind;
+he"--pointing to me "of another. This man"--he looked at Olaf--"to
+find a wife and child."
+
+The grey-blue eyes had been regarding O'Keefe steadily and with
+plainly increasing interest.
+
+"And why did _you_ come?" she asked him.  "Nay--I would have him speak
+for himself, if he can," she stilled Marakinoff peremptorily.
+
+When Larry spoke it was haltingly, in the tongue that was strange to
+him, searching for the proper words.
+
+"I came to help these men--and because something I could not then
+understand called me, O lady, whose eyes are like forest pools at
+dawn," he answered; and even in the unfamiliar words there was a touch
+of the Irish brogue, and little merry lights danced in the eyes Larry
+had so apostrophized.
+
+"I could find fault with your speech, but none with its burden," she
+said. "What forest pools are I know not, and the dawn has not shone
+upon the people of Lora these many sais of laya.[1] But I sense what you
+mean!"
+
+The eyes deepened to blue as she regarded him.  She smiled.
+
+"Are there many like you in the world from which you come?" she asked
+softly. "Well, we soon shall--"
+
+Lugur interrupted her almost rudely and glowering.
+
+"Best we should know how they came hence," he growled.
+
+She darted a quick look at him, and again the little devils danced in
+her wondrous eyes.
+
+
+[Unquestionably there is a subtle difference between time as we know it
+and time in this subterranean land--its progress there being slower.
+This, however, is only in accord with the well-known doctrine of
+relativity, which predicates both space and time as necessary
+inventions of the human mind to orient itself to the conditions under
+which it finds itself. I tried often to measure this difference, but
+could never do so to my entire satisfaction. The closest I can come to
+it is to say that an hour of our time is the equivalent of an hour and
+five-eighths in Muria. For further information upon this matter of
+relativity the reader may consult any of the numerous books upon the
+subject.--W. T. G.]
+
+
+"Yes, that is true," she said.  "How came you here?"
+
+Again it was Marakinoff who answered--slowly, considering every word.
+
+"In the world above," he said, "there are ruins of cities not built by
+any of those who now dwell there. To us these places called, and we
+sought for knowledge of the wise ones who made them. We found a
+passageway. The way led us downward to a door in yonder cliff, and
+through it we came here."
+
+"Then have you found what you sought?" spoke she.  "For we are of
+those who built the cities. But this gateway in the rock--where is
+it?"
+
+"After we passed, it closed upon us; nor could we after find trace of
+it," answered Marakinoff.
+
+The incredulity that had shown upon the face of the green dwarf fell
+upon theirs; on Lugur's it was clouded with furious anger.
+
+He turned to Rador.
+
+"I could find no opening, lord," said the green dwarf quickly.
+
+And there was so fierce a fire in the eyes of Lugur as he swung back
+upon us that O'Keefe's hand slipped stealthily down toward his pistol.
+
+"Best it is to speak truth to Yolara, priestess of the Shining One,
+and to Lugur, the Voice," he cried menacingly.
+
+"It is the truth," I interposed.  "We came down the passage.  At its
+end was a carved vine, a vine of five flowers"--the fire died from the
+red dwarf's eyes, and I could have sworn to a swift pallor. "I rested
+a hand upon these flowers, and a door opened. But when we had gone
+through it and turned, behind us was nothing but unbroken cliff. The
+door had vanished."
+
+I had taken my cue from Marakinoff.  If he had eliminated the episode
+of car and Moon Pool, he had good reason, I had no doubt; and I would
+be as cautious. And deep within me something cautioned me to say
+nothing of my quest; to stifle all thought of Throckmartin--something
+that warned, peremptorily, finally, as though it were a message from
+Throckmartin himself!
+
+"A vine with five flowers!" exclaimed the red dwarf.  "Was it like
+this, say?"
+
+He thrust forward a long arm.  Upon the thumb of the hand was an
+immense ring, set with a dull-blue stone. Graven on the face of the
+jewel was the symbol of the rosy walls of the Moon Chamber that had
+opened to us their two portals. But cut over the vine were seven
+circles, one about each of the flowers and two larger ones covering,
+intersecting them.
+
+"This is the same," I said; "but these were not there"--I indicated
+the circles.
+
+The woman drew a deep breath and looked deep into Lugur's eyes.
+
+"The sign of the Silent Ones!" he half whispered.
+
+It was the woman who first recovered herself.
+
+"The strangers are weary, Lugur," she said.  "When they are rested
+they shall show where the rocks opened."
+
+I sensed a subtle change in their attitude toward us; a new
+intentness; a doubt plainly tinged with apprehension. What was it they
+feared? Why had the symbol of the vine wrought the change? And who or
+what were the Silent Ones?
+
+Yolara's eyes turned to Olaf, hardened, and grew cold grey.
+Subconsciously I had noticed that from the first the Norseman had been
+absorbed in his regard of the pair; had, indeed, never taken his gaze
+from them; had noticed, too, the priestess dart swift glances toward
+him.
+
+He returned her scrutiny fearlessly, a touch of contempt in the clear
+eyes--like a child watching a snake which he did not dread, but whose
+danger be well knew.
+
+Under that look Yolara stirred impatiently, sensing, I know, its
+meaning.
+
+"Why do you look at me so?" she cried.
+
+An expression of bewilderment passed over Olaf's face.
+
+"I do not understand," he said in English.
+
+I caught a quickly repressed gleam in O'Keefe's eyes.  He knew, as I
+knew, that Olaf must have understood. But did Marakinoff?
+
+Apparently he did not.  But why was Olaf feigning ignorance?
+
+"This man is a sailor from what we call the North," thus Larry
+haltingly. "He is crazed, I think. He tells a strange tale of a
+something of cold fire that took his wife and babe. We found him
+wandering where we were. And because he is strong we brought him with
+us. That is all, O lady, whose voice is sweeter than the honey of the
+wild bees!"
+
+"A shape of cold fire?" she repeated.
+
+"A shape of cold fire that whirled beneath the moon, with the sound of
+little bells," answered Larry, watching her intently.
+
+She looked at Lugur and laughed.
+
+"Then he, too, is fortunate," she said.  "For he has come to the place
+of his something of cold fire--and tell him that he shall join his
+wife and child, in time; that I promise him."
+
+Upon the Norseman's face there was no hint of comprehension, and at
+that moment I formed an entirely new opinion of Olaf's intelligence;
+for certainly it must have been a prodigious effort of the will,
+indeed, that enabled him, understanding, to control himself.
+
+"What does she say?" he asked.
+
+Larry repeated.
+
+"Good!" said Olaf.  "Good!"
+
+He looked at Yolara with well-assumed gratitude.  Lugur, who had been
+scanning his bulk, drew close. He felt the giant muscles which
+Huldricksson accommodatingly flexed for him.
+
+"But he shall meet Valdor and Tahola before he sees those kin of his,"
+he laughed mockingly. "And if he bests them--for reward--his wife and
+babe!"
+
+A shudder, quickly repressed, shook the seaman's frame. The woman bent
+her supremely beautiful head.
+
+"These two," she said, pointing to the Russian and to me, "seem to be
+men of learning. They may be useful. As for this man,"--she smiled at
+Larry--"I would have him explain to me some things." She hesitated.
+"What 'hon-ey of 'e wild bees-s' is." Larry had spoken the words in
+English, and she was trying to repeat them. "As for this man, the
+sailor, do as you please with him, Lugur; always remembering that I
+have given my word that he shall join that wife and babe of his!" She
+laughed sweetly, sinisterly. "And now--take them, Rador--give them
+food and drink and let them rest till we shall call them again."
+
+She stretched out a hand toward O'Keefe.  The Irishman bowed low over
+it, raised it softly to his lips. There was a vicious hiss from Lugur;
+but Yolara regarded Larry with eyes now all tender blue.
+
+"You please me," she whispered.
+
+And the face of Lugur grew darker.
+
+We turned to go.  The rosy, azure-shot globe at her side suddenly
+dulled. From it came a faint bell sound as of chimes far away. She
+bent over it. It vibrated, and then its surface ran with little waves
+of dull colour; from it came a whispering so low that I could not
+distinguish the words--if words they were.
+
+She spoke to the red dwarf.
+
+"They have brought the three who blasphemed the Shining One," she said
+slowly. "Now it is in my mind to show these strangers the justice of
+Lora. What say you, Lugur?"
+
+The red dwarf nodded, his eyes sparkling with a malicious
+anticipation.
+
+The woman spoke again to the globe.  "Bring them here!"
+
+And again it ran swiftly with its film of colours, darkened, and shone
+rosy once more. From without there came a rustle of many feet upon the
+rugs. Yolara pressed a slender hand upon the base of the pedestal of
+the globe beside her. Abruptly the light faded from all, and on the
+same instant the four walls of blackness vanished, revealing on two
+sides the lovely, unfamiliar garden through the guarding rows of
+pillars; at our backs soft draperies hid what lay beyond; before us,
+flanked by flowered screens, was the corridor through which we had
+entered, crowded now by the green dwarfs of the great hall.
+
+The dwarfs advanced.  Each, I now noted, had the same clustering black
+hair of Rador. They separated, and from them stepped three figures--a
+youth of not more than twenty, short, but with the great shoulders of
+all the males we had seen of this race; a girl of seventeen, I judged,
+white-faced, a head taller than the boy, her long, black hair
+dishevelled; and behind these two a stunted, gnarled shape whose head
+was sunk deep between the enormous shoulders, whose white beard fell
+like that of some ancient gnome down to his waist, and whose eyes were
+a white flame of hate. The girl cast herself weeping at the feet of
+the priestess; the youth regarded her curiously.
+
+"You are Songar of the Lower Waters?" murmured Yolara almost
+caressingly. "And this is your daughter and her lover?"
+
+The gnome nodded, the flame in his eyes leaping higher.
+
+"It has come to me that you three have dared blaspheme the Shining
+One, its priestess, and its Voice," went on Yolara smoothly. "Also
+that you have called out to the three Silent Ones. Is it true?"
+
+"Your spies have spoken--and have you not already judged us?" The
+voice of the old dwarf was bitter.
+
+A flicker shot through the eyes of Yolara, again cold grey. The girl
+reached a trembling hand out to the hem of the priestess's veils.
+
+"Tell us why you did these things, Songar," she said.  "Why you did
+them, knowing full well what your--reward--would be."
+
+The dwarf stiffened; he raised his withered arms, and his eyes blazed.
+
+"Because evil are your thoughts and evil are your deeds," he cried.
+"Yours and your lover's, there"--he levelled a finger at Lugur.
+"Because of the Shining One you have made evil, too, and the greater
+wickedness you contemplate--you and he with the Shining One. But I
+tell you that your measure of iniquity is full; the tale of your sin
+near ended! Yea--the Silent Ones have been patient, but soon they will
+speak." He pointed at us. "A sign are _they_--a warning--harlot!" He
+spat the word.
+
+In Yolara's eyes, grown black, the devils leaped unrestrained.
+
+"Is it even so, Songar?" her voice caressed.  "Now ask the Silent Ones
+to help you! They sit afar--but surely they will hear you." The sweet
+voice was mocking. "As for these two, they shall pray to the Shining
+One for forgiveness--and surely the Shining One will take them to its
+bosom! As for you--you have lived long enough, Songar! Pray to the
+Silent Ones, Songar, and pass out into the nothingness--you!"
+
+She dipped down into her bosom and drew forth something that resembled
+a small cone of tarnished silver. She levelled it, a covering clicked
+from its base, and out of it darted a slender ray of intense green
+light.
+
+It struck the old dwarf squarely over the heart, and spread swift as
+light itself, covering him with a gleaming, pale film. She clenched
+her hand upon the cone, and the ray disappeared. She thrust the cone
+back into her breast and leaned forward expectantly; so Lugur and so
+the other dwarfs. From the girl came a low wail of anguish; the boy
+dropped upon his knees, covering his face.
+
+For the moment the white beard stood rigid; then the robe that had
+covered him seemed to melt away, revealing all the knotted, monstrous
+body. And in that body a vibration began, increasing to incredible
+rapidity. It wavered before us like a reflection in a still pond
+stirred by a sudden wind. It grew and grew--to a rhythm whose rapidity
+was intolerable to watch and that still chained the eyes.
+
+The figure grew indistinct, misty.  Tiny sparks in infinite numbers
+leaped from it--like, I thought, the radiant shower of particles
+hurled out by radium when seen under the microscope. Mistier still it
+grew--there trembled before us for a moment a faintly luminous shadow
+which held, here and there, tiny sparkling atoms like those that
+pulsed in the light about us! The glowing shadow vanished, the
+sparkling atoms were still for a moment--and shot away, joining those
+dancing others.
+
+Where the gnomelike form had been but a few seconds before--there was
+nothing!
+
+O'Keefe drew a long breath, and I was sensible of a prickling along my
+scalp.
+
+Yolara leaned toward us.
+
+"You have seen," she said.  Her eyes lingered tigerishly upon Olaf's
+pallid face. "Heed!" she whispered. She turned to the men in green,
+who were laughing softly among themselves.
+
+"Take these two, and go!" she commanded.
+
+"The justice of Lora," said the red dwarf.  "The justice of Lora and
+the Shining One under Thanaroa!"
+
+Upon the utterance of the last word I saw Marakinoff start violently.
+The hand at his side made a swift, surreptitious gesture, so fleeting
+that I hardly caught it. The red dwarf stared at the Russian, and
+there was amazement upon his face.
+
+Swiftly as Marakinoff, he returned it.
+
+"Yolara," the red dwarf spoke, "it would please me to take this man of
+wisdom to my own place for a time. The giant I would have, too."
+
+The woman awoke from her brooding; nodded.
+
+"As you will, Lugur," she said.
+
+And as, shaken to the core, we passed out into the garden into the
+full throbbing of the light, I wondered if all the tiny sparkling
+diamond points that shook about us had once been men like Songar of
+the Lower Waters--and felt my very soul grow sick!
+
+
+[1] Later I was to find that Murian reckoning rested upon the
+extraordinary increased luminosity of the cliffs at the time of full
+moon on earth--this action, to my mind, being linked either with the
+effect of the light streaming globes upon the Moon Pool, whose source
+was in the shining cliffs, or else upon some mysterious affinity of
+their radiant element with the flood of moonlight on earth--the
+latter, most probably, because even when the moon must have been
+clouded above, it made no difference in the phenomenon. Thirteen of
+these shinings forth constituted a laya, one of them a lat. Ten was
+sa; ten times ten times ten a said, or thousand; ten times a thousand
+was a sais. A sais of laya was then literally ten thousand years. What
+we would call an hour was by them called a va. The whole time system
+was, of course, a mingling of time as it had been known to their
+remote, surface-dwelling ancestors, and the peculiar determining
+factors in the vast cavern.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+The Angry, Whispering Globe
+
+Our way led along a winding path between banked masses of softly
+radiant blooms, groups of feathery ferns whose plumes were starred
+with fragrant white and blue flowerets, slender creepers swinging from
+the branches of the strangely trunked trees, bearing along their
+threads orchid-like blossoms both delicately frail and gorgeously
+flamboyant.
+
+The path we trod was an exquisite mosaic--pastel greens and pinks upon
+a soft grey base, garlands of nimbused forms like the flaming rose of
+the Rosicrucians held in the mouths of the flying serpents. A smaller
+pavilion arose before us, single-storied, front wide open.
+
+Upon its threshold Rador paused, bowed deeply, and motioned us within.
+The chamber we entered was large, closed on two sides by screens of
+grey; at the back gay, concealing curtains. The low table of blue
+stone, dressed with fine white cloths, stretched at one side flanked
+by the cushioned divans.
+
+At the left was a high tripod bearing one of the rosy globes we had
+seen in the house of Yolara; at the head of the table a smaller globe
+similar to the whispering one. Rador pressed upon its base, and two
+other screens slid into place across the entrance, shutting in the
+room.
+
+He clapped his hands; the curtains parted, and two girls came through
+them. Tall and willow lithe, their bluish-black hair falling in
+ringlets just below their white shoulders, their clear eyes of
+forget-me-not blue, and skins of extraordinary fineness and
+purity--they were singularly attractive. Each was clad in an extremely
+scanty bodice of silken blue, girdled above a kirtle that came barely
+to their very pretty knees.
+
+"Food and drink," ordered Rador.
+
+They dropped back through the curtains.
+
+"Do you like them?" he asked us.
+
+"Some chickens!" said Larry.  "They delight the heart," he translated
+for Rador.
+
+The green dwarf's next remark made me gasp.
+
+"They are yours," he said.
+
+Before I could question him further upon this extraordinary statement
+the pair re-entered, bearing a great platter on which were small
+loaves, strange fruits, and three immense flagons of rock crystal--two
+filled with a slightly sparkling yellow liquid and the third with a
+purplish drink. I became acutely sensible that it had been hours since
+I had either eaten or drunk. The yellow flagons were set before Larry
+and me, the purple at Rador's hand.
+
+The girls, at his signal, again withdrew.  I raised my glass to my
+lips and took a deep draft. The taste was unfamiliar but delightful.
+
+Almost at once my fatigue disappeared.  I realized a clarity of mind,
+an interesting exhilaration and sense of irresponsibility, of freedom
+from care, that were oddly enjoyable. Larry became immediately his old
+gay self.
+
+The green dwarf regarded us whimsically, sipping from his great flagon
+of rock crystal.
+
+"Much do I desire to know of that world you came from," he said at
+last--"through the rocks," he added, slyly.
+
+"And much do we desire to know of this world of yours, O Rador," I
+answered.
+
+Should I ask him of the Dweller; seek from him a clue to Throckmartin?
+Again, clearly as a spoken command, came the warning to forbear, to
+wait. And once more I obeyed.
+
+"Let us learn, then, from each other." The dwarf was laughing.  "And
+first--are all above like you--drawn out"--he made an expressive
+gesture--"and are there many of you?"
+
+"There are--" I hesitated, and at last spoke the Polynesian that means
+tens upon tens multiplied indefinitely--"there are as many as the
+drops of water in the lake we saw from the ledge where you found us,"
+I continued; "many as the leaves on the trees without. And they are
+all like us--varyingly."
+
+He considered skeptically, I could see, my remark upon our numbers.
+
+"In Muria," he said at last, "the men are like me or like Lugur.  Our
+women are as you see them--like Yolara or those two who served you."
+He hesitated. "And there is a third; but only one."
+
+Larry leaned forward eagerly.
+
+"Brown-haired with glints of ruddy bronze, golden-eyed, and lovely as
+a dream, with long, slender, beautiful hands?" he cried.
+
+"Where saw you _her_?" interrupted the dwarf, starting to his feet.
+
+"Saw her?" Larry recovered himself.  "Nay, Rador, perhaps, I only
+dreamed that there was such a woman."
+
+"See to it, then, that you tell not your dream to Yolara," said the
+dwarf grimly. "For her I meant and her you have pictured is Lakla, the
+hand-maiden to the Silent Ones, and neither Yolara nor Lugur, nay, nor
+the Shining One, love her overmuch, stranger."
+
+"Does she dwell here?" Larry's face was alight.
+
+The dwarf hesitated, glanced about him anxiously.
+
+"Nay," he answered, "ask me no more of her." He was silent for a
+space. "And what do you who are as leaves or drops of water do in that
+world of yours?" he said, plainly bent on turning the subject.
+
+"Keep off the golden-eyed girl, Larry," I interjected.  "Wait till we
+find out why she's tabu."
+
+"Love and battle, strive and accomplish and die; or fail and die,"
+answered Larry--to Rador--giving me a quick nod of acquiescence to my
+warning in English.
+
+"In that at least your world and mine differ little," said the dwarf.
+
+"How great is this world of yours, Rador?" I spoke.
+
+He considered me gravely.
+
+"How great indeed I do not know," he said frankly at last. "The land
+where we dwell with the Shining One stretches along the white waters
+for--" He used a phrase of which I could make nothing. "Beyond this
+city of the Shining One and on the hither shores of the white waters
+dwell the mayia ladala--the common ones." He took a deep draft from
+his flagon. "There are, first, the fair-haired ones, the children of
+the ancient rulers," he continued. "There are, second, we the
+soldiers; and last, the mayia ladala, who dig and till and weave and
+toil and give our rulers and us their daughters, and dance with the
+Shining One!" he added.
+
+"Who rules?" I asked.
+
+"The fair-haired, under the Council of Nine, who are under Yolara, the
+Priestess and Lugur, the Voice," he answered, "who are in turn beneath
+the Shining One!" There was a ring of bitter satire in the last.
+
+"And those three who were judged?"--this from Larry.
+
+"They were of the mayia ladala," he replied, "like those two I gave
+you. But they grow restless. They do not like to dance with the
+Shining One--the blasphemers!" He raised his voice in a sudden great
+shout of mocking laughter.
+
+In his words I caught a fleeting picture of the race--an ancient,
+luxurious, close-bred oligarchy clustered about some mysterious deity;
+a soldier class that supported them; and underneath all the toiling,
+oppressed hordes.
+
+"And is that all?" asked Larry.
+
+"No," he answered.  "There is the Sea of Crimson where--"
+
+Without warning the globe beside us sent out a vicious note, Rador
+turned toward it, his face paling. Its surface crawled with
+whisperings--angry, peremptory!
+
+"I hear!" he croaked, gripping the table.  "I obey!"
+
+He turned to us a face devoid for once of its malice.
+
+"Ask me no more questions, strangers," he said.  "And now, if you are
+done, I will show you where you may sleep and bathe."
+
+He arose abruptly.  We followed him through the hangings, passed
+through a corridor and into another smaller chamber, roofless, the
+sides walled with screens of dark grey. Two cushioned couches were
+there and a curtained door leading into an open, outer enclosure in
+which a fountain played within a wide pool.
+
+"Your bath," said Rador.  He dropped the curtain and came back into
+the room. He touched a carved flower at one side. There was a tiny
+sighing from overhead and instantly across the top spread a veil of
+blackness, impenetrable to light but certainly not to air, for through
+it pulsed little breaths of the garden fragrances. The room filled
+with a cool twilight, refreshing, sleep-inducing. The green dwarf
+pointed to the couches.
+
+"Sleep!" he said.  "Sleep and fear nothing.  My men are on guard
+outside." He came closer to us, the old mocking gaiety sparkling in
+his eyes.
+
+"But I spoke too quickly," he whispered.  "Whether it is because the
+Afyo Maie fears their tongues--or--" he laughed at Larry. "The maids
+are _not_ yours!" Still laughing he vanished through the curtains of the
+room of the fountain before I could ask him the meaning of his curious
+gift, its withdrawal, and his most enigmatic closing remarks.
+
+"Back in the great old days of Ireland," thus Larry breaking into my
+thoughts raptly, the brogue thick, "there was Cairill mac
+Cairill--Cairill Swiftspear. An' Cairill wronged Keevan of Emhain
+Abhlach, of the blood of Angus of the great people when he was
+sleeping in the likeness of a pale reed. Then Keevan put this penance
+on Cairill--that for a year Cairill should wear his body in Emhain
+Abhlach, which is the Land of Faery and for that year Keevan should
+wear the body of Cairill. And it was done.
+
+"In that year Cairill met Emar of the Birds that are one white, one
+red, and one black--and they loved, and from that love sprang Ailill
+their son. And when Ailill was born he took a reed flute and first he
+played slumber on Cairill, and then he played old age so that Cairill
+grew white and withered; then Ailill played again and Cairill became a
+shadow--then a shadow of a shadow--then a breath; and the breath went
+out upon the wind!" He shivered. "Like the old gnome," he whispered,
+"that they called Songar of the Lower Waters!"
+
+He shook his head as though he cast a dream from him. Then, all
+alert--
+
+"But that was in Iceland ages agone.  And there's nothing like that
+here, Doc!" He laughed. "It doesn't scare me one little bit, old boy.
+The pretty devil lady's got the wrong slant. When you've had a pal
+standing beside you one moment--full of life, and joy, and power, and
+potentialities, telling what he's going to do to make the world hum
+when he gets through the slaughter, just running over with zip and pep
+of life, Doc--and the next instant, right in the middle of a laugh--a
+piece of damned shell takes off half his head and with it joy and
+power and all the rest of it"--his face twitched--"well, old man, in
+the face of _that_ mystery a disappearing act such as the devil lady
+treated us to doesn't make much of a dent. Not on me. But by the
+brogans of Brian Boru--if we could have had some of that stuff to turn
+on during the war--oh, boy!"
+
+He was silent, evidently contemplating the idea with vast pleasure.
+And as for me, at that moment my last doubt of Larry O'Keefe vanished,
+I saw that he did believe, really believed, in his banshees, his
+leprechauns and all the old dreams of the Gael--but only within the
+limits of Ireland.
+
+In one drawer of his mind was packed all his superstition, his
+mysticism, and what of weakness it might carry. But face him with any
+peril or problem and the drawer closed instantaneously leaving a mind
+that was utterly fearless, incredulous, and ingenious; swept clean of
+all cobwebs by as fine a skeptic broom as ever brushed a brain.
+
+"Some stuff!" Deepest admiration was in his voice.  "If we'd only had
+it when the war was on--imagine half a dozen of us scooting over the
+enemy batteries and the gunners underneath all at once beginning to
+shake themselves to pieces! Wow!" His tone was rapturous.
+
+"It's easy enough to explain, Larry," I said.  "The effect, that
+is--for what the green ray is made of I don't know, of course. But
+what it does, clearly, is stimulate atomic vibration to such a pitch
+that the cohesion between the particles of matter is broken and the
+body flies to bits--just as a fly-wheel does when its speed gets so
+great that the particles of which _it_ is made can't hold together."
+
+"Shake themselves to pieces is right, then!" he exclaimed.
+
+"Absolutely right," I nodded.  "Everything in Nature vibrates.  And
+all matter--whether man or beast or stone or metal or vegetable--is
+made up of vibrating molecules, which are made up of vibrating atoms
+which are made up of truly infinitely small particles of electricity
+called electrons, and electrons, the base of all matter, are
+themselves perhaps only a vibration of the mysterious ether.
+
+"If a magnifying glass of sufficient size and strength could be placed
+over us we could see ourselves as sieves--our space lattice, as it is
+called. And all that is necessary to break down the lattice, to shake
+us into nothingness, is some agent that will set our atoms vibrating
+at such a rate that at last they escape the unseen cords and fly off.
+
+"The green ray of Yolara is such an agent.  It set up in the dwarf
+that incredibly rapid rhythm that you saw and--shook him not to
+atoms--but to electrons!"
+
+"They had a gun on the West Front--a seventy-five," said O'Keefe,
+"that broke the eardrums of everybody who fired it, no matter what
+protection they used. It looked like all the other seventy-fives--but
+there was something about its sound that did it. They had to recast
+it."
+
+"It's practically the same thing," I replied.  "By some freak its
+vibratory qualities had that effect. The deep whistle of the sunken
+Lusitania would, for instance, make the Singer Building shake to its
+foundations; while the Olympic did not affect the Singer at all but
+made the Woolworth shiver all through. In each case they stimulated
+the atomic vibration of the particular building--"
+
+I paused, aware all at once of an intense drowsiness. O'Keefe,
+yawning, reached down to unfasten his puttees.
+
+"Lord, I'm sleepy!" he exclaimed.  "Can't understand it--what you
+say--most--interesting--Lord!" he yawned again; straightened. "What
+made Reddy take such a shine to the Russian?" he asked.
+
+"Thanaroa," I answered, fighting to keep my eyes open.
+
+"What?"
+
+"When Lugur spoke that name I saw Marakinoff signal him.  Thanaroa is,
+I suspect, the original form of the name of Tangaroa, the greatest god
+of the Polynesians. There's a secret cult to him in the islands.
+Marakinoff may belong to it--he knows it anyway. Lugur recognized the
+signal and despite his surprise answered it."
+
+"So he gave him the high sign, eh?" mused Larry.  "How could they both
+know it?"
+
+"The cult is a very ancient one.  Undoubtedly it had its origin in the
+dim beginnings before these people migrated here," I replied. "It's a
+link--one--of the few links between up there and the lost past--"
+
+"Trouble then," mumbled Larry.  "Hell brewing!  I smell it--Say, Doc,
+is this sleepiness natural? Wonder where my--gas mask--is--" he
+added, half incoherently.
+
+But I myself was struggling desperately against the drugged slumber
+pressing down upon me.
+
+"Lakla!" I heard O'Keefe murmur.  "Lakla of the golden eyes--no
+Eilidh--the Fair!" He made an immense effort, half raised himself,
+grinned faintly.
+
+"Thought this was paradise when I first saw it, Doc," he sighed.  "But
+I know now, if it is, No-Man's Land was the greatest place on earth
+for a honeymoon. They--they've got us, Doc--" He sank back. "Good
+luck, old boy, wherever you're going." His hand waved feebly.
+"Glad--knew--you. Hope--see--you--'gain--"
+
+His voice trailed into silence.  Fighting, fighting with every fibre
+of brain and nerve against the sleep, I felt myself being steadily
+overcome. Yet before oblivion rushed down upon me I seemed to see upon
+the grey-screened wall nearest the Irishman an oval of rosy light
+begin to glow; watched, as my falling lids inexorably fell, a
+flame-tipped shadow waver on it; thicken; condense--and there looking
+down upon Larry, her eyes great golden stars in which intensest
+curiosity and shy tenderness struggled, sweet mouth half smiling, was
+the girl of the Moon Pool's Chamber, the girl whom the green dwarf had
+named--Lakla: the vision Larry had invoked before that sleep which I
+could no longer deny had claimed him--
+
+Closer she came--closer---the eyes were over us.
+
+Then oblivion indeed!
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+Yolara of Muria vs. the O'Keefe
+
+I awakened with all the familiar, homely sensation of a shade having
+been pulled up in a darkened room. I thrilled with a wonderful sense
+of deep rest and restored resiliency. The ebon shadow had vanished
+from above and down into the room was pouring the silvery light. From
+the fountain pool came a mighty splashing and shouts of laughter. I
+jumped and drew the curtain. O'Keefe and Rador were swimming a wild
+race; the dwarf like an otter, out-distancing and playing around the
+Irishman at will.
+
+Had that overpowering sleep--and now I confess that my struggle
+against it had been largely inspired by fear that it was the abnormal
+slumber which Throckmartin had described as having heralded the
+approach of the Dweller before it had carried away Thora and
+Stanton--had that sleep been after all nothing but natural reaction of
+tired nerves and brains?
+
+And that last vision of the golden-eyed girl bending over Larry?  Had
+that also been a delusion of an overstressed mind? Well, it might have
+been, I could not tell. At any rate, I decided, I would speak about it
+to O'Keefe once we were alone again--and then giving myself up to the
+urge of buoyant well-being I shouted like a boy, stripped and joined
+the two in the pool. The water was warm and I felt the unwonted
+tingling of life in every vein increase; something from it seemed to
+pulse through the skin, carrying a clean vigorous vitality that toned
+every fibre. Tiring at last, we swam to the edge and drew ourselves
+out. The green dwarf quickly clothed himself and Larry rather
+carefully donned his uniform.
+
+"The Afyo Maie has summoned us, Doc," he said.  "We're to--well--I
+suppose you'd call it breakfast with her. After that, Rador tells me,
+we're to have a session with the Council of Nine. I suppose Yolara is
+as curious as any lady of--the upper world, as you might put it--and
+just naturally can't wait," he added.
+
+He gave himself a last shake, patted the automatic hidden under his
+left arm, whistled cheerfully.
+
+"After you, my dear Alphonse," he said to Rador, with a low bow.  The
+dwarf laughed, bent in an absurd imitation of Larry's mocking courtesy
+and started ahead of us to the house of the priestess. When he had
+gone a little way on the orchid-walled path I whispered to O'Keefe:
+
+"Larry, when you were falling off to sleep--did you think you saw
+anything?"
+
+"See anything!" he grinned.  "Doc, sleep hit me like a Hun shell.  I
+thought they were pulling the gas on us. I--I had some intention of
+bidding you tender farewells," he continued, half sheepishly. "I think
+I did start 'em, didn't I?"
+
+I nodded.
+
+"But wait a minute--" he hesitated.  "I had a queer sort of dream--"
+
+"'What was it?" I asked eagerly,
+
+"Well," he answered slowly, "I suppose it was because I'd been
+thinking of--Golden Eyes. Anyway, I thought she came through the wall
+and leaned over me--yes, and put one of those long white hands of hers
+on my head--I couldn't raise my lids--but in some queer way I could
+see her. Then it got real dreamish. Why do you ask?"
+
+Rador turned back toward us,
+
+"Later," I answered, "Not now.  When we're alone."
+
+But through me went a little glow of reassurance.  Whatever the maze
+through which we were moving; whatever of menacing evil lurking
+there--the Golden Girl was clearly watching over us; watching with
+whatever unknown powers she could muster.
+
+We passed the pillared entrance; went through a long bowered corridor
+and stopped before a door that seemed to be sliced from a monolith of
+pale jade--high, narrow, set in a wall of opal.
+
+Rador stamped twice and the same supernally sweet, silver bell tones
+of--yesterday, I must call it, although in that place of eternal day
+the term is meaningless--bade us enter. The door slipped aside. The
+chamber was small, the opal walls screening it on three sides, the
+black opacity covering it, the fourth side opening out into a
+delicious little walled garden--a mass of the fragrant, luminous
+blooms and delicately colored fruit. Facing it was a small table of
+reddish wood and from the omnipresent cushions heaped around it arose
+to greet us--Yolara.
+
+Larry drew in his breath with an involuntary gasp of admiration and
+bowed low. My own admiration was as frank--and the priestess was well
+pleased with our homage.
+
+She was swathed in the filmy, half-revelant webs, now of palest blue.
+The corn-silk hair was caught within a wide-meshed golden net in which
+sparkled tiny brilliants, like blended sapphires and diamonds. Her own
+azure eyes sparkled as brightly as they, and I noted again in their
+clear depths the half-eager approval as they rested upon O'Keefe's
+lithe, well-knit figure and his keen, clean-cut face. The high-arched,
+slender feet rested upon soft sandals whose gauzy withes laced the
+exquisitely formed leg to just below the dimpled knee.
+
+"Some giddy wonder!" exclaimed Larry, looking at me and placing a hand
+over his heart. "Put her on a New York roof and she'd empty Broadway.
+Take the cue from me, Doc."
+
+He turned to Yolara, whose face was somewhat puzzled.
+
+"I said, O lady whose shining hair is a web for hearts, that in our
+world your beauty would dazzle the sight of men as would a little
+woman sun!" he said, in the florid imagery to which the tongue lends
+itself so well.
+
+A flush stole up through the translucent skin.  The blue eyes softened
+and she waved us toward the cushions. Black-haired maids stole in,
+placing before us the fruits, the little loaves and a steaming drink
+somewhat the colour and odor of chocolate. I was conscious of
+outrageous hunger.
+
+"What are you named, strangers?" she asked.
+
+"This man is named Goodwin," said O'Keefe.  "As for me, call me
+Larry."
+
+"Nothing like getting acquainted quick," he said to me--but kept his
+eyes upon Yolara as though he were voicing another honeyed phrase. And
+so she took it, for: "You must teach me your tongue," she murmured.
+
+"Then shall I have two words where now I have one to tell you of your
+loveliness," he answered.
+
+"And also that'll take time," he spoke to me.  "Essential occupation
+out of which we can't be drafted to make these fun-loving folk any
+Roman holiday. Get me!"
+
+"Larree," mused Yolara.  "I like the sound.  It is sweet--" and indeed
+it was as she spoke it.
+
+"And what is your land named, Larree?" she continued. "And Goodwin's?"
+She caught the sound perfectly.
+
+"My land, O lady of loveliness, is two--Ireland and America; his but
+one--America."
+
+She repeated the two names--slowly, over and over.  We seized the
+opportunity to attack the food; halting half guiltily as she spoke
+again.
+
+"Oh, but you are hungry!" she cried.  "Eat then." She leaned her chin
+upon her hands and regarded us, whole fountains of questions brimming
+up in her eyes.
+
+"How is it, Larree, that you have two countries and Goodwin but one?"
+she asked, at last unable to keep silent longer.
+
+"I was born in Ireland; he in America.  But I have dwelt long in his
+land and my heart loves each," he said.
+
+She nodded, understandingly.
+
+"Are all the men of Ireland like you, Larree?  As all the men here are
+like Lugur or Rador? I like to look at you," she went on, with naive
+frankness. "I am tired of men like Lugur and Rador. But they are
+strong," she added, swiftly. "Lugur can hold up ten in his two arms
+and raise six with but one hand."
+
+We could not understand her numerals and she raised white fingers to
+illustrate.
+
+"That is little, O lady, to the men of Ireland," replied O'Keefe.
+"Lo, I have seen one of my race hold up ten times ten of our--what
+call you that swift thing in which Rador brought us here?"
+
+"Corial," said she.
+
+"Hold up ten times twenty of our corials with but two fingers--and
+these corials of ours--"
+
+"Coria," said she.
+
+"And these coria of ours are each greater in weight than ten of yours.
+Yes, and I have seen another with but one blow of his hand raise hell!
+
+"And so I have," he murmured to me.  "And both at Forty-second and
+Fifth Avenue, N. Y.--U. S. A."
+
+Yolara considered all this with manifest doubt.
+
+"Hell?" she inquired at last.  "I know not the word."
+
+"Well," answered O'Keefe.  "Say Muria then.  In many ways they are, I
+gather, O heart's delight, one and the same."
+
+Now the doubt in the blue eyes was strong indeed.  She shook her head.
+
+"None of our men can do _that_!" she answered, at length. "Nor do I
+think you could, Larree."
+
+"Oh, no," said Larry easily.  "I never tried to be that strong.  I
+fly," he added, casually.
+
+The priestess rose to her feet, gazing at him with startled eyes.
+
+"Fly!" she repeated incredulously.  "Like a _Zitia_?  A bird?"
+
+Larry nodded--and then seeing the dawning command in her eyes, went on
+hastily.
+
+"Not with my own wings, Yolara.  In a--a corial that moves
+through--what's the word for air, Doc--well, through this--" He made a
+wide gesture up toward the nebulous haze above us. He took a pencil
+and on a white cloth made a hasty sketch of an airplane. "In a--a
+corial like this--" She regarded the sketch gravely, thrust a hand
+down into her girdle and brought forth a keen-bladed poniard; cut
+Larry's markings out and placed the fragment carefully aside.
+
+"That I can understand," she said.
+
+"Remarkably intelligent young woman," muttered O'Keefe.  "Hope I'm not
+giving anything away--but she had me."
+
+"But what are your women like, Larree?  Are they like me?  And how
+many have loved you?" she whispered.
+
+"In all Ireland and America there is none like you, Yolara," he
+answered. "And take that any way you please," he muttered in English.
+She took it, it was evident, as it most pleased her.
+
+"Do you have goddesses?" she asked.
+
+"Every woman in Ireland and America, is a goddess"; thus Larry.
+
+"Now that I do not believe." There was both anger and mockery in her
+eyes. "I know women, Larree--and if that were so there would be no
+peace for men."
+
+"There isn't!" replied he.  The anger died out and she laughed,
+sweetly, understandingly.
+
+"And which goddess do you worship, Larree?"
+
+"You!" said Larry O'Keefe boldly.
+
+"Larry!  Larry!" I whispered.  "Be careful.  It's high explosive."
+
+But the priestess was laughing--little trills of sweet bell notes; and
+pleasure was in each note.
+
+"You are indeed bold, Larree," she said, "to offer me your worship.
+Yet am I pleased by your boldness. Still--Lugur is strong; and you are
+not of those who--what did you say--have tried. And your wings are
+not here--Larree!"
+
+Again her laughter rang out.  The Irishman flushed; it was _touché_
+for Yolara!
+
+"Fear not for me with Lugur," he said, grimly.  "Rather fear for him!"
+
+The laughter died; she looked at him searchingly; a little enigmatic
+smile about her mouth--so sweet and so cruel.
+
+"Well--we shall see," she murmured.  "You say you battle in your
+world. With what?"
+
+"Oh, with this and with that," answered Larry, airily. "We manage--"
+
+"Have you the Keth--I mean that with which I sent Songar into the
+nothingness?" she asked swiftly.
+
+"See what she's driving at?" O'Keefe spoke to me, swiftly. "Well I do!
+But here's where the O'Keefe lands.
+
+"I said," he turned to her, "O voice of silver fire, that your spirit
+is high even as your beauty--and searches out men's souls as does your
+loveliness their hearts. And now listen, Yolara, for what I speak is
+truth"--into his eyes came the far-away gaze; into his voice the Irish
+softness--"Lo, in my land of Ireland, this many of your life's length
+agone--see"--he raised his ten fingers, clenched and unclenched them
+times twenty--"the mighty men of my race, the Taitha-da-Dainn, could
+send men out into the nothingness even as do you with the Keth. And
+this they did by their harpings, and by words spoken--words of power,
+O Yolara, that have their power still--and by pipings and by slaying
+sounds.
+
+"There was Cravetheen who played swift flames from his harp, flying
+flames that ate those they were sent against. And there was Dalua, of
+Hy Brasil, whose pipes played away from man and beast and all living
+things their shadows--and at last played them to shadows too, so that
+wherever Dalua went his shadows that had been men and beast followed
+like a storm of little rustling leaves; yea, and Bel the Harper, who
+could make women's hearts run like wax and men's hearts flame to ashes
+and whose harpings could shatter strong cliffs and bow great trees to
+the sod--"
+
+His eyes were bright, dream-filled; she shrank a little from him,
+faint pallor under the perfect skin.
+
+"I say to you, Yolara, that these things were and are--in Ireland."
+His voice rang strong. "And I have seen men as many as those that are
+in your great chamber this many times over"--he clenched his hands
+once more, perhaps a dozen times--"blasted into nothingness before
+your Keth could even have touched them. Yea--and rocks as mighty as
+those through which we came lifted up and shattered before the lids
+could fall over your blue eyes. And this is truth, Yolara--all truth!
+Stay--have you that little cone of the Keth with which you destroyed
+Songar?"
+
+She nodded, gazing at him, fascinated, fear and puzzlement contending.
+
+"Then use it." He took a vase of crystal from the table, placed it on
+the threshold that led into the garden. "Use it on this--and I will
+show you."
+
+"I will use it upon one of the ladala--" she began eagerly.
+
+The exaltation dropped from him; there was a touch of horror in the
+eyes he turned to her; her own dropped before it.
+
+"It shall be as you say," she said hurriedly.  She drew the shining
+cone from her breast; levelled it at the vase. The green ray leaped
+forth, spread over the crystal, but before its action could even be
+begun, a flash of light shot from O'Keefe's hand, his automatic spat
+and the trembling vase flew into fragments. As quickly as he had drawn
+it, he thrust the pistol back into place and stood there empty handed,
+looking at her sternly. From the anteroom came shouting, a rush of
+feet.
+
+Yolara's face was white, her eyes strained--but her voice was unshaken
+as she called to the clamouring guards:
+
+"It is nothing--go to your places!"
+
+But when the sound of their return had ceased she stared tensely at
+the Irishman--then looked again at the shattered vase.
+
+"It is true!" she cried, "but see, the Keth is--alive!"
+
+I followed her pointing finger.  Each broken bit of the crystal was
+vibrating, shaking its particles out into space. Broken it the bullet
+of Larry's had--but not released it from the grip of the
+disintegrating force. The priestess's face was triumphant.
+
+"But what matters it, O shining urn of beauty--what matters it to the
+vase that is broken what happens to its fragments?" asked Larry,
+gravely--and pointedly.
+
+The triumph died from her face and for a space she was silent;
+brooding.
+
+"Next," whispered O'Keefe to me.  "Lots of surprises in the little
+box; keep your eye on the opening and see what comes out."
+
+We had not long to wait.  There was a sparkle of anger about Yolara,
+something too of injured pride. She clapped her hands; whispered to
+the maid who answered her summons, and then sat back regarding us,
+maliciously.
+
+"You have answered me as to your strength--but you have not proved it;
+but the Keth you have answered. Now answer this!" she said.
+
+She pointed out into the garden.  I saw a flowering branch bend and
+snap as though a hand had broken it--but no hand was there! Saw then
+another and another bend and break, a little tree sway and fall--and
+closer and closer to us came the trail of snapping boughs while down
+into the garden poured the silvery light revealing--nothing! Now a
+great ewer beside a pillar rose swiftly in air and hurled itself
+crashing at my feet. Cushions close to us swirled about as though in
+the vortex of a whirlwind.
+
+And unseen hands held my arms in a mighty clutch fast to my sides,
+another gripped my throat and I felt a needle-sharp poniard point
+pierce my shirt, touch the skin just over my heart!
+
+"Larry!" I cried, despairingly.  I twisted my head; saw that he too
+was caught in this grip of the invisible. But his face was calm, even
+amused.
+
+"Keep cool, Doc!" he said.  "Remember--she wants to learn the
+language!"
+
+Now from Yolara burst chime upon chime of mocking laughter.  She gave
+a command--the hands loosened, the poniard withdrew from my heart;
+suddenly as I had been caught I was free--and unpleasantly weak and
+shaky.
+
+"Have you _that_ in Ireland, Larree!" cried the priestess--and once
+more trembled with laughter.
+
+"A good play, Yolara." His voice was as calm as his face. "But they
+did that in Ireland even before Dalua piped away his first man's
+shadow. And in Goodwin's land they make ships--coria that go on
+water--so you can pass by them and see only sea and sky; and those
+water coria are each of them many times greater than this whole palace
+of yours."
+
+But the priestess laughed on.
+
+"It did get me a little," whispered Larry.  "That wasn't quite up to
+my mark. But God! If we could find that trick out and take it back
+with us!"
+
+"Not so, Larree!" Yolara gasped, through her laughter. "Not so!
+Goodwin's cry betrayed you!"
+
+Her good humour had entirely returned; she was like a mischievous
+child pleased over some successful trick; and like a child she
+cried--"I'll show you!"--signalled again; whispered to the maid who,
+quickly returning, laid before her a long metal case. Yolara took from
+her girdle something that looked like a small pencil, pressed it and
+shot a thin stream of light for all the world like an electric flash,
+upon its hasp. The lid flew open. Out of it she drew three flat, oval
+crystals, faint rose in hue. She handed one to O'Keefe and one to me.
+
+"Look!" she commanded, placing the third before her own eyes.  I
+peered through the stone and instantly there leaped into sight, out of
+thin air--six grinning dwarfs! Each was covered from top of head to
+soles of feet in a web so tenuous that through it their bodies were
+plain. The gauzy stuff seemed to vibrate--its strands to run together
+like quick-silver. I snatched the crystal from my eyes and--the
+chamber was empty! Put it back--and there were the grinning six!
+
+Yolara gave another sign and they disappeared, even from the crystals.
+
+"It is what they wear, Larree," explained Yolara, graciously.  "It is
+something that came to us from--the Ancient Ones. But we have so
+few"--she sighed.
+
+"Such treasures must be two-edged swords, Yolara," commented O'Keefe.
+"For how know you that one within them creeps not to you with hand
+eager to strike?"
+
+"There is no danger," she said indifferently.  "I am the keeper of
+them."
+
+She mused for a space, then abruptly:
+
+"And now no more.  You two are to appear before the Council at a
+certain time--but fear nothing. You, Goodwin, go with Rador about our
+city and increase your wisdom. But you, Larree, await me here in my
+garden--" she smiled at him, provocatively--maliciously, too. "For
+shall not one who has resisted a world of goddesses be given all
+chance to worship when at last he finds his own?"
+
+She laughed--whole-heartedly and was gone.  And at that moment I liked
+Yolara better than ever I had before and--alas--better than ever I
+was to in the future.
+
+I noted Rador standing outside the open jade door and started to go,
+but O'Keefe caught me by the arm.
+
+"Wait a minute," he urged.  "About Golden Eyes--you were going to tell
+me something--it's been on my mind all through that little sparring
+match."
+
+I told him of the vision that had passed through my closing lids.  He
+listened gravely and then laughed.
+
+"Hell of a lot of privacy in this place!" he grinned.  "Ladies who can
+walk through walls and others with regular invisible cloaks to let 'em
+flit wherever they please. Oh, well, don't let it get on your nerves,
+Doc. Remember--everything's natural! That robe stuff is just
+camouflage of course. But Lord, if we could only get a piece of it!"
+
+"The material simply admits all light-vibrations, or perhaps curves
+them, just as the opacities cut them off," I answered. "A man under
+the X-ray is partly invisible; this makes him wholly so. He doesn't
+register, as the people of the motion-picture profession say."
+
+"Camouflage," repeated Larry.  "And as for the Shining One--Say!" he
+snorted. "I'd like to set the O'Keefe banshee up against it. I'll bet
+that old resourceful Irish body would give it the first three bites
+and a strangle hold and wallop it before it knew it had 'em. Oh! Wow!
+Boy Howdy!"
+
+I heard him still chuckling gleefully over this vision as I passed
+along the opal wall with the green dwarf.
+
+A shell was awaiting us.  I paused before entering it to examine the
+polished surface of runway and great road. It was obsidian--volcanic
+glass of pale emerald, unflawed, translucent, with no sign of block or
+juncture. I examined the shell.
+
+"What makes it go?" I asked Rador.  At a word from him the driver
+touched a concealed spring and an aperture appeared beneath the
+control-lever, of which I have spoken in a preceding chapter. Within
+was a small cube of black crystal, through whose sides I saw, dimly, a
+rapidly revolving, glowing ball, not more than two inches in diameter.
+Beneath the cube was a curiously shaped, slender cylinder winding down
+into the lower body of the Nautilus whorl.
+
+"Watch!" said Rador.  He motioned me into the vehicle and took a place
+beside me. The driver touched the lever; a stream of coruscations flew
+from the ball down into the cylinder. The shell started smoothly, and
+as the tiny torrent of shining particles increased it gathered speed.
+
+"The corial does not touch the road," explained Rador. "It is lifted
+so far"--he held his forefinger and thumb less than a sixteenth of an
+inch apart--"above it."
+
+And perhaps here is the best place to explain the activation of the
+shells or coria. The force utilized was atomic energy. Passing from
+the whirling ball the ions darted through the cylinder to two bands of
+a peculiar metal affixed to the base of the vehicles somewhat like
+skids of a sled. Impinging upon these they produced a partial negation
+of gravity, lifting the shell slightly, and at the same time creating
+a powerful repulsive force or thrust that could be directed backward,
+forward, or sidewise at the will of the driver. The creation of this
+energy and the mechanism of its utilization were, briefly, as follows:
+
+
+[Dr. Goodwin's lucid and exceedingly comprehensive description of this
+extraordinary mechanism has been deleted by the Executive Council of
+the International Association of Science as too dangerously suggestive
+to scientists of the Central European Powers with which we were so
+recently at war. It is allowable, however, to state that his
+observations are in the possession of experts in this country, who
+are, unfortunately, hampered in their research not only by the
+scarcity of the radioactive elements that we know, but also by the
+lack of the element or elements unknown to us that entered into the
+formation of the fiery ball within the cube of black crystal.
+Nevertheless, as the principle is so clear, it is believed that these
+difficulties will ultimately be overcome.--J. B. K., President, I. A.
+of S.]
+
+
+The wide, glistening road was gay with the coria.  They darted in and
+out of the gardens; within them the fair-haired, extraordinarily
+beautiful women on their cushions were like princesses of Elfland,
+caught in gorgeous fairy webs, resting within the hearts of flowers.
+In some shells were flaxen-haired dwarfish men of Lugur's type;
+sometimes black-polled brother officers of Rador; often raven-tressed
+girls, plainly hand-maidens of the women; and now and then beauties of
+the lower folk went by with one of the blond dwarfs.
+
+We swept around the turn that made of the jewel-like roadway an
+enormous horseshoe and, speedily, upon our right the cliffs through
+which we had come in our journey from the Moon Pool began to march
+forward beneath their mantles of moss. They formed a gigantic
+abutment, a titanic salient. It had been from the very front of this
+salient's invading angle that we had emerged; on each side of it the
+precipices, faintly glowing, drew back and vanished into distance.
+
+The slender, graceful bridges under which we skimmed ended at openings
+in the upflung, far walls of verdure. Each had its little garrison of
+soldiers. Through some of the openings a rivulet of the green obsidian
+river passed. These were roadways to the farther country, to the land
+of the ladala, Rador told me; adding that none of the lesser folk
+could cross into the pavilioned city unless summoned or with pass.
+
+We turned the bend of the road and flew down that farther emerald
+ribbon we had seen from the great oval. Before us rose the shining
+cliffs and the lake. A half-mile, perhaps, from these the last of the
+bridges flung itself. It was more massive and about it hovered a
+spirit of ancientness lacking in the other spans; also its garrison
+was larger and at its base the tangent way was guarded by two massive
+structures, somewhat like blockhouses, between which it ran. Something
+about it aroused in me an intense curiosity.
+
+"Where does that road lead, Rador?" I asked.
+
+"To the one place above all of which I may not tell you, Goodwin," he
+answered. And again I wondered.
+
+We skimmed slowly out upon the great pier.  Far to the left was the
+prismatic, rainbow curtain between the Cyclopean pillars. On the white
+waters graceful shells--lacustrian replicas of the Elf chariots--swam,
+but none was near that distant web of wonder.
+
+"Rador--what is that?" I asked.
+
+"It is the Veil of the Shining One!" he answered slowly.
+
+Was the Shining One that which we named the Dweller?
+
+"What is the Shining One?" I cried, eagerly.  Again he was silent.
+Nor did he speak until we had turned on our homeward way.
+
+And lively as my interest, my scientific curiosity, were--I was
+conscious suddenly of acute depression. Beautiful, wondrously
+beautiful this place was--and yet in its wonder dwelt a keen edge of
+menace, of unease--of inexplicable, inhuman woe; as though in a secret
+garden of God a soul should sense upon it the gaze of some lurking
+spirit of evil which some way, somehow, had crept into the sanctuary
+and only bided its time to spring.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+The Leprechaun
+
+The shell carried us straight back to the house of Yolara. Larry was
+awaiting me. We stood again before the tenebrous wall where first we
+had faced the priestess and the Voice. And as we stood, again the
+portal appeared with all its disconcerting, magical abruptness.
+
+But now the scene was changed.  Around the jet table were grouped a
+number of figures--Lugur, Yolara beside him; seven others--all of them
+fair-haired and all men save one who sat at the left of the
+priestess--an old, old woman, how old I could not tell, her face
+bearing traces of beauty that must once have been as great as Yolara's
+own, but now ravaged, in some way awesome; through its ruins the
+fearful, malicious gaiety shining out like a spirit of joy held within
+a corpse!
+
+Began then our examination, for such it was.  And as it progressed I
+was more and more struck by the change in the O'Keefe. All flippancy
+was gone, rarely did his sense of humour reveal itself in any of his
+answers. He was like a cautious swordsman, fencing, guarding, studying
+his opponent; or rather, like a chess-player who keeps sensing some
+far-reaching purpose in the game: alert, contained, watchful. Always
+he stressed the power of our surface races, their multitudes, their
+solidarity.
+
+Their questions were myriad.  What were our occupations? Our system of
+government? How great were the waters? The land? Intensely interested
+were they in the World War, querying minutely into its causes, its
+effects. In our weapons their interest was avid. And they were
+exceedingly minute in their examination of us as to the ruins which
+had excited our curiosity; their position and surroundings--and if
+others than ourselves might be expected to find and pass through their
+entrance!
+
+At this I shot a glance at Lugur.  He did not seem unduly interested.
+I wondered if the Russian had told him as yet of the girl of the rosy
+wall of the Moon Pool Chamber and the real reasons for our search.
+Then I answered as briefly as possible--omitting all reference to
+these things. The red dwarf watched me with unmistakable
+amusement--and I knew Marakinoff had told him. But clearly Lugur had
+kept his information even from Yolara; and as clearly she had spoken
+to none of that episode when O'Keefe's automatic had shattered the
+Keth-smitten vase. Again I felt that sense of deep bewilderment--of
+helpless search for clue to all the tangle.
+
+For two hours we were questioned and then the priestess called Rador
+and let us go.
+
+Larry was sombre as we returned.  He walked about the room uneasily.
+
+"Hell's brewing here all right," he said at last, stopping before me.
+"I can't make out just the particular brand--that's all that bothers
+me. We're going to have a stiff fight, that's sure. What I want to do
+quick is to find the Golden Girl, Doc. Haven't seen her on the wall
+lately, have you?" he queried, hopefully fantastic.
+
+"Laugh if you want to," he went on.  "But she's our best bet.  It's
+going to be a race between her and the O'Keefe banshee--but I put my
+money on her. I had a queer experience while I was in that garden,
+after you'd left." His voice grew solemn. "Did you ever see a
+leprechaun, Doc?" I shook my head again, as solemnly. "He's a little
+man in green," said Larry. "Oh, about as high as your knee. I saw one
+once--in Carntogher Woods. And as I sat there, half asleep, in
+Yolara's garden, the living spit of him stepped out from one of those
+bushes, twirling a little shillalah.
+
+"'It's a tight box ye're gettin' in, Larry avick,' said he, 'but don't
+ye be downhearted, lad.'
+
+"'I'm carrying on,' said I, 'but you're a long way from Ireland,' I
+said, or thought I did.
+
+"'Ye've a lot o' friends there,' he answered.  'An' where the heart
+rests the feet are swift to follow. Not that I'm sayin' I'd like to
+live here, Larry,' said he.
+
+"'I know where my heart is now,' I told him.  'It rests on a girl with
+golden eyes and the hair and swan-white breast of Eilidh the Fair--but
+me feet don't seem to get me to her,' I said."
+
+The brogue thickened.
+
+"An' the little man in green nodded his head an' whirled his
+shillalah.
+
+"'It's what I came to tell ye,' says he.  'Don't ye fall for the
+Bhean-Nimher, the serpent woman wit' the blue eyes; she's a daughter
+of Ivor, lad--an' don't ye do nothin' to make the brown-haired coleen
+ashamed o' ye, Larry O'Keefe. I knew yer great, great grandfather an'
+his before him, aroon,' says he, 'an' wan o' the O'Keefe failin's is
+to think their hearts big enough to hold all the wimmen o' the world.
+A heart's built to hold only wan permanently, Larry,' he says, 'an'
+I'm warnin' ye a nice girl don't like to move into a place all
+cluttered up wid another's washin' an' mendin' an' cookin' an' other
+things pertainin' to general wife work. Not that I think the blue-eyed
+wan is keen for mendin' an' cookin'!' says he.
+
+"'You don't have to be comin' all this way to tell me that,' I answer.
+
+"'Well, I'm just a tellin' you,' he says.  'Ye've got some rough
+knocks comin', Larry. In fact, ye're in for a devil of a time. But,
+remember that ye're the O'Keefe,' says he. 'An' while the bhoys are
+all wid ye, avick, ye've got to be on the job yourself.'
+
+"'I hope,' I tell him, 'that the O'Keefe banshee can find her way here
+in time--that is, if it's necessary, which I hope it won't be.'
+
+"'Don't ye worry about that,' says he.  'Not that she's keen on
+leavin' the ould sod, Larry. The good ould soul's in quite a state o'
+mind about ye, aroon. I don't mind tellin' ye, lad, that she's
+mobilizing all the clan an' if she _has_ to come for ye, avick, they'll
+be wid her an' they'll sweep this joint clean before ye go. What
+they'll do to it'll make the Big Wind look like a summer breeze on
+Lough Lene! An' that's about all, Larry. We thought a voice from the
+Green Isle would cheer ye. Don't fergit that ye're the O'Keefe an' I
+say it again--all the bhoys are wid ye. But we want t' kape bein'
+proud o' ye, lad!'
+
+"An' I looked again and there was only a bush waving."
+
+There wasn't a smile in my heart--or if there was it was a very tender
+one.
+
+"I'm going to bed," he said abruptly.  "Keep an eye on the wall, Doc!"
+
+Between the seven sleeps that followed, Larry and I saw but little of
+each other. Yolara sought him more and more. Thrice we were called
+before the Council; once we were at a great feast, whose splendours
+and surprises I can never forget. Largely I was in the company of
+Rador. Together we two passed the green barriers into the
+dwelling-place of the ladala.
+
+They seemed provided with everything needful for life. But everywhere
+was an oppressiveness, a gathering together of hate, that was
+spiritual rather than material--as tangible as the latter and far, far
+more menacing!
+
+"They do not like to dance with the Shining One," was Rador's constant
+and only reply to my efforts to find the cause.
+
+Once I had concrete evidence of the mood.  Glancing behind me, I saw a
+white, vengeful face peer from behind a tree-trunk, a hand lift, a
+shining dart speed from it straight toward Rador's back. Instinctively
+I thrust him aside. He turned upon me angrily. I pointed to where the
+little missile lay, still quivering, on the ground. He gripped my
+hand.
+
+"That, some day I will repay!" he said.  I looked again at the thing.
+At its end was a tiny cone covered with a glistening, gelatinous
+substance.
+
+Rador pulled from a tree beside us a fruit somewhat like an apple.
+
+"Look!" he said.  He dropped it upon the dart--and at once, before my
+eyes, in less than ten seconds, the fruit had rotted away!
+
+"That's what would have happened to Rador but for you, friend!" he
+said.
+
+Come now between this and the prelude to the latter half of the drama
+whose history this narrative is--only scattering and necessarily
+fragmentary observations.
+
+First--the nature of the ebon opacities, blocking out the spaces
+between the pavilion-pillars or covering their tops like roofs, These
+were magnetic fields, light absorbers, negativing the vibrations of
+radiance; literally screens of electric force which formed as
+impervious a barrier to light as would have screens of steel.
+
+They instantaneously made night appear in a place where no night was.
+But they interposed no obstacle to air or to sound. They were
+extremely simple in their inception--no more miraculous than is glass,
+which, inversely, admits the vibrations of light, but shuts out those
+coarser ones we call air--and, partly, those others which produce upon
+our auditory nerves the effects we call sound.
+
+Briefly their mechanism was this:
+
+
+[For the same reason that Dr. Goodwin's exposition of the mechanism
+of the atomic engines was deleted, his description of the
+light-destroying screens has been deleted by the Executive
+Council.--J. B. F., President, I. A. of S.]
+
+
+There were two favoured classes of the ladala--the soldiers and the
+dream-makers. The dream-makers were the most astonishing social
+phenomena, I think, of all. Denied by their circumscribed environment
+the wider experiences of us of the outer world, the Murians had
+perfected an amazing system of escape through the imagination.
+
+They were, too, intensely musical.  Their favourite instruments were
+double flutes; immensely complex pipe-organs; harps, great and small.
+They had another remarkable instrument made up of a double octave of
+small drums which gave forth percussions remarkably disturbing to the
+emotional centres.
+
+It was this love of music that gave rise to one of the few truly
+humorous incidents of our caverned life. Larry came to me--it was just
+after our fourth sleep, I remember.
+
+"Come on to a concert," he said.
+
+We skimmed off to one of the bridge garrisons.  Rador called the
+two-score guards to attention; and then, to my utter stupefaction, the
+whole company, O'Keefe leading them, roared out the anthem, "God Save
+the King." They sang--in a closer approach to the English than might
+have been expected scores of miles below England's level. "Send him
+victorious! Happy and glorious!" they bellowed.
+
+He quivered with suppressed mirth at my paralysis of surprise.
+
+"Taught 'em that for Marakinoff's benefit!" he gasped. "Wait till that
+Red hears it. He'll blow up.
+
+"Just wait until you hear Yolara lisp a pretty little thing I taught
+her," said Larry as we set back for what we now called home. There was
+an impish twinkle in his eyes.
+
+And I did hear.  For it was not many minutes later that the priestess
+condescended to command me to come to her with O'Keefe.
+
+"Show Goodwin how much you have learned of our speech, O lady of the
+lips of honeyed flame!" murmured Larry.
+
+She hesitated; smiled at him, and then from that perfect mouth, out of
+the exquisite throat, in the voice that was like the chiming of little
+silver bells, she trilled a melody familiar to me indeed:
+
+    "She's only a bird in a gilded cage,
+      A bee-yu-tiful sight to see--"
+
+And so on to the bitter end.
+
+"She thinks it's a love-song," said Larry when we had left. "It's only
+part of a repertoire I'm teaching her. Honestly, Doc, it's the only
+way I can keep my mind clear when I'm with her," he went on earnestly.
+"She's a devil-ess from hell--but a wonder. Whenever I find myself
+going I get her to sing that, or Take Back Your Gold! or some other
+ancient lay, and I'm back again--pronto--with the right perspective!
+POP goes all the mystery! 'Hell!' I say, 'she's only a woman!'"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+The Amphitheatre of Jet
+
+For hours the black-haired folk had been streaming across the bridges,
+flowing along the promenade by scores and by hundreds, drifting down
+toward the gigantic seven-terraced temple whose interior I had never
+as yet seen, and from whose towering exterior, indeed, I had always
+been kept far enough away--unobtrusively, but none the less decisively--to
+prevent any real observation. The structure, I had estimated,
+nevertheless, could not reach less than a thousand feet above its
+silvery base, and the diameter of its circular foundation was about
+the same.
+
+I wondered what was bringing the _ladala_ into Lora, and where they
+were vanishing. All of them were flower-crowned with the luminous,
+lovely blooms--old and young, slender, mocking-eyed girls, dwarfed
+youths, mothers with their babes, gnomed oldsters--on they poured,
+silent for the most part and sullen--a sullenness that held acid
+bitterness even as their subtle, half-sinister, half-gay malice seemed
+tempered into little keen-edged flames, oddly, menacingly defiant.
+
+There were many of the green-clad soldiers along the way, and the
+garrison of the only bridge span I could see had certainly been
+doubled.
+
+Wondering still, I turned from my point of observation and made my way
+back to our pavilion, hoping that Larry, who had been with Yolara for
+the past two hours, had returned. Hardly had I reached it before Rador
+came hurrying up, in his manner a curious exultance mingled with what
+in anyone else I would have called a decided nervousness.
+
+"Come!" he commanded before I could speak.  "The Council has made
+decision--and _Larree_ is awaiting you."
+
+"What has been decided?" I panted as we sped along the mosaic path
+that led to the house of Yolara. "And why is Larry awaiting me?"
+
+And at his answer I felt my heart pause in its beat and through me
+race a wave of mingled panic and eagerness.
+
+"The Shining One dances!" had answered the green dwarf. "And you are
+to worship!"
+
+What was this dancing of the Shining One, of which so often he had
+spoken?
+
+Whatever my forebodings, Larry evidently had none.
+
+"Great stuff!" he cried, when we had met in the great antechamber now
+empty of the dwarfs. "Hope it will be worth seeing--have to be
+something damned good, though, to catch me, after what I've seen of
+shows at the front," he added.
+
+And remembering, with a little shock of apprehension, that he had no
+knowledge of the Dweller beyond my poor description of it--for there
+are no words actually to describe what that miracle of interwoven
+glory and horror was--I wondered what Larry O'Keefe would say and do
+when he did behold it!
+
+Rador began to show impatience.
+
+"Come!" he urged.  "There is much to be done--and the time grows
+short!"
+
+He led us to a tiny fountain room in whose miniature pool the white
+waters were concentrated, pearl-like and opalescent in their circling
+rim.
+
+"Bathe!" he commanded; and set the example by stripping himself and
+plunging within. Only a minute or two did the green dwarf allow us,
+and he checked us as we were about to don our clothing.
+
+Then, to my intense embarrassment, without warning, two of the
+black-haired girls entered, bearing robes of a peculiar dull-blue hue.
+At our manifest discomfort Rador's laughter roared out. He took the
+garments from the pair, motioned them to leave us, and, still
+laughing, threw one around me. Its texture was soft, but decidedly
+metallic--like some blue metal spun to the fineness of a spider's
+thread. The garment buckled tightly at the throat, was girdled at the
+waist, and, below this cincture, fell to the floor, its folds being
+held together by a half-dozen looped cords; from the shoulders a hood
+resembling a monk's cowl.
+
+Rador cast this over my head; it completely covered my face, but was
+of so transparent a texture that I could see, though somewhat mistily,
+through it. Finally he handed us both a pair of long gloves of the
+same material and high stockings, the feet of which were
+gloved--five-toed.
+
+And again his laughter rang out at our manifest surprise.
+
+"The priestess of the Shining One does not altogether trust the
+Shining One's Voice," he said at last. "And these are to guard against
+any sudden--errors. And fear not, Goodwin," he went on kindly. "Not
+for the Shining One itself would Yolara see harm come to _Larree_
+here--nor, because of him, to you. But I would not stake much on the
+great white one. And for him I am sorry, for him I do like well."
+
+"Is he to be with us?" asked Larry eagerly.
+
+"He is to be where we go," replied the dwarf soberly.
+
+Grimly Larry reached down and drew from his uniform his automatic.  He
+popped a fresh clip into the pocket fold of his girdle. The pistol he
+slung high up beneath his arm-pit.
+
+The green dwarf looked at the weapon curiously.  O'Keefe tapped it.
+
+"This," said Larry, "slays quicker than the _Keth_--I take it so no
+harm shall come to the blue-eyed one whose name is Olaf. If I should
+raise it--be you not in its way, Rador!" he added significantly.
+
+The dwarf nodded again, his eyes sparkling.  He thrust a hand out to
+both of us.
+
+"A change comes," he said.  "What it is I know not, nor how it will
+fall. But this remember--Rador is more friend to you than you yet can
+know. And now let us go!" he ended abruptly.
+
+He led us, not through the entrance, but into a sloping passage ending
+in a blind wall; touched a symbol graven there, and it opened,
+precisely as had the rosy barrier of the Moon Pool Chamber. And, just
+as there, but far smaller, was a passage end, a low curved wall facing
+a shaft not black as had been that abode of living darkness, but
+faintly luminescent. Rador leaned over the wall. The mechanism clicked
+and started; the door swung shut; the sides of the car slipped into
+place, and we swept swiftly down the passage; overhead the wind
+whistled. In a few moments the moving platform began to slow down. It
+stopped in a closed chamber no larger than itself.
+
+Rador drew his poniard and struck twice upon the wall with its hilt.
+Immediately a panel moved away, revealing a space filled with faint,
+misty blue radiance. And at each side of the open portal stood four of
+the dwarfish men, grey-headed, old, clad in flowing garments of white,
+each pointing toward us a short silver rod.
+
+Rador drew from his girdle a ring and held it out to the first dwarf.
+He examined it, handed it to the one beside him, and not until each
+had inspected the ring did they lower their curious weapons;
+containers of that terrific energy they called the _Keth_, I thought;
+and later was to know that I had been right.
+
+We stepped out; the doors closed behind us.  The place was weird
+enough. Its pave was a greenish-blue stone resembling lapis lazuli. On
+each side were high pedestals holding carved figures of the same
+material. There were perhaps a score of these, but in the mistiness I
+could not make out their outlines. A droning, rushing roar beat upon
+our ears; filled the whole cavern.
+
+"I smell the sea," said Larry suddenly.
+
+The roaring became deep-toned, clamorous, and close in front of us a
+rift opened. Twenty feet in width, it cut the cavern floor and
+vanished into the blue mist on each side. The cleft was spanned by one
+solid slab of rock not more than two yards wide. It had neither
+railing nor other protection.
+
+The four leading priests marched out upon it one by one, and we
+followed. In the middle of the span they knelt. Ten feet beneath us
+was a torrent of blue sea-water racing with prodigious speed between
+polished walls. It gave the impression of vast depth. It roared as it
+sped by, and far to the right was a low arch through which it
+disappeared. It was so swift that its surface shone like polished blue
+steel, and from it came the blessed, _our worldly_, familiar ocean
+breath that strengthened my soul amazingly and made me realize how
+earth-sick I was.
+
+Whence came the stream, I marvelled, forgetting for the moment, as we
+passed on again, all else. Were we closer to the surface of earth than
+I had thought, or was this some mighty flood falling through an
+opening in sea floor, Heaven alone knew how many miles above us,
+losing itself in deeper abysses beyond these? How near and how far
+this was from the truth I was to learn--and never did truth come to
+man in more dreadful guise!
+
+The roaring fell away, the blue haze lessened.  In front of us
+stretched a wide flight of steps, huge as those which had led us into
+the courtyard of Nan-Tauach through the ruined sea-gate. We scaled it;
+it narrowed; from above light poured through a still narrower opening.
+Side by side Larry and I passed out of it.
+
+We had emerged upon an enormous platform of what seemed to be
+glistening ivory. It stretched before us for a hundred yards or more
+and then shelved gently into the white waters. Opposite--not a mile
+away--was that prodigious web of woven rainbows Rador had called the
+Veil of the Shining One. There it shone in all its unearthly grandeur,
+on each side of the Cyclopean pillars, as though a mountain should
+stretch up arms raising between them a fairy banner of auroral
+glories. Beneath it was the curved, scimitar sweep of the pier with
+its clustered, gleaming temples.
+
+Before that brief, fascinated glance was done, there dropped upon my
+soul a sensation as of brooding weight intolerable; a spiritual
+oppression as though some vastness was falling, pressing, stifling me,
+I turned--and Larry caught me as I reeled.
+
+"Steady!  Steady, old man!" he whispered.
+
+At first all that my staggering consciousness could realize was an
+immensity, an immeasurable uprearing that brought with it the same
+throat-gripping vertigo as comes from gazing downward from some great
+height--then a blur of white faces--intolerable shinings of hundreds
+upon thousands of eyes. Huge, incredibly huge, a colossal amphitheatre
+of jet, a stupendous semi-circle, held within its mighty arc the ivory
+platform on which I stood.
+
+It reared itself almost perpendicularly hundreds of feet up into the
+sparkling heavens, and thrust down on each side its ebon
+bulwarks--like monstrous paws. Now, the giddiness from its sheer
+greatness passing, I saw that it was indeed an amphitheatre sloping
+slightly backward tier after tier, and that the white blur of faces
+against its blackness, the gleaming of countless eyes were those of
+myriads of the people who sat silent, flower-garlanded, their gaze
+focused upon the rainbow curtain and sweeping over me like a
+torrent--tangible, appalling!
+
+Five hundred feet beyond, the smooth, high retaining wall of the
+amphitheatre raised itself--above it the first terrace of the seats,
+and above this, dividing the tiers for another half a thousand feet
+upward, set within them like a panel, was a dead-black surface in
+which shone faintly with a bluish radiance a gigantic disk; above it
+and around it a cluster of innumerable smaller ones.
+
+On each side of me, bordering the platform, were scores of small
+pillared alcoves, a low wall stretching across their fronts; delicate,
+fretted grills shielding them, save where in each lattice an opening
+stared--it came to me that they were like those stalls in ancient
+Gothic cathedrals wherein for centuries had kneeled paladins and
+people of my own race on earth's fair face. And within these alcoves
+were gathered, score upon score, the elfin beauties, the dwarfish men
+of the fair-haired folk. At my right, a few feet from the opening
+through which we had come, a passageway led back between the fretted
+stalls. Half-way between us and the massive base of the amphitheatre a
+dais rose. Up the platform to it a wide ramp ascended; and on ramp and
+dais and along the centre of the gleaming platform down to where it
+kissed the white waters, a broad ribbon of the radiant flowers lay
+like a fairy carpet.
+
+On one side of this dais, meshed in a silken web that hid no line or
+curve of her sweet body, white flesh gleaming through its folds, stood
+Yolara; and opposite her, crowned with a circlet of flashing blue
+stones, his mighty body stark bare, was Lugur!
+
+O'Keefe drew a long breath; Rador touched my arm and, still dazed, I
+let myself be drawn into the aisle and through a corridor that ran
+behind the alcoves. At the back of one of these the green dwarf
+paused, opened a door, and motioned us within.
+
+Entering, I found that we were exactly opposite where the ramp ran up
+to the dais--and that Yolara was not more than fifty feet away. She
+glanced at O'Keefe and smiled. Her eyes were ablaze with little
+dancing points of light; her body seemed to palpitate, the rounded
+delicate muscles beneath the translucent skin to run with joyful
+little eager waves!
+
+Larry whistled softly.
+
+"There's Marakinoff!" he said.
+
+I looked where he pointed.  Opposite us sat the Russian, clothed as we
+were, leaning forward, his eyes eager behind his glasses; but if he
+saw us he gave no sign.
+
+"And there's Olaf!" said O'Keefe.
+
+Beneath the carved stall in which sat the Russian was an aperture and
+within it was Huldricksson. Unprotected by pillars or by grills,
+opening clear upon the platform, near him stretched the trail of
+flowers up to the great dais which Lugur and Yolara the priestess
+guarded. He sat alone, and my heart went out to him.
+
+O'Keefe's face softened.
+
+"Bring him here," he said to Rador.
+
+The green dwarf was looking at the Norseman, too, a shade of pity upon
+his mocking face. He shook his head.
+
+"Wait!" he said.  "You can do nothing now--and it may be there will be
+no need to do anything," he added; but I could feel that there was
+little of conviction in his words.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+The Madness of Olaf
+
+Yolara threw her white arms high.  From the mountainous tiers came a
+mighty sigh; a rippling ran through them. And upon the moment, before
+Yolara's arms fell, there issued, apparently from the air around us, a
+peal of sound that might have been the shouting of some playful god
+hurling great suns through the net of stars. It was like the deepest
+notes of all the organs in the world combined in one; summoning,
+majestic, cosmic!
+
+It held within it the thunder of the spheres rolling through the
+infinite, the birth-song of suns made manifest in the womb of space;
+echoes of creation's supernal chord! It shook the body like a pulse
+from the heart of the universe--pulsed--and died away.
+
+On its death came a blaring as of all the trumpets of conquering hosts
+since the first Pharaoh led his swarms--triumphal, compelling!
+Alexander's clamouring hosts, brazen-throated wolf-horns of Caesar's
+legions, blare of trumpets of Genghis Khan and his golden horde,
+clangor of the locust levies of Tamerlane, bugles of Napoleon's
+armies--war-shout of all earth's conquerors! And it died!
+
+Fast upon it, a throbbing, muffled tumult of harp sounds, mellownesses
+of myriads of wood horns, the subdued sweet shrilling of multitudes of
+flutes, Pandean pipings--inviting, carrying with them the calling of
+waterfalls in the hidden places, rushing brooks and murmuring forest
+winds--calling, calling, languorous, lulling, dripping into the brain
+like the very honeyed essence of sound.
+
+And after them a silence in which the memory of the music seemed to
+beat, to beat ever more faintly, through every quivering nerve.
+
+From me all fear, all apprehension, had fled.  In their place was
+nothing but joyous anticipation, a supernal freedom from even the
+shadow of the shadow of care or sorrow; not now did anything
+matter--Olaf or his haunted, hate-filled eyes; Throckmartin or his
+fate--nothing of pain, nothing of agony, nothing of striving nor
+endeavour nor despair in that wide outer world that had turned
+suddenly to a troubled dream.
+
+Once more the first great note pealed out!  Once more it died and from
+the clustered spheres a kaleidoscopic blaze shot as though drawn from
+the majestic sound itself. The many-coloured rays darted across the
+white waters and sought the face of the irised Veil. As they touched,
+it sparkled, flamed, wavered, and shook with fountains of prismatic
+colour.
+
+The light increased--and in its intensity the silver air darkened.
+Faded into shadow that white mosaic of flower-crowned faces set in the
+amphitheatre of jet, and vast shadows dropped upon the high-flung
+tiers and shrouded them. But on the skirts of the rays the fretted
+stalls in which we sat with the fair-haired ones blazed out,
+iridescent, like jewels.
+
+I was sensible of an acceleration of every pulse; a wild stimulation
+of every nerve. I felt myself being lifted above the world--close to
+the threshold of the high gods--soon their essence and their power
+would stream out into me! I glanced at Larry. His eyes were--wild--with
+life!
+
+I looked at Olaf--and in his face was none of this--only hate, and
+hate, and hate.
+
+The peacock waves streamed out over the waters, cleaving the seeming
+darkness, a rainbow path of glory. And the Veil flashed as though all
+the rainbows that had ever shone were burning within it. Again the
+mighty sound pealed.
+
+Into the centre of the Veil the light drew itself, grew into an
+intolerable brightness--and with a storm of tinklings, a tempest of
+crystalline notes, a tumult of tiny chimings, through it sped--the
+Shining One!
+
+Straight down that radiant path, its high-flung plumes of feathery
+flame shimmering, its coruscating spirals whirling, its seven globes
+of seven colours shining above its glowing core, it raced toward us.
+The hurricane of bells of diamond glass were jubilant, joyous. I felt
+O'Keefe grip my arm; Yolara threw her white arms out in a welcoming
+gesture; I heard from the tier a sigh of rapture--and in it a
+poignant, wailing under-tone of agony!
+
+Over the waters, down the light stream, to the end of the ivory pier,
+flew the Shining One. Through its crystal _pizzicati_ drifted
+inarticulate murmurings--deadly sweet, stilling the heart and setting
+it leaping madly.
+
+For a moment it paused, poised itself, and then came whirling down the
+flower path to its priestess, slowly, ever more slowly. It hovered for
+a moment between the woman and the dwarf, as though contemplating
+them; turned to her with its storm of tinklings softened, its
+murmurings infinitely caressing. Bent toward it, Yolara seemed to
+gather within herself pulsing waves of power; she was terrifying;
+gloriously, maddeningly evil; and as gloriously, maddeningly heavenly!
+Aphrodite and the Virgin! Tanith of the Carthaginians and St. Bride of
+the Isles! A queen of hell and a princess of heaven--in one!
+
+Only for a moment did that which we had called the Dweller and which
+these named the Shining One, pause. It swept up the ramp to the dais,
+rested there, slowly turning, plumes and spirals lacing and unlacing,
+throbbing, pulsing. Now its nucleus grew plainer, stronger--human in a
+fashion, and all inhuman; neither man nor woman; neither god nor
+devil; subtly partaking of all. Nor could I doubt that whatever it
+was, within that shining nucleus was something sentient; something
+that had will and energy, and in some awful, supernormal
+fashion--intelligence!
+
+Another trumpeting--a sound of stones opening--a long, low wail of
+utter anguish--something moved shadowy in the river of light, and
+slowly at first, then ever more rapidly, shapes swam through it. There
+were half a score of them--girls and youths, women and men. The
+Shining One poised itself, regarded them. They drew closer, and in the
+eyes of each and in their faces was the bud of that awful
+intermingling of emotions, of joy and sorrow, ecstasy and terror, that
+I had seen in full blossom on Throckmartin's.
+
+The Thing began again its murmurings--now infinitely caressing,
+coaxing--like the song of a siren from some witched star! And the
+bell-sounds rang out--compellingly, calling--calling--calling--
+
+I saw Olaf lean far out of his place; saw, half-consciously, at
+Lugur's signal, three of the dwarfs creep in and take places,
+unnoticed, behind him.
+
+Now the first of the figures rushed upon the dais--and paused.  It was
+the girl who had been brought before Yolara when the gnome named
+Songar was driven into the nothingness! With all the quickness of
+light a spiral of the Shining One stretched out and encircled her.
+
+At its touch there was an infinitely dreadful shrinking and, it
+seemed, a simultaneous hurling of herself into its radiance. As it
+wrapped its swirls around her, permeated her--the crystal chorus
+burst forth--tumultuously; through and through her the radiance
+pulsed. Began then that infinitely dreadful, but infinitely glorious,
+rhythm they called the dance of the Shining One. And as the girl
+swirled within its sparkling mists another and another flew into its
+embrace, until, at last, the dais was an incredible vision; a mad
+star's Witches' Sabbath; an altar of white faces and bodies gleaming
+through living flame; transfused with rapture insupportable and horror
+that was hellish--and ever, radiant plumes and spirals expanding, the
+core of the Shining One waxed--growing greater--as it consumed, as it
+drew into and through itself the life-force of these lost ones!
+
+So they spun, interlaced--and there began to pulse from them life,
+vitality, as though the very essence of nature was filling us. Dimly I
+recognized that what I was beholding was vampirism inconceivable! The
+banked tiers chanted. The mighty sounds pealed forth!
+
+It was a Saturnalia of demigods!
+
+Then, whirling, bell-notes storming, the Shining One withdrew slowly
+from the dais down the ramp, still embracing, still interwoven with
+those who had thrown themselves into its spirals. They drifted with it
+as though half-carried in dreadful dance; white faces sealed--forever--into
+that semblance of those who held within linked God and devil--I
+covered my eyes!
+
+I heard a gasp from O'Keefe; opened my eyes and sought his; saw the
+wildness vanish from them as he strained forward. Olaf had leaned far
+out, and as he did so the dwarfs beside him caught him, and whether by
+design or through his own swift, involuntary movement, thrust him half
+into the Dweller's path. The Dweller paused in its gyrations--seemed
+to watch him. The Norseman's face was crimson, his eyes blazing. He
+threw himself back and, with one defiant shout, gripped one of the
+dwarfs about the middle and sent him hurtling through the air,
+straight at the radiant Thing! A whirling mass of legs and arms, the
+dwarf flew--then in midflight stopped as though some gigantic
+invisible hand had caught him, and--was dashed down upon the platform
+not a yard from the Shining One!
+
+Like a broken spider he moved--feebly--once, twice. From the Dweller
+shot a shimmering tentacle--touched him--recoiled. Its crystal
+tinklings changed into an angry chiming. From all about--jewelled
+stalls and jet peak--came a sigh of incredulous horror.
+
+Lugur leaped forward.  On the instant Larry was over the low barrier
+between the pillars, rushing to the Norseman's side. And even as they
+ran there was another wild shout from Olaf, and he hurled himself out,
+straight at the throat of the Dweller!
+
+But before he could touch the Shining One, now motionless--and never
+was the thing more horrible than then, with the purely human
+suggestion of surprise plain in its poise--Larry had struck him
+aside.
+
+I tried to follow--and was held by Rador.  He was trembling--but not
+with fear. In his face was incredulous hope, inexplicable eagerness.
+
+"Wait!" he said.  "Wait!"
+
+The Shining One stretched out a slow spiral, and as it did so I saw
+the bravest thing man has ever witnessed. Instantly O'Keefe thrust
+himself between it and Olaf, pistol out. The tentacle touched him, and
+the dull blue of his robe flashed out into blinding, intense azure
+light. From the automatic in his gloved hand came three quick bursts
+of flame straight into the Thing. The Dweller drew back; the
+bell-sounds swelled.
+
+Lugur paused, his hand darted up, and in it was one of the silver
+_Keth_ cones. But before he could flash it upon the Norseman, Larry
+had unlooped his robe, thrown its fold over Olaf, and, holding him
+with one hand away from the Shining One, thrust with the other his
+pistol into the dwarf's stomach. His lips moved, but I could not hear
+what he said. But Lugur understood, for his hand dropped.
+
+Now Yolara was there--all this had taken barely more than five
+seconds. She thrust herself between the three men and the Dweller. She
+spoke to it--and the wild buzzing died down; the gay crystal tinklings
+burst forth again. The Thing murmured to her--began to whirl--faster,
+faster--passed down the ivory pier, out upon the waters, bearing with
+it, meshed in its light, the sacrifices--swept on ever more swiftly,
+triumphantly and turning, turning, with its ghastly crew, vanished
+through the Veil!
+
+Abruptly the polychromatic path snapped out.  The silver light poured
+in upon us. From all the amphitheatre arose a clamour, a shouting.
+Marakinoff, his eyes staring, was leaning out, listening. Unrestrained
+now by Rador, I vaulted the wall and rushed forward. But not before I
+had heard the green dwarf murmur:
+
+"There is something stronger than the Shining One!  Two things--yea--a
+strong heart--and hate!"
+
+Olaf, panting, eyes glazed, trembling, shrank beneath my hand.
+
+"The devil that took my Helma!" I heard him whisper. "The Shining
+Devil!"
+
+"Both these men," Lugur was raging, "they shall dance with the Shining
+one. And this one, too." He pointed at me malignantly.
+
+"This man is mine," said the priestess, and her voice was menacing.
+She rested her hand on Larry's shoulder. "He shall not dance. No--nor
+his friend. I have told you I dare not for this one!" She pointed to
+Olaf.
+
+"Neither this man, nor this," said Larry, "shall be harmed. This is my
+word, Yolara!"
+
+"Even so," she answered quietly, "my lord!"
+
+I saw Marakinoff stare at O'Keefe with a new and curiously speculative
+interest. Lugur's eyes grew hellish; he raised his arms as though to
+strike her. Larry's pistol prodded him rudely enough.
+
+"No rough stuff now, kid!" said O'Keefe in English.  The red dwarf
+quivered, turned--caught a robe from a priest standing by, and threw
+it over himself. The _ladala_, shouting, gesticulating, fighting with
+the soldiers, were jostling down from the tiers of jet.
+
+"Come!" commanded Yolara--her eyes rested upon Larry.  "Your heart is
+great, indeed--my lord!" she murmured; and her voice was very sweet.
+"Come!"
+
+"This man comes with us, Yolara," said O'Keefe pointing to Olaf.
+
+"Bring him," she said.  "Bring him--only tell him to look no more upon
+me as before!" she added fiercely.
+
+Beside her the three of us passed along the stalls, where sat the
+fair-haired, now silent, at gaze, as though in the grip of some great
+doubt. Silently Olaf strode beside me. Rador had disappeared. Down the
+stairway, through the hall of turquoise mist, over the rushing
+sea-stream we went and stood beside the wall through which we had
+entered. The white-robed ones had gone.
+
+Yolara pressed; the portal opened.  We stepped upon the car; she took
+the lever; we raced through the faintly luminous corridor to the house
+of the priestess.
+
+And one thing now I knew sick at heart and soul the truth had come to
+me--no more need to search for Throckmartin. Behind that Veil, in the
+lair of the Dweller, dead-alive like those we had just seen swim in
+its shining train was he, and Edith, Stanton and Thora and Olaf
+Huldricksson's wife!
+
+The car came to rest; the portal opened; Yolara leaped out lightly,
+beckoned and flitted up the corridor. She paused before an ebon
+screen. At a touch it vanished, revealing an entrance to a small blue
+chamber, glowing as though cut from the heart of some gigantic
+sapphire; bare, save that in its centre, upon a low pedestal, stood a
+great globe fashioned from milky rock-crystal; upon its surface were
+faint tracings as of seas and continents, but, if so, either of some
+other world or of this world in immemorial past, for in no way did
+they resemble the mapped coastlines of our earth.
+
+Poised upon the globe, rising from it out into space, locked in each
+other's arms, lips to lips, were two figures, a woman and a man, so
+exquisite, so lifelike, that for the moment I failed to realize that
+they, too, were carved of the crystal. And before this shrine--for
+nothing else could it be, I knew--three slender cones raised
+themselves: one of purest white flame, one of opalescent water, and
+the third of--moonlight! There was no mistaking them, the height of a
+tall man each stood--but how water, flame and light were held so
+evenly, so steadily in their spire-shapes, I could not tell.
+
+Yolara bowed lowly--once, twice, thrice.  She turned to O'Keefe, nor
+by slightest look or gesture betrayed she knew others were there than
+he. The blue eyes wide, searching, unfathomable, she drew close; put
+white hands on his shoulders, looked down into his very soul.
+
+"My lord," she murmured.  "Now listen well for I, Yolara, give you
+three things--myself, and the Shining One, and the power that is the
+Shining One's--yea, and still a fourth thing that is all three--power
+over all upon that world from whence you came! These, my lord, ye
+shall have. I swear it"--she turned toward the altar--uplifted her
+arms--"by Siya and by Siyana, and by the flame, by the water, and by
+the light!"[1]
+
+Her eyes grew purple dark.
+
+"Let none dare to take you from me!  Nor ye go from me unbidden!" she
+whispered fiercely.
+
+Then swiftly, still ignoring us, she threw her arms about O'Keefe,
+pressed her white body to his breast, lips raised, eyes closed,
+seeking his. O'Keefe's arms tightened around her, his head dropped
+lips seeking, finding hers--passionately! From Olaf came a deep
+indrawn breath that was almost a groan. But not in my heart could I
+find blame for the Irishman!
+
+The priestess opened eyes now all misty blue, thrust him back, stood
+regarding him. O'Keefe, dead-white, raised a trembling hand to his
+face.
+
+"And thus have I sealed my oath, O my lord!" she whispered.  For the
+first time she seemed to recognize our presence, stared at us a
+moment, then through us, and turned to O'Keefe.
+
+"Go, now!" she said.  "Soon Rador shall come for you. Then--well,
+after that let happen what will!"
+
+
+She smiled once more at him--so sweetly; turned toward the figures
+upon the great globe; sank upon her knees before them. Quietly we
+crept away; still silent, made our way to the little pavilion. But as
+we passed we heard a tumult from the green roadway; shouts of men, now
+and then a woman's scream. Through a rift in the garden I glimpsed a
+jostling crowd on one of the bridges: green dwarfs struggling with the
+_ladala_--and all about droned a humming as of a giant hive disturbed!
+
+Larry threw himself down upon one of the divans, covered his face with
+his hands, dropped them to catch in Olaf's eyes troubled reproach,
+looked at me.
+
+"_I_ couldn't help it," he said, half defiantly--half-miserably.
+"God, what a woman! I _couldn't_ help it!"
+
+"Larry," I asked.  "Why didn't you tell her you didn't love
+her--then?"
+
+He gazed at me--the old twinkle back in his eye.
+
+"Spoken like a scientist, Doc!" he exclaimed.  "I suppose if a burning
+angel struck you out of nowhere and threw itself about you, you would
+most dignifiedly tell it you didn't want to be burned. For God's sake,
+don't talk nonsense, Goodwin!" he ended, almost peevishly.
+
+"Evil!  Evil!" The Norseman's voice was deep, nearly a chant.  "All
+here is of evil: Trolldom and Helvede it is, Ja! And that she
+_djaevelsk_ of beauty--what is she but harlot of that shining devil
+they worship. I, Olaf Huldricksson, know what she meant when she held
+out to you power over all the world, _Ja!_--as if the world had not
+devils enough in it now!"
+
+"What?" The cry came from both O'Keefe and myself at once.
+
+Olaf made a gesture of caution, relapsed into sullen silence.  There
+were footsteps on the path, and into sight came Rador--but a Rador
+changed. Gone was every vestige of his mockery; curiously solemn, he
+saluted O'Keefe and Olaf with that salute which, before this, I had
+seen given only to Yolara and to Lugur. There came a swift quickening
+of the tumult--died away. He shrugged mighty shoulders.
+
+"The _ladala_ are awake!" he said.  "So much for what two brave men
+can do!" He paused thoughtfully. "Bones and dust jostle not each other
+for place against the grave wall!" he added oddly. "But if bones and
+dust have revealed to them that they still--live--"
+
+He stopped abruptly, eyes seeking the globe that bore and sent forth
+speech.[2]
+
+"The _Afyo Maie_ has sent me to watch over you till she summons you,"
+he announced clearly. "There is to be a--feast. You, _Larree_, you
+Goodwin, are to come. I remain here with--Olaf."
+
+"No harm to him!" broke in O'Keefe sharply.  Rador touched his heart,
+his eyes.
+
+"By the Ancient Ones, and by my love for you, and by what you twain
+did before the Shining One--I swear it!" he whispered.
+
+Rador clapped palms; a soldier came round the path, in his grip a long
+flat box of polished wood. The green dwarf took it, dismissed him,
+threw open the lid.
+
+"Here is your apparel for the feast, _Larree_," he said, pointing to
+the contents.
+
+O'Keefe stared, reached down and drew out a white, shimmering, softly
+metallic, long-sleeved tunic, a broad, silvery girdle, leg swathings
+of the same argent material, and sandals that seemed to be cut out
+from silver. He made a quick gesture of angry dissent.
+
+"Nay, _Larree_!" muttered the dwarf.  "Wear them--I counsel it--I pray
+it--ask me not why," he went on swiftly, looking again at the globe.
+
+O'Keefe, as I, was impressed by his earnestness.  The dwarf made a
+curiously expressive pleading gesture. O'Keefe abruptly took the
+garments; passed into the room of the fountain.
+
+"The Shining One dances not again?" I asked.
+
+"No," he said.  "No"--he hesitate--"it is the usual feast that follows
+the sacrament! Lugur--and Double Tongue, who came with you, will be
+there," he added slowly.
+
+"Lugur--" I gasped in astonishment.  "After what happened--he will be
+there?"
+
+"Perhaps because of what happened, Goodwin, my friend," he
+answered--his eyes again full of malice; "and there will be
+others--friends of Yolara--friends of Lugur--and perhaps
+another"--his voice was almost inaudible--"one whom they have not
+called--" He halted, half-fearfully, glancing at the globe; put finger
+to lips and spread himself out upon one of the couches.
+
+"Strike up the band"--came O'Keefe's voice--"here comes the hero!"
+
+He strode into the room.  I am bound to say that the admiration in
+Rador's eyes was reflected in my own, and even, if involuntarily, in
+Olaf's.
+
+"A son of Siyana!" whispered Rador.
+
+He knelt, took from his girdle-pouch a silk-wrapped something, unwound
+it--and, still kneeling, drew out a slender poniard of gleaming white
+metal, hilted with the blue stones; he thrust it into O'Keefe's
+girdle; then gave him again the rare salute.
+
+"Come," he ordered and took us to the head of the pathway.
+
+"Now," he said grimly, "let the Silent Ones show their power--if they
+still have it!"
+
+And with this strange benediction, he turned back.
+
+"For God's sake, Larry," I urged as we approached the house of the
+priestess, "you'll be careful!"
+
+He nodded--but I saw with a little deadly pang of apprehension in my
+heart a puzzled, lurking doubt within his eyes.
+
+As we ascended the serpent steps Marakinoff appeared. He gave a signal
+to our guards--and I wondered what influence the Russian had attained,
+for promptly, without question, they drew aside. At me he smiled
+amiably.
+
+"Have you found your friends yet?" he went on--and now I sensed
+something deeply sinister in him. "No! It is too bad! Well, don't give
+up hope." He turned to O'Keefe.
+
+"Lieutenant, I would like to speak to you--alone!"
+
+"I've no secrets from Goodwin," answered O'Keefe.
+
+"So?" queried Marakinoff, suavely.  He bent, whispered to Larry.
+
+The Irishman started, eyed him with a certain shocked incredulity,
+then turned to me.
+
+"Just a minute, Doc!" he said, and I caught the suspicion of a wink.
+They drew aside, out of ear-shot. The Russian talked rapidly. Larry
+was all attention. Marakinoff's earnestness became intense; O'Keefe
+interrupted--appeared to question. Marakinoff glanced at me and as his
+gaze shifted from O'Keefe, I saw a flame of rage and horror blaze up
+in the latter's eyes. At last the Irishman appeared to consider
+gravely; nodded as though he had arrived at some decision, and
+Marakinoff thrust his hand to him.
+
+And only I could have noticed Larry's shrinking, his microscopic
+hesitation before he took it, and his involuntary movement, as though
+to shake off something unclean, when the clasp had ended.
+
+Marakinoff, without another look at me, turned and went quickly
+within. The guards took their places. I looked at Larry inquiringly.
+
+"Don't ask a thing now, Doc!" he said tensely.  "Wait till we get
+home. But we've got to get damned busy and quick--I'll tell you that
+now--"
+
+
+[1] I have no space here even to outline the eschatology of this
+people, nor to catalogue their pantheon. Siya and Siyana typified
+worldly love. Their ritual was, however, singularly free from those
+degrading elements usually found in love-cults. Priests and
+priestesses of all cults dwelt in the immense seven-terraced
+structure, of which the jet amphitheatre was the water side. The
+symbol, icon, representation, of Siya and Siyana--the globe and the
+up-striving figures--typified earthly love, feet bound to earth, but
+eyes among the stars. Hell or heaven I never heard formulated, nor
+their equivalents; unless that existence in the Shining One's domain
+could serve for either. Over all this was Thanaroa, remote; unheeding,
+but still maker and ruler of all--an absentee First Cause personified!
+Thanaroa seemed to be the one article of belief in the creed of the
+soldiers--Rador, with his reverence for the Ancient Ones, was an
+exception. Whatever there was, indeed, of high, truly religious
+impulse among the Murians, this far, High God had. I found this
+exceedingly interesting, because it had long been my theory--to put
+the matter in the shape of a geometrical formula--that the real
+attractiveness of gods to man increases uniformly according to the
+square of their distance--W. T. G.
+
+[2] I find that I have neglected to explain the working of these
+interesting mechanisms that were telephonic, dictaphonic, telegraphic
+in one. I must assume that my readers are familiar with the receiving
+apparatus of wireless telegraphy, which must be "tuned" by the
+operator until its own vibratory quality is in exact harmony with the
+vibrations--the extremely rapid impacts--of those short electric
+wavelengths we call Hertzian, and which carry the wireless messages. I
+must assume also that they are familiar with the elementary fact of
+physics that the vibrations of light and sound are interchangeable.
+The hearing-talking globes utilize both these principles, and with
+consummate simplicity. The light with which they shone was produced by
+an atomic "motor" within their base, similar to that which activated
+the merely illuminating globes. The composition of the phonic spheres
+gave their surfaces an acute sensitivity and resonance. In conjunction
+with its energizing power, the metal set up what is called a "field of
+force," which linked it with every particle of its kind no matter how
+distant. When vibrations of speech impinged upon the resonant surface
+its rhythmic light-vibrations were broken, just as a telephone
+transmitter breaks an electric current. Simultaneously these
+light-vibrations were changed into sound--on the surfaces of all
+spheres tuned to that particular instrument. The "crawling" colours
+which showed themselves at these times were literally the voice of the
+speaker in its spectrum equivalent. While usually the sounds produced
+required considerable familiarity with the apparatus to be understood
+quickly, they could, on occasion, be made startlingly loud and
+clear--as I was soon to realize--W. T. G.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+The Tempting of Larry
+
+We paused before thick curtains, through which came the faint murmur
+of many voices. They parted; out came two--ushers, I suppose, they
+were--in cuirasses and kilts that reminded me somewhat of
+chain-mail--the first armour of any kind here that I had seen. They
+held open the folds.
+
+The chamber, on whose threshold we stood, was far larger than either
+anteroom or hall of audience. Not less than three hundred feet long
+and half that in depth, from end to end of it ran two huge
+semi-circular tables, paralleling each other, divided by a wide aisle,
+and heaped with flowers, with fruits, with viands unknown to me, and
+glittering with crystal flagons, beakers, goblets of as many hues as
+the blooms. On the gay-cushioned couches that flanked the tables,
+lounging luxuriously, were scores of the fair-haired ruling class and
+there rose a little buzz of admiration, oddly mixed with a
+half-startled amaze, as their gaze fell upon O'Keefe in all his
+silvery magnificence. Everywhere the light-giving globes sent their
+roseate radiance.
+
+The cuirassed dwarfs led us through the aisle.  Within the arc of the
+inner half--circle was another glittering board, an oval. But of those
+seated there, facing us--I had eyes for only one--Yolara! She swayed
+up to greet O'Keefe--and she was like one of those white lily maids,
+whose beauty Hoang-Ku, the sage, says made the Gobi first a paradise,
+and whose lusts later the burned-out desert that it is. She held out
+hands to Larry, and on her face was passion--unashamed, unhiding.
+
+She was Circe--but Circe conquered.  Webs of filmiest white clung to
+the rose-leaf body. Twisted through the corn-silk hair a threaded
+circlet of pale sapphires shone; but they were pale beside Yolara's
+eyes. O'Keefe bent, kissed her hands, something more than mere
+admiration flaming from him. She saw--and, smiling, drew him down
+beside her.
+
+It came to me that of all, only these two, Yolara and O'Keefe, were in
+white--and I wondered; then with a tightening of nerves ceased to
+wonder as there entered--Lugur! He was all in scarlet, and as he
+strode forward a silence fell a tense, strained silence.
+
+His gaze turned upon Yolara, rested upon O'Keefe, and instantly his
+face grew--dreadful--there is no other word than that for it.
+Marakinoff leaned forward from the centre of the table, near whose end
+I sat, touched and whispered to him swiftly. With appalling effort the
+red dwarf controlled himself; he saluted the priestess ironically, I
+thought; took his place at the further end of the oval. And now I
+noted that the figures between were the seven of that Council of which
+the Shining One's priestess and Voice were the heads. The tension
+relaxed, but did not pass--as though a storm-cloud should turn away,
+but still lurk, threatening.
+
+My gaze ran back.  This end of the room was draped with the
+exquisitely coloured, graceful curtains looped with gorgeous garlands.
+Between curtains and table, where sat Larry and the nine, a circular
+platform, perhaps ten yards in diameter, raised itself a few feet
+above the floor, its gleaming surface half-covered with the luminous
+petals, fragrant, delicate.
+
+On each side below it, were low carven stools.  The curtains parted
+and softly entered girls bearing their flutes, their harps, the
+curiously emotion-exciting, octaved drums. They sank into their
+places. They touched their instruments; a faint, languorous measure
+throbbed through the rosy air.
+
+The stage was set!  What was to be the play?
+
+Now about the tables passed other dusky-haired maids, fair bosoms
+bare, their scanty kirtles looped high, pouring out the wines for the
+feasters.
+
+My eyes sought O'Keefe.  Whatever it had been that Marakinoff had
+said, clearly it now filled his mind--even to the exclusion of the
+wondrous woman beside him. His eyes were stern, cold--and now and
+then, as he turned them toward the Russian, filled with a curious
+speculation. Yolara watched him, frowned, gave a low order to the Hebe
+behind her.
+
+The girl disappeared, entered again with a ewer that seemed cut of
+amber. The priestess poured from it into Larry's glass a clear liquid
+that shook with tiny sparkles of light. She raised the glass to her
+lips, handed it to him. Half-smiling, half-abstractedly, he took it,
+touched his own lips where hers had kissed; drained it. A nod from
+Yolara and the maid refilled his goblet.
+
+At once there was a swift transformation in the Irishman. His
+abstraction vanished; the sternness fled; his eyes sparkled. He leaned
+caressingly toward Yolara; whispered. Her blue eyes flashed
+triumphantly; her chiming laughter rang. She raised her own glass--but
+within it was not that clear drink that filled Larry's! And again he
+drained his own; and, lifting it, full once more, caught the baleful
+eyes of Lugur, and held it toward him mockingly. Yolara swayed
+close--alluring, tempting. He arose, face all reckless gaiety; rollicking
+deviltry.
+
+"A toast!" he cried in English, "to the Shining One--and may the hell
+where it belongs soon claim it!"
+
+He had used their own word for their god--all else had been in his own
+tongue, and so, fortunately, they did not understand. But the contempt
+in his action they did recognize--and a dead, a fearful silence fell
+upon them all. Lugur's eyes blazed, little sparks of crimson in their
+green. The priestess reached up, caught at O'Keefe. He seized the soft
+hand; caressed it; his gaze grew far away, sombre.
+
+"The Shining One." He spoke low.  "An' now again I see the faces of
+those who dance with it. It is the Fires of Mora--come, God alone
+knows how--from Erin--to this place. The Fires of Mora!" He
+contemplated the hushed folk before him; and then from his lips came
+that weirdest, most haunting of the lyric legends of Erin--the Curse
+of Mora:
+
+    "The fretted fires of Mora blew o'er him in the night;
+    He thrills no more to loving, nor weeps for past delight.
+    For when those flames have bitten, both grief and joy take flight--"
+
+Again Yolara tried to draw him down beside her; and once more he
+gripped her hand. His eyes grew fixed--he crooned:
+
+    "And through the sleeping silence his feet must track the tune,
+    When the world is barred and speckled with silver of the moon--"
+
+He stood, swaying, for a moment, and then, laughing, let the priestess
+have her way; drained again the glass.
+
+And now my heart was cold, indeed--for what hope was there left with
+Larry mad, wild drunk!
+
+The silence was unbroken--elfin women and dwarfs glancing furtively at
+each other. But now Yolara arose, face set, eyes flashing grey.
+
+"Hear you, the Council, and you, Lugur--and all who are here!" she
+cried. "Now I, the priestess of the Shining One, take, as is my right,
+my mate. And this is he!" She pointed down upon Larry. He glanced up
+at her.
+
+"Can't quite make out what you say, Yolara," he muttered thickly.
+"But say anything--you like--I love your voice!"
+
+I turned sick with dread.  Yolara's hand stole softly upon the
+Irishman's curls caressingly.
+
+"You know the law, Yolara." Lugur's voice was flat, deadly, "You may
+not mate with other than your own kind. And this man is a stranger--a
+barbarian--food for the Shining One!" Literally, he spat the phrase.
+
+"No, not of our kind--Lugur--higher!" Yolara answered serenely.  "Lo,
+a son of Siya and of Siyana!"
+
+"A lie!" roared the red dwarf.  "A lie!"
+
+"The Shining One revealed it to me!" said Yolara sweetly. "And if ye
+believe not, Lugur--go ask of the Shining One if it be not truth!"
+
+There was bitter, nameless menace in those last words--and whatever
+their hidden message to Lugur, it was potent. He stood, choking, face
+hell-shadowed--Marakinoff leaned out again, whispered. The red dwarf
+bowed, now wholly ironically; resumed his place and his silence. And
+again I wondered, icy-hearted, what was the power the Russian had so
+to sway Lugur.
+
+"What says the Council?" Yolara demanded, turning to them.
+
+Only for a moment they consulted among themselves. Then the woman,
+whose face was a ravaged shrine of beauty, spoke.
+
+"The will of the priestess is the will of the Council!" she answered.
+
+Defiance died from Yolara's face; she looked down at Larry tenderly.
+He sat swaying, crooning.
+
+"Bid the priests come," she commanded, then turned to the silent room.
+"By the rites of Siya and Siyana, Yolara takes their son for her
+mate!" And again her hand stole down possessingly, serpent soft, to
+the drunken head of the O'Keefe.
+
+The curtains parted widely.  Through them filed, two by two, twelve
+hooded figures clad in flowing robes of the green one sees in forest
+vistas of opening buds of dawning spring. Of each pair one bore
+clasped to breast a globe of that milky crystal in the sapphire
+shrine-room; the other a harp, small, shaped somewhat like the ancient
+clarsach of the Druids.
+
+Two by two they stepped upon the raised platform, placed gently upon
+it each their globe; and two by two crouched behind them. They formed
+now a star of six points about the petalled dais, and, simultaneously,
+they drew from their faces the covering cowls.
+
+I half-rose--youths and maidens these of the fair-haired; and youths
+and maids more beautiful than any of those I had yet seen--for upon
+their faces was little of that disturbing mockery to which I have been
+forced so often, because of the deep impression it made upon me, to
+refer. The ashen-gold of the maiden priestesses' hair was wound about
+their brows in shining coronals. The pale locks of the youths were
+clustered within circlets of translucent, glimmering gems like
+moonstones. And then, crystal globe alternately before and harp
+alternately held by youth and maid, they began to sing.
+
+What was that song, I do not know--nor ever shall. Archaic, ancient
+beyond thought, it seemed--not with the ancientness of things that for
+uncounted ages have been but wind-driven dust. Rather was it the
+ancientness of the golden youth of the world, love lilts of earth
+younglings, with light of new-born suns drenching them, chorals of
+young stars mating in space; murmurings of April gods and goddesses. A
+languor stole through me. The rosy lights upon the tripods began to
+die away, and as they faded the milky globes gleamed forth brighter,
+ever brighter. Yolara rose, stretched a hand to Larry, led him through
+the sextuple groups, and stood face to face with him in the centre of
+their circle.
+
+The rose-light died; all that immense chamber was black, save for the
+circle of the glowing spheres. Within this their milky radiance grew
+brighter--brighter. The song whispered away. A throbbing arpeggio
+dripped from the harps, and as the notes pulsed out, up from the
+globes, as though striving to follow, pulsed with them tips of
+moon-fire cones, such as I had seen before Yolara's altar. Weirdly,
+caressingly, compellingly the harp notes throbbed in repeated,
+re-repeated theme, holding within itself the same archaic golden
+quality I had noted in the singing. And over the moon flame pinnacles
+rose higher!
+
+Yolara lifted her arms; within her hands were clasped O'Keefe's.  She
+raised them above their two heads and slowly, slowly drew him with her
+into a circling, graceful step, tendrillings delicate as the slow
+spirallings of twilight mist upon some still stream.
+
+As they swayed the rippling arpeggios grew louder, and suddenly the
+slender pinnacles of moon fire bent, dipped, flowed to the floor,
+crept in a shining ring around those two--and began to rise, a
+gleaming, glimmering, enchanted barrier--rising, ever rising--hiding
+them!
+
+With one swift movement Yolara unbound her circlet of pale sapphires,
+shook loose the waves of her silken hair. It fell, a rippling,
+wondrous cascade, veiling both her and O'Keefe to their girdles--and
+now the shining coils of moon fire had crept to their knees--was
+circling higher--higher.
+
+And ever despair grew deeper in my soul!
+
+What was that!  I started to my feet, and all around me in the
+darkness I heard startled motion. From without came a blaring of
+trumpets, the sound of running men, loud murmurings. The tumult drew
+closer. I heard cries of "Lakla! Lakla!" Now it was at the very
+threshold and within it, oddly, as though--punctuating--the clamour, a
+deep-toned, almost abysmal, booming sound--thunderously bass and
+reverberant.
+
+Abruptly the harpings ceased; the moon fires shuddered, fell, and
+began to sweep back into the crystal globes; Yolara's swaying form
+grew rigid, every atom of it listening. She threw aside the veiling
+cloud of hair, and in the gleam of the last retreating spirals her
+face glared out like some old Greek mask of tragedy.
+
+The sweet lips that even at their sweetest could never lose their
+delicate cruelty, had no sweetness now. They were drawn into a
+square--inhuman as that of the Medusa; in her eyes were the fires of
+the pit, and her hair seemed to writhe like the serpent locks of that
+Gorgon whose mouth she had borrowed; all her beauty was transformed
+into a nameless thing--hideous, inhuman, blasting! If this was the
+true soul of Yolara springing to her face, then, I thought, God help
+us in very deed!
+
+I wrested my gaze away to O'Keefe.  All drunkenness gone, himself
+again, he was staring down at her, and in his eyes were loathing and
+horror unutterable. So they stood--and the light fled.
+
+Only for a moment did the darkness hold.  With lightning swiftness the
+blackness that was the chamber's other wall vanished. Through a portal
+open between grey screens, the silver sparkling radiance poured.
+
+And through the portal marched, two by two, incredible, nightmare
+figures--frog-men, giants, taller by nearly a yard than even tall
+O'Keefe! Their enormous saucer eyes were irised by wide bands of
+green-flecked red, in which the phosphorescence flickered. Their long
+muzzles, lips half-open in monstrous grin, held rows of glistening,
+slender, lancet sharp fangs. Over the glaring eyes arose a horny
+helmet, a carapace of black and orange scales, studded with foot-long
+lance-headed horns.
+
+They lined themselves like soldiers on each side of the wide table
+aisle, and now I could see that their horny armour covered shoulders
+and backs, ran across the chest in a knobbed cuirass, and at wrists
+and heels jutted out into curved, murderous spurs. The webbed hands
+and feet ended in yellow, spade-shaped claws.
+
+They carried spears, ten feet, at least, in length, the heads of which
+were pointed cones, glistening with that same covering, from whose
+touch of swift decay I had so narrowly saved Rador.
+
+They were grotesque, yes--more grotesque than anything I had ever seen
+or dreamed, and they were--terrible!
+
+And then, quietly, through their ranks came--a girl!  Behind her,
+enormous pouch at his throat swelling in and out menacingly, in one
+paw a treelike, spike-studded mace, a frog-man, huger than any of the
+others, guarding. But of him I caught but a fleeting, involuntary
+impression--all my gaze was for her.
+
+For it was she who had pointed out to us the way from the peril of the
+Dweller's lair on Nan-Tauach. And as I looked at her, I marvelled that
+ever could I have thought the priestess more beautiful. Into the eyes
+of O'Keefe rushed joy and an utter abasement of shame.
+
+And from all about came murmurs--edged with anger, half-incredulous,
+tinged with fear:
+
+"Lakla!"
+
+"Lakla!"
+
+"The handmaiden!"
+
+She halted close beside me.  From firm little chin to dainty buskined
+feet she was swathed in the soft robes of dull, almost coppery hue.
+The left arm was hidden, the right free and gloved. Wound tight about
+it was one of the vines of the sculptured wall and of Lugur's circled
+signet-ring. Thick, a vivid green, its five tendrils ran between her
+fingers, stretching out five flowered heads that gleamed like blossoms
+cut from gigantic, glowing rubies.
+
+So she stood contemplating Yolara.  Then drawn perhaps by my gaze, she
+dropped her eyes upon me; golden, translucent, with tiny flecks of
+amber in their aureate irises, the soul that looked through them was
+as far removed from that flaming out of the priestess as zenith is
+above nadir.
+
+I noted the low, broad brow, the proud little nose, the tender mouth,
+and the soft--sunlight--glow that seemed to transfuse the delicate
+skin. And suddenly in the eyes dawned a smile--sweet, friendly, a
+touch of roguishness, profoundly reassuring in its all humanness. I
+felt my heart expand as though freed from fetters, a recrudescence of
+confidence in the essential reality of things--as though in nightmare
+the struggling consciousness should glimpse some familiar face and
+know the terrors with which it strove were but dreams. And
+involuntarily I smiled back at her.
+
+She raised her head and looked again at Yolara, contempt and a certain
+curiosity in her gaze; at O'Keefe--and through the softened eyes
+drifted swiftly a shadow of sorrow, and on its fleeting wings deepest
+interest, and hovering over that a naive approval as reassuringly
+human as had been her smile.
+
+She spoke, and her voice, deep-timbred, liquid gold as was Yolara's
+all silver, was subtly the synthesis of all the golden glowing beauty
+of her.
+
+"The Silent Ones have sent me, O Yolara," she said.  "And this is
+their command to you--that you deliver to me to bring before them
+three of the four strangers who have found their way here. For him
+there who plots with Lugur"--she pointed at Marakinoff, and I saw
+Yolara start--"they have no need. Into his heart the Silent Ones have
+looked; and Lugur and you may keep him, Yolara!"
+
+There was honeyed venom in the last words.
+
+Yolara was herself now; only the edge of shrillness on her voice
+revealed her wrath as she answered.
+
+"And whence have the Silent Ones gained power to command, _choya_?"
+
+This last, I knew, was a very vulgar word; I had heard Rador use it in
+a moment of anger to one of the serving maids, and it meant,
+approximately, "kitchen girl," "scullion." Beneath the insult and the
+acid disdain, the blood rushed up under Lakla's ambered ivory skin.
+
+"Yolara"--her voice was low--"of no use is it to question me. I am but
+the messenger of the Silent Ones. And one thing only am I bidden to
+ask you--do you deliver to me the three strangers?"
+
+Lugur was on his feet; eagerness, sardonic delight, sinister
+anticipation thrilling from him--and my same glance showed Marakinoff,
+crouched, biting his finger-nails, glaring at the Golden Girl.
+
+"No!" Yolara spat the word.  "No!  Now by Thanaroa and by the Shining
+One, no!" Her eyes blazed, her nostrils were wide, in her fair throat
+a little pulse beat angrily. "You, Lakla--take you my message to the
+Silent Ones. Say to them that I keep this man"--she pointed to
+Larry--"because he is mine. Say to them that I keep the yellow-haired
+one and him"--she pointed to me--"because it pleases me.
+
+"Tell them that upon their mouths I place my foot, so!"--she stamped
+upon the dais viciously--"and that in their faces I spit!"--and her
+action was hideously snakelike. "And say last to them, you handmaiden,
+that if _you_ they dare send to Yolara again, she will feed _you_ to
+the Shining One! Now--go!"
+
+The handmaiden's face was white.
+
+"Not unforeseen by the three was this, Yolara," she replied.  "And did
+you speak as you have spoken then was I bidden to say this to you."
+Her voice deepened. "Three _tal_ have you to take counsel, Yolara. And
+at the end of that time these things must you have determined--either
+to do or not to do: first, send the strangers to the Silent Ones;
+second, give up, you and Lugur and all of you, that dream you have of
+conquest of the world without; and, third, forswear the Shining One!
+And if you do not one and all these things, then are you done, your
+cup of life broken, your wine of life spilled. Yea, Yolara, for you
+and the Shining One, Lugur and the Nine and all those here and their
+kind shall pass! This say the Silent Ones, 'Surely shall all of ye
+pass and be as though never had ye been!'"
+
+Now a gasp of rage and fear arose from all those around me--but the
+priestess threw back her head and laughed loud and long. Into the
+silver sweet chiming of her laughter clashed that of Lugur--and after
+a little the nobles took it up, till the whole chamber echoed with
+their mirth. O'Keefe, lips tightening, moved toward the Handmaiden,
+and almost imperceptibly, but peremptorily, she waved him back.
+
+"Those _are_ great words--great words indeed, _choya_," shrilled Yolara
+at last; and again Lakla winced beneath the word. "Lo, for _laya_ upon
+_laya_, the Shining One has been freed from the Three; and for _laya_
+upon _laya_ they have sat helpless, rotting. Now I ask you
+again--whence comes their power to lay their will upon me, and whence
+comes their strength to wrestle with the Shining One and the beloved
+of the Shining One?"
+
+And again she laughed--and again Lugur and all the fairhaired joined
+in her laughter.
+
+Into the eyes of Lakla I saw creep a doubt, a wavering; as though deep
+within her the foundations of her own belief were none too firm.
+
+She hesitated, turning upon O'Keefe gaze in which rested more than
+suggestion of appeal! And Yolara saw, too, for she flushed with
+triumph, stretched a finger toward the handmaiden.
+
+"Look!" she cried.  "Look!  Why, even _she_ does not believe!" Her
+voice grew silk of silver--merciless, cruel. "Now am I minded to send
+another answer to the Silent Ones. Yea! But not by _you_, Lakla; by
+these"--she pointed to the frog-men, and, swift as light, her hand
+darted into her bosom, bringing forth the little shining cone of
+death.
+
+But before she could level it the Golden Girl had released that hidden
+left arm and thrown over her face a fold of the metallic swathings.
+Swifter than Yolara, she raised the arm that held the vine--and now I
+knew this was no inert blossoming thing.
+
+It was alive!
+
+It writhed down her arm, and its five rubescent flower heads thrust
+out toward the priestess--vibrating, quivering, held in leash only by
+the light touch of the handmaiden at its very end.
+
+From the swelling throat pouch of the monster behind her came a
+succession of the reverberant boomings. The frogmen wheeled, raised
+their lances, levelled them at the throng. Around the reaching ruby
+flowers a faint red mist swiftly grew.
+
+The silver cone dropped from Yolara's rigid fingers; her eyes grew
+stark with horror; all her unearthly loveliness fled from her; she
+stood pale-lipped. The Handmaiden dropped the protecting veil--and now
+it was she who laughed.
+
+"It would seem, then, Yolara, that there _is_ a thing of the Silent Ones
+ye fear!" she said. "Well--the kiss of the _Yekta_ I promise you in
+return for the embrace of your Shining One."
+
+She looked at Larry, long, searchingly, and suddenly again with all
+that effect of sunlight bursting into dark places, her smile shone
+upon him. She nodded, half gaily; looked down upon me, the little
+merry light dancing in her eyes; waved her hand to me.
+
+She spoke to the giant frog-man.  He wheeled behind her as she turned,
+facing the priestess, club upraised, fangs glistening. His troop moved
+not a jot, spears held high. Lakla began to pass slowly--almost, I
+thought, tauntingly--and as she reached the portal Larry leaped from
+the dais.
+
+"_Alanna_!" he cried.  "You'll not be leavin' me just when I've found
+you!"
+
+In his excitement he spoke in his own tongue, the velvet brogue
+appealing. Lakla turned, contemplated O'Keefe, hesitant,
+unquestionably longingly, irresistibly like a child making up her mind
+whether she dared or dared not take a delectable something offered
+her.
+
+"I go with you," said O'Keefe, this time in her own speech.  "Come on,
+Doc!" He reached out a hand to me.
+
+But now Yolara spoke.  Life and beauty had flowed back into her face,
+and in the purple eyes all her hosts of devils were gathered.
+
+"Do you forget what I promised you before Siya and Siyana?  And do you
+think that you can leave me--me--as though I were a _choya_--like
+_her_." She pointed to Lakla. "Do you--"
+
+"Now, listen, Yolara," Larry interrupted almost plaintively.  "No
+promise has passed from me to you--and why would you hold me?" He
+passed unconsciously into English. "Be a good sport, Yolara," he
+urged, "You _have_ got a very devil of a temper, you know, and so have
+I; and we'd be really awfully uncomfortable together. And why don't
+you get rid of that devilish pet of yours, and be good!"
+
+She looked at him, puzzled, Marakinoff leaned over, translated to
+Lugur. The red dwarf smiled maliciously, drew near the priestess;
+whispered to her what was without doubt as near as he could come in
+the Murian to Larry's own very colloquial phrases.
+
+Yolara's lips writhed.
+
+"Hear me, Lakla!" she cried.  "Now would I not let you take this man
+from me were I to dwell ten thousand _laya_ in the agony of the
+_Yekta's_ kiss. This I swear to you--by Thanaroa, by my heart, and by
+my strength--and may my strength wither, my heart rot in my breast,
+and Thanaroa forget me if I do!"
+
+"Listen, Yolara"--began O'Keefe again.
+
+"Be silent, you!" It was almost a shriek.  And her hand again sought
+in her breast for the cone of rhythmic death.
+
+Lugur touched her arm, whispered again, The glint of guile shone in
+her eyes; she laughed softly, relaxed.
+
+"The Silent Ones, Lakla, bade you say that they--allowed--me three
+_tal_ to decide," she said suavely. "Go now in peace, Lakla, and say
+that Yolara has heard, and that for the three _tal_ they--allow--her
+she will take council." The handmaiden hesitated.
+
+"The Silent Ones have said it," she answered at last.  "Stay you here,
+strangers"---the long lashes drooped as her eyes met O'Keefe's and a
+hint of blush was in her cheeks--"stay you here, strangers, till then.
+But, Yolara, see you on that heart and strength you have sworn by that
+they come to no harm--else that which you have invoked shall come upon
+you swiftly indeed--and that I promise you," she added.
+
+Their eyes met, clashed, burned into each other--black flame from
+Abaddon and golden flame from Paradise.
+
+"Remember!" said Lakla, and passed through the portal. The gigantic
+frog-man boomed a thunderous note of command, his grotesque guards
+turned and slowly followed their mistress; and last of all passed out
+the monster with the mace.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+Larry's Defiance
+
+A clamour arose from all the chambers; stilled in an instant by a
+motion of Yolara's hand. She stood silent, regarding O'Keefe with
+something other now than blind wrath; something half regretful, half
+beseeching. But the Irishman's control was gone.
+
+"Yolara,"--his voice shook with rage, and he threw caution to the
+wind--"now hear _me_. I go where I will and when I will. Here shall we
+stay until the time she named is come. And then we follow her, whether
+you will or not. And if any should have thought to stop us--tell them
+of that flame that shattered the vase," he added grimly.
+
+The wistfulness died out of her eyes, leaving them cold. But no answer
+made she to him.
+
+"What Lakla has said, the Council must consider, and at once." The
+priestess was facing the nobles. "Now, friends of mine, and friends of
+Lugur, must all feud, all rancour, between us end." She glanced
+swiftly at Lugur. "The _ladala_ are stirring, and the Silent Ones
+threaten. Yet fear not--for are we not strong under the Shining One?
+And now--leave us."
+
+Her hand dropped to the table, and she gave, evidently, a signal, for
+in marched a dozen or more of the green dwarfs.
+
+"Take these two to their place," she commanded, pointing to us.
+
+The green dwarfs clustered about us.  Without another look at the
+priestess O'Keefe marched beside me, between them, from the chamber.
+And it was not until we had reached the pillared entrance that Larry
+spoke.
+
+"I hate to talk like that to a woman, Doc," he said, "and a pretty
+woman, at that. But first she played me with a marked deck, and then
+not only pinched all the chips, but drew a gun on me. What the
+hell! she nearly had me--_married_--to her. I don't know what the stuff
+was she gave me; but, take it from me, if I had the recipe for that
+brew I could sell it for a thousand dollars a jolt at Forty-second and
+Broadway.
+
+"One jigger of it, and you forget there is a trouble in the world;
+three of them, and you forget there is a world. No excuse for it, Doc;
+and I don't care what you say or what Lakla may say--it wasn't my
+fault, and I don't hold it up against myself for a damn."
+
+"I must admit that I'm a bit uneasy about her threats," I said,
+ignoring all this. He stopped abruptly.
+
+"What're you afraid of?"
+
+"Mostly," I answered dryly, "I have no desire to dance with the
+Shining One!"
+
+"Listen to me, Goodwin," He took up his walk impatiently.  "I've all
+the love and admiration for you in the world; but this place has got
+your nerve. Hereafter one Larry O'Keefe, of Ireland and the little old
+U. S. A., leads this party. Nix on the tremolo stop, nix on the
+superstition! I'm the works. Get me?"
+
+"Yes, I get you!" I exclaimed testily enough.  "But to use your own
+phrase, kindly can the repeated references to superstition."
+
+"Why should I?" He was almost wrathful.  "You scientific people build
+up whole philosophies on the basis of things you never saw, and you
+scoff at people who believe in other things that you think _they_ never
+saw and that don't come under what you label scientific. You talk
+about paradoxes--why, your scientist, who thinks he is the most
+skeptical, the most materialistic aggregation of atoms ever gathered
+at the exact mathematical centre of Missouri, has more blind faith
+than a dervish, and more credulity, more superstition, than a
+cross-eyed smoke beating it past a country graveyard in the dark of
+the moon!"
+
+"Larry!" I cried, dazed.
+
+"Olaf's no better," he said.  "But I can make allowances for him.
+He's a sailor. No, sir. What this expedition needs is a man without
+superstition. And remember this. The leprechaun promised that I'd have
+full warning before anything happened. And if we do have to go out,
+we'll see that banshee bunch clean up before we do, and pass in a
+blaze of glory. And don't forget it. Hereafter--I'm--in--charge!"
+
+By this time we were before our pavilion; and neither of us in a very
+amiable mood I'm afraid. Rador was awaiting us with a score of his
+men.
+
+"Let none pass in here without authority--and let none pass out unless
+I accompany them," he ordered bruskly. "Summon one of the swiftest of
+the _coria_ and have it wait in readiness," he added, as though by
+afterthought.
+
+But when we had entered and the screens were drawn together his manner
+changed; all eagerness he questioned us. Briefly we told him of the
+happenings at the feast, of Lakla's dramatic interruption, and of what
+had followed.
+
+"Three _tal_," he said musingly; "three _tal_ the Silent Ones have
+allowed--and Yolara agreed." He sank back, silent and thoughtful.[1]
+
+"_Ja!_"  It was Olaf. "_Ja!_  I told you the Shining Devil's mistress
+was all evil. _Ja!_ Now I begin again that tale I started when he
+came"--he glanced toward the preoccupied Rador. "And tell him not what
+I say should he ask. For I trust none here in Trolldom, save the
+_Jomfrau_--the White Virgin!
+
+"After the oldster was _adsprede_"--Olaf once more used that
+expressive Norwegian word for the dissolving of Songar--"I knew that
+it was a time for cunning. I said to myself, 'If they think I have no
+ears to hear, they will speak; and it may be I will find a way to save
+my Helma and Dr. Goodwin's friends, too.' _Ja_, and they did speak.
+
+"The red _Trolde_ asked the Russian how came it he was a worshipper of
+Thanaroa." I could not resist a swift glance of triumph toward
+O'Keefe. "And the Russian," rumbled Olaf, "said that all his people
+worshipped Thanaroa and had fought against the other nations that
+denied him.
+
+"And then we had come to Lugur's palace.  They put me in rooms, and
+there came to me men who rubbed and oiled me and loosened my muscles.
+The next day I wrestled with a great dwarf they called Valdor. He was
+a mighty man, and long we struggled, and at last I broke his back. And
+Lugur was pleased, so that I sat with him at feast and with the
+Russian, too. And again, not knowing that I understood them, they
+talked.
+
+"The Russian had gone fast and far.  They talked of Lugur as emperor
+of all Europe, and Marakinoff under him. They spoke of the green light
+that shook life from the oldster; and Lugur said that the secret of it
+had been the Ancient Ones' and that the Council had not too much of
+it. But the Russian said that among his race were many wise men who
+could make more once they had studied it.
+
+"And the next day I wrestled with a great dwarf named Tahola, mightier
+far than Valdor. Him I threw after a long, long time, and his back
+also I broke. Again Lugur was pleased. And again we sat at table, he
+and the Russian and I. This time they spoke of something these
+_Trolde_ have which opens up a _Svaelc_--abysses into which all in its
+range drops up into the sky!"
+
+"What!" I exclaimed.
+
+"I know about them," said Larry.  "Wait!"
+
+"Lugur had drunk much," went on Olaf.  "He was boastful.  The Russian
+pressed him to show this thing. After a while the red one went out and
+came back with a little golden box. He and the Russian went into the
+garden. I followed them. There was a _lille Hoj_--a mound--of stones
+in that garden on which grew flowers and trees.
+
+"Lugur pressed upon the box, and a spark no bigger than a sand grain
+leaped out and fell beside the stones. Lugur pressed again, and a blue
+light shot from the box and lighted on the spark. The spark that had
+been no bigger than a grain of sand grew and grew as the blue struck
+it. And then there was a sighing, a wind blew--and the stones and the
+flowers and the trees were not. They were _forsvinde_--vanished!
+
+"Then Lugur, who had been laughing, grew quickly sober; for he thrust
+the Russian back--far back. And soon down into the garden came
+tumbling the stones and the trees, but broken and shattered, and
+falling as though from a great height. And Lugur said that of _this_
+something they had much, for its making was a secret handed down by
+their own forefathers and not by the Ancient Ones.
+
+"They feared to use it, he said, for a spark thrice as large as that
+he had used would have sent all that garden falling upward and might
+have opened a way to the outside before--he said just this--'_before
+we are ready to go out into it!_'
+
+"The Russian questioned much, but Lugur sent for more drink and grew
+merrier and threatened him, and the Russian was silent through fear.
+Thereafter I listened when I could, and little more I learned, but
+that little enough. _Ja!_ Lugur is hot for conquest; so Yolara and so
+the Council. They tire of it here and the Silent Ones make their minds
+not too easy, no, even though they jeer at them! And this they plan--to
+rule our world with their Shining Devil."
+
+The Norseman was silent for a moment; then voice deep, trembling--
+
+"Trolldom is awake; Helvede crouches at Earth Gate whining to be
+loosed into a world already devil ridden! And we are but three!"
+
+I felt the blood drive out of my heart.  But Larry's was the fighting
+face of the O'Keefes of a thousand years. Rador glanced at him, arose,
+stepped through the curtains; returned swiftly with the Irishman's
+uniform.
+
+"Put it on," he said, bruskly; again fell back into his silence and
+whatever O'Keefe had been about to say was submerged in his wild and
+joyful whoop. He ripped from him glittering tunic and leg swathings.
+
+"Richard is himself again!" he shouted; and each garment as he donned
+it, fanned his old devil-may-care confidence to a higher flame. The
+last scrap of it on, he drew himself up before us.
+
+"Bow down, ye divils!" he cried.  "Bang your heads on the floor and do
+homage to Larry the First, Emperor of Great Britain, Autocrat of all
+Ireland, Scotland, England, and Wales, and adjacent waters and
+islands! Kneel, ye scuts, kneel."
+
+"Larry," I cried, "are you going crazy?"
+
+"Not a bit of it," he said.  "I'm that and more if Comrade Marakinoff
+is on the level. Whoop! Bring forth the royal jewels an' put a whole
+new bunch of golden strings in Tara's harp an' down with the Sassenach
+forever! Whoop!"
+
+He did a wild jig.
+
+"Lord how good the old togs feel," he grinned.  "The touch of 'em has
+gone to my head. But it's straight stuff I'm telling you about my
+empire."
+
+He sobered.
+
+"Not that it's not serious enough at that.  A lot that Olaf's told us
+I've surmised from hints dropped by Yolara. But I got the full key to
+it from the Red himself when he stopped me just before--before"--he
+reddened--"well, just before I acquired that brand-new brand of souse.
+
+"Maybe he had a hint--maybe he just surmised that I knew a lot more
+than I did. And he thought Yolara and I were going to be loving little
+turtle doves. Also he figured that Yolara had a lot more influence
+with the Unholy Fireworks than Lugur. Also that being a woman she
+could be more easily handled. All this being so, what was the logical
+thing for himself to do? Sure, you get me, Steve! Throw down Lugur and
+make an alliance with me! So _he_ calmly offered to ditch the red dwarf
+if I would deliver Yolara. My reward from Russia was to be said
+emperorship! Can you beat it? Good Lord!"
+
+He went off into a perfect storm of laughter.  But not to me in the
+light of what Russia has done and has proved herself capable, did this
+thing seem at all absurd; rather in it I sensed the dawn of
+catastrophe colossal.
+
+"And yet," he was quiet enough now, "I'm a bit scared. They've got the
+_Keth_ ray and those gravity-destroying bombs--"
+
+"Gravity-destroying bombs!" I gasped.
+
+"Sure," he said.  "The little fairy that sent the trees and stones
+kiting up from Lugur's garden. Marakinoff licked his lips over them.
+They cut off gravity, just about as the shadow screens cut off
+light--and consequently whatever's in their range goes shooting just
+naturally up to the moon--
+
+"They get my goat, why deny it?" went on Larry.  "With them and the
+_Keth_ and gentle invisible soldiers walking around assassinating at
+will--well, the worst Bolsheviki are only puling babes, eh, Doc?
+
+"I don't mind the Shining One," said O'Keefe, "one splash of a
+downtown New York high-pressure fire hose would do for it! But the
+others--are the goods! Believe me!"
+
+But for once O'Keefe's confidence found no echo within me. Not
+lightly, as he, did I hold that dread mystery, the Dweller--and a
+vision passed before me, a vision of an Apocalypse undreamed by the
+Evangelist.
+
+A vision of the Shining One swirling into our world, a monstrous,
+glorious flaming pillar of incarnate, eternal Evil--of peoples
+passing through its radiant embrace into that hideous, unearthly
+life-in-death which I had seen enfold the sacrifices--of armies
+trembling into dancing atoms of diamond dust beneath the green ray's
+rhythmic death--of cities rushing out into space upon the wings of
+that other demoniac force which Olaf had watched at work--of a haunted
+world through which the assassins of the Dweller's court stole
+invisible, carrying with them every passion of hell--of the rallying
+to the Thing of every sinister soul and of the weak and the
+unbalanced, mystics and carnivores of humanity alike; for well I knew
+that, once loosed, not any nation could hold this devil-god for long
+and that swiftly its blight would spread!
+
+And then a world that was all colossal reek of cruelty and terror; a
+welter of lusts, of hatreds and of torment; a chaos of horror in which
+the Dweller waxing ever stronger, the ghastly hordes of those it had
+consumed growing ever greater, wreaked its inhuman will!
+
+At the last a ruined planet, a cosmic plague, spinning through the
+shuddering heavens; its verdant plains, its murmuring forests, its
+meadows and its mountains manned only by a countless crew of soulless,
+mindless dead-alive, their shells illumined with the Dweller's
+infernal glory--and flaming over this vampirized earth like a flare
+from some hell far, infinitely far, beyond the reach of man's farthest
+flung imagining--the Dweller!
+
+Rador jumped to his feet; walked to the whispering globe. He bent over
+its base; did something with its mechanism; beckoned to us. The globe
+swam rapidly, faster than ever I had seen it before. A low humming
+arose, changed into a murmur, and then from it I heard Lugur's voice
+clearly.
+
+"It is to be war then?"
+
+There was a chorus of assent--from the Council, I thought.
+
+"I will take the tall one named--_Larree_." It was the priestess's
+voice. "After the three _tal_, you may have him, Lugur, to do with as
+you will."
+
+"No!" it was Lugur's voice again, but with a rasp of anger. "All must
+die."
+
+"He shall die," again Yolara.  "But I would that first he see Lakla
+pass--and that she know what is to happen to him."
+
+"No!" I started--for this was Marakinoff.  "Now is no time, Yolara,
+for one's own desires. This is my counsel. At the end of the three
+_tal_ Lakla will come for our answer. Your men will be in ambush and
+they will slay her and her escort quickly with the _Keth_. But not
+till that is done must the three be slain--and then quickly. With
+Lakla dead we shall go forth to the Silent Ones--and I promise you
+that I will find the way to destroy them!"
+
+"It is well!" It was Lugur.
+
+"It _is_ well, Yolara." It was a woman's voice, and I knew it for that
+old one of ravaged beauty. "Cast from your mind whatever is in it for
+this stranger--either of love or hatred. In this the Council is with
+Lugur and the man of wisdom."
+
+There was a silence.  Then came the priestess's voice, sullen
+but--beaten.
+
+"It is well!"
+
+"Let the three be taken now by Rador to the temple and given to the
+High Priest Sator"--thus Lugur--"until what we have planned comes to
+pass."
+
+Rador gripped the base of the globe; abruptly it ceased its spinning.
+He turned to us as though to speak and even as he did so its bell note
+sounded peremptorily and on it the colour films began to creep at
+their accustomed pace.
+
+"I hear," the green dwarf whispered.  "They shall be taken there at
+once." The globe grew silent. He stepped toward us.
+
+"You have heard," he turned to us.
+
+"Not on your life, Rador," said Larry.  "Nothing doing!" And then in
+the Murian's own tongue. "We follow Lakla, Rador. And _you_ lead the
+way." He thrust the pistol close to the green dwarf's side.
+
+Rador did not move.
+
+"Of what use, _Larree_?" he said, quietly.  "Me you can slay--but in
+the end you will be taken. Life is not held so dear in Muria that my
+men out there or those others who can come quickly will let you
+by--even though you slay many. And in the end they will overpower
+you."
+
+There was a trace of irresolution in O'Keefe's face.
+
+"And," added Rador, "if I let you go I dance with the Shining One--or
+worse!"
+
+O'Keefe's pistol hand dropped.
+
+"You're a good sport, Rador, and far be it from me to get you in bad,"
+he said. "Take us to the temple--when we get there--well, your
+responsibility ends, doesn't it?"
+
+The green dwarf nodded; on his face a curious expression--was it
+relief? Or was it emotion higher than this?
+
+He turned curtly.
+
+"Follow," he said.  We passed out of that gay little pavilion that had
+come to be home to us even in this alien place. The guards stood at
+attention.
+
+"You, Sattoya, stand by the globe," he ordered one of them.  "Should
+the _Afyo Maie_ ask, say that I am on my way with the strangers even
+as she has commanded."
+
+We passed through the lines to the _corial_ standing like a great
+shell at the end of the runway leading into the green road.
+
+"Wait you here," he said curtly to the driver.  The green dwarf
+ascended to his seat, sought the lever and we swept on--on and out
+upon the glistening obsidian.
+
+Then Rador faced us and laughed.
+
+"_Larree_," he cried, "I love you for that spirit of yours! And did
+you think that Rador would carry to the temple prison a man who would
+take the chances of torment upon his own shoulders to save him? Or
+you, Goodwin, who saved him from the rotting death? For what did I
+take the _corial_ or lift the veil of silence that I might hear what
+threatened you--"
+
+He swept the _corial_ to the left, away from the temple approach.
+
+"I am done with Lugur and with Yolara and the Shining One!" cried
+Rador. "My hand is for you three and for Lakla and those to whom she
+is handmaiden!"
+
+The shell leaped forward; seemed to fly.
+
+
+[1] A _tal_ in Muria is the equivalent of thirty hours of earth surface
+time.--W. T. G.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+The Casting of the Shadow
+
+Now we were racing down toward that last span whose ancientness had
+set it apart from all the other soaring arches. The shell's speed
+slackened; we approached warily.
+
+"We pass there?" asked O'Keefe.
+
+The green dwarf nodded, pointing to the right where the bridge ended
+in a broad platform held high upon two gigantic piers, between which
+ran a spur from the glistening road. Platform and bridge were swarming
+with men-at-arms; they crowded the parapets, looking down upon us
+curiously but with no evidence of hostility. Rador drew a deep breath
+of relief.
+
+"We don't have to break our way through, then?" There was
+disappointment in the Irishman's voice.
+
+"No use, _Larree_!" Smiling, Rador stopped the _corial_ just beneath
+the arch and beside one of the piers. "Now, listen well. They have had
+no warning, hence does Yolara still think us on the way to the temple.
+This is the gateway of the Portal--and the gateway is closed by the
+Shadow. Once I commanded here and I know its laws. This must I do--by
+craft persuade Serku, the keeper of the gateway, to lift the Shadow;
+or raise it myself. And that will be hard and it may well be that in
+the struggle life will be stripped of us all. Yet is it better to die
+fighting than to dance with the Shining One!"
+
+He swept the shell around the pier.  Opened a wide plaza paved with
+the volcanic glass, but black as that down which we had sped from the
+chamber of the Moon Pool. It shone like a mirrored lakelet of jet; on
+each side of it arose what at first glance seemed towering bulwarks of
+the same ebon obsidian; at second, revealed themselves as structures
+hewn and set in place by men; polished faces pierced by dozens of
+high, narrow windows.
+
+Down each facade a stairway fell, broken by small landings on which a
+door opened; they dropped to a broad ledge of greyish stone edging the
+lip of this midnight pool and upon it also fell two wide flights from
+either side of the bridge platform. Along all four stairways the
+guards were ranged; and here and there against the ledge stood the
+shells--in a curiously comforting resemblance to parked motors in our
+own world.
+
+The sombre walls bulked high; curved and ended in two obelisked
+pillars from which, like a tremendous curtain, stretched a barrier of
+that tenebrous gloom which, though weightless as shadow itself, I now
+knew to be as impenetrable as the veil between life and death. In this
+murk, unlike all others I had seen, I sensed movement, a quivering, a
+tremor constant and rhythmic; not to be seen, yet caught by some
+subtle sense; as though through it beat a swift pulse of--black
+light.
+
+The green dwarf turned the _corial_ slowly to the edge at the right;
+crept cautiously on toward where, not more than a hundred feet from
+the barrier, a low, wide entrance opened in the fort. Guarding its
+threshold stood two guards, armed with broadswords, double-handed,
+terminating in a wide lunette mouthed with murderous fangs. These they
+raised in salute and through the portal strode a dwarf huge as Rador,
+dressed as he and carrying only the poniard that was the badge of
+office of Muria's captainry.
+
+The green dwarf swept the shell expertly against the ledge; leaped
+out.
+
+"Greeting, Serku!" he answered.  "I was but looking for the _coria_ of
+Lakla."
+
+"Lakla!" exclaimed Serku.  "Why, the handmaiden passed with her _Akka_
+nigh a _va_ ago!"
+
+"Passed!" The astonishment of the green dwarf was so real that half
+was I myself deceived. "You let her _pass_?"
+
+"Certainly I let her pass--" But under the green dwarf's stern gaze
+the truculence of the guardian faded. "Why should I not?" he asked,
+apprehensively.
+
+"Because Yolara commanded otherwise," answered Rador, coldly.
+
+"There came no command to me."  Little beads of sweat stood out on
+Serku's forehead.
+
+"Serku," interrupted the green dwarf swiftly, "truly is my heart wrung
+for you. This is a matter of Yolara and of Lugur and the Council; yes,
+even of the Shining One! And the message was sent--and the fate,
+mayhap, of all Muria rested upon your obedience and the return of
+Lakla with these strangers to the Council. Now truly is my heart
+wrung, for there are few I would less like to see dance with the
+Shining One than you, Serku," he ended, softly.
+
+Livid now was the gateway's guardian, his great frame shaking.
+
+"Come with me and speak to Yolara," he pleaded.  "There came no
+message--tell her--"
+
+"Wait, Serku!" There was a thrill as of inspiration in Rador's voice.
+"This _corial_ is of the swiftest--Lakla's are of the slowest. With
+Lakla scarce a _va_ ahead we can reach her before she enters the
+Portal. Lift you the Shadow--we will bring her back, and this will I
+do for you, Serku."
+
+Doubt tempered Serku's panic.
+
+"Why not go alone, Rador, leaving the strangers here with me?" he
+asked--and I thought not unreasonably.
+
+"Nay, then." The green dwarf was brusk.  "Lakla will not return unless
+I carry to her these men as evidence of our good faith. Come--we will
+speak to Yolara and she shall judge you--" He started away--but Serku
+caught his arm.
+
+"No, Rador, no!" he whispered, again panic-stricken.  "Go you--as you
+will. But bring her back! Speed, Rador!" He sprang toward the
+entrance. "I lift the Shadow--"
+
+Into the green dwarf's poise crept a curious, almost a listening,
+alertness. He leaped to Serku's side.
+
+"I go with you," I heard.  "Some little I can tell you--" They were
+gone.
+
+"Fine work!" muttered Larry.  "Nominated for a citizen of Ireland when
+we get out of this, one Rador of--"
+
+The Shadow trembled--shuddered into nothingness; the obelisked
+outposts that had held it framed a ribbon of roadway, high banked with
+verdure, vanishing in green distances.
+
+And then from the portal sped a shriek, a death cry!  It cut through
+the silence of the ebon pit like a whimpering arrow. Before it had
+died, down the stairways came pouring the guards. Those at the
+threshold raised their swords and peered within. Abruptly Rador was
+between them. One dropped his hilt and gripped him--the green dwarf's
+poniard flashed and was buried in his throat. Down upon Rador's head
+swept the second blade. A flame leaped from O'Keefe's hand and the
+sword seemed to fling itself from its wielder's grasp--another flash
+and the soldier crumpled. Rador threw himself into the shell, darted
+to the high seat--and straight between the pillars of the Shadow we
+flew!
+
+There came a crackling, a darkness of vast wings flinging down upon
+us. The _corial's_ flight was checked as by a giant's hand. The shell
+swerved sickeningly; there was an oddly metallic splintering; it
+quivered; shot ahead. Dizzily I picked myself up and looked behind.
+
+The Shadow had fallen--but too late, a bare instant too late.  And
+shrinking as we fled from it, still it seemed to strain like some
+fettered Afrit from Eblis, throbbing with wrath, seeking with every
+malign power it possessed to break its bonds and pursue. Not until
+long after were we to know that it had been the dying hand of Serku,
+groping out of oblivion, that had cast it after us as a fowler upon an
+escaping bird.
+
+"Snappy work, Rador!" It was Larry speaking.  "But they cut the end
+off your bus all right!"
+
+A full quarter of the hindward whorl was gone, sliced off cleanly.
+Rador noted it with anxious eyes.
+
+"That is bad," he said, "but not too bad perhaps.  All depends upon
+how closely Lugur and his men can follow us."
+
+He raised a hand to O'Keefe in salute.
+
+"But to you, _Larree_, I owe my life--not even the _Keth_ could have
+been as swift to save me as that death flame of yours--friend!"
+
+The Irishman waved an airy hand.
+
+"Serku"--the green dwarf drew from his girdle the bloodstained
+poniard--"Serku I was forced to slay. Even as he raised the Shadow the
+globe gave the alarm. Lugur follows with twice ten times ten of his
+best--" He hesitated. "Though we have escaped the Shadow it has taken
+toll of our swiftness. May we reach the Portal before it closes upon
+Lakla--but if we do not--" He paused again. "Well--I know a way--but
+it is not one I am gay to follow--no!"
+
+He snapped open the aperture that held the ball flaming within the
+dark crystal; peered at it anxiously. I crept to the torn end of the
+_corial_. The edges were crumbling, disintegrated. They powdered in my
+fingers like dust. Mystified still, I crept back where Larry, sheer
+happiness pouring from him, was whistling softly and polishing up his
+automatic. His gaze fell upon Olaf's grim, sad face and softened.
+
+"Buck up, Olaf!" he said.  "We've got a good fighting chance.  Once we
+link up with Lakla and her crowd I'm betting that we get your
+wife--never doubt it! The baby--" he hesitated awkwardly. The
+Norseman's eyes filled; he stretched a hand to the O'Keefe.
+
+"The _Yndling_--she is of the _de Dode_," he half whispered, "of the
+blessed dead. For her I have no fear and for her vengeance will be
+given me. _Ja!_ But my Helma--she is of the dead-alive--like those we
+saw whirling like leaves in the light of the Shining Devil--and I
+would that she too were of _de Dode_--and at rest. I do not know how
+to fight the Shining Devil--no!"
+
+His bitter despair welled up in his voice.
+
+"Olaf," Larry's voice was gentle.  "We'll come out on top--I know it.
+Remember one thing. All this stuff that seems so strange and--and,
+well, sort of supernatural, is just a lot of tricks we're not hep to
+as yet. Why, Olaf, suppose you took a Fijian when the war was on and
+set him suddenly down in London with autos rushing past, sirens
+blowing, Archies popping, a dozen enemy planes dropping bombs, and the
+searchlights shooting all over the sky--wouldn't he think he was among
+thirty-third degree devils in some exclusive circle of hell? Sure he
+would! And yet everything he saw would be natural--just as natural as
+all this is, once we get the answer to it. Not that we're Fijians, of
+course, but the principle is the same."
+
+The Norseman considered this; nodded gravely.
+
+"_Ja!_" he answered at last.  "And at least we can fight.  That is why
+I have turned to Thor of the battles, _Ja!_ And _one_ have I hope in for
+mine Helma--the white maiden. Since I have turned to the old gods it
+has been made clear to me that I shall slay Lugur and that the _Heks_,
+the evil witch Yolara, shall also die. But I would talk with the white
+maiden."
+
+"All right," said Larry, "but just don't be afraid of what you don't
+understand. There's another thing"--he hesitated, nervously--"there's
+another thing that may startle you a bit when we meet up with
+Lakla--her--er--frogs!"
+
+"Like the frog-woman we saw on the wall?" asked Olaf.
+
+"Yes," went on Larry, rapidly.  "It's this way--I figure that the
+frogs grow rather large where she lives, and they're a bit different
+too. Well, Lakla's got a lot of 'em trained. Carry spears and clubs
+and all that junk--just like trained seals or monkeys or so on in the
+circus. Probably a custom of the place. Nothing queer about that,
+Olaf. Why people have all kinds of pets--armadillos and snakes and
+rabbits, kangaroos and elephants and tigers."
+
+Remembering how the frog-woman had stuck in Larry's mind from the
+outset, I wondered whether all this was not more to convince himself
+than Olaf.
+
+"Why, I remember a nice girl in Paris who had four pet pythons--" he
+went on.
+
+But I listened no more, for now I was sure of my surmise. The road had
+begun to thrust itself through high-flung, sharply pinnacled masses
+and rounded outcroppings of rock on which clung patches of the amber
+moss.
+
+The trees had utterly vanished, and studding the moss-carpeted plains
+were only clumps of a willowy shrub from which hung, like grapes,
+clusters of white waxen blooms. The light too had changed; gone were
+the dancing, sparkling atoms and the silver had faded to a soft,
+almost ashen greyness. Ahead of us marched a rampart of coppery cliffs
+rising, like all these mountainous walls we had seen, into the
+immensities of haze. Something long drifting in my subconsciousness
+turned to startled realization. The speed of the shell was slackening!
+The aperture containing the ionizing mechanism was still open; I
+glanced within, The whirling ball of fire was not dimmed, but its
+coruscations, instead of pouring down through the cylinder, swirled
+and eddied and shot back as though trying to re-enter their source.
+Rador nodded grimly.
+
+"The Shadow takes its toll," he said.
+
+We topped a rise--Larry gripped my arm.
+
+"Look!" he cried, and pointed.  Far, far behind us, so far that the
+road was but a glistening thread, a score of shining points came
+speeding.
+
+"Lugur and his men," said Rador.
+
+"Can't you step on her?" asked Larry.
+
+"Step on her?" repeated the green dwarf, puzzled.
+
+"Give her more speed; push her," explained O'Keefe.
+
+Rador looked about him.  The coppery ramparts were close, not more
+than three or four miles distant; in front of us the plain lifted in a
+long rolling swell, and up this the _corial_ essayed to go--with a
+terrifying lessening of speed. Faintly behind us came shootings, and
+we knew that Lugur drew close. Nor anywhere was there sign of Lakla
+nor her frogmen.
+
+Now we were half-way to the crest; the shell barely crawled and from
+beneath it came a faint hissing; it quivered, and I knew that its base
+was no longer held above the glassy surface but rested on it.
+
+"One last chance!" exclaimed Rador.  He pressed upon the control lever
+and wrenched it from its socket. Instantly the sparkling ball
+expanded, whirling with prodigious rapidity and sending a cascade of
+coruscations into the cylinder. The shell rose; leaped through the
+air; the dark crystal split into fragments; the fiery ball dulled;
+died--but upon the impetus of that last thrust we reached the crest.
+Poised there for a moment, I caught a glimpse of the road dropping
+down the side of an enormous moss-covered, bowl-shaped valley whose
+sharply curved sides ended abruptly at the base of the towering
+barrier.
+
+Then down the steep, powerless to guide or to check the shell, we
+plunged in a meteor rush straight for the annihilating adamantine
+breasts of the cliffs!
+
+Now the quick thinking of Larry's air training came to our aid.  As
+the rampart reared close he threw himself upon Rador; hurled him and
+himself against the side of the flying whorl. Under the shock the
+finely balanced machine swerved from its course. It struck the soft,
+low bank of the road, shot high in air, bounded on through the thick
+carpeting, whirled like a dervish and fell upon its side. Shot from
+it, we rolled for yards, but the moss saved broken bones or serious
+bruise.
+
+"Quick!" cried the green dwarf.  He seized an arm, dragged me to my
+feet, began running to the cliff base not a hundred feet away. Beside
+us raced O'Keefe and Olaf. At our left was the black road. It stopped
+abruptly--was cut off by a slab of polished crimson stone a hundred
+feet high, and as wide, set within the coppery face of the barrier. On
+each side of it stood pillars, cut from the living rock and immense,
+almost, as those which held the rainbow veil of the Dweller. Across
+its face weaved unnameable carvings--but I had no time for more than a
+glance. The green dwarf gripped my arm again.
+
+"Quick!" he cried again.  "The handmaiden has passed!"
+
+At the right of the Portal ran a low wall of shattered rock. Over this
+we raced like rabbits. Hidden behind it was a narrow path. Crouching,
+Rador in the lead, we sped along it; three hundred, four hundred yards
+we raced--and the path ended in a _cul de sac_! To our ears was borne
+a louder shouting.
+
+The first of the pursuing shells had swept over the lip of the great
+bowl, poised for a moment as we had and then began a cautious descent.
+Within it, scanning the slopes, I saw Lugur.
+
+"A little closer and I'll get him!" whispered Larry viciously.  He
+raised his pistol.
+
+His hand was caught in a mighty grip; Rador, eyes blazing, stood
+beside him.
+
+"No!" rasped the green dwarf.  He heaved a shoulder against one of the
+boulders that formed the pocket. It rocked aside, revealing a slit.
+
+"In!" ordered he, straining against the weight of the stone. O'Keefe
+slipped through. Olaf at his back, I following. With a lightning leap
+the dwarf was beside me, the huge rock missing him by a hair breadth
+as it swung into place!
+
+We were in Cimmerian darkness.  I felt for my pocket-flash and
+recalled with distress that I had left it behind with my medicine kit
+when we fled from the gardens. But Rador seemed to need no light.
+
+"Grip hands!" he ordered.  We crept, single file, holding to each
+other like children, through the black. At last the green dwarf
+paused.
+
+"Await me here," he whispered.  "Do not move.  And for your lives--be
+silent!"
+
+And he was gone.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+Dragon Worm and Moss Death
+
+For a small eternity--to me at least--we waited.  Then as silent as
+ever the green dwarf returned. "It is well," he said, some of the
+strain gone from his voice. "Grip hands again, and follow."
+
+"Wait a bit, Rador," this was Larry.  "Does Lugur know this side
+entrance? If he does, why not let Olaf and me go back to the opening
+and pick them off as they come in? We could hold the lot--and in the
+meantime you and Goodwin could go after Lakla for help."
+
+"Lugur knows the secret of the Portal--if he dare use it," answered
+the captain, with a curious indirection. "And now that they have
+challenged the Silent Ones I think he _will_ dare. Also, he will find
+our tracks--and it may be that he knows this hidden way."
+
+"Well, for God's sake!" O'Keefe's appalled bewilderment was almost
+ludicrous. "If _he_ knows all that, and _you_ knew all that, why
+didn't you let me click him when I had the chance?"
+
+"_Larree_," the green dwarf was oddly humble.  "It seemed good to me,
+too--at first. And then I heard a command, heard it clearly, to stop
+you--that Lugur die not now, lest a greater vengeance fail!"
+
+"Command?  From whom?" The Irishman's voice distilled out of the
+blackness the very essence of bewilderment.
+
+"I thought," Rador was whispering--"I thought it came from the Silent
+Ones!"
+
+"Superstition!" groaned O'Keefe in utter exasperation. "Always
+superstition! What can you do against it!
+
+"Never mind, Rador." His sense of humour came to his aid.  "It's too
+late now, anyway. Where do we go from here, old dear?" he laughed.
+
+"We tread the path of one I am not fain to meet," answered Rador.
+"But if meet we must, point the death tubes at the pale shield he
+bears upon his throat and send the flame into the flower of cold fire
+that is its centre--nor look into his eyes!"
+
+Again Larry gasped, and I with him.
+
+"It's getting too deep for me, Doc," he muttered dejectedly.  "Can you
+make head or tail of it?"
+
+"No," I answered, shortly enough, "but Rador fears something and
+that's his description of it."
+
+"Sure," he replied, "only it's a code I don't understand." I could
+feel his grin. "All right for the flower of cold fire, Rador, and I
+won't look into his eyes," he went on cheerfully. "But hadn't we
+better be moving?"
+
+"Come!" said the soldier; again hand in hand we went blindly on.
+
+O'Keefe was muttering to himself.
+
+"Flower of cold fire!  Don't look into his eyes!  Some joint!
+Damned superstition." Then he chuckled and carolled, softly:
+
+    "Oh, mama, pin a cold rose on me;
+    Two young frog-men are in love with me;
+    Shut my eyes so I can't see."
+
+"Sh!" Rador was warning; he began whispering.  "For half a _va_ we go
+along a way of death. From its peril we pass into another against
+whose dangers I can guard you. But in part this is in view of the
+roadway and it may be that Lugur will see us. If so, we must fight as
+best we can. If we pass these two roads safely, then is the way to the
+Crimson Sea clear, nor need we fear Lugur nor any. And there is
+another thing--that Lugur does not know--when he opens the Portal the
+Silent Ones will hear and Lakla and the _Akka_ will be swift to greet
+its opener."
+
+"Rador," I asked, "how know _you_ all this?"
+
+"The handmaiden is my own sister's child," he answered quietly.
+
+O'Keefe drew a long breath.
+
+"Uncle," he remarked casually in English, "meet the man who's going to
+be your nephew!"
+
+And thereafter he never addressed the green dwarf except by the
+avuncular title, which Rador, humorously enough, apparently conceived
+to be one of respectful endearment.
+
+For me a light broke.  Plain now was the reason for his foreknowledge
+of Lakla's appearance at the feast where Larry had so narrowly escaped
+Yolara's spells; plain the determining factor that had cast his lot
+with ours, and my confidence, despite his discourse of mysterious
+perils, experienced a remarkable quickening.
+
+Speculation as to the marked differences in pigmentation and
+appearance of niece and uncle was dissipated by my consciousness that
+we were now moving in a dim half-light. We were in a fairly wide
+tunnel. Not far ahead the gleam filtered, pale yellow like sunlight
+sifting through the leaves of autumn poplars. And as we drove closer
+to its source I saw that it did indeed pass through a leafy screen
+hanging over the passage end. This Rador drew aside cautiously,
+beckoned us and we stepped through.
+
+It appeared to be a tunnel cut through soft green mould. Its base was
+a flat strip of pathway a yard wide from which the walls curved out in
+perfect cylindrical form, smoothed and evened with utmost nicety.
+Thirty feet wide they were at their widest, then drew toward each
+other with no break in their symmetry; they did not close. Above was,
+roughly, a ten-foot rift, ragged edged, through which poured light
+like that in the heart of pale amber, a buttercup light shot through
+with curiously evanescent bronze shadows.
+
+"Quick!" commanded Rador, uneasily, and set off at a sharp pace.
+
+Now, my eyes accustomed to the strange light, I saw that the tunnel's
+walls were of moss. In them I could trace fringe leaf and curly leaf,
+pressings of enormous bladder caps (Physcomitrium), immense splashes
+of what seemed to be the scarlet-crested Cladonia, traceries of huge
+moss veils, crushings of teeth (peristome) gigantic; spore cases brown
+and white, saffron and ivory, hot vermilions and cerulean blues,
+pressed into an astounding mosaic by some titanic force.
+
+"Hurry!" It was Rador calling.  I had lagged behind.
+
+He quickened the pace to a half-run; we were climbing; panting.  The
+amber light grew stronger; the rift above us wider. The tunnel curved;
+on the left a narrow cleft appeared. The green dwarf leaped toward it,
+thrust us within, pushed us ahead of him up a steep rocky
+fissure--well-nigh, indeed, a chimney. Up and up this we scrambled
+until my lungs were bursting and I thought I could climb no more. The
+crevice ended; we crawled out and sank, even Rador, upon a little
+leaf-carpeted clearing circled by lacy tree ferns.
+
+Gasping, legs aching, we lay prone, relaxed, drawing back strength and
+breath. Rador was first to rise. Thrice he bent low as in homage,
+then--
+
+"Give thanks to the Silent Ones--for their power has been over us!" he
+exclaimed.
+
+Dimly I wondered what he meant.  Something about the fern leaf at
+which I had been staring aroused me. I leaped to my feet and ran to
+its base. This was no fern, no! It was fern _moss_! The largest of its
+species I had ever found in tropic jungles had not been more than two
+inches high, and this was--twenty feet! The scientific fire I had
+experienced in the tunnel returned uncontrollable. I parted the
+fronds, gazed out--
+
+My outlook commanded a vista of miles--and that vista! A _Fata
+Morgana_ of plantdom! A land of flowered sorcery!
+
+Forests of tree-high mosses spangled over with blooms of every
+conceivable shape and colour; cataracts and clusters, avalanches and
+nets of blossoms in pastels, in dulled metallics, in gorgeous
+flamboyant hues; some of them phosphorescent and shining like living
+jewels; some sparkling as though with dust of opals, of sapphires, of
+rubies and topazes and emeralds; thickets of convolvuli like the
+trumpets of the seven archangels of Mara, king of illusion, which are
+shaped from the bows of splendours arching his highest heaven!
+
+And moss veils like banners of a marching host of Titans; pennons and
+bannerets of the sunset; gonfalons of the Jinn; webs of faery;
+oriflammes of elfland!
+
+Springing up through that polychromatic flood myriads of
+pedicles--slender and straight as spears, or soaring in spirals, or
+curving with undulations gracile as the white serpents of Tanit in
+ancient Carthaginian groves--and all surmounted by a fantasy of spore
+cases in shapes of minaret and turret, domes and spires and cones,
+caps of Phrygia and bishops' mitres, shapes grotesque and
+unnameable--shapes delicate and lovely!
+
+They hung high poised, nodding and swaying--like goblins hovering over
+_Titania's_ court; cacophony of Cathay accenting the _Flower Maiden_
+music of "Parsifal"; _bizarrerie_ of the angled, fantastic beings that
+people the Javan pantheon watching a bacchanal of houris in Mohammed's
+paradise!
+
+Down upon it all poured the amber light; dimmed in the distances by
+huge, drifting darkenings lurid as the flying mantles of the
+hurricane.
+
+And through the light, like showers of jewels, myriads of birds,
+darting, dipping, soaring, and still other myriads of gigantic,
+shimmering butterflies.
+
+A sound came to us, reaching out like the first faint susurrus of the
+incoming tide; sighing, sighing, growing stronger--now its mournful
+whispering quivered all about us, shook us--then passing like a
+Presence, died away in far distances.
+
+"The Portal!" said Rador.  "Lugur has entered!"
+
+He, too, parted the fronds and peered back along our path.  Peering
+with him we saw the barrier through which we had come stretching
+verdure-covered walls for miles three or more away. Like a mole burrow
+in a garden stretched the trail of the tunnel; here and there we could
+look down within the rift at its top; far off in it I thought I saw
+the glint of spears.
+
+"They come!" whispered Rador.  "Quick!  We must not meet them here!"
+
+And then--
+
+"Holy St. Brigid!" gasped Larry.
+
+From the rift in the tunnel's continuation, nigh a mile beyond the
+cleft through which we had fled, lifted a crown of horns--of
+tentacles--erect, alert, of mottled gold and crimson; lifted
+higher--and from a monstrous scarlet head beneath them blazed two
+enormous, obloid eyes, their depths wells of purplish phosphorescence;
+higher still--noseless, earless, chinless; a livid, worm mouth from
+which a slender scarlet tongue leaped like playing flames! Slowly it
+rose--its mighty neck cuirassed with gold and scarlet scales from
+whose polished surfaces the amber light glinted like flakes of fire;
+and under this neck shimmered something like a palely luminous silvery
+shield, guarding it. The head of horror mounted--and in the shield's
+centre, full ten feet across, glowing, flickering, shining
+out--coldly, was a rose of white flame, a "flower of cold fire" even
+as Rador had said.
+
+Now swiftly the Thing upreared, standing like a scaled tower a hundred
+feet above the rift, its eyes scanning that movement I had seen along
+the course of its lair. There was a hissing; the crown of horns fell,
+whipped and writhed like the tentacles of an octopus; the towering
+length dropped back.
+
+"Quick!" gasped Rador and through the fern moss, along the path and
+down the other side of the steep we raced.
+
+Behind us for an instant there was a rushing as of a torrent; a
+far-away, faint, agonized screaming--silence!
+
+"No fear _now_ from those who followed," whispered the green dwarf,
+pausing.
+
+"Sainted St. Patrick!" O'Keefe gazed ruminatively at his automatic.
+"An' he expected me to kill _that_ with this. Well, as Fergus O'Connor
+said when they sent him out to slaughter a wild bull with a potato
+knife: 'Ye'll niver rayilize how I appreciate the confidence ye show
+in me!'
+
+"What was it, Doc?" he asked.
+
+"The dragon worm!" Rador said.
+
+"It was Helvede Orm--the hell worm!" groaned Olaf.
+
+"There you go again--" blazed Larry; but the green dwarf was hurrying
+down the path and swiftly we followed, Larry muttering, Olaf mumbling,
+behind me.
+
+The green dwarf was signalling us for caution.  He pointed through a
+break in a grove of fifty-foot cedar mosses--we were skirting the
+glassy road! Scanning it we found no trace of Lugur and wondered
+whether he too had seen the worm and had fled. Quickly we passed on;
+drew away from the _coria_ path. The mosses began to thin; less and
+less they grew, giving way to low clumps that barely offered us
+shelter. Unexpectedly another screen of fern moss stretched before us.
+Slowly Rador made his way through it and stood hesitating.
+
+The scene in front of us was oddly weird and depressing; in some
+indefinable way--dreadful. Why, I could not tell, but the impression
+was plain; I shrank from it. Then, self-analyzing, I wondered whether
+it could be the uncanny resemblance the heaps of curious mossy fungi
+scattered about had to beast and bird--yes, and to man--that was the
+cause of it. Our path ran between a few of them. To the left they were
+thick. They were viridescent, almost metallic hued--verd-antique.
+Curiously indeed were they like distorted images of dog and deerlike
+forms, of birds--of _dwarfs_ and here and there the simulacra of the
+giant frogs! Spore cases, yellowish green, as large as mitres and much
+resembling them in shape protruded from the heaps. My repulsion grew
+into a distinct nausea.
+
+Rador turned to us a face whiter far than that with which he had
+looked upon the dragon worm.
+
+"Now for your lives," he whispered, "tread softly here as I do--and
+speak not at all!"
+
+He stepped forward on tiptoe, slowly with utmost caution. We crept
+after him; passed the heaps beside the path--and as I passed my skin
+crept and I shrank and saw the others shrink too with that unnameable
+loathing; nor did the green dwarf pause until he had reached the brow
+of a small hillock a hundred yards beyond. And he was trembling.
+
+"Now what are we up against?" grumbled O'Keefe.
+
+The green dwarf stretched a hand; stiffened; gazed over to the left of
+us beyond a lower hillock upon whose broad crest lay a file of the
+moss shapes. They fringed it, their mitres having a grotesque
+appearance of watching what lay below. The glistening road lay
+there--and from it came a shout. A dozen of the _coria_ clustered,
+filled with Lugur's men and in one of them Lugur himself, laughing
+wickedly!
+
+There was a rush of soldiers and up the low hillock raced a score of
+them toward us.
+
+"Run!" shouted Rador.
+
+"Not much!" grunted Larry--and took swift aim at Lugur. The automatic
+spat: Olaf's echoed. Both bullets went wild, for Lugur, still
+laughing, threw himself into the protection of the body of his shell.
+But following the shots, from the file of moss heaps on the crest,
+came a series of muffled explosions. Under the pistol's concussions
+the mitred caps had burst and instantly all about the running soldiers
+grew a cloud of tiny, glistening white spores--like a little cloud of
+puff-ball dust many times magnified. Through this cloud I glimpsed
+their faces, stricken with agony.
+
+Some turned to fly, but before they could take a second step stood
+rigid.
+
+The spore cloud drifted and eddied about them; rained down on their
+heads and half bare breasts, covered their garments--and swiftly they
+began to change! Their features grew indistinct--merged! The
+glistening white spores that covered them turned to a pale yellow,
+grew greenish, spread and swelled, darkened. The eyes of one of the
+soldiers glinted for a moment--and then were covered by the swift
+growth!
+
+Where but a few moments before had been men were only grotesque heaps,
+swiftly melting, swiftly rounding into the semblance of the mounds
+that lay behind us--and already beginning to take on their gleam of
+ancient viridescence!
+
+The Irishman was gripping my arm fiercely; the pain brought me back to
+my senses.
+
+"Olaf's right," he gasped.  "This _is_ hell!  I'm sick." And he was,
+frankly and without restraint. Lugur and his others awakened from
+their nightmare; piled into the _coria_, wheeled, raced away.
+
+"On!" said Rador thickly. "Two perils have we passed--the Silent Ones
+watch over us!"
+
+Soon we were again among the familiar and so unfamiliar moss giants.
+I knew what I had seen and this time Larry could not call
+me--superstitious. In the jungles of Borneo I had examined that other
+swiftly developing fungus which wreaks the vengeance of some of the
+hill tribes upon those who steal their women; gripping with its
+microscopic hooks into the flesh; sending quick, tiny rootlets through
+the skin down into the capillaries, sucking life and thriving and
+never to be torn away until the living thing it clings to has been
+sapped dry. Here was but another of the species in which the
+development's rate was incredibly accelerated. Some of this I tried to
+explain to O'Keefe as we sped along, reassuring him.
+
+"But they turned to moss before our eyes!" he said.
+
+Again I explained, patiently.  But he seemed to derive no comfort at
+all from my assurances that the phenomena were entirely natural and,
+aside from their more terrifying aspect, of peculiar interest to the
+botanist.
+
+"I know," was all he would say.  "But suppose one of those things had
+burst while we were going through--God!"
+
+I was wondering how I could with comparative safety study the fungus
+when Rador stopped; in front of us was again the road ribbon.
+
+"Now is all danger passed," he said.  "The way lies open and Lugur has
+fled--"
+
+There was a flash from the road.  It passed me like a little lariat of
+light. It struck Larry squarely between the eyes, spread over his face
+and drew itself within!
+
+"Down!" cried Rador, and hurled me to the ground.  My head struck
+sharply; I felt myself grow faint; Olaf fell beside me; I saw the
+green dwarf draw down the O'Keefe; he collapsed limply, face still,
+eyes staring. A shout--and from the roadway poured a host of Lugur's
+men; I could hear Lugur bellowing.
+
+There came a rush of little feet; soft, fragrant draperies brushed my
+face; dimly I watched Lakla bend over the Irishman.
+
+She straightened--her arms swept out and the writhing vine, with its
+tendrilled heads of ruby bloom, five flames of misty incandescence,
+leaped into the faces of the soldiers now close upon us. It darted at
+their throats, striking, coiling, and striking again; coiling and
+uncoiling with incredible rapidity and flying from leverage points of
+throats, of faces, of breasts like a spring endowed with
+consciousness, volition and hatred--and those it struck stood rigid as
+stone with faces masks of inhuman fear and anguish; and those still
+unstricken fled.
+
+Another rush of feet--and down upon Lugur's forces poured the
+frog-men, their booming giant leading, thrusting with their lances,
+tearing and rending with talons and fangs and spurs.
+
+Against that onslaught the dwarfs could not stand.  They raced for the
+shells; I heard Lugur shouting, menacingly--and then Lakla's voice,
+pealing like a golden bugle of wrath.
+
+"Go, Lugur!" she cried.  "Go--that you and Yolara and your Shining One
+may die together! Death for you, Lugur--death for you all! Remember
+Lugur--death!"
+
+There was a great noise within my head--no matter, Lakla was
+here--Lakla here--but too late--Lugur had outplayed us; moss death nor
+dragon worm had frightened him away--he had crept back to trap
+us--Lakla had come too late--Larry was dead--Larry! But I had heard no
+banshee wailing--and Larry had said he could not die without that
+warning--no, Larry was not dead. So ran the turbulent current of my
+mind.
+
+A horny arm lifted me; two enormous, oddly gentle saucer eyes were
+staring into mine; my head rolled; I caught a glimpse of the Golden
+Girl kneeling beside the O'Keefe.
+
+The noise in my head grew thunderous--was carrying me away on its
+thunder--swept me into soft, blind darkness.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+The Crimson Sea
+
+I was in the heart of a rose pearl, swinging, swinging; no, I was in a
+rosy dawn cloud, pendulous in space. Consciousness flooded me, in
+reality I was in the arms of one of the man frogs, carrying me as
+though I were a babe, and we were passing through some place suffused
+with glow enough like heart of pearl or dawn cloud to justify my
+awakening vagaries.
+
+Just ahead walked Lakla in earnest talk with Rador, and content enough
+was I for a time to watch her. She had thrown off the metallic robes;
+her thick braids of golden brown hair with their flame glints of
+bronze were twined in a high coronal meshed in silken net of green;
+little clustering curls escaped from it, clinging to the nape of the
+proud white neck, shyly kissing it. From her shoulders fell a loose,
+sleeveless garment of shimmering green belted with a high golden
+girdle; skirt folds dropping barely below the knees.
+
+She had cast aside her buskins, too, and the slender, high-arched feet
+were sandalled. Between the buckled edges of her kirtle I caught
+gleams of translucent ivory as exquisitely moulded, as delectably
+rounded, as those revealed so naively beneath the hem.
+
+Something was knocking at the doors of my consciousness--some tragic
+thing. What was it? Larry! Where was Larry? I remembered; raised my
+head abruptly; saw at my side another frog-man carrying O'Keefe, and
+behind him, Olaf, step instinct with grief, following like some
+faithful, wistful dog who has lost a loved master. Upon my movement
+the monster bearing me halted, looked down inquiringly, uttered a
+deep, booming note that held the quality of interrogation.
+
+Lakla turned; the clear, golden eyes were sorrowful, the sweet mouth
+drooping; but her loveliness, her gentleness, that undefinable
+synthesis of all her tender self that seemed always to circle her with
+an atmosphere of lucid normality, lulled my panic.
+
+"Drink this," she commanded, holding a small vial to my lips.
+
+Its contents were aromatic, unfamiliar but astonishingly effective,
+for as soon as they passed my lips I felt a surge of strength;
+consciousness was restored.
+
+"Larry!" I cried.  "Is he dead?"
+
+Lakla shook her head; her eyes were troubled.
+
+"No," she said; "but he is like one dead--and yet unlike--"
+
+"Put me down," I demanded of my bearer.
+
+He tightened his hold; round eyes upon the Golden Girl. She spoke--in
+sonorous, reverberating monosyllables--and I was set upon my feet; I
+leaped to the side of the Irishman. He lay limp, with a disquieting,
+abnormal sequacity, as though every muscle were utterly flaccid; the
+antithesis of the _rigor mortis_, thank God, but terrifyingly toward
+the other end of its arc; a syncope I had never known. The flesh was
+stone cold; the pulse barely perceptible, long intervalled; the
+respiration undiscoverable; the pupils of the eyes were enormously
+dilated; it was as though life had been drawn from every nerve.
+
+"A light flashed from the road.  It struck his face and seemed to sink
+in," I said.
+
+"I saw," answered Rador; "but what it was I know not; and I thought I
+knew all the weapons of our rulers." He glanced at me curiously. "Some
+talk there has been that the stranger who came with you, Double
+Tongue, was making new death tools for Lugur," he ended.
+
+Marakinoff!  The Russian at work already in this storehouse of
+devastating energies, fashioning the weapons for his plots! The
+Apocalyptic vision swept back upon me--
+
+"He is not dead." Lakla's voice was poignant.  "He is not dead; and
+the Three have wondrous healing. They can restore him if they
+will--and they will, they _will_!" For a moment she was silent. "Now
+their gods help Lugur and Yolara," she whispered; "for come what may,
+whether the Silent Ones be strong or weak, if he dies, surely shall I
+fall upon them and I will slay those two--yea, though I, too perish!"
+
+"Yolara and Lugur shall both die." Olaf's eyes were burning.  "But
+Lugur is mine to slay."
+
+That pity I had seen before in Lakla's eyes when she looked upon the
+Norseman banished the white wrath from them. She turned, half
+hurriedly, as though to escape his gaze.
+
+"Walk with us," she said to me, "unless you are still weak."
+
+I shook my head, gave a last look at O'Keefe; there was nothing I
+could do; I stepped beside her. She thrust a white arm into mine
+protectingly, the wonderfully moulded hand with its long, tapering
+fingers catching about my wrist; my heart glowed toward her.
+
+"Your medicine is potent, handmaiden," I answered.  "And the touch of
+your hand would give me strength enough, even had I not drunk it," I
+added in Larry's best manner.
+
+Her eyes danced, trouble flying.
+
+"Now, that was well spoken for such a man of wisdom as Rador tells me
+you are," she laughed; and a little pang shot through me. Could not a
+lover of science present a compliment without it always seeming to be
+as unusual as plucking a damask rose from a cabinet of fossils?
+
+Mustering my philosophy, I smiled back at her.  Again I noted that
+broad, classic brow, with the little tendrils of shining bronze
+caressing it, the tilted, delicate, nut-brown brows that gave a
+curious touch of innocent _diablerie_ to the lovely face--flowerlike,
+pure, high-bred, a touch of roguishness, subtly alluring, sparkling
+over the maiden Madonnaness that lay ever like a delicate, luminous
+suggestion beneath it; the long, black, curling lashes--the tender,
+rounded, bare left breast--
+
+"I have always liked you," she murmured naively, "since first I saw
+you in that place where the Shining One goes forth into your world.
+And I am glad you like my medicine as well as that you carry in the
+black box that you left behind," she added swiftly.
+
+"How know you of that, Lakla?" I gasped.
+
+"Oft and oft I came to him there, and to you, while you lay sleeping.
+How call you _him_?" She paused.
+
+"Larry!" I said.
+
+"Larry!" she repeated it excellently.  "And you?"
+
+"Goodwin," said Rador.
+
+I bowed quite as though I were being introduced to some charming young
+lady met in that old life now seemingly aeons removed.
+
+"Yes--Goodwin." she said.  "Oft and oft I came.  Sometimes I thought
+you saw me. And _he_--did he not dream of me sometime--?" she asked
+wistfully.
+
+"He did." I said, "and watched for you." Then amazement grew vocal.
+"But how came you?" I asked.
+
+"By a strange road," she whispered, "to see that all was well with
+_him_--and to look into his heart; for I feared Yolara and her beauty.
+But I saw that she was not in his heart." A blush burned over her,
+turning even the little bare breast rosy. "It is a strange road," she
+went on hurriedly. "Many times have I followed it and watched the
+Shining One bear back its prey to the blue pool; seen the woman _he_
+seeks"--she made a quick gesture toward Olaf--"and a babe cast from
+her arms in the last pang of her mother love; seen another woman throw
+herself into the Shining One's embrace to save a man she loved; and I
+could not help!" Her voice grew deep, thrilled. "The friend, it comes
+to me, who drew you here, Goodwin!"
+
+She was silent, walking as one who sees visions and listens to voices
+unheard by others, Rador made a warning gesture; I crowded back my
+questions, glanced about me. We were passing over a smooth strand,
+hard packed as some beach of long-thrust-back ocean. It was like
+crushed garnets, each grain stained deep red, faintly sparkling. On
+each side were distances, the floor stretching away into them bare of
+vegetation--stretching on and on into infinitudes of rosy mist, even
+as did the space above.
+
+Flanking and behind us marched the giant batrachians, fivescore of
+them at least, black scale and crimson scale lustrous and gleaming in
+the rosaceous radiance; saucer eyes shining circles of phosphorescence
+green, purple, red; spurs clicking as they crouched along with a gait
+at once grotesque and formidable.
+
+Ahead the mist deepened into a ruddier glow; through it a long, dark
+line began to appear--the mouth I thought of the caverned space
+through which we were going; it was just before us; over us--we stood
+bathed in a flood of rubescence!
+
+A sea stretched before us--a crimson sea, gleaming like that lost
+lacquer of royal coral and the Flame Dragon's blood which Fu S'cze set
+upon the bower he built for his stolen sun maiden--that going toward
+it she might think it the sun itself rising over the summer seas.
+Unmoved by wave or ripple, it was placid as some deep woodland pool
+when night rushes up over the world.
+
+It seemed molten--or as though some hand great enough to rock earth
+had distilled here from conflagrations of autumn sunsets their flaming
+essences.
+
+A fish broke through, large as a shark, blunt-headed, flashing bronze,
+ridged and mailed as though with serrate plates of armour. It leaped
+high, shaking from it a sparkling spray of rubies; dropped and shot up
+a geyser of fiery gems.
+
+Across my line of vision, moving stately over the sea, floated a half
+globe, luminous, diaphanous, its iridescence melting into turquoise,
+thence to amethyst, to orange, to scarlet shot with rose, to
+vermilion, a translucent green, thence back into the iridescence;
+behind it four others, and the least of them ten feet in diameter, and
+the largest no less than thirty. They drifted past like bubbles blown
+from froth of rainbows by pipes in mouths of Titans' young. Then from
+the base of one arose a tangle of shimmering strands, long, slender
+whiplashes that played about and sank slowly again beneath the crimson
+surface.
+
+I gasped--for the fish had been a _ganoid_--that ancient, armoured
+form that was perhaps the most intelligent of all life on our planet
+during the Devonian era, but which for age upon age had vanished, save
+for its fossils held in the embrace of the stone that once was their
+soft bottom beds; and the half-globes were _Medusae_, jelly-fish--but
+of a size, luminosity, and colour unheard of.
+
+Now Lakla cupped her mouth with pink palms and sent a clarion note
+ringing out. The ledge on which we stood continued a few hundred feet
+before us, falling abruptly, though from no great height to the
+Crimson Sea; at right and left it extended in a long semicircle.
+Turning to the right whence she had sent her call, I saw rising a mile
+or more away, veiled lightly by the haze, a rainbow, a gigantic
+prismatic arch, flattened, I thought, by some quality of the strange
+atmosphere. It sprang from the ruddy strand, leaped the crimson tide,
+and dropped three miles away upon a precipitous, jagged upthrust of
+rock frowning black from the lacquered depths.
+
+And surmounting a higher ledge beyond this upthrust a huge dome of
+dull gold, Cyclopean, striking eyes and mind with something unhumanly
+alien, baffling; sending the mind groping, as though across the
+deserts of space, from some far-flung star, should fall upon us linked
+sounds, coherent certainly, meaningful surely, vaguely familiar--yet
+never to be translated into any symbol or thought of our own
+particular planet.
+
+The sea of crimson lacquer, with its floating moons of luminous
+colour--this bow of prismed stone leaping to the weird isle crowned by
+the anomalous, aureate excrescence--the half human batrachians-the
+elfland through which we had passed, with all its hidden wonders and
+terrors--I felt the foundations of my cherished knowledge shaking.
+Was this all a dream? Was this body of mine lying somewhere, fighting
+a fevered death, and all these but images floating through the
+breaking chambers of my brain? My knees shook; involuntarily I
+groaned.
+
+Lakla turned, looked at me anxiously, slipped a soft arm behind me,
+held me till the vertigo passed.
+
+"Patience," she said.  "The bearers come.  Soon you shall rest."
+
+I looked; down toward us from the bow's end were leaping swiftly
+another score of the frog-men. Some bore litters, high, handled, not
+unlike palanquins--
+
+"Asgard!" Olaf stood beside me, eyes burning, pointing to the arch.
+"Bifrost Bridge, sharp as sword edge, over which souls go to Valhalla.
+And _she_--she is a Valkyr--a sword maiden, _Ja!_"
+
+I gripped the Norseman's hand.  It was hot, and a pang of remorse shot
+through me. If this place had so shaken me, how must it have shaken
+Olaf? It was with relief that I watched him, at Lakla's gentle
+command, drop into one of the litters and lie back, eyes closed, as
+two of the monsters raised its yoke to their scaled shoulders. Nor was
+it without further relief that I myself lay back on the soft velvety
+cushions of another.
+
+The cavalcade began to move.  Lakla had ordered O'Keefe placed beside
+her, and she sat, knees crossed Orient fashion, leaning over the pale
+head on her lap, the white, tapering fingers straying fondly through
+his hair.
+
+Presently I saw her reach up, slowly unwind the coronal of her
+tresses, shake them loose, and let them fall like a veil over her and
+him.
+
+Her head bent low; I heard a soft sobbing--I turned away my gaze, lorn
+enough in my own heart, God knew!
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+The Three Silent Ones
+
+The arch was closer--and in my awe I forgot for the moment Larry and
+aught else. For this was no rainbow, no thing born of light and mist,
+no Bifrost Bridge of myth--no! It was a flying arch of stone, stained
+with flares of Tyrian purples, of royal scarlets, of blues dark as the
+Gulf Stream's ribbon, sapphires soft as midday May skies, splashes of
+chromes and greens--a palette of giantry, a bridge of wizardry; a
+hundred, nay, a thousand, times greater than that of Utah which the
+Navaho call Nonnegozche and worship, as well they may, as a god, and
+which is itself a rainbow in eternal rock.
+
+It sprang from the ledge and winged its prodigious length in one low
+arc over the sea's crimson breast, as though in some ancient paroxysm
+of earth it had been hurled molten, crystallizing into that stupendous
+span and still flaming with the fires that had moulded it.
+
+Closer we came and closer, while I watched spellbound; now we were at
+its head, and the litter-bearers swept upon it. All of five hundred
+feet wide it was, surface smooth as a city road, sides low walled,
+curving inward as though in the jetting-out of its making the edges of
+the plastic rock had curled.
+
+On and on we sped; the high thrusting precipices upon which the
+bridge's far end rested, frowned close; the enigmatic, dully shining
+dome loomed ever greater. Now we had reached that end; were passing
+over a smooth plaza whose level floor was enclosed, save for a rift in
+front of us, by the fanged tops of the black cliffs.
+
+From this rift stretched another span, half a mile long, perhaps,
+widening at its centre into a broad platform, continuing straight to
+two massive gates set within the face of the second cliff wall like
+panels, and of the same dull gold as the dome rising high beyond. And
+this smaller arch leaped a pit, an abyss, of which the outer
+precipices were the rim holding back from the pit the red flood.
+
+We were rapidly approaching; now upon the platform; my bearers were
+striding closely along the side; I leaned far out--a giddiness seized
+me! I gazed down into depth upon vertiginous depth; an abyss
+indeed--an abyss dropping to world's base like that in which the
+Babylonians believed writhed Talaat, the serpent mother of Chaos; a
+pit that struck down into earth's heart itself.
+
+Now, what was that--distance upon unfathomable distance below?  A
+stupendous glowing like the green fire of life itself. What was it
+like? I had it! It was like the corona of the sun in eclipse--that
+burgeoning that makes of our luminary when moon veils it an incredible
+blossoming of splendours in the black heavens.
+
+And strangely, strangely, it was like the Dweller's beauty when with
+its dazzling spirallings and writhings it raced amid its storm of
+crystal bell sounds!
+
+The abyss was behind us; we had paused at the golden portals; they
+swung inward. A wide corridor filled with soft light was before us,
+and on its threshold stood--bizarre, yellow gems gleaming, huge muzzle
+wide in what was evidently meant for a smile of welcome--the woman
+frog of the Moon Pool wall.
+
+Lakla raised her head; swept back the silken tent of her hair and
+gazed at me with eyes misty from weeping. The frog-woman crept to her
+side; gazed down upon Larry; spoke--_spoke_--to the Golden Girl in a
+swift stream of the sonorous, reverberant monosyllables; and Lakla
+answered her in kind. The webbed digits swept over O'Keefe's face,
+felt at his heart; she shook her head and moved ahead of us up the
+passage.
+
+Still borne in the litters we went on, winding, ascending until at
+last they were set down in a great hall carpeted with soft fragrant
+rushes and into which from high narrow slits streamed the crimson
+light from without.
+
+I jumped over to Larry, there had been no change in his condition;
+still the terrifying limpness, the slow, infrequent pulsation. Rador
+and Olaf--and the fever now seemed to be gone from him--came and stood
+beside me, silent.
+
+"I go to the Three," said Lakla.  "Wait you here."  She passed through
+a curtaining; then as swiftly as she had gone she returned through the
+hangings, tresses braided, a swathing of golden gauze about her.
+
+"Rador," she said, "bear you Larry--for into your heart the Silent
+Ones would look. And fear nothing," she added at the green dwarf's
+disconcerted, almost fearful start.
+
+Rador bowed, was thrust aside by Olaf.
+
+"No," said the Norseman; "I will carry him."
+
+He lifted Larry like a child against his broad breast.  The dwarf
+glanced quickly at Lakla; she nodded.
+
+"Come!" she commanded, and held aside the folds.
+
+Of that journey I have few memories.  I only know that we went through
+corridor upon corridor; successions of vast halls and chambers, some
+carpeted with the rushes, others with rugs into which the feet sank as
+into deep, soft meadows; spaces illumined by the rubrous light, and
+spaces in which softer lights held sway.
+
+We paused before a slab of the same crimson stone as that the green
+dwarf had called the portal, and upon its polished surface weaved the
+same unnameable symbols. The Golden Girl pressed upon its side; it
+slipped softly back; a torrent of opalescence gushed out of the
+opening--and as one in a dream I entered.
+
+We were, I knew, just under the dome; but for the moment, caught in
+the flood of radiance, I could see nothing. It was like being held
+within a fire opal--so brilliant, so flashing, was it. I closed my
+eyes, opened them; the lambency cascaded from the vast curves of the
+globular walls; in front of me was a long, narrow opening in them,
+through which, far away, I could see the end of the wizards' bridge
+and the ledged mouth of the cavern through which we had come; against
+the light from within beat the crimson light from without--and was
+checked as though by a barrier.
+
+I felt Lakla's touch; turned.
+
+A hundred paces away was a dais, its rim raised a yard above the
+floor. From the edge of this rim streamed upward a steady, coruscating
+mist of the opalescence, veined even as was that of the Dweller's
+shining core and shot with milky shadows like curdled moonlight; up it
+stretched like a wall.
+
+Over it, from it, down upon me, gazed three faces--two clearly male,
+one a woman's. At the first I thought them statues, and then the eyes
+of them gave the lie to me; for the eyes were alive, terribly, and if
+I could admit the word--_supernaturally_--alive.
+
+They were thrice the size of the human eye and triangular, the apex of
+the angle upward; black as jet, pupilless, filled with tiny, leaping
+red flames.
+
+Over them were foreheads, not as ours--high and broad and visored;
+their sides drawn forward into a vertical ridge, a prominence, an
+upright wedge, somewhat like the visored heads of a few of the great
+lizards--and the heads, long, narrowing at the back, were fully twice
+the size of mankind's!
+
+Upon the brows were caps--and with a fearful certainty I knew that
+they were _not_ caps--long, thick strands of gleaming yellow, feathered
+scales thin as sequins! Sharp, curving noses like the beaks of the
+giant condors; mouths thin, austere; long, powerful, pointed chins;
+the--_flesh_--of the faces white as the whitest marble; and wreathing
+up to them, covering all their bodies, the shimmering, curdled, misty
+fires of opalescence!
+
+Olaf stood rigid; my own heart leaped wildly.  What--what were these
+beings?
+
+I forced myself to look again--and from their gaze streamed a current
+of reassurance, of good will--nay, of intense spiritual strength. I
+saw that they were not fierce, not ruthless, not inhuman, despite
+their strangeness; no, they were kindly; in some unmistakable way,
+benign and sorrowful--so sorrowful! I straightened, gazed back at them
+fearlessly. Olaf drew a deep breath, gazed steadily too, the hardness,
+the despair wiped from his face.
+
+Now Lakla drew closer to the dais; the three pairs of eyes searched
+hers, the woman's with an ineffable tenderness; some message seemed to
+pass between the Three and the Golden Girl. She bowed low, turned to
+the Norseman.
+
+"Place Larry there," she said softly--"there at the feet of the Silent
+Ones."
+
+She pointed into the radiant mist; Olaf started, hesitated, stared
+from Lakla to the Three, searched for a moment their eyes--and
+something like a smile drifted through them. He stepped forward,
+lifted O'Keefe, set him squarely within the covering light. It
+wavered, rolled upward, swirled about the body, steadied again--and
+within it there was no sign of Larry!
+
+Again the mist wavered, shook, and seemed to climb higher, hiding the
+chins, the beaked noses, the brows of that incredible Trinity--but
+before it ceased to climb, I thought the yellow feathered heads bent;
+sensed a movement as though they lifted something.
+
+The mist fell; the eyes gleamed out again, inscrutable.
+
+And groping out of the radiance, pausing at the verge of the dais,
+leaping down from it, came Larry, laughing, filled with life, blinking
+as one who draws from darkness into sunshine. He saw Lakla, sprang to
+her, gripped her in his arms.
+
+"Lakla!" he cried. "Mavourneen!"  She slipped from his embrace,
+blushing, glancing at the Three shyly, half-fearfully. And again I saw
+the tenderness creep into the inky, flame-shot orbs of the woman
+being; and a tenderness in the others too--as though they regarded
+some well-beloved child.
+
+"You lay in the arms of Death, Larry," she said.  "And the Silent Ones
+drew you from him. Do homage to the Silent Ones, Larry, for they are
+good and they are mighty!"
+
+She turned his head with one of the long, white hands--and he looked
+into the faces of the Three; looked long, was shaken even as had been
+Olaf and myself; was swept by that same wave of power and of--of--what
+can I call it?--_holiness_ that streamed from them.
+
+Then for the first time I saw real awe mount into his face. Another
+moment he stared--and dropped upon one knee and bowed his head before
+them as would a worshipper before the shrine of his saint. And--I am
+not ashamed to tell it--I joined him; and with us knelt Lakla and
+Olaf and Rador.
+
+The mist of fiery opal swirled up about the Three; hid them.
+
+And with a long, deep, joyous sigh Lakla took Larry's hand, drew him
+to his feet, and silently we followed them out of that hall of wonder.
+
+But why, in going, did the thought come to me that from where the
+Three sat throned they ever watched the cavern mouth that was the door
+into their abode; and looked down ever into the unfathomable depth in
+which glowed and pulsed that mystic flower, colossal, awesome, of
+green flame that had seemed to me fire of life itself?
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+The Wooing of Lakla
+
+I had slept soundly and dreamlessly; I wakened quietly in the great
+chamber into which Rador had ushered O'Keefe and myself after that
+culminating experience of crowded, nerve-racking hours--the facing of
+the Three.
+
+Now, lying gazing upward at the high-vaulted ceiling, I heard Larry's
+voice:
+
+"They look like birds." Evidently he was thinking of the Three; a
+silence--then: "Yes, they look like _birds_--and they look, and it's
+meaning no disrespect to them I am at all, they look like
+_lizards_"--and another silence--"they look like some sort of gods, and,
+by the good sword-arm of Brian Boru, they look human, too! And it's
+_none_ of them they are either, so what--what the--what the sainted St.
+Bridget are they?" Another short silence, and then in a tone of awed
+and absolute conviction: "That's it, sure! That's what they are--it
+all hangs in--they couldn't be anything else--"
+
+He gave a whoop; a pillow shot over and caught me across the head.
+
+"Wake up!" shouted Larry.  "Wake up, ye seething caldron of fossilized
+superstitions! Wake up, ye bogy-haunted man of scientific unwisdom!"
+
+Under pillow and insults I bounced to my feet, filled for a moment
+with quite real wrath; he lay back, roaring with laughter, and my
+anger was swept away.
+
+"Doc," he said, very seriously, after this, "I know who the Three
+are!"
+
+"Yes?" I queried, with studied sarcasm.
+
+"Yes?" he mimicked.  "Yes!  Ye--ye" He paused under the menace of my
+look, grinned. "Yes, I know," he continued. "They're of the Tuatha De,
+the old ones, the great people of Ireland, _that's_ who they are!"
+
+I knew, of course, of the Tuatha De Danann, the tribes of the god
+Danu, the half-legendary, half-historical clan who found their home in
+Erin some four thousand years before the Christian era, and who have
+left so deep an impress upon the Celtic mind and its myths.
+
+"Yes," said Larry again, "the Tuatha De--the Ancient Ones who had
+spells that could compel Mananan, who is the spirit of all the seas,
+an' Keithor, who is the god of all green living things, an' even
+Hesus, the unseen god, whose pulse is the pulse of all the firmament;
+yes, an' Orchil too, who sits within the earth an' weaves with the
+shuttle of mystery and her three looms of birth an' life an'
+death--even Orchil would weave as they commanded!"
+
+He was silent--then:
+
+"They are of them--the mighty ones--why else would I have bent my knee
+to them as I would have to the spirit of my dead mother? Why else
+would Lakla, whose gold-brown hair is the hair of Eilidh the Fair,
+whose mouth is the sweet mouth of Deirdre, an' whose soul walked with
+mine ages agone among the fragrant green myrtle of Erin, serve them?"
+he whispered, eyes full of dream.
+
+"Have you any idea how they got here?" I asked, not unreasonably.
+
+"I haven't thought about that," he replied somewhat testily.  "But at
+once, me excellent man o' wisdom, a number occur to me. One of them is
+that this little party of three might have stopped here on their way
+to Ireland, an' for good reasons of their own decided to stay a while;
+an' another is that they might have come here afterward, havin' got
+wind of what those rats out there were contemplatin', and have stayed
+on the job till the time was ripe to save Ireland from 'em; the rest
+of the world, too, of course," he added magnanimously, "but Ireland in
+particular. And do any of those reasons appeal to ye?"
+
+I shook my head.
+
+"Well, what do you think?" he asked wearily.
+
+"I think," I said cautiously, "that we face an evolution of highly
+intelligent beings from ancestral sources radically removed from those
+through which mankind ascended. These half-human, highly developed
+batrachians they call the _Akka_ prove that evolution in these
+caverned spaces has certainly pursued one different path than on
+earth. The Englishman, Wells, wrote an imaginative and very
+entertaining book concerning an invasion of earth by Martians, and he
+made his Martians enormously specialized cuttlefish. There was nothing
+inherently improbable in Wells' choice. Man is the ruling animal of
+earth today solely by reason of a series of accidents; under another
+series spiders or ants, or even elephants, could have become the
+dominant race.
+
+"I think," I said, even more cautiously, "that the race to which the
+Three belong never appeared on earth's surface; that their development
+took place here, unhindered through aeons. And if this be true, the
+structure of their brains, and therefore all their reactions, must be
+different from ours. Hence their knowledge and command of energies
+unfamiliar to us--and hence also the question whether they may not
+have an entirely different sense of values, of justice--and that is
+rather terrifying," I concluded.
+
+Larry shook his head.
+
+"That last sort of knocks your argument, Doc," he said. "They had
+sense of justice enough to help _me_ out--and certainly they know
+love--for I saw the way they looked at Lakla; and sorrow--for there
+was no mistaking that in their faces.
+
+"No," he went on.  "I hold to my own idea.  They're of the Old People.
+The little leprechaun knew his way here, an' I'll bet it was they who
+sent the word. An' if the O'Keefe banshee comes here--which save the
+mark!--I'll bet she'll drop in on the Silent Ones for a social visit
+before she an' her clan get busy. Well, it'll make her feel more at
+home, the good old body. No, Doc, no," he concluded, "I'm right; it
+all fits in too well to be wrong."
+
+I made a last despairing attempt.
+
+"Is there anything anywhere in Ireland that would indicate that the
+Tuatha De ever looked like the Three?" I asked--and again I had
+spoken most unfortunately.
+
+"Is there?" he shouted.  "Is there?  By the kilt of Cormack
+MacCormack, I'm glad ye reminded me. It was worryin' me a little
+meself. There was Daghda, who could put on the head of a great boar
+an' the body of a giant fish and cleave the waves an' tear to pieces
+the birlins of any who came against Erin; an' there was Rinn--"
+
+How many more of the metamorphoses of the Old People I might have
+heard, I do not know, for the curtains parted and in walked Rador.
+
+"You have rested well," he smiled, "I can see.  The handmaiden bade me
+call you. You are to eat with her in her garden."
+
+Down long corridors we trod and out upon a gardened terrace as
+beautiful as any of those of Yolara's city; bowered, blossoming,
+fragrant, set high upon the cliffs beside the domed castle. A table,
+as of milky jade, was spread at one corner, but the Golden Girl was
+not there. A little path ran on and up, hemmed in by the mass of
+verdure. I looked at it longingly; Rador saw the glance, interpreted
+it, and led me up the stepped sharp slope into a rock embrasure.
+
+Here I was above the foliage, and everywhere the view was clear.
+Below me stretched the incredible bridge, with the frog people
+hurrying back and forth upon it. A pinnacle at my side hid the abyss.
+My eyes followed the cavern ledge. Above it the rock rose bare, but at
+the ends of the semicircular strand a luxuriant vegetation began,
+stretching from the crimson shores back into far distances. Of browns
+and reds and yellows, like an autumn forest, was the foliage, with
+here and there patches of dark-green, as of conifers. Five miles or
+more, on each side, the forests swept, and then were lost to sight in
+the haze.
+
+I turned and faced an immensity of crimson waters, unbroken, a true
+sea, if ever there was one. A breeze blew--the first real wind I had
+encountered in the hidden places; under it the surface, that had been
+as molten lacquer, rippled and dimpled. Little waves broke with a
+spray of rose-pearls and rubies. The giant Medusae drifted--stately,
+luminous kaleidoscopic elfin moons.
+
+Far down, peeping around a jutting tower of the cliff, I saw dipping
+with the motion of the waves a floating garden. The flowers, too, were
+luminous--indeed sparkling--gleaming brilliants of scarlet and
+vermilions lighter than the flood on which they lay, mauves and odd
+shades of reddish-blue. They gleamed and shone like a little lake of
+jewels.
+
+Rador broke in upon my musings.
+
+"Lakla comes!  Let us go down."
+
+It was a shy Lakla who came slowly around the end of the path and,
+blushing furiously, held her hands out to Larry. And the Irishman took
+them, placed them over his heart, kissed them with a tenderness that
+had been lacking in the half-mocking, half-fierce caresses he had
+given the priestess. She blushed deeper, holding out the tapering
+fingers--then pressed them to her own heart.
+
+"I like the touch of your lips, Larry," she whispered. "They warm me
+here"--she pressed her heart again--"and they send little sparkles of
+light through me." Her brows tilted perplexedly, accenting the nuance
+of diablerie, delicate and fascinating, that they cast upon the flower
+face.
+
+"Do you?" whispered the O'Keefe fervently.  "Do you, Lakla?" He bent
+toward her. She caught the amused glance of Rador; drew herself aside
+half-haughtily.
+
+"Rador," she said, "is it not time that you and the strong one, Olaf,
+were setting forth?"
+
+"Truly it is, handmaiden," he answered respectfully enough--yet with a
+current of laughter under his words. "But as you know the strong one,
+Olaf, wished to see his friends here before we were gone--and he comes
+even now," he added, glancing down the pathway, along which came
+striding the Norseman.
+
+As he faced us I saw that a transformation had been wrought in him.
+Gone was the pitiful seeking, and gone too the just as pitiful hope.
+The set face softened as he looked at the Golden Girl and bowed low to
+her. He thrust a hand to O'Keefe and to me.
+
+"There is to be battle," he said.  "I go with Rador to call the armies
+of these frog people. As for me--Lakla has spoken. There is no hope
+for--for mine Helma in life, but there is hope that we destroy the
+Shining Devil and give _mine_ Helma peace. And with that I am well
+content, _ja!_ Well content!" He gripped our hands again. "We will
+fight!" he muttered. "_Ja!_ And I will have vengeance!" The sternness
+returned; and with a salute Rador and he were gone.
+
+Two great tears rolled from the golden eyes of Lakla.
+
+"Not even the Silent Ones can heal those the Shining One has taken,"
+she said. "He asked me--and it was better that I tell him. It is part
+of the Three's--_punishment_--but of that you will soon learn," she went
+on hurriedly. "Ask me no questions now of the Silent Ones. I thought
+it better for Olaf to go with Rador, to busy himself, to give his mind
+other than sorrow upon which to feed."
+
+Up the path came five of the frog-women, bearing platters and ewers.
+Their bracelets and anklets of jewels were tinkling; their middles
+covered with short kirtles of woven cloth studded with the sparkling
+ornaments.
+
+And here let me say that if I have given the impression that the
+_Akka_ are simply magnified frogs, I regret it. Frog-like they are,
+and hence my phrase for them--but as unlike the frog, as we know it,
+as man is unlike the chimpanzee. Springing, I hazard, from the
+stegocephalia, the ancestor of the frogs, these batrachians followed a
+different line of evolution and acquired the upright position just as
+man did his from the four-footed folk.
+
+The great staring eyes, the shape of the muzzle were frog-like, but
+the highly developed brain had set upon the head and shape of it vital
+differences. The forehead, for instance, was not low, flat, and
+retreating--its frontal arch was well defined. The head was, in a
+sense, shapely, and with the females the great horny carapace that
+stood over it like a fantastic helmet was much modified, as were the
+spurs that were so formidable in the male; colouration was different
+also. The torso was upright; the legs a little bent, giving them their
+crouching gait--but I wander from my subject.[1]
+
+They set their burdens down.  Larry looked at them with interest.
+
+"You surely have those things well trained, Lakla," he said.
+
+"Things!"  The handmaiden arose, eyes flashing with indignation.  "You
+call my _Akka_ things!"
+
+"Well," said Larry, a bit taken aback, "what do you call them?"
+
+"My _Akka_ are a _people_," she retorted.  "As much a people as your race
+or mine. They are good and loyal, and they have speech and arts, and
+they slay not, save for food or to protect themselves. And I think
+them beautiful, Larry, _beautiful_!" She stamped her foot. "And you call
+them--_things_!"
+
+Beautiful!  These?  Yet, after all, they were, in their grotesque
+fashion. And to Lakla, surrounded by them, from babyhood, they were
+not strange, at all. Why shouldn't she think them beautiful? The same
+thought must have struck O'Keefe, for he flushed guiltily.
+
+"I think them beautiful, too, Lakla," he said remorsefully. "It's my
+not knowing your tongue too well that traps me. _Truly_, I think them
+beautiful--I'd tell them so, if I knew their talk."
+
+Lakla dimpled, laughed--spoke to the attendants in that strange speech
+that was unquestionably a language; they bridled, looked at O'Keefe
+with fantastic coquetry, cracked and boomed softly among themselves.
+
+"They say they like _you_ better than the men of Muria," laughed Lakla.
+
+"Did I ever think I'd be swapping compliments with lady frogs!" he
+murmured to me. "Buck up, Larry--keep your eyes on the captive Irish
+princess!" he muttered to himself.
+
+"Rador goes to meet one of the _ladala_ who is slipping through with
+news," said the Golden Girl as we addressed ourselves to the food.
+"Then, with Nak, he and Olaf go to muster the _Akka_--for there will
+be battle, and we must prepare. Nak," she added, "is he who went
+before me when you were dancing with Yolara, Larry." She stole a
+swift, mischievous glance at him. "He is headman of all the _Akka_."
+
+"Just what forces can we muster against them when they come, darlin'?"
+said Larry.
+
+"Darlin'?"--the Golden Girl had caught the caress of the word--"what's
+that?"
+
+"It's a little word that means Lakla," he answered.  "It does--that
+is, when I say it; when you say it, then it means Larry."
+
+"I like that word," mused Lakla.
+
+"You can even say Larry darlin'!" suggested O'Keefe.
+
+"Larry darlin'!" said Lakla.  "When they come we shall have first of
+all my _Akka_--"
+
+"Can they fight, _mavourneen_?" interrupted Larry.
+
+"Can they fight!  My _Akka_!" Again her eyes flashed.  "They will
+fight to the last of them--with the spears that give the swift
+rotting, covered, as they are, with the jelly of those _Saddu_
+there--" She pointed through a rift in the foliage across which, on
+the surface of the sea, was floating one of the moon globes--and now I
+know why Rador had warned Larry against a plunge there. "With spears
+and clubs and with teeth and nails and spurs--they are a strong and
+brave people, Larry--darlin', and though they hurl the _Keth_ at them,
+it is slow to work upon them, and they slay even while they are
+passing into the nothingness!"
+
+"And have we none of the _Keth_?" he asked.
+
+"No"--she shook her head--"none of their weapons have we here,
+although it was--it was the Ancient Ones who shaped them."
+
+"But the Three are of the Ancient Ones?" I cried.  "Surely they can
+tell--"
+
+"No," she said slowly.  "No--there is something you must know--and
+soon; and then the Silent Ones say you will understand. You,
+especially, Goodwin, who worship wisdom."
+
+"Then," said Larry, "we have the _Akka_; and we have the four men of
+us, and among us three guns and about a hundred cartridges--an'--an'
+the power of the Three--but what about the Shining One, Fireworks--"
+
+"I do not know." Again the indecision that had been in her eyes when
+Yolara had launched her defiance crept back. "The Shining One is
+strong--and he has his--slaves!"
+
+"Well, we'd better get busy good and quick!" the O'Keefe's voice rang.
+But Lakla, for some reason of her own, would pursue the matter no
+further. The trouble fled from her eyes--they danced.
+
+"Larry darlin'?" she murmured.  "I like the touch of your lips--"
+
+"You do?" he whispered, all thought flying of anything but the
+beautiful, provocative face so close to his. "Then, _acushla_, you're
+goin' to get acquainted with 'em! Turn your head, Doc!" he said.
+
+And I turned it.  There was quite a long silence, broken by an
+interested, soft outburst of gentle boomings from the serving
+frog-maids. I stole a glance behind me. Lakla's head lay on the
+Irishman's shoulder, the golden eyes misty sunpools of love and
+adoration; and the O'Keefe, a new look of power and strength upon his
+clear-cut features, was gazing down into them with that look which
+rises only from the heart touched for the first time with that true,
+all-powerful love, which is the pulse of the universe itself, the real
+music of the spheres of which Plato dreamed, the love that is stronger
+than death itself, immortal as the high gods and the true soul of all
+that mystery we call life.
+
+Then Lakla raised her hands, pressed down Larry's head, kissed him
+between the eyes, drew herself with a trembling little laugh from his
+embrace.
+
+"The future Mrs. Larry O'Keefe, Goodwin," said Larry to me a little
+unsteadily.
+
+I took their hands--and Lakla kissed me!
+
+She turned to the booming--smiling--frog-maids; gave them some
+command, for they filed away down the path. Suddenly I felt, well, a
+little superfluous.
+
+"If you don't mind," I said, "I think I'll go up the path there again
+and look about."
+
+But they were so engrossed with each other that they did not even hear
+me--so I walked away, up to the embrasure where Rador had taken me.
+The movement of the batrachians over the bridge had ceased. Dimly at
+the far end I could see the cluster of the garrison. My thoughts flew
+back to Lakla and to Larry.
+
+What was to be the end?
+
+If we won, if we were able to pass from this place, could she live in
+our world? A product of these caverns with their atmosphere and light
+that seemed in some subtle way to be both food and drink--how would
+she react to the unfamiliar foods and air and light of outer earth?
+Further, here so far as I was able to discover, there were no
+malignant bacilli--what immunity could Lakla have then to those
+microscopic evils without, which only long ages of sickness and death
+have bought for us a modicum of protection? I began to be oppressed.
+Surely they had been long enough by themselves. I went down the path.
+
+I heard Larry.
+
+"It's a green land, _mavourneen_.  And the sea rocks and dimples
+around it--blue as the heavens, green as the isle itself, and foam
+horses toss their white manes, and the great clean winds blow over it,
+and the sun shines down on it like your eyes, _acushla_--"
+
+"And are you a king of Ireland, Larry darlin'?" Thus Lakla--
+
+But enough!
+
+At last we turned to go--and around the corner of the path I caught
+another glimpse of what I have called the lake of jewels. I pointed to
+it.
+
+"Those are lovely flowers, Lakla," I said.  "I have never seen
+anything like them in the place from whence we come."
+
+She followed my pointing finger--laughed.
+
+"Come," she said, "let me show you them."
+
+She ran down an intersecting way, we following; came out of it upon a
+little ledge close to the brink, three feet or more I suppose about
+it. The Golden Girl's voice rang out in a high-pitched, tremulous,
+throbbing call.
+
+The lake of jewels stirred as though a breeze had passed over it;
+stirred, shook, and then began to move swiftly, a shimmering torrent
+of shining flowers down upon us! She called again, the movement became
+more rapid; the gem blooms streamed closer--closer, wavering,
+shifting, winding--at our very feet. Above them hovered a little
+radiant mist. The Golden Girl leaned over; called softly, and up from
+the sparkling mass shot a green vine whose heads were five flowers of
+flaming ruby--shot up, flew into her hand and coiled about the white
+arm, its quintette of lambent blossoms--regarding us!
+
+It was the thing Lakla had called the _Yekta_; that with which she had
+threatened the priestess; the thing that carried the dreadful
+death--and the Golden Girl was handling it like a rose!
+
+Larry swore--I looked at the thing more closely.  It was a hydroid, a
+development of that strange animal-vegetable that, sometimes almost
+microscopic, waves in the sea depths like a cluster of flowers
+paralyzing its prey with the mysterious force that dwells in its
+blossom heads![2]
+
+"Put it down, Lakla," the distress in O'Keefe's voice was deep.  Lakla
+laughed mischievously, caught the real fear for her in his eyes;
+opened her hand, gave another faint call--and back it flew to its
+fellows.
+
+"Why, it wouldn't hurt me, Larry!" she expostulated. "They know me!"
+
+"Put it down!" he repeated hoarsely.
+
+She sighed, gave another sweet, prolonged call.  The lake of
+gems--rubies and amethysts, mauves and scarlet-tinged blues--wavered
+and shook even as it had before--and swept swiftly back to that place
+whence she had drawn them!
+
+Then, with Larry and Lakla walking ahead, white arm about his brown
+neck; the O'Keefe still expostulating, the handmaiden laughing
+merrily, we passed through her bower to the domed castle.
+
+Glancing through a cleft I caught sight again of the far end of the
+bridge; noted among the clustered figures of its garrison of the
+frog-men a movement, a flashing of green fire like marshlights on
+spear tips; wondered idly what it was, and then, other thoughts
+crowding in, followed along, head bent, behind the pair who had found
+in what was Olaf's hell, their true paradise.
+
+
+[1] The _Akka_ are viviparous.  The female produces progeny at
+five-year intervals, never more than two at a time. They are
+monogamous, like certain of our own _Ranidae_. Pending my monograph
+upon what little I had time to learn of their interesting habits and
+customs, the curious will find instruction and entertainment in
+Brandes and Schvenichen's _Brutpfleige der Schwanzlosen Bat rachier_,
+p. 395; and Lilian V. Sampson's _Unusual Modes of Breeding among
+Anura_, Amer. Nat. xxxiv., 1900.--W. T. G.
+
+[2] The _Yekta_ of the Crimson Sea, are as extraordinary developments
+of hydroid forms as the giant _Medusae_, of which, of course, they are
+not too remote cousins. The closest resemblances to them in outer
+water forms are among the _Gymnoblastic Hydroids_, notably _Clavetella
+prolifera_, a most interesting ambulatory form of six tentacles.
+Almost every bather in Southern waters, Northern too, knows the pain
+that contact with certain "jelly fish" produces. The _Yekta's_
+development was prodigious and, to us, monstrous. It secretes in its
+five heads an almost incredibly swiftly acting poison which I suspect,
+for I had no chance to verify the theory, destroys the entire nervous
+system to the accompaniment of truly infernal agony; carrying at the
+same time the illusion that the torment stretches through infinities
+of time. Both ether and nitrous oxide gas produce in the majority this
+sensation of time extension, without of course the pain symptom. What
+Lakla called the _Yekta_ kiss is I imagine about as close to the
+orthodox idea of Hell as can be conceived. The secret of her control
+over them I had no opportunity of learning in the rush of events that
+followed. Knowledge of the appalling effects of their touch came, she
+told me, from those few "who had been kissed so lightly" that they
+recovered. Certainly nothing, not even the Shining One, was dreaded by
+the Murians as these were--W. T. G.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+The Coming of Yolara
+
+"Never was there such a girl!" Thus Larry, dreamily, leaning head in
+hand on one of the wide divans of the chamber where Lakla had left us,
+pleading service to the Silent Ones.
+
+"An', by the faith and the honour of the O'Keefes, an' by my dead
+mother's soul may God do with me as I do by her!" he whispered
+fervently.
+
+He relapsed into open-eyed dreaming.
+
+I walked about the room, examining it--the first opportunity I had
+gained to inspect carefully any of the rooms in the abode of the
+Three. It was octagonal, carpeted with the thick rugs that seemed
+almost as though woven of soft mineral wool, faintly shimmering,
+palest blue. I paced its diagonal; it was fifty yards; the ceiling was
+arched, and either of pale rose metal or metallic covering; it
+collected the light from the high, slitted windows, and shed it,
+diffused, through the room.
+
+Around the octagon ran a low gallery not two feet from the floor,
+balustraded with slender pillars, close set; broken at opposite
+curtained entrances over which hung thick, dull-gold curtainings
+giving the same suggestion of metallic or mineral substance as the
+rugs. Set within each of the eight sides, above the balcony, were
+colossal slabs of lapis lazuli, inset with graceful but unplaceable
+designs in scarlet and sapphire blue.
+
+There was the great divan on which mused Larry; two smaller ones, half
+a dozen low seats and chairs carved apparently of ivory and of dull
+soft gold.
+
+Most curious were tripods, strong, pikelike legs of golden metal four
+feet high, holding small circles of the lapis with intaglios of one
+curious symbol somewhat resembling the ideographs of the Chinese.
+
+There was no dust--nowhere in these caverned spaces had I found this
+constant companion of ours in the world overhead. My eyes caught a
+sparkle from a corner. Pursuing it I found upon one of the low seats a
+flat, clear crystal oval, remarkably like a lens. I took it and
+stepped up on the balcony. Standing on tiptoe I found I commanded from
+the bottom of a window slit a view of the bridge approach. Scanning it
+I could see no trace of the garrison there, nor of the green spear
+flashes. I placed the crystal to my eyes--and with a disconcerting
+abruptness the cavern mouth leaped before me, apparently not a hundred
+feet away; decidedly the crystal was a very excellent lens--but where
+were the guards?
+
+I peered closely.  Nothing!  But now against the aperture I saw a
+score or more of tiny, dancing sparks. An optical illusion, I thought,
+and turned the crystal in another direction. There were no sparklings
+there. I turned it back again--and there they were. And what were
+they like? Realization came to me--they were like the little, dancing,
+radiant atoms that had played for a time about the emptiness where had
+stood Sorgar of the Lower Waters before he had been shaken into the
+nothingness! And that green light I had noticed--the _Keth_!
+
+A cry on my lips, I turned to Larry--and the cry died as the heavy
+curtainings at the entrance on my right undulated, parted as though a
+body had slipped through, shook and parted again and again--with the
+dreadful passing of unseen things!
+
+"Larry!" I cried.  "Here!  Quick!"
+
+He leaped to his feet, gazed about wildly--and disappeared!
+Yes--vanished from my sight like the snuffed flame of a candle or as
+though something moving with the speed of light itself had snatched
+him away!
+
+Then from the divan came the sounds of struggle, the hissing of
+straining breaths, the noise of Larry cursing. I leaped over the
+balustrade, drawing my own pistol--was caught in a pair of mighty
+arms, my elbows crushed to my sides, drawn down until my face pressed
+close to a broad, hairy breast--and through that obstacle--formless,
+shadowless, transparent as air itself--I could still see the battle on
+the divan!
+
+Now there were two sharp reports; the struggle abruptly ceased.  From
+a point not a foot over the great couch, as though oozing from the air
+itself, blood began to drop, faster and ever faster, pouring out of
+nothingness.
+
+And out of that same air, now a dozen feet away, leaped the face of
+Larry--bodyless, poised six feet above the floor, blazing with
+rage--floating weirdly, uncannily to a hideous degree, in vacancy.
+
+His hands flashed out--armless; they wavered, appearing,
+disappearing--swiftly tearing something from him. Then there, feet
+hidden, stiff on legs that vanished at the ankles, striking out into
+vision with all the dizzy abruptness with which he had been stricken
+from sight was the O'Keefe, a smoking pistol in hand.
+
+And ever that red stream trickled out of vacancy and spread over the
+couch, dripping to the floor.
+
+I made a mighty movement to escape; was held more firmly--and then
+close to the face of Larry, flashing out with that terrifying
+instantaneousness even as had his, was the head of Yolara, as
+devilishly mocking as I had ever seen it, the cruelty shining through
+it like delicate white flames from hell--and beautiful!
+
+"Stir not!  Strike not--until I command!" She flung the words beyond
+her, addressed to the invisible ones who had accompanied her; whose
+presences I sensed filling the chamber. The floating, beautiful head,
+crowned high with corn-silk hair, darted toward the Irishman. He took
+a swift step backward. The eyes of the priestess deepened toward
+purple; sparkled with malice.
+
+"So," she said.  "So, _Larree_--you thought you could go from me so
+easily!" She laughed softly. "In my hidden hand I hold the _Keth_
+cone," she murmured. "Before you can raise the death tube I can smite
+you--and will. And consider, _Larree_, if the handmaiden, the _choya_
+comes, I can vanish--so"--the mocking head disappeared, burst forth
+again--"and slay her with the _Keth_--or bid my people seize her and
+bear her to the Shining One!"
+
+Tiny beads of sweat stood out on O'Keefe's forehead, and I knew he was
+thinking not of himself, but of Lakla.
+
+"What do you want with me, Yolara?" he asked hoarsely.
+
+"Nay," came the mocking voice.  "Not Yolara to you, _Larree_--call me
+by those sweet names you taught me--Honey of the Wild Bee-e-s, Net of
+Hearts--" Again her laughter tinkled.
+
+"What do you want with me?" his voice was strained, the lips rigid.
+
+"Ah, you are afraid, _Larree_." There was diabolic jubilation in the
+words. "What should I want but that you return with me? Why else did I
+creep through the lair of the dragon worm and pass the path of perils
+but to ask you that? And the _choya_ guards you not well." Again she
+laughed. "We came to the cavern's end and, there were her _Akka_. And
+the _Akka_ can see us--as shadows. But it was my desire to surprise
+you with my coming, Larree," the voice was silken. "And I feared that
+they would hasten to be first to bring you that message to delight in
+your joy. And so, _Larree_, I loosed the _Keth_ upon them--and gave
+them peace and rest within the nothingness. And the portal below was
+open--almost in welcome!"
+
+Once more the malignant, silver pealing of her laughter.
+
+"What do you want with me?" There was wrath in his eyes, and plainly
+he strove for control.
+
+"Want!" the silver voice hissed, grew calm.  "Do not Siya and Siyana
+grieve that the rite I pledged them is but half done--and do they not
+desire it finished? And am I not beautiful? More beautiful than your
+_choya_?"
+
+The fiendishness died from the eyes; they grew blue, wondrous; the
+veil of invisibility slipped down from the neck, the shoulders, half
+revealing the gleaming breasts. And weird, weird beyond all telling
+was that exquisite head and bust floating there in air--and beautiful,
+sinisterly beautiful beyond all telling, too. So even might Lilith,
+the serpent woman, have shown herself tempting Adam!
+
+"And perhaps," she said, "perhaps I want you because I hate you;
+perhaps because I love you--or perhaps for Lugur or perhaps for the
+Shining One."
+
+"And if I go with you?" He said it quietly.
+
+"Then shall I spare the handmaiden--and--who knows?--take back my
+armies that even now gather at the portal and let the Silent Ones rot
+in peace in their abode--from which they had no power to keep me," she
+added venomously.
+
+"You will swear that, Yolara; swear to go without harming the
+handmaiden?" he asked eagerly. The little devils danced in her eyes. I
+wrenched my face from the smothering contact.
+
+"Don't trust her, Larry!" I cried--and again the grip choked me.
+
+"Is that devil in front of you or behind you, old man?" he asked
+quietly, eyes never leaving the priestess. "If he's in front I'll take
+a chance and wing him--and then you scoot and warn Lakla."
+
+But I could not answer; nor, remembering Yolara's threat, would I, had
+I been able.
+
+"Decide quickly!" There was cold threat in her voice.
+
+The curtains toward which O'Keefe had slowly, step by step, drawn
+close, opened. They framed the handmaiden! The face of Yolara changed
+to that gorgon mask that had transformed it once before at sight of
+the Golden Girl. In her blind rage she forgot to cast the occulting
+veil. Her hand darted like a snake out of the folds; poising itself
+with the little silver cone aimed at Lakla.
+
+But before it was wholly poised, before the priestess could loose its
+force, the handmaiden was upon her. Swift as the lithe white wolf
+hound she leaped, and one slender hand gripped Yolara's throat, the
+other the wrist that lifted the quivering death; white limbs wrapped
+about the hidden ones, I saw the golden head bend, the hand that held
+the _Keth_ swept up with a vicious jerk; saw Lakla's teeth sink into
+the wrist--the blood spurt forth and heard the priestess shriek. The
+cone fell, bounded toward me; with all my strength I wrenched free the
+hand that held my pistol, thrust it against the pressing breast and
+fired.
+
+The clasp upon me relaxed; a red rain stained me; at my feet a little
+pillar of blood jetted; a hand thrust itself from nothingness,
+clawed--and was still.
+
+Now Yolara was down, Lakla meshed in her writhings and fighting like
+some wild mother whose babes are serpent menaced. Over the two of
+them, astride, stood the O'Keefe, a pike from one of the high tripods
+in his hand--thrusting, parrying, beating on every side as with a
+broadsword against poniard-clutching hands that thrust themselves out
+of vacancy striving to strike him; stepping here and there, always
+covering, protecting Lakla with his own body even as a caveman of old
+who does battle with his mate for their lives.
+
+The sword-club struck--and on the floor lay the half body of a dwarf,
+writhing with vanishments and reappearings of legs and arms. Beside
+him was the shattered tripod from which Larry had wrenched his weapon.
+I flung myself upon it, dashed it down to break loose one of the
+remaining supports, struck in midfall one of the unseen even as his
+dagger darted toward me! The seat splintered, leaving in my clutch a
+golden bar. I jumped to Larry's side, guarding his back, whirling it
+like a staff; felt it crunch once--twice--through unseen bone and
+muscle.
+
+At the door was a booming.  Into the chamber rushed a dozen of the
+frog-men. While some guarded the entrances, others leaped straight to
+us, and forming a circle about us began to strike with talons and
+spurs at unseen things that screamed and sought to escape. Now here
+and there about the blue rugs great stains of blood appeared; heads of
+dwarfs, torn arms and gashed bodies, half occulted, half revealed. And
+at last the priestess lay silent, vanquished, white body gleaming with
+that uncanny--fragmentariness--from her torn robes. Then O'Keefe
+reached down, drew Lakla from her. Shakily, Yolara rose to her feet.
+The handmaiden, face still blazing with wrath, stepped before her;
+with difficulty she steadied her voice.
+
+"Yolara," she said, "you have defied the Silent Ones, you have
+desecrated their abode, you came to slay these men who are the guests
+of the Silent Ones and me, who am their handmaiden--why did you do
+these things?"
+
+"I came for him!" gasped the priestess; she pointed to O'Keefe.
+
+"Why?" asked Lakla.
+
+"Because he is pledged to me," replied Yolara, all the devils that
+were hers in her face. "Because he wooed me! Because he is mine!"
+
+"That is a lie!" The handmaiden's voice shook with rage. "It is a lie!
+But here and now he shall choose, Yolara. And if you he choose, you
+and he shall go forth from here unmolested--for Yolara, it is his
+happiness that I most desire, and if you are that happiness--you shall
+go together. And now, Larry, choose!"
+
+Swiftly she stepped beside the priestess; swiftly wrenched the last
+shreds of the hiding robes from her.
+
+There they stood--Yolara with but the filmiest net of gauze about her
+wonderful body; gleaming flesh shining through it; serpent woman---and
+wonderful, too, beyond the dreams even of Phidias--and hell-fire
+glowing from the purple eyes.
+
+And Lakla, like a girl of the Vikings, like one of those warrior maids
+who stood and fought for dun and babes at the side of those old heroes
+of Larry's own green isle; translucent ivory lambent through the rents
+of her torn draperies, and in the wide, golden eyes flaming wrath,
+indeed--not the diabolic flames of the priestess but the righteous
+wrath of some soul that looking out of paradise sees vile wrong in the
+doing.
+
+"Lakla," the O'Keefe's voice was subdued, hurt, "there _is_ no choice.
+I love you and only you--and have from the moment I saw you. It's not
+easy--this. God, Goodwin, I feel like an utter cad," he flashed at me.
+"There is no choice, Lakla," he ended, eyes steady upon hers.
+
+The priestess's face grew deadlier still.
+
+"What will you do with me?" she asked.
+
+"Keep you," I said, "as hostage."
+
+O'Keefe was silent; the Golden Girl shook her head.
+
+"Well would I like to," her face grew dreaming; "but the Silent Ones
+say--_no_; they bid me let you go, Yolara--"
+
+"The Silent Ones," the priestess laughed. "_You_, Lakla! You fear,
+perhaps, to let me tarry here too close!"
+
+Storm gathered again in the handmaiden's eyes; she forced it back.
+
+"No," she answered, "the Silent Ones so command--and for their own
+purposes. Yet do I think, Yolara, that you will have little time to
+feed your wickedness--tell that to Lugur--and to your Shining One!"
+she added slowly.
+
+Mockery and disbelief rode high in the priestess's pose. "Am I to
+return alone--like this?" she asked.
+
+"Nay, Yolara, nay; you shall be accompanied," said Lakla; "and by
+those who will guard--and _watch_--you well. They are here even now."
+
+The hangings parted, and into the chamber came Olaf and Rador.
+
+The priestess met the fierce hatred and contempt in the eyes of the
+Norseman--and for the first time lost her bravado.
+
+"Let not _him_ go with me," she gasped--her eyes searched the floor
+frantically.
+
+"He goes with you," said Lakla, and threw about Yolara a swathing that
+covered the exquisite, alluring body. "And you shall pass through the
+Portal, not skulk along the path of the worm!"
+
+She bent to Rador, whispered to him; he nodded; she had told him, I
+supposed, the secret of its opening.
+
+"Come," he said, and with the ice-eyed giant behind her, Yolara, head
+bent, passed out of those hangings through which, but a little before,
+unseen, triumph in her grasp, she had slipped.
+
+Then Lakla came to the unhappy O'Keefe, rested her hands on his
+shoulders, looked deep into his eyes.
+
+"_Did_ you woo her, even as she said?" she asked.
+
+The Irishman flushed miserably.
+
+"I did not," he said.  "I was pleasant to her, of course, because I
+thought it would bring me quicker to you, darlin'."
+
+She looked at him doubtfully; then--
+
+"I think you must have been _very_--pleasant!" was all she said--and
+leaning, kissed him forgivingly straight on the lips. An extremely
+direct maiden was Lakla, with a truly sovereign contempt for anything
+she might consider non-essentials; and at this moment I decided she
+was wiser even than I had thought her.
+
+He stumbled, feet vanishing; reached down and picked up something that
+in the grasping turned his hand to air.
+
+"One of the invisible cloaks," he said to me.  "There must be quite a
+lot of them about--I guess Yolara brought her full staff of murderers.
+They're a bit shopworn, probably--but we're considerably better off
+with 'em in our hands than in hers. And they may come in handy--who
+knows?"
+
+There was a choking rattle at my feet; half the head of a dwarf raised
+out of vacancy; beat twice upon the floor in death throes; fell back.
+Lakla shivered; gave a command. The frog-men moved about; peering here
+and there; lifting unseen folds revealing in stark rigidity torn form
+after form of the priestess's men.
+
+Lakla had been right--her _Akka_ were thorough fighters!
+
+She called, and to her came the frog-woman who was her attendant.  To
+her the handmaiden spoke, pointing to the batrachians who stood, paws
+and forearms melted beneath the robes they had gathered. She took them
+and passed out--more grotesque than ever, shattering into streaks of
+vacancies, reappearing with flickers of shining scale and yellow gems
+as the tattered pennants of invisibility fluttered about her.
+
+The frog-men reached down, swung each a dead dwarf in his arms, and
+filed, booming triumphantly away.
+
+And then I remembered the cone of the _Keth_ which had slipped from
+Yolara's hand; knew it had been that for which her wild eyes searched.
+But look as closely as we might, search in every nook and corner as we
+did, we could not find it. Had the dying hand of one of her men
+clutched it and had it been borne away with them? With the thought
+Larry and I raced after the scaled warriors, searched every body they
+carried. It was not there. Perhaps the priestess had found it,
+retrieved it swiftly without our seeing.
+
+Whatever was true--the cone was gone.  And what a weapon that one
+little holder of the shaking death would have been for us!
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+In the Lair of the Dweller
+
+It is with marked hesitation that I begin this chapter, because in it
+I must deal with an experience so contrary to every known law of
+physics as to seem impossible. Until this time, barring, of course,
+the mystery of the Dweller, I had encountered nothing that was not
+susceptible of naturalistic explanation; nothing, in a word, outside
+the domain of science itself; nothing that I would have felt hesitancy
+in reciting to my colleagues of the International Association of
+Science. Amazing, unfamiliar--_advanced_--as many of the phenomena were,
+still they lay well within the limits of what we have mapped as the
+possible; in regions, it is true, still virgin to the mind of man, but
+toward which that mind is steadily advancing.
+
+But this--well, I confess that I have a theory that is naturalistic;
+but so abstruse, so difficult to make clear within the short confines
+of the space I have to give it, so dependent upon conceptions that
+even the highest-trained scientific brains find difficult to grasp,
+that I despair.
+
+I can only say that the thing occurred; that it took place in
+precisely the manner I am about to narrate, and that I experienced it.
+
+Yet, in justice to myself, I must open up some paths of preliminary
+approach toward the heart of the perplexity. And the first path is the
+realization that our world _whatever_ it is, is certainly _not_ the
+world as we see it! Regarding this I shall refer to a discourse upon
+"Gravitation and the Principle of Relativity," by the distinguished
+English physicist, Dr. A. S. Eddington, which I had the pleasure of
+hearing him deliver before the Royal Institution.[1]
+
+I realize, of course, that it is not true logic to argue--"The world
+is not as we think it is--therefore everything we think impossible is
+possible in it." Even if it _be_ different, it is governed by _law_. The
+truly impossible is that which is outside law, and as nothing _can_ be
+outside law, the impossible _cannot_ exist.
+
+The crux of the matter then becomes our determination whether what we
+think is impossible may or may not be possible under laws still beyond
+our knowledge.
+
+I hope that you will pardon me for this somewhat academic digression,
+but I felt it was necessary, and it has, at least, put me more at
+ease. And now to resume.
+
+We had watched, Larry and I, the frog-men throw the bodies of Yolara's
+assassins into the crimson waters. As vultures swoop down upon the
+dying, there came sailing swiftly to where the dead men floated,
+dozens of the luminous globes. Their slender, varicoloured tentacles
+whipped out; the giant iridescent bubbles _climbed_ over the cadavers.
+And as they touched them there was the swift dissolution, the melting
+away into putrescence of flesh and bone that I had witnessed when the
+dart touched fruit that time I had saved Rador--and upon this the
+Medusae gorged; pulsing lambently; their wondrous colours shifting,
+changing, glowing stronger; elfin moons now indeed, but satellites
+whose glimmering beauty was fed by death; alembics of enchantment
+whose glorious hues were sucked from horror.
+
+Sick, I turned away--O'Keefe as pale as I; passed back into the
+corridor that had opened on the ledge from which we had watched; met
+Lakla hurrying toward us. Before she could speak there throbbed
+faintly about us a vast sighing. It grew into a murmur, a whispering,
+shook us--then passing like a presence, died away in far distance.
+
+"The Portal has opened," said the handmaiden.  A fainter sighing, like
+an echo of the other, mourned about us. "Yolara is gone," she said,
+"the Portal is closed. Now must we hasten--for the Three have
+commanded that you, Goodwin, and Larry and I tread that strange road
+of which I have spoken, and which Olaf may not take lest his heart
+break--and we must return ere he and Rador cross the bridge."
+
+Her hand sought Larry's.
+
+"Come!" said Lakla, and we walked on; down and down through hall after
+hall, flight upon flight of stairways. Deep, deep indeed, we must be
+beneath the domed castle--Lakla paused before a curved, smooth breast
+of the crimson stone rounding gently into the passage. She pressed its
+side; it revolved; we entered; it closed behind us.
+
+The room, the--hollow--in which we stood was faceted like a diamond;
+and like a cut brilliant its sides glistened--though dully. Its shape
+was a deep oval, and our path dropped down to a circular polished
+base, roughly two yards in diameter. Glancing behind me I saw that in
+the closing of the entrance there had been left no trace of it save
+the steps that led from where that entrance had been--and as I looked
+these steps _turned_, leaving us isolated upon the circle, only the
+faceted walls about us--and in each of the gleaming faces the three of
+us reflected--dimly. It was as though we were within a diamond egg
+whose graven angles had been turned _inward_.
+
+But the oval was not perfect; at my right a screen cut it--a screen
+that gleamed with fugitive, fleeting luminescences--stretching from
+the side of our standing place up to the tip of the chamber; slightly
+convex and crisscrossed by millions of fine lines like those upon a
+spectroscopic plate, but with this difference--that within each line I
+sensed the presence of multitudes of finer lines, dwindling into
+infinitude, ultramicroscopic, traced by some instrument compared to
+whose delicacy our finest tool would be as a crowbar to the needle of
+a micrometer.
+
+A foot or two from it stood something like the standee of a compass,
+bearing, like it a cradled dial under whose crystal ran concentric
+rings of prisoned, lambent vapours, faintly blue. From the edge of the
+dial jutted a little shelf of crystal, a keyboard, in which were cut
+eight small cups.
+
+Within these cups the handmaiden placed her tapering fingers.  She
+gazed down upon the disk; pressed a digit--and the screen behind us
+slipped noiselessly into another angle.
+
+"Put your arm around my waist, Larry, darlin', and stand close," she
+murmured. "You, Goodwin, place your arm over my shoulder."
+
+Wondering, I did as she bade; she pressed other fingers upon the
+shelf's indentations--three of the rings of vapour spun into intense
+light, raced around each other; from the screen behind us grew a
+radiance that held within itself all spectrums--not only those seen,
+but those _unseen_ by man's eyes. It waxed brilliant and ever more
+brilliant, all suffusing, passing through me as day streams through a
+window pane!
+
+The enclosing facets burst into a blaze of coruscations, and in each
+sparkling panel I saw our images, shaken and torn like pennants in a
+whirlwind. I turned to look--was stopped by the handmaiden's swift
+command: "Turn not--on your life!"
+
+The radiance behind me grew; was a rushing tempest of light in which I
+was but the shadow of a shadow. I heard, but not with my ears--nay with
+_mind_ itself--a vast roaring; an _ordered_ tumult of sound that came
+hurling from the outposts of space; approaching--rushing--hurricane
+out of the heart of the cosmos--closer, closer. It wrapped itself
+about us with unearthly mighty arms.
+
+And brilliant, ever more brilliant, streamed the radiance through us.
+
+The faceted walls dimmed; in front of me they melted, diaphanously,
+like a gelatinous wall in a blast of flame; through their vanishing,
+under the torrent of driving light, the unthinkable, impalpable
+tornado, I began to move, slowly--then ever more swiftly!
+
+Still the roaring grew; the radiance streamed--ever faster we went.
+Cutting down through the length, the _extension_ of me, dropped a wall
+of rock, foreshortened, clenched close; I caught a glimpse of the
+elfin gardens; they whirled, contracted, into a thin--slice--of colour
+that was a part of me; another wall of rock shrinking into a thin
+wedge through which I flew, and that at once took its place within me
+like a card slipped beside those others!
+
+Flashing around me, and from Lakla and O'Keefe, were nimbuses of
+flickering scarlet flames. And always the steady hurling
+forward--appallingly mechanical.
+
+Another barrier of rock--a gleam of white waters incorporating
+themselves into my--_drawing out_--even as were the flowered moss lands,
+the slicing, rocky walls--still another rampart of cliff, dwindling
+instantly into the vertical plane of those others. Our flight checked;
+we seemed to hover within, then to sway onward--slowly, cautiously.
+
+A mist danced ahead of me--a mist that grew steadily thinner.  We
+stopped, wavered--the mist cleared.
+
+I looked out into translucent, green distances; shot with swift
+prismatic gleamings; waves and pulsings of luminosity like midday sun
+glow through green, tropic waters: dancing, scintillating veils of
+sparkling atoms that flew, hither and yon, through depths of nebulous
+splendour!
+
+And Lakla and Larry and I were, I saw, like shadow shapes upon a
+smooth breast of stone twenty feet or more above the surface of this
+place--a surface spangled with tiny white blossoms gleaming wanly
+through creeping veils of phosphorescence like smoke of moon fire. We
+were shadows--and yet we had substance; we were incorporated with, a
+part of, the rock--and yet we were living flesh and blood; we
+stretched--nor will I qualify this--we _stretched_ through mile upon
+mile of space that weirdly enough gave at one and the same time an
+absolute certainty of immense horizontal lengths and a vertical
+concentration that contained nothing of length, nothing of space
+whatever; we stood _there_ upon the face of the stone--and still we
+were _here_ within the faceted oval before the screen of radiance!
+
+"Steady!" It was Lakla's voice--and not beside me _there_, but at my ear
+close before the screen. "Steady, Goodwin! And--see!"
+
+The sparkling haze cleared.  Enormous reaches stretched before me.
+Shimmering up through them, and as though growing in some medium
+thicker than air, was mass upon mass of verdure--fruiting trees and
+trees laden with pale blossoms, arbours and bowers of pallid blooms,
+like that sea fruit of oblivion--grapes of Lethe--that cling to the
+tide-swept walls of the caverns of the Hebrides.
+
+Through them, beyond them, around and about them, drifted and eddied a
+horde--great as that with which Tamerlane swept down upon Rome, vast
+as the myriads which Genghis Khan rolled upon the califs--men and
+women and children--clothed in tatters, half nude and wholly naked;
+slant-eyed Chinese, sloe-eyed Malays, islanders black and brown and
+yellow, fierce-faced warriors of the Solomons with grizzled locks
+fantastically bedizened; Papuans, feline Javans, Dyaks of hill and
+shore; hook-nosed Phoenicians, Romans, straight-browed Greeks, and
+Vikings centuries _beyond_ their lives: scores of the black-haired
+Murians; white faces of our own Westerners--men and women and
+children--drifting, eddying--each stamped with that mingled horror and
+rapture, eyes filled with ecstasy and terror entwined, marked by God
+and devil in embrace--the seal of the Shining One--the dead-alive; the
+lost ones!
+
+The loot of the Dweller!
+
+Soul-sick, I gazed.  They lifted to us visages of dread; they swept
+down toward us, glaring upward--a bank against which other and still
+other waves of faces rolled, were checked, paused; until as far as I
+could see, like billows piled upon an ever-growing barrier, they
+stretched beneath us--staring--staring!
+
+Now there was a movement--far, far away; a concentrating of the
+lambency; the dead-alive swayed, oscillated, separated--forming a long
+lane against whose outskirts they crowded with avid, hungry
+insistence.
+
+First only a luminous cloud, then a whirling pillar of splendours
+through the lane came--the Shining One. As it passed, the dead-alive
+swirled in its wake like leaves behind a whirlwind, eddying, twisting;
+and as the Dweller raced by them, brushing them with its spirallings
+and tentacles, they shone forth with unearthly, awesome
+gleamings--like vessels of alabaster in which wicks flare suddenly.
+And when it had passed they closed behind it, staring up at us once
+more.
+
+The Dweller paused beneath us.
+
+Out of the drifting ruck swam the body of Throckmartin! Throckmartin,
+my friend, to find whom I had gone to the pallid moon door; my friend
+whose call I had so laggardly followed. On his face was the Dweller's
+dreadful stamp; the lips were bloodless; the eyes were wide, lucent,
+something like pale, phosphorescence gleaming within them--and
+soulless.
+
+He stared straight up at me, unwinking, unrecognizing. Pressing
+against his side was a woman, young and gentle, and lovely--lovely
+even through the mask that lay upon her face. And her wide eyes, like
+Throckmartin's, glowed with the lurking, unholy fires. She pressed
+against him closely; though the hordes kept up the faint churning,
+these two kept ever together, as though bound by unseen fetters.
+
+And I knew the girl for Edith, his wife, who in vain effort to save
+him had cast herself into the Dweller's embrace!
+
+"Throckmartin!" I cried.  "Throckmartin!  I'm here!"
+
+Did he hear?  I know now, of course, he could not.
+
+But then I waited--hope striving to break through the nightmare hands
+that gripped my heart.
+
+Their wide eyes never left me.  There was another movement about them,
+others pushed past them; they drifted back, swaying, eddying--and
+still staring were lost in the awful throng.
+
+Vainly I strained my gaze to find them again, to force some sign of
+recognition, some awakening of the clean life we know. But they were
+gone. Try as I would I could not see them--nor Stanton and the
+northern woman named Thora who had been the first of that tragic party
+to be taken by the Dweller.
+
+"Throckmartin!" I cried again, despairingly.  My tears blinded me.
+
+I felt Lakla's light touch.
+
+"Steady," she commanded, pitifully.  "Steady, Goodwin. You cannot help
+them--now! Steady and--watch!"
+
+Below us the Shining One had paused--spiralling, swirling, vibrant
+with all its transcendent, devilish beauty; had paused and was
+contemplating us. Now I could see clearly that nucleus, that core shot
+through with flashing veins of radiance, that ever-shifting shape of
+glory through the shroudings of shimmering, misty plumes, throbbing
+lacy opalescences, vaporous spirallings of prismatic phantom fires.
+Steady over it hung the seven little moons of amethyst, of saffron, of
+emerald and azure and silver, of rose of life and moon white. They
+poised themselves like a diadem--calm, serene, immobile--and down
+from them into the Dweller, piercing plumes and swirls and spirals,
+ran countless tiny strands, radiations, finer than the finest spun
+thread of spider's web, gleaming filaments through which seemed to
+run--_power_--from the seven globes; like--yes, that was it--miniatures
+of the seven torrents of moon flame that poured through the
+septichromatic, high crystals in the Moon Pool's chamber roof.
+
+Swam out of the coruscating haze the--face!
+
+Both of man and of woman it was--like some ancient, androgynous deity
+of Etruscan fanes long dust, and yet neither woman nor man; human and
+unhuman, seraphic and sinister, benign and malefic--and still no more
+of these four than is flame, which is beautiful whether it warms or
+devours, or wind whether it feathers the trees or shatters them, or
+the wave which is wondrous whether it caresses or kills.
+
+Subtly, undefinably it was of our world and of one not ours.  Its
+lineaments flowed from another sphere, took fleeting familiar
+form--and as swiftly withdrew whence they had come; something
+amorphous, unearthly--as of unknown unheeding, unseen gods rushing
+through the depths of star-hung space; and still of our own earth,
+with the very soul of earth peering out from it, caught within it--and
+in some--unholy--way debased.
+
+It had eyes--eyes that were now only shadows darkening within its
+luminosity like veils falling, and falling, _opening_ windows into the
+unknowable; deepening into softly glowing blue pools, blue as the Moon
+Pool itself; then flashing out, and this only when the--face--bore its
+most human resemblance, into twin stars large almost as the crown of
+little moons; and with that same baffling suggestion of peep-holes
+into a world untrodden, alien, perilous to man!
+
+"Steady!" came Lakla's voice, her body leaned against mine.
+
+I gripped myself, my brain steadied, I looked again.  And I saw that
+of body, at least body as we know it, the Shining One had
+none--nothing but the throbbing, pulsing core streaked with lightning
+veins of rainbows; and around this, never still, sheathing it, the
+swirling, glorious veilings of its hell and heaven born radiance.
+
+So the Dweller stood--and gazed.
+
+Then up toward us swept a reaching, questing spiral!
+
+Under my hand Lakla's shoulder quivered; dead-alive and their master
+vanished--I danced, flickered, _within_ the rock; felt a swift sense of
+shrinking, of withdrawal; slice upon slice the carded walls of stone,
+of silvery waters, of elfin gardens slipped from me as cards are
+withdrawn from a pack, one by one--slipped, wheeled, flattened, and
+lengthened out as I passed through them and they passed from me.
+
+Gasping, shaken, weak, I stood within the faceted oval chamber; arm
+still about the handmaiden's white shoulder; Larry's hand still
+clutching her girdle.
+
+The roaring, impalpable gale from the cosmos was retreating to the
+outposts of space--was still; the intense, streaming, flooding
+radiance lessened--died.
+
+"Now have you beheld," said Lakla, "and well you trod the road.  And
+now shall you hear, even as the Silent Ones have commanded, what the
+Shining One is--and how it came to be."
+
+The steps flashed back; the doorway into the chamber opened.
+
+Larry as silent as I--we followed her through it.
+
+
+[1] Reprinted in full in _Nature_, in which those sufficiently interested
+may peruse it.--W. T. G.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+The Shaping of the Shining One
+
+We reached what I knew to be Lakla's own boudoir, if I may so call it.
+Smaller than any of the other chambers of the domed castle in which we
+had been, its intimacy was revealed not only by its faint fragrance
+but by its high mirrors of polished silver and various oddly wrought
+articles of the feminine toilet that lay here and there; things I
+afterward knew to be the work of the artisans of the _Akka_--and no
+mean metal workers were they. One of the window slits dropped almost
+to the floor, and at its base was a wide, comfortably cushioned seat
+commanding a view of the bridge and of the cavern ledge. To this the
+handmaiden beckoned us; sank upon it, drew Larry down beside her and
+motioned me to sit close to him.
+
+"Now this," she said, "is what the Silent Ones have commanded me to
+tell you two: To you Larry, that knowing you may weigh all things in
+your mind and answer as your spirit bids you a question that the Three
+will ask--and what that is I know not," she murmured, "and I, they
+say, must answer, too--and it--frightens me!"
+
+The great golden eyes widened; darkened with dread; she sighed, shook
+her head impatiently.
+
+"Not like us, and never like us," she spoke low, wonderingly, "the
+Silent Ones say were they. Nor were those from which they sprang like
+those from which we have come. Ancient, ancient beyond thought are the
+_Taithu_, the race of the Silent Ones. Far, far below this place where
+now we sit, close to earth heart itself were they born; and there they
+dwelt for time upon time, _laya_ upon _laya_ upon _laya_--with others,
+not like them, some of which have vanished time upon time agone,
+others that still dwell--below--in their--cradle.
+
+"It is hard"--she hesitated--"hard to tell this--that slips through my
+mind--because I know so little that even as the Three told it to me it
+passed from me for lack of place to stand upon," she went on,
+quaintly. "Something there was of time when earth and sun were but
+cold mists in the--the heavens--something of these mists drawing
+together, whirling, whirling, faster and faster--drawing as they
+whirled more and more of the mists--growing larger, growing
+warm--forming at last into the globes they are, with others spinning
+around the sun--something of regions within this globe where vast fire
+was prisoned and bursting forth tore and rent the young orb--of one
+such bursting forth that sent what you call moon flying out to company
+us and left behind those spaces whence we now dwell--and of--of life
+particles that here and there below grew into the race of the Silent
+Ones, and those others--but not the _Akka_ which, like you, they say
+came from above--and all this I do not understand--do you, Goodwin?"
+she appealed to me.
+
+I nodded--for what she had related so fragmentarily was in reality an
+excellent approach to the Chamberlain-Moulton theory of a coalescing
+nebula contracting into the sun and its planets.
+
+Astonishing was the recognition of this theory.  Even more so was the
+reference to the life particles, the idea of Arrhenius, the great
+Swede, of life starting on earth through the dropping of minute, life
+_spores_, propelled through space by the driving power of light and,
+encountering favourable environment here, developing through the vast
+ages into man and every other living thing we know.[1]
+
+Nor was it incredible that in the ancient nebula that was the matrix
+of our solar system similar, or rather _dissimilar_, particles in all
+but the subtle essence we call life, might have become entangled and,
+resisting every cataclysm as they had resisted the absolute zero of
+outer space, found in these caverned spaces their proper environment
+to develop into the race of the Silent Ones and--only _they_ could
+tell what else!
+
+"They say," the handmaiden's voice was surer, "they say that in
+their--cradle--near earth's heart they grew; grew untroubled by the
+turmoil and disorder which flayed the surface of this globe. And they
+say it was a place of light and that strength came to them from earth
+heart--strength greater than you and those from which you sprang ever
+derived from sun.
+
+"At last, ancient, ancient beyond all thought, they say again, was
+this time--they began to know, to--to--realize--themselves. And
+wisdom came ever more swiftly. Up from their cradle, because they did
+not wish to dwell longer with those--others--they came and found this
+place.
+
+"When all the face of earth was covered with waters in which lived
+only tiny, hungry things that knew naught save hunger and its
+satisfaction, _they_ had attained wisdom that enabled them to make paths
+such as we have just travelled and to look out upon those waters! And
+_laya_ upon _laya_ thereafter, time upon time, they went upon the
+paths and watched the flood recede; saw great bare flats of steaming
+ooze appear on which crawled and splashed larger things which had
+grown from the tiny hungry ones; watched the flats rise higher and
+higher and green life begin to clothe them; saw mountains uplift and
+vanish.
+
+"Ever the green life waxed and the things which crept and crawled grew
+greater and took ever different forms; until at last came a time when
+the steaming mists lightened and the things which had begun as little
+more than tiny hungry mouths were huge and monstrous, so huge that the
+tallest of my _Akka_ would not have reached the knee of the smallest
+of them.
+
+"But in none of these, in _none_, was there--realization--of
+themselves, say the Three; naught but hunger driving, always driving
+them to still its crying.
+
+"So for time upon time the race of the Silent Ones took the paths no
+more, placing aside the half-thought that they had of making their way
+to earth face even as they had made their way from beside earth heart.
+They turned wholly to the seeking of wisdom--and after other time on
+time they attained that which killed even the faintest shadow of the
+half-thought. For they crept far within the mysteries of life and
+death, they mastered the illusion of space, they lifted the veils of
+creation and of its twin destruction, and they stripped the covering
+from the flaming jewel of truth--but when they had crept within those
+mysteries they bid me tell _you_, Goodwin, they found ever other
+mysteries veiling the way; and after they had uncovered the jewel of
+truth they found it to be a gem of infinite facets and therefore not
+wholly to be read before eternity's unthinkable end!
+
+"And for this they were glad--because now throughout eternity might
+they and theirs pursue knowledge over ways illimitable.
+
+"They conquered light--light that sprang at their bidding from the
+nothingness that gives birth to all things and in which lie all things
+that are, have been and shall be; light that streamed through their
+bodies cleansing them of all dross; light that was food and drink;
+light that carried their vision afar or bore to them images out of
+space opening many windows through which they gazed down upon life on
+thousands upon thousands of the rushing worlds; light that was the
+flame of life itself and in which they bathed, ever renewing their
+own. They set radiant lamps within the stones, and of black light they
+wove the sheltering shadows and the shadows that slay.
+
+"Arose from this people those Three--the Silent Ones. They led them
+all in wisdom so that in the Three grew--pride. And the Three built
+them this place in which we sit and set the Portal in its place and
+withdrew from their kind to go alone into the mysteries and to map
+alone the facets of Truth Jewel.
+
+"Then there came the ancestors of the--_Akka_; not as they are now,
+and glowing but faintly within them the spark of--self-realization.
+And the _Taithu_ seeing this spark did not slay them. But they took
+the ancient, long untrodden paths and looked forth once more upon
+earth face. Now on the land were vast forests and a chaos of green
+life. On the shores things scaled and fanged, fought and devoured each
+other, and in the green life moved bodies great and small that slew
+and ran from those that would slay.
+
+"They searched for the passage through which the _Akka_ had come and
+closed it. Then the Three took them and brought them here; and taught
+them and blew upon the spark until it burned ever stronger and in time
+they became much as they are now--my _Akka_.
+
+"The Three took counsel after this and said--'We have strengthened
+life in these until it has become articulate; shall we not _create_
+life?'" Again she hesitated, her eyes rapt, dreaming. "The Three are
+speaking," she murmured. "They have my tongue--"
+
+And certainly, with an ease and rapidity as though she were but a
+voice through which minds far more facile, more powerful poured their
+thoughts, she spoke.
+
+"Yea," the golden voice was vibrant.  "We said that what we would
+create should be of the spirit of life itself, speaking to us with the
+tongues of the far-flung stars, of the winds, of the waters, and of
+all upon and within these. Upon that universal matrix of matter, that
+mother of all things that you name the ether, we laboured. Think not
+that her wondrous fertility is limited by what ye see on earth or what
+has been on earth from its beginning. Infinite, infinite are the forms
+the mother bears and countless are the energies that are part of her.
+
+"By our wisdom we had fashioned many windows out of our abode and
+through them we stared into the faces of myriads of worlds, and upon
+them all were the children of ether even as the worlds themselves were
+her children.
+
+"Watching we learned, and learning we formed that ye term the Dweller,
+which those without name--the Shining One. Within the Universal Mother
+we shaped it, to be a voice to tell us her secrets, a lamp to go
+before us lighting the mysteries. Out of the ether we fashioned it,
+giving it the soul of light that still ye know not nor perhaps ever
+may know, and with the essence of life that ye saw blossoming deep in
+the abyss and that is the pulse of earth heart we filled it. And we
+wrought with pain and with love, with yearning and with scorching
+pride and from our travail came the Shining One--our child!
+
+"There is an energy beyond and above ether, a purposeful, sentient
+force that laps like an ocean the furthest-flung star, that transfuses
+all that ether bears, that sees and speaks and feels in us and in you,
+that is incorporate in beast and bird and reptile, in tree and grass
+and all living things, that sleeps in rock and stone, that finds
+sparkling tongue in jewel and star and in all dwellers within the
+firmament. And this ye call consciousness!
+
+"We crowned the Shining One with the seven orbs of light which are the
+channels between it and the sentience we sought to make articulate,
+the portals through which flow its currents and so flowing, become
+choate, vocal, self-realizant within our child.
+
+"But as we shaped, there passed some of the essence of our pride; in
+giving will we had given power, perforce, to exercise that will for
+good or for evil, to speak or to be silent, to tell us what we wished
+of that which poured into it through the seven orbs or to withhold
+that knowledge itself; and in forging it from the immortal energies we
+had endowed it with their indifference; open to all consciousness it
+held within it the pole of utter joy and the pole of utter woe with
+all the arc that lies between; all the ecstasies of the countless
+worlds and suns and all their sorrows; all that ye symbolize as gods
+and all ye symbolize as devils--not negativing each other, for there
+is no such thing as negation, but holding them together, balancing
+them, encompassing them, pole upon pole!"
+
+So _this_ was the explanation of the entwined emotions of joy and terror
+that had changed so appallingly Throckmartin's face and the faces of
+all the Dweller's slaves!
+
+The handmaiden's eyes grew bright, alert, again; the brooding passed
+from her face; the golden voice that had been so deep found its own
+familiar pitch.
+
+"I listened while the Three spoke to you," she said.  "Now the shaping
+of the Shining One had been a long, long travail and time had flown
+over the outer world _laya_ upon _laya_. For a space the Shining One
+was content to dwell here; to be fed with the foods of light: to open
+the eyes of the Three to mystery upon mystery and to read for them
+facet after facet of the gem of truth. Yet as the tides of
+consciousness flowed through it they left behind shadowings and echoes
+of their burdens; and the Shining One grew stronger, always stronger
+of _itself within itself_. Its will strengthened and now not always was
+it the will of the Three; and the pride that was woven in the making
+of it waxed, while the love for them that its creators had set within
+it waned.
+
+"Not ignorant were the _Taithu_ of the work of the Three. First there
+were a few, then more and more who coveted the Shining One and who
+would have had the Three share with them the knowledge it drew in for
+them. But the Silent Ones in their pride, would not.
+
+"There came a time when its will was now _all_ its own, and it rebelled,
+turning its gaze to the wider spaces beyond the Portal, offering
+itself to the many there who would serve it; tiring of the Three,
+their control and their abode.
+
+"Now the Shining One has its limitations, even as we.  Over water it
+can pass, through air and through fire; but pass it cannot, through
+rock or metal. So it sent a message--how I know not--to the _Taithu_
+who desired it, whispering to them the secret of the Portal. And when
+the time was ripe they opened the Portal and the Shining One passed
+through it to them; nor would it return to the Three though they
+commanded, and when they would have forced it they found that it had
+hived and hidden a knowledge that they could not overcome.
+
+"Yet by their arts the Three could have shattered the seven shining
+orbs; but they would not because--they loved, it!
+
+"Those to whom it had gone built for it that place I have shown you,
+and they bowed to it and drew wisdom from it. And ever they turned
+more and more from the ways in which the _Taithu_ had walked--for it
+seemed that which came to the Shining One through the seven orbs had
+less and less of good and more and more of the power you call evil.
+Knowledge it gave and understanding, yes; but not that which, clear
+and serene, lights the paths of right wisdom; rather were they flares
+pointing the dark roads that lead to--to the ultimate evil!
+
+"Not all of the race of the Three followed the counsel of the Shining
+One. There were many, many, who would have none of it nor of its
+power. So were the _Taithu_ split; and to this place where there had
+been none, came hatred, fear and suspicion. Those who pursued the
+ancient ways went to the Three and pleaded with them to destroy their
+work--and they would not, for still they loved it.
+
+"Stronger grew the Dweller and less and less did it lay before its
+worshippers--for now so they had become--the fruits of its knowledge;
+and it grew--restless--turning its gaze upon earth face even as it had
+turned it from the Three. It whispered to the _Taithu_ to take again
+the paths and look out upon the world. Lo! above them was a great
+fertile land on which dwelt an unfamiliar race, skilled in arts,
+seeking and finding wisdom--mankind! Mighty builders were they; vast
+were their cities and huge their temples of stone.
+
+"They called their lands Muria and they worshipped a god Thanaroa whom
+they imagined to be the maker of all things, dwelling far away. They
+worshipped as closer gods, not indifferent but to be prayed to and to
+be propitiated, the moon and the sun. Two kings they had, each with
+his council and his court. One was high priest to the moon and the
+other high priest to the sun.
+
+"The mass of this people were black-haired, but the sun king and his
+nobles were ruddy with hair like mine; and the moon king and his
+followers were like Yolara--or Lugur. And this, the Three say,
+Goodwin, came about because for time upon time the law had been that
+whenever a ruddy-haired or ashen-tressed child was born of the
+black-haired it became dedicated at once to either sun god or moon
+god, later wedding and bearing children only to their own kind. Until
+at last from the black-haired came no more of the light-locked ones,
+but the ruddy ones, being stronger, still arose from them."
+
+
+[1] Professor Svante August Arrhenius, in his _Worlds in the Making_--the
+conception that life is universally diffused, constantly emitted
+from all habitable worlds in the form of spores which traverse space
+for years and ages, the majority being ultimately destroyed by the
+heat of some blazing star, but some few finding a resting-place on
+globes which have reached the habitable stage.--W. T. G.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+The Building of the Moon Pool
+
+She paused, running her long fingers through her own bronze-flecked
+ringlets. Selective breeding this, with a vengeance, I thought; an
+ancient experiment in heredity which of course would in time result in
+the stamping out of the tendency to depart from type that lies in all
+organisms; resulting, obviously, at last, in three fixed forms of
+black-haired, ruddy-haired, and silver-haired--but this, with a shock
+of realization it came to me, was also an accurate description of the
+dark-polled _ladala_, their fair-haired rulers and of the golden-brown
+tressed Lakla!
+
+How--questions began to stream through my mind; silenced by the
+handmaiden's voice.
+
+"Above, far, far above the abode of the Shining One," she said, "was
+their greatest temple, holding the shrines both of sun and moon. All
+about it were other temples hidden behind mighty walls, each enclosing
+its own space and squared and ruled and standing within a shallow
+lake; the sacred city, the city of the gods of this land--"
+
+"It is the Nan-Matal that she is describing," I thought.
+
+"Out upon all this looked the _Taithu_ who were now but the servants
+of the Shining One as it had been the messenger of the Three," she
+went on. "When they returned the Shining One spoke to them, promising
+them dominion over all that they had seen, yea, _under it_ dominion of
+all earth itself and later perhaps of other earths!
+
+"In the Shining One had grown craft, cunning; knowledge to gain that
+which it desired. Therefore it told its _Taithu_--and mayhap told
+them truth--that not yet was it time for _them_ to go forth; that slowly
+must they pass into that outer world, for they had sprung from heart
+of earth and even it lacked power to swirl unaided into and through
+the above. Then it counselled them, instructing them what to do. They
+hollowed the chamber wherein first I saw you, cutting their way to it
+that path down which from it you sped.
+
+"It revealed to them that the force that is within moon flame is kin
+to the force that is within it, for the chamber of its birth was the
+chamber too of moon birth and into it went the subtle essence and
+powers that flow in that earth child: and it taught them how to make
+that which fills what you call the Moon Pool whose opening is close
+behind its Veil hanging upon the gleaming cliffs.
+
+"When this was done it taught them how to make and how to place the
+seven lights through which moon flame streams into Moon Pool--the
+seven lights that are kin to its own seven orbs even as its fires are
+kin to moon fires--and which would open for it a path that it could
+tread. And all this the _Taithu_ did, working so secretly that neither
+those of their race whose faces were set against the Shining One nor
+the busy men above know aught of it.
+
+"When it was done they moved up the path, clustering within the Moon
+Pool Chamber. Moon flame streamed through the seven globes, poured
+down upon the pool; they saw mists arise, embrace, and become one with
+the moon flame--and then up through Moon Pool, shaping itself within
+the mists of light, whirling, radiant--the Shining One!
+
+"Almost free, almost loosed upon the world it coveted!
+
+"Again it counselled them, and they pierced the passage whose portal
+you found first; set the fires within its stones, and revealing
+themselves to the moon king and his priests spake to them even as the
+Shining One had instructed.
+
+"Now was the moon king filled with fear when he looked upon the
+_Taithu_, shrouded with protecting mists of light in Moon Pool
+Chamber, and heard their words. Yet, being crafty, he thought of the
+power that would be his if he heeded and how quickly the strength of
+the sun king would dwindle. So he and his made a pact with the Shining
+One's messengers.
+
+"When next the moon was round and poured its flames down upon Moon
+Pool, the _Taithu_ gathered there again, watched the child of the
+Three take shape within the pillars, speed away--and out! They heard a
+mighty shouting, a tumult of terror, of awe and of worship; a silence;
+a vast sighing--and they waited, wrapped in their mists of light, for
+they feared to follow nor were they near the paths that would have
+enabled them to look without.
+
+"Another tumult--and back came the Shining One, murmuring with joy,
+pulsing, triumphant, and clasped within its vapours a man and woman,
+ruddy-haired, golden-eyed, in whose faces rapture and horror lay side
+by side--gloriously, hideously. And still holding them it danced above
+the Moon Pool and--sank!
+
+"Now must I be brief. _Lat_ after _lat_ the Shining One went forth,
+returning with its sacrifices. And stronger after each it grew--and
+gayer and more cruel. Ever when it passed with its prey toward the
+pool, the _Taithu_ who watched felt a swift, strong intoxication, a
+drunkenness of spirit, streaming from it to them. And the Shining One
+forgot what it had promised them of dominion--and in this new evil
+delight they too forgot.
+
+"The outer land was torn with hatred and open strife. The moon king
+and his kind, through the guidance of the evil _Taithu_ and the favour
+of the Shining One, had become powerful and the sun king and his were
+darkened. And the moon priests preached that the child of the Three
+was the moon god itself come to dwell with them.
+
+"Now vast tides arose and when they withdrew they took with them great
+portions of this country. And the land itself began to sink. Then said
+the moon king that the moon had called to ocean to destroy because
+wroth that another than he was worshipped. The people believed and
+there was slaughter. When it was over there was no more a sun king nor
+any of the ruddy-haired folk; slain were they, slain down to the babe
+at breast.
+
+"But still the tides swept higher; still dwindled the land!
+
+"As it shrank multitudes of the fleeing people were led through Moon
+Pool Chamber and carried here. They were what now are called the
+_ladala_, and they were given place and set to work; and they thrived.
+Came many of the fair-haired; and they were given dwellings. They sat
+beside the evil _Taithu_; they became drunk even as they with the
+dancing of the Shining One; they learned--not all; only a little part
+but little enough--of their arts. And ever the Shining One danced more
+gaily out there within the black amphitheatre; grew ever stronger--and
+ever the hordes of its slaves behind the Veil increased.
+
+"Nor did the _Taithu_ who clung to the old ways check this--they
+could not. By the sinking of the land above, their own spaces were
+imperilled. All of their strength and all of their wisdom it took to
+keep this land from perishing; nor had they help from those others mad
+for the poison of the Shining One; and they had no time to deal with
+them nor the earth race with whom they had foregathered.
+
+"At last came a slow, vast flood.  It rolled even to the bases of the
+walled islets of the city of the gods--and within these now were all
+that were left of my people on earth face.
+
+"I am of those people," she paused, looking at me proudly, "one of the
+daughters of the sun king whose seed is still alive in the _ladala_!"
+
+As Larry opened his mouth to speak she waved a silencing hand.
+
+"This tide did not recede," she went on.  "And after a time the
+remnant, the moon king leading them, joined those who had already fled
+below. The rocks became still, the quakings ceased, and now those
+Ancient Ones who had been labouring could take breath. And anger grew
+within them as they looked upon the work of their evil kin. Again they
+sought the Three--and the Three now knew what they had done and their
+pride was humbled. They would not slay the Shining One themselves, for
+still they loved it; but they instructed these others how to undo
+their work; how also they might destroy the evil _Taithu_ were it
+necessary.
+
+"Armed with the wisdom of the Three they went forth--but now the
+Shining One was strong indeed. They could not slay it!
+
+"Nay, it knew and was prepared; they could not even pass beyond its
+Veil nor seal its abode. Ah, strong, strong, mighty of will, full of
+craft and cunning had the Shining One become. So they turned upon
+their kind who had gone astray and made them perish, to the last. The
+Shining One came not to the aid of its servants--though they called;
+for within its will was the thought that they were of no further use
+to it; that it would rest awhile and dance with them--who had so
+little of the power and wisdom of its _Taithu_ and therefore no reins
+upon it. And while this was happening black-haired and fair-haired ran
+and hid and were but shaking vessels of terror.
+
+"The Ancient Ones took counsel.  This was their decision; that they
+would go from the gardens before the Silver Waters--leaving, since
+they could not kill it, the Shining One with its worshippers. They
+sealed the mouth of the passage that leads to the Moon Pool Chamber
+and they changed the face of the cliff so that none might tell where
+it had been. But the passage itself they left open--having
+foreknowledge I think, of a thing that was to come to pass in the far
+future--perhaps it was your journey here, my Larry and Goodwin--verily
+I think so. And they destroyed all the ways save that which
+we three trod to the Dweller's abode.
+
+"For the last time they went to the Three--to pass sentence upon them.
+This was the doom--that here they should remain, alone, among the
+_Akka_, served by them, until that time dawned when they would have
+will to destroy the evil they had created--and even now--loved; nor
+might they seek death, nor follow their judges until this had come to
+pass. This was the doom they put upon the Three for the wickedness
+that had sprung from their pride, and they strengthened it with their
+arts that it might not be broken.
+
+"Then they passed--to a far land they had chosen where the Shining One
+could not go, beyond the Black Precipices of Doul, a green land--"
+
+"Ireland!" interrupted Larry, with conviction, "I knew it."
+
+"Since then time upon time had passed," she went on, unheeding.  "The
+people called this place Muria after their sunken land and soon they
+forgot where had been the passage the _Taithu_ had sealed. The moon
+king became the Voice of the Dweller and always with the Voice is a
+woman of the moon king's kin who is its priestess.
+
+"And many have been the journeys upward of the Shining One, through
+the Moon Pool--returning with still others in its coils.
+
+"And now again has it grown restless, longing for the wider spaces.
+It has spoken to Yolara and to Lugur even as it did to the dead
+_Taithu_, promising them dominion. And it has grown stronger, drawing
+to itself power to go far on the moon stream where it will. Thus was
+it able to seize your friend, Goodwin, and Olaf's wife and babe--and
+many more. Yolara and Lugur plan to open way to earth face; to depart
+with their court and under the Shining One grasp the world!
+
+"And this is the tale the Silent Ones bade me tell you--and it is
+done."
+
+Breathlessly I had listened to the stupendous epic of a long-lost
+world. Now I found speech to voice the question ever with me, the
+thing that lay as close to my heart as did the welfare of Larry,
+indeed the whole object of my quest--the fate of Throckmartin and
+those who had passed with him into the Dweller's lair; yes, and of
+Olaf's wife, too.
+
+"Lakla," I said, "the friend who drew me here and those he loved who
+went before him--can we not save them?"
+
+"The Three say no, Goodwin." There was again in her eyes the pity with
+which she had looked upon Olaf. "The Shining One--_feeds_--upon the
+flame of life itself, setting in its place its own fires and its own
+will. Its slaves are only shells through which it gleams. Death, say
+the Three, is the best that can come to them; yet will that be a boon
+great indeed."
+
+"But they have souls, _mavourneen_," Larry said to her. "And they're
+alive still--in a way. Anyhow, their souls have not gone from them."
+
+I caught a hope from his words--sceptic though I am--holding that the
+existence of soul has never been proved by dependable laboratory
+methods--for they recalled to me that when I had seen Throckmartin,
+Edith had been close beside him.
+
+"It was days after his wife was taken, that the Dweller seized
+Throckmartin," I cried. "How, if their wills, their life, were indeed
+gone, how did they find each other mid all that horde? How did they
+come together in the Dweller's lair?"
+
+"I do not know," she answered, slowly.  "You say they loved--and it is
+true that love is stronger even than death!"
+
+"One thing I _don't_ understand"--this was Larry again--"is why a girl
+like you keeps coming out of the black-haired crowd; so frequently and
+one might say, so regularly, Lakla. Aren't there ever any red-headed
+boys--and if they are what becomes of them?"
+
+"That, Larry, I cannot answer," she said, very frankly. "There was a
+pact of some kind; how made or by whom I know not. But for long the
+Murians feared the return of the _Taithu_ and greatly they feared the
+Three. Even the Shining One feared those who had created it--for a
+time; and not even now is it eager to face them--_that_ I know. Nor are
+Yolara and Lugur so _sure_. It may be that the Three commanded it: but
+how or why I know not. I only know that it is true--for here am I and
+from where else would I have come?"
+
+"From Ireland," said Larry O'Keefe, promptly.  "And that's where
+you're going. For 'tis no place for a girl like you to have been
+brought up--Lakla; what with people like frogs, and a half-god three
+quarters devil, and red oceans, an' the only Irish things yourself and
+the Silent Ones up there, bless their hearts. It's no place for ye,
+and by the soul of St. Patrick, it's out of it soon ye'll be gettin'!"
+
+Larry!  Larry!  If it had but been true--and I could see Lakla and you
+beside me now!
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+Larry and the Frog-Men
+
+Long had been her tale in the telling, and too long, perhaps, have I
+been in the repeating--but not every day are the mists rolled away to
+reveal undreamed secrets of earth-youth. And I have set it down here,
+adding nothing, taking nothing from it; translating liberally, it is
+true, but constantly striving, while putting it into idea-forms and
+phraseology to be readily understood by my readers, to keep accurately
+to the spirit. And this, I must repeat, I have done throughout my
+narrative, wherever it has been necessary to record conversation with
+the Murians.
+
+Rising, I found I was painfully stiff--as muscle-bound as though I had
+actually trudged many miles. Larry, imitating me, gave an involuntary
+groan.
+
+"Faith, _mavourneen_," he said to Lakla, relapsing unconsciously into
+English, "your roads would never wear out shoe-leather, but they've
+got their kick, just the same!"
+
+She understood our plight, if not his words; gave a soft little cry of
+mingled pity and self-reproach; forced us back upon the cushions.
+
+"Oh, but I'm sorry!" mourned Lakla, leaning over us.  "I had
+forgotten--for those new to it the way is a weary one, indeed--"
+
+She ran to the doorway, whistled a clear high note down the passage.
+Through the hangings came two of the frog-men. She spoke to them
+rapidly. They crouched toward us, what certainly was meant for an
+amiable grin wrinkling the grotesque muzzles, baring the glistening
+rows of needle-teeth. And while I watched them with the fascination
+that they never lost for me, the monsters calmly swung one arm around
+our knees, lifted us up like babies--and as calmly started to walk
+away with us!
+
+"Put me down!  Put me down, I say!" The O'Keefe's voice was both
+outraged and angry; squinting around I saw him struggling violently to
+get to his feet. The _Akka_ only held him tighter, booming
+comfortingly, peering down into his flushed face inquiringly.
+
+"But, Larry--darlin'!"--Lakla's tones were--well, maternally
+surprised--"you're stiff and sore, and Kra can carry you quite
+easily."
+
+"I _won't_ be carried!" sputtered the O'Keefe.  "Damn it, Goodwin, there
+are such things as the unities even here, an' for a lieutenant of the
+Royal Air Force to be picked up an' carted around like a--like a
+bundle of rags--it's not discipline! Put me down, ye _omadhaun_, or
+I'll poke ye in the snout!" he shouted to his bearer--who only boomed
+gently, and stared at the handmaiden, plainly for further
+instructions.
+
+"But, Larry--dear!"--Lakla was plainly distressed--"it will _hurt_ you
+to walk; and I don't _want_ you to hurt, Larry--darlin'!"
+
+"Holy shade of St. Patrick!" moaned Larry; again he made a mighty
+effort to tear himself from the frog-man's grip; gave up with a groan.
+"Listen, _alanna_!" he said plaintively. "When we get to Ireland, you
+and I, we won't have anybody to pick us up and carry us about every
+time we get a bit tired. And it's getting me in bad habits you are!"
+
+"Oh, _yes_, we will, Larry!" cried the handmaiden, "because many, oh,
+many, of my _Akka_ will go with us!"
+
+"Will you tell this--BOOB!--to put me down!" gritted the now
+thoroughly aroused O'Keefe. I couldn't help laughing; he glared at me.
+
+"Bo-oo-ob?" exclaimed Lakla.
+
+"Yes, boo-oo-ob!" said O'Keefe, "an' I have no desire to explain the
+word in my present position, light of my soul!"
+
+The handmaiden sighed, plainly dejected.  But she spoke again to the
+_Akka_, who gently lowered the O'Keefe to the floor.
+
+"I don't understand," she said hopelessly, "if you want to walk, why,
+of course, you shall, Larry." She turned to me.
+
+"Do you?" she asked.
+
+"I do not," I said firmly.
+
+"Well, then," murmured Lakla, "go you, Larry and Goodwin, with Kra and
+Gulk, and let them minister to you. After, sleep a little--for not
+soon will Rador and Olaf return. And let me feel your lips before you
+go, Larry--darlin'!" She covered his eyes caressingly with her soft
+little palms; pushed him away.
+
+"Now go," said Lakla, "and rest!"
+
+Unashamed I lay back against the horny chest of Gulk; and with a smile
+noticed that Larry, even if he had rebelled at being carried, did not
+disdain the support of Kra's shining, black-scaled arm which, slipping
+around his waist, half-lifted him along.
+
+They parted a hanging and dropped us softly down beside a little pool,
+sparkling with the clear water that had heretofore been brought us in
+the wide basins. Then they began to undress us. And at this point the
+O'Keefe gave up.
+
+"Whatever they're going to do we can't stop 'em, Doc!" he moaned.
+"Anyway, I feel as though I've been pulled through a knot-hole, and I
+don't care--I don't care--as the song says."
+
+When we were stripped we were lowered gently into the water.  But not
+long did the _Akka_ let us splash about the shallow basin. They lifted
+us out, and from jars began deftly to anoint and rub us with aromatic
+unguents.
+
+I think that in all the medley of grotesque, of tragic, of baffling,
+strange and perilous experiences in that underground world none was
+more bizarre than this--valeting. I began to laugh, Larry joined me,
+and then Kra and Gulk joined in our merriment with deep batrachian
+cachinnations and gruntings. Then, having finished apparelling us and
+still chuckling, the two touched our arms and led us out, into a room
+whose circular sides were ringed with soft divans. Still smiling, I
+sank at once into sleep.
+
+How long I slumbered I do not know.  A low and thunderous booming
+coming through the deep window slit, reverberated through the room and
+awakened me. Larry yawned; arose briskly.
+
+"Sounds as though the bass drums of every jazz band in New York were
+serenading us!" he observed. Simultaneously we sprang to the window;
+peered through.
+
+We were a little above the level of the bridge, and its full length
+was plain before us. Thousands upon thousands of the _Akka_ were
+crowding upon it, and far away other hordes filled like a glittering
+thicket both sides of the cavern ledge's crescent strand. On black
+scale and orange scale the crimson light fell, picking them off in
+little flickering points.
+
+Upon the platform from which sprang the smaller span over the abyss
+were Lakla, Olaf, and Rador; the handmaiden clearly acting as
+interpreter between them and the giant she had called Nak, the Frog
+King.
+
+"Come on!" shouted Larry.
+
+Out of the open portal we ran; over the World Heart Bridge--and
+straight into the group.
+
+"Oh!" cried Lakla, "I didn't want you to wake up so soon,
+Larry--darlin'!"
+
+"See here, _mavourneen_!" Indignation thrilled in the Irishman's
+voice. "I'm not going to be done up with baby-ribbons and laid away in
+a cradle for safe-keeping while a fight is on; don't think it. Why
+didn't you call me?"
+
+"You needed rest!" There was indomitable determination in the
+handmaiden's tones, the eternal maternal shining defiant from her
+eyes. "You were tired and you hurt! You shouldn't have got up!"
+
+"Needed the rest!" groaned Larry.  "Look here, Lakla, what do you
+think I am?"
+
+"You're all I have," said that maiden firmly, "and I'm going to take
+care of you, Larry--darlin'! Don't you ever think anything else."
+
+"Well, pulse of my heart, considering my delicate health and general
+fragility, would it hurt me, do you think, to be told what's going
+on?" he asked.
+
+"Not at all, Larry!" answered the handmaiden serenely. "Yolara went
+through the Portal. She was very, _very_ angry--"
+
+"She was all the devil's woman that she is!" rumbled Olaf.
+
+"Rador met the messenger," went on the Golden Girl calmly.  "The
+_ladala_ are ready to rise when Lugur and Yolara lead their hosts
+against us. They will strike at those left behind. And in the meantime
+we shall have disposed my _Akka_ to meet Yolara's men. And on that
+disposal we must all take counsel, you, Larry, and Rador, Olaf and
+Goodwin and Nak, the ruler of the _Akka_."
+
+"Did the messenger give any idea when Yolara expects to make her
+little call?" asked Larry.
+
+"Yes," she answered.  "They prepare, and we may expect them in--" She
+gave the equivalent of about thirty-six hours of our time.
+
+"But, Lakla," I said, the doubt that I had long been holding finding
+voice, "should the Shining One come--with its slaves--are the Three
+strong enough to cope with it?"
+
+There was troubled doubt in her own eyes.
+
+"I do not know," she said at last, frankly.  "You have heard their
+story. What they promise is that they will help. I do not know--any
+more than do you, Goodwin!"
+
+I looked up at the dome beneath which I knew the dread Trinity stared
+forth; even down upon us. And despite the awe, the assurance, I had
+felt when I stood before them I, too, doubted.
+
+"Well," said Larry, "you and I, uncle," he turned to Rador, "and Olaf
+here had better decide just what part of the battle we'll lead--"
+
+"Lead!" the handmaiden was appalled. "_You_ lead, Larry? Why you are
+to stay with Goodwin and with me--up there, there we can watch."
+
+"Heart's beloved," O'Keefe was stern indeed.  "A thousand times I've
+looked Death straight in the face, peered into his eyes. Yes, and with
+ten thousand feet of space under me an' bursting shells tickling the
+ribs of the boat I was in. An' d'ye think I'll sit now on the
+grandstand an' watch while a game like this is being pulled? Ye don't
+know your future husband, soul of my delight!"
+
+And so we started toward the golden opening, squads of the frog-men
+following us soldierly and disappearing about the huge structure. Nor
+did we stop until we came to the handmaiden's boudoir. There we seated
+ourselves.
+
+"Now," said Larry, "two things I want to know.  First--how many can
+Yolara muster against us; second, how many of these _Akka_ have we to
+meet them?"
+
+Rador gave our equivalent for eighty thousand men as the force Yolara
+could muster without stripping her city. Against this force, it
+appeared, we could count, roughly, upon two hundred thousand of the
+_Akka_.
+
+"And they're some fighters!" exclaimed Larry.  "Hell, with odds like
+that what're you worrying about? It's over before it's begun."
+
+"But, _Larree_," objected Rador to this, "you forget that the nobles
+will have the _Keth_--and other things; also that the soldiers have
+fought against the _Akka_ before and will be shielded very well from
+their spears and clubs--and that their blades and javelins can bite
+through the scales of Nak's warriors. They have many things--"
+
+"Uncle," interjected O'Keefe, "one thing they have is your nerve.
+Why, we're more than two to one. And take it from me--"
+
+Without warning dropped the tragedy!
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+"Your Love; Your Lives; Your Souls!"
+
+Lakla had taken no part in the talk since we had reached her bower.
+She had seated herself close to the O'Keefe. Glancing at her I had
+seen steal over her face that brooding, listening look that was hers
+whenever in that mysterious communion with the Three. It vanished;
+swiftly she arose; interrupted the Irishman without ceremony.
+
+"Larry darlin'," said the handmaiden.  "The Silent Ones summon us!"
+
+"When do we go?" I asked; Larry's face grew bright with interest.
+
+"The time is now," she said--and hesitated.  "Larry dear, put your
+arms about me," she faltered, "for there is something cold that
+catches at my heart--and I am afraid."
+
+At his exclamation she gathered herself together; gave a shaky little
+laugh.
+
+"It's because I love you so that fear has power to plague me," she
+told him.
+
+Without another word he bent and kissed her; in silence we passed on,
+his arm still about her girdled waist, golden head and black close
+together. Soon we stood before the crimson slab that was the door to
+the sanctuary of the Silent Ones. She poised uncertainly before it;
+then with a defiant arching of the proud little head that sent all the
+bronze-flecked curls flying, she pressed. It slipped aside and once
+more the opalescence gushed out, flooding all about us.
+
+Dazzled as before, I followed through the lambent cascades pouring
+from the high, carved walls; paused, and my eyes clearing, looked
+up--straight into the faces of the Three. The angled orbs centred upon
+the handmaiden; softened as I had seen them do when first we had faced
+them. She smiled up; seemed to listen.
+
+"Come closer," she commanded, "close to the feet of the Silent Ones."
+
+We moved, pausing at the very base of the dais.  The sparkling mists
+thinned; the great heads bent slightly over us; through the veils I
+caught a glimpse of huge columnar necks, enormous shoulders covered
+with draperies as of pale-blue fire.
+
+I came back to attention with a start, for Lakla was answering a
+question only heard by her, and, answering it aloud, I perceived for
+our benefit; for whatever was the mode of communication between those
+whose handmaiden she was, and her, it was clearly independent of
+speech.
+
+"He has been told," she said, "even as you commanded."
+
+Did I see a shadow of pain flit across the flickering eyes? Wondering,
+I glanced at Lakla's face and there was a dawn of foreboding and
+bewilderment. For a little she held her listening attitude; then the
+gaze of the Three left her; focused upon the O'Keefe.
+
+"Thus speak the Silent Ones--through Lakla, their handmaiden," the
+golden voice was like low trumpet notes. "At the threshold of doom is
+that world of yours above. Yea, even the doom, Goodwin, that ye
+dreamed and the shadow of which, looking into your mind they see, say
+the Three. For not upon earth and never upon earth can man find means
+to destroy the Shining One."
+
+She listened again--and the foreboding deepened to an amazed fear.
+
+"They say, the Silent Ones," she went on, "that they know not whether
+even they have power to destroy. Energies we know nothing of entered
+into its shaping and are part of it; and still other energies it has
+gathered to itself"--she paused; a shadow of puzzlement crept into her
+voice "and other energies still, forces that ye _do_ know and symbolize
+by certain names--hatred and pride and lust and many others which are
+forces real as that hidden in the _Keth_; and among them--fear, which
+weakens all those others--" Again she paused.
+
+"But within it is nothing of that greatest of all, that which can make
+powerless all the evil others, that which we call--love," she ended
+softly.
+
+"I'd like to be the one to put a little more _fear_ in the beast,"
+whispered Larry to me, grimly in our own English. The three weird
+heads bent, ever so slightly--and I gasped, and Larry grew a little
+white as Lakla nodded--
+
+"They say, Larry," she said, "that there you touch one side of the
+heart of the matter--for it is through the way of fear the Silent Ones
+hope to strike at the very life of the Shining One!"
+
+The visage Larry turned to me was eloquent of wonder; and mine
+reflected it--for what _really_ were this Three to whom our minds were
+but open pages, so easily read? Not long could we conjecture; Lakla
+broke the little silence.
+
+"This, they say, is what is to happen.  First will come upon us Lugur
+and Yolara with all their host. Because of fear the Shining One will
+lurk behind within its lair; for despite all, the Dweller _does_ dread
+the Three, and only them. With this host the Voice and the priestess
+will strive to conquer. And if they do, then will they be strong
+enough, too, to destroy us all. For if they take the abode they banish
+from the Dweller all fear and sound the end of the Three.
+
+"Then will the Shining One be all free indeed; free to go out into the
+world, free to do there as it wills!
+
+"But if they do not conquer--and the Shining One comes not to their
+aid, abandoning them even as it abandoned its own _Taithu_--then will
+the Three be loosed from a part of their doom, and they will go
+through the Portal, seek the Shining One beyond the Veil, and,
+piercing it through fear's opening, destroy it."
+
+"That's quite clear," murmured the O'Keefe in my ear. "Weaken the
+morale--then smash. I've seen it happen a dozen times in Europe. While
+they've got their nerve there's not a thing you can do; get their
+nerve--and not a thing can they do. And yet in both cases they're the
+same men."
+
+Lakla had been listening again.  She turned, thrust out hands to
+Larry, a wild hope in her eyes--and yet a hope half shamed.
+
+"They say," she cried, "that they give us choice.  Remembering that
+your world doom hangs in the balance, we have choice--choice to stay
+and help fight Yolara's armies--and they say they look not lightly on
+that help. Or choice to go--and if so be you choose the latter, then
+will they show another way that leads into your world!"
+
+A flush had crept over the O'Keefe's face as she was speaking.  He
+took her hands and looked long into the golden eyes; glancing up I saw
+the Trinity were watching them intently--imperturbably.
+
+"What do you say, _mavourneen_?" asked Larry gently.  The handmaiden
+hung her head; trembled.
+
+"Your words shall be mine, O one I love," she whispered. "So going or
+staying, I am beside you."
+
+"And you, Goodwin?" he turned to me.  I shrugged my shoulders--after
+all I had no one to care.
+
+"It's up to you, Larry," I remarked, deliberately choosing his own
+phraseology.
+
+The O'Keefe straightened, squared his shoulders, gazed straight into
+the flame-flickering eyes.
+
+"We stick!" he said briefly.
+
+Shamefacedly I recall now that at the time I thought this
+colloquialism not only irreverent, but in somewhat bad taste. I am
+glad to say I was alone in that bit of weakness. The face that Lakla
+turned to Larry was radiant with love, and although the shamed hope
+had vanished from the sweet eyes, they were shining with adoring
+pride. And the marble visages of the Three softened, and the little
+flames died down.
+
+"Wait," said Lakla, "there is one other thing they say we must answer
+before they will hold us to that promise--wait--"
+
+She listened, and then her face grew white--white as those of the
+Three themselves; the glorious eyes widened, stark terror filling
+them; the whole lithe body of her shook like a reed in the wind.
+
+"Not that!" she cried out to the Three.  "Oh, not that!  Not
+Larry--let me go even as you will--but not him!" She threw up frantic
+hands to the woman-being of the Trinity. "Let _me_ bear it alone," she
+wailed. "Alone--mother! Mother!"
+
+The Three bent their heads toward her, their faces pitiful, and from
+the eyes of the woman One rolled--tears! Larry leaped to Lakla's side.
+
+_"Mavourneen!"_ he cried.  "Sweetheart, what have they said to you?"
+
+He glared up at the Silent Ones, his hand twitching toward the
+high-hung pistol holster.
+
+The handmaiden swung to him; threw white arms around his neck; held
+her head upon his heart until her sobbing ceased.
+
+"This they--say--the Silent Ones," she gasped and then all the courage
+of her came back. "O heart of mine!" she whispered to Larry, gazing
+deep into his eyes, his anxious face cupped between her white palms.
+"This they say--that should the Shining One come to succour Yolara and
+Lugur, should it conquer its fear--and--do this--then is there but one
+way left to destroy it--and to save your world."
+
+She swayed; he gripped her tightly.
+
+"But one way--you and I must go--together--into its embrace!  Yea, we
+must pass within it--loving each other, loving the world, realizing to
+the full all that we sacrifice and sacrificing all, our love, our
+lives, perhaps even that you call soul, O loved one; must give
+ourselves _all_ to the Shining One--gladly, freely, our love for each
+other flaming high within us--that this curse shall pass away! For if
+we do this, pledge the Three, then shall that power of love we carry
+into it weaken for a time all that evil which the Shining One has
+become--and in that time the Three can strike and slay!"
+
+The blood rushed from my heart; scientist that I am, essentially, my
+reason rejected any such solution as this of the activities of the
+Dweller. Was it not, the thought flashed, a propitiation by the Three
+out of their own weakness--and as it flashed I looked up to see their
+eyes, full of sorrow, on mine--and knew they read the thought. Then
+into the whirling vortex of my mind came steadying reflections--of
+history changed by the power of hate, of passion, of ambition, and
+most of all, by love. Was there not actual dynamic energy in these
+things--was there not a Son of Man who hung upon a cross on Calvary?
+
+"Dear love o' mine," said the O'Keefe quietly, "is it in your heart to
+say _yes_ to this?"
+
+"Larry," she spoke low, "what is in your heart is in mine; but I did
+so want to go with you, to live with you--to--to bear you children,
+Larry--and to see the sun."
+
+My eyes were wet; dimly through them I saw his gaze on me.
+
+"If the world _is_ at stake," he whispered, "why of course there's only
+one thing to do. God knows I never was afraid when I was fighting up
+there--and many a better man than me has gone West with shell and
+bullet for the same idea; but these things aren't shell and
+bullet--but I hadn't Lakla then--and it's the damned _doubt_ I have
+behind it all."
+
+He turned to the Three--and did I in their poise sense a rigidity, an
+anxiety that sat upon them as alienly as would divinity upon men?
+
+"Tell me this, Silent Ones," he cried.  "If we do this, Lakla and I,
+is it _sure_ you are that you can slay the--Thing, and save my world? Is
+it _sure_ you are?"
+
+For the first and the last time, I heard the voice of the Silent Ones.
+It was the man-being at the right who spoke.
+
+"We are sure," the tones rolled out like deepest organ notes, shaking,
+vibrating, assailing the ears as strangely as their appearance struck
+the eyes. Another moment the O'Keefe stared at them. Once more he
+squared his shoulders; lifted Lakla's chin and smiled into her eyes.
+
+"We stick!" he said again, nodding to the Three.
+
+Over the visages of the Trinity fell benignity that was--awesome; the
+tiny flames in the jet orbs vanished, leaving them wells in which
+brimmed serenity, hope--an extraordinary joyfulness. The woman sat
+upright, tender gaze fixed upon the man and girl. Her great shoulders
+raised as though she had lifted her arms and had drawn to her those
+others. The three faces pressed together for a fleeting moment; raised
+again. The woman bent forward--and as she did so, Lakla and Larry, as
+though drawn by some outer force, were swept upon the dais.
+
+Out from the sparkling mist stretched two hands, enormously long,
+six-fingered, thumbless, a faint tracery of golden scales upon their
+white backs, utterly unhuman and still in some strange way beautiful,
+radiating power and--all womanly!
+
+They stretched forth; they touched the bent heads of Lakla and the
+O'Keefe; caressed them, drew them together, softly stroked
+them--lovingly, with more than a touch of benediction. And withdrew!
+
+The sparkling mists rolled up once more, hiding the Silent Ones.  As
+silently as once before we had gone we passed out of the place of
+light, beyond the crimson stone, back to the handmaiden's chamber.
+
+Only once on our way did Larry speak.
+
+"Cheer up, darlin'," he said to her, "it's a long way yet before the
+finish. An' are you thinking that Lugur and Yolara are going to pull
+this thing off? Are you?"
+
+The handmaiden only looked at him, eyes love and sorrow filled.
+
+"They are!" said Larry.  "They are!  Like HELL they are!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+The Meeting of Titans
+
+It is not my intention, nor is it possible no matter how interesting
+to me, to set down _ad seriatim_ the happenings of the next twelve
+hours. But a few will not be denied recital.
+
+O'Keefe regained cheerfulness.
+
+"After all, Doc," he said to me, "it's a beautiful scrap we're going
+to have. At the worst the worst is no more than the leprechaun warned
+about. I would have told the Taitha De about the banshee raid he
+promised me; but I was a bit taken off my feet at the time. The old
+girl an' all the clan'll be along, said the little green man, an' I
+bet the Three will be damned glad of it, take it from me."
+
+Lakla, shining-eyed and half fearful too:
+
+"I have other tidings that I am afraid will please you little,
+Larry--darlin'. The Silent Ones say that you must not go into battle
+yourself. You must stay here with me, and with Goodwin--for
+if--if--the Shining One does come, then must we be here to meet it.
+And you might not be, you know, Larry, if you fight," she said,
+looking shyly up at him from under the long lashes.
+
+The O'Keefe's jaw dropped.
+
+"That's about the hardest yet," he answered slowly.  "Still--I see
+their point; the lamb corralled for the altar has no right to stray
+out among the lions," he added grimly. "Don't worry, sweet," he told
+her. "As long as I've sat in the game I'll stick to the rules."
+
+Olaf took fierce joy in the coming fray. "The Norns spin close to the
+end of this web," he rumbled. "_Ja!_ And the threads of Lugur and the
+Heks woman are between their fingers for the breaking! Thor will be
+with me, and I have fashioned me a hammer in glory of Thor." In his
+hand was an enormous mace of black metal, fully five feet long,
+crowned with a massive head.
+
+I pass to the twelve hours' closing.
+
+At the end of the _coria_ road where the giant fernland met the edge
+of the cavern's ruby floor, hundreds of the _Akka_ were stationed in
+ambush, armed with their spears tipped with the rotting death and
+their nail-studded, metal-headed clubs. These were to attack when the
+Murians debauched from the _corials_. We had little hope of doing more
+here than effect some attrition of Yolara's hosts, for at this place
+the captains of the Shining One could wield the _Keth_ and their other
+uncanny weapons freely. We had learned, too, that every forge and
+artisan had been put to work to make an armour Marakinoff had devised
+to withstand the natural battle equipment of the frog-people--and both
+Larry and I had a disquieting faith in the Russian's ingenuity.
+
+At any rate the numbers against us would be lessened.
+
+Next, under the direction of the frog-king, levies commanded by
+subsidiary chieftains had completed rows of rough walls along the
+probable route of the Murians through the cavern. These afforded the
+_Akka_ a fair protection behind which they could hurl their darts and
+spears--curiously enough they had never developed the bow as a weapon.
+
+At the opening of the cavern a strong barricade stretched almost to
+the two ends of the crescent strand; almost, I say, because there had
+not been time to build it entirely across the mouth.
+
+And from edge to edge of the titanic bridge, from where it sprang
+outward at the shore of the Crimson Sea to a hundred feet away from
+the golden door of the abode, barrier after barrier was piled.
+
+Behind the wall defending the mouth of the cavern, waited other
+thousands of the _Akka_. At each end of the unfinished barricade they
+were mustered thickly, and at right and left of the crescent where
+their forest began, more legions were assembled to make way up to the
+ledge as opportunity offered.
+
+Rank upon rank they manned the bridge barriers; they swarmed over the
+pinnacles and in the hollows of the island's ragged outer lip; the
+domed castle was a hive of them, if I may mix my metaphors--and the
+rocks and gardens that surrounded the abode glittered with them.
+
+"Now," said the handmaiden, "there's nothing else we can do--save
+wait."
+
+She led us out through her bower and up the little path that ran to
+the embrasure.
+
+Through the quiet came a sound, a sighing, a half-mournful whispering
+that beat about us and fled away.
+
+"They come!" cried Lakla, the light of battle in her eyes. Larry drew
+her to him, raised her in his arms, kissed her.
+
+"A woman!" acclaimed the O'Keefe.  "A real woman--and mine!"
+
+With the cry of the Portal there was movement among the _Akka_, the
+glint of moving spears, flash of metal-tipped clubs, rattle of horny
+spurs, rumblings of battle-cries.
+
+And we waited--waited it seemed interminably, gaze fastened upon the
+low wall across the cavern mouth. Suddenly I remembered the crystal
+through which I had peered when the hidden assassins had crept upon
+us. Mentioning it to Lakla, she gave a little cry of vexation, a
+command to her attendant; and not long that faithful if unusual lady
+had returned with a tray of the glasses. Raising mine, I saw the lines
+furthest away leap into sudden activity. Spurred warrior after warrior
+leaped upon the barricade and over it. Flashes of intense, green
+light, mingled with gleams like lightning strokes of concentrated moon
+rays, sprang from behind the wall--sprang and struck and burned upon
+the scales of the batrachians.
+
+"They come!" whispered Lakla.
+
+At the far ends of the crescent a terrific milling had begun. Here it
+was plain the _Akka_ were holding. Faintly, for the distance was
+great, I could see fresh force upon force rush up and take the places
+of those who had fallen.
+
+Over each of these ends, and along the whole line of the barricade a
+mist of dancing, diamonded atoms began to rise; sparking, coruscating
+points of diamond dust that darted and danced.
+
+What had once been Lakla's guardians--dancing now in the nothingness!
+
+"God, but it's hard to stay here like this!" groaned the O'Keefe;
+Olaf's teeth were bared, the lips drawn back in such a fighting grin
+as his ancestors berserk on their raven ships must have borne; Rador
+was livid with rage; the handmaiden's nostrils flaring wide, all her
+wrathful soul in her eyes.
+
+Suddenly, while we looked, the rocky wall which the _Akka_ had built
+at the cavern mouth--was not! It vanished, as though an unseen,
+unbelievably gigantic hand had with the lightning's speed swept it
+away. And with it vanished, too, long lines of the great amphibians
+close behind it.
+
+Then down upon the ledge, dropping into the Crimson Sea, sending up
+geysers of ruby spray, dashing on the bridge, crushing the frog-men,
+fell a shower of stone, mingled with distorted shapes and fragments
+whose scales still flashed meteoric as they hurled from above.
+
+"That which makes things fall upward," hissed Olaf. "That which I saw
+in the garden of Lugur!"
+
+The fiendish agency of destruction which Marakinoff had revealed to
+Larry; the force that cut off gravitation and sent all things within
+its range racing outward into space!
+
+And now over the debris upon the ledge, striking with long sword and
+daggers, here and there a captain flashing the green ray, moving on in
+ordered squares, came the soldiers of the Shining One. Nearer and
+nearer the verge of the ledge they pushed Nak's warriors. Leaping upon
+the dwarfs, smiting them with spear and club, with teeth and spur, the
+_Akka_ fought like devils. Quivering under the ray, they leaped and
+dragged down and slew.
+
+Now there was but one long line of the frog-men at the very edge of
+the cliff.
+
+And ever the clouds of dancing, diamonded atoms grew thicker over them
+all!
+
+That last thin line of the _Akka_ was going; yet they fought to the
+last, and none toppled over the lip without at least one of the
+armoured Murians in his arms.
+
+My gaze dropped to the foot of the cliffs.  Stretched along their
+length was a wide ribbon of beauty--a shimmering multitude of
+gleaming, pulsing, prismatic moons; glowing, glowing ever brighter,
+ever more wondrous--the gigantic Medusae globes feasting on dwarf and
+frog-man alike!
+
+Across the waters, faintly, came a triumphant shouting from Lugur's
+and Yolara's men!
+
+Was the ruddy light of the place lessening, growing paler, changing to
+a faint rose? There was an exclamation from Larry; something like hope
+relaxed the drawn muscles of his face. He pointed to the aureate dome
+wherein sat the Three--and then I saw!
+
+Out of it, through the long transverse slit through which the Silent
+Ones kept their watch on cavern, bridge, and abyss, a torrent of the
+opalescent light was pouring. It cascaded like a waterfall, and as it
+flowed it spread whirling out, in columns and eddies, clouds and wisps
+of misty, curdled coruscations. It hung like a veil over all the
+islands, filtering everywhere, driving back the crimson light as
+though possessed of impenetrable substance--and still it cast not the
+faintest shadowing upon our vision.
+
+"Good God!" breathed Larry.  "Look!"
+
+The radiance was marching--_marching_--down the colossal bridge. It
+moved swiftly, in some unthinkable way _intelligently_. It swathed the
+_Akka_, and closer, ever closer it swept toward the approach upon
+which Yolara's men had now gained foothold.
+
+From their ranks came flash after flash of the green ray--aimed at
+the abode! But as the light sped and struck the opalescence it was
+blotted out! The shimmering mists seemed to enfold, to dissipate it.
+
+Lakla drew a deep breath.
+
+"The Silent Ones forgive me for doubting them," she whispered; and
+again hope blossomed on her face even as it did on Larry's.
+
+The frog-men were gaining.  Clothed in the armour of that mist, they
+pressed back from the bridge-head the invaders. There was another
+prodigious movement at the ends of the crescent, and racing up,
+pressing against the dwarfs, came other legions of Nak's warriors. And
+re-enforcing those out on the prodigious arch, the frog-men stationed
+in the gardens below us poured back to the castle and out through the
+open Portal.
+
+"They're licked!" shouted Larry.  "They're--"
+
+So quickly I could not follow the movement his automatic leaped to his
+hand--spoke, once and again and again. Rador leaped to the head of the
+little path, sword in hand; Olaf, shouting and whirling his mace,
+followed. I strove to get my own gun quickly.
+
+For up that path were running twoscore of Lugur's men, while from
+below Lugur's own voice roared.
+
+"Quick!  Slay not the handmaiden or her lover!  Carry them down.
+Quick! But slay the others!"
+
+The handmaiden raced toward Larry, stopped, whistled shrilly--again
+and again. Larry's pistol was empty, but as the dwarfs rushed upon him
+I dropped two of them with mine. It jammed--I could not use it; I
+sprang to his side. Rador was down, struggling in a heap of Lugur's
+men. Olaf, a Viking of old, was whirling his great hammer, and
+striking, striking through armour, flesh, and bone.
+
+Larry was down, Lakla flew to him.  But the Norseman, now streaming
+blood from a dozen wounds, caught a glimpse of her coming, turned,
+thrust out a mighty hand, sent her reeling back, and then with his
+hammer cracked the skulls of those trying to drag the O'Keefe down the
+path.
+
+A cry from Lakla--the dwarfs had seized her, had lifted her despite
+her struggles, were carrying her away. One I dropped with the butt of
+my useless pistol, and then went down myself under the rush of
+another.
+
+Through the clamour I heard a booming of the _Akka_, closer, closer;
+then through it the bellow of Lugur. I made a mighty effort, swung a
+hand up, and sunk my fingers in the throat of the soldier striving to
+kill me. Writhing over him, my fingers touched a poniard; I thrust it
+deep, staggered to my feet.
+
+The O'Keefe, shielding Lakla, was battling with a long sword against a
+half dozen of the soldiers. I started toward him, was struck, and
+under the impact hurled to the ground. Dizzily I raised myself--and
+leaning upon my elbow, stared and moved no more. For the dwarfs lay
+dead, and Larry, holding Lakla tightly, was staring even as I, and
+ranged at the head of the path were the _Akka_, whose booming advance
+in obedience to the handmaiden's call I had heard.
+
+And at what we all stared was Olaf, crimson with his wounds, and
+Lugur, in blood-red armour, locked in each other's grip, struggling,
+smiting, tearing, kicking, and swaying about the little space before
+the embrasure. I crawled over toward the O'Keefe. He raised his
+pistol, dropped it.
+
+"Can't hit him without hitting Olaf," he whispered.  Lakla signalled
+the frog-men; they advanced toward the two--but Olaf saw them, broke
+the red dwarf's hold, sent Lugur reeling a dozen feet away.
+
+"No!" shouted the Norseman, the ice of his pale-blue eyes glinting
+like frozen flames, blood streaming down his face and dripping from
+his hands. "No! Lugur is mine! None but me slays him! Ho, you Lugur--"
+and cursed him and Yolara and the Dweller hideously--I cannot set
+those curses down here.
+
+They spurred Lugur.  Mad now as the Norseman, the red dwarf sprang.
+Olaf struck a blow that would have killed an ordinary man, but Lugur
+only grunted, swept in, and seized him about the waist; one mighty arm
+began to creep up toward Huldricksson's throat.
+
+"'Ware, Olaf!" cried O'Keefe; but Olaf did not answer. He waited until
+the red dwarf's hand was close to his shoulder; and then, with an
+incredibly rapid movement--once before had I seen something like it
+in a wrestling match between Papuans--he had twisted Lugur around;
+twisted him so that Olaf's right arm lay across the tremendous breast,
+the left behind the neck, and Olaf's left leg held the Voice's
+armoured thighs viselike against his right knee while over that knee
+lay the small of the red dwarf's back.
+
+For a second or two the Norseman looked down upon his enemy,
+motionless in that paralyzing grip. And then--slowly--he began to
+break him!
+
+Lakla gave a little cry; made a motion toward the two. But Larry drew
+her head down against his breast, hiding her eyes; then fastened his
+own upon the pair, white-faced, stern.
+
+Slowly, ever so slowly, proceeded Olaf.  Twice Lugur moaned.  At the
+end he screamed--horribly. There was a cracking sound, as of a stout
+stick snapped.
+
+Huldricksson stooped, silently.  He picked up the limp body of the
+Voice, not yet dead, for the eyes rolled, the lips strove to speak;
+lifted it, walked to the parapet, swung it twice over his head, and
+cast it down to the red waters!
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+
+The Coming of the Shining One
+
+The Norseman turned toward us.  There was now no madness in his eyes;
+only a great weariness. And there was peace on the once tortured face.
+
+"Helma," he whispered, "I go a little before!  Soon you will come to
+me--to me and the Yndling who will await you--Helma, _meine liebe!_"
+
+Blood gushed from his mouth; he swayed, fell.  And thus died Olaf
+Huldricksson.
+
+We looked down upon him; nor did Lakla, nor Larry, nor I try to hide
+our tears. And as we stood the _Akka_ brought to us that other mighty
+fighter, Rador; but in him there was life, and we attended to him
+there as best we could.
+
+Then Lakla spoke.
+
+"We will bear him into the castle where we may give him greater care,"
+she said. "For, lo! the hosts of Yolara have been beaten back; and on
+the bridge comes Nak with tidings."
+
+We looked over the parapet.  It was even as she had said. Neither on
+ledge nor bridge was there trace of living men of Muria--only heaps of
+slain that lay everywhere--and thick against the cavern mouth still
+danced the flashing atoms of those the green ray had destroyed.
+
+"Over!" exclaimed Larry incredulously.  "We live then--heart of
+mine!"
+
+"The Silent Ones recall their veils," she said, pointing to the dome.
+Back through the slitted opening the radiance was streaming;
+withdrawing from sea and island; marching back over the bridge with
+that same ordered, intelligent motion. Behind it the red light
+pressed, like skirmishers on the heels of a retreating army.
+
+"And yet--" faltered the handmaiden as we passed into her chamber, and
+doubtful were the eyes she turned upon the O'Keefe.
+
+"I don't believe," he said, "there's a kick left in them--"
+
+What was that sound beating into the chamber faintly, so faintly?  My
+heart gave a great throb and seemed to stop for an eternity. What was
+it--coming nearer, ever nearer? Now Lakla and O'Keefe heard it, life
+ebbing from lips and cheeks.
+
+Nearer, nearer--a music as of myriads of tiny crystal bells, tinkling,
+tinkling--a storm of pizzicati upon violins of glass! Nearer,
+nearer--not sweetly now, nor luring; no--raging, wrathful, sinister
+beyond words; sweeping on; nearer--
+
+The Dweller!  The Shining One!
+
+We leaped to the narrow window; peered out, aghast.  The bell notes
+swept through and about us, a hurricane. The crescent strand was once
+more a ferment. Back, back were the _Akka_ being swept, as though by
+brooms, tottering on the edge of the ledge, falling into the waters.
+Swiftly they were finished; and where they had fought was an eddying
+throng clothed in tatters or naked, swaying, drifting, arms
+tossing--like marionettes of Satan.
+
+The dead-alive!  The slaves of the Dweller!
+
+They swayed and tossed, and then, like water racing through an opened
+dam, they swept upon the bridge-head. On and on they pushed, like the
+bore of a mighty tide. The frog-men strove against them, clubbing,
+spearing, tearing them. But even those worst smitten seemed not to
+fall. On they pushed, driving forward, irresistible--a battering ram
+of flesh and bone. They clove the masses of the _Akka_, pressing them
+to the sides of the bridge and over. Through the open gates they
+forced them--for there was no room for the frog-men to stand against
+that implacable tide.
+
+Then those of the _Akka_ who were left turned their backs and ran.  We
+heard the clang of the golden wings of the portal, and none too soon
+to keep out the first of the Dweller's dreadful hordes.
+
+Now upon the cavern ledge and over the whole length of the bridge
+there were none but the dead-alive, men and women, black-polled
+_ladala_, sloe-eyed Malays, slant-eyed Chinese, men of every race that
+sailed the seas--milling, turning, swaying, like leaves caught in a
+sluggish current.
+
+The bell notes became sharper, more insistent.  At the cavern mouth a
+radiance began to grow--a gleaming from which the atoms of diamond
+dust seemed to try to flee. As the radiance grew and the crystal notes
+rang nearer, every head of that hideous multitude turned stiffly,
+slowly toward the right, looking toward the far bridge end; their eyes
+fixed and glaring; every face an inhuman mask of rapture and of
+horror!
+
+A movement shook them.  Those in the centre began to stream back,
+faster and ever faster, leaving motionless deep ranks on each side.
+Back they flowed until from golden doors to cavern mouth a wide lane
+stretched, walled on each side by the dead-alive.
+
+The far radiance became brighter; it gathered itself at the end of the
+dreadful lane; it was shot with sparklings and with pulsings of
+polychromatic light. The crystal storm was intolerable, piercing the
+ears with countless tiny lances; brighter still the radiance.
+
+From the cavern swirled the Shining One!
+
+The Dweller paused, seemed to scan the island of the Silent Ones half
+doubtfully; then slowly, stately, it drifted out upon the bridge.
+Closer it drew; behind it glided Yolara at the head of a company of
+her dwarfs, and at her side was the hag of the Council whose face was
+the withered, shattered echo of her own.
+
+Slower grew the Dweller's pace as it drew nearer.  Did I sense in it a
+doubt, an uncertainty? The crystal-tongued, unseen choristers that
+accompanied it subtly seemed to reflect the doubt; their notes were
+not sure, no longer insistent; rather was there in them an undertone
+of hesitancy, of warning! Yet on came the Shining One until it stood
+plain beneath us, searching with those eyes that thrust from and
+withdrew into unknown spheres, the golden gateway, the cliff face, the
+castle's rounded bulk--and more intently than any of these, the dome
+wherein sat the Three.
+
+Behind it each face of the dead-alive turned toward it, and those
+beside it throbbed and gleamed with its luminescence.
+
+Yolara crept close, just beyond the reach of its spirals. She
+murmured--and the Dweller bent toward her, its seven globes steady in
+their shining mists, as though listening. It drew erect once more,
+resumed its doubtful scrutiny. Yolara's face darkened; she turned
+abruptly, spoke to a captain of her guards. A dwarf raced back between
+the palisades of dead-alive.
+
+Now the priestess cried out, her voice ringing like a silver clarion.
+
+"Ye are done, ye Three!  The Shining One stands at your door,
+demanding entrance. Your beasts are slain and your power is gone. Who
+are ye, says the Shining One, to deny it entrance to the place of its
+birth?"
+
+"Ye do not answer," she cried again, "yet know we that ye hear!  The
+Shining One offers these terms: Send forth your handmaiden and that
+lying stranger she stole; send them forth to us--and perhaps ye may
+live. But if ye send them not forth, then shall ye too die--and soon!"
+
+We waited, silent, even as did Yolara--and again there was no answer
+from the Three.
+
+The priestess laughed; the blue eyes flashed.
+
+"It is ended!" she cried.  "If you will not open, needs must we open
+for you!"
+
+Over the bridge was marching a long double file of the dwarfs.  They
+bore a smoothed and handled tree-trunk whose head was knobbed with a
+huge ball of metal. Past the priestess, past the Shining One, they
+carried it; fifty of them to each side of the ram; and behind them
+stepped--Marakinoff!
+
+Larry awoke to life.
+
+"Now, thank God," he rasped, "I can get that devil, anyway!"
+
+He drew his pistol, took careful aim.  Even as he pressed the trigger
+there rang through the abode a tremendous clanging. The ram was
+battering at the gates. O'Keefe's bullet went wild. The Russian must
+have heard the shot; perhaps the missile was closer than we knew. He
+made a swift leap behind the guards; was lost to sight.
+
+Once more the thunderous clanging rang through the castle.
+
+Lakla drew herself erect; down upon her dropped the listening
+aloofness. Gravely she bowed her head.
+
+"It is time, O love of mine." She turned to O'Keefe.  "The Silent Ones
+say that the way of fear is closed, but the way of love is open. They
+call upon us to redeem our promise!"
+
+For a hundred heart-beats they clung to each other, breast to breast
+and lip to lip. Below, the clangour was increasing, the great trunk
+swinging harder and faster upon the metal gates. Now Lakla gently
+loosed the arms of the O'Keefe, and for another instant those two
+looked into each other's souls. The handmaiden smiled tremulously.
+
+"I would it might have been otherwise, Larry darlin'," she whispered.
+"But at least--we pass together, dearest of mine!"
+
+She leaped to the window.
+
+"Yolara!" the golden voice rang out sweetly.  The clanging ceased.
+"Draw back your men. We open the Portal and come forth to you and the
+Shining One--Larry and I."
+
+The priestess's silver chimes of laughter rang out, cruel, mocking.
+
+"Come, then, quickly," she jeered.  "For surely both the Shining One
+and I yearn for you!" Her malice-laden laughter chimed high once more.
+"Keep us not lonely long!" the priestess mocked.
+
+Larry drew a deep breath, stretched both hands out to me.
+
+"It's good-by, I guess, Doc." His voice was strained. "Good-by and
+good luck, old boy. If you get out, and you _will_, let the old
+_Dolphin_ know I'm gone. And carry on, pal--and always remember the
+O'Keefe loved you like a brother."
+
+I squeezed his hands desperately.  Then out of my balanceshaking woe a
+strange comfort was born.
+
+"Maybe it's not good-by, Larry!" I cried.  "The banshee has not
+cried!"
+
+A flash of hope passed over his face; the old reckless grin shone
+forth.
+
+"It's so!" he said.  "By the Lord, it's so!"
+
+Then Lakla bent toward me, and for the second time--kissed me.
+
+"Come!" she said to Larry.  Hand in hand they moved away, into the
+corridor that led to the door outside of which waited the Shining One
+and its priestess.
+
+And unseen by them, wrapped as they were within their love and
+sacrifice, I crept softly behind. For I had determined that if enter
+the Dweller's embrace they must, they should not go alone.
+
+They paused before the Golden Portals; the handmaiden pressed its
+opening lever; the massive leaves rolled back.
+
+Heads high, proudly, serenely, they passed through and out upon the
+hither span. I followed.
+
+On each side of us stood the Dweller's slaves, faces turned rigidly
+toward their master. A hundred feet away the Shining One pulsed and
+spiralled in its evilly glorious lambency of sparkling plumes.
+
+Unhesitating, always with that same high serenity, Lakla and the
+O'Keefe, hands clasped like little children, drew closer to that
+wondrous shape. I could not see their faces, but I saw awe fall upon
+those of the watching dwarfs, and into the burning eyes of Yolara
+crept a doubt. Closer they drew to the Dweller, and closer, I
+following them step by step. The Shining One's whirling lessened; its
+tinklings were faint, almost stilled. It seemed to watch them
+apprehensively. A silence fell upon us all, a thick silence, brooding,
+ominous, palpable. Now the pair were face to face with the child of
+the Three--so near that with one of its misty tentacles it could have
+enfolded them.
+
+And the Shining One drew back!
+
+Yes, drew back--and back with it stepped Yolara, the doubt in her eyes
+deepening. Onward paced the handmaiden and the O'Keefe--and step by
+step, as they advanced, the Dweller withdrew; its bell notes chiming
+out, puzzled questioning--half fearful!
+
+And back it drew, and back until it had reached the very centre of
+that platform over the abyss in whose depths pulsed the green fires of
+earth heart. And there Yolara gripped herself; the hell that seethed
+within her soul leaped out of her eyes, a cry, a shriek of rage, tore
+from her lips.
+
+As at a signal, the Shining One flamed high; its spirals and eddying
+mists swirled madly, the pulsing core of it blazed radiance. A score
+of coruscating tentacles swept straight upon the pair who stood
+intrepid, unresisting, awaiting its embrace. And upon me, lurking
+behind them.
+
+Through me swept a mighty exaltation.  It was the end then--and I was
+to meet it with them.
+
+Something drew us back, back with an incredible swiftness, and yet as
+gently as a summer breeze sweeps a bit of thistle-down! Drew us back
+from those darting misty arms even as they were a hair-breadth from
+us! I heard the Dweller's bell notes burst out ragingly! I heard
+Yolara scream.
+
+What was that?
+
+Between the three of us and them was a ring of curdled moon flames,
+swirling about the Shining One and its priestess, pressing in upon
+them, enfolding them!
+
+And within it I glimpsed the faces of the Three--implacable,
+sorrowful, filled with a supernal power!
+
+Sparks and flashes of white flame darted from the ring, penetrating
+the radiant swathings of the Dweller, striking through its pulsing
+nucleus, piercing its seven crowning orbs.
+
+Now the Shining One's radiance began to dim, the seven orbs to dull;
+the tiny sparkling filaments that ran from them down into the
+Dweller's body snapped, vanished! Through the battling nebulosities
+Yolara's face swam forth--horror-filled, distorted, inhuman!
+
+The ranks of the dead-alive quivered, moved, writhed, as though each
+felt the torment of the Thing that had enslaved them. The radiance
+that the Three wielded grew more intense, thicker, seemed to expand.
+Within it, suddenly, were scores of flaming triangles--scores of eyes
+like those of the Silent Ones!
+
+And the Shining One's seven little moons of amber, of silver, of blue
+and amethyst and green, of rose and white, split, shattered, were
+gone! Abruptly the tortured crystal chimings ceased.
+
+Dulled, all its soul-shaking beauty dead, blotched and shadowed
+squalidly, its gleaming plumes tarnished, its dancing spirals stripped
+from it, that which had been the Shining One wrapped itself about
+Yolara--wrapped and drew her into itself; writhed, swayed, and hurled
+itself over the edge of the bridge--down, down into the green fires of
+the unfathomable abyss--with its priestess still enfolded in its
+coils!
+
+From the dwarfs who had watched that terror came screams of panic
+fear. They turned and ran, racing frantically over the bridge toward
+the cavern mouth.
+
+The serried ranks of the dead-alive trembled, shook.  Then from their
+faces tied the horror of wedded ecstasy and anguish. Peace, utter
+peace, followed in its wake.
+
+And as fields of wheat are bent and fall beneath the wind, they fell.
+No longer dead-alive, now all of the blessed dead, freed from their
+dreadful slavery!
+
+Abruptly from the sparkling mists the cloud of eyes was gone.  Faintly
+revealed in them were only the heads of the Silent Ones. And they drew
+before us; were before us! No flames now in their ebon eyes--for the
+flickering fires were quenched in great tears, streaming down the
+marble white faces. They bent toward us, over us; their radiance
+enfolded us. My eyes darkened. I could not see. I felt a tender hand
+upon my head--and panic and frozen dread and nightmare web that held
+me fled.
+
+Then they, too, were gone.
+
+Upon Larry's breast the handmaiden was sobbing--sobbing out her
+heart--but this time with the joy of one who is swept up from the
+very threshold of hell into paradise.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV
+
+"Larry--Farewell!"
+
+"My heart, Larry--" It was the handmaiden's murmur. "My heart feels
+like a bird that is flying from a nest of sorrow."
+
+We were pacing down the length of the bridge, guards of the _Akka_
+beside us, others following with those companies of _ladala_ that had
+rushed to aid us; in front of us the bandaged Rador swung gently
+within a litter; beside him, in another, lay Nak, the frog-king--much
+less of him than there had been before the battle began, but living.
+
+Hours had passed since the terror I have just related.  My first task
+had been to search for Throckmartin and his wife among the fallen
+multitudes strewn thick as autumn leaves along the flying arch of
+stone, over the cavern ledge, and back, back as far as the eye could
+reach.
+
+At last, Lakla and Larry helping, we found them.  They lay close to
+the bridge-end, not parted--locked tight in each other's arms, pallid
+face to face, her hair streaming over his breast! As though when that
+unearthly life the Dweller had set within them passed away, their own
+had come back for one fleeting instant--and they had known each other,
+and clasped before kindly death had taken them.
+
+"Love is stronger than all things." The handmaiden was weeping softly.
+"Love never left them. Love was stronger than the Shining One. And
+when its evil fled, love went with them--wherever souls go."
+
+Of Stanton and Thora there was no trace; nor, after our discovery of
+those other two, did I care to look more. They were dead--and they
+were free.
+
+We buried Throckmartin and Edith beside Olaf in Lakla's bower.  But
+before the body of my old friend was placed within the grave I gave it
+a careful and sorrowful examination. The skin was firm and smooth, but
+cold; not the cold of death, but with a chill that set my touching
+fingers tingling unpleasantly. The body was bloodless; the course of
+veins and arteries marked by faintly indented white furrows, as though
+their walls had long collapsed. Lips, mouth, even the tongue, was
+paper white. There was no sign of dissolution as we know it; no shadow
+or stain upon the marble surface. Whatever the force that, streaming
+from the Dweller or impregnating its lair, had energized the
+dead-alive, it was barrier against putrescence of any kind; that at
+least was certain.
+
+But it was not barrier against the poison of the Medusae, for, our sad
+task done, and looking down upon the waters, I saw the pale forms of
+the Dweller's hordes dissolving, vanishing into the shifting glories
+of the gigantic moons sailing down upon them from every quarter of the
+Sea of Crimson.
+
+While the frog-men, those late levies from the farthest forests, were
+clearing bridge and ledge of cavern of the litter of the dead, we
+listened to a leader of the _ladala_. They had risen, even as the
+messenger had promised Rador. Fierce had been the struggle in the
+gardened city by the silver waters with those Lugur and Yolara had
+left behind to garrison it. Deadly had been the slaughter of the
+fair-haired, reaping the harvest of hatred they had been sowing so
+long. Not without a pang of regret did I think of the beautiful, gaily
+malicious elfin women destroyed--evil though they may have been.
+
+The ancient city of Lara was a charnel.  Of all the rulers not
+twoscore had escaped, and these into regions of peril which to
+describe as sanctuary would be mockery. Nor had the _ladala_ fared so
+well. Of all the men and women, for women as well as men had taken
+their part in the swift war, not more than a tenth remained alive.
+
+And the dancing motes of light in the silver air were thick,
+thick--they whispered.
+
+They told us of the Shining One rushing through the Veil, cometlike,
+its hosts streaming behind it, raging with it, in ranks that seemed
+interminable!
+
+Of the massacre of the priests and priestesses in the Cyclopean
+temple; of the flashing forth of the summoning lights by unseen
+hands--followed by the tearing of the rainbow curtain, by colossal
+shatterings of the radiant cliffs; the vanishing behind their debris
+of all trace of entrance to the haunted place wherein the hordes of
+the Shining One had slaved--the sealing of the lair!
+
+Then, when the tempest of hate had ended in seething Lara, how,
+thrilled with victory, armed with the weapons of those they had slain,
+they had lifted the Shadow, passed through the Portal, met and
+slaughtered the fleeing remnants of Yolara's men--only to find the
+tempest stilled here, too.
+
+But of Marakinoff they had seen nothing!  Had the Russian escaped, I
+wondered, or was he lying out there among the dead?
+
+But now the _ladala_ were calling upon Lakla to come with them, to
+govern them.
+
+"I don't want to, Larry darlin'," she told him.  "I want to go out
+with you to Ireland. But for a time--I think the Three would have us
+remain and set that place in order."
+
+The O'Keefe was bothered about something else than the government of
+Muria.
+
+"If they've killed off all the priests, who's to marry us, heart of
+mine?" he worried. "None of those Siya and Siyana rites, no matter
+what," he added hastily.
+
+"Marry!" cried the handmaiden incredulously.  "Marry us? Why, Larry
+dear, we _are_ married!"
+
+The O'Keefe's astonishment was complete; his jaw dropped; collapse
+seemed imminent.
+
+"We are?" he gasped.  "When?" he stammered fatuously.
+
+"Why, when the Mother drew us together before her; when she put her
+hands on our heads after we had made the promise! Didn't you
+understand that?" asked the handmaiden wonderingly.
+
+He looked at her, into the purity of the clear golden eyes, into the
+purity of the soul that gazed out of them; all his own great love
+transfiguring his keen face.
+
+"An' is that enough for you, _mavourneen_?" he whispered humbly.
+
+"Enough?" The handmaiden's puzzlement was complete, profound.
+"Enough? Larry darlin', what _more_ could we ask?"
+
+He drew a deep breath, clasped her close.
+
+"Kiss the bride, Doc!" cried the O'Keefe.  And for the third and,
+soul's sorrow! the last time, Lakla dimpling and blushing, I thrilled
+to the touch of her soft, sweet lips.
+
+Quickly were our preparations for departure made.  Rador, conscious,
+his immense vitality conquering fast his wounds, was to be borne ahead
+of us. And when all was done, Lakla, Larry, and I made our way up to
+the scarlet stone that was the doorway to the chamber of the Three. We
+knew, of course, that they had gone, following, no doubt, those whose
+eyes I had seen in the curdled mists, and who, coming to the aid of
+the Three at last from whatever mysterious place that was their home,
+had thrown their strength with them against the Shining One. Nor were
+we wrong. When the great slab rolled away, no torrents of opalescence
+came rushing out upon us. The vast dome was dim, tenantless; its
+curved walls that had cascaded Light shone now but faintly; the dais
+was empty; its wall of moon-flame radiance gone.
+
+A little time we stood, heads bent, reverent, our hearts filled with
+gratitude and love--yes, and with pity for that strange trinity so
+alien to us and yet so near; children even as we, though so unlike us,
+of our same Mother Earth.
+
+And what I wondered had been the secret of that promise they had wrung
+from their handmaiden and from Larry. And whence, if what the Three
+had said had been all true--whence had come their power to avert the
+sacrifice at the very verge of its consummation?
+
+"Love is stronger than all things!" had said Lakla.
+
+Was it that they had needed, must have, the force which dwells within
+love, within willing sacrifice, to strengthen their own power and to
+enable them to destroy the evil, glorious Thing so long shielded by
+their own love? Did the thought of sacrifice, the will toward
+abnegation, have to be as strong as the eternals, unshaken by faintest
+thrill of hope, before the Three could make of it their key to unlock
+the Dweller's guard and strike through at its life?
+
+Here was a mystery--a mystery indeed!  Lakla softly closed the crimson
+stone. The mystery of the red dwarf's appearance was explained when we
+discovered a half-dozen of the water _coria_ moored in a small cove
+not far from where the _Sekta_ flashed their heads of living bloom.
+The dwarfs had borne the shallops with them, and from somewhere beyond
+the cavern ledge had launched them unperceived; stealing up to the
+farther side of the island and risking all in one bold stroke. Well,
+Lugur, no matter what he held of wickedness, held also high courage.
+
+The cavern was paved with the dead-alive, the _Akka_ carrying them out
+by the hundreds, casting them into the waters. Through the lane down
+which the Dweller had passed we went as quickly as we could, coming at
+last to the space where the _coria_ waited. And not long after we
+swung past where the shadow had hung and hovered over the shining
+depths of the Midnight Pool.
+
+Upon Lakla's insistence we passed on to the palace of Lugur, not to
+Yolara's--I do not know why, but go there then she would not. And
+within one of its columned rooms, maidens of the black-haired folks,
+the wistfulness, the fear, all gone from their sparkling eyes, served
+us.
+
+There came to me a huge desire to see the destruction they had told us
+of the Dweller's lair; to observe for myself whether it was not
+possible to make a way of entrance and to study its mysteries.
+
+I spoke of this, and to my surprise both the handmaiden and the
+O'Keefe showed an almost embarrassed haste to acquiesce in my hesitant
+suggestion.
+
+"Sure," cried Larry, "there's lots of time before night!"
+
+He caught himself sheepishly; cast a glance at Lakla.
+
+"I keep forgettin' there's no night here," he mumbled.
+
+"What did you say, Larry?" asked she.
+
+"I said I wish we were sitting in our home in Ireland, watching the
+sun go down," he whispered to her. Vaguely I wondered why she blushed.
+
+But now I must hasten.  We went to the temple, and here at least the
+ghastly litter of the dead had been cleaned away. We passed through
+the blue-caverned space, crossed the narrow arch that spanned the
+rushing sea stream, and, ascending, stood again upon the ivoried pave
+at the foot of the frowning, towering amphitheatre of jet.
+
+Across the Silver Waters there was sign of neither Web of Rainbows nor
+colossal pillars nor the templed lips that I had seen curving out
+beneath the Veil when the Shining One had swirled out to greet its
+priestess and its voice and to dance with the sacrifices. There was
+but a broken and rent mass of the radiant cliffs against whose base
+the lake lapped.
+
+Long I looked--and turned away saddened.  Knowing even as I did what
+the irised curtain had hidden, still it was as though some thing of
+supernal beauty and wonder had been swept away, never to be replaced;
+a glamour gone for ever; a work of the high gods destroyed.
+
+"Let's go back," said Larry abruptly.
+
+I dropped a little behind them to examine a bit of carving--and,
+after all, they did not want me. I watched them pacing slowly ahead,
+his arm around her, black hair close to bronze-gold ringlets. Then I
+followed. Half were they over the bridge when through the roar of the
+imprisoned stream I heard my name called softly.
+
+"Goodwin!  Dr. Goodwin!"
+
+Amazed, I turned.  From behind the pedestal of a carved group
+slunk--Marakinoff! My premonition had been right. Some way he had
+escaped, slipped through to here. He held his hands high, came forward
+cautiously.
+
+"I am finished," he whispered--"Done!  I don't care what _they'll_ do
+to me." He nodded toward the handmaiden and Larry, now at the end of
+the bridge and passing on, oblivious of all save each other. He drew
+closer. His eyes were sunken, burning, mad; his face etched with deep
+lines, as though a graver's tool had cut down through it. I took a
+step backward.
+
+A grin, like the grimace of a fiend, blasted the Russian's visage.
+He threw himself upon me, his hands clenching at my throat!
+
+"Larry!" I yelled--and as I spun around under the shock of his
+onslaught, saw the two turn, stand paralyzed, then race toward me.
+
+"But _you'll_ carry nothing out of here!" shrieked Marakinoff.  "No!"
+
+My foot, darting out behind me, touched vacancy.  The roaring of the
+racing stream deafened me. I felt its mists about me; threw myself
+forward.
+
+I was falling--falling--with the Russian's hand strangling me. I
+struck water, sank; the hands that gripped my throat relaxed for a
+moment their clutch. I strove to writhe loose; felt that I was being
+hurled with dreadful speed on--full realization came--on the breast of
+that racing torrent dropping from some far ocean cleft and
+rushing--where? A little time, a few breathless instants, I struggled
+with the devil who clutched me--inflexibly, indomitably.
+
+Then a shrieking as of all the pent winds of the universe in my
+ears--blackness!
+
+Consciousness returned slowly, agonizedly.
+
+"Larry!" I groaned.  "Lakla!"
+
+A brilliant light was glowing through my closed lids.  It hurt.  I
+opened my eyes, closed them with swords and needles of dazzling pain
+shooting through them. Again I opened them cautiously. It was the sun!
+
+I staggered to my feet.  Behind me was a shattered wall of basalt
+monoliths, hewn and squared. Before me was the Pacific, smooth and
+blue and smiling.
+
+And not far away, cast up on the strand even as I had been,
+was--Marakinoff!
+
+He lay there, broken and dead indeed.  Yet all the waters through
+which we had passed--not even the waters of death themselves--could
+wash from his face the grin of triumph. With the last of my strength I
+dragged the body from the strand and pushed it out into the waves. A
+little billow ran up, coiled about it, and carried it away, ducking
+and bending. Another seized it, and another, playing with it. It
+floated from my sight--that which had been Marakinoff, with all his
+schemes to turn our fair world into an undreamed-of-hell.
+
+My strength began to come back to me.  I found a thicket and slept;
+slept it must have been for many hours, for when I again awakened the
+dawn was rosing the east. I will not tell my sufferings. Suffice it to
+say that I found a spring and some fruit, and just before dusk had
+recovered enough to writhe up to the top of the wall and discover
+where I was.
+
+The place was one of the farther islets of the Nan-Matal. To the north
+I caught the shadows of the ruins of Nan-Tauach, where was the moon
+door, black against the sky. Where was the moon door--which, someway,
+somehow, I must reach, and quickly.
+
+At dawn of the next day I got together driftwood and bound it together
+in shape of a rough raft with fallen creepers. Then, with a makeshift
+paddle, I set forth for Nan-Tauach. Slowly, painfully, I crept up to
+it. It was late afternoon before I grounded my shaky craft on the
+little beach between the ruined sea-gates and, creeping up the giant
+steps, made my way to the inner enclosure.
+
+And at its opening I stopped, and the tears ran streaming down my
+cheeks while I wept aloud with sorrow and with disappointment and with
+weariness.
+
+For the great wall in which had been set the pale slab whose threshold
+we had crossed to the land of the Shining One lay shattered and
+broken. The monoliths were heaped about; the wall had fallen, and
+about them shone a film of water, half covering them.
+
+There was no moon door!
+
+Dazed and weeping, I drew closer, climbed upon their outlying
+fragments. I looked out only upon the sea. There had been a great
+subsidence, an earth shock, perhaps, tilting downward all that
+side--the echo, little doubt, of that cataclysm which had blasted the
+Dweller's lair!
+
+The little squared islet called Tau, in which were hidden the seven
+globes, had entirely disappeared. Upon the waters there was no trace
+of it.
+
+The moon door was gone; the passage to the Moon Pool was closed to
+me--its chamber covered by the sea!
+
+There was no road to Larry--nor to Lakla!
+
+And there, for me, the world ended.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  Transcriber's note: I have made the following changes to the text:
+
+  PAGE  LINE  ORIGINAL         CHANGED TO
+     3    14  sinster          sinister
+    17    11  Nam-Tauach       Nan-Tauach
+    22    20  on on            on
+    69    39  'Didn't          "Didn't
+    75    21  'But             "But
+    90    36  "Trolde!"        _"Trolde!"_
+    91    35  'We              "We
+    96    11  shown            shone
+    96    14  smiled           smiled.
+   105    11  drank            drunk
+   106    24  acomplish        accomplish
+   109    23  'Shake           "Shake
+   111    18  overtstressed    overstressed
+   116    11  increduously     incredulously
+   120    30  Yolar            Yolara
+   128    12  spirtual         spiritual
+   150    13  cushoned         cushioned
+   172    29  semed            seemed
+   204    34  there?"'         there?"
+   208    25  "Its             "It's
+   231     8  meal             metal
+   239     6  suling           sulting
+   248    28  finshed          finished
+   280    29  much             must
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Moon Pool, by A. Merritt
+
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+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Moon Pool, by A. Merritt
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Moon Pool
+
+Author: A. Merritt
+
+Posting Date: August 16, 2008 [EBook #765]
+Release Date: December, 1996
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MOON POOL ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Judith Boss.  HTML version by Al Haines.
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<H1 ALIGN="center">
+The Moon Pool
+</H1>
+
+<H2 ALIGN="center">
+A. MERRITT
+</H2>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+Foreword
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+The publication of the following narrative of Dr. Walter T. Goodwin
+has been authorized by the Executive Council of the International
+Association of Science.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+First:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+To end officially what is beginning to be called the Throckmartin
+Mystery and to kill the innuendo and scandalous suspicions which have
+threatened to stain the reputations of Dr. David Throckmartin, his
+youthful wife, and equally youthful associate Dr. Charles Stanton ever
+since a tardy despatch from Melbourne, Australia, reported the
+disappearance of the first from a ship sailing to that port, and the
+subsequent reports of the disappearance of his wife and associate from
+the camp of their expedition in the Caroline Islands.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Second:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Because the Executive Council have concluded that Dr. Goodwin's
+experiences in his wholly heroic effort to save the three, and the
+lessons and warnings within those experiences, are too important
+to humanity as a whole to be hidden away in scientific papers
+understandable only to the technically educated; or to be presented
+through the newspaper press in the abridged and fragmentary form
+which the space limitations of that vehicle make necessary.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+For these reasons the Executive Council commissioned Mr. A. Merritt
+to transcribe into form to be readily understood by the layman the
+stenographic notes of Dr. Goodwin's own report to the Council,
+supplemented by further oral reminiscences and comments by Dr.
+Goodwin; this transcription, edited and censored by the Executive
+Council of the Association, forms the contents of this book.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Himself a member of the Council, Dr. Walter T. Goodwin, Ph.D.,
+F.R.G.S. etc., is without cavil the foremost of American botanists, an
+observer of international reputation and the author of several epochal
+treaties upon his chosen branch of science. His story, amazing in the
+best sense of that word as it may be, is fully supported by proofs
+brought forward by him and accepted by the organization of which I
+have the honor to be president. What matter has been elided from
+this popular presentation&mdash;because of the excessively menacing
+potentialities it contains, which unrestricted dissemination might
+develop&mdash;will be dealt with in purely scientific pamphlets of
+carefully guarded circulation.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+THE INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF SCIENCE<BR>
+  Per J. B. K., President<BR>
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<H2 ALIGN="center">
+CONTENTS
+</H2>
+
+<TABLE ALIGN="center" WIDTH="80%">
+
+<TR>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">I&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<A HREF="#chap01">The Thing on the Moon Path</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">II&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<A HREF="#chap02">"Dead!  All Dead!"</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">III&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<A HREF="#chap03">The Moon Rock</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">IV&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<A HREF="#chap04">The First Vanishings</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">V&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<A HREF="#chap05">Into the Moon Pool</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">VI&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<A HREF="#chap06">"The Shining Devil Took Them!"</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">VII&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<A HREF="#chap07">Larry O'Keefe</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">VIII&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<A HREF="#chap08">Olaf's Story</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">IX&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<A HREF="#chap09">A Lost Page of Earth</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">X&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<A HREF="#chap10">The Moon Pool</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XI&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<A HREF="#chap11">The Flame-Tipped Shadows</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XII&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<A HREF="#chap12">The End of the Journey</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XIII&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<A HREF="#chap13">Yolara, Priestess of the Shining One</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XIV&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<A HREF="#chap14">The Justice of Lora</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XV&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<A HREF="#chap15">The Angry, Whispering Globe</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XVI&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<A HREF="#chap16">Yolara of Muria vs. the O'Keefe</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XVII&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<A HREF="#chap17">The Leprechaun</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XVIII&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<A HREF="#chap18">The Amphitheatre of Jet</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XIX&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<A HREF="#chap19">The Madness of Olaf</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XX&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<A HREF="#chap20">The Tempting of Larry</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XXI&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<A HREF="#chap21">Larry's Defiance</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XXII&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<A HREF="#chap22">The Casting of the Shadow</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XXIII&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<A HREF="#chap23">Dragon Worm and Moss Death</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XXIV&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<A HREF="#chap24">The Crimson Sea</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XXV&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<A HREF="#chap25">The Three Silent Ones</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XXVI&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<A HREF="#chap26">The Wooing of Lakla</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XXVII&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<A HREF="#chap27">The Coming of Yolara</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XXVIII&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<A HREF="#chap28">In the Lair of the Dweller</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XXIX&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<A HREF="#chap29">The Shaping of the Shining One</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XXX&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<A HREF="#chap30">The Building of the Moon Pool</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XXXI&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<A HREF="#chap31">Larry and the Frog-Men</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XXXII&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<A HREF="#chap32">"Your Love; Your Lives; Your Souls!"</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XXXIII&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<A HREF="#chap33">The Meeting of Titans</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XXXIV&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<A HREF="#chap34">The Coming of the Shining One</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XXXV&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<A HREF="#chap35">"Larry&mdash;Farewell!"</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+</TABLE>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap01"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER I
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+The Thing on the Moon Path
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+For two months I had been on the d'Entrecasteaux Islands gathering
+data for the concluding chapters of my book upon the flora of the
+volcanic islands of the South Pacific. The day before I had reached
+Port Moresby and had seen my specimens safely stored on board the
+Southern Queen. As I sat on the upper deck I thought, with homesick
+mind, of the long leagues between me and Melbourne, and the longer
+ones between Melbourne and New York.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was one of Papua's yellow mornings when she shows herself in her
+sombrest, most baleful mood. The sky was smouldering ochre. Over the
+island brooded a spirit sullen, alien, implacable, filled with the
+threat of latent, malefic forces waiting to be unleashed. It seemed an
+emanation out of the untamed, sinister heart of Papua herself&mdash;sinister
+even when she smiles. And now and then, on the wind, came a breath from
+virgin jungles, laden with unfamiliar odours, mysterious and menacing.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It is on such mornings that Papua whispers to you of her immemorial
+ancientness and of her power. And, as every white man must, I fought
+against her spell. While I struggled I saw a tall figure striding down
+the pier; a Kapa-Kapa boy followed swinging a new valise. There was
+something familiar about the tall man. As he reached the gangplank he
+looked up straight into my eyes, stared for a moment, then waved his
+hand.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And now I knew him.  It was Dr. David Throckmartin&mdash;"Throck" he was to
+me always, one of my oldest friends and, as well, a mind of the first
+water whose power and achievements were for me a constant inspiration
+as they were, I know, for scores other.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Coincidentally with my recognition came a shock of surprise,
+definitely&mdash;unpleasant. It was Throckmartin&mdash;but about him was
+something disturbingly unlike the man I had known long so well and to
+whom and to whose little party I had bidden farewell less than a month
+before I myself had sailed for these seas. He had married only a few
+weeks before, Edith, the daughter of Professor William Frazier,
+younger by at least a decade than he but at one with him in his ideals
+and as much in love, if it were possible, as Throckmartin. By virtue
+of her father's training a wonderful assistant, by virtue of her own
+sweet, sound heart a&mdash;I use the word in its olden sense&mdash;lover. With
+his equally youthful associate Dr. Charles Stanton and a Swedish
+woman, Thora Halversen, who had been Edith Throckmartin's nurse from
+babyhood, they had set forth for the Nan-Matal, that extraordinary
+group of island ruins clustered along the eastern shore of Ponape in
+the Carolines.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I knew that he had planned to spend at least a year among these ruins,
+not only of Ponape but of Lele&mdash;twin centres of a colossal riddle of
+humanity, a weird flower of civilization that blossomed ages before
+the seeds of Egypt were sown; of whose arts we know little enough and
+of whose science nothing. He had carried with him unusually complete
+equipment for the work he had expected to do and which, he hoped,
+would be his monument.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+What then had brought Throckmartin to Port Moresby, and what was that
+change I had sensed in him?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Hurrying down to the lower deck I found him with the purser.  As I
+spoke he turned, thrust out to me an eager hand&mdash;and then I saw what
+was that difference that had so moved me. He knew, of course by my
+silence and involuntary shrinking the shock my closer look had given
+me. His eyes filled; he turned brusquely from the purser, hesitated&mdash;then
+hurried off to his stateroom.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"'E looks rather queer&mdash;eh?" said the purser.  "Know 'im well, sir?
+Seems to 'ave given you quite a start."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I made some reply and went slowly up to my chair.  There I sat,
+composed my mind and tried to define what it was that had shaken me
+so. Now it came to me. The old Throckmartin was on the eve of his
+venture just turned forty, lithe, erect, muscular; his controlling
+expression one of enthusiasm, of intellectual keenness, of&mdash;what shall
+I say&mdash;expectant search. His always questioning brain had stamped its
+vigor upon his face.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But the Throckmartin I had seen below was one who had borne some
+scaring shock of mingled rapture and horror; some soul cataclysm that
+in its climax had remoulded, deep from within, his face, setting on it
+seal of wedded ecstasy and despair; as though indeed these two had
+come to him hand in hand, taken possession of him and departing left
+behind, ineradicably, their linked shadows!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Yes&mdash;it was that which appalled.  For how could rapture and horror,
+Heaven and Hell mix, clasp hands&mdash;kiss?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Yet these were what in closest embrace lay on Throckmartin's face!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Deep in thought, subconsciously with relief, I watched the shore line
+sink behind; welcomed the touch of the wind of the free seas. I had
+hoped, and within the hope was an inexplicable shrinking that I would
+meet Throckmartin at lunch. He did not come down, and I was sensible
+of deliverance within my disappointment. All that afternoon I lounged
+about uneasily but still he kept to his cabin&mdash;and within me was no
+strength to summon him. Nor did he appear at dinner.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dusk and night fell swiftly.  I was warm and went back to my
+deck-chair. The Southern Queen was rolling to a disquieting swell and
+I had the place to myself.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Over the heavens was a canopy of cloud, glowing faintly and testifying
+to the moon riding behind it. There was much phosphorescence. Fitfully
+before the ship and at her sides arose those stranger little swirls of
+mist that swirl up from the Southern Ocean like breath of sea
+monsters, whirl for an instant and disappear.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Suddenly the deck door opened and through it came Throckmartin.  He
+paused uncertainly, looked up at the sky with a curiously eager,
+intent gaze, hesitated, then closed the door behind him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Throck," I called.  "Come!  It's Goodwin."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He made his way to me.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Throck," I said, wasting no time in preliminaries. "What's wrong?
+Can I help you?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I felt his body grow tense.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'm going to Melbourne, Goodwin," he answered.  "I need a few
+things&mdash;need them urgently. And more men&mdash;white men&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He stopped abruptly; rose from his chair, gazed intently toward the
+north. I followed his gaze. Far, far away the moon had broken through
+the clouds. Almost on the horizon, you could see the faint
+luminescence of it upon the smooth sea. The distant patch of light
+quivered and shook. The clouds thickened again and it was gone. The
+ship raced on southward, swiftly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Throckmartin dropped into his chair.  He lighted a cigarette with a
+hand that trembled; then turned to me with abrupt resolution.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Goodwin," he said.  "I do need help.  If ever man needed it, I do.
+Goodwin&mdash;can you imagine yourself in another world, alien, unfamiliar,
+a world of terror, whose unknown joy is its greatest terror of all;
+you all alone there, a stranger! As such a man would need help, so I
+need&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He paused abruptly and arose; the cigarette dropped from his fingers.
+The moon had again broken through the clouds, and this time much
+nearer. Not a mile away was the patch of light that it threw upon the
+waves. Back of it, to the rim of the sea was a lane of moonlight; a
+gigantic gleaming serpent racing over the edge of the world straight
+and surely toward the ship.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Throckmartin stiffened to it as a pointer does to a hidden covey.  To
+me from him pulsed a thrill of horror&mdash;but horror tinged with an
+unfamiliar, an infernal joy. It came to me and passed away&mdash;leaving me
+trembling with its shock of bitter sweet.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He bent forward, all his soul in his eyes.  The moon path swept
+closer, closer still. It was now less than half a mile away. From it
+the ship fled&mdash;almost as though pursued. Down upon it, swift and
+straight, a radiant torrent cleaving the waves, raced the moon stream.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Good God!" breathed Throckmartin, and if ever the words were a prayer
+and an invocation they were.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And then, for the first time&mdash;I saw&mdash;<I>it</I>!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The moon path stretched to the horizon and was bordered by darkness.
+It was as though the clouds above had been parted to form a lane-drawn
+aside like curtains or as the waters of the Red Sea were held back to
+let the hosts of Israel through. On each side of the stream was the
+black shadow cast by the folds of the high canopies And straight as a
+road between the opaque walls gleamed, shimmered, and danced the
+shining, racing, rapids of the moonlight.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Far, it seemed immeasurably far, along this stream of silver fire I
+sensed, rather than saw, something coming. It drew first into sight as
+a deeper glow within the light. On and on it swept toward us&mdash;an
+opalescent mistiness that sped with the suggestion of some winged
+creature in arrowed flight. Dimly there crept into my mind memory of
+the Dyak legend of the winged messenger of Buddha&mdash;the Akla bird
+whose feathers are woven of the moon rays, whose heart is a living
+opal, whose wings in flight echo the crystal clear music of the white
+stars&mdash;but whose beak is of frozen flame and shreds the souls of
+unbelievers.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Closer it drew and now there came to me sweet, insistent
+tinklings&mdash;like pizzicati on violins of glass; crystal clear; diamonds
+melting into sounds!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Now the Thing was close to the end of the white path; close up to the
+barrier of darkness still between the ship and the sparkling head of
+the moon stream. Now it beat up against that barrier as a bird against
+the bars of its cage. It whirled with shimmering plumes, with swirls
+of lacy light, with spirals of living vapour. It held within it odd,
+unfamiliar gleams as of shifting mother-of-pearl. Coruscations and
+glittering atoms drifted through it as though it drew them from the
+rays that bathed it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Nearer and nearer it came, borne on the sparkling waves, and ever
+thinner shrank the protecting wall of shadow between it and us. Within
+the mistiness was a core, a nucleus of intenser light&mdash;veined,
+opaline, effulgent, intensely alive. And above it, tangled in the
+plumes and spirals that throbbed and whirled were seven glowing
+lights.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Through all the incessant but strangely ordered movement of
+the&mdash;<I>thing</I>&mdash;these lights held firm and steady. They were seven&mdash;like
+seven little moons. One was of a pearly pink, one of a delicate
+nacreous blue, one of lambent saffron, one of the emerald you see in
+the shallow waters of tropic isles; a deathly white; a ghostly
+amethyst; and one of the silver that is seen only when the flying fish
+leap beneath the moon.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The tinkling music was louder still.  It pierced the ears with a
+shower of tiny lances; it made the heart beat jubilantly&mdash;and checked
+it dolorously. It closed the throat with a throb of rapture and
+gripped it tight with the hand of infinite sorrow!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Came to me now a murmuring cry, stilling the crystal notes.  It was
+articulate&mdash;but as though from something utterly foreign to this
+world. The ear took the cry and translated with conscious labour into
+the sounds of earth. And even as it compassed, the brain shrank from
+it irresistibly, and simultaneously it seemed reached toward it with
+irresistible eagerness.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Throckmartin strode toward the front of the deck, straight toward the
+vision, now but a few yards away from the stern. His face had lost all
+human semblance. Utter agony and utter ecstasy&mdash;there they were side
+by side, not resisting each other; unholy inhuman companions blending
+into a look that none of God's creatures should wear&mdash;and deep, deep
+as his soul! A devil and a God dwelling harmoniously side by side! So
+must Satan, newly fallen, still divine, seeing heaven and
+contemplating hell, have appeared.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And then&mdash;swiftly the moon path faded!  The clouds swept over the sky
+as though a hand had drawn them together. Up from the south came a
+roaring squall. As the moon vanished what I had seen vanished with
+it&mdash;blotted out as an image on a magic lantern; the tinkling ceased
+abruptly&mdash;leaving a silence like that which follows an abrupt thunder
+clap. There was nothing about us but silence and blackness!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Through me passed a trembling as one who has stood on the very verge
+of the gulf wherein the men of the Louisades says lurks the fisher of
+the souls of men, and has been plucked back by sheerest chance.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Throckmartin passed an arm around me.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It is as I thought," he said.  In his voice was a new note; the calm
+certainty that has swept aside a waiting terror of the unknown. "Now I
+know! Come with me to my cabin, old friend. For now that you too have
+seen I can tell you"&mdash;he hesitated&mdash;"what it was you saw," he ended.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As we passed through the door we met the ship's first officer.
+Throckmartin composed his face into at least a semblance of normality.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Going to have much of a storm?" he asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes," said the mate.  "Probably all the way to Melbourne."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Throckmartin straightened as though with a new thought. He gripped the
+officer's sleeve eagerly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You mean at least cloudy weather&mdash;for"&mdash;he hesitated&mdash;"for the next
+three nights, say?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And for three more," replied the mate.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Thank God!" cried Throckmartin, and I think I never heard such relief
+and hope as was in his voice.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The sailor stood amazed.  "Thank God?" he repeated. "Thank&mdash;what d'ye
+mean?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But Throckmartin was moving onward to his cabin.  I started to follow.
+The first officer stopped me.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Your friend," he said, "is he ill?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The sea!" I answered hurriedly.  "He's not used to it.  I am going to
+look after him."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Doubt and disbelief were plain in the seaman's eyes but I hurried on.
+For I knew now that Throckmartin was ill indeed&mdash;but with a sickness
+the ship's doctor nor any other could heal.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap02"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER II
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+"Dead!  All Dead!"
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+He was sitting, face in hands, on the side of his berth as I entered.
+He had taken off his coat.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Throck," I cried.  "What was it?  What are you flying from, man?
+Where is your wife&mdash;and Stanton?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Dead!" he replied monotonously.  "Dead!  All dead!" Then as I
+recoiled from him&mdash;"All dead. Edith, Stanton, Thora&mdash;dead&mdash;or worse.
+And Edith in the Moon Pool&mdash;with them&mdash;drawn by what you saw on the
+moon path&mdash;that has put its brand upon me&mdash;and follows me!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He ripped open his shirt.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Look at this," he said.  Around his chest, above his heart, the skin
+was white as pearl. This whiteness was sharply defined against the
+healthy tint of the body. It circled him with an even cincture about
+two inches wide.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Burn it!" he said, and offered me his cigarette.  I drew back.  He
+gestured&mdash;peremptorily. I pressed the glowing end of the cigarette
+into the ribbon of white flesh. He did not flinch nor was there odour
+of burning nor, as I drew the little cylinder away, any mark upon the
+whiteness.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Feel it!" he commanded again.  I placed my fingers upon the band.  It
+was cold&mdash;like frozen marble.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He drew his shirt around him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Two things you have seen," he said.  "<I>It</I>&mdash;and its mark. Seeing,
+you must believe my story. Goodwin, I tell you again that my wife is
+dead&mdash;or worse&mdash;I do not know; the prey of&mdash;what you saw; so, too, is
+Stanton; so Thora. How&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Tears rolled down the seared face.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why did God let it conquer us?  Why did He let it take my Edith?" he
+cried in utter bitterness. "Are there things stronger than God, do you
+think, Walter?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I hesitated.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Are there?  Are there?" His wild eyes searched me.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I do not know just how you define God," I managed at last through my
+astonishment to make answer. "If you mean the will to know, working
+through science&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He waved me aside impatiently.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Science," he said.  "What is our science against&mdash;that? Or against
+the science of whatever devils that made it&mdash;or made the way for it to
+enter this world of ours?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+With an effort he regained control.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Goodwin," he said, "do you know at all of the ruins on the Carolines;
+the cyclopean, megalithic cities and harbours of Ponape and Lele, of
+Kusaie, of Ruk and Hogolu, and a score of other islets there?
+Particularly, do you know of the Nan-Matal and the Metalanim?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Of the Metalanim I have heard and seen photographs," I said.  "They
+call it, don't they, the Lost Venice of the Pacific?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Look at this map," said Throckmartin.  "That," he went on, "is
+Christian's chart of Metalanim harbour and the Nan-Matal. Do you see
+the rectangles marked Nan-Tauach?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes," I said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"There," he said, "under those walls is the Moon Pool and the seven
+gleaming lights that raise the Dweller in the Pool, and the altar and
+shrine of the Dweller. And there in the Moon Pool with it lie Edith
+and Stanton and Thora."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The Dweller in the Moon Pool?" I repeated half-incredulously.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The Thing you saw," said Throckmartin solemnly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A solid sheet of rain swept the ports, and the Southern Queen began to
+roll on the rising swells. Throckmartin drew another deep breath of
+relief, and drawing aside a curtain peered out into the night. Its
+blackness seemed to reassure him. At any rate, when he sat again he
+was entirely calm.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"There are no more wonderful ruins in the world," he began almost
+casually. "They take in some fifty islets and cover with their
+intersecting canals and lagoons about twelve square miles. Who built
+them? None knows. When were they built? Ages before the memory of
+present man, that is sure. Ten thousand, twenty thousand, a hundred
+thousand years ago&mdash;the last more likely.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"All these islets, Walter, are squared, and their shores are frowning
+seawalls of gigantic basalt blocks hewn and put in place by the hands
+of ancient man. Each inner water-front is faced with a terrace of
+those basalt blocks which stand out six feet above the shallow canals
+that meander between them. On the islets behind these walls are
+time-shattered fortresses, palaces, terraces, pyramids; immense
+courtyards strewn with ruins&mdash;and all so old that they seem to wither
+the eyes of those who look on them.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"There has been a great subsidence.  You can stand out of Metalanim
+harbour for three miles and look down upon the tops of similar
+monolithic structures and walls twenty feet below you in the water.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And all about, strung on their canals, are the bulwarked islets with
+their enigmatic walls peering through the dense growths of
+mangroves&mdash;dead, deserted for incalculable ages; shunned by those who
+live near.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You as a botanist are familiar with the evidence that a vast shadowy
+continent existed in the Pacific&mdash;a continent that was not rent
+asunder by volcanic forces as was that legendary one of Atlantis in
+the Eastern Ocean.[1] My work in Java, in Papua, and in the Ladrones
+had set my mind upon this Pacific lost land. Just as the Azores are
+believed to be the last high peaks of Atlantis, so hints came to me
+steadily that Ponape and Lele and their basalt bulwarked islets were
+the last points of the slowly sunken western land clinging still to
+the sunlight, and had been the last refuge and sacred places of the
+rulers of that race which had lost their immemorial home under the
+rising waters of the Pacific.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I believed that under these ruins I might find the evidence
+that I sought.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"My&mdash;my wife and I had talked before we were married of making this
+our great work. After the honeymoon we prepared for the expedition.
+Stanton was as enthusiastic as ourselves. We sailed, as you know, last
+May for fulfilment of my dreams.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"At Ponape we selected, not without difficulty, workmen to help
+us&mdash;diggers. I had to make extraordinary inducements before I could
+get together my force. Their beliefs are gloomy, these Ponapeans. They
+people their swamps, their forests, their mountains, and shores, with
+malignant spirits&mdash;ani they call them. And they are afraid&mdash;bitterly
+afraid of the isles of ruins and what they think the ruins hide. I do
+not wonder&mdash;now!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"When they were told where they were to go, and how long we expected
+to stay, they murmured. Those who, at last, were tempted made what I
+thought then merely a superstitious proviso that they were to be
+allowed to go away on the three nights of the full moon. Would to God
+we had heeded them and gone too!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We passed into Metalanim harbour.  Off to our left&mdash;a mile away arose
+a massive quadrangle. Its walls were all of forty feet high and
+hundreds of feet on each side. As we drew by, our natives grew very
+silent; watched it furtively, fearfully. I knew it for the ruins that
+are called Nan-Tauach, the 'place of frowning walls.' And at the
+silence of my men I recalled what Christian had written of this place;
+of how he had come upon its 'ancient platforms and tetragonal
+enclosures of stonework; its wonder of tortuous alleyways and
+labyrinth of shallow canals; grim masses of stonework peering out from
+behind verdant screens; cyclopean barricades,' and of how, when he had
+turned 'into its ghostly shadows, straight-way the merriment of guides
+was hushed and conversation died down to whispers.'"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He was silent for a little time.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Of course I wanted to pitch our camp there," he went on again
+quietly, "but I soon gave up that idea. The natives were
+panic-stricken&mdash;threatened to turn back. 'No,' they said, 'too great
+ani there. We go to any other place&mdash;but not there.'
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We finally picked for our base the islet called Uschen-Tau.  It was
+close to the isle of desire, but far enough away from it to satisfy
+our men. There was an excellent camping-place and a spring of fresh
+water. We pitched our tents, and in a couple of days the work was in
+full swing."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+</P>
+
+<P>
+[1] For more detailed observations on these points refer to G. Volkens,
+Uber die Karolinen Insel Yap, in Verhandlungen Gesellschaft Erdkunde
+Berlin, xxvii (1901); J. S. Kubary, Ethnographische Beitrage zur
+Kentniss des Karolinen Archipel (Leiden, 1889-1892); De Abrade
+Historia del Conflicto de las Carolinas, etc. (Madrid, 1886).&mdash;W. T. G.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap03"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER III
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+The Moon Rock
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+"I do not intend to tell you now," Throckmartin continued, "the
+results of the next two weeks, nor of what we found. Later&mdash;if I am
+allowed, I will lay all that before you. It is sufficient to say that
+at the end of those two weeks I had found confirmation for many of my
+theories.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The place, for all its decay and desolation, had not infected us with
+any touch of morbidity&mdash;that is not Edith, Stanton, or myself. But
+Thora was very unhappy. She was a Swede, as you know, and in her blood
+ran the beliefs and superstitions of the Northland&mdash;some of them so
+strangely akin to those of this far southern land; beliefs of spirits
+of mountain and forest and water werewolves and beings malign. From
+the first she showed a curious sensitivity to what, I suppose, may be
+called the 'influences' of the place. She said it 'smelled' of ghosts
+and warlocks.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I laughed at her then&mdash;
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Two weeks slipped by, and at their end the spokesman for our natives
+came to us. The next night was the full of the moon, he said. He
+reminded me of my promise. They would go back to their village in the
+morning; they would return after the third night, when the moon had
+begun to wane. They left us sundry charms for our 'protection,' and
+solemnly cautioned us to keep as far away as possible from Nan-Tauach
+during their absence. Half-exasperated, half-amused I watched them go.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No work could be done without them, of course, so we decided to spend
+the days of their absence junketing about the southern islets of the
+group. We marked down several spots for subsequent exploration, and on
+the morning of the third day set forth along the east face of the
+breakwater for our camp on Uschen-Tau, planning to have everything in
+readiness for the return of our men the next day.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We landed just before dusk, tired and ready for our cots.
+It was only a little after ten o'clock that Edith awakened me.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"'Listen!' she said.  'Lean over with your ear close to the ground!'
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I did so, and seemed to hear, far, far below, as though coming up
+from great distances, a faint chanting. It gathered strength, died
+down, ended; began, gathered volume, faded away into silence.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"'It's the waves rolling on rocks somewhere,' I said.  'We're probably
+over some ledge of rock that carries the sound.'
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"'It's the first time I've heard it,' replied my wife doubtfully.  We
+listened again. Then through the dim rhythms, deep beneath us, another
+sound came. It drifted across the lagoon that lay between us and
+Nan-Tauach in little tinkling waves. It was music&mdash;of a sort; I won't
+describe the strange effect it had upon me. You've felt it&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You mean on the deck?" I asked.  Throckmartin nodded.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I went to the flap of the tent," he continued, "and peered out.
+As I did so Stanton lifted his flap and walked out into the moonlight,
+looking over to the other islet and listening. I called to him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"'That's the queerest sound!' he said.  He listened again.
+'Crystalline! Like little notes of translucent glass. Like the bells
+of crystal on the sistrums of Isis at Dendarah Temple,' he added
+half-dreamily. We gazed intently at the island. Suddenly, on the
+sea-wall, moving slowly, rhythmically, we saw a little group of
+lights. Stanton laughed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"'The beggars!' he exclaimed.  'That's why they wanted to get away, is
+it? Don't you see, Dave, it's some sort of a festival&mdash;rites of some
+kind that they hold during the full moon! That's why they were so
+eager to have us <I>keep</I> away, too.'
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The explanation seemed good.  I felt a curious sense of relief,
+although I had not been sensible of any oppression.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"'Let's slip over,' suggested Stanton&mdash;but I would not.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"'They're a difficult lot as it is,' I said.  'If we break into one of
+their religious ceremonies they'll probably never forgive us. Let's
+keep out of any family party where we haven't been invited.'
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"'That's so,' agreed Stanton.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The strange tinkling rose and fell, rose and fell&mdash;
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"'There's something&mdash;something very unsettling about it,' said Edith
+at last soberly. 'I wonder what they make those sounds with. They
+frighten me half to death, and, at the same time, they make me feel as
+though some enormous rapture were just around the corner.'
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"'It's devilish uncanny!' broke in Stanton.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And as he spoke the flap of Thora's tent was raised and out into the
+moonlight strode the old Swede. She was the great Norse type&mdash;tall,
+deep-breasted, moulded on the old Viking lines. Her sixty years had
+slipped from her. She looked like some ancient priestess of Odin.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"She stood there, her eyes wide, brilliant, staring.  She thrust her
+head forward toward Nan-Tauach, regarding the moving lights; she
+listened. Suddenly she raised her arms and made a curious gesture to
+the moon. It was&mdash;an archaic&mdash;movement; she seemed to drag it from
+remote antiquity&mdash;yet in it was a strange suggestion of power, Twice
+she repeated this gesture and&mdash;the tinklings died away! She turned to
+us.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"'Go!' she said, and her voice seemed to come from far distances.  'Go
+from here&mdash;and quickly! Go while you may. It has called&mdash;' She pointed
+to the islet. 'It knows you are here. It waits!' she wailed. 'It
+beckons&mdash;the&mdash;the&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"She fell at Edith's feet, and over the lagoon came again the
+tinklings, now with a quicker note of jubilance&mdash;almost of triumph.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We watched beside her throughout the night.  The sounds from
+Nan-Tauach continued until about an hour before moon-set. In the
+morning Thora awoke, none the worse, apparently. She had had bad
+dreams, she said. She could not remember what they were&mdash;except that
+they had warned her of danger. She was oddly sullen, and throughout
+the morning her gaze returned again and again half-fascinatedly,
+half-wonderingly to the neighbouring isle.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That afternoon the natives returned.  And that night on Nan-Tauach
+the silence was unbroken nor were there lights nor sign of life.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You will understand, Goodwin, how the occurrences I have related
+would excite the scientific curiosity. We rejected immediately, of
+course, any explanation admitting the supernatural.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Our&mdash;symptoms let me call them&mdash;could all very easily be accounted
+for. It is unquestionable that the vibrations created by certain
+musical instruments have definite and sometimes extraordinary effect
+upon the nervous system. We accepted this as the explanation of the
+reactions we had experienced, hearing the unfamiliar sounds. Thora's
+nervousness, her superstitious apprehensions, had wrought her up to a
+condition of semi-somnambulistic hysteria. Science could readily
+explain her part in the night's scene.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We came to the conclusion that there must be a passage-way between
+Ponape and Nan-Tauach known to the natives&mdash;and used by them during
+their rites. We decided that on the next departure of our labourers we
+would set forth immediately to Nan-Tauach. We would investigate during
+the day, and at evening my wife and Thora would go back to camp,
+leaving Stanton and me to spend the night on the island, observing
+from some safe hiding-place what might occur.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The moon waned; appeared crescent in the west; waxed slowly toward
+the full. Before the men left us they literally prayed us to accompany
+them. Their importunities only made us more eager to see what it was
+that, we were now convinced, they wanted to conceal from us. At least
+that was true of Stanton and myself. It was not true of Edith. She was
+thoughtful, abstracted&mdash;reluctant.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"When the men were out of sight around the turn of the harbour, we
+took our boat and made straight for Nan-Tauach. Soon its mighty
+sea-wall towered above us. We passed through the water-gate with its
+gigantic hewn prisms of basalt and landed beside a half-submerged
+pier. In front of us stretched a series of giant steps leading into a
+vast court strewn with fragments of fallen pillars. In the centre of
+the court, beyond the shattered pillars, rose another terrace of
+basalt blocks, concealing, I knew, still another enclosure.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And now, Walter, for the better understanding of what
+follows&mdash;and&mdash;and&mdash;" he hesitated. "Should you decide later to return
+with me or, if I am taken, to&mdash;to&mdash;follow us&mdash;listen carefully to my
+description of this place: Nan-Tauach is literally three rectangles.
+The first rectangle is the sea-wall, built up of monoliths&mdash;hewn and
+squared, twenty feet wide at the top. To get to the gateway in the
+sea-wall you pass along the canal marked on the map between Nan-Tauach
+and the islet named Tau. The entrance to the canal is bidden by dense
+thickets of mangroves; once through these the way is clear. The steps
+lead up from the landing of the sea-gate through the entrance to the
+courtyard.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"This courtyard is surrounded by another basalt wall, rectangular,
+following with mathematical exactness the march of the outer
+barricades. The sea-wall is from thirty to forty feet high&mdash;originally
+it must have been much higher, but there has been subsidence in parts.
+The wall of the first enclosure is fifteen feet across the top and its
+height varies from twenty to fifty feet&mdash;here, too, the gradual
+sinking of the land has caused portions of it to fall.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Within this courtyard is the second enclosure.  Its terrace, of the
+same basalt as the outer walls, is about twenty feet high. Entrance is
+gained to it by many breaches which time has made in its stonework.
+This is the inner court, the heart of Nan-Tauach! There lies the great
+central vault with which is associated the one name of living being
+that has come to us out of the mists of the past. The natives say it
+was the treasure-house of Chau-te-leur, a mighty king who reigned long
+'before their fathers.' As Chan is the ancient Ponapean word both for
+sun and king, the name means, without doubt, 'place of the sun king.'
+It is a memory of a dynastic name of the race that ruled the Pacific
+continent, now vanished&mdash;just as the rulers of ancient Crete took the
+name of Minos and the rulers of Egypt the name of Pharaoh.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And opposite this place of the sun king is the moon rock that hides
+the Moon Pool.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It was Stanton who discovered the moon rock.  We had been inspecting
+the inner courtyard; Edith and Thora were getting together our lunch.
+I came out of the vault of Chau-te-leur to find Stanton before a part
+of the terrace studying it wonderingly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"'What do you make of this?' he asked me as I came up. He pointed to
+the wall. I followed his finger and saw a slab of stone about fifteen
+feet high and ten wide. At first all I noticed was the exquisite
+nicety with which its edges joined the blocks about it. Then I
+realized that its colour was subtly different&mdash;tinged with grey and of
+a smooth, peculiar&mdash;deadness.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"'Looks more like calcite than basalt,' I said.  I touched it and
+withdrew my hand quickly for at the contact every nerve in my arm
+tingled as though a shock of frozen electricity had passed through it.
+It was not cold as we know cold. It was a chill force&mdash;the phrase I
+have used&mdash;frozen electricity&mdash;describes it better than anything else.
+Stanton looked at me oddly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"'So you felt it too,' he said.  'I was wondering whether I was
+developing hallucinations like Thora. Notice, by the way, that the
+blocks beside it are quite warm beneath the sun.'
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We examined the slab eagerly.  Its edges were cut as though by an
+engraver of jewels. They fitted against the neighbouring blocks in
+almost a hair-line. Its base was slightly curved, and fitted as
+closely as top and sides upon the huge stones on which it rested. And
+then we noted that these stones had been hollowed to follow the line
+of the grey stone's foot. There was a semicircular depression running
+from one side of the slab to the other. It was as though the grey rock
+stood in the centre of a shallow cup&mdash;revealing half, covering half.
+Something about this hollow attracted me. I reached down and felt it.
+Goodwin, although the balance of the stones that formed it, like all
+the stones of the courtyard, were rough and age-worn&mdash;this was as
+smooth, as even surfaced as though it had just left the hands of the
+polisher.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"'It's a door!' exclaimed Stanton.  'It swings around in that little
+cup. That's what makes the hollow so smooth.'
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"'Maybe you're right,' I replied.  'But how the devil can we open it?'
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We went over the slab again&mdash;pressing upon its edges, thrusting
+against its sides. During one of those efforts I happened to look
+up&mdash;and cried out. A foot above and on each side of the corner of the
+grey rock's lintel was a slight convexity, visible only from the angle
+at which my gaze struck it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We carried with us a small scaling-ladder and up this I went.  The
+bosses were apparently nothing more than chiseled curvatures in the
+stone. I laid my hand on the one I was examining, and drew it back
+sharply. In my palm, at the base of my thumb, I had felt the same
+shock that I had in touching the slab below. I put my hand back. The
+impression came from a spot not more than an inch wide. I went
+carefully over the entire convexity, and six times more the chill ran
+through my arm. There were seven circles an inch wide in the curved
+place, each of which communicated the precise sensation I have
+described. The convexity on the opposite side of the slab gave exactly
+the same results. But no amount of touching or of pressing these spots
+singly or in any combination gave the slightest promise of motion to
+the slab itself.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"'And yet&mdash;they're what open it,' said Stanton positively.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"'Why do you say that?' I asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"'I&mdash;don't know,' he answered hesitatingly.  'But something tells me
+so. Throck,' he went on half earnestly, half laughingly, 'the purely
+scientific part of me is fighting the purely human part of me. The
+scientific part is urging me to find some way to get that slab either
+down or open. The human part is just as strongly urging me to do
+nothing of the sort and get away while I can!'
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He laughed again&mdash;shamefacedly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"'Which shall it be?' he asked&mdash;and I thought that in his tone the
+human side of him was ascendant.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"'It will probably stay as it is&mdash;unless we blow it to bits,' I said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"'I thought of that,' he answered, 'and I wouldn't dare,' he added
+soberly enough. And even as I had spoken there came to me the same
+feeling that he had expressed. It was as though something passed out
+of the grey rock that struck my heart as a hand strikes an impious
+lip. We turned away&mdash;uneasily, and faced Thora coming through a breach
+on the terrace.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"'Miss Edith wants you quick,' she began&mdash;and stopped. Her eyes went
+past me to the grey rock. Her body grew rigid; she took a few stiff
+steps forward and then ran straight to it. She cast herself upon its
+breast, hands and face pressed against it; we heard her scream as
+though her very soul were being drawn from her&mdash;and watched her fall
+at its foot. As we picked her up I saw steal from her face the look I
+had observed when first we heard the crystal music of
+Nan-Tauach&mdash;that unhuman mingling of opposites!"
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap04"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER IV
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+The First Vanishings
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+"We carried Thora back, down to where Edith was waiting. We told her
+what had happened and what we had found. She listened gravely, and as
+we finished Thora sighed and opened her eyes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"'I would like to see the stone,' she said.  'Charles, you stay here
+with Thora.' We passed through the outer court silently&mdash;and stood
+before the rock. She touched it, drew back her hand as I had; thrust
+it forward again resolutely and held it there. She seemed to be
+listening. Then she turned to me.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"'David,' said my wife, and the wistfulness in her voice hurt
+me&mdash;'David, would you be very, very disappointed if we went from
+here&mdash;without trying to find out any more about it&mdash;would you?'
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Walter, I never wanted anything so much in my life as I wanted to
+learn what that rock concealed. Nevertheless, I tried to master my
+desire, and I answered&mdash;'Edith, not a bit if you want us to do it.'
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"She read my struggle in my eyes.  She turned back toward the grey
+rock. I saw a shiver pass through her. I felt a tinge of remorse and
+pity!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"'Edith,' I exclaimed, 'we'll go!'
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"She looked at me again.  'Science is a jealous mistress,' she quoted.
+'No, after all it may be just fancy. At any rate, you can't run away.
+No! But, Dave, I'm going to stay too!'
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And there was no changing her decision.  As we neared the others she
+laid a hand on my arm.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"'Dave,' she said, 'if there should be something&mdash;well&mdash;inexplicable
+tonight&mdash;something that seems&mdash;too dangerous&mdash;will you promise to go
+back to our own islet tomorrow, if we can&mdash;and wait until the natives
+return?'
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I promised eagerly&mdash;the desire to stay and see what came with the
+night was like a fire within me.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We picked a place about five hundred feet away from the steps leading
+into the outer court.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The spot we had selected was well hidden.  We could not be seen, and
+yet we had a clear view of the stairs and the gateway. We settled down
+just before dusk to wait for whatever might come. I was nearest the
+giant steps; next me Edith; then Thora, and last Stanton.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Night fell.  After a time the eastern sky began to lighten, and we
+knew that the moon was rising; grew lighter still, and the orb peeped
+over the sea; swam into full sight. I glanced at Edith and then at
+Thora. My wife was intently listening. Thora sat, as she had since we
+had placed ourselves, elbows on knees, her hands covering her face.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And then from the moonlight flooding us there dripped down on me a
+great drowsiness. Sleep seemed to seep from the rays and fall upon my
+eyes, closing them&mdash;closing them inexorably. Edith's hand in mine
+relaxed. Stanton's head fell upon his breast and his body swayed
+drunkenly. I tried to rise&mdash;to fight against the profound desire for
+slumber that pressed on me.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And as I fought, Thora raised her head as though listening; and
+turned toward the gateway. There was infinite despair in her face&mdash;and
+expectancy. I tried again to rise&mdash;and a surge of sleep rushed over
+me. Dimly, as I sank within it, I heard a crystalline chiming; raised
+my lids once more with a supreme effort.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Thora, bathed in light, was standing at the top of the stairs.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Sleep took me for its very own&mdash;swept me into the heart of oblivion!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Dawn was breaking when I wakened.  Recollection rushed back; I thrust
+a panic-stricken hand out toward Edith; touched her and my heart gave
+a great leap of thankfulness. She stirred, sat up, rubbing dazed eyes.
+Stanton lay on his side, back toward us, head in arms.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Edith looked at me laughingly.  'Heavens!  What sleep!' she said.
+Memory came to her.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"'What happened?' she whispered.  'What made us sleep like that?'
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Stanton awoke.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"'What's the matter!' he exclaimed.  'You look as though you've been
+seeing ghosts.'
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Edith caught my hands.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"'Where's Thora?' she cried.  Before I could answer she had run out
+into the open, calling.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"'Thora was taken,' was all I could say to Stanton, 'together we went
+to my wife, now standing beside the great stone steps, looking up
+fearfully at the gateway into the terraces. There I told them what I
+had seen before sleep had drowned me. And together then we ran up the
+stairs, through the court and to the grey rock.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The slab was closed as it had been the day before, nor was there
+trace of its having opened. No trace? Even as I thought this Edith
+dropped to her knees before it and reached toward something lying at
+its foot. It was a little piece of gay silk. I knew it for part of the
+kerchief Thora wore about her hair. She lifted the fragment. It had
+been cut from the kerchief as though by a razor-edge; a few threads
+ran from it&mdash;down toward the base of the slab; ran on to the base of
+the grey rock and&mdash;under it!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The grey rock was a door!  And it had opened and Thora had passed
+through it!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I think that for the next few minutes we all were a little insane.
+We beat upon that portal with our hands, with stones and sticks. At
+last reason came back to us.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Goodwin, during the next two hours we tried every way in our power to
+force entrance through the slab. The rock resisted our drills. We
+tried explosions at the base with charges covered by rock. They made
+not the slightest impression on the surface, expending their force, of
+course, upon the slighter resistance of their coverings.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Afternoon found us hopeless.  Night was coming on and we would have
+to decide our course of action. I wanted to go to Ponape for help. But
+Edith objected that this would take hours and after we had reached
+there it would be impossible to persuade our men to return with us
+that night, if at all. What then was left? Clearly only one of two
+choices: to go back to our camp, wait for our men, and on their return
+try to persuade them to go with us to Nan-Tauach. But this would mean
+the abandonment of Thora for at least two days. We could not do it; it
+would have been too cowardly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The other choice was to wait where we were for night to come; to wait
+for the rock to open as it had the night before, and to make a sortie
+through it for Thora before it could close again.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Our path lay clear before us.  We had to spend that night on
+Nan-Tauach!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We had, of course, discussed the sleep phenomena very fully.  If our
+theory that lights, sounds, and Thora's disappearance were linked with
+secret religious rites of the natives, the logical inference was that
+the slumber had been produced by them, perhaps by vapours&mdash;you know as
+well as I, what extraordinary knowledge these Pacific peoples have of
+such things. Or the sleep might have been simply a coincidence and
+produced by emanations either gaseous or from plants, natural causes
+which had happened to coincide in their effects with the other
+manifestations. We made some rough and ready but effective
+respirators.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"As dusk fell we looked over our weapons.  Edith was an excellent shot
+with both rifle and pistol. We had decided that my wife was to remain
+in the hiding-place. Stanton would take up a station on the far side
+of the stairway and I would place myself opposite him on the side near
+Edith. The place I picked out was less than two hundred feet from her,
+and I could reassure myself now and then as to her safety as it looked
+down upon the hollow wherein she crouched. From our respective
+stations Stanton and I could command the gateway entrance. His
+position gave him also a glimpse of the outer courtyard.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"A faint glow in the sky heralded the moon.  Stanton and I took our
+places. The moon dawn increased rapidly; the disk swam up, and in a
+moment it was shining in full radiance upon ruins and sea.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"As it rose there came a curious little sighing sound from the inner
+terrace. Stanton straightened up and stared intently through the
+gateway, rifle ready.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"'Stanton, what do you see?' I called cautiously.  He waved a
+silencing hand. I turned my head to look at Edith. A shock ran through
+me. She lay upon her side. Her face, grotesque with its nose and mouth
+covered by the respirator, was turned full toward the moon. She was
+again in deepest sleep!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"As I turned again to call to Stanton, my eyes swept the head of the
+steps and stopped, fascinated. For the moonlight had thickened. It
+seemed to be&mdash;curdled&mdash;there; and through it ran little gleams and
+veins of shimmering white fire. A languor passed through me. It was
+not the ineffable drowsiness of the preceding night. It was a sapping
+of all will to move. I tried to cry out to Stanton. I had not even the
+will to move my lips. Goodwin&mdash;I could not even move my eyes!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Stanton was in the range of my fixed vision.  I watched him leap up
+the steps and move toward the gateway. The curdled radiance seemed to
+await him. He stepped into it&mdash;and was lost to my sight.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"For a dozen heart beats there was silence.  Then a rain of tinklings
+that set the pulses racing with joy and at once checked them with tiny
+fingers of ice&mdash;and ringing through them Stanton's voice from the
+courtyard&mdash;a great cry&mdash;a scream&mdash;filled with ecstasy insupportable
+and horror unimaginable! And once more there was silence. I strove to
+burst the bonds that held me. I could not. Even my eyelids were fixed.
+Within them my eyes, dry and aching, burned.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Then Goodwin&mdash;I first saw the&mdash;inexplicable!  The crystalline music
+swelled. Where I sat I could take in the gateway and its basalt
+portals, rough and broken, rising to the top of the wall forty feet
+above, shattered, ruined portals&mdash;unclimbable. From this gateway an
+intenser light began to flow. It grew, it gushed, and out of it walked
+Stanton.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Stanton!  But&mdash;God!  What a vision!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A deep tremor shook him.  I waited&mdash;waited.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap05"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER V
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+Into the Moon Pool
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+"Goodwin," Throckmartin went on at last, "I can describe him only as a
+thing of living light. He radiated light; was filled with light;
+overflowed with it. A shining cloud whirled through and around him in
+radiant swirls, shimmering tentacles, luminescent, coruscating
+spirals.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"His face shone with a rapture too great to be borne by living man,
+and was shadowed with insuperable misery. It was as though it had been
+remoulded by the hand of God and the hand of Satan, working together
+and in harmony. You have seen that seal upon my own. But you have
+never seen it in the degree that Stanton bore it. The eyes were wide
+open and fixed, as though upon some inward vision of hell and heaven!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The light that filled and surrounded him had a nucleus, a
+core&mdash;something shiftingly human shaped&mdash;that dissolved and changed,
+gathered itself, whirled through and beyond him and back again. And as
+its shining nucleus passed through him Stanton's whole body pulsed
+radiance. As the luminescence moved, there moved above it, still and
+serene always, seven tiny globes of seven colors, like seven little
+moons.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Then swiftly Stanton was lifted&mdash;levitated&mdash;up the unscalable wall
+and to its top. The glow faded from the moonlight, the tinkling music
+grew fainter. I tried again to move. The tears were running down now
+from my rigid lids and they brought relief to my tortured eyes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I have said my gaze was fixed.  It was.  But from the side,
+peripherally, it took in a part of the far wall of the outer
+enclosure. Ages seemed to pass and a radiance stole along it. Soon
+drifted into sight the figure that was Stanton. Far away he was&mdash;on
+the gigantic wall. But still I could see the shining spirals whirling
+jubilantly around and through him; felt rather than saw his tranced
+face beneath the seven moons. A swirl of crystal notes, and he had
+passed. And all the time, as though from some opened well of light,
+the courtyard gleamed and sent out silver fires that dimmed the
+moonrays, yet seemed strangely to be a part of them.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"At last the moon neared the horizon.  There came a louder burst of
+sound; the second, and last, cry of Stanton, like an echo of his
+first! Again the soft sighing from the inner terrace. Then&mdash;utter
+silence!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The light faded; the moon was setting and with a rush life and power
+to move returned to me. I made a leap for the steps, rushed up them,
+through the gateway and straight to the grey rock. It was closed&mdash;as I
+knew it would be. But did I dream it or did I hear, echoing through it
+as though from vast distances a triumphant shouting?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I ran back to Edith.  At my touch she wakened; looked at me
+wanderingly; raised herself on a hand.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"'Dave!' she said, 'I slept&mdash;after all.' She saw the despair on my
+face and leaped to her feet. 'Dave!' she cried. 'What is it? Where's
+Charles?'
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I lighted a fire before I spoke.  Then I told her.  And for the
+balance of that night we sat before the flames, arms around each
+other&mdash;like two frightened children."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Abruptly Throckmartin held his hands out to me appealingly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Walter, old friend!" he cried.  "Don't look at me as though I were
+mad. It's truth, absolute truth. Wait&mdash;" I comforted him as well as I
+could. After a little time he took up his story.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Never," he said, "did man welcome the sun as we did that morning.  A
+soon as it had risen we went back to the courtyard. The walls whereon
+I had seen Stanton were black and silent. The terraces were as they
+had been. The grey slab was in its place. In the shallow hollow at its
+base was&mdash;nothing. Nothing&mdash;nothing was there anywhere on the islet
+of Stanton&mdash;not a trace.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What were we to do?  Precisely the same arguments that had kept us
+there the night before held good now&mdash;and doubly good. We could not
+abandon these two; could not go as long as there was the faintest hope
+of finding them&mdash;and yet for love of each other how could we remain? I
+loved my wife,&mdash;how much I never knew until that day; and she loved me
+as deeply.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"'It takes only one each night,' she pleaded.  'Beloved, let it take
+me.'
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I wept, Walter.  We both wept.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"'We will meet it together,' she said.  And it was thus at last that
+we arranged it."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That took great courage indeed, Throckmartin," I interrupted.  He
+looked at me eagerly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You do believe then?" he exclaimed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I believe," I said.  He pressed my hand with a grip that nearly
+crushed it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Now," he told me.  "I do not fear.  If I&mdash;fail, you will follow with
+help?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I promised.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We talked it over carefully," he went on, "bringing to bear all our
+power of analysis and habit of calm, scientific thought. We considered
+minutely the time element in the phenomena. Although the deep chanting
+began at the very moment of moonrise, fully five minutes had passed
+between its full lifting and the strange sighing sound from the inner
+terrace. I went back in memory over the happenings of the night
+before. At least ten minutes had intervened between the first
+heralding sigh and the intensification of the moonlight in the
+courtyard. And this glow grew for at least ten minutes more before the
+first burst of the crystal notes. Indeed, more than half an hour must
+have elapsed, I calculated, between the moment the moon showed above
+the horizon and the first delicate onslaught of the tinklings.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"'Edith!' I cried.  'I think I have it!  The grey rock opens five
+minutes after upon the moonrise. But whoever or whatever it is that
+comes through it must wait until the moon has risen higher, or else it
+must come from a distance. The thing to do is not to wait for it, but
+to surprise it before it passes out the door. We will go into the
+inner court early. You will take your rifle and pistol and hide
+yourself where you can command the opening&mdash;if the slab does open. The
+instant it opens I will enter. It's our best chance, Edith. I think
+it's our only one.'
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"My wife demurred strongly.  She wanted to go with me. But I convinced
+her that it was better for her to stand guard without, prepared to
+help me if I were forced again into the open by what lay behind the
+rock.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"At the half-hour before moonrise we went into the inner court.  I
+took my place at the side of the grey rock. Edith crouched behind a
+broken pillar twenty feet away; slipped her rifle-barrel over it so
+that it would cover the opening.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The minutes crept by.  The darkness lessened and through the breaches
+of the terrace I watched the far sky softly lighten. With the first
+pale flush the silence of the place intensified. It deepened; became
+unbearably&mdash;expectant. The moon rose, showed the quarter, the half,
+then swam up into full sight like a great bubble.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Its rays fell upon the wall before me and suddenly upon the
+convexities I have described seven little circles of light sprang out.
+They gleamed, glimmered, grew brighter&mdash;shone. The gigantic slab
+before me glowed with them, silver wavelets of phosphorescence pulsed
+over its surface and then&mdash;it turned as though on a pivot, sighing
+softly as it moved!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"With a word to Edith I flung myself through the opening. A tunnel
+stretched before me. It glowed with the same faint silvery radiance.
+Down it I raced. The passage turned abruptly, passed parallel to the
+walls of the outer courtyard and then once more led downward.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The passage ended.  Before me was a high vaulted arch. It seemed to
+open into space; a space filled with lambent, coruscating,
+many-coloured mist whose brightness grew even as I watched. I passed
+through the arch and stopped in sheer awe!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"In front of me was a pool.  It was circular, perhaps twenty feet
+wide. Around it ran a low, softly curved lip of glimmering silvery
+stone. Its water was palest blue. The pool with its silvery rim was
+like a great blue eye staring upward.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Upon it streamed seven shafts of radiance.  They poured down upon the
+blue eye like cylindrical torrents; they were like shining pillars of
+light rising from a sapphire floor.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"One was the tender pink of the pearl; one of the aurora's green; a
+third a deathly white; the fourth the blue in mother-of-pearl; a
+shimmering column of pale amber; a beam of amethyst; a shaft of molten
+silver. Such are the colours of the seven lights that stream upon the
+Moon Pool. I drew closer, awestricken. The shafts did not illumine the
+depths. They played upon the surface and seemed there to diffuse, to
+melt into it. The Pool drank them?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Through the water tiny gleams of phosphorescence began to dart,
+sparkles and coruscations of pale incandescence. And far, far below I
+sensed a movement, a shifting glow as of a radiant body slowly rising.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I looked upward, following the radiant pillars to their source.  Far
+above were seven shining globes, and it was from these that the rays
+poured. Even as I watched their brightness grew. They were like seven
+moons set high in some caverned heaven. Slowly their splendour
+increased, and with it the splendour of the seven beams streaming from
+them.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I tore my gaze away and stared at the Pool.  It had grown milky,
+opalescent. The rays gushing into it seemed to be filling it; it was
+alive with sparklings, scintillations, glimmerings. And the
+luminescence I had seen rising from its depths was larger, nearer!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"A swirl of mist floated up from its surface.  It drifted within the
+embrace of the rosy beam and hung there for a moment. The beam seemed
+to embrace it, sending through it little shining corpuscles, tiny rosy
+spiralings. The mist absorbed the rays, was strengthened by them,
+gained substance. Another swirl sprang into the amber shaft, clung and
+fed there, moved swiftly toward the first and mingled with it. And now
+other swirls arose, here and there, too fast to be counted; hung
+poised in the embrace of the light streams; flashed and pulsed into
+each other.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Thicker and thicker still they arose until over the surface of the
+Pool was a pulsating pillar of opalescent mist steadily growing
+stronger; drawing within it life from the seven beams falling upon it;
+drawing to it from below the darting, incandescent atoms of the Pool.
+Into its centre was passing the luminescence rising from the far
+depths. And the pillar glowed, throbbed&mdash;began to send out questing
+swirls and tendrils&mdash;
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"There forming before me was That which had walked with Stanton, which
+had taken Thora&mdash;the thing I had come to find!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"My brain sprang into action.  My hand threw up the pistol and I fired
+shot after shot into the shining core.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"As I fired, it swayed and shook; gathered again.  I slipped a second
+clip into the automatic and another idea coming to me took careful aim
+at one of the globes in the roof. From thence I knew came the force
+that shaped this Dweller in the Pool&mdash;from the pouring rays came its
+strength. If I could destroy them I could check its forming. I fired
+again and again. If I hit the globes I did no damage. The little motes
+in their beams danced with the motes in the mist, troubled. That was
+all.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But up from the Pool like little bells, like tiny bursting bubbles of
+glass, swarmed the tinkling sounds&mdash;their pitch higher, all their
+sweetness lost, angry.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And out from the Inexplicable swept a shining spiral.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It caught me above the heart; wrapped itself around me. There rushed
+through me a mingled ecstasy and horror. Every atom of me quivered
+with delight and shrank with despair. There was nothing loathsome in
+it. But it was as though the icy soul of evil and the fiery soul of
+good had stepped together within me. The pistol dropped from my hand.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"So I stood while the Pool gleamed and sparkled; the streams of light
+grew more intense and the radiant Thing that held me gleamed and
+strengthened. Its shining core had shape&mdash;but a shape that my eyes and
+brain could not define. It was as though a being of another sphere
+should assume what it might of human semblance, but was not able to
+conceal that what human eyes saw was but a part of it. It was neither
+man nor woman; it was unearthly and androgynous. Even as I found its
+human semblance it changed. And still the mingled rapture and terror
+held me. Only in a little corner of my brain dwelt something
+untouched; something that held itself apart and watched. Was it the
+soul? I have never believed&mdash;and yet&mdash;
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Over the head of the misty body there sprang suddenly out seven
+little lights. Each was the colour of the beam beneath which it
+rested. I knew now that the Dweller was&mdash;complete!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I heard a scream.  It was Edith's voice.  It came to me that she had
+heard the shots and followed me. I felt every faculty concentrate into
+a mighty effort. I wrenched myself free from the gripping tentacle and
+it swept back. I turned to catch Edith, and as I did so slipped&mdash;fell.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The radiant shape above the Pool leaped swiftly&mdash;and straight into it
+raced Edith, arms outstretched to shield me from it! God!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"She threw herself squarely within its splendour," he whispered.  "It
+wrapped its shining self around her. The crystal tinklings burst forth
+jubilantly. The light filled her, ran through and around her as it had
+with Stanton; and dropped down upon her face&mdash;the look!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But her rush had taken her to the very verge of the Moon Pool.  She
+tottered; she fell&mdash;with the radiance still holding her, still
+swirling and winding around and through her&mdash;into the Moon Pool! She
+sank, and with her went&mdash;the Dweller!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I dragged myself to the brink.  Far down was a shining, many-coloured
+nebulous cloud descending; out of it peered Edith's face,
+disappearing; her eyes stared up at me&mdash;and she vanished!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"'Edith!' I cried again.  'Edith, come back to me!'
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And then a darkness fell upon me.  I remember running back through
+the shimmering corridors and out into the courtyard. Reason had left
+me. When it returned I was far out at sea in our boat wholly estranged
+from civilization. A day later I was picked up by the schooner in
+which I came to Port Moresby.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I have formed a plan; you must hear it, Goodwin&mdash;" He fell upon his
+berth. I bent over him. Exhaustion and the relief of telling his story
+had been too much for him. He slept like the dead.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+All that night I watched over him.  When dawn broke I went to my room
+to get a little sleep myself. But my slumber was haunted.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The next day the storm was unabated.  Throckmartin came to me at
+lunch. He had regained much of his old alertness.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Come to my cabin," he said.  There, he stripped his shirt from him.
+"Something is happening," he said. "The mark is smaller." It was as he
+said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'm escaping," he whispered jubilantly, "Just let me get to Melbourne
+safely, and then we'll see who'll win! For, Walter, I'm not at all
+sure that Edith is dead&mdash;as we know death&mdash;nor that the others are.
+There is something outside experience there&mdash;some great mystery."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And all that day he talked to me of his plans.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"There's a natural explanation, of course," he said.  "My theory is
+that the moon rock is of some composition sensitive to the action of
+moon rays; somewhat as the metal selenium is to sun rays. The little
+circles over the top are, without doubt, its operating agency. When
+the light strikes them they release the mechanism that opens the slab,
+just as you can open doors with sun or electric light by an ingenious
+arrangement of selenium-cells. Apparently it takes the strength of the
+full moon both to do this and to summon the Dweller in the Pool. We
+will first try a concentration of the rays of the waning moon upon
+these circles to see whether that will open the rock. If it does we
+will be able to investigate the Pool without interruption
+from&mdash;from&mdash;what emanates.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Look, here on the chart are their locations.  I have made this in
+duplicate for you in the event&mdash;of something happening&mdash;to me. And if
+I lose&mdash;you'll come after us, Goodwin, with help&mdash;won't you?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And again I promised.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A little later he complained of increasing sleepiness.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But it's just weariness," he said.  "Not at all like that other
+drowsiness. It's an hour till moonrise still," he yawned at last.
+"Wake me up a good fifteen minutes before."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He lay upon the berth.  I sat thinking.  I came to myself with a
+guilty start. I had completely lost myself in my deep preoccupation.
+What time was it? I looked at my watch and jumped to the port-hole. It
+was full moonlight; the orb had been up for fully half an hour. I
+strode over to Throckmartin and shook him by the shoulder.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Up, quick, man!" I cried.  He rose sleepily.  His shirt fell open at
+the neck and I looked, in amazement, at the white band around his
+chest. Even under the electric light it shone softly, as though little
+flecks of light were in it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Throckmartin seemed only half-awake.  He looked down at his breast,
+saw the glowing cincture, and smiled.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes," he said drowsily, "it's coming&mdash;to take me back to Edith!
+Well, I'm glad."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Throckmartin!" I cried.  "Wake up!  Fight!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Fight!" he said.  "No use; come after us!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He went to the port and sleepily drew aside the curtain. The moon
+traced a broad path of light straight to the ship. Under its rays the
+band around his chest gleamed brighter and brighter; shot forth little
+rays; seemed to writhe.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The lights went out in the cabin; evidently also throughout the ship,
+for I heard shoutings above.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Throckmartin still stood at the open port.  Over his shoulder I saw a
+gleaming pillar racing along the moon path toward us. Through the
+window cascaded a blinding radiance. It gathered Throckmartin to it,
+clothed him in a robe of living opalescence. Light pulsed through and
+from him. The cabin filled with murmurings&mdash;
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A wave of weakness swept over me, buried me in blackness.  When
+consciousness came back, the lights were again burning brightly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But of Throckmartin there was no trace!
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap06"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER VI
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+"The Shining Devil Took Them!"
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+My colleagues of the Association, and you others who may read this my
+narrative, for what I did and did not when full realization returned I
+must offer here, briefly as I can, an explanation; a defense&mdash;if you
+will.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+My first act was to spring to the open port.  The coma had lasted
+hours, for the moon was now low in the west! I ran to the door to
+sound the alarm. It resisted under my frantic hands; would not open.
+Something fell tinkling to the floor. It was the key and I remembered
+then that Throckmartin had turned it before we began our vigil. With
+memory a hope died that I had not known was in me, the hope that he
+had escaped from the cabin, found refuge elsewhere on the ship.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And as I stooped, fumbling with shaking fingers for the key, a thought
+came to me that drove again the blood from my heart, held me rigid. I
+could sound no alarm on the Southern Queen for Throckmartin!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Conviction of my appalling helplessness was complete. The ensemble of
+the vessel from captain to cabin boy was, to put it conservatively,
+average. None, I knew, save Throckmartin and myself had seen the first
+apparition of the Dweller. Had they witnessed the second? I did not
+know, nor could I risk speaking, not knowing. And not seeing, how
+could they believe? They would have thought me insane&mdash;or worse;
+even, it might be, his murderer.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I snapped off the electrics; waited and listened; opened the door with
+infinite caution and slipped, unseen, into my own stateroom. The hours
+until the dawn were eternities of waking nightmare. Reason, resuming
+sway at last, steadied me. Even had I spoken and been believed where
+in these wastes after all the hours could we search for Throckmartin?
+Certainly the captain would not turn back to Port Moresby. And even if
+he did, of what use for me to set forth for the Nan-Matal without the
+equipment which Throckmartin himself had decided was necessary if one
+hoped to cope with the mystery that lurked there?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There was but one thing to do&mdash;follow his instructions; get the
+paraphernalia in Melbourne or Sydney if it were possible; if not sail
+to America as swiftly as might be, secure it there and as swiftly
+return to Ponape. And this I determined to do.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Calmness came back to me after I had made this decision. And when I
+went up on deck I knew that I had been right. They had not seen the
+Dweller. They were still discussing the darkening of the ship, talking
+of dynamos burned out, wires short circuited, a half dozen
+explanations of the extinguishment. Not until noon was Throckmartin's
+absence discovered. I told the captain that I had left him early in
+the evening; that, indeed, I knew him but slightly, after all. It
+occurred to none to doubt me, or to question me minutely. Why should
+it have? His strangeness had been noted, commented upon; all who had
+met him had thought him half mad. I did little to discourage the
+impression. And so it came naturally that on the log it was entered
+that he had fallen or leaped from the vessel some time during the
+night.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A report to this effect was made when we entered Melbourne.  I slipped
+quietly ashore and in the press of the war news Throckmartin's
+supposed fate won only a few lines in the newspapers; my own presence
+on the ship and in the city passed unnoticed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I was fortunate in securing at Melbourne everything I needed except a
+set of Becquerel ray condensers&mdash;but these were the very keystone of
+my equipment. Pursuing my search to Sydney I was doubly fortunate in
+finding a firm who were expecting these very articles in a consignment
+due them from the States within a fortnight. I settled down in
+strictest seclusion to await their arrival.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And now it will occur to you to ask why I did not cable, during this
+period of waiting, to the Association; demand aid from it. Or why I
+did not call upon members of the University staffs of either Melbourne
+or Sydney for assistance. At the least, why I did not gather, as
+Throckmartin had hoped to do, a little force of strong men to go with
+me to the Nan-Matal.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+To the first two questions I answer frankly&mdash;I did not dare. And this
+reluctance, this inhibition, every man jealous of his scientific
+reputation will understand. The story of Throckmartin, the happenings
+I had myself witnessed, were incredible, abnormal, outside the facts
+of all known science. I shrank from the inevitable disbelief, perhaps
+ridicule&mdash;nay, perhaps even the graver suspicion that had caused me to
+seal my lips while on the ship. Why I myself could only half believe!
+How then could I hope to convince others?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And as for the third question&mdash;I could not take men into the range of
+such a peril without first warning them of what they might encounter;
+and if I did warn them&mdash;
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was checkmate!  If it also was cowardice&mdash;well, I have atoned for
+it. But I do not hold it so; my conscience is clear.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+That fortnight and the greater part of another passed before the ship
+I awaited steamed into port. By that time, between my straining
+anxiety to be after Throckmartin, the despairing thought that every
+moment of delay might be vital to him and his, and my intensely eager
+desire to know whether that shining, glorious horror on the moon path
+did exist or had been hallucination, I was worn almost to the edge of
+madness.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At last the condensers were in my hands.  It was more than a week
+later, however, before I could secure passage back to Port Moresby and
+it was another week still before I started north on the Suwarna, a
+swift little sloop with a fifty-horsepower auxiliary, heading straight
+for Ponape and the Nan-Matal.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+We sighted the Brunhilda some five hundred miles south of the
+Carolines. The wind had fallen soon after Papua had dropped astern.
+The Suwarna's ability to make her twelve knots an hour without it had
+made me very fully forgive her for not being as fragrant as the Javan
+flower for which she was named. Da Costa, her captain, was a
+garrulous Portuguese; his mate was a Canton man with all the marks of
+long and able service on some pirate junk; his engineer was a
+half-breed China-Malay who had picked up his knowledge of power
+plants, Heaven alone knew where, and, I had reason to believe, had
+transferred all his religious impulses to the American built deity of
+mechanism he so faithfully served. The crew was made up of six huge,
+chattering Tonga boys.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Suwarna had cut through Finschafen Huon Gulf to the protection of
+the Bismarcks. She had threaded the maze of the archipelago
+tranquilly, and we were then rolling over the thousand-mile stretch of
+open ocean with New Hanover far behind us and our boat's bow pointed
+straight toward Nukuor of the Monte Verdes. After we had rounded
+Nukuor we should, barring accident, reach Ponape in not more than
+sixty hours.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was late afternoon, and on the demure little breeze that marched
+behind us came far-flung sighs of spice-trees and nutmeg flowers. The
+slow prodigious swells of the Pacific lifted us in gentle, giant hands
+and sent us as gently down the long, blue wave slopes to the next
+broad, upward slope. There was a spell of peace over the ocean,
+stilling even the Portuguese captain who stood dreamily at the wheel,
+slowly swaying to the rhythmic lift and fall of the sloop.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There came a whining hail from the Tonga boy lookout draped lazily
+over the bow.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Sail he b'long port side!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Da Costa straightened and gazed while I raised my glass. The vessel
+was a scant mile away, and must have been visible long before the
+sleepy watcher had seen her. She was a sloop about the size of the
+Suwarna, without power. All sails set, even to a spinnaker she
+carried, she was making the best of the little breeze. I tried to read
+her name, but the vessel jibed sharply as though the hands of the man
+at the wheel had suddenly dropped the helm&mdash;and then with equal
+abruptness swung back to her course. The stern came in sight, and on
+it I read Brunhilda.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I shifted my glasses to the man at wheel.  He was crouching down over
+the spokes in a helpless, huddled sort of way, and even as I looked
+the vessel veered again, abruptly as before. I saw the helmsman
+straighten up and bring the wheel about with a vicious jerk.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He stood so for a moment, looking straight ahead, entirely oblivious
+of us, and then seemed again to sink down within himself. It came to
+me that his was the action of a man striving vainly against a
+weariness unutterable. I swept the deck with my glasses. There was no
+other sign of life. I turned to find the Portuguese staring intently
+and with puzzled air at the sloop, now separated from us by a scant
+half mile.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Something veree wrong I think there, sair," he said in his curious
+English. "The man on deck I know. He is captain and owner of the
+Br-rwun'ild. His name Olaf Huldricksson, what you say&mdash;Norwegian. He
+is eithair veree sick or veree tired&mdash;but I do not undweerstand where
+is the crew and the starb'd boat is gone&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He shouted an order to the engineer and as he did so the faint breeze
+failed and the sails of the Brunhilda flapped down inert. We were now
+nearly abreast and a scant hundred yards away. The engine of the
+Suwarna died and the Tonga boys leaped to one of the boats.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You Olaf Huldricksson!" shouted Da Costa.  "What's a matter wit'
+you?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The man at the wheel turned toward us.  He was a giant; his shoulders
+enormous, thick chested, strength in every line of him, he towered
+like a viking of old at the rudder bar of his shark ship.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I raised the glass again; his face sprang into the lens and never have
+I seen a visage lined and marked as though by ages of unsleeping
+misery as was that of Olaf Huldricksson!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Tonga boys had the boat alongside and were waiting at the oars.
+The little captain was dropping into it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Wait!" I cried.  I ran into my cabin, grasped my emergency medical
+kit and climbed down the rope ladder. The Tonga boys bent to the oars.
+We reached the side and Da Costa and I each seized a lanyard dangling
+from the stays and swung ourselves on board. Da Costa approached
+Huldricksson softly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What's the matter, Olaf?" he began&mdash;and then was silent, looking down
+at the wheel. The hands of Huldricksson were lashed fast to the spokes
+by thongs of thin, strong cord; they were swollen and black and the
+thongs had bitten into the sinewy wrists till they were hidden in the
+outraged flesh, cutting so deeply that blood fell, slow drop by drop,
+at his feet! We sprang toward him, reaching out hands to his fetters
+to loose them. Even as we touched them, Huldricksson aimed a vicious
+kick at me and then another at Da Costa which sent the Portuguese
+tumbling into the scuppers.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Let be!" croaked Huldricksson; his voice was thick and lifeless as
+though forced from a dead throat; his lips were cracked and dry and
+his parched tongue was black. "Let be! Go! Let be!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Portuguese had picked himself up, whimpering with rage and knife
+in hand, but as Huldricksson's voice reached him he stopped.
+Amazement crept into his eyes and as he thrust the blade back into
+his belt they softened with pity.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Something veree wrong wit' Olaf," he murmured to me. "I think he
+crazee!" And then Olaf Huldricksson began to curse us. He did not
+speak&mdash;he howled from that hideously dry mouth his imprecations. And
+all the time his red eyes roamed the seas and his hands, clenched and
+rigid on the wheel, dropped blood.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I go below," said Da Costa nervously.  "His wife, his daughter&mdash;" he
+darted down the companionway and was gone.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Huldricksson, silent once more, had slumped down over the wheel.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Da Costa's head appeared at the top of the companion steps.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"There is nobody, nobody," he paused&mdash;then&mdash;"nobody&mdash;nowhere!" His
+hands flew out in a gesture of hopeless incomprehension. "I do not
+understan'."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then Olaf Huldricksson opened his dry lips and as he spoke a chill ran
+through me, checking my heart.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The sparkling devil took them!" croaked Olaf Huldricksson, "the
+sparkling devil took them! Took my Helma and my little Freda! The
+sparkling devil came down from the moon and took them!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He swayed; tears dripped down his cheeks.  Da Costa moved toward him
+again and again Huldricksson watched him, alertly, wickedly, from his
+bloodshot eyes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I took a hypodermic from my case and filled it with morphine.  I drew
+Da Costa to me.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Get to the side of him," I whispered, "talk to him." He moved over
+toward the wheel.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Where is your Helma and Freda, Olaf?" he said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Huldricksson turned his head toward him.  "The shining devil took
+them," he croaked. "The moon devil that spark&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A yell broke from him.  I had thrust the needle into his arm just
+above one swollen wrist and had quickly shot the drug through. He
+struggled to release himself and then began to rock drunkenly. The
+morphine, taking him in his weakness, worked quickly. Soon over his
+face a peace dropped. The pupils of the staring eyes contracted. Once,
+twice, he swayed and then, his bleeding, prisoned hands held high and
+still gripping the wheel, he crumpled to the deck.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+With utmost difficulty we loosed the thongs, but at last it was done.
+We rigged a little swing and the Tonga boys slung the great inert body
+over the side into the dory. Soon we had Huldricksson in my bunk. Da
+Costa sent half his crew over to the sloop in charge of the Cantonese.
+They took in all sail, stripping Huldricksson's boat to the masts and
+then with the Brunhilda nosing quietly along after us at the end of a
+long hawser, one of the Tonga boys at her wheel, we resumed the way so
+enigmatically interrupted.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I cleansed and bandaged the Norseman's lacerated wrists and sponged
+the blackened, parched mouth with warm water and a mild antiseptic.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Suddenly I was aware of Da Costa's presence and turned. His unease was
+manifest and held, it seemed to me, a queer, furtive anxiety.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What you think of Olaf, sair?" he asked.  I shrugged my shoulders.
+"You think he killed his woman and his babee?" He went on. "You think
+he crazee and killed all?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Nonsense, Da Costa," I answered.  "You saw the boat was gone.  Most
+probably his crew mutinied and to torture him tied him up the way you
+saw. They did the same thing with Hilton of the Coral Lady; you'll
+remember."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No," he said.  "No.  The crew did not.  Nobody there on board when
+Olaf was tied."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What!" I cried, startled.  "What do you mean?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I mean," he said slowly, "that Olaf tie himself!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Wait!" he went on at my incredulous gesture of dissent. "Wait, I show
+you." He had been standing with hands behind his back and now I saw
+that he held in them the cut thongs that had bound Huldricksson. They
+were blood-stained and each ended in a broad leather tip skilfully
+spliced into the cord. "Look," he said, pointing to these leather
+ends. I looked and saw in them deep indentations of teeth. I snatched
+one of the thongs and opened the mouth of the unconscious man on the
+bunk. Carefully I placed the leather within it and gently forced the
+jaws shut on it. It was true. Those marks were where Olaf
+Huldricksson's jaws had gripped.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Wait!" Da Costa repeated, "I show you." He took other cords and
+rested his hands on the supports of a chair back. Rapidly he twisted
+one of the thongs around his left hand, drew a loose knot, shifted the
+cord up toward his elbow. This left wrist and hand still free and with
+them he twisted the other cord around the right wrist; drew a similar
+knot. His hands were now in the exact position that Huldricksson's had
+been on the Brunhilda but with cords and knots hanging loose. Then Da
+Costa reached down his head, took a leather end in his teeth and with
+a jerk drew the thong that noosed his left hand tight; similarly he
+drew tight the second.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He strained at his fetters.  There before my eyes he had pinioned
+himself so that without aid he could not release himself. And he was
+exactly as Huldricksson had been!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You will have to cut me loose, sair," he said.  "I cannot move them.
+It is an old trick on these seas. Sometimes it is necessary that a man
+stand at the wheel many hours without help, and he does this so that
+if he sleep the wheel wake him, yes, sair."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I looked from him to the man on the bed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But why, sair," said Da Costa slowly, "did Olaf have to tie his
+hands?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I looked at him, uneasily.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I don't know," I answered.  "Do you?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He fidgeted, avoided my eyes, and then rapidly, almost surreptitiously
+crossed himself.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No," he replied.  "I know nothing.  Some things I have heard&mdash;but
+they tell many tales on these seas."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He started for the door.  Before he reached it he turned. "But this I
+do know," he half whispered, "I am damned glad there is no full moon
+tonight." And passed out, leaving me staring after him in amazement.
+What did the Portuguese know?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I bent over the sleeper.  On his face was no trace of that unholy
+mingling of opposites the Dweller stamped upon its victims.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And yet&mdash;what was it the Norseman had said?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The sparkling devil took them!"  Nay, he had been even more
+explicit&mdash;"The sparkling devil that came down from the moon!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Could it be that the Dweller had swept upon the Brunhilda, drawing
+down the moon path Olaf Huldricksson's wife and babe even as it had
+drawn Throckmartin?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As I sat thinking the cabin grew suddenly dark and from above came a
+shouting and patter of feet. Down upon us swept one of the abrupt,
+violent squalls that are met with in those latitudes. I lashed
+Huldricksson fast in the berth and ran up on deck.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The long, peaceful swells had changed into angry, choppy waves from
+the tops of which the spindrift streamed in long stinging lashes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A half-hour passed; the squall died as quickly as it had arisen.  The
+sea quieted. Over in the west, from beneath the tattered, flying edge
+of the storm, dropped the red globe of the setting sun; dropped slowly
+until it touched the sea rim.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I watched it&mdash;and rubbed my eyes and stared again.  For over its
+flaming portal something huge and black moved, like a gigantic
+beckoning finger!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Da Costa had seen it, too, and he turned the Suwarna straight toward
+the descending orb and its strange shadow. As we approached we saw it
+was a little mass of wreckage and that the beckoning finger was a wing
+of canvas, sticking up and swaying with the motion of the waves. On
+the highest point of the wreckage sat a tall figure calmly smoking a
+cigarette.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+We brought the Suwarna to, dropped a boat, and with myself as coxswain
+pulled toward a wrecked hydroairplane. Its occupant took a long puff
+at his cigarette, waved a cheerful hand, shouted a greeting. And just
+as he did so a great wave raised itself up behind him, took the
+wreckage, tossed it high in a swelter of foam, and passed on. When we
+had steadied our boat, where wreck and man had been was&mdash;nothing.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There came a tug at the side&mdash;, two muscular brown hands gripped it
+close to my left, and a sleek, black, wet head showed its top between
+them. Two bright, blue eyes that held deep within them a laughing
+deviltry looked into mine, and a long, lithe body drew itself gently
+over the thwart and seated its dripping self at my feet.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Much obliged," said this man from the sea.  "I knew somebody was sure
+to come along when the O'Keefe banshee didn't show up."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The what?" I asked in amazement.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The O'Keefe banshee&mdash;I'm Larry O'Keefe.  It's a far way from Ireland,
+but not too far for the O'Keefe banshee to travel if the O'Keefe was
+going to click in."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I looked again at my astonishing rescue.  He seemed perfectly serious.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Have you a cigarette?  Mine went out," he said with a grin, as he
+reached a moist hand out for the little cylinder, took it, lighted it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I saw a lean, intelligent face whose fighting jaw was softened by the
+wistfulness of the clean-cut lips and the honesty that lay side by
+side with the deviltry in the laughing blue eyes; nose of a
+thoroughbred with the suspicion of a tilt; long, well-knit, slender
+figure that I knew must have all the strength of fine steel; the
+uniform of a lieutenant in the Royal Flying Corps of Britain's navy.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He laughed, stretched out a firm hand, and gripped mine.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Thank you really ever so much, old man," he said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I liked Larry O'Keefe from the beginning&mdash;but I did not dream as the
+Tonga boys pulled us back to the Suwarna bow that liking was to be
+forged into man's strong love for man by fires which souls such as his
+and mine&mdash;and yours who read this&mdash;could never dream.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Larry!  Larry O'Keefe, where are you now with your leprechauns and
+banshee, your heart of a child, your laughing blue eyes, and your
+fearless soul? Shall I ever see you again, Larry O'Keefe, dear to me
+as some best beloved younger brother? Larry!
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap07"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER VII
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+Larry O'Keefe
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+Pressing back the questions I longed to ask, I introduced myself.
+Oddly enough, I found that he knew me, or rather my work. He had
+bought, it appeared, my volume upon the peculiar vegetation whose
+habitat is disintegrating lava rock and volcanic ash, that I had
+entitled, somewhat loosely, I could now perceive, Flora of the
+Craters. For he explained naively that he had picked it up, thinking
+it an entirely different sort of a book, a novel in fact&mdash;something
+like Meredith's Diana of the Crossways, which he liked greatly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He had hardly finished this explanation when we touched the side of
+the Suwarna, and I was forced to curb my curiosity until we reached
+the deck.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That thing you saw me sitting on," he said, after he had thanked the
+bowing little skipper for his rescue, "was all that was left of one of
+his Majesty's best little hydroairplanes after that cyclone threw it
+off as excess baggage. And by the way, about where are we?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Da Costa gave him our approximate position from the noon reckoning.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+O'Keefe whistled.  "A good three hundred miles from where I left the
+H.M.S. Dolphin about four hours ago," he said. "That squall I rode in
+on was some whizzer!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The Dolphin," he went on, calmly divesting himself of his soaked
+uniform, "was on her way to Melbourne. I'd been yearning for a joy
+ride and went up for an alleged scouting trip. Then that blow shot out
+of nowhere, picked me up, and insisted that I go with it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"About an hour ago I thought I saw a chance to zoom up and out of it,
+I turned, and <I>blick</I> went my right wing, and down I dropped."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I don't know how we can notify your ship, Lieutenant O'Keefe," I
+said. "We have no wireless."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Doctair Goodwin," said Da Costa, "we could change our course,
+sair&mdash;perhaps&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Thanks&mdash;but not a bit of it," broke in O'Keefe.  "Lord alone knows
+where the Dolphin is now. Fancy she'll be nosing around looking for
+me. Anyway, she's just as apt to run into you as you into her. Maybe
+we'll strike something with a wireless, and I'll trouble you to put me
+aboard." He hesitated. "Where are you bound, by the way?" he asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"For Ponape," I answered.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No wireless there," mused O'Keefe.  "Beastly hole. Stopped a week ago
+for fruit. Natives seemed scared to death at us&mdash;or something. What
+are you going there for?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Da Costa darted a furtive glance at me.  It troubled me.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+O'Keefe noted my hesitation.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, I beg your pardon," he said.  "Maybe I oughn't to have asked
+that?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It's no secret, Lieutenant," I replied.  "I'm about to undertake some
+exploration work&mdash;a little digging among the ruins on the Nan-Matal."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I looked at the Portuguese sharply as I named the place. A pallor
+crept beneath his skin and again he made swiftly the sign of the
+cross, glancing as he did so fearfully to the north. I made up my mind
+then to question him when opportunity came. He turned from his quick
+scrutiny of the sea and addressed O'Keefe.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"There's nothing on board to fit you, Lieutenant."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, just give me a sheet to throw around me, Captain," said O'Keefe
+and followed him. Darkness had fallen, and as the two disappeared into
+Da Costa's cabin I softly opened the door of my own and listened.
+Huldricksson was breathing deeply and regularly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I drew my electric-flash, and shielding its rays from my face, looked
+at him. His sleep was changing from the heavy stupor of the drug into
+one that was at least on the borderland of the normal. The tongue had
+lost its arid blackness and the mouth secretions had resumed action.
+Satisfied as to his condition I returned to deck.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+O'Keefe was there, looking like a spectre in the cotton sheet he had
+wrapped about him. A deck table had been cleated down and one of the
+Tonga boys was setting it for our dinner. Soon the very creditable
+larder of the Suwarna dressed the board, and O'Keefe, Da Costa, and I
+attacked it. The night had grown close and oppressive. Behind us the
+forward light of the Brunhilda glided and the binnacle lamp threw up a
+faint glow in which her black helmsman's face stood out mistily.
+O'Keefe had looked curiously a number of times at our tow, but had
+asked no questions.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You're not the only passenger we picked up today," I told him.  "We
+found the captain of that sloop, lashed to his wheel, nearly dead with
+exhaustion, and his boat deserted by everyone except himself."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What was the matter?" asked O'Keefe in astonishment.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We don't know," I answered.  "He fought us, and I had to drug him
+before we could get him loose from his lashings. He's sleeping down in
+my berth now. His wife and little girl ought to have been on board,
+the captain here says, but&mdash;they weren't."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Wife and child gone!" exclaimed O'Keefe.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"From the condition of his mouth he must have been alone at the wheel
+and without water at least two days and nights before we found him," I
+replied. "And as for looking for anyone on these waters after such a
+time&mdash;it's hopeless."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That's true," said O'Keefe.  "But his wife and baby!  Poor, poor
+devil!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He was silent for a time, and then, at my solicitation, began to tell
+us more of himself. He had been little more than twenty when he had
+won his wings and entered the war. He had been seriously wounded at
+Ypres during the third year of the struggle, and when he recovered the
+war was over. Shortly after that his mother had died. Lonely and
+restless, he had re-entered the Air Service, and had remained in it
+ever since.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And though the war's long over, I get homesick for the lark's land
+with the German planes playing tunes on their machine guns and their
+Archies tickling the soles of my feet," he sighed. "If you're in love,
+love to the limit; and if you hate, why hate like the devil and if
+it's a fight you're in, get where it's hottest and fight like hell&mdash;if
+you don't life's not worth the living," sighed he.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I watched him as he talked, feeling my liking for him steadily
+increasing. If I could but have a man like this beside me on the path
+of unknown peril upon which I had set my feet I thought, wistfully. We
+sat and smoked a bit, sipping the strong coffee the Portuguese made so
+well.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Da Costa at last relieved the Cantonese at the wheel. O'Keefe and I
+drew chairs up to the rail. The brighter stars shone out dimly through
+a hazy sky; gleams of phosphorescence tipped the crests of the waves
+and sparkled with an almost angry brilliance as the bow of the Suwarna
+tossed them aside. O'Keefe pulled contentedly at a cigarette. The
+glowing spark lighted the keen, boyish face and the blue eyes, now
+black and brooding under the spell of the tropic night.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Are you American or Irish, O'Keefe?" I asked suddenly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why?" he laughed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Because," I answered, "from your name and your service I would
+suppose you Irish&mdash;but your command of pure Americanese makes me
+doubtful."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He grinned amiably.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'll tell you how that is," he said.  "My mother was an American&mdash;a
+Grace, of Virginia. My father was the O'Keefe, of Coleraine. And these
+two loved each other so well that the heart they gave me is half Irish
+and half American. My father died when I was sixteen. I used to go to
+the States with my mother every other year for a month or two. But
+after my father died we used to go to Ireland every other year. And
+there you are&mdash;I'm as much American as I am Irish.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"When I'm in love, or excited, or dreaming, or mad I have the brogue.
+But for the everyday purpose of life I like the United States talk,
+and I know Broadway as well as I do Binevenagh Lane, and the Sound as
+well as St. Patrick's Channel; educated a bit at Eton, a bit at
+Harvard; always too much money to have to make any; in love lots of
+times, and never a heartache after that wasn't a pleasant one, and
+never a real purpose in life until I took the king's shilling and
+earned my wings; something over thirty&mdash;and that's me&mdash;Larry
+O'Keefe."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But it was the Irish O'Keefe who sat out there waiting for the
+banshee," I laughed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It was that," he said somberly, and I heard the brogue creep over his
+voice like velvet and his eyes grew brooding again. "There's never an
+O'Keefe for these thousand years that has passed without his warning.
+An' twice have I heard the banshee calling&mdash;once it was when my
+younger brother died an' once when my father lay waiting to be carried
+out on the ebb tide."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He mused a moment, then went on: "An' once I saw an Annir Choille, a
+girl of the green people, flit like a shade of green fire through
+Carntogher woods, an' once at Dunchraig I slept where the ashes of the
+Dun of Cormac MacConcobar are mixed with those of Cormac an' Eilidh
+the Fair, all burned in the nine flames that sprang from the harping
+of Cravetheen, an' I heard the echo of his dead harpings&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He paused again and then, softly, with that curiously sweet, high
+voice that only the Irish seem to have, he sang:
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+    Woman of the white breasts, Eilidh;<BR>
+    Woman of the gold-brown hair, and lips of the red, red rowan,<BR>
+    Where is the swan that is whiter, with breast more soft,<BR>
+    Or the wave on the sea that moves as thou movest, Eilidh.<BR>
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap08"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER VIII
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+Olaf's Story
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+There was a little silence.  I looked upon him with wonder. Clearly he
+was in deepest earnest. I know the psychology of the Gael is a curious
+one and that deep in all their hearts their ancient traditions and
+beliefs have strong and living roots. And I was both amused and
+touched.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Here was this soldier, who had faced war and its ugly realities
+open-eyed and fearless, picking, indeed, the most dangerous branch of
+service for his own, a modern if ever there was one, appreciative of
+most unmystical Broadway, and yet soberly and earnestly attesting to
+his belief in banshee, in shadowy people of the woods, and phantom
+harpers! I wondered what he would think if he could see the Dweller
+and then, with a pang, that perhaps his superstitions might make him
+an easy prey.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He shook his head half impatiently and ran a hand over his eyes;
+turned to me and grinned:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Don't think I'm cracked, Professor," he said.  "I'm not. But it takes
+me that way now and then. It's the Irish in me. And, believe it or
+not, I'm telling you the truth."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I looked eastward where the moon, now nearly a week past the full, was
+mounting.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You can't make me see what you've seen, Lieutenant," I laughed.  "But
+you can make me hear. I've always wondered what kind of a noise a
+disembodied spirit could make without any vocal cords or breath or any
+other earthly sound-producing mechanism. How does the banshee sound?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+O'Keefe looked at me seriously.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"All right," he said.  "I'll show you." From deep down in his throat
+came first a low, weird sobbing that mounted steadily into a keening
+whose mournfulness made my skin creep. And then his hand shot out and
+gripped my shoulder, and I stiffened like stone in my chair&mdash;for from
+behind us, like an echo, and then taking up the cry, swelled a wail
+that seemed to hold within it a sublimation of the sorrows of
+centuries! It gathered itself into one heartbroken, sobbing note and
+died away! O'Keefe's grip loosened, and he rose swiftly to his feet.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It's all right, Professor," he said.  "It's for me.  It found me&mdash;all
+this way from Ireland."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Again the silence was rent by the cry.  But now I had located it.  It
+came from my room, and it could mean only one thing&mdash;Huldricksson had
+wakened.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Forget your banshee!" I gasped, and made a jump for the cabin.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Out of the corner of my eye I noted a look of half-sheepish relief
+flit over O'Keefe's face, and then he was beside me. Da Costa shouted
+an order from the wheel, the Cantonese ran up and took it from his
+hands and the little Portuguese pattered down toward us. My hand on
+the door, ready to throw it open, I stopped. What if the Dweller were
+within&mdash;what if we had been wrong and it was not dependent for its
+power upon that full flood of moon ray which Throckmartin had thought
+essential to draw it from the blue pool!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+From within, the sobbing wail began once more to rise. O'Keefe pushed
+me aside, threw open the door and crouched low within it. I saw an
+automatic flash dully in his hand; saw it cover the cabin from side to
+side, following the swift sweep of his eyes around it. Then he
+straightened and his face, turned toward the berth, was filled with
+wondering pity.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Through the window streamed a shaft of the moonlight. It fell upon
+Huldricksson's staring eyes; in them great tears slowly gathered and
+rolled down his cheeks; from his opened mouth came the woe-laden
+wailing. I ran to the port and drew the curtains. Da Costa snapped the
+lights.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Norseman's dolorous crying stopped as abruptly as though cut.  His
+gaze rolled toward us. And at one bound he broke through the leashes I
+had buckled round him and faced us, his eyes glaring, his yellow hair
+almost erect with the force of the rage visibly surging through him.
+Da Costa shrunk behind me. O'Keefe, coolly watchful, took a quick step
+that brought him in front of me.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Where do you take me?" said Huldricksson, and his voice was like the
+growl of a beast. "Where is my boat?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I touched O'Keefe gently and stood before the giant.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Listen, Olaf Huldricksson," I said.  "We take you to where the
+sparkling devil took your Helma and your Freda. We follow the
+sparkling devil that came down from the moon. Do you hear me?" I spoke
+slowly, distinctly, striving to pierce the mists that I knew swirled
+around the strained brain. And the words did pierce.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He thrust out a shaking hand.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You say you follow?" he asked falteringly.  "You know where to
+follow? Where it took my Helma and my little Freda?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Just that, Olaf Huldricksson," I answered.  "Just that!  I pledge you
+my life that I know."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Da Costa stepped forward.  "He speaks true, Olaf.  You go faster on
+the Suwarna than on the Br-rw-un'ilda, Olaf, yes."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The giant Norseman, still gripping my hand, looked at him.  "I know
+you, Da Costa," he muttered. "You are all right. Ja! You are a fair
+man. Where is the Brunhilda?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"She follow be'ind on a big rope, Olaf," soothed the Portuguese.
+"Soon you see her. But now lie down an' tell us, if you can, why you
+tie yourself to your wheel an' what it is that happen, Olaf."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"If you'll tell us how the sparkling devil came it will help us all
+when we get to where it is, Huldricksson," I said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+On O'Keefe's face there was an expression of well-nigh ludicrous doubt
+and amazement. He glanced from one to the other. The giant shifted his
+own tense look from me to the Irishman. A gleam of approval lighted in
+his eyes. He loosed me, and gripped O'Keefe's arm. "Staerk!" he said.
+"Ja&mdash;strong, and with a strong heart. A man&mdash;ja! He comes too&mdash;we
+shall need him&mdash;ja!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I tell," he muttered, and seated himself on the side of the bunk.
+"It was four nights ago. My Freda"&mdash;his voice shook&mdash;"Mine Yndling!
+She loved the moonlight. I was at the wheel and my Freda and my Helma
+they were behind me. The moon was behind us and the Brunhilda was like
+a swanboat sailing down with the moonlight sending her, ja.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I heard my Freda say: 'I see a nisse coming down the track of the
+moon.' And I hear her mother laugh, low, like a mother does when her
+Yndling dreams. I was happy&mdash;that night&mdash;with my Helma and my Freda,
+and the Brunhilda sailing like a swan-boat, ja. I heard the child say,
+'The nisse comes fast!' And then I heard a scream from my Helma, a
+great scream&mdash;like a mare when her foal is torn from her. I spun
+around fast, ja! I dropped the wheel and spun fast! I saw&mdash;" He
+covered his eyes with his hands.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Portuguese had crept close to me, and I heard him panting like a
+frightened dog.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I saw a white fire spring over the rail," whispered Olaf
+Huldricksson. "It whirled round and round, and it shone like&mdash;like
+stars in a whirlwind mist. There was a noise in my ears. It sounded
+like bells&mdash;little bells, ja! Like the music you make when you run
+your finger round goblets. It made me sick and dizzy&mdash;the hell noise.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"My Helma was&mdash;indeholde&mdash;what you say&mdash;in the middle of the white
+fire. She turned her face to me and she turned it on the child, and my
+Helma's face burned into my heart. Because it was full of fear, and it
+was full of happiness&mdash;of glaede. I tell you that the fear in my
+Helma's face made me ice here"&mdash;he beat his breast with clenched
+hand&mdash;"but the happiness in it burned on me like fire. And I could
+not move&mdash;I could not move.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I said in here"&mdash;he touched his head&mdash;"I said, 'It is Loki come out
+of Helvede. But he cannot take my Helma, for Christ lives and Loki has
+no power to hurt my Helma or my Freda! Christ lives! Christ lives!' I
+said. But the sparkling devil did not let my Helma go. It drew her to
+the rail; half over it. I saw her eyes upon the child and a little she
+broke away and reached to it. And my Freda jumped into her arms. And
+the fire wrapped them both and they were gone! A little I saw them
+whirling on the moon track behind the Brunhilda&mdash;and they were gone!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The sparkling devil took them!  Loki was loosed, and he had power.  I
+turned the Brunhilda, and I followed where my Helma and mine Yndling
+had gone. My boys crept up and asked me to turn again. But I would
+not. They dropped a boat and left me. I steered straight on the path.
+I lashed my hands to the wheel that sleep might not loose them. I
+steered on and on and on&mdash;
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Where was the God I prayed when my wife and child were taken?" cried
+Olaf Huldricksson&mdash;and it was as though I heard Throckmartin asking
+that same bitter question. "I have left Him as He left me, ja! I pray
+now to Thor and to Odin, who can fetter Loki." He sank back, covering
+again his eyes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Olaf," I said, "what you have called the sparkling devil has taken
+ones dear to me. I, too, was following it when we found you. You shall
+go with me to its home, and there we will try to take from it your
+wife and your child and my friends as well. But now that you may be
+strong for what is before us, you must sleep again."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Olaf Huldricksson looked upon me and in his eyes was that something
+which souls must see in the eyes of Him the old Egyptians called the
+Searcher of Hearts in the Judgment Hall of Osiris.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You speak truth!" he said at last slowly.  "I will do what you say!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He stretched out an arm at my bidding.  I gave him a second injection.
+He lay back and soon he was sleeping. I turned toward Da Costa. His
+face was livid and sweating, and he was trembling pitiably. O'Keefe
+stirred.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You did that mighty well, Dr. Goodwin," he said.  "So well that I
+almost believed you myself."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What did you think of his story, Mr. O'Keefe?" I asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+His answer was almost painfully brief and colloquial.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Nuts!" he said. I was a little shocked, I admit. "I think he's crazy,
+Dr. Goodwin," he corrected himself, quickly. "What else could I
+think?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I turned to the little Portuguese without answering.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"There's no need for any anxiety tonight, Captain," I said. "Take my
+word for it. You need some rest yourself. Shall I give you a sleeping
+draft?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I do wish you would, Dr. Goodwin, sair," he answered gratefully.
+"Tomorrow, when I feel bettair&mdash;I would have a talk with you."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I nodded.  He did know something then!  I mixed him an opiate of
+considerable strength. He took it and went to his own cabin.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I locked the door behind him and then, sitting beside the sleeping
+Norseman, I told O'Keefe my story from end to end. He asked few
+questions as I spoke. But after I had finished he cross-examined me
+rather minutely upon my recollections of the radiant phases upon each
+appearance, checking these with Throckmartin's observations of the
+same phenomena in the Chamber of the Moon Pool.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And now what do you think of it all?" I asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He sat silent for a while, looking at Huldricksson.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Not what you seem to think, Dr. Goodwin," he answered at last,
+gravely. "Let me sleep over it. One thing of course is certain&mdash;you
+and your friend Throckmartin and this man here saw&mdash;something. But&mdash;"
+he was silent again and then continued with a kindness that I found
+vaguely irritating&mdash;"but I've noticed that when a scientist gets
+superstitious it&mdash;er&mdash;takes very hard!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Here's a few things I can tell you now though," he went on while I
+struggled to speak&mdash;"I pray in my heart that we'll meet neither the
+Dolphin nor anything with wireless on board going up. Because, Dr.
+Goodwin, I'd dearly love to take a crack at your Dweller.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And another thing," said O'Keefe.  "After this&mdash;cut out the
+trimmings, Doc, and call me plain Larry, for whether I think you're
+crazy or whether I don't, you're there with the nerve, Professor, and
+I'm for <I>you</I>.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Good night!" said Larry and took himself out to the deck hammock he
+had insisted upon having slung for him, refusing the captain's
+importunities to use his own cabin.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And it was with extremely mixed emotions as to his compliment that I
+watched him go. Superstitious. I, whose pride was my scientific
+devotion to fact and fact alone! Superstitious&mdash;and this from a man
+who believed in banshees and ghostly harpers and Irish wood nymphs and
+no doubt in leprechauns and all their tribe!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Half laughing, half irritated, and wholly happy in even the part
+promise of Larry O'Keefe's comradeship on my venture, I arranged a
+couple of pillows, stretched myself out on two chairs and took up my
+vigil beside Olaf Huldricksson.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap09"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER IX
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+A Lost Page of Earth
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+When I awakened the sun was streaming through the cabin porthole.
+Outside a fresh voice lilted. I lay on my two chairs and listened. The
+song was one with the wholesome sunshine and the breeze blowing
+stiffly and whipping the curtains. It was Larry O'Keefe at his matins:
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+  The little red lark is shaking his wings,<BR>
+  Straight from the breast of his love he springs<BR>
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Larry's voice soared.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+  His wings and his feathers are sunrise red,<BR>
+  He hails the sun and his golden head,<BR>
+  Good morning, Doc, you are long abed.<BR>
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This last was a most irreverent interpolation, I well knew. I opened
+my door. O'Keefe stood outside laughing. The Suwarna, her engines
+silent, was making fine headway under all sail, the Brunhilda skipping
+in her wake cheerfully with half her canvas up.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The sea was crisping and dimpling under the wind.  Blue and white was
+the world as far as the eye could reach. Schools of little silvery
+green flying fish broke through the water rushing on each side of us;
+flashed for an instant and were gone. Behind us gulls hovered and
+dipped. The shadow of mystery had retreated far over the rim of this
+wide awake and beautiful world and if, subconsciously, I knew that
+somewhere it was brooding and waiting, for a little while at least I
+was consciously free of its oppression.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"How's the patient?" asked O'Keefe.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He was answered by Huldricksson himself, who must have risen just as I
+left the cabin. The Norseman had slipped on a pair of pajamas and,
+giant torso naked under the sun, he strode out upon us. We all of us
+looked at him a trifle anxiously. But Olaf's madness had left him. In
+his eyes was much sorrow, but the berserk rage was gone.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He spoke straight to me: "You said last night we follow?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I nodded.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It is where?" he asked again.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We go first to Ponape and from there to Metalanim Harbour&mdash;to the
+Nan-Matal. You know the place?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Huldricksson bowed&mdash;a white gleam as of ice showing in his blue eyes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It is there?" he asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It is there that we must first search," I answered.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Good!" said Olaf Huldricksson.  "It is good!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He looked at Da Costa inquiringly and the little Portuguese, following
+his thought, answered his unspoken question.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We should be at Ponape tomorrow morning early, Olaf."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Good!" repeated the Norseman.  He looked away, his eyes tear-filled.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A restraint fell upon us; the embarrassment all men experience when
+they feel a great sympathy and a great pity, to neither of which they
+quite know how to give expression. By silent consent we discussed at
+breakfast only the most casual topics.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When the meal was over Huldricksson expressed a desire to go aboard
+the Brunhilda.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Suwarna hove to and Da Costa and he dropped into the small boat.
+When they reached the Brunhilda's deck I saw Olaf take the wheel and
+the two fall into earnest talk. I beckoned to O'Keefe and we stretched
+ourselves out on the bow hatch under cover of the foresail. He lighted
+a cigarette, took a couple of leisurely puffs, and looked at me
+expectantly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well?" I asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well," said O'Keefe, "suppose you tell me what you think&mdash;and then
+I'll proceed to point out your scientific errors." His eyes twinkled
+mischievously.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Larry," I replied, somewhat severely, "you may not know that I have a
+scientific reputation which, putting aside all modesty, I may say is
+an enviable one. You used a word last night to which I must interpose
+serious objection. You more than hinted that I hid&mdash;superstitions. Let
+me inform you, Larry O'Keefe, that I am solely a seeker, observer,
+analyst, and synthesist of facts. I am not"&mdash;and I tried to make my
+tone as pointed as my words&mdash;"I am not a believer in phantoms or
+spooks, leprechauns, banshees, or ghostly harpers."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+O'Keefe leaned back and shouted with laughter.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Forgive me, Goodwin," he gasped.  "But if you could have seen
+yourself solemnly disclaiming the banshee"&mdash;another twinkle showed in
+his eyes&mdash;"and then with all this sunshine and this wide-open
+world"&mdash;he shrugged his shoulders&mdash;"it's hard to visualize anything
+such as you and Huldricksson have described."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I know how hard it is, Larry," I answered.  "And don't think I have
+any idea that the phenomenon is supernatural in the sense
+spiritualists and table turners have given that word. I do think it is
+supernormal; energized by a force unknown to modern science&mdash;but that
+doesn't mean I think it outside the radius of science."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Tell me your theory, Goodwin," he said.  I hesitated&mdash;for not yet
+had I been able to put into form to satisfy myself any explanation of
+the Dweller.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I think," I hazarded finally, "it is possible that some members of
+that race peopling the ancient continent which we know existed here in
+the Pacific, have survived. We know that many of these islands are
+honeycombed with caverns and vast subterranean spaces, literally
+underground lands running in some cases far out beneath the ocean
+floor. It is possible that for some reason survivors of this race
+sought refuge in the abysmal spaces, one of whose entrances is on the
+islet where Throckmartin's party met its end.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"As for their persistence in these caverns&mdash;we know they possessed a
+high science. They may have gone far in the mastery of certain
+universal forms of energy&mdash;especially that we call light. They may
+have developed a civilization and a science far more advanced than
+ours. What I call the Dweller may be one of the results of this
+science. Larry&mdash;it may well be that this lost race is planning to
+emerge again upon earth's surface!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And is sending out your Dweller as a messenger, a scientific dove
+from their Ark?" I chose to overlook the banter in his question.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Did you ever hear of the Chamats?" I asked him.  He shook his head.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"In Papua," I explained, "there is a wide-spread and immeasurably old
+tradition that 'imprisoned under the hills' is a race of giants who
+once ruled this region 'when it stretched from sun to sun before the
+moon god drew the waters over it'&mdash;I quote from the legend. Not only
+in Papua but throughout Malaysia you find this story. And, so the
+tradition runs, these people&mdash;the Chamats&mdash;will one day break through
+the hills and rule the world; 'make over the world' is the literal
+translation of the constant phrase in the tale. It was Herbert Spencer
+who pointed out that there is a basis of fact in every myth and legend
+of man. It is possible that these survivors I am discussing form
+Spencer's fact basis for the Malaysian legend.[1]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"This much is sure&mdash;the moon door, which is clearly operated by the
+action of moon rays upon some unknown element or combination and the
+crystals through which the moon rays pour down upon the pool their
+prismatic columns, are humanly made mechanisms. So long as they are
+humanly made, and so long as it <I>is</I> this flood of moonlight from which
+the Dweller draws its power of materialization, the Dweller itself, if
+not the product of the human mind, is at least dependent upon the
+product of the human mind for its appearance."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Wait a minute, Goodwin," interrupted O'Keefe.  "Do you mean to say
+you think that this thing is made of&mdash;well&mdash;of moonshine?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Moonlight," I replied, "is, of course, reflected sunlight. But the
+rays which pass back to earth after their impact on the moon's surface
+are profoundly changed. The spectroscope shows that they lose
+practically all the slower vibrations we call red and infra-red, while
+the extremely rapid vibrations we call the violet and ultra-violet are
+accelerated and altered. Many scientists hold that there is an unknown
+element in the moon&mdash;perhaps that which makes the gigantic luminous
+trails that radiate in all directions from the lunar crater
+Tycho&mdash;whose energies are absorbed by and carried on the moon rays.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"At any rate, whether by the loss of the vibrations of the red or by
+the addition of this mysterious force, the light of the moon becomes
+something entirely different from mere modified sunlight&mdash;just as the
+addition or subtraction of one other chemical in a compound of several
+makes the product a substance with entirely different energies and
+potentialities.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Now these rays, Larry, are given perhaps still another mysterious
+activity by the globes through which Throckmartin said they passed in
+the Chamber of the Moon Pool. The result is the necessary factor in
+the formation of the Dweller. There would be nothing scientifically
+improbable in such a process. Kubalski, the great Russian physicist,
+produced crystalline forms exhibiting every faculty that we call vital
+by subjecting certain combinations of chemicals to the action of
+highly concentrated rays of various colours. Something in light and
+nothing else produced their pseudo-vitality. We do not begin to know
+how to harness the potentialities of that magnetic vibration of the
+ether we call light."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Listen, Doc," said Larry earnestly, "I'll take everything you say
+about this lost continent, the people who used to live on it, and
+their caverns, for granted. But by the sword of Brian Boru, you'll
+never get me to fall for the idea that a bunch of moonshine can handle
+a big woman such as you say Throckmartin's Thora was, nor a two-fisted
+man such as you say Throckmartin was, nor Huldricksson's wife&mdash;and
+I'll bet she was one of those strapping big northern women too&mdash;you'll
+never get me to believe that any bunch of concentrated moonshine could
+handle them and take them waltzing off along a moonbeam back to
+wherever it goes. No, Doc, not on your life, even Tennessee moonshine
+couldn't do that&mdash;nix!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"All right, O'Keefe," I answered, now very much irritated indeed.
+"What's your theory?" And I could not resist adding: "Fairies?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Professor," he grinned, "if that Thing's a fairy it's Irish and when
+it sees me it'll be so glad there'll be nothing to it. 'I was lost,
+strayed, or stolen, Larry avick,' it'll say, 'an' I was so homesick
+for the old sod I was desp'rit,' it'll say, an' 'take me back quick
+before I do any more har-rm!' it'll tell me&mdash;an' that's the truth.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Now don't get me wrong.  I believe you all saw something all right.
+But what I think you saw was some kind of gas. All this region is
+volcanic and islands and things are constantly poking up from the sea.
+It's probably gas; a volcanic emanation; something new to us and that
+drives you crazy&mdash;lots of kinds of gas do that. It hit the
+Throckmartin party on that island and they probably were all more or
+less delirious all the time; thought they saw things; talked it over
+and&mdash;collective hallucination&mdash;just like the Angels of Mons and other
+miracles of the war. Somebody sees something that looks like something
+else. He points it out to the man next him. 'Do you see it?' asks he.
+'Sure I see it,' says the other. And there you are&mdash;collective
+hallucination.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"When your friends got it bad they most likely jumped overboard one by
+one. Huldricksson sails into a place where it is and it hits his wife.
+She grabs the child and jumps over. Maybe the moon rays make it
+luminous! I've seen gas on the front under the moon that looked like a
+thousand whirling dervish devils. Yes, and you could see the devil's
+faces in it. And if it got into your lungs nothing could ever make you
+think you hadn't seen real devils."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+For a time I was silent.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Larry," I said at last, "whether you are right or I am right, I must
+go to the Nan-Matal. Will you go with me, Larry?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Goodwin," he replied, "I surely will.  I'm as interested as you are.
+If we don't run across the Dolphin I'll stick. I'll leave word at
+Ponape, to tell them where I am should they come along. If they report
+me dead for a while there's nobody to care. So that's all right. Only
+old man, be reasonable. You've thought over this so long, you're going
+bug, honestly you are."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And again, the gladness that I might have Larry O'Keefe with me, was
+so great that I forgot to be angry.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+[1] William Beebe, the famous American naturalist and ornithologist,
+recently fighting in France with America's air force, called attention
+to this remarkable belief in an article printed not long ago in the
+Atlantic Monthly. Still more significant was it that he noted a
+persistent rumour that the breaking out of the buried race was
+close.&mdash;W.J. B., Pres. I. A. of S.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap10"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER X
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+The Moon Pool
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+Da Costa, who had come aboard unnoticed by either of us, now tapped me
+on the arm.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Doctair Goodwin," he said, "can I see you in my cabin, sair?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At last, then, he was going to speak.  I followed him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Doctair," he said, when we had entered, "this is a veree strange
+thing that has happened to Olaf. Veree strange. An' the natives of
+Ponape, they have been very much excite' lately.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Of what they fear I know nothing, nothing!" Again that quick, furtive
+crossing of himself. "But this I have to tell you. There came to me
+from Ranaloa last month a man, a Russian, a doctair, like you. His
+name it was Marakinoff. I take him to Ponape an' the natives there
+they will not take him to the Nan-Matal where he wish to go&mdash;no! So I
+take him. We leave in a boat, wit' much instrument carefully tied up.
+I leave him there wit' the boat an' the food. He tell me to tell no
+one an' pay me not to. But you are a friend an' Olaf he depend much
+upon you an' so I tell you, sair."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You know nothing more than this, Da Costa?" I asked. "Nothing of
+another expedition?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No," he shook his head vehemently.  "Nothing more."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Hear the name Throckmartin while you were there?" I persisted.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No," his eyes were steady as he answered but the pallor had crept
+again into his face.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I was not so sure.  But if he knew more than he had told me why was he
+afraid to speak? My anxiety deepened and later I sought relief from it
+by repeating the conversation to O'Keefe.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"A Russian, eh," he said.  "Well, they can be damned nice, or
+damned&mdash;otherwise. Considering what you did for me, I hope I can look
+him over before the Dolphin shows up."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Next morning we raised Ponape, without further incident, and before
+noon the Suwarna and the Brunhilda had dropped anchor in the harbour.
+Upon the excitement and manifest dread of the natives, when we sought
+among them for carriers and workmen to accompany us, I will not dwell.
+It is enough to say that no payment we offered could induce a single
+one of them to go to the Nan-Matal. Nor would they say why.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Finally it was agreed that the Brunhilda should be left in charge of a
+half-breed Chinaman, whom both Da Costa and Huldricksson knew and
+trusted. We piled her long-boat up with my instruments and food and
+camping equipment. The Suwarna took us around to Metalanim Harbour,
+and there, with the tops of ancient sea walls deep in the blue water
+beneath us, and the ruins looming up out of the mangroves, a scant
+mile from us, left us.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then with Huldricksson manipulating our small sail, and Larry at the
+rudder, we rounded the titanic wall that swept down into the depths,
+and turned at last into the canal that Throckmartin, on his map, had
+marked as that which, running between frowning Nan-Tauach and its
+satellite islet, Tau, led straight to the gate of the place of ancient
+mysteries.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And as we entered that channel we were enveloped by a silence; a
+silence so intense, so&mdash;weighted that it seemed to have substance; an
+alien silence that clung and stifled and still stood aloof from
+us&mdash;the living. It was a stillness, such as might follow the long
+tramping of millions into the grave; it was&mdash;paradoxical as it may
+be&mdash;filled with the withdrawal of life.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Standing down in the chambered depths of the Great Pyramid I had known
+something of such silence&mdash;but never such intensity as this. Larry
+felt it and I saw him look at me askance. If Olaf, sitting in the bow,
+felt it, too, he gave no sign; his blue eyes, with again the glint of
+ice within them, watched the channel before us.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As we passed, there arose upon our left sheer walls of black basalt
+blocks, cyclopean, towering fifty feet or more, broken here and there
+by the sinking of their deep foundations.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In front of us the mangroves widened out and filled the canal.  On
+our right the lesser walls of Tau, sombre blocks smoothed and squared
+and set with a cold, mathematical nicety that filled me with vague
+awe, slipped by. Through breaks I caught glimpses of dark ruins and of
+great fallen stones that seemed to crouch and menace us, as we passed.
+Somewhere there, hidden, were the seven globes that poured the moon
+fire down upon the Moon Pool.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Now we were among the mangroves and, sail down, the three of us pushed
+and pulled the boat through their tangled roots and branches. The
+noise of our passing split the silence like a profanation, and from
+the ancient bastions came murmurs&mdash;forbidding, strangely sinister. And
+now we were through, floating on a little open space of shadow-filled
+water. Before us lifted the gateway of Nan-Tauach, gigantic, broken,
+incredibly old; shattered portals through which had passed men and
+women of earth's dawn; old with a weight of years that pressed
+leadenly upon the eyes that looked upon it, and yet was in some
+curious indefinable way&mdash;menacingly defiant.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Beyond the gate, back from the portals, stretched a flight of enormous
+basalt slabs, a giant's stairway indeed; and from each side of it
+marched the high walls that were the Dweller's pathway. None of us
+spoke as we grounded the boat and dragged it upon a half-submerged
+pier. And when we did speak it was in whispers.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What next?" asked Larry.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I think we ought to take a look around," I replied in the same low
+tones. "We'll climb the wall here and take a flash about. The whole
+place ought to be plain as day from that height."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Huldricksson, his blue eyes alert, nodded.  With the greatest
+difficulty we clambered up the broken blocks.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+To the east and south of us, set like children's blocks in the midst
+of the sapphire sea, lay dozens of islets, none of them covering more
+than two square miles of surface; each of them a perfect square or
+oblong within its protecting walls.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+On none was there sign of life, save for a few great birds that
+hovered here and there, and gulls dipping in the blue waves beyond.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+We turned our gaze down upon the island on which we stood.  It was, I
+estimated, about three-quarters of a mile square. The sea wall
+enclosed it. It was really an enormous basalt-sided open cube, and
+within it two other open cubes. The enclosure between the first and
+second wall was stone paved, with here and there a broken pillar and
+long stone benches. The hibiscus, the aloe tree, and a number of small
+shrubs had found place, but seemed only to intensify its stark
+loneliness.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Wonder where the Russian can be?" asked Larry.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I shook my head.  There was no sign of life here.  Had Marakinoff
+gone&mdash;or had the Dweller taken him, too? Whatever had happened, there
+was no trace of him below us or on any of the islets within our range
+of vision. We scrambled down the side of the gateway. Olaf looked at
+me wistfully.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We start the search now, Olaf," I said.  "And first, O'Keefe, let us
+see whether the grey stone is really here. After that we will set up
+camp, and while I unpack, you and Olaf search the island. It won't
+take long."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Larry gave a look at his service automatic and grinned. "Lead on,
+Macduff," he said. We made our way up the steps, through the outer
+enclosures and into the central square, I confess to a fire of
+scientific curiosity and eagerness tinged with a dread that O'Keefe's
+analysis might be true. Would we find the moving slab and, if so,
+would it be as Throckmartin had described? If so, then even Larry
+would have to admit that here was something that theories of gases and
+luminous emanations would not explain; and the first test of the whole
+amazing story would be passed. But if not&mdash;And there before us, the
+faintest tinge of grey setting it apart from its neighbouring blocks
+of basalt, was the moon door!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There was no mistaking it.  This was, in very deed, the portal through
+which Throckmartin had seen pass that gloriously dreadful apparition
+he called the Dweller. At its base was the curious, seemingly polished
+cup-like depression within which, my lost friend had told me, the
+opening door swung.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+What was that portal&mdash;more enigmatic than was ever sphinx?  And what
+lay beyond it? What did that smooth stone, whose wan deadness
+whispered of ages-old corridors of time opening out into alien,
+unimaginable vistas, hide? It had cost the world of science
+Throckmartin's great brain&mdash;as it had cost Throckmartin those he
+loved. It had drawn me to it in search of Throckmartin&mdash;and its shadow
+had fallen upon the soul of Olaf the Norseman; and upon what thousands
+upon thousands more I wondered, since the brains that had conceived it
+had vanished with their secret knowledge?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+What lay beyond it?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I stretched out a shaking hand and touched the surface of the slab.  A
+faint thrill passed through my hand and arm, oddly unfamiliar and as
+oddly unpleasant; as of electric contact holding the very essence of
+cold. O'Keefe, watching, imitated my action. As his fingers rested on
+the stone his face filled with astonishment.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It's the door?" he asked.  I nodded.  There was a low whistle from
+him and he pointed up toward the top of the grey stone. I followed the
+gesture and saw, above the moon door and on each side of it, two
+gently curving bosses of rock, perhaps a foot in diameter.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The moon door's keys," I said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It begins to look so," answered Larry.  "If we can find them," he
+added.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"There's nothing we can do till moonrise," I replied.  "And we've none
+too much time to prepare as it is. Come!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A little later we were beside our boat.  We lightered it, set up the
+tent, and as it was now but a short hour to sundown I bade them leave
+me and make their search. They went off together, and I busied myself
+with opening some of the paraphernalia I had brought with me.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+First of all I took out the two Becquerel ray-condensers that I had
+bought in Sydney. Their lenses would collect and intensify to the
+fullest extent any light directed upon them. I had found them most
+useful in making spectroscopic analysis of luminous vapours, and I
+knew that at Yerkes Observatory splendid results had been obtained
+from them in collecting the diffused radiance of the nebulae for the
+same purpose.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+If my theory of the grey slab's mechanism were correct, it was
+practically certain that with the satellite only a few nights past the
+full we could concentrate enough light on the bosses to open the rock.
+And as the ray streams through the seven globes described by
+Throckmartin would be too weak to energize the Pool, we could enter
+the chamber free from any fear of encountering its tenant, make our
+preliminary observations and go forth before the moon had dropped so
+far that the concentration in the condensers would fall below that
+necessary to keep the portal from closing.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I took out also a small spectroscope, and a few other instruments for
+the analysis of certain light manifestations and the testing of metal
+and liquid. Finally, I put aside my emergency medical kit.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I had hardly finished examining and adjusting these before O'Keefe and
+Huldricksson returned. They reported signs of a camp at least ten days
+old beside the northern wall of the outer court, but beyond that no
+evidence of others beyond ourselves on Nan-Tauach.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+We prepared supper, ate and talked a little, but for the most part
+were silent. Even Larry's high spirits were not in evidence; half a
+dozen times I saw him take out his automatic and look it over. He was
+more thoughtful than I had ever seen him. Once he went into the tent,
+rummaged about a bit and brought out another revolver which, he said,
+he had got from Da Costa, and a half-dozen clips of cartridges. He
+passed the gun over to Olaf.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At last a glow in the southeast heralded the rising moon. I picked up
+my instruments and the medical kit; Larry and Olaf shouldered each a
+short ladder that was part of my equipment, and, with our electric
+flashes pointing the way, walked up the great stairs, through the
+enclosures, and straight to the grey stone.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+By this time the moon had risen and its clipped light shone full upon
+the slab. I saw faint gleams pass over it as of fleeting
+phosphorescence&mdash;but so faint were they that I could not be sure of
+the truth of my observation.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+We set the ladders in place.  Olaf I assigned to stand before the door
+and watch for the first signs of its opening&mdash;if open it should. The
+Becquerels were set within three-inch tripods, whose feet I had
+equipped with vacuum rings to enable them to hold fast to the rock.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I scaled one ladder and fastened a condenser over the boss; descended;
+sent Larry up to watch it, and, ascending the second ladder, rapidly
+fixed the other in its place. Then, with O'Keefe watchful on his
+perch, I on mine, and Olaf's eyes fixed upon the moon door, we began
+our vigil. Suddenly there was an exclamation from Larry.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Seven little lights are beginning to glow on this stone!" he cried.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But I had already seen those beneath my lens begin to gleam out with a
+silvery lustre. Swiftly the rays within the condenser began to thicken
+and increase, and as they did so the seven small circles waxed like
+stars growing out of the dusk, and with a queer&mdash;curdled is the best
+word I can find to define it&mdash;radiance entirely strange to me.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Beneath me I heard a faint, sighing murmur and then the voice of
+Huldricksson:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It opens&mdash;the stone turns&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I began to climb down the ladder.  Again came Olaf's voice:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The stone&mdash;it is open&mdash;" And then a shriek, a wail of blended anguish
+and pity, of rage and despair&mdash;and the sound of swift footsteps racing
+through the wall beneath me!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I dropped to the ground.  The moon door was wide open, and through it
+I caught a glimpse of a corridor filled with a faint, pearly vaporous
+light like earliest misty dawn. But of Olaf I could see&mdash;nothing! And
+even as I stood, gaping, from behind me came the sharp crack of a
+rifle; the glass of the condenser at Larry's side flew into fragments;
+he dropped swiftly to the ground, the automatic in his hand flashed
+once, twice, into the darkness.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And the moon door began to pivot slowly, slowly back into its place!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I rushed toward the turning stone with the wild idea of holding it
+open. As I thrust my hands against it there came at my back a snarl
+and an oath and Larry staggered under the impact of a body that had
+flung itself straight at his throat. He reeled at the lip of the
+shallow cup at the base of the slab, slipped upon its polished curve,
+fell and rolled with that which had attacked him, kicking and
+writhing, straight through the narrowing portal into the passage!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Forgetting all else, I sprang to his aid.  As I leaped I felt the
+closing edge of the moon door graze my side. Then, as Larry raised a
+fist, brought it down upon the temple of the man who had grappled with
+him and rose from the twitching body unsteadily to his feet, I heard
+shuddering past me a mournful whisper; spun about as though some
+giant's hand had whirled me&mdash;
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The end of the corridor no longer opened out into the moonlit square
+of ruined Nan-Tauach. It was barred by a solid mass of glimmering
+stone. The moon door had closed!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+O'Keefe took a stumbling step toward the barrier behind us. There was
+no mark of juncture with the shining walls; the slab fitted into the
+sides as closely as a mosaic.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It's shut all right," said Larry.  "But if there's a way in, there's
+a way out. Anyway, Doc, we're right in the pew we've been heading
+for&mdash;so why worry?" He grinned at me cheerfully. The man on the floor
+groaned, and he dropped to his knees beside him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Marakinoff!" he cried.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At my exclamation he moved aside, turning the face so I could see it.
+It was clearly Russian, and just as clearly its possessor was one of
+unusual force and intellect.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The strong, massive brow with orbital ridge unusually developed, the
+dominant, high-bridged nose, the straight lips with their more than
+suggestion of latent cruelty, and the strong lines of the jaw beneath
+a black, pointed beard all gave evidence that here was a personality
+beyond the ordinary.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Couldn't be anybody else," said Larry, breaking in on my thoughts.
+"He must have been watching us over there from Chau-ta-leur's vault
+all the time."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Swiftly he ran practised hands over his body; then stood erect,
+holding out to me two wicked-looking magazine pistols and a knife. "He
+got one of my bullets through his right forearm, too," he said. "Just
+a flesh wound, but it made him drop his rifle. Some arsenal, our
+little Russian scientist, what?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I opened my medical kit.  The wound was a slight one, and Larry stood
+looking on as I bandaged it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Got another one of those condensers?" he asked, suddenly.  "And do
+you suppose Olaf will know enough to use it?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Larry," I answered, "Olaf's not outside!  He's in here somewhere!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+His jaw dropped.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The hell you say!" he whispered.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Didn't you hear him shriek when the stone opened?" I asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I heard him yell, yes," he said.  "But I didn't know what was the
+matter. And then this wildcat jumped me&mdash;" He paused and his eyes
+widened. "Which way did he go?" he asked swiftly. I pointed down the
+faintly glowing passage.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"There's only one way," I said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Watch that bird close," hissed O'Keefe, pointing to Marakinoff&mdash;and
+pistol in hand stretched his long legs and raced away. I looked down
+at the Russian. His eyes were open, and he reached out a hand to me. I
+lifted him to his feet.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I have heard," he said.  "We follow, quick.  If you will take my arm,
+please, I am shaken yet, yes&mdash;" I gripped his shoulder without a word,
+and the two of us set off down the corridor after O'Keefe. Marakinoff
+was gasping, and his weight pressed upon me heavily, but he moved with
+all the will and strength that were in him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As we ran I took hasty note of the tunnel.  Its sides were smooth and
+polished, and the light seemed to come not from their surfaces, but
+from far within them&mdash;giving to the walls an illusive aspect of
+distance and depth; rendering them in a peculiarly weird
+way&mdash;spacious. The passage turned, twisted, ran down, turned again. It
+came to me that the light that illumined the tunnel was given out by
+tiny points deep within the stone, sprang from the points ripplingly
+and spread upon their polished faces.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There was a cry from Larry far ahead.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Olaf!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I gripped Marakinoff's arm closer and we sped on.  Now we were coming
+fast to the end of the passage. Before us was a high arch, and through
+it I glimpsed a dim, shifting luminosity as of mist filled with
+rainbows. We reached the portal and I looked into a chamber that might
+have been transported from that enchanted palace of the Jinn King that
+rises beyond the magic mountains of Kaf.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Before me stood O'Keefe and a dozen feet in front of him,
+Huldricksson, with something clasped tightly in his arms. The
+Norseman's feet were at the verge of a shining, silvery lip of stone
+within whose oval lay a blue pool. And down upon this pool staring
+upward like a gigantic eye, fell seven pillars of phantom light&mdash;one
+of them amethyst, one of rose, another of white, a fourth of blue, and
+three of emerald, of silver, and of amber. They fell each upon the
+azure surface, and I knew that these were the seven streams of
+radiance, within which the Dweller took shape&mdash;now but pale ghosts of
+their brilliancy when the full energy of the moon stream raced through
+them.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Huldricksson bent and placed on the shining silver lip of the Pool
+that which he held&mdash;and I saw that it was the body of a child! He set
+it there so gently, bent over the side and thrust a hand down into the
+water. And as he did so he moaned and lurched against the little body
+that lay before him. Instantly the form moved&mdash;and slipped over the
+verge into the blue. Huldricksson threw his body over the stone, hands
+clutching, arms thrust deep down&mdash;and from his lips issued a
+long-drawn, heart-shrivelling wail of pain and of anguish that held in
+it nothing human!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Close on its wake came a cry from Marakinoff.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Catch him!" shouted the Russian.  "Drag him back! Quick!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He leaped forward, but before he could half clear the distance,
+O'Keefe had leaped too, had caught the Norseman by the shoulders and
+toppled him backward, where he lay whimpering and sobbing. And as I
+rushed behind Marakinoff I saw Larry lean over the lip of the Pool and
+cover his eyes with a shaking hand; saw the Russian peer into it with
+real pity in his cold eyes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then I stared down myself into the Moon Pool, and there, sinking, was
+a little maid whose dead face and fixed, terror-filled eyes looked
+straight into mine; and ever sinking slowly, slowly&mdash;vanished! And I
+knew that this was Olaf's Freda, his beloved yndling!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But where was the mother, and where had Olaf found his babe?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Russian was first to speak.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You have nitroglycerin there, yes?" he asked, pointing toward my
+medical kit that I had gripped unconsciously and carried with me
+during the mad rush down the passage. I nodded and drew it out.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Hypodermic," he ordered next, curtly; took the syringe, filled it
+accurately with its one one-hundredth of a grain dosage, and leaned
+over Huldricksson. He rolled up the sailor's sleeves half-way to the
+shoulder. The arms were white with somewhat of that weird
+semitranslucence that I had seen on Throckmartin's breast where a
+tendril of the Dweller had touched him; and his hands were of the same
+whiteness&mdash;like a baroque pearl. Above the line of white, Marakinoff
+thrust the needle.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He will need all his heart can do," he said to me.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then he reached down into a belt about his waist and drew from it a
+small, flat flask of what seemed to be lead. He opened it and let a
+few drops of its contents fall on each arm of the Norwegian. The
+liquid sparkled and instantly began to spread over the skin much as
+oil or gasoline dropped on water does&mdash;only far more rapidly. And as
+it spread it drew a sparkling film over the marbled flesh and little
+wisps of vapour rose from it. The Norseman's mighty chest heaved with
+agony. His hands clenched. The Russian gave a grunt of satisfaction at
+this, dropped a little more of the liquid, and then, watching closely,
+grunted again and leaned back. Huldricksson's laboured breathing
+ceased, his head dropped upon Larry's knee, and from his arms and
+hands the whiteness swiftly withdrew.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Marakinoff arose and contemplated us&mdash;almost benevolently.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He will all right be in five minutes," he said.  "I know.  I do it to
+pay for that shot of mine, and also because we will need him. Yes." He
+turned to Larry. "You have a poonch like a mule kick, my young
+friend," he said. "Some time you pay me for that, too, eh?" He smiled;
+and the quality of the grimace was not exactly reassuring. Larry
+looked him over quizzically.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You're Marakinoff, of course," he said.  The Russian nodded,
+betraying no surprise at the recognition.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And you?" he asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Lieutenant O'Keefe of the Royal Flying Corps," replied Larry,
+saluting. "And this gentleman is Dr. Walter T. Goodwin."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Marakinoff's face brightened.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The American botanist?" he queried.  I nodded.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ah," cried Marakinoff eagerly, "but this is fortunate. Long I have
+desired to meet you. Your work, for an American, is most excellent;
+surprising. But you are wrong in your theory of the development of the
+Angiospermae from Cycadeoidea dacotensis. Da&mdash;all wrong&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I was interrupting him with considerable heat, for my conclusions from
+the fossil Cycadeoidea I knew to be my greatest triumph, when Larry
+broke in upon me rudely.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Say," he spluttered, "am I crazy or are you?  What in damnation kind
+of a place and time is this to start an argument like that?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Angiospermae, is it?" exclaimed Larry.  "HELL!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Marakinoff again regarded him with that irritating air of benevolence.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You have not the scientific mind, young friend," he said. "The
+poonch, yes! But so has the mule. You must learn that only the fact is
+important&mdash;not you, not me, not this"&mdash;he pointed to Huldricksson&mdash;"or
+its sorrows. Only the fact, whatever it is, is real, yes. But"&mdash;he
+turned to me&mdash;"another time&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Huldricksson interrupted him.  The big seaman had risen stiffly to his
+feet and stood with Larry's arm supporting him. He stretched out his
+hands to me.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I saw her," he whispered.  "I saw mine Freda when the stone swung.
+She lay there&mdash;just at my feet. I picked her up and I saw that mine
+Freda was dead. But I hoped&mdash;and I thought maybe mine Helma was
+somewhere here, too, So I ran with mine yndling&mdash;here&mdash;" His voice
+broke. "I thought maybe she was <I>not</I> dead," he went on. "And I saw
+that"&mdash;he pointed to the Moon Pool&mdash;"and I thought I would bathe her
+face and she might live again. And when I dipped my hands within&mdash;the
+life left them, and cold, deadly cold, ran up through them into my
+heart. And mine Freda&mdash;she fell&mdash;" he covered his eyes, and dropping
+his head on O'Keefe's shoulder, stood, racked by sobs that seemed to
+tear at his very soul.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap11"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XI
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+The Flame-Tipped Shadows
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+Marakinoff nodded his head solemnly as Olaf finished.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Da!" he said.  "That which comes from here took them both&mdash;the woman
+and the child. Da! They came clasped within it and the stone shut upon
+them. But why it left the child behind I do not understand."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"How do you know that?" I cried in amazement.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Because I saw it," answered Marakinoff simply.  "Not only did I see
+it, but hardly had I time to make escape through the entrance before
+it passed whirling and murmuring and its bell sounds all joyous. Da!
+It was what you call the squeak close, that."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Wait a moment," I said&mdash;stilling Larry with a gesture. "Do I
+understand you to say that you were within this place?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Marakinoff actually beamed upon me.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Da, Dr. Goodwin," he said, "I went in when that which comes from it
+went out!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I gaped at him, stricken dumb; into Larry's bellicose attitude crept a
+suggestion of grudging respect; Olaf, trembling, watched silently.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Dr.  Goodwin and my impetuous young friend, you," went on Marakinoff
+after a moment's silence and I wondered vaguely why he did not include
+Huldricksson in his address&mdash;"it is time that we have an
+understanding. I have a proposal to make to you also. It is this; we
+are what you call a bad boat, and all of us are in it. Da! We need all
+hands, is it not so? Let us put together our knowledge and our brains
+and resources&mdash;and even a poonch of a mule is a resource," he looked
+wickedly at O'Keefe, "and pull our boat into quiet waters again. After
+that&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"All very well, Marakinoff," interjected Larry, "but I don't feel very
+safe in any boat with somebody capable of shooting me through the
+back."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Marakinoff waved a deprecatory hand.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It was natural that," he said, "logical, da!  Here is a very great
+secret, perhaps many secrets to my country invaluable&mdash;" He paused,
+shaken by some overpowering emotion; the veins in his forehead grew
+congested, the cold eyes blazed and the guttural voice harshened.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I do not apologize and I do not explain," rasped Marakinoff.  "But I
+will tell you, da! Here is my country sweating blood in an experiment
+to liberate the world. And here are the other nations ringing us like
+wolves and waiting to spring at our throats at the least sign of
+weakness. And here are you, Lieutenant O'Keefe of the English wolves,
+and you Dr. Goodwin of the Yankee pack&mdash;and here in this place may be
+that will enable my country to win its war for the worker. What are
+the lives of you two and this sailor to that? Less than the flies I
+crush with my hand, less than midges in the sunbeam!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He suddenly gripped himself.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But that is not now the important thing," he resumed, almost coldly.
+"Not that nor my shooting. Let us squarely the situation face. My
+proposal is so: that we join interests, and what you call see it
+through together; find our way through this place and those secrets
+learn of which I have spoken, if we can. And when that is done we will
+go our ways, to his own land each, to make use of them for our lands
+as each of us may. On my part, I offer my knowledge&mdash;and it is very
+valuable, Dr. Goodwin&mdash;and my training. You and Lieutenant O'Keefe do
+the same, and this man Olaf, what he can of his strength, for I do not
+think his usefulness lies in his brains, no."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"In effect, Goodwin," broke in Larry as I hesitated, "the professor's
+proposition is this: he wants to know what's going on here but he
+begins to realize it's no one man's job and besides we have the drop
+on him. We're three to his one, and we have all his hardware and
+cutlery. But also we can do better with him than without him&mdash;just as
+he can do better with us than without us. It's an even break&mdash;for a
+while. But once he gets that information he's looking for, then look
+out. You and Olaf and I are the wolves and the flies and the midges
+again&mdash;and the strafing will be about due. Nevertheless, with three to
+one against him, if he can get away with it he deserves to. I'm for
+taking him up, if you are."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There was almost a twinkle in Marakinoff's eyes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It is not just as I would have put it, perhaps," he said, "but in its
+skeleton he has right. Nor will I turn my hand against you while we
+are still in danger here. I pledge you my honor on this."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Larry laughed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"All right, Professor," he grinned.  "I believe you mean every word
+you say. Nevertheless, I'll just keep the guns."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Marakinoff bowed, imperturbably.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And now," he said, "I will tell you what I know.  I found the secret
+of the door mechanism even as you did, Dr. Goodwin. But by
+carelessness, my condensers were broken. I was forced to wait while I
+sent for others&mdash;and the waiting might be for months. I took certain
+precautions, and on the first night of this full moon I hid myself
+within the vault of Chau-ta-leur."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+An involuntary thrill of admiration for the man went through me at the
+manifest heroism of this leap in the dark. I could see it reflected in
+Larry's face.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I hid in the vault," continued Marakinoff, "and I saw that which
+comes from here come out. I waited&mdash;long hours. At last, when the moon
+was low, it returned&mdash;ecstatically&mdash;with a man, a native, in embrace
+enfolded. It passed through the door, and soon then the moon became
+low and the door closed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The next night more confidence was mine, yes.  And after that which
+comes had gone, I looked through its open door. I said, 'It will not
+return for three hours. While it is away, why shall I not into its
+home go through the door it has left open?' So I went&mdash;even to here. I
+looked at the pillars of light and I tested the liquid of the Pool on
+which they fell. That liquid, Dr. Goodwin, is not water, and it is not
+any fluid known on earth." He handed me a small vial, its neck held in
+a long thong.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Take this," he said, "and see."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Wonderingly, I took the bottle; dipped it down into the Pool.  The
+liquid was extraordinarily light; seemed, in fact, to give the vial
+buoyancy. I held it to the light. It was striated, streaked, as though
+little living, pulsing veins ran through it. And its blueness, even in
+the vial, held an intensity of luminousness.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Radioactive," said Marakinoff.  "Some liquid that is intensely
+radioactive; but what it is I know not at all. Upon the living skin it
+acts like radium raised to the nth power and with an element most
+mysterious added. The solution with which I treated him," he pointed
+to Huldricksson, "I had prepared before I came here, from certain
+information I had. It is largely salts of radium and its base is
+Loeb's formula for the neutralization of radium and X-ray burns.
+Taking this man at once, before the degeneration had become really
+active, I could negative it. But after two hours I could have done
+nothing."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He paused a moment.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Next I studied the nature of these luminous walls.  I concluded that
+whoever had made them, knew the secret of the Almighty's manufacture
+of light from the ether itself! Colossal! Da! But the substance of
+these blocks confines an atomic&mdash;how would you say&mdash;atomic
+manipulation, a conscious arrangement of electrons, light-emitting and
+perhaps indefinitely so. These blocks are lamps in which oil and wick
+are electrons drawing light waves from ether itself! A Prometheus,
+indeed, this discoverer! I looked at my watch and that little guardian
+warned me that it was time to go. I went. That which comes forth
+returned&mdash;this time empty-handed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And the next night I did the same thing.  Engrossed in research, I
+let the moments go by to the danger point, and scarcely was I replaced
+within the vault when the shining thing raced over the walls, and in
+its grip the woman and child.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Then you came&mdash;and that is all.  And now&mdash;what is it you know?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Very briefly I went over my story.  His eyes gleamed now and then, but
+he did not interrupt me.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"A great secret!  A colossal secret!" he muttered, when I had ended.
+"We cannot leave it hidden."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The first thing to do is to try the door," said Larry, matter of
+fact.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"There is no use, my young friend," assured Marakinoff mildly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Nevertheless we'll try," said Larry.  We retraced our way through the
+winding tunnel to the end, but soon even O'Keefe saw that any idea of
+moving the slab from within was hopeless. We returned to the Chamber
+of the Pool. The pillars of light were fainter, and we knew that the
+moon was sinking. On the world outside before long dawn would be
+breaking. I began to feel thirst&mdash;and the blue semblance of water
+within the silvery rim seemed to glint mockingly as my eyes rested on
+it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Da!" it was Marakinoff, reading my thoughts uncannily. "Da!  We will
+be thirsty. And it will be very bad for him of us who loses control
+and drinks of that, my friend. Da!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Larry threw back his shoulders as though shaking a burden from them.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"This place would give an angel of joy the willies," he said.  "I
+suggest that we look around and find something that will take us
+somewhere. You can bet the people that built it had more ways of
+getting in than that once-a-month family entrance. Doc, you and Olaf
+take the left wall; the professor and I will take the right."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He loosened one of his automatics with a suggestive movement.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"After you, Professor," he bowed, politely, to the Russian. We parted
+and set forth.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The chamber widened out from the portal in what seemed to be the arc
+of an immense circle. The shining walls held a perceptible curve, and
+from this curvature I estimated that the roof was fully three hundred
+feet above us.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The floor was of smooth, mosaic-fitted blocks of a faintly yellow
+tinge. They were not light-emitting like the blocks that formed the
+walls. The radiance from these latter, I noted, had the peculiar
+quality of <I>thickening</I> a few yards from its source, and it was this
+that produced the effect of misty, veiled distances. As we walked, the
+seven columns of rays streaming down from the crystalline globes high
+above us waned steadily; the glow within the chamber lost its
+prismatic shimmer and became an even grey tone somewhat like moonlight
+in a thin cloud.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Now before us, out from the wall, jutted a low terrace.  It was all of
+a pearly rose-coloured stone, slender, graceful pillars of the same
+hue. The face of the terrace was about ten feet high, and all over it
+ran a bas-relief of what looked like short-trailing vines, surmounted
+by five stalks, on the tip of each of which was a flower.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+We passed along the terrace.  It turned in an abrupt curve. I heard a
+hail, and there, fifty feet away, at the curving end of a wall
+identical with that where we stood, were Larry and Marakinoff.
+Obviously the left side of the chamber was a duplicate of that we had
+explored. We joined. In front of us the columned barriers ran back a
+hundred feet, forming an alcove. The end of this alcove was another
+wall of the same rose stone, but upon it the design of vines was much
+heavier.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+We took a step forward&mdash;there was a gasp of awe from the Norseman, a
+guttural exclamation from Marakinoff. For on, or rather within, the
+wall before us, a great oval began to glow, waxed almost to a flame
+and then shone steadily out as though from behind it a light was
+streaming through the stone itself!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And within the roseate oval two flame-tipped shadows appeared, stood
+for a moment, and then seemed to float out upon its surface. The
+shadows wavered; the tips of flame that nimbused them with flickering
+points of vermilion pulsed outward, drew back, darted forth again, and
+once more withdrew themselves&mdash;and as they did so the shadows
+thickened&mdash;and suddenly there before us stood two figures!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+One was a girl&mdash;a girl whose great eyes were golden as the fabled
+lilies of Kwan-Yung that were born of the kiss of the sun upon the
+amber goddess the demons of Lao-Tz'e carved for him; whose softly
+curved lips were red as the royal coral, and whose golden-brown hair
+reached to her knees!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And the second was a gigantic frog&mdash;A <I>woman</I> frog, head helmeted with
+carapace of shell around which a fillet of brilliant yellow jewels
+shone; enormous round eyes of blue circled with a broad iris of green;
+monstrous body of banded orange and white girdled with strand upon
+strand of the flashing yellow gems; six feet high if an inch, and with
+one webbed paw of its short, powerfully muscled forelegs resting upon
+the white shoulder of the golden-eyed girl!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Moments must have passed as we stood in stark amazement, gazing at
+that incredible apparition. The two figures, although as real as any
+of those who stood beside me, unphantomlike as it is possible to be,
+had a distinct suggestion of&mdash;projection.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They were there before us&mdash;golden-eyed girl and grotesque
+frog-woman&mdash;complete in every line and curve; and still it was as
+though their bodies passed back through distances; as though, to try
+to express the wellnigh inexpressible, the two shapes we were looking
+upon were the end of an infinite number stretching in fine linked
+chain far away, of which the eyes saw only the nearest, while in the
+brain some faculty higher than sight recognized and registered the
+unseen others.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The gigantic eyes of the frog-woman took us all in&mdash;unwinkingly.
+Little glints of phosphorescence shone out within the metallic green
+of the outer iris ring. She stood upright, her great legs bowed; the
+monstrous slit of a mouth slightly open, revealing a row of white
+teeth sharp and pointed as lancets; the paw resting on the girl's
+shoulder, half covering its silken surface, and from its five webbed
+digits long yellow claws of polished horn glistened against the
+delicate texture of the flesh.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But if the frog-woman regarded us all, not so did the maiden of the
+rosy wall. Her eyes were fastened upon Larry, drinking him in with
+extraordinary intentness. She was tall, far over the average of women,
+almost as tall, indeed, as O'Keefe himself; not more than twenty years
+old, if that, I thought. Abruptly she leaned forward, the golden eyes
+softened and grew tender; the red lips moved as though she were
+speaking.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Larry took a quick step, and his face was that of one who after
+countless births comes at last upon the twin soul lost to him for
+ages. The frog-woman turned her eyes upon the girl; her huge lips
+moved, and I knew that she was talking! The girl held out a warning
+hand to O'Keefe, and then raised it, resting each finger upon one of
+the five flowers of the carved vine close beside her. Once, twice,
+three times, she pressed upon the flower centres, and I noted that her
+hand was curiously long and slender, the digits like those wonderful
+tapering ones the painters we call the primitive gave to their
+Virgins.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Three times she pressed the flowers, and then looked intently at Larry
+once more. A slow, sweet smile curved the crimson lips. She stretched
+both hands out toward him again eagerly; a burning blush rose swiftly
+over white breasts and flowerlike face.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Like the clicking out of a cinematograph, the pulsing oval faded and
+golden-eyed girl and frog-woman were gone!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And thus it was that Lakla, the handmaiden of the Silent Ones, and
+Larry O'Keefe first looked into each other's hearts!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Larry stood rapt, gazing at the stone.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Eilidh," I heard him whisper; "Eilidh of the lips like the red, red
+rowan and the golden-brown hair!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Clearly of the Ranadae," said Marakinoff, "a development of the
+fossil Labyrinthodonts: you saw her teeth, da?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ranadae, yes," I answered.  "But from the Stegocephalia; of the order
+Ecaudata&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Never such a complete indignation as was in O'Keefe's voice as he
+interrupted.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What do you mean&mdash;fossils and Stego whatever it is?" he asked.  "She
+was a girl, a wonder girl&mdash;a real girl, and Irish, or I'm not an
+O'Keefe!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We were talking about the frog-woman, Larry," I said, conciliatingly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+His eyes were wild as he regarded us.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Say," he said, "if you two had been in the Garden of Eden when Eve
+took the apple, you wouldn't have had time to give her a look for
+counting the scales on the snake!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He strode swiftly over to the wall.  We followed.  Larry paused,
+stretched his hand up to the flowers on which the tapering fingers of
+the golden-eyed girl had rested.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It was here she put up her hand," he murmured.  He pressed
+caressingly the carved calyxes, once, twice, a third time even as she
+had&mdash;and silently and softly the wall began to split; on each side a
+great stone pivoted slowly, and before us a portal stood, opening into
+a narrow corridor glowing with the same rosy lustre that had gleamed
+around the flame-tipped shadows!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Have your gun ready, Olaf!" said Larry.  "We follow Golden Eyes," he
+said to me.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Follow?" I echoed stupidly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Follow!" he said.  "She came to show us the way!  Follow? I'd follow
+her through a thousand hells!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And with Olaf at one end, O'Keefe at the other, both of them with
+automatics in hand, and Marakinoff and I between them, we stepped over
+the threshold.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At our right, a few feet away, the passage ended abruptly in a square
+of polished stone, from which came faint rose radiance. The roof of
+the place was less than two feet over O'Keefe's head.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A yard at left of us lifted a four-foot high, gently curved barricade,
+stretching from wall to wall&mdash;and beyond it was blackness; an utter
+and appalling blackness that seemed to gather itself from infinite
+depths. The rose-glow in which we stood was cut off by the blackness
+as though it had substance; it shimmered out to meet it, and was
+checked as though by a blow; indeed, so strong was the suggestion of
+sinister, straining force within the rayless opacity that I shrank
+back, and Marakinoff with me. Not so O'Keefe. Olaf beside him, he
+strode to the wall and peered over. He beckoned us.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Flash your pocket-light down there," he said to me, pointing into the
+thick darkness below us. The little electric circle quivered down as
+though afraid, and came to rest upon a surface that resembled nothing
+so much as clear, black ice. I ran the light across&mdash;here and there.
+The floor of the corridor was of a substance so smooth, so polished,
+that no man could have walked upon it; it sloped downward at a slowly
+increasing angle.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We'd have to have non-skid chains and brakes on our feet to tackle
+that," mused Larry. Abstractedly be ran his hands over the edge on
+which he was leaning. Suddenly they hesitated and then gripped
+tightly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That's a queer one!" he exclaimed.  His right palm was resting upon a
+rounded protuberance, on the side of which were three small circular
+indentations.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"A queer one&mdash;" he repeated&mdash;and pressed his fingers upon the circles.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There was a sharp click; the slabs that had opened to let us through
+swung swiftly together; a curiously rapid vibration thrilled through
+us, a wind arose and passed over our heads&mdash;a wind that grew and grew
+until it became a whistling shriek, then a roar and then a mighty
+humming, to which every atom in our bodies pulsed in rhythm painful
+almost to disintegration!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The rosy wall dwindled in a flash to a point of light and disappeared!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Wrapped in the clinging, impenetrable blackness we were racing,
+dropping, hurling at a frightful speed&mdash;where?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And ever that awful humming of the rushing wind and the lightning
+cleaving of the tangible dark&mdash;so, it came to me oddly, must the newly
+released soul race through the sheer blackness of outer space up to
+that Throne of Justice, where God sits high above all suns!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I felt Marakinoff creep close to me; gripped my nerve and flashed my
+pocket-light; saw Larry standing, peering, peering ahead, and
+Huldricksson, one strong arm around his shoulders, bracing him. And
+then the speed began to slacken.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Millions of miles, it seemed, below the sound of the unearthly
+hurricane I heard Larry's voice, thin and ghostlike, beneath its
+clamour.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Got it!" shrilled the voice.  "Got it!  Don't worry!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The wind died down to the roar, passed back into the whistling shriek
+and diminished to a steady whisper. In the comparative quiet O'Keefe's
+tones now came in normal volume.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Some little shoot-the-chutes, what?" he shouted.  "Say&mdash;if they had
+this at Coney Island or the Crystal Palace! Press all the way in these
+holes and she goes top-high. Diminish pressure&mdash;diminish speed. The
+curve of this&mdash;dashboard&mdash;here sends the wind shooting up over our
+heads&mdash;like a windshield. What's behind you?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I flashed the light back.  The mechanism on which we were ended in
+another wall exactly similar to that over which O'Keefe crouched.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, we can't fall out, anyway," he laughed.  "Wish to hell I knew
+where the brakes were! Look out!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+We dropped dizzily down an abrupt, seemingly endless slope; fell&mdash;fell
+as into an abyss&mdash;then shot abruptly out of the blackness into a
+throbbing green radiance. O'Keefe's fingers must have pressed down
+upon the controls, for we leaped forward almost with the speed of
+light. I caught a glimpse of luminous immensities on the verge of
+which we flew; of depths inconceivable, and flitting through the
+incredible spaces&mdash;gigantic shadows as of the wings of Israfel, which
+are so wide, say the Arabs, the world can cower under them like a
+nestling&mdash;and then&mdash;again the living blackness!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What was that?" This from Larry, with the nearest approach to awe
+that he had yet shown.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Trolldom!" croaked the voice of Olaf.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Chert!"  This from Marakinoff.  "What a space!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Have you considered, Dr. Goodwin," he went on after a pause, "a
+curious thing? We know, or, at least, is it not that nine out of ten
+astronomers believe, that the moon was hurled out of this same region
+we now call the Pacific when the earth was yet like molasses; almost
+molten, I should say. And is it not curious that that which comes from
+the Moon Chamber needs the moon-rays to bring it forth; is it not? And
+is it not significant again that the stone depends upon the moon for
+operating? Da! And last&mdash;such a space in mother earth as we just
+glimpsed, how else could it have been torn but by some gigantic
+birth&mdash;like that of the moon? Da! I do not put forward these as
+statements of fact&mdash;no! But as suggestions&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I started; there was so much that this might explain&mdash;an unknown
+element that responded to the moon-rays in opening the moon door; the
+blue Pool with its weird radioactivity, and the force within it that
+reacted to the same light stream&mdash;
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was not inconceivable that a film had drawn over the world wound, a
+film of earth-flesh which drew itself over that colossal abyss after
+our planet had borne its satellite&mdash;that world womb did not close
+when her shining child sprang forth&mdash;it was possible; and all that we
+know of earth depth is four miles of her eight thousand.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+What is there at the heart of earth?  What of that radiant unknown
+element upon the moon mount Tycho? What of that element unknown to us
+as part of earth which is seen only in the corona of the sun at
+eclipse that we call coronium? Yet the earth is child of the sun as
+the moon is earth's daughter. And what of that other unknown element
+we find glowing green in the far-flung nebulae&mdash;green as that we had
+just passed through&mdash;and that we call nebulium? Yet the sun is child
+of the nebulae as the earth is child of the sun and the moon is child
+of the earth.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And what miracles are there in coronium and nebulium which, as the
+child of nebula and sun, we inherit? Yes&mdash;and in Tycho's enigma which
+came from earth heart?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+We were flashing down to earth heart!  And what miracles were hidden
+there?
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap12"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XII
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+The End of the Journey
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+"Say Doc!" It was Larry's voice flung back at me.  "I was thinking
+about that frog. I think it was her pet. Damn me if I see any
+difference between a frog and a snake, and one of the nicest women I
+ever knew had two pet pythons that followed her around like kittens.
+Not such a devilish lot of choice between a frog and a snake&mdash;except
+on the side of the frog? What? Anyway, any pet that girl wants is
+hers, I don't care if it's a leaping twelve-toed lobster or a
+whale-bodied scorpion. Get me?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+By which I knew that our remarks upon the frog woman were still
+bothering O'Keefe.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He thinks of foolish nothings like the foolish sailor!" grunted
+Marakinoff, acid contempt in his words. "What are their women
+to&mdash;this?" He swept out a hand and as though at a signal the car
+poised itself for an instant, then dipped, literally dipped down into
+sheer space; skimmed forward in what was clearly curved flight, rose
+as upon a sweeping upgrade and then began swiftly to slacken its
+fearful speed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Far ahead a point of light showed; grew steadily; we were within
+it&mdash;and softly all movement ceased. How acute had been the strain of
+our journey I did not realize until I tried to stand&mdash;and sank back,
+leg-muscles too shaky to bear my weight. The car rested in a slit in
+the centre of a smooth walled chamber perhaps twenty feet square. The
+wall facing us was pierced by a low doorway through which we could see
+a flight of steps leading downward.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The light streamed through a small opening, the base of which was
+twice a tall man's height from the floor. A curving flight of broad,
+low steps led up to it. And now it came to my steadying brain that
+there was something puzzling, peculiar, strangely unfamiliar about
+this light. It was silvery, shaded faintly with a delicate blue and
+flushed lightly with a nacreous rose; but a rose that differed from
+that of the terraces of the Pool Chamber as the rose within the opal
+differs from that within the pearl. In it were tiny, gleaming points
+like the motes in a sunbeam, but sparkling white like the dust of
+diamonds, and with a quality of vibrant vitality; they were as though
+they were alive. The light cast no shadows!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A little breeze came through the oval and played about us. It was
+laden with what seemed the mingled breath of spice flowers and pines.
+It was curiously vivifying, and in it the diamonded atoms of light
+shook and danced.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I stepped out of the car, the Russian following, and began to ascend
+the curved steps toward the opening, at the top of which O'Keefe and
+Olaf already stood. As they looked out I saw both their faces
+change&mdash;Olaf's with awe, O'Keefe's with incredulous amaze. I hurried
+to their side.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At first all that I could see was space&mdash;a space filled with the same
+coruscating effulgence that pulsed about me. I glanced upward, obeying
+that instinctive impulse of earth folk that bids them seek within the
+sky for sources of light. There was no sky&mdash;at least no sky such as we
+know&mdash;all was a sparkling nebulosity rising into infinite distances as
+the azure above the day-world seems to fill all the heavens&mdash;through
+it ran pulsing waves and flashing javelin rays that were like shining
+shadows of the aurora; echoes, octaves lower, of those brilliant
+arpeggios and chords that play about the poles. My eyes fell beneath
+its splendour; I stared outward.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miles away, gigantic luminous cliffs sprang sheer from the limits of a
+lake whose waters were of milky opalescence. It was from these cliffs
+that the spangled radiance came, shimmering out from all their
+lustrous surfaces. To left and to right, as far as the eye could see,
+they stretched&mdash;and they vanished in the auroral nebulosity on high!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Look at that!" exclaimed Larry.  I followed his pointing finger.  On
+the face of the shining wall, stretched between two colossal columns,
+hung an incredible veil; prismatic, gleaming with all the colours of
+the spectrum. It was like a web of rainbows woven by the fingers of
+the daughters of the Jinn. In front of it and a little at each side
+was a semi-circular pier, or, better, a plaza of what appeared to be
+glistening, pale-yellow ivory. At each end of its half-circle
+clustered a few low-walled, rose-stone structures, each of them
+surmounted by a number of high, slender pinnacles.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+We looked at each other, I think, a bit helplessly&mdash;and back again
+through the opening. We were standing, as I have said, at its base.
+The wall in which it was set was at least ten feet thick, and so, of
+course, all that we could see of that which was without were the
+distances that revealed themselves above the outer ledge of the oval.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Let's take a look at what's under us," said Larry.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He crept out upon the ledge and peered down, the rest of us following.
+A hundred yards beneath us stretched gardens that must have been like
+those of many-columned Iram, which the ancient Addite King had built
+for his pleasure ages before the deluge, and which Allah, so the Arab
+legend tells, took and hid from man, within the Sahara, beyond all
+hope of finding&mdash;jealous because they were more beautiful than his in
+paradise. Within them flowers and groves of laced, fernlike trees,
+pillared pavilions nestled.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The trunks of the trees were of emerald, of vermilion, and of
+azure-blue, and the blossoms, whose fragrance was borne to us, shone
+like jewels. The graceful pillars were tinted delicately. I noted that
+the pavilions were double&mdash;in a way, two-storied&mdash;and that they were
+oddly splotched with circles, with squares, and with oblongs
+of&mdash;opacity; noted too that over many this opacity stretched like a
+roof; yet it did not seem material; rather was it&mdash;impenetrable
+shadow!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Down through this city of gardens ran a broad shining green
+thoroughfare, glistening like glass and spanned at regular intervals
+with graceful, arched bridges. The road flashed to a wide square,
+where rose, from a base of that same silvery stone that formed the lip
+of the Moon Pool, a titanic structure of seven terraces; and along it
+flitted objects that bore a curious resemblance to the shell of the
+Nautilus. Within them were&mdash;human figures! And upon tree-bordered
+promenades on each side walked others!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Far to the right we caught the glint of another emerald-paved road.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And between the two the gardens grew sweetly down to the hither side
+of that opalescent water across which were the radiant cliffs and the
+curtain of mystery.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Thus it was that we first saw the city of the Dweller; blessed and
+accursed as no place on earth, or under or above earth has ever
+been&mdash;or, that force willing which some call God, ever again shall be!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Chert!" whispered Marakinoff.  "Incredible!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Trolldom!" gasped Olaf Huldricksson.  "It is Trolldom!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Listen, Olaf!" said Larry.  "Cut out that Trolldom stuff! There's no
+Trolldom, or fairies, outside Ireland. Get that! And this isn't
+Ireland. And, buck up, Professor!" This to Marakinoff. "What you see
+down there are people&mdash;<I>just plain people</I>. And wherever there's people
+is where I live. Get me?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"There's no way in but in&mdash;and no way out but out," said O'Keefe.
+"And there's the stairway. Eggs are eggs no matter how they're
+cooked&mdash;and people are just people, fellow travellers, no matter what
+dish they are in," he concluded. "Come on!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+With the three of us close behind him, he marched toward the entrance.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap13"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XIII
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+Yolara, Priestess of the Shining One
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+"You'd better have this handy, Doc." O'Keefe paused at the head of the
+stairway and handed me one of the automatics he had taken from
+Marakinoff.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Shall I not have one also?" rather anxiously asked the latter.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"When you need it you'll get it," answered O'Keefe.  "I'll tell you
+frankly, though, Professor, that you'll have to show me before I trust
+you with a gun. You shoot too straight&mdash;from cover."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The flash of anger in the Russian's eyes turned to a cold
+consideration.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You say always just what is in your mind, Lieutenant O'Keefe," he
+mused. "Da&mdash;that I shall remember!" Later I was to recall this odd
+observation&mdash;and Marakinoff was to remember indeed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In single file, O'Keefe at the head and Olaf bringing up the rear, we
+passed through the portal. Before us dropped a circular shaft, into
+which the light from the chamber of the oval streamed liquidly; set in
+its sides the steps spiralled, and down them we went, cautiously. The
+stairway ended in a circular well; silent&mdash;with no trace of exit! The
+rounded stones joined each other evenly&mdash;hermetically. Carved on one
+of the slabs was one of the five flowered vines. I pressed my fingers
+upon the calyxes, even as Larry had within the Moon Chamber.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A crack&mdash;horizontal, four feet wide&mdash;appeared on the wall; widened,
+and as the sinking slab that made it dropped to the level of our eyes,
+we looked through a hundred-feet-long rift in the living rock! The
+stone fell steadily&mdash;and we saw that it was a Cyclopean wedge set
+within the slit of the passageway. It reached the level of our feet
+and stopped. At the far end of this tunnel, whose floor was the
+polished rock that had, a moment before, fitted hermetically into its
+roof, was a low, narrow triangular opening through which light
+streamed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Nowhere to go but out!" grinned Larry.  "And I'll bet Golden Eyes is
+waiting for us with a taxi!" He stepped forward. We followed,
+slipping, sliding along the glassy surface; and I, for one, had a
+lively apprehension of what our fate would be should that enormous
+mass rise before we had emerged! We reached the end; crept out of the
+narrow triangle that was its exit.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+We stood upon a wide ledge carpeted with a thick yellow moss.  I
+looked behind&mdash;and clutched O'Keefe's arm. The door through which we
+had come had vanished! There was only a precipice of pale rock, on
+whose surfaces great patches of the amber moss hung; around whose base
+our ledge ran, and whose summits, if summits it had, were hidden, like
+the luminous cliffs, in the radiance above us.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Nowhere to go but ahead&mdash;and Golden Eyes hasn't kept her date!"
+laughed O'Keefe&mdash;but somewhat grimly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+We walked a few yards along the ledge and, rounding a corner, faced
+the end of one of the slender bridges. From this vantage point the
+oddly shaped vehicles were plain, and we could see they were, indeed,
+like the shell of the Nautilus and elfinly beautiful. Their drivers
+sat high upon the forward whorl. Their bodies were piled high with
+cushions, upon which lay women half-swathed in gay silken webs. From
+the pavilioned gardens smaller channels of glistening green ran into
+the broad way, much as automobile runways do on earth; and in and out
+of them flashed the fairy shells.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There came a shout from one.  Its occupants had glimpsed us. They
+pointed; others stopped and stared; one shell turned and sped up a
+runway&mdash;and quickly over the other side of the bridge came a score of
+men. They were dwarfed&mdash;none of them more than five feet high,
+prodigiously broad of shoulder, clearly enormously powerful.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Trolde!" muttered Olaf, stepping beside O'Keefe, pistol swinging free
+in his hand.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But at the middle of the bridge the leader stopped, waved back his
+men, and came toward us alone, palms outstretched in the immemorial,
+universal gesture of truce. He paused, scanning us with manifest
+wonder; we returned the scrutiny with interest. The dwarf's face was
+as white as Olaf's&mdash;far whiter than those of the other three of us;
+the features clean-cut and noble, almost classical; the wide set eyes
+of a curious greenish grey and the black hair curling over his head
+like that on some old Greek statue.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dwarfed though he was, there was no suggestion of deformity about him.
+The gigantic shoulders were covered with a loose green tunic that
+looked like fine linen. It was caught in at the waist by a broad
+girdle studded with what seemed to be amazonites. In it was thrust a
+long curved poniard resembling the Malaysian kris. His legs were
+swathed in the same green cloth as the upper garment. His feet were
+sandalled.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+My gaze returned to his face, and in it I found something subtly
+disturbing; an expression of half-malicious gaiety that underlay the
+wholly prepossessing features like a vague threat; a mocking deviltry
+that hinted at entire callousness to suffering or sorrow; something of
+the spirit that was vaguely alien and disquieting.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He spoke&mdash;and, to my surprise, enough of the words were familiar to
+enable me clearly to catch the meaning of the whole. They were
+Polynesian, the Polynesian of the Samoans which is its most ancient
+form, but in some indefinable way&mdash;archaic. Later I was to know that
+the tongue bore the same relation to the Polynesian of today as does
+<I>not</I> that of Chaucer, but of the Venerable Bede, to modern English.
+Nor was this to be so astonishing, when with the knowledge came the
+certainty that it was from it the language we call Polynesian sprang.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"From whence do you come, strangers&mdash;and how found you your way here?"
+said the green dwarf.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I waved my hand toward the cliff behind us.  His eyes narrowed
+incredulously; he glanced at its drop, upon which even a mountain goat
+could not have made its way, and laughed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We came through the rock," I answered his thought. "And we come in
+peace," I added.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And may peace walk with you," he said half-derisively&mdash;"if the
+Shining One wills it!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He considered us again.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Show me, strangers, where you came through the rock," he commanded.
+We led the way to where we had emerged from the well of the stairway.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It was here," I said, tapping the cliff.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But I see no opening," he said suavely.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It closed behind us," I answered; and then, for the first time,
+realized how incredible the explanation sounded. The derisive gleam
+passed through his eyes again. But he drew his poniard and gravely
+sounded the rock.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You give a strange turn to our speech," he said.  "It sounds
+strangely, indeed&mdash;as strange as your answers." He looked at us
+quizzically. "I wonder where you learned it! Well, all that you can
+explain to the Afyo Maie." His head bowed and his arms swept out in a
+wide salaam. "Be pleased to come with me!" he ended abruptly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"In peace?" I asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"In peace," he replied&mdash;then slowly&mdash;"with me at least."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, come on, Doc!" cried Larry.  "As long as we're here let's see the
+sights. Allons mon vieux!" he called gaily to the green dwarf. The
+latter, understanding the spirit, if not the words, looked at O'Keefe
+with a twinkle of approval; turned then to the great Norseman and
+scanned him with admiration; reached out and squeezed one of the
+immense biceps.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Lugur will welcome you, at least," he murmured as though to himself.
+He stood aside and waved a hand courteously, inviting us to pass. We
+crossed. At the base of the span one of the elfin shells was waiting.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Beyond, scores had gathered, their occupants evidently discussing us
+in much excitement. The green dwarf waved us to the piles of cushions
+and then threw himself beside us. The vehicle started off smoothly,
+the now silent throng making way, and swept down the green roadway at
+a terrific pace and wholly without vibration, toward the
+seven-terraced tower.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As we flew along I tried to discover the source of the power, but I
+could not&mdash;then. There was no sign of mechanism, but that the shell
+responded to some form of energy was certain&mdash;the driver grasping a
+small lever which seemed to control not only our speed, but our
+direction.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+We turned abruptly and swept up a runway through one of the gardens,
+and stopped softly before a pillared pavilion. I saw now that these
+were much larger than I had thought. The structure to which we had
+been carried covered, I estimated, fully an acre. Oblong, with its
+slender, vari-coloured columns spaced regularly, its walls were like
+the sliding screens of the Japanese&mdash;shoji.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The green dwarf hurried us up a flight of broad steps flanked by great
+carved serpents, winged and scaled. He stamped twice upon mosaicked
+stones between two of the pillars, and a screen rolled aside,
+revealing an immense hall scattered about with low divans on which
+lolled a dozen or more of the dwarfish men, dressed identically as he.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They sauntered up to us leisurely; the surprised interest in their
+faces tempered by the same inhumanly gay malice that seemed to be
+characteristic of all these people we had as yet seen.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The Afyo Maie awaits them, Rador," said one.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The green dwarf nodded, beckoned us, and led the way through the great
+hall and into a smaller chamber whose far side was covered with the
+opacity I had noted from the aerie of the cliff. I examined
+the&mdash;blackness&mdash;with lively interest.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It had neither substance nor texture; it was not matter&mdash;and yet it
+suggested solidity; an entire cessation, a complete absorption of
+light; an ebon veil at once immaterial and palpable. I stretched,
+involuntarily, my hand out toward it, and felt it quickly drawn back.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Do you seek your end so soon?" whispered Rador.  "But I forget&mdash;you
+do not know," he added. "On your life touch not the blackness, ever.
+It&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He stopped, for abruptly in the density a portal appeared; swinging
+out of the shadow like a picture thrown by a lantern upon a screen.
+Through it was revealed a chamber filled with a soft rosy glow. Rising
+from cushioned couches, a woman and a man regarded us, half leaning
+over a long, low table of what seemed polished jet, laden with flowers
+and unfamiliar fruits.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+About the room&mdash;that part of it, at least, that I could see&mdash;were a
+few oddly shaped chairs of the same substance. On high, silvery
+tripods three immense globes stood, and it was from them that the rose
+glow emanated. At the side of the woman was a smaller globe whose
+roseate gleam was tempered by quivering waves of blue.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Enter Rador with the strangers!" a clear, sweet voice called.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Rador bowed deeply and stood aside, motioning us to pass.  We entered,
+the green dwarf behind us, and out of the corner of my eye I saw the
+doorway fade as abruptly as it had appeared and again the dense shadow
+fill its place.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Come closer, strangers.  Be not afraid!" commanded the bell-toned
+voice.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+We approached.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The woman, sober scientist that I am, made the breath catch in my
+throat. Never had I seen a woman so beautiful as was Yolara of the
+Dweller's city&mdash;and none of so perilous a beauty. Her hair was of the
+colour of the young tassels of the corn and coiled in a regal crown
+above her broad, white brows; her wide eyes were of grey that could
+change to a cornflower blue and in anger deepen to purple; grey or
+blue, they had little laughing devils within them, but when the storm
+of anger darkened them&mdash;they were not laughing, no! The silken webs
+that half covered, half revealed her did not hide the ivory whiteness
+of her flesh nor the sweet curve of shoulders and breasts. But for all
+her amazing beauty, she was&mdash;sinister! There was cruelty about the
+curving mouth, and in the music of her voice&mdash;not conscious cruelty,
+but the more terrifying, careless cruelty of nature itself.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The girl of the rose wall had been beautiful, yes!  But her beauty was
+human, understandable. You could imagine her with a babe in her
+arms&mdash;but you could not so imagine this woman. About her loveliness
+hovered something unearthly. A sweet feminine echo of the Dweller was
+Yolara, the Dweller's priestess&mdash;and as gloriously, terrifyingly evil!
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap14"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XIV
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+The Justice of Lora
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+As I looked at her the man arose and made his way round the table
+toward us. For the first time my eyes took in Lugur. A few inches
+taller than the green dwarf, he was far broader, more filled with the
+suggestion of appalling strength.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The tremendous shoulders were four feet wide if an inch, tapering down
+to mighty thewed thighs. The muscles of his chest stood out beneath
+his tunic of red. Around his forehead shone a chaplet of bright-blue
+stones, sparkling among the thick curls of his silver-ash hair.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Upon his face pride and ambition were written large&mdash;and power still
+larger. All the mockery, the malice, the hint of callous indifference
+that I had noted in the other dwarfish men were there, too&mdash;but
+intensified, touched with the satanic.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The woman spoke again.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Who are you strangers, and how came you here?"  She turned to Rador.
+"Or is it that they do not understand our tongue?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"One understands and speaks it&mdash;but very badly, O Yolara," answered
+the green dwarf.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Speak, then, that one of you," she commanded.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But it was Marakinoff who found his voice first, and I marvelled at
+the fluency, so much greater than mine, with which he spoke.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We came for different purposes.  I to seek knowledge of a kind;
+he"&mdash;pointing to me "of another. This man"&mdash;he looked at Olaf&mdash;"to
+find a wife and child."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The grey-blue eyes had been regarding O'Keefe steadily and with
+plainly increasing interest.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And why did <I>you</I> come?" she asked him.  "Nay&mdash;I would have him speak
+for himself, if he can," she stilled Marakinoff peremptorily.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When Larry spoke it was haltingly, in the tongue that was strange to
+him, searching for the proper words.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I came to help these men&mdash;and because something I could not then
+understand called me, O lady, whose eyes are like forest pools at
+dawn," he answered; and even in the unfamiliar words there was a touch
+of the Irish brogue, and little merry lights danced in the eyes Larry
+had so apostrophized.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I could find fault with your speech, but none with its burden," she
+said. "What forest pools are I know not, and the dawn has not shone
+upon the people of Lora these many sais of laya.[1] But I sense what you
+mean!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The eyes deepened to blue as she regarded him.  She smiled.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Are there many like you in the world from which you come?" she asked
+softly. "Well, we soon shall&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Lugur interrupted her almost rudely and glowering.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Best we should know how they came hence," he growled.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She darted a quick look at him, and again the little devils danced in
+her wondrous eyes.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="note">
+[Unquestionably there is a subtle difference between time as we know it
+and time in this subterranean land&mdash;its progress there being slower.
+This, however, is only in accord with the well-known doctrine of
+relativity, which predicates both space and time as necessary
+inventions of the human mind to orient itself to the conditions under
+which it finds itself. I tried often to measure this difference, but
+could never do so to my entire satisfaction. The closest I can come to
+it is to say that an hour of our time is the equivalent of an hour and
+five-eighths in Muria. For further information upon this matter of
+relativity the reader may consult any of the numerous books upon the
+subject.&mdash;W. T. G.]
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, that is true," she said.  "How came you here?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Again it was Marakinoff who answered&mdash;slowly, considering every word.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"In the world above," he said, "there are ruins of cities not built by
+any of those who now dwell there. To us these places called, and we
+sought for knowledge of the wise ones who made them. We found a
+passageway. The way led us downward to a door in yonder cliff, and
+through it we came here."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Then have you found what you sought?" spoke she.  "For we are of
+those who built the cities. But this gateway in the rock&mdash;where is
+it?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"After we passed, it closed upon us; nor could we after find trace of
+it," answered Marakinoff.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The incredulity that had shown upon the face of the green dwarf fell
+upon theirs; on Lugur's it was clouded with furious anger.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He turned to Rador.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I could find no opening, lord," said the green dwarf quickly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And there was so fierce a fire in the eyes of Lugur as he swung back
+upon us that O'Keefe's hand slipped stealthily down toward his pistol.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Best it is to speak truth to Yolara, priestess of the Shining One,
+and to Lugur, the Voice," he cried menacingly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It is the truth," I interposed.  "We came down the passage.  At its
+end was a carved vine, a vine of five flowers"&mdash;the fire died from the
+red dwarf's eyes, and I could have sworn to a swift pallor. "I rested
+a hand upon these flowers, and a door opened. But when we had gone
+through it and turned, behind us was nothing but unbroken cliff. The
+door had vanished."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I had taken my cue from Marakinoff.  If he had eliminated the episode
+of car and Moon Pool, he had good reason, I had no doubt; and I would
+be as cautious. And deep within me something cautioned me to say
+nothing of my quest; to stifle all thought of Throckmartin&mdash;something
+that warned, peremptorily, finally, as though it were a message from
+Throckmartin himself!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"A vine with five flowers!" exclaimed the red dwarf.  "Was it like
+this, say?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He thrust forward a long arm.  Upon the thumb of the hand was an
+immense ring, set with a dull-blue stone. Graven on the face of the
+jewel was the symbol of the rosy walls of the Moon Chamber that had
+opened to us their two portals. But cut over the vine were seven
+circles, one about each of the flowers and two larger ones covering,
+intersecting them.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"This is the same," I said; "but these were not there"&mdash;I indicated
+the circles.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The woman drew a deep breath and looked deep into Lugur's eyes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The sign of the Silent Ones!" he half whispered.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was the woman who first recovered herself.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The strangers are weary, Lugur," she said.  "When they are rested
+they shall show where the rocks opened."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I sensed a subtle change in their attitude toward us; a new
+intentness; a doubt plainly tinged with apprehension. What was it they
+feared? Why had the symbol of the vine wrought the change? And who or
+what were the Silent Ones?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Yolara's eyes turned to Olaf, hardened, and grew cold grey.
+Subconsciously I had noticed that from the first the Norseman had been
+absorbed in his regard of the pair; had, indeed, never taken his gaze
+from them; had noticed, too, the priestess dart swift glances toward
+him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He returned her scrutiny fearlessly, a touch of contempt in the clear
+eyes&mdash;like a child watching a snake which he did not dread, but whose
+danger be well knew.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Under that look Yolara stirred impatiently, sensing, I know, its
+meaning.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why do you look at me so?" she cried.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+An expression of bewilderment passed over Olaf's face.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I do not understand," he said in English.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I caught a quickly repressed gleam in O'Keefe's eyes.  He knew, as I
+knew, that Olaf must have understood. But did Marakinoff?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Apparently he did not.  But why was Olaf feigning ignorance?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"This man is a sailor from what we call the North," thus Larry
+haltingly. "He is crazed, I think. He tells a strange tale of a
+something of cold fire that took his wife and babe. We found him
+wandering where we were. And because he is strong we brought him with
+us. That is all, O lady, whose voice is sweeter than the honey of the
+wild bees!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"A shape of cold fire?" she repeated.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"A shape of cold fire that whirled beneath the moon, with the sound of
+little bells," answered Larry, watching her intently.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She looked at Lugur and laughed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Then he, too, is fortunate," she said.  "For he has come to the place
+of his something of cold fire&mdash;and tell him that he shall join his
+wife and child, in time; that I promise him."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Upon the Norseman's face there was no hint of comprehension, and at
+that moment I formed an entirely new opinion of Olaf's intelligence;
+for certainly it must have been a prodigious effort of the will,
+indeed, that enabled him, understanding, to control himself.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What does she say?" he asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Larry repeated.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Good!" said Olaf.  "Good!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He looked at Yolara with well-assumed gratitude.  Lugur, who had been
+scanning his bulk, drew close. He felt the giant muscles which
+Huldricksson accommodatingly flexed for him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But he shall meet Valdor and Tahola before he sees those kin of his,"
+he laughed mockingly. "And if he bests them&mdash;for reward&mdash;his wife and
+babe!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A shudder, quickly repressed, shook the seaman's frame. The woman bent
+her supremely beautiful head.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"These two," she said, pointing to the Russian and to me, "seem to be
+men of learning. They may be useful. As for this man,"&mdash;she smiled at
+Larry&mdash;"I would have him explain to me some things." She hesitated.
+"What 'hon-ey of 'e wild bees-s' is." Larry had spoken the words in
+English, and she was trying to repeat them. "As for this man, the
+sailor, do as you please with him, Lugur; always remembering that I
+have given my word that he shall join that wife and babe of his!" She
+laughed sweetly, sinisterly. "And now&mdash;take them, Rador&mdash;give them
+food and drink and let them rest till we shall call them again."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She stretched out a hand toward O'Keefe.  The Irishman bowed low over
+it, raised it softly to his lips. There was a vicious hiss from Lugur;
+but Yolara regarded Larry with eyes now all tender blue.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You please me," she whispered.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And the face of Lugur grew darker.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+We turned to go.  The rosy, azure-shot globe at her side suddenly
+dulled. From it came a faint bell sound as of chimes far away. She
+bent over it. It vibrated, and then its surface ran with little waves
+of dull colour; from it came a whispering so low that I could not
+distinguish the words&mdash;if words they were.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She spoke to the red dwarf.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"They have brought the three who blasphemed the Shining One," she said
+slowly. "Now it is in my mind to show these strangers the justice of
+Lora. What say you, Lugur?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The red dwarf nodded, his eyes sparkling with a malicious
+anticipation.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The woman spoke again to the globe.  "Bring them here!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And again it ran swiftly with its film of colours, darkened, and shone
+rosy once more. From without there came a rustle of many feet upon the
+rugs. Yolara pressed a slender hand upon the base of the pedestal of
+the globe beside her. Abruptly the light faded from all, and on the
+same instant the four walls of blackness vanished, revealing on two
+sides the lovely, unfamiliar garden through the guarding rows of
+pillars; at our backs soft draperies hid what lay beyond; before us,
+flanked by flowered screens, was the corridor through which we had
+entered, crowded now by the green dwarfs of the great hall.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The dwarfs advanced.  Each, I now noted, had the same clustering black
+hair of Rador. They separated, and from them stepped three figures&mdash;a
+youth of not more than twenty, short, but with the great shoulders of
+all the males we had seen of this race; a girl of seventeen, I judged,
+white-faced, a head taller than the boy, her long, black hair
+dishevelled; and behind these two a stunted, gnarled shape whose head
+was sunk deep between the enormous shoulders, whose white beard fell
+like that of some ancient gnome down to his waist, and whose eyes were
+a white flame of hate. The girl cast herself weeping at the feet of
+the priestess; the youth regarded her curiously.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You are Songar of the Lower Waters?" murmured Yolara almost
+caressingly. "And this is your daughter and her lover?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The gnome nodded, the flame in his eyes leaping higher.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It has come to me that you three have dared blaspheme the Shining
+One, its priestess, and its Voice," went on Yolara smoothly. "Also
+that you have called out to the three Silent Ones. Is it true?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Your spies have spoken&mdash;and have you not already judged us?" The
+voice of the old dwarf was bitter.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A flicker shot through the eyes of Yolara, again cold grey. The girl
+reached a trembling hand out to the hem of the priestess's veils.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Tell us why you did these things, Songar," she said.  "Why you did
+them, knowing full well what your&mdash;reward&mdash;would be."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The dwarf stiffened; he raised his withered arms, and his eyes blazed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Because evil are your thoughts and evil are your deeds," he cried.
+"Yours and your lover's, there"&mdash;he levelled a finger at Lugur.
+"Because of the Shining One you have made evil, too, and the greater
+wickedness you contemplate&mdash;you and he with the Shining One. But I
+tell you that your measure of iniquity is full; the tale of your sin
+near ended! Yea&mdash;the Silent Ones have been patient, but soon they will
+speak." He pointed at us. "A sign are <I>they</I>&mdash;a warning&mdash;harlot!" He
+spat the word.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In Yolara's eyes, grown black, the devils leaped unrestrained.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Is it even so, Songar?" her voice caressed.  "Now ask the Silent Ones
+to help you! They sit afar&mdash;but surely they will hear you." The sweet
+voice was mocking. "As for these two, they shall pray to the Shining
+One for forgiveness&mdash;and surely the Shining One will take them to its
+bosom! As for you&mdash;you have lived long enough, Songar! Pray to the
+Silent Ones, Songar, and pass out into the nothingness&mdash;you!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She dipped down into her bosom and drew forth something that resembled
+a small cone of tarnished silver. She levelled it, a covering clicked
+from its base, and out of it darted a slender ray of intense green
+light.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It struck the old dwarf squarely over the heart, and spread swift as
+light itself, covering him with a gleaming, pale film. She clenched
+her hand upon the cone, and the ray disappeared. She thrust the cone
+back into her breast and leaned forward expectantly; so Lugur and so
+the other dwarfs. From the girl came a low wail of anguish; the boy
+dropped upon his knees, covering his face.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+For the moment the white beard stood rigid; then the robe that had
+covered him seemed to melt away, revealing all the knotted, monstrous
+body. And in that body a vibration began, increasing to incredible
+rapidity. It wavered before us like a reflection in a still pond
+stirred by a sudden wind. It grew and grew&mdash;to a rhythm whose rapidity
+was intolerable to watch and that still chained the eyes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The figure grew indistinct, misty.  Tiny sparks in infinite numbers
+leaped from it&mdash;like, I thought, the radiant shower of particles
+hurled out by radium when seen under the microscope. Mistier still it
+grew&mdash;there trembled before us for a moment a faintly luminous shadow
+which held, here and there, tiny sparkling atoms like those that
+pulsed in the light about us! The glowing shadow vanished, the
+sparkling atoms were still for a moment&mdash;and shot away, joining those
+dancing others.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Where the gnomelike form had been but a few seconds before&mdash;there was
+nothing!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+O'Keefe drew a long breath, and I was sensible of a prickling along my
+scalp.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Yolara leaned toward us.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You have seen," she said.  Her eyes lingered tigerishly upon Olaf's
+pallid face. "Heed!" she whispered. She turned to the men in green,
+who were laughing softly among themselves.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Take these two, and go!" she commanded.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The justice of Lora," said the red dwarf.  "The justice of Lora and
+the Shining One under Thanaroa!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Upon the utterance of the last word I saw Marakinoff start violently.
+The hand at his side made a swift, surreptitious gesture, so fleeting
+that I hardly caught it. The red dwarf stared at the Russian, and
+there was amazement upon his face.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Swiftly as Marakinoff, he returned it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yolara," the red dwarf spoke, "it would please me to take this man of
+wisdom to my own place for a time. The giant I would have, too."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The woman awoke from her brooding; nodded.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"As you will, Lugur," she said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And as, shaken to the core, we passed out into the garden into the
+full throbbing of the light, I wondered if all the tiny sparkling
+diamond points that shook about us had once been men like Songar of
+the Lower Waters&mdash;and felt my very soul grow sick!
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+[1] Later I was to find that Murian reckoning rested upon the
+extraordinary increased luminosity of the cliffs at the time of full
+moon on earth&mdash;this action, to my mind, being linked either with the
+effect of the light streaming globes upon the Moon Pool, whose source
+was in the shining cliffs, or else upon some mysterious affinity of
+their radiant element with the flood of moonlight on earth&mdash;the
+latter, most probably, because even when the moon must have been
+clouded above, it made no difference in the phenomenon. Thirteen of
+these shinings forth constituted a laya, one of them a lat. Ten was
+sa; ten times ten times ten a said, or thousand; ten times a thousand
+was a sais. A sais of laya was then literally ten thousand years. What
+we would call an hour was by them called a va. The whole time system
+was, of course, a mingling of time as it had been known to their
+remote, surface-dwelling ancestors, and the peculiar determining
+factors in the vast cavern.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap15"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XV
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+The Angry, Whispering Globe
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+Our way led along a winding path between banked masses of softly
+radiant blooms, groups of feathery ferns whose plumes were starred
+with fragrant white and blue flowerets, slender creepers swinging from
+the branches of the strangely trunked trees, bearing along their
+threads orchid-like blossoms both delicately frail and gorgeously
+flamboyant.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The path we trod was an exquisite mosaic&mdash;pastel greens and pinks upon
+a soft grey base, garlands of nimbused forms like the flaming rose of
+the Rosicrucians held in the mouths of the flying serpents. A smaller
+pavilion arose before us, single-storied, front wide open.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Upon its threshold Rador paused, bowed deeply, and motioned us within.
+The chamber we entered was large, closed on two sides by screens of
+grey; at the back gay, concealing curtains. The low table of blue
+stone, dressed with fine white cloths, stretched at one side flanked
+by the cushioned divans.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At the left was a high tripod bearing one of the rosy globes we had
+seen in the house of Yolara; at the head of the table a smaller globe
+similar to the whispering one. Rador pressed upon its base, and two
+other screens slid into place across the entrance, shutting in the
+room.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He clapped his hands; the curtains parted, and two girls came through
+them. Tall and willow lithe, their bluish-black hair falling in
+ringlets just below their white shoulders, their clear eyes of
+forget-me-not blue, and skins of extraordinary fineness and
+purity&mdash;they were singularly attractive. Each was clad in an extremely
+scanty bodice of silken blue, girdled above a kirtle that came barely
+to their very pretty knees.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Food and drink," ordered Rador.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They dropped back through the curtains.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Do you like them?" he asked us.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Some chickens!" said Larry.  "They delight the heart," he translated
+for Rador.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The green dwarf's next remark made me gasp.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"They are yours," he said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Before I could question him further upon this extraordinary statement
+the pair re-entered, bearing a great platter on which were small
+loaves, strange fruits, and three immense flagons of rock crystal&mdash;two
+filled with a slightly sparkling yellow liquid and the third with a
+purplish drink. I became acutely sensible that it had been hours since
+I had either eaten or drunk. The yellow flagons were set before Larry
+and me, the purple at Rador's hand.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The girls, at his signal, again withdrew.  I raised my glass to my
+lips and took a deep draft. The taste was unfamiliar but delightful.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Almost at once my fatigue disappeared.  I realized a clarity of mind,
+an interesting exhilaration and sense of irresponsibility, of freedom
+from care, that were oddly enjoyable. Larry became immediately his old
+gay self.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The green dwarf regarded us whimsically, sipping from his great flagon
+of rock crystal.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Much do I desire to know of that world you came from," he said at
+last&mdash;"through the rocks," he added, slyly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And much do we desire to know of this world of yours, O Rador," I
+answered.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Should I ask him of the Dweller; seek from him a clue to Throckmartin?
+Again, clearly as a spoken command, came the warning to forbear, to
+wait. And once more I obeyed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Let us learn, then, from each other." The dwarf was laughing.  "And
+first&mdash;are all above like you&mdash;drawn out"&mdash;he made an expressive
+gesture&mdash;"and are there many of you?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"There are&mdash;" I hesitated, and at last spoke the Polynesian that means
+tens upon tens multiplied indefinitely&mdash;"there are as many as the
+drops of water in the lake we saw from the ledge where you found us,"
+I continued; "many as the leaves on the trees without. And they are
+all like us&mdash;varyingly."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He considered skeptically, I could see, my remark upon our numbers.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"In Muria," he said at last, "the men are like me or like Lugur.  Our
+women are as you see them&mdash;like Yolara or those two who served you."
+He hesitated. "And there is a third; but only one."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Larry leaned forward eagerly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Brown-haired with glints of ruddy bronze, golden-eyed, and lovely as
+a dream, with long, slender, beautiful hands?" he cried.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Where saw you <I>her</I>?" interrupted the dwarf, starting to his feet.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Saw her?" Larry recovered himself.  "Nay, Rador, perhaps, I only
+dreamed that there was such a woman."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"See to it, then, that you tell not your dream to Yolara," said the
+dwarf grimly. "For her I meant and her you have pictured is Lakla, the
+hand-maiden to the Silent Ones, and neither Yolara nor Lugur, nay, nor
+the Shining One, love her overmuch, stranger."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Does she dwell here?" Larry's face was alight.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The dwarf hesitated, glanced about him anxiously.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Nay," he answered, "ask me no more of her." He was silent for a
+space. "And what do you who are as leaves or drops of water do in that
+world of yours?" he said, plainly bent on turning the subject.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Keep off the golden-eyed girl, Larry," I interjected.  "Wait till we
+find out why she's tabu."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Love and battle, strive and accomplish and die; or fail and die,"
+answered Larry&mdash;to Rador&mdash;giving me a quick nod of acquiescence to my
+warning in English.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"In that at least your world and mine differ little," said the dwarf.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"How great is this world of yours, Rador?" I spoke.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He considered me gravely.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"How great indeed I do not know," he said frankly at last. "The land
+where we dwell with the Shining One stretches along the white waters
+for&mdash;" He used a phrase of which I could make nothing. "Beyond this
+city of the Shining One and on the hither shores of the white waters
+dwell the mayia ladala&mdash;the common ones." He took a deep draft from
+his flagon. "There are, first, the fair-haired ones, the children of
+the ancient rulers," he continued. "There are, second, we the
+soldiers; and last, the mayia ladala, who dig and till and weave and
+toil and give our rulers and us their daughters, and dance with the
+Shining One!" he added.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Who rules?" I asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The fair-haired, under the Council of Nine, who are under Yolara, the
+Priestess and Lugur, the Voice," he answered, "who are in turn beneath
+the Shining One!" There was a ring of bitter satire in the last.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And those three who were judged?"&mdash;this from Larry.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"They were of the mayia ladala," he replied, "like those two I gave
+you. But they grow restless. They do not like to dance with the
+Shining One&mdash;the blasphemers!" He raised his voice in a sudden great
+shout of mocking laughter.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In his words I caught a fleeting picture of the race&mdash;an ancient,
+luxurious, close-bred oligarchy clustered about some mysterious deity;
+a soldier class that supported them; and underneath all the toiling,
+oppressed hordes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And is that all?" asked Larry.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No," he answered.  "There is the Sea of Crimson where&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Without warning the globe beside us sent out a vicious note, Rador
+turned toward it, his face paling. Its surface crawled with
+whisperings&mdash;angry, peremptory!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I hear!" he croaked, gripping the table.  "I obey!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He turned to us a face devoid for once of its malice.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ask me no more questions, strangers," he said.  "And now, if you are
+done, I will show you where you may sleep and bathe."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He arose abruptly.  We followed him through the hangings, passed
+through a corridor and into another smaller chamber, roofless, the
+sides walled with screens of dark grey. Two cushioned couches were
+there and a curtained door leading into an open, outer enclosure in
+which a fountain played within a wide pool.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Your bath," said Rador.  He dropped the curtain and came back into
+the room. He touched a carved flower at one side. There was a tiny
+sighing from overhead and instantly across the top spread a veil of
+blackness, impenetrable to light but certainly not to air, for through
+it pulsed little breaths of the garden fragrances. The room filled
+with a cool twilight, refreshing, sleep-inducing. The green dwarf
+pointed to the couches.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Sleep!" he said.  "Sleep and fear nothing.  My men are on guard
+outside." He came closer to us, the old mocking gaiety sparkling in
+his eyes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But I spoke too quickly," he whispered.  "Whether it is because the
+Afyo Maie fears their tongues&mdash;or&mdash;" he laughed at Larry. "The maids
+are <I>not</I> yours!" Still laughing he vanished through the curtains of the
+room of the fountain before I could ask him the meaning of his curious
+gift, its withdrawal, and his most enigmatic closing remarks.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Back in the great old days of Ireland," thus Larry breaking into my
+thoughts raptly, the brogue thick, "there was Cairill mac
+Cairill&mdash;Cairill Swiftspear. An' Cairill wronged Keevan of Emhain
+Abhlach, of the blood of Angus of the great people when he was
+sleeping in the likeness of a pale reed. Then Keevan put this penance
+on Cairill&mdash;that for a year Cairill should wear his body in Emhain
+Abhlach, which is the Land of Faery and for that year Keevan should
+wear the body of Cairill. And it was done.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"In that year Cairill met Emar of the Birds that are one white, one
+red, and one black&mdash;and they loved, and from that love sprang Ailill
+their son. And when Ailill was born he took a reed flute and first he
+played slumber on Cairill, and then he played old age so that Cairill
+grew white and withered; then Ailill played again and Cairill became a
+shadow&mdash;then a shadow of a shadow&mdash;then a breath; and the breath went
+out upon the wind!" He shivered. "Like the old gnome," he whispered,
+"that they called Songar of the Lower Waters!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He shook his head as though he cast a dream from him. Then, all
+alert&mdash;
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But that was in Iceland ages agone.  And there's nothing like that
+here, Doc!" He laughed. "It doesn't scare me one little bit, old boy.
+The pretty devil lady's got the wrong slant. When you've had a pal
+standing beside you one moment&mdash;full of life, and joy, and power, and
+potentialities, telling what he's going to do to make the world hum
+when he gets through the slaughter, just running over with zip and pep
+of life, Doc&mdash;and the next instant, right in the middle of a laugh&mdash;a
+piece of damned shell takes off half his head and with it joy and
+power and all the rest of it"&mdash;his face twitched&mdash;"well, old man, in
+the face of <I>that</I> mystery a disappearing act such as the devil lady
+treated us to doesn't make much of a dent. Not on me. But by the
+brogans of Brian Boru&mdash;if we could have had some of that stuff to turn
+on during the war&mdash;oh, boy!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He was silent, evidently contemplating the idea with vast pleasure.
+And as for me, at that moment my last doubt of Larry O'Keefe vanished,
+I saw that he did believe, really believed, in his banshees, his
+leprechauns and all the old dreams of the Gael&mdash;but only within the
+limits of Ireland.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In one drawer of his mind was packed all his superstition, his
+mysticism, and what of weakness it might carry. But face him with any
+peril or problem and the drawer closed instantaneously leaving a mind
+that was utterly fearless, incredulous, and ingenious; swept clean of
+all cobwebs by as fine a skeptic broom as ever brushed a brain.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Some stuff!" Deepest admiration was in his voice.  "If we'd only had
+it when the war was on&mdash;imagine half a dozen of us scooting over the
+enemy batteries and the gunners underneath all at once beginning to
+shake themselves to pieces! Wow!" His tone was rapturous.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It's easy enough to explain, Larry," I said.  "The effect, that
+is&mdash;for what the green ray is made of I don't know, of course. But
+what it does, clearly, is stimulate atomic vibration to such a pitch
+that the cohesion between the particles of matter is broken and the
+body flies to bits&mdash;just as a fly-wheel does when its speed gets so
+great that the particles of which <I>it</I> is made can't hold together."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Shake themselves to pieces is right, then!" he exclaimed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Absolutely right," I nodded.  "Everything in Nature vibrates.  And
+all matter&mdash;whether man or beast or stone or metal or vegetable&mdash;is
+made up of vibrating molecules, which are made up of vibrating atoms
+which are made up of truly infinitely small particles of electricity
+called electrons, and electrons, the base of all matter, are
+themselves perhaps only a vibration of the mysterious ether.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"If a magnifying glass of sufficient size and strength could be placed
+over us we could see ourselves as sieves&mdash;our space lattice, as it is
+called. And all that is necessary to break down the lattice, to shake
+us into nothingness, is some agent that will set our atoms vibrating
+at such a rate that at last they escape the unseen cords and fly off.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The green ray of Yolara is such an agent.  It set up in the dwarf
+that incredibly rapid rhythm that you saw and&mdash;shook him not to
+atoms&mdash;but to electrons!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"They had a gun on the West Front&mdash;a seventy-five," said O'Keefe,
+"that broke the eardrums of everybody who fired it, no matter what
+protection they used. It looked like all the other seventy-fives&mdash;but
+there was something about its sound that did it. They had to recast
+it."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It's practically the same thing," I replied.  "By some freak its
+vibratory qualities had that effect. The deep whistle of the sunken
+Lusitania would, for instance, make the Singer Building shake to its
+foundations; while the Olympic did not affect the Singer at all but
+made the Woolworth shiver all through. In each case they stimulated
+the atomic vibration of the particular building&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I paused, aware all at once of an intense drowsiness. O'Keefe,
+yawning, reached down to unfasten his puttees.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Lord, I'm sleepy!" he exclaimed.  "Can't understand it&mdash;what you
+say&mdash;most&mdash;interesting&mdash;Lord!" he yawned again; straightened. "What
+made Reddy take such a shine to the Russian?" he asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Thanaroa," I answered, fighting to keep my eyes open.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"When Lugur spoke that name I saw Marakinoff signal him.  Thanaroa is,
+I suspect, the original form of the name of Tangaroa, the greatest god
+of the Polynesians. There's a secret cult to him in the islands.
+Marakinoff may belong to it&mdash;he knows it anyway. Lugur recognized the
+signal and despite his surprise answered it."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"So he gave him the high sign, eh?" mused Larry.  "How could they both
+know it?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The cult is a very ancient one.  Undoubtedly it had its origin in the
+dim beginnings before these people migrated here," I replied. "It's a
+link&mdash;one&mdash;of the few links between up there and the lost past&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Trouble then," mumbled Larry.  "Hell brewing!  I smell it&mdash;Say, Doc,
+is this sleepiness natural? Wonder where my&mdash;gas mask&mdash;is&mdash;" he
+added, half incoherently.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But I myself was struggling desperately against the drugged slumber
+pressing down upon me.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Lakla!" I heard O'Keefe murmur.  "Lakla of the golden eyes&mdash;no
+Eilidh&mdash;the Fair!" He made an immense effort, half raised himself,
+grinned faintly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Thought this was paradise when I first saw it, Doc," he sighed.  "But
+I know now, if it is, No-Man's Land was the greatest place on earth
+for a honeymoon. They&mdash;they've got us, Doc&mdash;" He sank back. "Good
+luck, old boy, wherever you're going." His hand waved feebly.
+"Glad&mdash;knew&mdash;you. Hope&mdash;see&mdash;you&mdash;'gain&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+His voice trailed into silence.  Fighting, fighting with every fibre
+of brain and nerve against the sleep, I felt myself being steadily
+overcome. Yet before oblivion rushed down upon me I seemed to see upon
+the grey-screened wall nearest the Irishman an oval of rosy light
+begin to glow; watched, as my falling lids inexorably fell, a
+flame-tipped shadow waver on it; thicken; condense&mdash;and there looking
+down upon Larry, her eyes great golden stars in which intensest
+curiosity and shy tenderness struggled, sweet mouth half smiling, was
+the girl of the Moon Pool's Chamber, the girl whom the green dwarf had
+named&mdash;Lakla: the vision Larry had invoked before that sleep which I
+could no longer deny had claimed him&mdash;
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Closer she came&mdash;closer&mdash;-the eyes were over us.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then oblivion indeed!
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap16"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XVI
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+Yolara of Muria vs. the O'Keefe
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+I awakened with all the familiar, homely sensation of a shade having
+been pulled up in a darkened room. I thrilled with a wonderful sense
+of deep rest and restored resiliency. The ebon shadow had vanished
+from above and down into the room was pouring the silvery light. From
+the fountain pool came a mighty splashing and shouts of laughter. I
+jumped and drew the curtain. O'Keefe and Rador were swimming a wild
+race; the dwarf like an otter, out-distancing and playing around the
+Irishman at will.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Had that overpowering sleep&mdash;and now I confess that my struggle
+against it had been largely inspired by fear that it was the abnormal
+slumber which Throckmartin had described as having heralded the
+approach of the Dweller before it had carried away Thora and
+Stanton&mdash;had that sleep been after all nothing but natural reaction of
+tired nerves and brains?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And that last vision of the golden-eyed girl bending over Larry?  Had
+that also been a delusion of an overstressed mind? Well, it might have
+been, I could not tell. At any rate, I decided, I would speak about it
+to O'Keefe once we were alone again&mdash;and then giving myself up to the
+urge of buoyant well-being I shouted like a boy, stripped and joined
+the two in the pool. The water was warm and I felt the unwonted
+tingling of life in every vein increase; something from it seemed to
+pulse through the skin, carrying a clean vigorous vitality that toned
+every fibre. Tiring at last, we swam to the edge and drew ourselves
+out. The green dwarf quickly clothed himself and Larry rather
+carefully donned his uniform.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The Afyo Maie has summoned us, Doc," he said.  "We're to&mdash;well&mdash;I
+suppose you'd call it breakfast with her. After that, Rador tells me,
+we're to have a session with the Council of Nine. I suppose Yolara is
+as curious as any lady of&mdash;the upper world, as you might put it&mdash;and
+just naturally can't wait," he added.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He gave himself a last shake, patted the automatic hidden under his
+left arm, whistled cheerfully.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"After you, my dear Alphonse," he said to Rador, with a low bow.  The
+dwarf laughed, bent in an absurd imitation of Larry's mocking courtesy
+and started ahead of us to the house of the priestess. When he had
+gone a little way on the orchid-walled path I whispered to O'Keefe:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Larry, when you were falling off to sleep&mdash;did you think you saw
+anything?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"See anything!" he grinned.  "Doc, sleep hit me like a Hun shell.  I
+thought they were pulling the gas on us. I&mdash;I had some intention of
+bidding you tender farewells," he continued, half sheepishly. "I think
+I did start 'em, didn't I?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I nodded.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But wait a minute&mdash;" he hesitated.  "I had a queer sort of dream&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"'What was it?" I asked eagerly,
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well," he answered slowly, "I suppose it was because I'd been
+thinking of&mdash;Golden Eyes. Anyway, I thought she came through the wall
+and leaned over me&mdash;yes, and put one of those long white hands of hers
+on my head&mdash;I couldn't raise my lids&mdash;but in some queer way I could
+see her. Then it got real dreamish. Why do you ask?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Rador turned back toward us,
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Later," I answered, "Not now.  When we're alone."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But through me went a little glow of reassurance.  Whatever the maze
+through which we were moving; whatever of menacing evil lurking
+there&mdash;the Golden Girl was clearly watching over us; watching with
+whatever unknown powers she could muster.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+We passed the pillared entrance; went through a long bowered corridor
+and stopped before a door that seemed to be sliced from a monolith of
+pale jade&mdash;high, narrow, set in a wall of opal.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Rador stamped twice and the same supernally sweet, silver bell tones
+of&mdash;yesterday, I must call it, although in that place of eternal day
+the term is meaningless&mdash;bade us enter. The door slipped aside. The
+chamber was small, the opal walls screening it on three sides, the
+black opacity covering it, the fourth side opening out into a
+delicious little walled garden&mdash;a mass of the fragrant, luminous
+blooms and delicately colored fruit. Facing it was a small table of
+reddish wood and from the omnipresent cushions heaped around it arose
+to greet us&mdash;Yolara.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Larry drew in his breath with an involuntary gasp of admiration and
+bowed low. My own admiration was as frank&mdash;and the priestess was well
+pleased with our homage.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She was swathed in the filmy, half-revelant webs, now of palest blue.
+The corn-silk hair was caught within a wide-meshed golden net in which
+sparkled tiny brilliants, like blended sapphires and diamonds. Her own
+azure eyes sparkled as brightly as they, and I noted again in their
+clear depths the half-eager approval as they rested upon O'Keefe's
+lithe, well-knit figure and his keen, clean-cut face. The high-arched,
+slender feet rested upon soft sandals whose gauzy withes laced the
+exquisitely formed leg to just below the dimpled knee.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Some giddy wonder!" exclaimed Larry, looking at me and placing a hand
+over his heart. "Put her on a New York roof and she'd empty Broadway.
+Take the cue from me, Doc."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He turned to Yolara, whose face was somewhat puzzled.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I said, O lady whose shining hair is a web for hearts, that in our
+world your beauty would dazzle the sight of men as would a little
+woman sun!" he said, in the florid imagery to which the tongue lends
+itself so well.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A flush stole up through the translucent skin.  The blue eyes softened
+and she waved us toward the cushions. Black-haired maids stole in,
+placing before us the fruits, the little loaves and a steaming drink
+somewhat the colour and odor of chocolate. I was conscious of
+outrageous hunger.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What are you named, strangers?" she asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"This man is named Goodwin," said O'Keefe.  "As for me, call me
+Larry."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Nothing like getting acquainted quick," he said to me&mdash;but kept his
+eyes upon Yolara as though he were voicing another honeyed phrase. And
+so she took it, for: "You must teach me your tongue," she murmured.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Then shall I have two words where now I have one to tell you of your
+loveliness," he answered.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And also that'll take time," he spoke to me.  "Essential occupation
+out of which we can't be drafted to make these fun-loving folk any
+Roman holiday. Get me!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Larree," mused Yolara.  "I like the sound.  It is sweet&mdash;" and indeed
+it was as she spoke it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And what is your land named, Larree?" she continued. "And Goodwin's?"
+She caught the sound perfectly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"My land, O lady of loveliness, is two&mdash;Ireland and America; his but
+one&mdash;America."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She repeated the two names&mdash;slowly, over and over.  We seized the
+opportunity to attack the food; halting half guiltily as she spoke
+again.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, but you are hungry!" she cried.  "Eat then." She leaned her chin
+upon her hands and regarded us, whole fountains of questions brimming
+up in her eyes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"How is it, Larree, that you have two countries and Goodwin but one?"
+she asked, at last unable to keep silent longer.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I was born in Ireland; he in America.  But I have dwelt long in his
+land and my heart loves each," he said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She nodded, understandingly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Are all the men of Ireland like you, Larree?  As all the men here are
+like Lugur or Rador? I like to look at you," she went on, with naive
+frankness. "I am tired of men like Lugur and Rador. But they are
+strong," she added, swiftly. "Lugur can hold up ten in his two arms
+and raise six with but one hand."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+We could not understand her numerals and she raised white fingers to
+illustrate.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That is little, O lady, to the men of Ireland," replied O'Keefe.
+"Lo, I have seen one of my race hold up ten times ten of our&mdash;what
+call you that swift thing in which Rador brought us here?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Corial," said she.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Hold up ten times twenty of our corials with but two fingers&mdash;and
+these corials of ours&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Coria," said she.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And these coria of ours are each greater in weight than ten of yours.
+Yes, and I have seen another with but one blow of his hand raise hell!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And so I have," he murmured to me.  "And both at Forty-second and
+Fifth Avenue, N. Y.&mdash;U. S. A."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Yolara considered all this with manifest doubt.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Hell?" she inquired at last.  "I know not the word."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well," answered O'Keefe.  "Say Muria then.  In many ways they are, I
+gather, O heart's delight, one and the same."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Now the doubt in the blue eyes was strong indeed.  She shook her head.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"None of our men can do <I>that</I>!" she answered, at length. "Nor do I
+think you could, Larree."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, no," said Larry easily.  "I never tried to be that strong.  I
+fly," he added, casually.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The priestess rose to her feet, gazing at him with startled eyes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Fly!" she repeated incredulously.  "Like a <I>Zitia</I>?  A bird?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Larry nodded&mdash;and then seeing the dawning command in her eyes, went on
+hastily.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Not with my own wings, Yolara.  In a&mdash;a corial that moves
+through&mdash;what's the word for air, Doc&mdash;well, through this&mdash;" He made a
+wide gesture up toward the nebulous haze above us. He took a pencil
+and on a white cloth made a hasty sketch of an airplane. "In a&mdash;a
+corial like this&mdash;" She regarded the sketch gravely, thrust a hand
+down into her girdle and brought forth a keen-bladed poniard; cut
+Larry's markings out and placed the fragment carefully aside.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That I can understand," she said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Remarkably intelligent young woman," muttered O'Keefe.  "Hope I'm not
+giving anything away&mdash;but she had me."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But what are your women like, Larree?  Are they like me?  And how
+many have loved you?" she whispered.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"In all Ireland and America there is none like you, Yolara," he
+answered. "And take that any way you please," he muttered in English.
+She took it, it was evident, as it most pleased her.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Do you have goddesses?" she asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Every woman in Ireland and America, is a goddess"; thus Larry.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Now that I do not believe." There was both anger and mockery in her
+eyes. "I know women, Larree&mdash;and if that were so there would be no
+peace for men."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"There isn't!" replied he.  The anger died out and she laughed,
+sweetly, understandingly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And which goddess do you worship, Larree?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You!" said Larry O'Keefe boldly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Larry!  Larry!" I whispered.  "Be careful.  It's high explosive."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But the priestess was laughing&mdash;little trills of sweet bell notes; and
+pleasure was in each note.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You are indeed bold, Larree," she said, "to offer me your worship.
+Yet am I pleased by your boldness. Still&mdash;Lugur is strong; and you are
+not of those who&mdash;what did you say&mdash;have tried. And your wings are
+not here&mdash;Larree!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Again her laughter rang out.  The Irishman flushed; it was <I>touché</I>
+for Yolara!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Fear not for me with Lugur," he said, grimly.  "Rather fear for him!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The laughter died; she looked at him searchingly; a little enigmatic
+smile about her mouth&mdash;so sweet and so cruel.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well&mdash;we shall see," she murmured.  "You say you battle in your
+world. With what?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, with this and with that," answered Larry, airily. "We manage&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Have you the Keth&mdash;I mean that with which I sent Songar into the
+nothingness?" she asked swiftly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"See what she's driving at?" O'Keefe spoke to me, swiftly. "Well I do!
+But here's where the O'Keefe lands.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I said," he turned to her, "O voice of silver fire, that your spirit
+is high even as your beauty&mdash;and searches out men's souls as does your
+loveliness their hearts. And now listen, Yolara, for what I speak is
+truth"&mdash;into his eyes came the far-away gaze; into his voice the Irish
+softness&mdash;"Lo, in my land of Ireland, this many of your life's length
+agone&mdash;see"&mdash;he raised his ten fingers, clenched and unclenched them
+times twenty&mdash;"the mighty men of my race, the Taitha-da-Dainn, could
+send men out into the nothingness even as do you with the Keth. And
+this they did by their harpings, and by words spoken&mdash;words of power,
+O Yolara, that have their power still&mdash;and by pipings and by slaying
+sounds.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"There was Cravetheen who played swift flames from his harp, flying
+flames that ate those they were sent against. And there was Dalua, of
+Hy Brasil, whose pipes played away from man and beast and all living
+things their shadows&mdash;and at last played them to shadows too, so that
+wherever Dalua went his shadows that had been men and beast followed
+like a storm of little rustling leaves; yea, and Bel the Harper, who
+could make women's hearts run like wax and men's hearts flame to ashes
+and whose harpings could shatter strong cliffs and bow great trees to
+the sod&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+His eyes were bright, dream-filled; she shrank a little from him,
+faint pallor under the perfect skin.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I say to you, Yolara, that these things were and are&mdash;in Ireland."
+His voice rang strong. "And I have seen men as many as those that are
+in your great chamber this many times over"&mdash;he clenched his hands
+once more, perhaps a dozen times&mdash;"blasted into nothingness before
+your Keth could even have touched them. Yea&mdash;and rocks as mighty as
+those through which we came lifted up and shattered before the lids
+could fall over your blue eyes. And this is truth, Yolara&mdash;all truth!
+Stay&mdash;have you that little cone of the Keth with which you destroyed
+Songar?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She nodded, gazing at him, fascinated, fear and puzzlement contending.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Then use it." He took a vase of crystal from the table, placed it on
+the threshold that led into the garden. "Use it on this&mdash;and I will
+show you."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I will use it upon one of the ladala&mdash;" she began eagerly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The exaltation dropped from him; there was a touch of horror in the
+eyes he turned to her; her own dropped before it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It shall be as you say," she said hurriedly.  She drew the shining
+cone from her breast; levelled it at the vase. The green ray leaped
+forth, spread over the crystal, but before its action could even be
+begun, a flash of light shot from O'Keefe's hand, his automatic spat
+and the trembling vase flew into fragments. As quickly as he had drawn
+it, he thrust the pistol back into place and stood there empty handed,
+looking at her sternly. From the anteroom came shouting, a rush of
+feet.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Yolara's face was white, her eyes strained&mdash;but her voice was unshaken
+as she called to the clamouring guards:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It is nothing&mdash;go to your places!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But when the sound of their return had ceased she stared tensely at
+the Irishman&mdash;then looked again at the shattered vase.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It is true!" she cried, "but see, the Keth is&mdash;alive!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I followed her pointing finger.  Each broken bit of the crystal was
+vibrating, shaking its particles out into space. Broken it the bullet
+of Larry's had&mdash;but not released it from the grip of the
+disintegrating force. The priestess's face was triumphant.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But what matters it, O shining urn of beauty&mdash;what matters it to the
+vase that is broken what happens to its fragments?" asked Larry,
+gravely&mdash;and pointedly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The triumph died from her face and for a space she was silent;
+brooding.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Next," whispered O'Keefe to me.  "Lots of surprises in the little
+box; keep your eye on the opening and see what comes out."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+We had not long to wait.  There was a sparkle of anger about Yolara,
+something too of injured pride. She clapped her hands; whispered to
+the maid who answered her summons, and then sat back regarding us,
+maliciously.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You have answered me as to your strength&mdash;but you have not proved it;
+but the Keth you have answered. Now answer this!" she said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She pointed out into the garden.  I saw a flowering branch bend and
+snap as though a hand had broken it&mdash;but no hand was there! Saw then
+another and another bend and break, a little tree sway and fall&mdash;and
+closer and closer to us came the trail of snapping boughs while down
+into the garden poured the silvery light revealing&mdash;nothing! Now a
+great ewer beside a pillar rose swiftly in air and hurled itself
+crashing at my feet. Cushions close to us swirled about as though in
+the vortex of a whirlwind.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And unseen hands held my arms in a mighty clutch fast to my sides,
+another gripped my throat and I felt a needle-sharp poniard point
+pierce my shirt, touch the skin just over my heart!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Larry!" I cried, despairingly.  I twisted my head; saw that he too
+was caught in this grip of the invisible. But his face was calm, even
+amused.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Keep cool, Doc!" he said.  "Remember&mdash;she wants to learn the
+language!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Now from Yolara burst chime upon chime of mocking laughter.  She gave
+a command&mdash;the hands loosened, the poniard withdrew from my heart;
+suddenly as I had been caught I was free&mdash;and unpleasantly weak and
+shaky.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Have you <I>that</I> in Ireland, Larree!" cried the priestess&mdash;and once
+more trembled with laughter.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"A good play, Yolara." His voice was as calm as his face. "But they
+did that in Ireland even before Dalua piped away his first man's
+shadow. And in Goodwin's land they make ships&mdash;coria that go on
+water&mdash;so you can pass by them and see only sea and sky; and those
+water coria are each of them many times greater than this whole palace
+of yours."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But the priestess laughed on.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It did get me a little," whispered Larry.  "That wasn't quite up to
+my mark. But God! If we could find that trick out and take it back
+with us!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Not so, Larree!" Yolara gasped, through her laughter. "Not so!
+Goodwin's cry betrayed you!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Her good humour had entirely returned; she was like a mischievous
+child pleased over some successful trick; and like a child she
+cried&mdash;"I'll show you!"&mdash;signalled again; whispered to the maid who,
+quickly returning, laid before her a long metal case. Yolara took from
+her girdle something that looked like a small pencil, pressed it and
+shot a thin stream of light for all the world like an electric flash,
+upon its hasp. The lid flew open. Out of it she drew three flat, oval
+crystals, faint rose in hue. She handed one to O'Keefe and one to me.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Look!" she commanded, placing the third before her own eyes.  I
+peered through the stone and instantly there leaped into sight, out of
+thin air&mdash;six grinning dwarfs! Each was covered from top of head to
+soles of feet in a web so tenuous that through it their bodies were
+plain. The gauzy stuff seemed to vibrate&mdash;its strands to run together
+like quick-silver. I snatched the crystal from my eyes and&mdash;the
+chamber was empty! Put it back&mdash;and there were the grinning six!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Yolara gave another sign and they disappeared, even from the crystals.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It is what they wear, Larree," explained Yolara, graciously.  "It is
+something that came to us from&mdash;the Ancient Ones. But we have so
+few"&mdash;she sighed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Such treasures must be two-edged swords, Yolara," commented O'Keefe.
+"For how know you that one within them creeps not to you with hand
+eager to strike?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"There is no danger," she said indifferently.  "I am the keeper of
+them."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She mused for a space, then abruptly:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And now no more.  You two are to appear before the Council at a
+certain time&mdash;but fear nothing. You, Goodwin, go with Rador about our
+city and increase your wisdom. But you, Larree, await me here in my
+garden&mdash;" she smiled at him, provocatively&mdash;maliciously, too. "For
+shall not one who has resisted a world of goddesses be given all
+chance to worship when at last he finds his own?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She laughed&mdash;whole-heartedly and was gone.  And at that moment I liked
+Yolara better than ever I had before and&mdash;alas&mdash;better than ever I
+was to in the future.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I noted Rador standing outside the open jade door and started to go,
+but O'Keefe caught me by the arm.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Wait a minute," he urged.  "About Golden Eyes&mdash;you were going to tell
+me something&mdash;it's been on my mind all through that little sparring
+match."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I told him of the vision that had passed through my closing lids.  He
+listened gravely and then laughed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Hell of a lot of privacy in this place!" he grinned.  "Ladies who can
+walk through walls and others with regular invisible cloaks to let 'em
+flit wherever they please. Oh, well, don't let it get on your nerves,
+Doc. Remember&mdash;everything's natural! That robe stuff is just
+camouflage of course. But Lord, if we could only get a piece of it!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The material simply admits all light-vibrations, or perhaps curves
+them, just as the opacities cut them off," I answered. "A man under
+the X-ray is partly invisible; this makes him wholly so. He doesn't
+register, as the people of the motion-picture profession say."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Camouflage," repeated Larry.  "And as for the Shining One&mdash;Say!" he
+snorted. "I'd like to set the O'Keefe banshee up against it. I'll bet
+that old resourceful Irish body would give it the first three bites
+and a strangle hold and wallop it before it knew it had 'em. Oh! Wow!
+Boy Howdy!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I heard him still chuckling gleefully over this vision as I passed
+along the opal wall with the green dwarf.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A shell was awaiting us.  I paused before entering it to examine the
+polished surface of runway and great road. It was obsidian&mdash;volcanic
+glass of pale emerald, unflawed, translucent, with no sign of block or
+juncture. I examined the shell.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What makes it go?" I asked Rador.  At a word from him the driver
+touched a concealed spring and an aperture appeared beneath the
+control-lever, of which I have spoken in a preceding chapter. Within
+was a small cube of black crystal, through whose sides I saw, dimly, a
+rapidly revolving, glowing ball, not more than two inches in diameter.
+Beneath the cube was a curiously shaped, slender cylinder winding down
+into the lower body of the Nautilus whorl.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Watch!" said Rador.  He motioned me into the vehicle and took a place
+beside me. The driver touched the lever; a stream of coruscations flew
+from the ball down into the cylinder. The shell started smoothly, and
+as the tiny torrent of shining particles increased it gathered speed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The corial does not touch the road," explained Rador. "It is lifted
+so far"&mdash;he held his forefinger and thumb less than a sixteenth of an
+inch apart&mdash;"above it."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And perhaps here is the best place to explain the activation of the
+shells or coria. The force utilized was atomic energy. Passing from
+the whirling ball the ions darted through the cylinder to two bands of
+a peculiar metal affixed to the base of the vehicles somewhat like
+skids of a sled. Impinging upon these they produced a partial negation
+of gravity, lifting the shell slightly, and at the same time creating
+a powerful repulsive force or thrust that could be directed backward,
+forward, or sidewise at the will of the driver. The creation of this
+energy and the mechanism of its utilization were, briefly, as follows:
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="note">
+[Dr. Goodwin's lucid and exceedingly comprehensive description of this
+extraordinary mechanism has been deleted by the Executive Council of
+the International Association of Science as too dangerously suggestive
+to scientists of the Central European Powers with which we were so
+recently at war. It is allowable, however, to state that his
+observations are in the possession of experts in this country, who
+are, unfortunately, hampered in their research not only by the
+scarcity of the radioactive elements that we know, but also by the
+lack of the element or elements unknown to us that entered into the
+formation of the fiery ball within the cube of black crystal.
+Nevertheless, as the principle is so clear, it is believed that these
+difficulties will ultimately be overcome.&mdash;J. B. K., President, I. A.
+of S.]
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+The wide, glistening road was gay with the coria.  They darted in and
+out of the gardens; within them the fair-haired, extraordinarily
+beautiful women on their cushions were like princesses of Elfland,
+caught in gorgeous fairy webs, resting within the hearts of flowers.
+In some shells were flaxen-haired dwarfish men of Lugur's type;
+sometimes black-polled brother officers of Rador; often raven-tressed
+girls, plainly hand-maidens of the women; and now and then beauties of
+the lower folk went by with one of the blond dwarfs.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+We swept around the turn that made of the jewel-like roadway an
+enormous horseshoe and, speedily, upon our right the cliffs through
+which we had come in our journey from the Moon Pool began to march
+forward beneath their mantles of moss. They formed a gigantic
+abutment, a titanic salient. It had been from the very front of this
+salient's invading angle that we had emerged; on each side of it the
+precipices, faintly glowing, drew back and vanished into distance.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The slender, graceful bridges under which we skimmed ended at openings
+in the upflung, far walls of verdure. Each had its little garrison of
+soldiers. Through some of the openings a rivulet of the green obsidian
+river passed. These were roadways to the farther country, to the land
+of the ladala, Rador told me; adding that none of the lesser folk
+could cross into the pavilioned city unless summoned or with pass.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+We turned the bend of the road and flew down that farther emerald
+ribbon we had seen from the great oval. Before us rose the shining
+cliffs and the lake. A half-mile, perhaps, from these the last of the
+bridges flung itself. It was more massive and about it hovered a
+spirit of ancientness lacking in the other spans; also its garrison
+was larger and at its base the tangent way was guarded by two massive
+structures, somewhat like blockhouses, between which it ran. Something
+about it aroused in me an intense curiosity.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Where does that road lead, Rador?" I asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"To the one place above all of which I may not tell you, Goodwin," he
+answered. And again I wondered.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+We skimmed slowly out upon the great pier.  Far to the left was the
+prismatic, rainbow curtain between the Cyclopean pillars. On the white
+waters graceful shells&mdash;lacustrian replicas of the Elf chariots&mdash;swam,
+but none was near that distant web of wonder.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Rador&mdash;what is that?" I asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It is the Veil of the Shining One!" he answered slowly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Was the Shining One that which we named the Dweller?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What is the Shining One?" I cried, eagerly.  Again he was silent.
+Nor did he speak until we had turned on our homeward way.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And lively as my interest, my scientific curiosity, were&mdash;I was
+conscious suddenly of acute depression. Beautiful, wondrously
+beautiful this place was&mdash;and yet in its wonder dwelt a keen edge of
+menace, of unease&mdash;of inexplicable, inhuman woe; as though in a secret
+garden of God a soul should sense upon it the gaze of some lurking
+spirit of evil which some way, somehow, had crept into the sanctuary
+and only bided its time to spring.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap17"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XVII
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+The Leprechaun
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+The shell carried us straight back to the house of Yolara. Larry was
+awaiting me. We stood again before the tenebrous wall where first we
+had faced the priestess and the Voice. And as we stood, again the
+portal appeared with all its disconcerting, magical abruptness.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But now the scene was changed.  Around the jet table were grouped a
+number of figures&mdash;Lugur, Yolara beside him; seven others&mdash;all of them
+fair-haired and all men save one who sat at the left of the
+priestess&mdash;an old, old woman, how old I could not tell, her face
+bearing traces of beauty that must once have been as great as Yolara's
+own, but now ravaged, in some way awesome; through its ruins the
+fearful, malicious gaiety shining out like a spirit of joy held within
+a corpse!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Began then our examination, for such it was.  And as it progressed I
+was more and more struck by the change in the O'Keefe. All flippancy
+was gone, rarely did his sense of humour reveal itself in any of his
+answers. He was like a cautious swordsman, fencing, guarding, studying
+his opponent; or rather, like a chess-player who keeps sensing some
+far-reaching purpose in the game: alert, contained, watchful. Always
+he stressed the power of our surface races, their multitudes, their
+solidarity.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Their questions were myriad.  What were our occupations? Our system of
+government? How great were the waters? The land? Intensely interested
+were they in the World War, querying minutely into its causes, its
+effects. In our weapons their interest was avid. And they were
+exceedingly minute in their examination of us as to the ruins which
+had excited our curiosity; their position and surroundings&mdash;and if
+others than ourselves might be expected to find and pass through their
+entrance!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At this I shot a glance at Lugur.  He did not seem unduly interested.
+I wondered if the Russian had told him as yet of the girl of the rosy
+wall of the Moon Pool Chamber and the real reasons for our search.
+Then I answered as briefly as possible&mdash;omitting all reference to
+these things. The red dwarf watched me with unmistakable
+amusement&mdash;and I knew Marakinoff had told him. But clearly Lugur had
+kept his information even from Yolara; and as clearly she had spoken
+to none of that episode when O'Keefe's automatic had shattered the
+Keth-smitten vase. Again I felt that sense of deep bewilderment&mdash;of
+helpless search for clue to all the tangle.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+For two hours we were questioned and then the priestess called Rador
+and let us go.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Larry was sombre as we returned.  He walked about the room uneasily.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Hell's brewing here all right," he said at last, stopping before me.
+"I can't make out just the particular brand&mdash;that's all that bothers
+me. We're going to have a stiff fight, that's sure. What I want to do
+quick is to find the Golden Girl, Doc. Haven't seen her on the wall
+lately, have you?" he queried, hopefully fantastic.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Laugh if you want to," he went on.  "But she's our best bet.  It's
+going to be a race between her and the O'Keefe banshee&mdash;but I put my
+money on her. I had a queer experience while I was in that garden,
+after you'd left." His voice grew solemn. "Did you ever see a
+leprechaun, Doc?" I shook my head again, as solemnly. "He's a little
+man in green," said Larry. "Oh, about as high as your knee. I saw one
+once&mdash;in Carntogher Woods. And as I sat there, half asleep, in
+Yolara's garden, the living spit of him stepped out from one of those
+bushes, twirling a little shillalah.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"'It's a tight box ye're gettin' in, Larry avick,' said he, 'but don't
+ye be downhearted, lad.'
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"'I'm carrying on,' said I, 'but you're a long way from Ireland,' I
+said, or thought I did.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"'Ye've a lot o' friends there,' he answered.  'An' where the heart
+rests the feet are swift to follow. Not that I'm sayin' I'd like to
+live here, Larry,' said he.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"'I know where my heart is now,' I told him.  'It rests on a girl with
+golden eyes and the hair and swan-white breast of Eilidh the Fair&mdash;but
+me feet don't seem to get me to her,' I said."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The brogue thickened.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"An' the little man in green nodded his head an' whirled his
+shillalah.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"'It's what I came to tell ye,' says he.  'Don't ye fall for the
+Bhean-Nimher, the serpent woman wit' the blue eyes; she's a daughter
+of Ivor, lad&mdash;an' don't ye do nothin' to make the brown-haired coleen
+ashamed o' ye, Larry O'Keefe. I knew yer great, great grandfather an'
+his before him, aroon,' says he, 'an' wan o' the O'Keefe failin's is
+to think their hearts big enough to hold all the wimmen o' the world.
+A heart's built to hold only wan permanently, Larry,' he says, 'an'
+I'm warnin' ye a nice girl don't like to move into a place all
+cluttered up wid another's washin' an' mendin' an' cookin' an' other
+things pertainin' to general wife work. Not that I think the blue-eyed
+wan is keen for mendin' an' cookin'!' says he.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"'You don't have to be comin' all this way to tell me that,' I answer.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"'Well, I'm just a tellin' you,' he says.  'Ye've got some rough
+knocks comin', Larry. In fact, ye're in for a devil of a time. But,
+remember that ye're the O'Keefe,' says he. 'An' while the bhoys are
+all wid ye, avick, ye've got to be on the job yourself.'
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"'I hope,' I tell him, 'that the O'Keefe banshee can find her way here
+in time&mdash;that is, if it's necessary, which I hope it won't be.'
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"'Don't ye worry about that,' says he.  'Not that she's keen on
+leavin' the ould sod, Larry. The good ould soul's in quite a state o'
+mind about ye, aroon. I don't mind tellin' ye, lad, that she's
+mobilizing all the clan an' if she <I>has</I> to come for ye, avick, they'll
+be wid her an' they'll sweep this joint clean before ye go. What
+they'll do to it'll make the Big Wind look like a summer breeze on
+Lough Lene! An' that's about all, Larry. We thought a voice from the
+Green Isle would cheer ye. Don't fergit that ye're the O'Keefe an' I
+say it again&mdash;all the bhoys are wid ye. But we want t' kape bein'
+proud o' ye, lad!'
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"An' I looked again and there was only a bush waving."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There wasn't a smile in my heart&mdash;or if there was it was a very tender
+one.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'm going to bed," he said abruptly.  "Keep an eye on the wall, Doc!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Between the seven sleeps that followed, Larry and I saw but little of
+each other. Yolara sought him more and more. Thrice we were called
+before the Council; once we were at a great feast, whose splendours
+and surprises I can never forget. Largely I was in the company of
+Rador. Together we two passed the green barriers into the
+dwelling-place of the ladala.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They seemed provided with everything needful for life. But everywhere
+was an oppressiveness, a gathering together of hate, that was
+spiritual rather than material&mdash;as tangible as the latter and far, far
+more menacing!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"They do not like to dance with the Shining One," was Rador's constant
+and only reply to my efforts to find the cause.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Once I had concrete evidence of the mood.  Glancing behind me, I saw a
+white, vengeful face peer from behind a tree-trunk, a hand lift, a
+shining dart speed from it straight toward Rador's back. Instinctively
+I thrust him aside. He turned upon me angrily. I pointed to where the
+little missile lay, still quivering, on the ground. He gripped my
+hand.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That, some day I will repay!" he said.  I looked again at the thing.
+At its end was a tiny cone covered with a glistening, gelatinous
+substance.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Rador pulled from a tree beside us a fruit somewhat like an apple.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Look!" he said.  He dropped it upon the dart&mdash;and at once, before my
+eyes, in less than ten seconds, the fruit had rotted away!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That's what would have happened to Rador but for you, friend!" he
+said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Come now between this and the prelude to the latter half of the drama
+whose history this narrative is&mdash;only scattering and necessarily
+fragmentary observations.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+First&mdash;the nature of the ebon opacities, blocking out the spaces
+between the pavilion-pillars or covering their tops like roofs, These
+were magnetic fields, light absorbers, negativing the vibrations of
+radiance; literally screens of electric force which formed as
+impervious a barrier to light as would have screens of steel.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They instantaneously made night appear in a place where no night was.
+But they interposed no obstacle to air or to sound. They were
+extremely simple in their inception&mdash;no more miraculous than is glass,
+which, inversely, admits the vibrations of light, but shuts out those
+coarser ones we call air&mdash;and, partly, those others which produce upon
+our auditory nerves the effects we call sound.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Briefly their mechanism was this:
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="note">
+[For the same reason that Dr. Goodwin's exposition of the mechanism
+of the atomic engines was deleted, his description of the
+light-destroying screens has been deleted by the Executive
+Council.&mdash;J. B. F., President, I. A. of S.]
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+There were two favoured classes of the ladala&mdash;the soldiers and the
+dream-makers. The dream-makers were the most astonishing social
+phenomena, I think, of all. Denied by their circumscribed environment
+the wider experiences of us of the outer world, the Murians had
+perfected an amazing system of escape through the imagination.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They were, too, intensely musical.  Their favourite instruments were
+double flutes; immensely complex pipe-organs; harps, great and small.
+They had another remarkable instrument made up of a double octave of
+small drums which gave forth percussions remarkably disturbing to the
+emotional centres.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was this love of music that gave rise to one of the few truly
+humorous incidents of our caverned life. Larry came to me&mdash;it was just
+after our fourth sleep, I remember.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Come on to a concert," he said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+We skimmed off to one of the bridge garrisons.  Rador called the
+two-score guards to attention; and then, to my utter stupefaction, the
+whole company, O'Keefe leading them, roared out the anthem, "God Save
+the King." They sang&mdash;in a closer approach to the English than might
+have been expected scores of miles below England's level. "Send him
+victorious! Happy and glorious!" they bellowed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He quivered with suppressed mirth at my paralysis of surprise.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Taught 'em that for Marakinoff's benefit!" he gasped. "Wait till that
+Red hears it. He'll blow up.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Just wait until you hear Yolara lisp a pretty little thing I taught
+her," said Larry as we set back for what we now called home. There was
+an impish twinkle in his eyes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And I did hear.  For it was not many minutes later that the priestess
+condescended to command me to come to her with O'Keefe.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Show Goodwin how much you have learned of our speech, O lady of the
+lips of honeyed flame!" murmured Larry.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She hesitated; smiled at him, and then from that perfect mouth, out of
+the exquisite throat, in the voice that was like the chiming of little
+silver bells, she trilled a melody familiar to me indeed:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+    "She's only a bird in a gilded cage,<BR>
+      A bee-yu-tiful sight to see&mdash;"<BR>
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And so on to the bitter end.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"She thinks it's a love-song," said Larry when we had left. "It's only
+part of a repertoire I'm teaching her. Honestly, Doc, it's the only
+way I can keep my mind clear when I'm with her," he went on earnestly.
+"She's a devil-ess from hell&mdash;but a wonder. Whenever I find myself
+going I get her to sing that, or Take Back Your Gold! or some other
+ancient lay, and I'm back again&mdash;pronto&mdash;with the right perspective!
+POP goes all the mystery! 'Hell!' I say, 'she's only a woman!'"
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap18"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XVIII
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+The Amphitheatre of Jet
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+For hours the black-haired folk had been streaming across the bridges,
+flowing along the promenade by scores and by hundreds, drifting down
+toward the gigantic seven-terraced temple whose interior I had never
+as yet seen, and from whose towering exterior, indeed, I had always
+been kept far enough away&mdash;unobtrusively, but none the less decisively&mdash;to
+prevent any real observation. The structure, I had estimated,
+nevertheless, could not reach less than a thousand feet above its
+silvery base, and the diameter of its circular foundation was about
+the same.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I wondered what was bringing the <I>ladala</I> into Lora, and where they
+were vanishing. All of them were flower-crowned with the luminous,
+lovely blooms&mdash;old and young, slender, mocking-eyed girls, dwarfed
+youths, mothers with their babes, gnomed oldsters&mdash;on they poured,
+silent for the most part and sullen&mdash;a sullenness that held acid
+bitterness even as their subtle, half-sinister, half-gay malice seemed
+tempered into little keen-edged flames, oddly, menacingly defiant.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There were many of the green-clad soldiers along the way, and the
+garrison of the only bridge span I could see had certainly been
+doubled.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Wondering still, I turned from my point of observation and made my way
+back to our pavilion, hoping that Larry, who had been with Yolara for
+the past two hours, had returned. Hardly had I reached it before Rador
+came hurrying up, in his manner a curious exultance mingled with what
+in anyone else I would have called a decided nervousness.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Come!" he commanded before I could speak.  "The Council has made
+decision&mdash;and <I>Larree</I> is awaiting you."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What has been decided?" I panted as we sped along the mosaic path
+that led to the house of Yolara. "And why is Larry awaiting me?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And at his answer I felt my heart pause in its beat and through me
+race a wave of mingled panic and eagerness.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The Shining One dances!" had answered the green dwarf. "And you are
+to worship!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+What was this dancing of the Shining One, of which so often he had
+spoken?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Whatever my forebodings, Larry evidently had none.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Great stuff!" he cried, when we had met in the great antechamber now
+empty of the dwarfs. "Hope it will be worth seeing&mdash;have to be
+something damned good, though, to catch me, after what I've seen of
+shows at the front," he added.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And remembering, with a little shock of apprehension, that he had no
+knowledge of the Dweller beyond my poor description of it&mdash;for there
+are no words actually to describe what that miracle of interwoven
+glory and horror was&mdash;I wondered what Larry O'Keefe would say and do
+when he did behold it!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Rador began to show impatience.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Come!" he urged.  "There is much to be done&mdash;and the time grows
+short!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He led us to a tiny fountain room in whose miniature pool the white
+waters were concentrated, pearl-like and opalescent in their circling
+rim.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Bathe!" he commanded; and set the example by stripping himself and
+plunging within. Only a minute or two did the green dwarf allow us,
+and he checked us as we were about to don our clothing.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then, to my intense embarrassment, without warning, two of the
+black-haired girls entered, bearing robes of a peculiar dull-blue hue.
+At our manifest discomfort Rador's laughter roared out. He took the
+garments from the pair, motioned them to leave us, and, still
+laughing, threw one around me. Its texture was soft, but decidedly
+metallic&mdash;like some blue metal spun to the fineness of a spider's
+thread. The garment buckled tightly at the throat, was girdled at the
+waist, and, below this cincture, fell to the floor, its folds being
+held together by a half-dozen looped cords; from the shoulders a hood
+resembling a monk's cowl.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Rador cast this over my head; it completely covered my face, but was
+of so transparent a texture that I could see, though somewhat mistily,
+through it. Finally he handed us both a pair of long gloves of the
+same material and high stockings, the feet of which were
+gloved&mdash;five-toed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And again his laughter rang out at our manifest surprise.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The priestess of the Shining One does not altogether trust the
+Shining One's Voice," he said at last. "And these are to guard against
+any sudden&mdash;errors. And fear not, Goodwin," he went on kindly. "Not
+for the Shining One itself would Yolara see harm come to <I>Larree</I>
+here&mdash;nor, because of him, to you. But I would not stake much on the
+great white one. And for him I am sorry, for him I do like well."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Is he to be with us?" asked Larry eagerly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He is to be where we go," replied the dwarf soberly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Grimly Larry reached down and drew from his uniform his automatic.  He
+popped a fresh clip into the pocket fold of his girdle. The pistol he
+slung high up beneath his arm-pit.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The green dwarf looked at the weapon curiously.  O'Keefe tapped it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"This," said Larry, "slays quicker than the <I>Keth</I>&mdash;I take it so no
+harm shall come to the blue-eyed one whose name is Olaf. If I should
+raise it&mdash;be you not in its way, Rador!" he added significantly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The dwarf nodded again, his eyes sparkling.  He thrust a hand out to
+both of us.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"A change comes," he said.  "What it is I know not, nor how it will
+fall. But this remember&mdash;Rador is more friend to you than you yet can
+know. And now let us go!" he ended abruptly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He led us, not through the entrance, but into a sloping passage ending
+in a blind wall; touched a symbol graven there, and it opened,
+precisely as had the rosy barrier of the Moon Pool Chamber. And, just
+as there, but far smaller, was a passage end, a low curved wall facing
+a shaft not black as had been that abode of living darkness, but
+faintly luminescent. Rador leaned over the wall. The mechanism clicked
+and started; the door swung shut; the sides of the car slipped into
+place, and we swept swiftly down the passage; overhead the wind
+whistled. In a few moments the moving platform began to slow down. It
+stopped in a closed chamber no larger than itself.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Rador drew his poniard and struck twice upon the wall with its hilt.
+Immediately a panel moved away, revealing a space filled with faint,
+misty blue radiance. And at each side of the open portal stood four of
+the dwarfish men, grey-headed, old, clad in flowing garments of white,
+each pointing toward us a short silver rod.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Rador drew from his girdle a ring and held it out to the first dwarf.
+He examined it, handed it to the one beside him, and not until each
+had inspected the ring did they lower their curious weapons;
+containers of that terrific energy they called the <I>Keth</I>, I thought;
+and later was to know that I had been right.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+We stepped out; the doors closed behind us.  The place was weird
+enough. Its pave was a greenish-blue stone resembling lapis lazuli. On
+each side were high pedestals holding carved figures of the same
+material. There were perhaps a score of these, but in the mistiness I
+could not make out their outlines. A droning, rushing roar beat upon
+our ears; filled the whole cavern.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I smell the sea," said Larry suddenly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The roaring became deep-toned, clamorous, and close in front of us a
+rift opened. Twenty feet in width, it cut the cavern floor and
+vanished into the blue mist on each side. The cleft was spanned by one
+solid slab of rock not more than two yards wide. It had neither
+railing nor other protection.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The four leading priests marched out upon it one by one, and we
+followed. In the middle of the span they knelt. Ten feet beneath us
+was a torrent of blue sea-water racing with prodigious speed between
+polished walls. It gave the impression of vast depth. It roared as it
+sped by, and far to the right was a low arch through which it
+disappeared. It was so swift that its surface shone like polished blue
+steel, and from it came the blessed, <I>our worldly</I>, familiar ocean
+breath that strengthened my soul amazingly and made me realize how
+earth-sick I was.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Whence came the stream, I marvelled, forgetting for the moment, as we
+passed on again, all else. Were we closer to the surface of earth than
+I had thought, or was this some mighty flood falling through an
+opening in sea floor, Heaven alone knew how many miles above us,
+losing itself in deeper abysses beyond these? How near and how far
+this was from the truth I was to learn&mdash;and never did truth come to
+man in more dreadful guise!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The roaring fell away, the blue haze lessened.  In front of us
+stretched a wide flight of steps, huge as those which had led us into
+the courtyard of Nan-Tauach through the ruined sea-gate. We scaled it;
+it narrowed; from above light poured through a still narrower opening.
+Side by side Larry and I passed out of it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+We had emerged upon an enormous platform of what seemed to be
+glistening ivory. It stretched before us for a hundred yards or more
+and then shelved gently into the white waters. Opposite&mdash;not a mile
+away&mdash;was that prodigious web of woven rainbows Rador had called the
+Veil of the Shining One. There it shone in all its unearthly grandeur,
+on each side of the Cyclopean pillars, as though a mountain should
+stretch up arms raising between them a fairy banner of auroral
+glories. Beneath it was the curved, scimitar sweep of the pier with
+its clustered, gleaming temples.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Before that brief, fascinated glance was done, there dropped upon my
+soul a sensation as of brooding weight intolerable; a spiritual
+oppression as though some vastness was falling, pressing, stifling me,
+I turned&mdash;and Larry caught me as I reeled.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Steady!  Steady, old man!" he whispered.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At first all that my staggering consciousness could realize was an
+immensity, an immeasurable uprearing that brought with it the same
+throat-gripping vertigo as comes from gazing downward from some great
+height&mdash;then a blur of white faces&mdash;intolerable shinings of hundreds
+upon thousands of eyes. Huge, incredibly huge, a colossal amphitheatre
+of jet, a stupendous semi-circle, held within its mighty arc the ivory
+platform on which I stood.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It reared itself almost perpendicularly hundreds of feet up into the
+sparkling heavens, and thrust down on each side its ebon
+bulwarks&mdash;like monstrous paws. Now, the giddiness from its sheer
+greatness passing, I saw that it was indeed an amphitheatre sloping
+slightly backward tier after tier, and that the white blur of faces
+against its blackness, the gleaming of countless eyes were those of
+myriads of the people who sat silent, flower-garlanded, their gaze
+focused upon the rainbow curtain and sweeping over me like a
+torrent&mdash;tangible, appalling!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Five hundred feet beyond, the smooth, high retaining wall of the
+amphitheatre raised itself&mdash;above it the first terrace of the seats,
+and above this, dividing the tiers for another half a thousand feet
+upward, set within them like a panel, was a dead-black surface in
+which shone faintly with a bluish radiance a gigantic disk; above it
+and around it a cluster of innumerable smaller ones.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+On each side of me, bordering the platform, were scores of small
+pillared alcoves, a low wall stretching across their fronts; delicate,
+fretted grills shielding them, save where in each lattice an opening
+stared&mdash;it came to me that they were like those stalls in ancient
+Gothic cathedrals wherein for centuries had kneeled paladins and
+people of my own race on earth's fair face. And within these alcoves
+were gathered, score upon score, the elfin beauties, the dwarfish men
+of the fair-haired folk. At my right, a few feet from the opening
+through which we had come, a passageway led back between the fretted
+stalls. Half-way between us and the massive base of the amphitheatre a
+dais rose. Up the platform to it a wide ramp ascended; and on ramp and
+dais and along the centre of the gleaming platform down to where it
+kissed the white waters, a broad ribbon of the radiant flowers lay
+like a fairy carpet.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+On one side of this dais, meshed in a silken web that hid no line or
+curve of her sweet body, white flesh gleaming through its folds, stood
+Yolara; and opposite her, crowned with a circlet of flashing blue
+stones, his mighty body stark bare, was Lugur!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+O'Keefe drew a long breath; Rador touched my arm and, still dazed, I
+let myself be drawn into the aisle and through a corridor that ran
+behind the alcoves. At the back of one of these the green dwarf
+paused, opened a door, and motioned us within.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Entering, I found that we were exactly opposite where the ramp ran up
+to the dais&mdash;and that Yolara was not more than fifty feet away. She
+glanced at O'Keefe and smiled. Her eyes were ablaze with little
+dancing points of light; her body seemed to palpitate, the rounded
+delicate muscles beneath the translucent skin to run with joyful
+little eager waves!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Larry whistled softly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"There's Marakinoff!" he said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I looked where he pointed.  Opposite us sat the Russian, clothed as we
+were, leaning forward, his eyes eager behind his glasses; but if he
+saw us he gave no sign.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And there's Olaf!" said O'Keefe.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Beneath the carved stall in which sat the Russian was an aperture and
+within it was Huldricksson. Unprotected by pillars or by grills,
+opening clear upon the platform, near him stretched the trail of
+flowers up to the great dais which Lugur and Yolara the priestess
+guarded. He sat alone, and my heart went out to him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+O'Keefe's face softened.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Bring him here," he said to Rador.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The green dwarf was looking at the Norseman, too, a shade of pity upon
+his mocking face. He shook his head.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Wait!" he said.  "You can do nothing now&mdash;and it may be there will be
+no need to do anything," he added; but I could feel that there was
+little of conviction in his words.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap19"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XIX
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+The Madness of Olaf
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+Yolara threw her white arms high.  From the mountainous tiers came a
+mighty sigh; a rippling ran through them. And upon the moment, before
+Yolara's arms fell, there issued, apparently from the air around us, a
+peal of sound that might have been the shouting of some playful god
+hurling great suns through the net of stars. It was like the deepest
+notes of all the organs in the world combined in one; summoning,
+majestic, cosmic!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It held within it the thunder of the spheres rolling through the
+infinite, the birth-song of suns made manifest in the womb of space;
+echoes of creation's supernal chord! It shook the body like a pulse
+from the heart of the universe&mdash;pulsed&mdash;and died away.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+On its death came a blaring as of all the trumpets of conquering hosts
+since the first Pharaoh led his swarms&mdash;triumphal, compelling!
+Alexander's clamouring hosts, brazen-throated wolf-horns of Caesar's
+legions, blare of trumpets of Genghis Khan and his golden horde,
+clangor of the locust levies of Tamerlane, bugles of Napoleon's
+armies&mdash;war-shout of all earth's conquerors! And it died!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Fast upon it, a throbbing, muffled tumult of harp sounds, mellownesses
+of myriads of wood horns, the subdued sweet shrilling of multitudes of
+flutes, Pandean pipings&mdash;inviting, carrying with them the calling of
+waterfalls in the hidden places, rushing brooks and murmuring forest
+winds&mdash;calling, calling, languorous, lulling, dripping into the brain
+like the very honeyed essence of sound.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And after them a silence in which the memory of the music seemed to
+beat, to beat ever more faintly, through every quivering nerve.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+From me all fear, all apprehension, had fled.  In their place was
+nothing but joyous anticipation, a supernal freedom from even the
+shadow of the shadow of care or sorrow; not now did anything
+matter&mdash;Olaf or his haunted, hate-filled eyes; Throckmartin or his
+fate&mdash;nothing of pain, nothing of agony, nothing of striving nor
+endeavour nor despair in that wide outer world that had turned
+suddenly to a troubled dream.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Once more the first great note pealed out!  Once more it died and from
+the clustered spheres a kaleidoscopic blaze shot as though drawn from
+the majestic sound itself. The many-coloured rays darted across the
+white waters and sought the face of the irised Veil. As they touched,
+it sparkled, flamed, wavered, and shook with fountains of prismatic
+colour.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The light increased&mdash;and in its intensity the silver air darkened.
+Faded into shadow that white mosaic of flower-crowned faces set in the
+amphitheatre of jet, and vast shadows dropped upon the high-flung
+tiers and shrouded them. But on the skirts of the rays the fretted
+stalls in which we sat with the fair-haired ones blazed out,
+iridescent, like jewels.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I was sensible of an acceleration of every pulse; a wild stimulation
+of every nerve. I felt myself being lifted above the world&mdash;close to
+the threshold of the high gods&mdash;soon their essence and their power
+would stream out into me! I glanced at Larry. His eyes were&mdash;wild&mdash;with
+life!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I looked at Olaf&mdash;and in his face was none of this&mdash;only hate, and
+hate, and hate.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The peacock waves streamed out over the waters, cleaving the seeming
+darkness, a rainbow path of glory. And the Veil flashed as though all
+the rainbows that had ever shone were burning within it. Again the
+mighty sound pealed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Into the centre of the Veil the light drew itself, grew into an
+intolerable brightness&mdash;and with a storm of tinklings, a tempest of
+crystalline notes, a tumult of tiny chimings, through it sped&mdash;the
+Shining One!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Straight down that radiant path, its high-flung plumes of feathery
+flame shimmering, its coruscating spirals whirling, its seven globes
+of seven colours shining above its glowing core, it raced toward us.
+The hurricane of bells of diamond glass were jubilant, joyous. I felt
+O'Keefe grip my arm; Yolara threw her white arms out in a welcoming
+gesture; I heard from the tier a sigh of rapture&mdash;and in it a
+poignant, wailing under-tone of agony!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Over the waters, down the light stream, to the end of the ivory pier,
+flew the Shining One. Through its crystal <I>pizzicati</I> drifted
+inarticulate murmurings&mdash;deadly sweet, stilling the heart and setting
+it leaping madly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+For a moment it paused, poised itself, and then came whirling down the
+flower path to its priestess, slowly, ever more slowly. It hovered for
+a moment between the woman and the dwarf, as though contemplating
+them; turned to her with its storm of tinklings softened, its
+murmurings infinitely caressing. Bent toward it, Yolara seemed to
+gather within herself pulsing waves of power; she was terrifying;
+gloriously, maddeningly evil; and as gloriously, maddeningly heavenly!
+Aphrodite and the Virgin! Tanith of the Carthaginians and St. Bride of
+the Isles! A queen of hell and a princess of heaven&mdash;in one!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Only for a moment did that which we had called the Dweller and which
+these named the Shining One, pause. It swept up the ramp to the dais,
+rested there, slowly turning, plumes and spirals lacing and unlacing,
+throbbing, pulsing. Now its nucleus grew plainer, stronger&mdash;human in a
+fashion, and all inhuman; neither man nor woman; neither god nor
+devil; subtly partaking of all. Nor could I doubt that whatever it
+was, within that shining nucleus was something sentient; something
+that had will and energy, and in some awful, supernormal
+fashion&mdash;intelligence!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Another trumpeting&mdash;a sound of stones opening&mdash;a long, low wail of
+utter anguish&mdash;something moved shadowy in the river of light, and
+slowly at first, then ever more rapidly, shapes swam through it. There
+were half a score of them&mdash;girls and youths, women and men. The
+Shining One poised itself, regarded them. They drew closer, and in the
+eyes of each and in their faces was the bud of that awful
+intermingling of emotions, of joy and sorrow, ecstasy and terror, that
+I had seen in full blossom on Throckmartin's.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Thing began again its murmurings&mdash;now infinitely caressing,
+coaxing&mdash;like the song of a siren from some witched star! And the
+bell-sounds rang out&mdash;compellingly, calling&mdash;calling&mdash;calling&mdash;
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I saw Olaf lean far out of his place; saw, half-consciously, at
+Lugur's signal, three of the dwarfs creep in and take places,
+unnoticed, behind him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Now the first of the figures rushed upon the dais&mdash;and paused.  It was
+the girl who had been brought before Yolara when the gnome named
+Songar was driven into the nothingness! With all the quickness of
+light a spiral of the Shining One stretched out and encircled her.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At its touch there was an infinitely dreadful shrinking and, it
+seemed, a simultaneous hurling of herself into its radiance. As it
+wrapped its swirls around her, permeated her&mdash;the crystal chorus
+burst forth&mdash;tumultuously; through and through her the radiance
+pulsed. Began then that infinitely dreadful, but infinitely glorious,
+rhythm they called the dance of the Shining One. And as the girl
+swirled within its sparkling mists another and another flew into its
+embrace, until, at last, the dais was an incredible vision; a mad
+star's Witches' Sabbath; an altar of white faces and bodies gleaming
+through living flame; transfused with rapture insupportable and horror
+that was hellish&mdash;and ever, radiant plumes and spirals expanding, the
+core of the Shining One waxed&mdash;growing greater&mdash;as it consumed, as it
+drew into and through itself the life-force of these lost ones!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+So they spun, interlaced&mdash;and there began to pulse from them life,
+vitality, as though the very essence of nature was filling us. Dimly I
+recognized that what I was beholding was vampirism inconceivable! The
+banked tiers chanted. The mighty sounds pealed forth!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was a Saturnalia of demigods!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then, whirling, bell-notes storming, the Shining One withdrew slowly
+from the dais down the ramp, still embracing, still interwoven with
+those who had thrown themselves into its spirals. They drifted with it
+as though half-carried in dreadful dance; white faces sealed&mdash;forever&mdash;into
+that semblance of those who held within linked God and devil&mdash;I
+covered my eyes!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I heard a gasp from O'Keefe; opened my eyes and sought his; saw the
+wildness vanish from them as he strained forward. Olaf had leaned far
+out, and as he did so the dwarfs beside him caught him, and whether by
+design or through his own swift, involuntary movement, thrust him half
+into the Dweller's path. The Dweller paused in its gyrations&mdash;seemed
+to watch him. The Norseman's face was crimson, his eyes blazing. He
+threw himself back and, with one defiant shout, gripped one of the
+dwarfs about the middle and sent him hurtling through the air,
+straight at the radiant Thing! A whirling mass of legs and arms, the
+dwarf flew&mdash;then in midflight stopped as though some gigantic
+invisible hand had caught him, and&mdash;was dashed down upon the platform
+not a yard from the Shining One!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Like a broken spider he moved&mdash;feebly&mdash;once, twice. From the Dweller
+shot a shimmering tentacle&mdash;touched him&mdash;recoiled. Its crystal
+tinklings changed into an angry chiming. From all about&mdash;jewelled
+stalls and jet peak&mdash;came a sigh of incredulous horror.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Lugur leaped forward.  On the instant Larry was over the low barrier
+between the pillars, rushing to the Norseman's side. And even as they
+ran there was another wild shout from Olaf, and he hurled himself out,
+straight at the throat of the Dweller!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But before he could touch the Shining One, now motionless&mdash;and never
+was the thing more horrible than then, with the purely human
+suggestion of surprise plain in its poise&mdash;Larry had struck him
+aside.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I tried to follow&mdash;and was held by Rador.  He was trembling&mdash;but not
+with fear. In his face was incredulous hope, inexplicable eagerness.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Wait!" he said.  "Wait!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Shining One stretched out a slow spiral, and as it did so I saw
+the bravest thing man has ever witnessed. Instantly O'Keefe thrust
+himself between it and Olaf, pistol out. The tentacle touched him, and
+the dull blue of his robe flashed out into blinding, intense azure
+light. From the automatic in his gloved hand came three quick bursts
+of flame straight into the Thing. The Dweller drew back; the
+bell-sounds swelled.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Lugur paused, his hand darted up, and in it was one of the silver
+<I>Keth</I> cones. But before he could flash it upon the Norseman, Larry
+had unlooped his robe, thrown its fold over Olaf, and, holding him
+with one hand away from the Shining One, thrust with the other his
+pistol into the dwarf's stomach. His lips moved, but I could not hear
+what he said. But Lugur understood, for his hand dropped.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Now Yolara was there&mdash;all this had taken barely more than five
+seconds. She thrust herself between the three men and the Dweller. She
+spoke to it&mdash;and the wild buzzing died down; the gay crystal tinklings
+burst forth again. The Thing murmured to her&mdash;began to whirl&mdash;faster,
+faster&mdash;passed down the ivory pier, out upon the waters, bearing with
+it, meshed in its light, the sacrifices&mdash;swept on ever more swiftly,
+triumphantly and turning, turning, with its ghastly crew, vanished
+through the Veil!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Abruptly the polychromatic path snapped out.  The silver light poured
+in upon us. From all the amphitheatre arose a clamour, a shouting.
+Marakinoff, his eyes staring, was leaning out, listening. Unrestrained
+now by Rador, I vaulted the wall and rushed forward. But not before I
+had heard the green dwarf murmur:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"There is something stronger than the Shining One!  Two things&mdash;yea&mdash;a
+strong heart&mdash;and hate!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Olaf, panting, eyes glazed, trembling, shrank beneath my hand.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The devil that took my Helma!" I heard him whisper. "The Shining
+Devil!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Both these men," Lugur was raging, "they shall dance with the Shining
+one. And this one, too." He pointed at me malignantly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"This man is mine," said the priestess, and her voice was menacing.
+She rested her hand on Larry's shoulder. "He shall not dance. No&mdash;nor
+his friend. I have told you I dare not for this one!" She pointed to
+Olaf.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Neither this man, nor this," said Larry, "shall be harmed. This is my
+word, Yolara!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Even so," she answered quietly, "my lord!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I saw Marakinoff stare at O'Keefe with a new and curiously speculative
+interest. Lugur's eyes grew hellish; he raised his arms as though to
+strike her. Larry's pistol prodded him rudely enough.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No rough stuff now, kid!" said O'Keefe in English.  The red dwarf
+quivered, turned&mdash;caught a robe from a priest standing by, and threw
+it over himself. The <I>ladala</I>, shouting, gesticulating, fighting with
+the soldiers, were jostling down from the tiers of jet.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Come!" commanded Yolara&mdash;her eyes rested upon Larry.  "Your heart is
+great, indeed&mdash;my lord!" she murmured; and her voice was very sweet.
+"Come!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"This man comes with us, Yolara," said O'Keefe pointing to Olaf.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Bring him," she said.  "Bring him&mdash;only tell him to look no more upon
+me as before!" she added fiercely.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Beside her the three of us passed along the stalls, where sat the
+fair-haired, now silent, at gaze, as though in the grip of some great
+doubt. Silently Olaf strode beside me. Rador had disappeared. Down the
+stairway, through the hall of turquoise mist, over the rushing
+sea-stream we went and stood beside the wall through which we had
+entered. The white-robed ones had gone.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Yolara pressed; the portal opened.  We stepped upon the car; she took
+the lever; we raced through the faintly luminous corridor to the house
+of the priestess.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And one thing now I knew sick at heart and soul the truth had come to
+me&mdash;no more need to search for Throckmartin. Behind that Veil, in the
+lair of the Dweller, dead-alive like those we had just seen swim in
+its shining train was he, and Edith, Stanton and Thora and Olaf
+Huldricksson's wife!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The car came to rest; the portal opened; Yolara leaped out lightly,
+beckoned and flitted up the corridor. She paused before an ebon
+screen. At a touch it vanished, revealing an entrance to a small blue
+chamber, glowing as though cut from the heart of some gigantic
+sapphire; bare, save that in its centre, upon a low pedestal, stood a
+great globe fashioned from milky rock-crystal; upon its surface were
+faint tracings as of seas and continents, but, if so, either of some
+other world or of this world in immemorial past, for in no way did
+they resemble the mapped coastlines of our earth.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Poised upon the globe, rising from it out into space, locked in each
+other's arms, lips to lips, were two figures, a woman and a man, so
+exquisite, so lifelike, that for the moment I failed to realize that
+they, too, were carved of the crystal. And before this shrine&mdash;for
+nothing else could it be, I knew&mdash;three slender cones raised
+themselves: one of purest white flame, one of opalescent water, and
+the third of&mdash;moonlight! There was no mistaking them, the height of a
+tall man each stood&mdash;but how water, flame and light were held so
+evenly, so steadily in their spire-shapes, I could not tell.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Yolara bowed lowly&mdash;once, twice, thrice.  She turned to O'Keefe, nor
+by slightest look or gesture betrayed she knew others were there than
+he. The blue eyes wide, searching, unfathomable, she drew close; put
+white hands on his shoulders, looked down into his very soul.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"My lord," she murmured.  "Now listen well for I, Yolara, give you
+three things&mdash;myself, and the Shining One, and the power that is the
+Shining One's&mdash;yea, and still a fourth thing that is all three&mdash;power
+over all upon that world from whence you came! These, my lord, ye
+shall have. I swear it"&mdash;she turned toward the altar&mdash;uplifted her
+arms&mdash;"by Siya and by Siyana, and by the flame, by the water, and by
+the light!"[1]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Her eyes grew purple dark.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Let none dare to take you from me!  Nor ye go from me unbidden!" she
+whispered fiercely.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then swiftly, still ignoring us, she threw her arms about O'Keefe,
+pressed her white body to his breast, lips raised, eyes closed,
+seeking his. O'Keefe's arms tightened around her, his head dropped
+lips seeking, finding hers&mdash;passionately! From Olaf came a deep
+indrawn breath that was almost a groan. But not in my heart could I
+find blame for the Irishman!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The priestess opened eyes now all misty blue, thrust him back, stood
+regarding him. O'Keefe, dead-white, raised a trembling hand to his
+face.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And thus have I sealed my oath, O my lord!" she whispered.  For the
+first time she seemed to recognize our presence, stared at us a
+moment, then through us, and turned to O'Keefe.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Go, now!" she said.  "Soon Rador shall come for you. Then&mdash;well,
+after that let happen what will!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She smiled once more at him&mdash;so sweetly; turned toward the figures
+upon the great globe; sank upon her knees before them. Quietly we
+crept away; still silent, made our way to the little pavilion. But as
+we passed we heard a tumult from the green roadway; shouts of men, now
+and then a woman's scream. Through a rift in the garden I glimpsed a
+jostling crowd on one of the bridges: green dwarfs struggling with the
+<I>ladala</I>&mdash;and all about droned a humming as of a giant hive disturbed!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Larry threw himself down upon one of the divans, covered his face with
+his hands, dropped them to catch in Olaf's eyes troubled reproach,
+looked at me.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"<I>I</I> couldn't help it," he said, half defiantly&mdash;half-miserably.
+"God, what a woman! I <I>couldn't</I> help it!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Larry," I asked.  "Why didn't you tell her you didn't love
+her&mdash;then?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He gazed at me&mdash;the old twinkle back in his eye.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Spoken like a scientist, Doc!" he exclaimed.  "I suppose if a burning
+angel struck you out of nowhere and threw itself about you, you would
+most dignifiedly tell it you didn't want to be burned. For God's sake,
+don't talk nonsense, Goodwin!" he ended, almost peevishly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Evil!  Evil!" The Norseman's voice was deep, nearly a chant.  "All
+here is of evil: Trolldom and Helvede it is, Ja! And that she
+<I>djaevelsk</I> of beauty&mdash;what is she but harlot of that shining devil
+they worship. I, Olaf Huldricksson, know what she meant when she held
+out to you power over all the world, <I>Ja!</I>&mdash;as if the world had not
+devils enough in it now!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What?" The cry came from both O'Keefe and myself at once.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Olaf made a gesture of caution, relapsed into sullen silence.  There
+were footsteps on the path, and into sight came Rador&mdash;but a Rador
+changed. Gone was every vestige of his mockery; curiously solemn, he
+saluted O'Keefe and Olaf with that salute which, before this, I had
+seen given only to Yolara and to Lugur. There came a swift quickening
+of the tumult&mdash;died away. He shrugged mighty shoulders.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The <I>ladala</I> are awake!" he said.  "So much for what two brave men
+can do!" He paused thoughtfully. "Bones and dust jostle not each other
+for place against the grave wall!" he added oddly. "But if bones and
+dust have revealed to them that they still&mdash;live&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He stopped abruptly, eyes seeking the globe that bore and sent forth
+speech.[2]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The <I>Afyo Maie</I> has sent me to watch over you till she summons you,"
+he announced clearly. "There is to be a&mdash;feast. You, <I>Larree</I>, you
+Goodwin, are to come. I remain here with&mdash;Olaf."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No harm to him!" broke in O'Keefe sharply.  Rador touched his heart,
+his eyes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"By the Ancient Ones, and by my love for you, and by what you twain
+did before the Shining One&mdash;I swear it!" he whispered.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Rador clapped palms; a soldier came round the path, in his grip a long
+flat box of polished wood. The green dwarf took it, dismissed him,
+threw open the lid.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Here is your apparel for the feast, <I>Larree</I>," he said, pointing to
+the contents.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+O'Keefe stared, reached down and drew out a white, shimmering, softly
+metallic, long-sleeved tunic, a broad, silvery girdle, leg swathings
+of the same argent material, and sandals that seemed to be cut out
+from silver. He made a quick gesture of angry dissent.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Nay, <I>Larree</I>!" muttered the dwarf.  "Wear them&mdash;I counsel it&mdash;I pray
+it&mdash;ask me not why," he went on swiftly, looking again at the globe.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+O'Keefe, as I, was impressed by his earnestness.  The dwarf made a
+curiously expressive pleading gesture. O'Keefe abruptly took the
+garments; passed into the room of the fountain.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The Shining One dances not again?" I asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No," he said.  "No"&mdash;he hesitate&mdash;"it is the usual feast that follows
+the sacrament! Lugur&mdash;and Double Tongue, who came with you, will be
+there," he added slowly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Lugur&mdash;" I gasped in astonishment.  "After what happened&mdash;he will be
+there?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Perhaps because of what happened, Goodwin, my friend," he
+answered&mdash;his eyes again full of malice; "and there will be
+others&mdash;friends of Yolara&mdash;friends of Lugur&mdash;and perhaps
+another"&mdash;his voice was almost inaudible&mdash;"one whom they have not
+called&mdash;" He halted, half-fearfully, glancing at the globe; put finger
+to lips and spread himself out upon one of the couches.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Strike up the band"&mdash;came O'Keefe's voice&mdash;"here comes the hero!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He strode into the room.  I am bound to say that the admiration in
+Rador's eyes was reflected in my own, and even, if involuntarily, in
+Olaf's.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"A son of Siyana!" whispered Rador.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He knelt, took from his girdle-pouch a silk-wrapped something, unwound
+it&mdash;and, still kneeling, drew out a slender poniard of gleaming white
+metal, hilted with the blue stones; he thrust it into O'Keefe's
+girdle; then gave him again the rare salute.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Come," he ordered and took us to the head of the pathway.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Now," he said grimly, "let the Silent Ones show their power&mdash;if they
+still have it!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And with this strange benediction, he turned back.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"For God's sake, Larry," I urged as we approached the house of the
+priestess, "you'll be careful!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He nodded&mdash;but I saw with a little deadly pang of apprehension in my
+heart a puzzled, lurking doubt within his eyes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As we ascended the serpent steps Marakinoff appeared. He gave a signal
+to our guards&mdash;and I wondered what influence the Russian had attained,
+for promptly, without question, they drew aside. At me he smiled
+amiably.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Have you found your friends yet?" he went on&mdash;and now I sensed
+something deeply sinister in him. "No! It is too bad! Well, don't give
+up hope." He turned to O'Keefe.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Lieutenant, I would like to speak to you&mdash;alone!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I've no secrets from Goodwin," answered O'Keefe.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"So?" queried Marakinoff, suavely.  He bent, whispered to Larry.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Irishman started, eyed him with a certain shocked incredulity,
+then turned to me.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Just a minute, Doc!" he said, and I caught the suspicion of a wink.
+They drew aside, out of ear-shot. The Russian talked rapidly. Larry
+was all attention. Marakinoff's earnestness became intense; O'Keefe
+interrupted&mdash;appeared to question. Marakinoff glanced at me and as his
+gaze shifted from O'Keefe, I saw a flame of rage and horror blaze up
+in the latter's eyes. At last the Irishman appeared to consider
+gravely; nodded as though he had arrived at some decision, and
+Marakinoff thrust his hand to him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And only I could have noticed Larry's shrinking, his microscopic
+hesitation before he took it, and his involuntary movement, as though
+to shake off something unclean, when the clasp had ended.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Marakinoff, without another look at me, turned and went quickly
+within. The guards took their places. I looked at Larry inquiringly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Don't ask a thing now, Doc!" he said tensely.  "Wait till we get
+home. But we've got to get damned busy and quick&mdash;I'll tell you that
+now&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+[1] I have no space here even to outline the eschatology of this
+people, nor to catalogue their pantheon. Siya and Siyana typified
+worldly love. Their ritual was, however, singularly free from those
+degrading elements usually found in love-cults. Priests and
+priestesses of all cults dwelt in the immense seven-terraced
+structure, of which the jet amphitheatre was the water side. The
+symbol, icon, representation, of Siya and Siyana&mdash;the globe and the
+up-striving figures&mdash;typified earthly love, feet bound to earth, but
+eyes among the stars. Hell or heaven I never heard formulated, nor
+their equivalents; unless that existence in the Shining One's domain
+could serve for either. Over all this was Thanaroa, remote; unheeding,
+but still maker and ruler of all&mdash;an absentee First Cause personified!
+Thanaroa seemed to be the one article of belief in the creed of the
+soldiers&mdash;Rador, with his reverence for the Ancient Ones, was an
+exception. Whatever there was, indeed, of high, truly religious
+impulse among the Murians, this far, High God had. I found this
+exceedingly interesting, because it had long been my theory&mdash;to put
+the matter in the shape of a geometrical formula&mdash;that the real
+attractiveness of gods to man increases uniformly according to the
+square of their distance&mdash;W. T. G.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+[2] I find that I have neglected to explain the working of these
+interesting mechanisms that were telephonic, dictaphonic, telegraphic
+in one. I must assume that my readers are familiar with the receiving
+apparatus of wireless telegraphy, which must be "tuned" by the
+operator until its own vibratory quality is in exact harmony with the
+vibrations&mdash;the extremely rapid impacts&mdash;of those short electric
+wavelengths we call Hertzian, and which carry the wireless messages. I
+must assume also that they are familiar with the elementary fact of
+physics that the vibrations of light and sound are interchangeable.
+The hearing-talking globes utilize both these principles, and with
+consummate simplicity. The light with which they shone was produced by
+an atomic "motor" within their base, similar to that which activated
+the merely illuminating globes. The composition of the phonic spheres
+gave their surfaces an acute sensitivity and resonance. In conjunction
+with its energizing power, the metal set up what is called a "field of
+force," which linked it with every particle of its kind no matter how
+distant. When vibrations of speech impinged upon the resonant surface
+its rhythmic light-vibrations were broken, just as a telephone
+transmitter breaks an electric current. Simultaneously these
+light-vibrations were changed into sound&mdash;on the surfaces of all
+spheres tuned to that particular instrument. The "crawling" colours
+which showed themselves at these times were literally the voice of the
+speaker in its spectrum equivalent. While usually the sounds produced
+required considerable familiarity with the apparatus to be understood
+quickly, they could, on occasion, be made startlingly loud and
+clear&mdash;as I was soon to realize&mdash;W. T. G.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap20"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XX
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+The Tempting of Larry
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+We paused before thick curtains, through which came the faint murmur
+of many voices. They parted; out came two&mdash;ushers, I suppose, they
+were&mdash;in cuirasses and kilts that reminded me somewhat of
+chain-mail&mdash;the first armour of any kind here that I had seen. They
+held open the folds.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The chamber, on whose threshold we stood, was far larger than either
+anteroom or hall of audience. Not less than three hundred feet long
+and half that in depth, from end to end of it ran two huge
+semi-circular tables, paralleling each other, divided by a wide aisle,
+and heaped with flowers, with fruits, with viands unknown to me, and
+glittering with crystal flagons, beakers, goblets of as many hues as
+the blooms. On the gay-cushioned couches that flanked the tables,
+lounging luxuriously, were scores of the fair-haired ruling class and
+there rose a little buzz of admiration, oddly mixed with a
+half-startled amaze, as their gaze fell upon O'Keefe in all his
+silvery magnificence. Everywhere the light-giving globes sent their
+roseate radiance.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The cuirassed dwarfs led us through the aisle.  Within the arc of the
+inner half&mdash;circle was another glittering board, an oval. But of those
+seated there, facing us&mdash;I had eyes for only one&mdash;Yolara! She swayed
+up to greet O'Keefe&mdash;and she was like one of those white lily maids,
+whose beauty Hoang-Ku, the sage, says made the Gobi first a paradise,
+and whose lusts later the burned-out desert that it is. She held out
+hands to Larry, and on her face was passion&mdash;unashamed, unhiding.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She was Circe&mdash;but Circe conquered.  Webs of filmiest white clung to
+the rose-leaf body. Twisted through the corn-silk hair a threaded
+circlet of pale sapphires shone; but they were pale beside Yolara's
+eyes. O'Keefe bent, kissed her hands, something more than mere
+admiration flaming from him. She saw&mdash;and, smiling, drew him down
+beside her.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It came to me that of all, only these two, Yolara and O'Keefe, were in
+white&mdash;and I wondered; then with a tightening of nerves ceased to
+wonder as there entered&mdash;Lugur! He was all in scarlet, and as he
+strode forward a silence fell a tense, strained silence.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+His gaze turned upon Yolara, rested upon O'Keefe, and instantly his
+face grew&mdash;dreadful&mdash;there is no other word than that for it.
+Marakinoff leaned forward from the centre of the table, near whose end
+I sat, touched and whispered to him swiftly. With appalling effort the
+red dwarf controlled himself; he saluted the priestess ironically, I
+thought; took his place at the further end of the oval. And now I
+noted that the figures between were the seven of that Council of which
+the Shining One's priestess and Voice were the heads. The tension
+relaxed, but did not pass&mdash;as though a storm-cloud should turn away,
+but still lurk, threatening.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+My gaze ran back.  This end of the room was draped with the
+exquisitely coloured, graceful curtains looped with gorgeous garlands.
+Between curtains and table, where sat Larry and the nine, a circular
+platform, perhaps ten yards in diameter, raised itself a few feet
+above the floor, its gleaming surface half-covered with the luminous
+petals, fragrant, delicate.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+On each side below it, were low carven stools.  The curtains parted
+and softly entered girls bearing their flutes, their harps, the
+curiously emotion-exciting, octaved drums. They sank into their
+places. They touched their instruments; a faint, languorous measure
+throbbed through the rosy air.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The stage was set!  What was to be the play?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Now about the tables passed other dusky-haired maids, fair bosoms
+bare, their scanty kirtles looped high, pouring out the wines for the
+feasters.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+My eyes sought O'Keefe.  Whatever it had been that Marakinoff had
+said, clearly it now filled his mind&mdash;even to the exclusion of the
+wondrous woman beside him. His eyes were stern, cold&mdash;and now and
+then, as he turned them toward the Russian, filled with a curious
+speculation. Yolara watched him, frowned, gave a low order to the Hebe
+behind her.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The girl disappeared, entered again with a ewer that seemed cut of
+amber. The priestess poured from it into Larry's glass a clear liquid
+that shook with tiny sparkles of light. She raised the glass to her
+lips, handed it to him. Half-smiling, half-abstractedly, he took it,
+touched his own lips where hers had kissed; drained it. A nod from
+Yolara and the maid refilled his goblet.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At once there was a swift transformation in the Irishman. His
+abstraction vanished; the sternness fled; his eyes sparkled. He leaned
+caressingly toward Yolara; whispered. Her blue eyes flashed
+triumphantly; her chiming laughter rang. She raised her own glass&mdash;but
+within it was not that clear drink that filled Larry's! And again he
+drained his own; and, lifting it, full once more, caught the baleful
+eyes of Lugur, and held it toward him mockingly. Yolara swayed
+close&mdash;alluring, tempting. He arose, face all reckless gaiety; rollicking
+deviltry.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"A toast!" he cried in English, "to the Shining One&mdash;and may the hell
+where it belongs soon claim it!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He had used their own word for their god&mdash;all else had been in his own
+tongue, and so, fortunately, they did not understand. But the contempt
+in his action they did recognize&mdash;and a dead, a fearful silence fell
+upon them all. Lugur's eyes blazed, little sparks of crimson in their
+green. The priestess reached up, caught at O'Keefe. He seized the soft
+hand; caressed it; his gaze grew far away, sombre.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The Shining One." He spoke low.  "An' now again I see the faces of
+those who dance with it. It is the Fires of Mora&mdash;come, God alone
+knows how&mdash;from Erin&mdash;to this place. The Fires of Mora!" He
+contemplated the hushed folk before him; and then from his lips came
+that weirdest, most haunting of the lyric legends of Erin&mdash;the Curse
+of Mora:
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+    "The fretted fires of Mora blew o'er him in the night;<BR>
+    He thrills no more to loving, nor weeps for past delight.<BR>
+    For when those flames have bitten, both grief and joy take flight&mdash;"<BR>
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Again Yolara tried to draw him down beside her; and once more he
+gripped her hand. His eyes grew fixed&mdash;he crooned:
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+    "And through the sleeping silence his feet must track the tune,<BR>
+    When the world is barred and speckled with silver of the moon&mdash;"<BR>
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He stood, swaying, for a moment, and then, laughing, let the priestess
+have her way; drained again the glass.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And now my heart was cold, indeed&mdash;for what hope was there left with
+Larry mad, wild drunk!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The silence was unbroken&mdash;elfin women and dwarfs glancing furtively at
+each other. But now Yolara arose, face set, eyes flashing grey.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Hear you, the Council, and you, Lugur&mdash;and all who are here!" she
+cried. "Now I, the priestess of the Shining One, take, as is my right,
+my mate. And this is he!" She pointed down upon Larry. He glanced up
+at her.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Can't quite make out what you say, Yolara," he muttered thickly.
+"But say anything&mdash;you like&mdash;I love your voice!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I turned sick with dread.  Yolara's hand stole softly upon the
+Irishman's curls caressingly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You know the law, Yolara." Lugur's voice was flat, deadly, "You may
+not mate with other than your own kind. And this man is a stranger&mdash;a
+barbarian&mdash;food for the Shining One!" Literally, he spat the phrase.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No, not of our kind&mdash;Lugur&mdash;higher!" Yolara answered serenely.  "Lo,
+a son of Siya and of Siyana!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"A lie!" roared the red dwarf.  "A lie!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The Shining One revealed it to me!" said Yolara sweetly. "And if ye
+believe not, Lugur&mdash;go ask of the Shining One if it be not truth!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There was bitter, nameless menace in those last words&mdash;and whatever
+their hidden message to Lugur, it was potent. He stood, choking, face
+hell-shadowed&mdash;Marakinoff leaned out again, whispered. The red dwarf
+bowed, now wholly ironically; resumed his place and his silence. And
+again I wondered, icy-hearted, what was the power the Russian had so
+to sway Lugur.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What says the Council?" Yolara demanded, turning to them.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Only for a moment they consulted among themselves. Then the woman,
+whose face was a ravaged shrine of beauty, spoke.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The will of the priestess is the will of the Council!" she answered.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Defiance died from Yolara's face; she looked down at Larry tenderly.
+He sat swaying, crooning.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Bid the priests come," she commanded, then turned to the silent room.
+"By the rites of Siya and Siyana, Yolara takes their son for her
+mate!" And again her hand stole down possessingly, serpent soft, to
+the drunken head of the O'Keefe.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The curtains parted widely.  Through them filed, two by two, twelve
+hooded figures clad in flowing robes of the green one sees in forest
+vistas of opening buds of dawning spring. Of each pair one bore
+clasped to breast a globe of that milky crystal in the sapphire
+shrine-room; the other a harp, small, shaped somewhat like the ancient
+clarsach of the Druids.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Two by two they stepped upon the raised platform, placed gently upon
+it each their globe; and two by two crouched behind them. They formed
+now a star of six points about the petalled dais, and, simultaneously,
+they drew from their faces the covering cowls.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I half-rose&mdash;youths and maidens these of the fair-haired; and youths
+and maids more beautiful than any of those I had yet seen&mdash;for upon
+their faces was little of that disturbing mockery to which I have been
+forced so often, because of the deep impression it made upon me, to
+refer. The ashen-gold of the maiden priestesses' hair was wound about
+their brows in shining coronals. The pale locks of the youths were
+clustered within circlets of translucent, glimmering gems like
+moonstones. And then, crystal globe alternately before and harp
+alternately held by youth and maid, they began to sing.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+What was that song, I do not know&mdash;nor ever shall. Archaic, ancient
+beyond thought, it seemed&mdash;not with the ancientness of things that for
+uncounted ages have been but wind-driven dust. Rather was it the
+ancientness of the golden youth of the world, love lilts of earth
+younglings, with light of new-born suns drenching them, chorals of
+young stars mating in space; murmurings of April gods and goddesses. A
+languor stole through me. The rosy lights upon the tripods began to
+die away, and as they faded the milky globes gleamed forth brighter,
+ever brighter. Yolara rose, stretched a hand to Larry, led him through
+the sextuple groups, and stood face to face with him in the centre of
+their circle.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The rose-light died; all that immense chamber was black, save for the
+circle of the glowing spheres. Within this their milky radiance grew
+brighter&mdash;brighter. The song whispered away. A throbbing arpeggio
+dripped from the harps, and as the notes pulsed out, up from the
+globes, as though striving to follow, pulsed with them tips of
+moon-fire cones, such as I had seen before Yolara's altar. Weirdly,
+caressingly, compellingly the harp notes throbbed in repeated,
+re-repeated theme, holding within itself the same archaic golden
+quality I had noted in the singing. And over the moon flame pinnacles
+rose higher!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Yolara lifted her arms; within her hands were clasped O'Keefe's.  She
+raised them above their two heads and slowly, slowly drew him with her
+into a circling, graceful step, tendrillings delicate as the slow
+spirallings of twilight mist upon some still stream.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As they swayed the rippling arpeggios grew louder, and suddenly the
+slender pinnacles of moon fire bent, dipped, flowed to the floor,
+crept in a shining ring around those two&mdash;and began to rise, a
+gleaming, glimmering, enchanted barrier&mdash;rising, ever rising&mdash;hiding
+them!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+With one swift movement Yolara unbound her circlet of pale sapphires,
+shook loose the waves of her silken hair. It fell, a rippling,
+wondrous cascade, veiling both her and O'Keefe to their girdles&mdash;and
+now the shining coils of moon fire had crept to their knees&mdash;was
+circling higher&mdash;higher.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And ever despair grew deeper in my soul!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+What was that!  I started to my feet, and all around me in the
+darkness I heard startled motion. From without came a blaring of
+trumpets, the sound of running men, loud murmurings. The tumult drew
+closer. I heard cries of "Lakla! Lakla!" Now it was at the very
+threshold and within it, oddly, as though&mdash;punctuating&mdash;the clamour, a
+deep-toned, almost abysmal, booming sound&mdash;thunderously bass and
+reverberant.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Abruptly the harpings ceased; the moon fires shuddered, fell, and
+began to sweep back into the crystal globes; Yolara's swaying form
+grew rigid, every atom of it listening. She threw aside the veiling
+cloud of hair, and in the gleam of the last retreating spirals her
+face glared out like some old Greek mask of tragedy.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The sweet lips that even at their sweetest could never lose their
+delicate cruelty, had no sweetness now. They were drawn into a
+square&mdash;inhuman as that of the Medusa; in her eyes were the fires of
+the pit, and her hair seemed to writhe like the serpent locks of that
+Gorgon whose mouth she had borrowed; all her beauty was transformed
+into a nameless thing&mdash;hideous, inhuman, blasting! If this was the
+true soul of Yolara springing to her face, then, I thought, God help
+us in very deed!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I wrested my gaze away to O'Keefe.  All drunkenness gone, himself
+again, he was staring down at her, and in his eyes were loathing and
+horror unutterable. So they stood&mdash;and the light fled.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Only for a moment did the darkness hold.  With lightning swiftness the
+blackness that was the chamber's other wall vanished. Through a portal
+open between grey screens, the silver sparkling radiance poured.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And through the portal marched, two by two, incredible, nightmare
+figures&mdash;frog-men, giants, taller by nearly a yard than even tall
+O'Keefe! Their enormous saucer eyes were irised by wide bands of
+green-flecked red, in which the phosphorescence flickered. Their long
+muzzles, lips half-open in monstrous grin, held rows of glistening,
+slender, lancet sharp fangs. Over the glaring eyes arose a horny
+helmet, a carapace of black and orange scales, studded with foot-long
+lance-headed horns.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They lined themselves like soldiers on each side of the wide table
+aisle, and now I could see that their horny armour covered shoulders
+and backs, ran across the chest in a knobbed cuirass, and at wrists
+and heels jutted out into curved, murderous spurs. The webbed hands
+and feet ended in yellow, spade-shaped claws.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They carried spears, ten feet, at least, in length, the heads of which
+were pointed cones, glistening with that same covering, from whose
+touch of swift decay I had so narrowly saved Rador.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They were grotesque, yes&mdash;more grotesque than anything I had ever seen
+or dreamed, and they were&mdash;terrible!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And then, quietly, through their ranks came&mdash;a girl!  Behind her,
+enormous pouch at his throat swelling in and out menacingly, in one
+paw a treelike, spike-studded mace, a frog-man, huger than any of the
+others, guarding. But of him I caught but a fleeting, involuntary
+impression&mdash;all my gaze was for her.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+For it was she who had pointed out to us the way from the peril of the
+Dweller's lair on Nan-Tauach. And as I looked at her, I marvelled that
+ever could I have thought the priestess more beautiful. Into the eyes
+of O'Keefe rushed joy and an utter abasement of shame.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And from all about came murmurs&mdash;edged with anger, half-incredulous,
+tinged with fear:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Lakla!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Lakla!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The handmaiden!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She halted close beside me.  From firm little chin to dainty buskined
+feet she was swathed in the soft robes of dull, almost coppery hue.
+The left arm was hidden, the right free and gloved. Wound tight about
+it was one of the vines of the sculptured wall and of Lugur's circled
+signet-ring. Thick, a vivid green, its five tendrils ran between her
+fingers, stretching out five flowered heads that gleamed like blossoms
+cut from gigantic, glowing rubies.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+So she stood contemplating Yolara.  Then drawn perhaps by my gaze, she
+dropped her eyes upon me; golden, translucent, with tiny flecks of
+amber in their aureate irises, the soul that looked through them was
+as far removed from that flaming out of the priestess as zenith is
+above nadir.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I noted the low, broad brow, the proud little nose, the tender mouth,
+and the soft&mdash;sunlight&mdash;glow that seemed to transfuse the delicate
+skin. And suddenly in the eyes dawned a smile&mdash;sweet, friendly, a
+touch of roguishness, profoundly reassuring in its all humanness. I
+felt my heart expand as though freed from fetters, a recrudescence of
+confidence in the essential reality of things&mdash;as though in nightmare
+the struggling consciousness should glimpse some familiar face and
+know the terrors with which it strove were but dreams. And
+involuntarily I smiled back at her.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She raised her head and looked again at Yolara, contempt and a certain
+curiosity in her gaze; at O'Keefe&mdash;and through the softened eyes
+drifted swiftly a shadow of sorrow, and on its fleeting wings deepest
+interest, and hovering over that a naive approval as reassuringly
+human as had been her smile.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She spoke, and her voice, deep-timbred, liquid gold as was Yolara's
+all silver, was subtly the synthesis of all the golden glowing beauty
+of her.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The Silent Ones have sent me, O Yolara," she said.  "And this is
+their command to you&mdash;that you deliver to me to bring before them
+three of the four strangers who have found their way here. For him
+there who plots with Lugur"&mdash;she pointed at Marakinoff, and I saw
+Yolara start&mdash;"they have no need. Into his heart the Silent Ones have
+looked; and Lugur and you may keep him, Yolara!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There was honeyed venom in the last words.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Yolara was herself now; only the edge of shrillness on her voice
+revealed her wrath as she answered.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And whence have the Silent Ones gained power to command, <I>choya</I>?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This last, I knew, was a very vulgar word; I had heard Rador use it in
+a moment of anger to one of the serving maids, and it meant,
+approximately, "kitchen girl," "scullion." Beneath the insult and the
+acid disdain, the blood rushed up under Lakla's ambered ivory skin.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yolara"&mdash;her voice was low&mdash;"of no use is it to question me. I am but
+the messenger of the Silent Ones. And one thing only am I bidden to
+ask you&mdash;do you deliver to me the three strangers?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Lugur was on his feet; eagerness, sardonic delight, sinister
+anticipation thrilling from him&mdash;and my same glance showed Marakinoff,
+crouched, biting his finger-nails, glaring at the Golden Girl.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No!" Yolara spat the word.  "No!  Now by Thanaroa and by the Shining
+One, no!" Her eyes blazed, her nostrils were wide, in her fair throat
+a little pulse beat angrily. "You, Lakla&mdash;take you my message to the
+Silent Ones. Say to them that I keep this man"&mdash;she pointed to
+Larry&mdash;"because he is mine. Say to them that I keep the yellow-haired
+one and him"&mdash;she pointed to me&mdash;"because it pleases me.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Tell them that upon their mouths I place my foot, so!"&mdash;she stamped
+upon the dais viciously&mdash;"and that in their faces I spit!"&mdash;and her
+action was hideously snakelike. "And say last to them, you handmaiden,
+that if <I>you</I> they dare send to Yolara again, she will feed <I>you</I> to
+the Shining One! Now&mdash;go!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The handmaiden's face was white.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Not unforeseen by the three was this, Yolara," she replied.  "And did
+you speak as you have spoken then was I bidden to say this to you."
+Her voice deepened. "Three <I>tal</I> have you to take counsel, Yolara. And
+at the end of that time these things must you have determined&mdash;either
+to do or not to do: first, send the strangers to the Silent Ones;
+second, give up, you and Lugur and all of you, that dream you have of
+conquest of the world without; and, third, forswear the Shining One!
+And if you do not one and all these things, then are you done, your
+cup of life broken, your wine of life spilled. Yea, Yolara, for you
+and the Shining One, Lugur and the Nine and all those here and their
+kind shall pass! This say the Silent Ones, 'Surely shall all of ye
+pass and be as though never had ye been!'"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Now a gasp of rage and fear arose from all those around me&mdash;but the
+priestess threw back her head and laughed loud and long. Into the
+silver sweet chiming of her laughter clashed that of Lugur&mdash;and after
+a little the nobles took it up, till the whole chamber echoed with
+their mirth. O'Keefe, lips tightening, moved toward the Handmaiden,
+and almost imperceptibly, but peremptorily, she waved him back.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Those <I>are</I> great words&mdash;great words indeed, <I>choya</I>," shrilled Yolara
+at last; and again Lakla winced beneath the word. "Lo, for <I>laya</I> upon
+<I>laya</I>, the Shining One has been freed from the Three; and for <I>laya</I>
+upon <I>laya</I> they have sat helpless, rotting. Now I ask you
+again&mdash;whence comes their power to lay their will upon me, and whence
+comes their strength to wrestle with the Shining One and the beloved
+of the Shining One?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And again she laughed&mdash;and again Lugur and all the fairhaired joined
+in her laughter.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Into the eyes of Lakla I saw creep a doubt, a wavering; as though deep
+within her the foundations of her own belief were none too firm.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She hesitated, turning upon O'Keefe gaze in which rested more than
+suggestion of appeal! And Yolara saw, too, for she flushed with
+triumph, stretched a finger toward the handmaiden.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Look!" she cried.  "Look!  Why, even <I>she</I> does not believe!" Her
+voice grew silk of silver&mdash;merciless, cruel. "Now am I minded to send
+another answer to the Silent Ones. Yea! But not by <I>you</I>, Lakla; by
+these"&mdash;she pointed to the frog-men, and, swift as light, her hand
+darted into her bosom, bringing forth the little shining cone of
+death.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But before she could level it the Golden Girl had released that hidden
+left arm and thrown over her face a fold of the metallic swathings.
+Swifter than Yolara, she raised the arm that held the vine&mdash;and now I
+knew this was no inert blossoming thing.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was alive!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It writhed down her arm, and its five rubescent flower heads thrust
+out toward the priestess&mdash;vibrating, quivering, held in leash only by
+the light touch of the handmaiden at its very end.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+From the swelling throat pouch of the monster behind her came a
+succession of the reverberant boomings. The frogmen wheeled, raised
+their lances, levelled them at the throng. Around the reaching ruby
+flowers a faint red mist swiftly grew.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The silver cone dropped from Yolara's rigid fingers; her eyes grew
+stark with horror; all her unearthly loveliness fled from her; she
+stood pale-lipped. The Handmaiden dropped the protecting veil&mdash;and now
+it was she who laughed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It would seem, then, Yolara, that there <I>is</I> a thing of the Silent Ones
+ye fear!" she said. "Well&mdash;the kiss of the <I>Yekta</I> I promise you in
+return for the embrace of your Shining One."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She looked at Larry, long, searchingly, and suddenly again with all
+that effect of sunlight bursting into dark places, her smile shone
+upon him. She nodded, half gaily; looked down upon me, the little
+merry light dancing in her eyes; waved her hand to me.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She spoke to the giant frog-man.  He wheeled behind her as she turned,
+facing the priestess, club upraised, fangs glistening. His troop moved
+not a jot, spears held high. Lakla began to pass slowly&mdash;almost, I
+thought, tauntingly&mdash;and as she reached the portal Larry leaped from
+the dais.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"<I>Alanna</I>!" he cried.  "You'll not be leavin' me just when I've found
+you!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In his excitement he spoke in his own tongue, the velvet brogue
+appealing. Lakla turned, contemplated O'Keefe, hesitant,
+unquestionably longingly, irresistibly like a child making up her mind
+whether she dared or dared not take a delectable something offered
+her.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I go with you," said O'Keefe, this time in her own speech.  "Come on,
+Doc!" He reached out a hand to me.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But now Yolara spoke.  Life and beauty had flowed back into her face,
+and in the purple eyes all her hosts of devils were gathered.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Do you forget what I promised you before Siya and Siyana?  And do you
+think that you can leave me&mdash;me&mdash;as though I were a <I>choya</I>&mdash;like
+<I>her</I>." She pointed to Lakla. "Do you&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Now, listen, Yolara," Larry interrupted almost plaintively.  "No
+promise has passed from me to you&mdash;and why would you hold me?" He
+passed unconsciously into English. "Be a good sport, Yolara," he
+urged, "You <I>have</I> got a very devil of a temper, you know, and so have
+I; and we'd be really awfully uncomfortable together. And why don't
+you get rid of that devilish pet of yours, and be good!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She looked at him, puzzled, Marakinoff leaned over, translated to
+Lugur. The red dwarf smiled maliciously, drew near the priestess;
+whispered to her what was without doubt as near as he could come in
+the Murian to Larry's own very colloquial phrases.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Yolara's lips writhed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Hear me, Lakla!" she cried.  "Now would I not let you take this man
+from me were I to dwell ten thousand <I>laya</I> in the agony of the
+<I>Yekta's</I> kiss. This I swear to you&mdash;by Thanaroa, by my heart, and by
+my strength&mdash;and may my strength wither, my heart rot in my breast,
+and Thanaroa forget me if I do!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Listen, Yolara"&mdash;began O'Keefe again.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Be silent, you!" It was almost a shriek.  And her hand again sought
+in her breast for the cone of rhythmic death.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Lugur touched her arm, whispered again, The glint of guile shone in
+her eyes; she laughed softly, relaxed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The Silent Ones, Lakla, bade you say that they&mdash;allowed&mdash;me three
+<I>tal</I> to decide," she said suavely. "Go now in peace, Lakla, and say
+that Yolara has heard, and that for the three <I>tal</I> they&mdash;allow&mdash;her
+she will take council." The handmaiden hesitated.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The Silent Ones have said it," she answered at last.  "Stay you here,
+strangers"&mdash;-the long lashes drooped as her eyes met O'Keefe's and a
+hint of blush was in her cheeks&mdash;"stay you here, strangers, till then.
+But, Yolara, see you on that heart and strength you have sworn by that
+they come to no harm&mdash;else that which you have invoked shall come upon
+you swiftly indeed&mdash;and that I promise you," she added.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Their eyes met, clashed, burned into each other&mdash;black flame from
+Abaddon and golden flame from Paradise.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Remember!" said Lakla, and passed through the portal. The gigantic
+frog-man boomed a thunderous note of command, his grotesque guards
+turned and slowly followed their mistress; and last of all passed out
+the monster with the mace.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap21"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XXI
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+Larry's Defiance
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+A clamour arose from all the chambers; stilled in an instant by a
+motion of Yolara's hand. She stood silent, regarding O'Keefe with
+something other now than blind wrath; something half regretful, half
+beseeching. But the Irishman's control was gone.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yolara,"&mdash;his voice shook with rage, and he threw caution to the
+wind&mdash;"now hear <I>me</I>. I go where I will and when I will. Here shall we
+stay until the time she named is come. And then we follow her, whether
+you will or not. And if any should have thought to stop us&mdash;tell them
+of that flame that shattered the vase," he added grimly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The wistfulness died out of her eyes, leaving them cold. But no answer
+made she to him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What Lakla has said, the Council must consider, and at once." The
+priestess was facing the nobles. "Now, friends of mine, and friends of
+Lugur, must all feud, all rancour, between us end." She glanced
+swiftly at Lugur. "The <I>ladala</I> are stirring, and the Silent Ones
+threaten. Yet fear not&mdash;for are we not strong under the Shining One?
+And now&mdash;leave us."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Her hand dropped to the table, and she gave, evidently, a signal, for
+in marched a dozen or more of the green dwarfs.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Take these two to their place," she commanded, pointing to us.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The green dwarfs clustered about us.  Without another look at the
+priestess O'Keefe marched beside me, between them, from the chamber.
+And it was not until we had reached the pillared entrance that Larry
+spoke.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I hate to talk like that to a woman, Doc," he said, "and a pretty
+woman, at that. But first she played me with a marked deck, and then
+not only pinched all the chips, but drew a gun on me. What the
+hell! she nearly had me&mdash;<I>married</I>&mdash;to her. I don't know what the stuff
+was she gave me; but, take it from me, if I had the recipe for that
+brew I could sell it for a thousand dollars a jolt at Forty-second and
+Broadway.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"One jigger of it, and you forget there is a trouble in the world;
+three of them, and you forget there is a world. No excuse for it, Doc;
+and I don't care what you say or what Lakla may say&mdash;it wasn't my
+fault, and I don't hold it up against myself for a damn."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I must admit that I'm a bit uneasy about her threats," I said,
+ignoring all this. He stopped abruptly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What're you afraid of?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Mostly," I answered dryly, "I have no desire to dance with the
+Shining One!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Listen to me, Goodwin," He took up his walk impatiently.  "I've all
+the love and admiration for you in the world; but this place has got
+your nerve. Hereafter one Larry O'Keefe, of Ireland and the little old
+U. S. A., leads this party. Nix on the tremolo stop, nix on the
+superstition! I'm the works. Get me?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, I get you!" I exclaimed testily enough.  "But to use your own
+phrase, kindly can the repeated references to superstition."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why should I?" He was almost wrathful.  "You scientific people build
+up whole philosophies on the basis of things you never saw, and you
+scoff at people who believe in other things that you think <I>they</I> never
+saw and that don't come under what you label scientific. You talk
+about paradoxes&mdash;why, your scientist, who thinks he is the most
+skeptical, the most materialistic aggregation of atoms ever gathered
+at the exact mathematical centre of Missouri, has more blind faith
+than a dervish, and more credulity, more superstition, than a
+cross-eyed smoke beating it past a country graveyard in the dark of
+the moon!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Larry!" I cried, dazed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Olaf's no better," he said.  "But I can make allowances for him.
+He's a sailor. No, sir. What this expedition needs is a man without
+superstition. And remember this. The leprechaun promised that I'd have
+full warning before anything happened. And if we do have to go out,
+we'll see that banshee bunch clean up before we do, and pass in a
+blaze of glory. And don't forget it. Hereafter&mdash;I'm&mdash;in&mdash;charge!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+By this time we were before our pavilion; and neither of us in a very
+amiable mood I'm afraid. Rador was awaiting us with a score of his
+men.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Let none pass in here without authority&mdash;and let none pass out unless
+I accompany them," he ordered bruskly. "Summon one of the swiftest of
+the <I>coria</I> and have it wait in readiness," he added, as though by
+afterthought.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But when we had entered and the screens were drawn together his manner
+changed; all eagerness he questioned us. Briefly we told him of the
+happenings at the feast, of Lakla's dramatic interruption, and of what
+had followed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Three <I>tal</I>," he said musingly; "three <I>tal</I> the Silent Ones have
+allowed&mdash;and Yolara agreed." He sank back, silent and thoughtful.[1]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"<I>Ja!</I>"  It was Olaf. "<I>Ja!</I>  I told you the Shining Devil's mistress
+was all evil. <I>Ja!</I> Now I begin again that tale I started when he
+came"&mdash;he glanced toward the preoccupied Rador. "And tell him not what
+I say should he ask. For I trust none here in Trolldom, save the
+<I>Jomfrau</I>&mdash;the White Virgin!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"After the oldster was <I>adsprede</I>"&mdash;Olaf once more used that
+expressive Norwegian word for the dissolving of Songar&mdash;"I knew that
+it was a time for cunning. I said to myself, 'If they think I have no
+ears to hear, they will speak; and it may be I will find a way to save
+my Helma and Dr. Goodwin's friends, too.' <I>Ja</I>, and they did speak.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The red <I>Trolde</I> asked the Russian how came it he was a worshipper of
+Thanaroa." I could not resist a swift glance of triumph toward
+O'Keefe. "And the Russian," rumbled Olaf, "said that all his people
+worshipped Thanaroa and had fought against the other nations that
+denied him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And then we had come to Lugur's palace.  They put me in rooms, and
+there came to me men who rubbed and oiled me and loosened my muscles.
+The next day I wrestled with a great dwarf they called Valdor. He was
+a mighty man, and long we struggled, and at last I broke his back. And
+Lugur was pleased, so that I sat with him at feast and with the
+Russian, too. And again, not knowing that I understood them, they
+talked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The Russian had gone fast and far.  They talked of Lugur as emperor
+of all Europe, and Marakinoff under him. They spoke of the green light
+that shook life from the oldster; and Lugur said that the secret of it
+had been the Ancient Ones' and that the Council had not too much of
+it. But the Russian said that among his race were many wise men who
+could make more once they had studied it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And the next day I wrestled with a great dwarf named Tahola, mightier
+far than Valdor. Him I threw after a long, long time, and his back
+also I broke. Again Lugur was pleased. And again we sat at table, he
+and the Russian and I. This time they spoke of something these
+<I>Trolde</I> have which opens up a <I>Svaelc</I>&mdash;abysses into which all in its
+range drops up into the sky!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What!" I exclaimed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I know about them," said Larry.  "Wait!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Lugur had drunk much," went on Olaf.  "He was boastful.  The Russian
+pressed him to show this thing. After a while the red one went out and
+came back with a little golden box. He and the Russian went into the
+garden. I followed them. There was a <I>lille Hoj</I>&mdash;a mound&mdash;of stones
+in that garden on which grew flowers and trees.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Lugur pressed upon the box, and a spark no bigger than a sand grain
+leaped out and fell beside the stones. Lugur pressed again, and a blue
+light shot from the box and lighted on the spark. The spark that had
+been no bigger than a grain of sand grew and grew as the blue struck
+it. And then there was a sighing, a wind blew&mdash;and the stones and the
+flowers and the trees were not. They were <I>forsvinde</I>&mdash;vanished!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Then Lugur, who had been laughing, grew quickly sober; for he thrust
+the Russian back&mdash;far back. And soon down into the garden came
+tumbling the stones and the trees, but broken and shattered, and
+falling as though from a great height. And Lugur said that of <I>this</I>
+something they had much, for its making was a secret handed down by
+their own forefathers and not by the Ancient Ones.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"They feared to use it, he said, for a spark thrice as large as that
+he had used would have sent all that garden falling upward and might
+have opened a way to the outside before&mdash;he said just this&mdash;'<I>before
+we are ready to go out into it!</I>'
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The Russian questioned much, but Lugur sent for more drink and grew
+merrier and threatened him, and the Russian was silent through fear.
+Thereafter I listened when I could, and little more I learned, but
+that little enough. <I>Ja!</I> Lugur is hot for conquest; so Yolara and so
+the Council. They tire of it here and the Silent Ones make their minds
+not too easy, no, even though they jeer at them! And this they plan&mdash;to
+rule our world with their Shining Devil."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Norseman was silent for a moment; then voice deep, trembling&mdash;
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Trolldom is awake; Helvede crouches at Earth Gate whining to be
+loosed into a world already devil ridden! And we are but three!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I felt the blood drive out of my heart.  But Larry's was the fighting
+face of the O'Keefes of a thousand years. Rador glanced at him, arose,
+stepped through the curtains; returned swiftly with the Irishman's
+uniform.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Put it on," he said, bruskly; again fell back into his silence and
+whatever O'Keefe had been about to say was submerged in his wild and
+joyful whoop. He ripped from him glittering tunic and leg swathings.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Richard is himself again!" he shouted; and each garment as he donned
+it, fanned his old devil-may-care confidence to a higher flame. The
+last scrap of it on, he drew himself up before us.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Bow down, ye divils!" he cried.  "Bang your heads on the floor and do
+homage to Larry the First, Emperor of Great Britain, Autocrat of all
+Ireland, Scotland, England, and Wales, and adjacent waters and
+islands! Kneel, ye scuts, kneel."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Larry," I cried, "are you going crazy?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Not a bit of it," he said.  "I'm that and more if Comrade Marakinoff
+is on the level. Whoop! Bring forth the royal jewels an' put a whole
+new bunch of golden strings in Tara's harp an' down with the Sassenach
+forever! Whoop!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He did a wild jig.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Lord how good the old togs feel," he grinned.  "The touch of 'em has
+gone to my head. But it's straight stuff I'm telling you about my
+empire."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He sobered.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Not that it's not serious enough at that.  A lot that Olaf's told us
+I've surmised from hints dropped by Yolara. But I got the full key to
+it from the Red himself when he stopped me just before&mdash;before"&mdash;he
+reddened&mdash;"well, just before I acquired that brand-new brand of souse.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Maybe he had a hint&mdash;maybe he just surmised that I knew a lot more
+than I did. And he thought Yolara and I were going to be loving little
+turtle doves. Also he figured that Yolara had a lot more influence
+with the Unholy Fireworks than Lugur. Also that being a woman she
+could be more easily handled. All this being so, what was the logical
+thing for himself to do? Sure, you get me, Steve! Throw down Lugur and
+make an alliance with me! So <I>he</I> calmly offered to ditch the red dwarf
+if I would deliver Yolara. My reward from Russia was to be said
+emperorship! Can you beat it? Good Lord!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He went off into a perfect storm of laughter.  But not to me in the
+light of what Russia has done and has proved herself capable, did this
+thing seem at all absurd; rather in it I sensed the dawn of
+catastrophe colossal.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And yet," he was quiet enough now, "I'm a bit scared. They've got the
+<I>Keth</I> ray and those gravity-destroying bombs&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Gravity-destroying bombs!" I gasped.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Sure," he said.  "The little fairy that sent the trees and stones
+kiting up from Lugur's garden. Marakinoff licked his lips over them.
+They cut off gravity, just about as the shadow screens cut off
+light&mdash;and consequently whatever's in their range goes shooting just
+naturally up to the moon&mdash;
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"They get my goat, why deny it?" went on Larry.  "With them and the
+<I>Keth</I> and gentle invisible soldiers walking around assassinating at
+will&mdash;well, the worst Bolsheviki are only puling babes, eh, Doc?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I don't mind the Shining One," said O'Keefe, "one splash of a
+downtown New York high-pressure fire hose would do for it! But the
+others&mdash;are the goods! Believe me!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But for once O'Keefe's confidence found no echo within me. Not
+lightly, as he, did I hold that dread mystery, the Dweller&mdash;and a
+vision passed before me, a vision of an Apocalypse undreamed by the
+Evangelist.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A vision of the Shining One swirling into our world, a monstrous,
+glorious flaming pillar of incarnate, eternal Evil&mdash;of peoples
+passing through its radiant embrace into that hideous, unearthly
+life-in-death which I had seen enfold the sacrifices&mdash;of armies
+trembling into dancing atoms of diamond dust beneath the green ray's
+rhythmic death&mdash;of cities rushing out into space upon the wings of
+that other demoniac force which Olaf had watched at work&mdash;of a haunted
+world through which the assassins of the Dweller's court stole
+invisible, carrying with them every passion of hell&mdash;of the rallying
+to the Thing of every sinister soul and of the weak and the
+unbalanced, mystics and carnivores of humanity alike; for well I knew
+that, once loosed, not any nation could hold this devil-god for long
+and that swiftly its blight would spread!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And then a world that was all colossal reek of cruelty and terror; a
+welter of lusts, of hatreds and of torment; a chaos of horror in which
+the Dweller waxing ever stronger, the ghastly hordes of those it had
+consumed growing ever greater, wreaked its inhuman will!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At the last a ruined planet, a cosmic plague, spinning through the
+shuddering heavens; its verdant plains, its murmuring forests, its
+meadows and its mountains manned only by a countless crew of soulless,
+mindless dead-alive, their shells illumined with the Dweller's
+infernal glory&mdash;and flaming over this vampirized earth like a flare
+from some hell far, infinitely far, beyond the reach of man's farthest
+flung imagining&mdash;the Dweller!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Rador jumped to his feet; walked to the whispering globe. He bent over
+its base; did something with its mechanism; beckoned to us. The globe
+swam rapidly, faster than ever I had seen it before. A low humming
+arose, changed into a murmur, and then from it I heard Lugur's voice
+clearly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It is to be war then?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There was a chorus of assent&mdash;from the Council, I thought.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I will take the tall one named&mdash;<I>Larree</I>." It was the priestess's
+voice. "After the three <I>tal</I>, you may have him, Lugur, to do with as
+you will."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No!" it was Lugur's voice again, but with a rasp of anger. "All must
+die."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He shall die," again Yolara.  "But I would that first he see Lakla
+pass&mdash;and that she know what is to happen to him."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No!" I started&mdash;for this was Marakinoff.  "Now is no time, Yolara,
+for one's own desires. This is my counsel. At the end of the three
+<I>tal</I> Lakla will come for our answer. Your men will be in ambush and
+they will slay her and her escort quickly with the <I>Keth</I>. But not
+till that is done must the three be slain&mdash;and then quickly. With
+Lakla dead we shall go forth to the Silent Ones&mdash;and I promise you
+that I will find the way to destroy them!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It is well!" It was Lugur.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It <I>is</I> well, Yolara." It was a woman's voice, and I knew it for that
+old one of ravaged beauty. "Cast from your mind whatever is in it for
+this stranger&mdash;either of love or hatred. In this the Council is with
+Lugur and the man of wisdom."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There was a silence.  Then came the priestess's voice, sullen
+but&mdash;beaten.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It is well!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Let the three be taken now by Rador to the temple and given to the
+High Priest Sator"&mdash;thus Lugur&mdash;"until what we have planned comes to
+pass."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Rador gripped the base of the globe; abruptly it ceased its spinning.
+He turned to us as though to speak and even as he did so its bell note
+sounded peremptorily and on it the colour films began to creep at
+their accustomed pace.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I hear," the green dwarf whispered.  "They shall be taken there at
+once." The globe grew silent. He stepped toward us.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You have heard," he turned to us.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Not on your life, Rador," said Larry.  "Nothing doing!" And then in
+the Murian's own tongue. "We follow Lakla, Rador. And <I>you</I> lead the
+way." He thrust the pistol close to the green dwarf's side.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Rador did not move.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Of what use, <I>Larree</I>?" he said, quietly.  "Me you can slay&mdash;but in
+the end you will be taken. Life is not held so dear in Muria that my
+men out there or those others who can come quickly will let you
+by&mdash;even though you slay many. And in the end they will overpower
+you."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There was a trace of irresolution in O'Keefe's face.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And," added Rador, "if I let you go I dance with the Shining One&mdash;or
+worse!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+O'Keefe's pistol hand dropped.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You're a good sport, Rador, and far be it from me to get you in bad,"
+he said. "Take us to the temple&mdash;when we get there&mdash;well, your
+responsibility ends, doesn't it?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The green dwarf nodded; on his face a curious expression&mdash;was it
+relief? Or was it emotion higher than this?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He turned curtly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Follow," he said.  We passed out of that gay little pavilion that had
+come to be home to us even in this alien place. The guards stood at
+attention.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You, Sattoya, stand by the globe," he ordered one of them.  "Should
+the <I>Afyo Maie</I> ask, say that I am on my way with the strangers even
+as she has commanded."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+We passed through the lines to the <I>corial</I> standing like a great
+shell at the end of the runway leading into the green road.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Wait you here," he said curtly to the driver.  The green dwarf
+ascended to his seat, sought the lever and we swept on&mdash;on and out
+upon the glistening obsidian.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then Rador faced us and laughed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"<I>Larree</I>," he cried, "I love you for that spirit of yours! And did
+you think that Rador would carry to the temple prison a man who would
+take the chances of torment upon his own shoulders to save him? Or
+you, Goodwin, who saved him from the rotting death? For what did I
+take the <I>corial</I> or lift the veil of silence that I might hear what
+threatened you&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He swept the <I>corial</I> to the left, away from the temple approach.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I am done with Lugur and with Yolara and the Shining One!" cried
+Rador. "My hand is for you three and for Lakla and those to whom she
+is handmaiden!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The shell leaped forward; seemed to fly.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+[1] A <I>tal</I> in Muria is the equivalent of thirty hours of earth surface
+time.&mdash;W. T. G.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap22"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XXII
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+The Casting of the Shadow
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+Now we were racing down toward that last span whose ancientness had
+set it apart from all the other soaring arches. The shell's speed
+slackened; we approached warily.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We pass there?" asked O'Keefe.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The green dwarf nodded, pointing to the right where the bridge ended
+in a broad platform held high upon two gigantic piers, between which
+ran a spur from the glistening road. Platform and bridge were swarming
+with men-at-arms; they crowded the parapets, looking down upon us
+curiously but with no evidence of hostility. Rador drew a deep breath
+of relief.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We don't have to break our way through, then?" There was
+disappointment in the Irishman's voice.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No use, <I>Larree</I>!" Smiling, Rador stopped the <I>corial</I> just beneath
+the arch and beside one of the piers. "Now, listen well. They have had
+no warning, hence does Yolara still think us on the way to the temple.
+This is the gateway of the Portal&mdash;and the gateway is closed by the
+Shadow. Once I commanded here and I know its laws. This must I do&mdash;by
+craft persuade Serku, the keeper of the gateway, to lift the Shadow;
+or raise it myself. And that will be hard and it may well be that in
+the struggle life will be stripped of us all. Yet is it better to die
+fighting than to dance with the Shining One!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He swept the shell around the pier.  Opened a wide plaza paved with
+the volcanic glass, but black as that down which we had sped from the
+chamber of the Moon Pool. It shone like a mirrored lakelet of jet; on
+each side of it arose what at first glance seemed towering bulwarks of
+the same ebon obsidian; at second, revealed themselves as structures
+hewn and set in place by men; polished faces pierced by dozens of
+high, narrow windows.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Down each facade a stairway fell, broken by small landings on which a
+door opened; they dropped to a broad ledge of greyish stone edging the
+lip of this midnight pool and upon it also fell two wide flights from
+either side of the bridge platform. Along all four stairways the
+guards were ranged; and here and there against the ledge stood the
+shells&mdash;in a curiously comforting resemblance to parked motors in our
+own world.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The sombre walls bulked high; curved and ended in two obelisked
+pillars from which, like a tremendous curtain, stretched a barrier of
+that tenebrous gloom which, though weightless as shadow itself, I now
+knew to be as impenetrable as the veil between life and death. In this
+murk, unlike all others I had seen, I sensed movement, a quivering, a
+tremor constant and rhythmic; not to be seen, yet caught by some
+subtle sense; as though through it beat a swift pulse of&mdash;black
+light.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The green dwarf turned the <I>corial</I> slowly to the edge at the right;
+crept cautiously on toward where, not more than a hundred feet from
+the barrier, a low, wide entrance opened in the fort. Guarding its
+threshold stood two guards, armed with broadswords, double-handed,
+terminating in a wide lunette mouthed with murderous fangs. These they
+raised in salute and through the portal strode a dwarf huge as Rador,
+dressed as he and carrying only the poniard that was the badge of
+office of Muria's captainry.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The green dwarf swept the shell expertly against the ledge; leaped
+out.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Greeting, Serku!" he answered.  "I was but looking for the <I>coria</I> of
+Lakla."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Lakla!" exclaimed Serku.  "Why, the handmaiden passed with her <I>Akka</I>
+nigh a <I>va</I> ago!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Passed!" The astonishment of the green dwarf was so real that half
+was I myself deceived. "You let her <I>pass</I>?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Certainly I let her pass&mdash;" But under the green dwarf's stern gaze
+the truculence of the guardian faded. "Why should I not?" he asked,
+apprehensively.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Because Yolara commanded otherwise," answered Rador, coldly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"There came no command to me."  Little beads of sweat stood out on
+Serku's forehead.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Serku," interrupted the green dwarf swiftly, "truly is my heart wrung
+for you. This is a matter of Yolara and of Lugur and the Council; yes,
+even of the Shining One! And the message was sent&mdash;and the fate,
+mayhap, of all Muria rested upon your obedience and the return of
+Lakla with these strangers to the Council. Now truly is my heart
+wrung, for there are few I would less like to see dance with the
+Shining One than you, Serku," he ended, softly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Livid now was the gateway's guardian, his great frame shaking.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Come with me and speak to Yolara," he pleaded.  "There came no
+message&mdash;tell her&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Wait, Serku!" There was a thrill as of inspiration in Rador's voice.
+"This <I>corial</I> is of the swiftest&mdash;Lakla's are of the slowest. With
+Lakla scarce a <I>va</I> ahead we can reach her before she enters the
+Portal. Lift you the Shadow&mdash;we will bring her back, and this will I
+do for you, Serku."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Doubt tempered Serku's panic.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why not go alone, Rador, leaving the strangers here with me?" he
+asked&mdash;and I thought not unreasonably.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Nay, then." The green dwarf was brusk.  "Lakla will not return unless
+I carry to her these men as evidence of our good faith. Come&mdash;we will
+speak to Yolara and she shall judge you&mdash;" He started away&mdash;but Serku
+caught his arm.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No, Rador, no!" he whispered, again panic-stricken.  "Go you&mdash;as you
+will. But bring her back! Speed, Rador!" He sprang toward the
+entrance. "I lift the Shadow&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Into the green dwarf's poise crept a curious, almost a listening,
+alertness. He leaped to Serku's side.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I go with you," I heard.  "Some little I can tell you&mdash;" They were
+gone.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Fine work!" muttered Larry.  "Nominated for a citizen of Ireland when
+we get out of this, one Rador of&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Shadow trembled&mdash;shuddered into nothingness; the obelisked
+outposts that had held it framed a ribbon of roadway, high banked with
+verdure, vanishing in green distances.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And then from the portal sped a shriek, a death cry!  It cut through
+the silence of the ebon pit like a whimpering arrow. Before it had
+died, down the stairways came pouring the guards. Those at the
+threshold raised their swords and peered within. Abruptly Rador was
+between them. One dropped his hilt and gripped him&mdash;the green dwarf's
+poniard flashed and was buried in his throat. Down upon Rador's head
+swept the second blade. A flame leaped from O'Keefe's hand and the
+sword seemed to fling itself from its wielder's grasp&mdash;another flash
+and the soldier crumpled. Rador threw himself into the shell, darted
+to the high seat&mdash;and straight between the pillars of the Shadow we
+flew!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There came a crackling, a darkness of vast wings flinging down upon
+us. The <I>corial's</I> flight was checked as by a giant's hand. The shell
+swerved sickeningly; there was an oddly metallic splintering; it
+quivered; shot ahead. Dizzily I picked myself up and looked behind.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Shadow had fallen&mdash;but too late, a bare instant too late.  And
+shrinking as we fled from it, still it seemed to strain like some
+fettered Afrit from Eblis, throbbing with wrath, seeking with every
+malign power it possessed to break its bonds and pursue. Not until
+long after were we to know that it had been the dying hand of Serku,
+groping out of oblivion, that had cast it after us as a fowler upon an
+escaping bird.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Snappy work, Rador!" It was Larry speaking.  "But they cut the end
+off your bus all right!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A full quarter of the hindward whorl was gone, sliced off cleanly.
+Rador noted it with anxious eyes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That is bad," he said, "but not too bad perhaps.  All depends upon
+how closely Lugur and his men can follow us."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He raised a hand to O'Keefe in salute.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But to you, <I>Larree</I>, I owe my life&mdash;not even the <I>Keth</I> could have
+been as swift to save me as that death flame of yours&mdash;friend!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Irishman waved an airy hand.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Serku"&mdash;the green dwarf drew from his girdle the bloodstained
+poniard&mdash;"Serku I was forced to slay. Even as he raised the Shadow the
+globe gave the alarm. Lugur follows with twice ten times ten of his
+best&mdash;" He hesitated. "Though we have escaped the Shadow it has taken
+toll of our swiftness. May we reach the Portal before it closes upon
+Lakla&mdash;but if we do not&mdash;" He paused again. "Well&mdash;I know a way&mdash;but
+it is not one I am gay to follow&mdash;no!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He snapped open the aperture that held the ball flaming within the
+dark crystal; peered at it anxiously. I crept to the torn end of the
+<I>corial</I>. The edges were crumbling, disintegrated. They powdered in my
+fingers like dust. Mystified still, I crept back where Larry, sheer
+happiness pouring from him, was whistling softly and polishing up his
+automatic. His gaze fell upon Olaf's grim, sad face and softened.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Buck up, Olaf!" he said.  "We've got a good fighting chance.  Once we
+link up with Lakla and her crowd I'm betting that we get your
+wife&mdash;never doubt it! The baby&mdash;" he hesitated awkwardly. The
+Norseman's eyes filled; he stretched a hand to the O'Keefe.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The <I>Yndling</I>&mdash;she is of the <I>de Dode</I>," he half whispered, "of the
+blessed dead. For her I have no fear and for her vengeance will be
+given me. <I>Ja!</I> But my Helma&mdash;she is of the dead-alive&mdash;like those we
+saw whirling like leaves in the light of the Shining Devil&mdash;and I
+would that she too were of <I>de Dode</I>&mdash;and at rest. I do not know how
+to fight the Shining Devil&mdash;no!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+His bitter despair welled up in his voice.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Olaf," Larry's voice was gentle.  "We'll come out on top&mdash;I know it.
+Remember one thing. All this stuff that seems so strange and&mdash;and,
+well, sort of supernatural, is just a lot of tricks we're not hep to
+as yet. Why, Olaf, suppose you took a Fijian when the war was on and
+set him suddenly down in London with autos rushing past, sirens
+blowing, Archies popping, a dozen enemy planes dropping bombs, and the
+searchlights shooting all over the sky&mdash;wouldn't he think he was among
+thirty-third degree devils in some exclusive circle of hell? Sure he
+would! And yet everything he saw would be natural&mdash;just as natural as
+all this is, once we get the answer to it. Not that we're Fijians, of
+course, but the principle is the same."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Norseman considered this; nodded gravely.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"<I>Ja!</I>" he answered at last.  "And at least we can fight.  That is why
+I have turned to Thor of the battles, <I>Ja!</I> And <I>one</I> have I hope in for
+mine Helma&mdash;the white maiden. Since I have turned to the old gods it
+has been made clear to me that I shall slay Lugur and that the <I>Heks</I>,
+the evil witch Yolara, shall also die. But I would talk with the white
+maiden."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"All right," said Larry, "but just don't be afraid of what you don't
+understand. There's another thing"&mdash;he hesitated, nervously&mdash;"there's
+another thing that may startle you a bit when we meet up with
+Lakla&mdash;her&mdash;er&mdash;frogs!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Like the frog-woman we saw on the wall?" asked Olaf.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes," went on Larry, rapidly.  "It's this way&mdash;I figure that the
+frogs grow rather large where she lives, and they're a bit different
+too. Well, Lakla's got a lot of 'em trained. Carry spears and clubs
+and all that junk&mdash;just like trained seals or monkeys or so on in the
+circus. Probably a custom of the place. Nothing queer about that,
+Olaf. Why people have all kinds of pets&mdash;armadillos and snakes and
+rabbits, kangaroos and elephants and tigers."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Remembering how the frog-woman had stuck in Larry's mind from the
+outset, I wondered whether all this was not more to convince himself
+than Olaf.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why, I remember a nice girl in Paris who had four pet pythons&mdash;" he
+went on.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But I listened no more, for now I was sure of my surmise. The road had
+begun to thrust itself through high-flung, sharply pinnacled masses
+and rounded outcroppings of rock on which clung patches of the amber
+moss.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The trees had utterly vanished, and studding the moss-carpeted plains
+were only clumps of a willowy shrub from which hung, like grapes,
+clusters of white waxen blooms. The light too had changed; gone were
+the dancing, sparkling atoms and the silver had faded to a soft,
+almost ashen greyness. Ahead of us marched a rampart of coppery cliffs
+rising, like all these mountainous walls we had seen, into the
+immensities of haze. Something long drifting in my subconsciousness
+turned to startled realization. The speed of the shell was slackening!
+The aperture containing the ionizing mechanism was still open; I
+glanced within, The whirling ball of fire was not dimmed, but its
+coruscations, instead of pouring down through the cylinder, swirled
+and eddied and shot back as though trying to re-enter their source.
+Rador nodded grimly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The Shadow takes its toll," he said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+We topped a rise&mdash;Larry gripped my arm.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Look!" he cried, and pointed.  Far, far behind us, so far that the
+road was but a glistening thread, a score of shining points came
+speeding.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Lugur and his men," said Rador.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Can't you step on her?" asked Larry.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Step on her?" repeated the green dwarf, puzzled.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Give her more speed; push her," explained O'Keefe.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Rador looked about him.  The coppery ramparts were close, not more
+than three or four miles distant; in front of us the plain lifted in a
+long rolling swell, and up this the <I>corial</I> essayed to go&mdash;with a
+terrifying lessening of speed. Faintly behind us came shootings, and
+we knew that Lugur drew close. Nor anywhere was there sign of Lakla
+nor her frogmen.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Now we were half-way to the crest; the shell barely crawled and from
+beneath it came a faint hissing; it quivered, and I knew that its base
+was no longer held above the glassy surface but rested on it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"One last chance!" exclaimed Rador.  He pressed upon the control lever
+and wrenched it from its socket. Instantly the sparkling ball
+expanded, whirling with prodigious rapidity and sending a cascade of
+coruscations into the cylinder. The shell rose; leaped through the
+air; the dark crystal split into fragments; the fiery ball dulled;
+died&mdash;but upon the impetus of that last thrust we reached the crest.
+Poised there for a moment, I caught a glimpse of the road dropping
+down the side of an enormous moss-covered, bowl-shaped valley whose
+sharply curved sides ended abruptly at the base of the towering
+barrier.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then down the steep, powerless to guide or to check the shell, we
+plunged in a meteor rush straight for the annihilating adamantine
+breasts of the cliffs!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Now the quick thinking of Larry's air training came to our aid.  As
+the rampart reared close he threw himself upon Rador; hurled him and
+himself against the side of the flying whorl. Under the shock the
+finely balanced machine swerved from its course. It struck the soft,
+low bank of the road, shot high in air, bounded on through the thick
+carpeting, whirled like a dervish and fell upon its side. Shot from
+it, we rolled for yards, but the moss saved broken bones or serious
+bruise.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Quick!" cried the green dwarf.  He seized an arm, dragged me to my
+feet, began running to the cliff base not a hundred feet away. Beside
+us raced O'Keefe and Olaf. At our left was the black road. It stopped
+abruptly&mdash;was cut off by a slab of polished crimson stone a hundred
+feet high, and as wide, set within the coppery face of the barrier. On
+each side of it stood pillars, cut from the living rock and immense,
+almost, as those which held the rainbow veil of the Dweller. Across
+its face weaved unnameable carvings&mdash;but I had no time for more than a
+glance. The green dwarf gripped my arm again.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Quick!" he cried again.  "The handmaiden has passed!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At the right of the Portal ran a low wall of shattered rock. Over this
+we raced like rabbits. Hidden behind it was a narrow path. Crouching,
+Rador in the lead, we sped along it; three hundred, four hundred yards
+we raced&mdash;and the path ended in a <I>cul de sac</I>! To our ears was borne
+a louder shouting.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The first of the pursuing shells had swept over the lip of the great
+bowl, poised for a moment as we had and then began a cautious descent.
+Within it, scanning the slopes, I saw Lugur.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"A little closer and I'll get him!" whispered Larry viciously.  He
+raised his pistol.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+His hand was caught in a mighty grip; Rador, eyes blazing, stood
+beside him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No!" rasped the green dwarf.  He heaved a shoulder against one of the
+boulders that formed the pocket. It rocked aside, revealing a slit.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"In!" ordered he, straining against the weight of the stone. O'Keefe
+slipped through. Olaf at his back, I following. With a lightning leap
+the dwarf was beside me, the huge rock missing him by a hair breadth
+as it swung into place!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+We were in Cimmerian darkness.  I felt for my pocket-flash and
+recalled with distress that I had left it behind with my medicine kit
+when we fled from the gardens. But Rador seemed to need no light.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Grip hands!" he ordered.  We crept, single file, holding to each
+other like children, through the black. At last the green dwarf
+paused.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Await me here," he whispered.  "Do not move.  And for your lives&mdash;be
+silent!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And he was gone.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap23"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XXIII
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+Dragon Worm and Moss Death
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+For a small eternity&mdash;to me at least&mdash;we waited.  Then as silent as
+ever the green dwarf returned. "It is well," he said, some of the
+strain gone from his voice. "Grip hands again, and follow."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Wait a bit, Rador," this was Larry.  "Does Lugur know this side
+entrance? If he does, why not let Olaf and me go back to the opening
+and pick them off as they come in? We could hold the lot&mdash;and in the
+meantime you and Goodwin could go after Lakla for help."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Lugur knows the secret of the Portal&mdash;if he dare use it," answered
+the captain, with a curious indirection. "And now that they have
+challenged the Silent Ones I think he <I>will</I> dare. Also, he will find
+our tracks&mdash;and it may be that he knows this hidden way."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, for God's sake!" O'Keefe's appalled bewilderment was almost
+ludicrous. "If <I>he</I> knows all that, and <I>you</I> knew all that, why
+didn't you let me click him when I had the chance?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"<I>Larree</I>," the green dwarf was oddly humble.  "It seemed good to me,
+too&mdash;at first. And then I heard a command, heard it clearly, to stop
+you&mdash;that Lugur die not now, lest a greater vengeance fail!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Command?  From whom?" The Irishman's voice distilled out of the
+blackness the very essence of bewilderment.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I thought," Rador was whispering&mdash;"I thought it came from the Silent
+Ones!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Superstition!" groaned O'Keefe in utter exasperation. "Always
+superstition! What can you do against it!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Never mind, Rador." His sense of humour came to his aid.  "It's too
+late now, anyway. Where do we go from here, old dear?" he laughed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We tread the path of one I am not fain to meet," answered Rador.
+"But if meet we must, point the death tubes at the pale shield he
+bears upon his throat and send the flame into the flower of cold fire
+that is its centre&mdash;nor look into his eyes!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Again Larry gasped, and I with him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It's getting too deep for me, Doc," he muttered dejectedly.  "Can you
+make head or tail of it?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No," I answered, shortly enough, "but Rador fears something and
+that's his description of it."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Sure," he replied, "only it's a code I don't understand." I could
+feel his grin. "All right for the flower of cold fire, Rador, and I
+won't look into his eyes," he went on cheerfully. "But hadn't we
+better be moving?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Come!" said the soldier; again hand in hand we went blindly on.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+O'Keefe was muttering to himself.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Flower of cold fire!  Don't look into his eyes!  Some joint!
+Damned superstition." Then he chuckled and carolled, softly:
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+    "Oh, mama, pin a cold rose on me;<BR>
+    Two young frog-men are in love with me;<BR>
+    Shut my eyes so I can't see."<BR>
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Sh!" Rador was warning; he began whispering.  "For half a <I>va</I> we go
+along a way of death. From its peril we pass into another against
+whose dangers I can guard you. But in part this is in view of the
+roadway and it may be that Lugur will see us. If so, we must fight as
+best we can. If we pass these two roads safely, then is the way to the
+Crimson Sea clear, nor need we fear Lugur nor any. And there is
+another thing&mdash;that Lugur does not know&mdash;when he opens the Portal the
+Silent Ones will hear and Lakla and the <I>Akka</I> will be swift to greet
+its opener."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Rador," I asked, "how know <I>you</I> all this?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The handmaiden is my own sister's child," he answered quietly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+O'Keefe drew a long breath.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Uncle," he remarked casually in English, "meet the man who's going to
+be your nephew!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And thereafter he never addressed the green dwarf except by the
+avuncular title, which Rador, humorously enough, apparently conceived
+to be one of respectful endearment.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+For me a light broke.  Plain now was the reason for his foreknowledge
+of Lakla's appearance at the feast where Larry had so narrowly escaped
+Yolara's spells; plain the determining factor that had cast his lot
+with ours, and my confidence, despite his discourse of mysterious
+perils, experienced a remarkable quickening.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Speculation as to the marked differences in pigmentation and
+appearance of niece and uncle was dissipated by my consciousness that
+we were now moving in a dim half-light. We were in a fairly wide
+tunnel. Not far ahead the gleam filtered, pale yellow like sunlight
+sifting through the leaves of autumn poplars. And as we drove closer
+to its source I saw that it did indeed pass through a leafy screen
+hanging over the passage end. This Rador drew aside cautiously,
+beckoned us and we stepped through.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It appeared to be a tunnel cut through soft green mould. Its base was
+a flat strip of pathway a yard wide from which the walls curved out in
+perfect cylindrical form, smoothed and evened with utmost nicety.
+Thirty feet wide they were at their widest, then drew toward each
+other with no break in their symmetry; they did not close. Above was,
+roughly, a ten-foot rift, ragged edged, through which poured light
+like that in the heart of pale amber, a buttercup light shot through
+with curiously evanescent bronze shadows.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Quick!" commanded Rador, uneasily, and set off at a sharp pace.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Now, my eyes accustomed to the strange light, I saw that the tunnel's
+walls were of moss. In them I could trace fringe leaf and curly leaf,
+pressings of enormous bladder caps (Physcomitrium), immense splashes
+of what seemed to be the scarlet-crested Cladonia, traceries of huge
+moss veils, crushings of teeth (peristome) gigantic; spore cases brown
+and white, saffron and ivory, hot vermilions and cerulean blues,
+pressed into an astounding mosaic by some titanic force.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Hurry!" It was Rador calling.  I had lagged behind.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He quickened the pace to a half-run; we were climbing; panting.  The
+amber light grew stronger; the rift above us wider. The tunnel curved;
+on the left a narrow cleft appeared. The green dwarf leaped toward it,
+thrust us within, pushed us ahead of him up a steep rocky
+fissure&mdash;well-nigh, indeed, a chimney. Up and up this we scrambled
+until my lungs were bursting and I thought I could climb no more. The
+crevice ended; we crawled out and sank, even Rador, upon a little
+leaf-carpeted clearing circled by lacy tree ferns.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Gasping, legs aching, we lay prone, relaxed, drawing back strength and
+breath. Rador was first to rise. Thrice he bent low as in homage,
+then&mdash;
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Give thanks to the Silent Ones&mdash;for their power has been over us!" he
+exclaimed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dimly I wondered what he meant.  Something about the fern leaf at
+which I had been staring aroused me. I leaped to my feet and ran to
+its base. This was no fern, no! It was fern <I>moss</I>! The largest of its
+species I had ever found in tropic jungles had not been more than two
+inches high, and this was&mdash;twenty feet! The scientific fire I had
+experienced in the tunnel returned uncontrollable. I parted the
+fronds, gazed out&mdash;
+</P>
+
+<P>
+My outlook commanded a vista of miles&mdash;and that vista! A <I>Fata
+Morgana</I> of plantdom! A land of flowered sorcery!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Forests of tree-high mosses spangled over with blooms of every
+conceivable shape and colour; cataracts and clusters, avalanches and
+nets of blossoms in pastels, in dulled metallics, in gorgeous
+flamboyant hues; some of them phosphorescent and shining like living
+jewels; some sparkling as though with dust of opals, of sapphires, of
+rubies and topazes and emeralds; thickets of convolvuli like the
+trumpets of the seven archangels of Mara, king of illusion, which are
+shaped from the bows of splendours arching his highest heaven!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And moss veils like banners of a marching host of Titans; pennons and
+bannerets of the sunset; gonfalons of the Jinn; webs of faery;
+oriflammes of elfland!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Springing up through that polychromatic flood myriads of
+pedicles&mdash;slender and straight as spears, or soaring in spirals, or
+curving with undulations gracile as the white serpents of Tanit in
+ancient Carthaginian groves&mdash;and all surmounted by a fantasy of spore
+cases in shapes of minaret and turret, domes and spires and cones,
+caps of Phrygia and bishops' mitres, shapes grotesque and
+unnameable&mdash;shapes delicate and lovely!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They hung high poised, nodding and swaying&mdash;like goblins hovering over
+<I>Titania's</I> court; cacophony of Cathay accenting the <I>Flower Maiden</I>
+music of "Parsifal"; <I>bizarrerie</I> of the angled, fantastic beings that
+people the Javan pantheon watching a bacchanal of houris in Mohammed's
+paradise!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Down upon it all poured the amber light; dimmed in the distances by
+huge, drifting darkenings lurid as the flying mantles of the
+hurricane.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And through the light, like showers of jewels, myriads of birds,
+darting, dipping, soaring, and still other myriads of gigantic,
+shimmering butterflies.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A sound came to us, reaching out like the first faint susurrus of the
+incoming tide; sighing, sighing, growing stronger&mdash;now its mournful
+whispering quivered all about us, shook us&mdash;then passing like a
+Presence, died away in far distances.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The Portal!" said Rador.  "Lugur has entered!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He, too, parted the fronds and peered back along our path.  Peering
+with him we saw the barrier through which we had come stretching
+verdure-covered walls for miles three or more away. Like a mole burrow
+in a garden stretched the trail of the tunnel; here and there we could
+look down within the rift at its top; far off in it I thought I saw
+the glint of spears.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"They come!" whispered Rador.  "Quick!  We must not meet them here!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And then&mdash;
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Holy St. Brigid!" gasped Larry.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+From the rift in the tunnel's continuation, nigh a mile beyond the
+cleft through which we had fled, lifted a crown of horns&mdash;of
+tentacles&mdash;erect, alert, of mottled gold and crimson; lifted
+higher&mdash;and from a monstrous scarlet head beneath them blazed two
+enormous, obloid eyes, their depths wells of purplish phosphorescence;
+higher still&mdash;noseless, earless, chinless; a livid, worm mouth from
+which a slender scarlet tongue leaped like playing flames! Slowly it
+rose&mdash;its mighty neck cuirassed with gold and scarlet scales from
+whose polished surfaces the amber light glinted like flakes of fire;
+and under this neck shimmered something like a palely luminous silvery
+shield, guarding it. The head of horror mounted&mdash;and in the shield's
+centre, full ten feet across, glowing, flickering, shining
+out&mdash;coldly, was a rose of white flame, a "flower of cold fire" even
+as Rador had said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Now swiftly the Thing upreared, standing like a scaled tower a hundred
+feet above the rift, its eyes scanning that movement I had seen along
+the course of its lair. There was a hissing; the crown of horns fell,
+whipped and writhed like the tentacles of an octopus; the towering
+length dropped back.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Quick!" gasped Rador and through the fern moss, along the path and
+down the other side of the steep we raced.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Behind us for an instant there was a rushing as of a torrent; a
+far-away, faint, agonized screaming&mdash;silence!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No fear <I>now</I> from those who followed," whispered the green dwarf,
+pausing.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Sainted St. Patrick!" O'Keefe gazed ruminatively at his automatic.
+"An' he expected me to kill <I>that</I> with this. Well, as Fergus O'Connor
+said when they sent him out to slaughter a wild bull with a potato
+knife: 'Ye'll niver rayilize how I appreciate the confidence ye show
+in me!'
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What was it, Doc?" he asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The dragon worm!" Rador said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It was Helvede Orm&mdash;the hell worm!" groaned Olaf.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"There you go again&mdash;" blazed Larry; but the green dwarf was hurrying
+down the path and swiftly we followed, Larry muttering, Olaf mumbling,
+behind me.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The green dwarf was signalling us for caution.  He pointed through a
+break in a grove of fifty-foot cedar mosses&mdash;we were skirting the
+glassy road! Scanning it we found no trace of Lugur and wondered
+whether he too had seen the worm and had fled. Quickly we passed on;
+drew away from the <I>coria</I> path. The mosses began to thin; less and
+less they grew, giving way to low clumps that barely offered us
+shelter. Unexpectedly another screen of fern moss stretched before us.
+Slowly Rador made his way through it and stood hesitating.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The scene in front of us was oddly weird and depressing; in some
+indefinable way&mdash;dreadful. Why, I could not tell, but the impression
+was plain; I shrank from it. Then, self-analyzing, I wondered whether
+it could be the uncanny resemblance the heaps of curious mossy fungi
+scattered about had to beast and bird&mdash;yes, and to man&mdash;that was the
+cause of it. Our path ran between a few of them. To the left they were
+thick. They were viridescent, almost metallic hued&mdash;verd-antique.
+Curiously indeed were they like distorted images of dog and deerlike
+forms, of birds&mdash;of <I>dwarfs</I> and here and there the simulacra of the
+giant frogs! Spore cases, yellowish green, as large as mitres and much
+resembling them in shape protruded from the heaps. My repulsion grew
+into a distinct nausea.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Rador turned to us a face whiter far than that with which he had
+looked upon the dragon worm.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Now for your lives," he whispered, "tread softly here as I do&mdash;and
+speak not at all!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He stepped forward on tiptoe, slowly with utmost caution. We crept
+after him; passed the heaps beside the path&mdash;and as I passed my skin
+crept and I shrank and saw the others shrink too with that unnameable
+loathing; nor did the green dwarf pause until he had reached the brow
+of a small hillock a hundred yards beyond. And he was trembling.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Now what are we up against?" grumbled O'Keefe.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The green dwarf stretched a hand; stiffened; gazed over to the left of
+us beyond a lower hillock upon whose broad crest lay a file of the
+moss shapes. They fringed it, their mitres having a grotesque
+appearance of watching what lay below. The glistening road lay
+there&mdash;and from it came a shout. A dozen of the <I>coria</I> clustered,
+filled with Lugur's men and in one of them Lugur himself, laughing
+wickedly!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There was a rush of soldiers and up the low hillock raced a score of
+them toward us.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Run!" shouted Rador.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Not much!" grunted Larry&mdash;and took swift aim at Lugur. The automatic
+spat: Olaf's echoed. Both bullets went wild, for Lugur, still
+laughing, threw himself into the protection of the body of his shell.
+But following the shots, from the file of moss heaps on the crest,
+came a series of muffled explosions. Under the pistol's concussions
+the mitred caps had burst and instantly all about the running soldiers
+grew a cloud of tiny, glistening white spores&mdash;like a little cloud of
+puff-ball dust many times magnified. Through this cloud I glimpsed
+their faces, stricken with agony.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Some turned to fly, but before they could take a second step stood
+rigid.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The spore cloud drifted and eddied about them; rained down on their
+heads and half bare breasts, covered their garments&mdash;and swiftly they
+began to change! Their features grew indistinct&mdash;merged! The
+glistening white spores that covered them turned to a pale yellow,
+grew greenish, spread and swelled, darkened. The eyes of one of the
+soldiers glinted for a moment&mdash;and then were covered by the swift
+growth!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Where but a few moments before had been men were only grotesque heaps,
+swiftly melting, swiftly rounding into the semblance of the mounds
+that lay behind us&mdash;and already beginning to take on their gleam of
+ancient viridescence!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Irishman was gripping my arm fiercely; the pain brought me back to
+my senses.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Olaf's right," he gasped.  "This <I>is</I> hell!  I'm sick." And he was,
+frankly and without restraint. Lugur and his others awakened from
+their nightmare; piled into the <I>coria</I>, wheeled, raced away.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"On!" said Rador thickly. "Two perils have we passed&mdash;the Silent Ones
+watch over us!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Soon we were again among the familiar and so unfamiliar moss giants.
+I knew what I had seen and this time Larry could not call
+me&mdash;superstitious. In the jungles of Borneo I had examined that other
+swiftly developing fungus which wreaks the vengeance of some of the
+hill tribes upon those who steal their women; gripping with its
+microscopic hooks into the flesh; sending quick, tiny rootlets through
+the skin down into the capillaries, sucking life and thriving and
+never to be torn away until the living thing it clings to has been
+sapped dry. Here was but another of the species in which the
+development's rate was incredibly accelerated. Some of this I tried to
+explain to O'Keefe as we sped along, reassuring him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But they turned to moss before our eyes!" he said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Again I explained, patiently.  But he seemed to derive no comfort at
+all from my assurances that the phenomena were entirely natural and,
+aside from their more terrifying aspect, of peculiar interest to the
+botanist.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I know," was all he would say.  "But suppose one of those things had
+burst while we were going through&mdash;God!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I was wondering how I could with comparative safety study the fungus
+when Rador stopped; in front of us was again the road ribbon.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Now is all danger passed," he said.  "The way lies open and Lugur has
+fled&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There was a flash from the road.  It passed me like a little lariat of
+light. It struck Larry squarely between the eyes, spread over his face
+and drew itself within!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Down!" cried Rador, and hurled me to the ground.  My head struck
+sharply; I felt myself grow faint; Olaf fell beside me; I saw the
+green dwarf draw down the O'Keefe; he collapsed limply, face still,
+eyes staring. A shout&mdash;and from the roadway poured a host of Lugur's
+men; I could hear Lugur bellowing.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There came a rush of little feet; soft, fragrant draperies brushed my
+face; dimly I watched Lakla bend over the Irishman.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She straightened&mdash;her arms swept out and the writhing vine, with its
+tendrilled heads of ruby bloom, five flames of misty incandescence,
+leaped into the faces of the soldiers now close upon us. It darted at
+their throats, striking, coiling, and striking again; coiling and
+uncoiling with incredible rapidity and flying from leverage points of
+throats, of faces, of breasts like a spring endowed with
+consciousness, volition and hatred&mdash;and those it struck stood rigid as
+stone with faces masks of inhuman fear and anguish; and those still
+unstricken fled.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Another rush of feet&mdash;and down upon Lugur's forces poured the
+frog-men, their booming giant leading, thrusting with their lances,
+tearing and rending with talons and fangs and spurs.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Against that onslaught the dwarfs could not stand.  They raced for the
+shells; I heard Lugur shouting, menacingly&mdash;and then Lakla's voice,
+pealing like a golden bugle of wrath.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Go, Lugur!" she cried.  "Go&mdash;that you and Yolara and your Shining One
+may die together! Death for you, Lugur&mdash;death for you all! Remember
+Lugur&mdash;death!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There was a great noise within my head&mdash;no matter, Lakla was
+here&mdash;Lakla here&mdash;but too late&mdash;Lugur had outplayed us; moss death nor
+dragon worm had frightened him away&mdash;he had crept back to trap
+us&mdash;Lakla had come too late&mdash;Larry was dead&mdash;Larry! But I had heard no
+banshee wailing&mdash;and Larry had said he could not die without that
+warning&mdash;no, Larry was not dead. So ran the turbulent current of my
+mind.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A horny arm lifted me; two enormous, oddly gentle saucer eyes were
+staring into mine; my head rolled; I caught a glimpse of the Golden
+Girl kneeling beside the O'Keefe.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The noise in my head grew thunderous&mdash;was carrying me away on its
+thunder&mdash;swept me into soft, blind darkness.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap24"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XXIV
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+The Crimson Sea
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+I was in the heart of a rose pearl, swinging, swinging; no, I was in a
+rosy dawn cloud, pendulous in space. Consciousness flooded me, in
+reality I was in the arms of one of the man frogs, carrying me as
+though I were a babe, and we were passing through some place suffused
+with glow enough like heart of pearl or dawn cloud to justify my
+awakening vagaries.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Just ahead walked Lakla in earnest talk with Rador, and content enough
+was I for a time to watch her. She had thrown off the metallic robes;
+her thick braids of golden brown hair with their flame glints of
+bronze were twined in a high coronal meshed in silken net of green;
+little clustering curls escaped from it, clinging to the nape of the
+proud white neck, shyly kissing it. From her shoulders fell a loose,
+sleeveless garment of shimmering green belted with a high golden
+girdle; skirt folds dropping barely below the knees.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She had cast aside her buskins, too, and the slender, high-arched feet
+were sandalled. Between the buckled edges of her kirtle I caught
+gleams of translucent ivory as exquisitely moulded, as delectably
+rounded, as those revealed so naively beneath the hem.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Something was knocking at the doors of my consciousness&mdash;some tragic
+thing. What was it? Larry! Where was Larry? I remembered; raised my
+head abruptly; saw at my side another frog-man carrying O'Keefe, and
+behind him, Olaf, step instinct with grief, following like some
+faithful, wistful dog who has lost a loved master. Upon my movement
+the monster bearing me halted, looked down inquiringly, uttered a
+deep, booming note that held the quality of interrogation.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Lakla turned; the clear, golden eyes were sorrowful, the sweet mouth
+drooping; but her loveliness, her gentleness, that undefinable
+synthesis of all her tender self that seemed always to circle her with
+an atmosphere of lucid normality, lulled my panic.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Drink this," she commanded, holding a small vial to my lips.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Its contents were aromatic, unfamiliar but astonishingly effective,
+for as soon as they passed my lips I felt a surge of strength;
+consciousness was restored.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Larry!" I cried.  "Is he dead?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Lakla shook her head; her eyes were troubled.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No," she said; "but he is like one dead&mdash;and yet unlike&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Put me down," I demanded of my bearer.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He tightened his hold; round eyes upon the Golden Girl. She spoke&mdash;in
+sonorous, reverberating monosyllables&mdash;and I was set upon my feet; I
+leaped to the side of the Irishman. He lay limp, with a disquieting,
+abnormal sequacity, as though every muscle were utterly flaccid; the
+antithesis of the <I>rigor mortis</I>, thank God, but terrifyingly toward
+the other end of its arc; a syncope I had never known. The flesh was
+stone cold; the pulse barely perceptible, long intervalled; the
+respiration undiscoverable; the pupils of the eyes were enormously
+dilated; it was as though life had been drawn from every nerve.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"A light flashed from the road.  It struck his face and seemed to sink
+in," I said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I saw," answered Rador; "but what it was I know not; and I thought I
+knew all the weapons of our rulers." He glanced at me curiously. "Some
+talk there has been that the stranger who came with you, Double
+Tongue, was making new death tools for Lugur," he ended.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Marakinoff!  The Russian at work already in this storehouse of
+devastating energies, fashioning the weapons for his plots! The
+Apocalyptic vision swept back upon me&mdash;
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He is not dead." Lakla's voice was poignant.  "He is not dead; and
+the Three have wondrous healing. They can restore him if they
+will&mdash;and they will, they <I>will</I>!" For a moment she was silent. "Now
+their gods help Lugur and Yolara," she whispered; "for come what may,
+whether the Silent Ones be strong or weak, if he dies, surely shall I
+fall upon them and I will slay those two&mdash;yea, though I, too perish!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yolara and Lugur shall both die." Olaf's eyes were burning.  "But
+Lugur is mine to slay."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+That pity I had seen before in Lakla's eyes when she looked upon the
+Norseman banished the white wrath from them. She turned, half
+hurriedly, as though to escape his gaze.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Walk with us," she said to me, "unless you are still weak."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I shook my head, gave a last look at O'Keefe; there was nothing I
+could do; I stepped beside her. She thrust a white arm into mine
+protectingly, the wonderfully moulded hand with its long, tapering
+fingers catching about my wrist; my heart glowed toward her.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Your medicine is potent, handmaiden," I answered.  "And the touch of
+your hand would give me strength enough, even had I not drunk it," I
+added in Larry's best manner.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Her eyes danced, trouble flying.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Now, that was well spoken for such a man of wisdom as Rador tells me
+you are," she laughed; and a little pang shot through me. Could not a
+lover of science present a compliment without it always seeming to be
+as unusual as plucking a damask rose from a cabinet of fossils?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mustering my philosophy, I smiled back at her.  Again I noted that
+broad, classic brow, with the little tendrils of shining bronze
+caressing it, the tilted, delicate, nut-brown brows that gave a
+curious touch of innocent <I>diablerie</I> to the lovely face&mdash;flowerlike,
+pure, high-bred, a touch of roguishness, subtly alluring, sparkling
+over the maiden Madonnaness that lay ever like a delicate, luminous
+suggestion beneath it; the long, black, curling lashes&mdash;the tender,
+rounded, bare left breast&mdash;
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I have always liked you," she murmured naively, "since first I saw
+you in that place where the Shining One goes forth into your world.
+And I am glad you like my medicine as well as that you carry in the
+black box that you left behind," she added swiftly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"How know you of that, Lakla?" I gasped.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oft and oft I came to him there, and to you, while you lay sleeping.
+How call you <I>him</I>?" She paused.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Larry!" I said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Larry!" she repeated it excellently.  "And you?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Goodwin," said Rador.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I bowed quite as though I were being introduced to some charming young
+lady met in that old life now seemingly aeons removed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes&mdash;Goodwin." she said.  "Oft and oft I came.  Sometimes I thought
+you saw me. And <I>he</I>&mdash;did he not dream of me sometime&mdash;?" she asked
+wistfully.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He did." I said, "and watched for you." Then amazement grew vocal.
+"But how came you?" I asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"By a strange road," she whispered, "to see that all was well with
+<I>him</I>&mdash;and to look into his heart; for I feared Yolara and her beauty.
+But I saw that she was not in his heart." A blush burned over her,
+turning even the little bare breast rosy. "It is a strange road," she
+went on hurriedly. "Many times have I followed it and watched the
+Shining One bear back its prey to the blue pool; seen the woman <I>he</I>
+seeks"&mdash;she made a quick gesture toward Olaf&mdash;"and a babe cast from
+her arms in the last pang of her mother love; seen another woman throw
+herself into the Shining One's embrace to save a man she loved; and I
+could not help!" Her voice grew deep, thrilled. "The friend, it comes
+to me, who drew you here, Goodwin!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She was silent, walking as one who sees visions and listens to voices
+unheard by others, Rador made a warning gesture; I crowded back my
+questions, glanced about me. We were passing over a smooth strand,
+hard packed as some beach of long-thrust-back ocean. It was like
+crushed garnets, each grain stained deep red, faintly sparkling. On
+each side were distances, the floor stretching away into them bare of
+vegetation&mdash;stretching on and on into infinitudes of rosy mist, even
+as did the space above.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Flanking and behind us marched the giant batrachians, fivescore of
+them at least, black scale and crimson scale lustrous and gleaming in
+the rosaceous radiance; saucer eyes shining circles of phosphorescence
+green, purple, red; spurs clicking as they crouched along with a gait
+at once grotesque and formidable.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Ahead the mist deepened into a ruddier glow; through it a long, dark
+line began to appear&mdash;the mouth I thought of the caverned space
+through which we were going; it was just before us; over us&mdash;we stood
+bathed in a flood of rubescence!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A sea stretched before us&mdash;a crimson sea, gleaming like that lost
+lacquer of royal coral and the Flame Dragon's blood which Fu S'cze set
+upon the bower he built for his stolen sun maiden&mdash;that going toward
+it she might think it the sun itself rising over the summer seas.
+Unmoved by wave or ripple, it was placid as some deep woodland pool
+when night rushes up over the world.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It seemed molten&mdash;or as though some hand great enough to rock earth
+had distilled here from conflagrations of autumn sunsets their flaming
+essences.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A fish broke through, large as a shark, blunt-headed, flashing bronze,
+ridged and mailed as though with serrate plates of armour. It leaped
+high, shaking from it a sparkling spray of rubies; dropped and shot up
+a geyser of fiery gems.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Across my line of vision, moving stately over the sea, floated a half
+globe, luminous, diaphanous, its iridescence melting into turquoise,
+thence to amethyst, to orange, to scarlet shot with rose, to
+vermilion, a translucent green, thence back into the iridescence;
+behind it four others, and the least of them ten feet in diameter, and
+the largest no less than thirty. They drifted past like bubbles blown
+from froth of rainbows by pipes in mouths of Titans' young. Then from
+the base of one arose a tangle of shimmering strands, long, slender
+whiplashes that played about and sank slowly again beneath the crimson
+surface.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I gasped&mdash;for the fish had been a <I>ganoid</I>&mdash;that ancient, armoured
+form that was perhaps the most intelligent of all life on our planet
+during the Devonian era, but which for age upon age had vanished, save
+for its fossils held in the embrace of the stone that once was their
+soft bottom beds; and the half-globes were <I>Medusae</I>, jelly-fish&mdash;but
+of a size, luminosity, and colour unheard of.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Now Lakla cupped her mouth with pink palms and sent a clarion note
+ringing out. The ledge on which we stood continued a few hundred feet
+before us, falling abruptly, though from no great height to the
+Crimson Sea; at right and left it extended in a long semicircle.
+Turning to the right whence she had sent her call, I saw rising a mile
+or more away, veiled lightly by the haze, a rainbow, a gigantic
+prismatic arch, flattened, I thought, by some quality of the strange
+atmosphere. It sprang from the ruddy strand, leaped the crimson tide,
+and dropped three miles away upon a precipitous, jagged upthrust of
+rock frowning black from the lacquered depths.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And surmounting a higher ledge beyond this upthrust a huge dome of
+dull gold, Cyclopean, striking eyes and mind with something unhumanly
+alien, baffling; sending the mind groping, as though across the
+deserts of space, from some far-flung star, should fall upon us linked
+sounds, coherent certainly, meaningful surely, vaguely familiar&mdash;yet
+never to be translated into any symbol or thought of our own
+particular planet.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The sea of crimson lacquer, with its floating moons of luminous
+colour&mdash;this bow of prismed stone leaping to the weird isle crowned by
+the anomalous, aureate excrescence&mdash;the half human batrachians-the
+elfland through which we had passed, with all its hidden wonders and
+terrors&mdash;I felt the foundations of my cherished knowledge shaking.
+Was this all a dream? Was this body of mine lying somewhere, fighting
+a fevered death, and all these but images floating through the
+breaking chambers of my brain? My knees shook; involuntarily I
+groaned.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Lakla turned, looked at me anxiously, slipped a soft arm behind me,
+held me till the vertigo passed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Patience," she said.  "The bearers come.  Soon you shall rest."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I looked; down toward us from the bow's end were leaping swiftly
+another score of the frog-men. Some bore litters, high, handled, not
+unlike palanquins&mdash;
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Asgard!" Olaf stood beside me, eyes burning, pointing to the arch.
+"Bifrost Bridge, sharp as sword edge, over which souls go to Valhalla.
+And <I>she</I>&mdash;she is a Valkyr&mdash;a sword maiden, <I>Ja!</I>"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I gripped the Norseman's hand.  It was hot, and a pang of remorse shot
+through me. If this place had so shaken me, how must it have shaken
+Olaf? It was with relief that I watched him, at Lakla's gentle
+command, drop into one of the litters and lie back, eyes closed, as
+two of the monsters raised its yoke to their scaled shoulders. Nor was
+it without further relief that I myself lay back on the soft velvety
+cushions of another.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The cavalcade began to move.  Lakla had ordered O'Keefe placed beside
+her, and she sat, knees crossed Orient fashion, leaning over the pale
+head on her lap, the white, tapering fingers straying fondly through
+his hair.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Presently I saw her reach up, slowly unwind the coronal of her
+tresses, shake them loose, and let them fall like a veil over her and
+him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Her head bent low; I heard a soft sobbing&mdash;I turned away my gaze, lorn
+enough in my own heart, God knew!
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap25"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XXV
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+The Three Silent Ones
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+The arch was closer&mdash;and in my awe I forgot for the moment Larry and
+aught else. For this was no rainbow, no thing born of light and mist,
+no Bifrost Bridge of myth&mdash;no! It was a flying arch of stone, stained
+with flares of Tyrian purples, of royal scarlets, of blues dark as the
+Gulf Stream's ribbon, sapphires soft as midday May skies, splashes of
+chromes and greens&mdash;a palette of giantry, a bridge of wizardry; a
+hundred, nay, a thousand, times greater than that of Utah which the
+Navaho call Nonnegozche and worship, as well they may, as a god, and
+which is itself a rainbow in eternal rock.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It sprang from the ledge and winged its prodigious length in one low
+arc over the sea's crimson breast, as though in some ancient paroxysm
+of earth it had been hurled molten, crystallizing into that stupendous
+span and still flaming with the fires that had moulded it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Closer we came and closer, while I watched spellbound; now we were at
+its head, and the litter-bearers swept upon it. All of five hundred
+feet wide it was, surface smooth as a city road, sides low walled,
+curving inward as though in the jetting-out of its making the edges of
+the plastic rock had curled.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+On and on we sped; the high thrusting precipices upon which the
+bridge's far end rested, frowned close; the enigmatic, dully shining
+dome loomed ever greater. Now we had reached that end; were passing
+over a smooth plaza whose level floor was enclosed, save for a rift in
+front of us, by the fanged tops of the black cliffs.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+From this rift stretched another span, half a mile long, perhaps,
+widening at its centre into a broad platform, continuing straight to
+two massive gates set within the face of the second cliff wall like
+panels, and of the same dull gold as the dome rising high beyond. And
+this smaller arch leaped a pit, an abyss, of which the outer
+precipices were the rim holding back from the pit the red flood.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+We were rapidly approaching; now upon the platform; my bearers were
+striding closely along the side; I leaned far out&mdash;a giddiness seized
+me! I gazed down into depth upon vertiginous depth; an abyss
+indeed&mdash;an abyss dropping to world's base like that in which the
+Babylonians believed writhed Talaat, the serpent mother of Chaos; a
+pit that struck down into earth's heart itself.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Now, what was that&mdash;distance upon unfathomable distance below?  A
+stupendous glowing like the green fire of life itself. What was it
+like? I had it! It was like the corona of the sun in eclipse&mdash;that
+burgeoning that makes of our luminary when moon veils it an incredible
+blossoming of splendours in the black heavens.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And strangely, strangely, it was like the Dweller's beauty when with
+its dazzling spirallings and writhings it raced amid its storm of
+crystal bell sounds!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The abyss was behind us; we had paused at the golden portals; they
+swung inward. A wide corridor filled with soft light was before us,
+and on its threshold stood&mdash;bizarre, yellow gems gleaming, huge muzzle
+wide in what was evidently meant for a smile of welcome&mdash;the woman
+frog of the Moon Pool wall.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Lakla raised her head; swept back the silken tent of her hair and
+gazed at me with eyes misty from weeping. The frog-woman crept to her
+side; gazed down upon Larry; spoke&mdash;<I>spoke</I>&mdash;to the Golden Girl in a
+swift stream of the sonorous, reverberant monosyllables; and Lakla
+answered her in kind. The webbed digits swept over O'Keefe's face,
+felt at his heart; she shook her head and moved ahead of us up the
+passage.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Still borne in the litters we went on, winding, ascending until at
+last they were set down in a great hall carpeted with soft fragrant
+rushes and into which from high narrow slits streamed the crimson
+light from without.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I jumped over to Larry, there had been no change in his condition;
+still the terrifying limpness, the slow, infrequent pulsation. Rador
+and Olaf&mdash;and the fever now seemed to be gone from him&mdash;came and stood
+beside me, silent.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I go to the Three," said Lakla.  "Wait you here."  She passed through
+a curtaining; then as swiftly as she had gone she returned through the
+hangings, tresses braided, a swathing of golden gauze about her.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Rador," she said, "bear you Larry&mdash;for into your heart the Silent
+Ones would look. And fear nothing," she added at the green dwarf's
+disconcerted, almost fearful start.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Rador bowed, was thrust aside by Olaf.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No," said the Norseman; "I will carry him."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He lifted Larry like a child against his broad breast.  The dwarf
+glanced quickly at Lakla; she nodded.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Come!" she commanded, and held aside the folds.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Of that journey I have few memories.  I only know that we went through
+corridor upon corridor; successions of vast halls and chambers, some
+carpeted with the rushes, others with rugs into which the feet sank as
+into deep, soft meadows; spaces illumined by the rubrous light, and
+spaces in which softer lights held sway.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+We paused before a slab of the same crimson stone as that the green
+dwarf had called the portal, and upon its polished surface weaved the
+same unnameable symbols. The Golden Girl pressed upon its side; it
+slipped softly back; a torrent of opalescence gushed out of the
+opening&mdash;and as one in a dream I entered.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+We were, I knew, just under the dome; but for the moment, caught in
+the flood of radiance, I could see nothing. It was like being held
+within a fire opal&mdash;so brilliant, so flashing, was it. I closed my
+eyes, opened them; the lambency cascaded from the vast curves of the
+globular walls; in front of me was a long, narrow opening in them,
+through which, far away, I could see the end of the wizards' bridge
+and the ledged mouth of the cavern through which we had come; against
+the light from within beat the crimson light from without&mdash;and was
+checked as though by a barrier.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I felt Lakla's touch; turned.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A hundred paces away was a dais, its rim raised a yard above the
+floor. From the edge of this rim streamed upward a steady, coruscating
+mist of the opalescence, veined even as was that of the Dweller's
+shining core and shot with milky shadows like curdled moonlight; up it
+stretched like a wall.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Over it, from it, down upon me, gazed three faces&mdash;two clearly male,
+one a woman's. At the first I thought them statues, and then the eyes
+of them gave the lie to me; for the eyes were alive, terribly, and if
+I could admit the word&mdash;<I>supernaturally</I>&mdash;alive.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They were thrice the size of the human eye and triangular, the apex of
+the angle upward; black as jet, pupilless, filled with tiny, leaping
+red flames.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Over them were foreheads, not as ours&mdash;high and broad and visored;
+their sides drawn forward into a vertical ridge, a prominence, an
+upright wedge, somewhat like the visored heads of a few of the great
+lizards&mdash;and the heads, long, narrowing at the back, were fully twice
+the size of mankind's!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Upon the brows were caps&mdash;and with a fearful certainty I knew that
+they were <I>not</I> caps&mdash;long, thick strands of gleaming yellow, feathered
+scales thin as sequins! Sharp, curving noses like the beaks of the
+giant condors; mouths thin, austere; long, powerful, pointed chins;
+the&mdash;<I>flesh</I>&mdash;of the faces white as the whitest marble; and wreathing
+up to them, covering all their bodies, the shimmering, curdled, misty
+fires of opalescence!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Olaf stood rigid; my own heart leaped wildly.  What&mdash;what were these
+beings?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I forced myself to look again&mdash;and from their gaze streamed a current
+of reassurance, of good will&mdash;nay, of intense spiritual strength. I
+saw that they were not fierce, not ruthless, not inhuman, despite
+their strangeness; no, they were kindly; in some unmistakable way,
+benign and sorrowful&mdash;so sorrowful! I straightened, gazed back at them
+fearlessly. Olaf drew a deep breath, gazed steadily too, the hardness,
+the despair wiped from his face.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Now Lakla drew closer to the dais; the three pairs of eyes searched
+hers, the woman's with an ineffable tenderness; some message seemed to
+pass between the Three and the Golden Girl. She bowed low, turned to
+the Norseman.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Place Larry there," she said softly&mdash;"there at the feet of the Silent
+Ones."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She pointed into the radiant mist; Olaf started, hesitated, stared
+from Lakla to the Three, searched for a moment their eyes&mdash;and
+something like a smile drifted through them. He stepped forward,
+lifted O'Keefe, set him squarely within the covering light. It
+wavered, rolled upward, swirled about the body, steadied again&mdash;and
+within it there was no sign of Larry!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Again the mist wavered, shook, and seemed to climb higher, hiding the
+chins, the beaked noses, the brows of that incredible Trinity&mdash;but
+before it ceased to climb, I thought the yellow feathered heads bent;
+sensed a movement as though they lifted something.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The mist fell; the eyes gleamed out again, inscrutable.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And groping out of the radiance, pausing at the verge of the dais,
+leaping down from it, came Larry, laughing, filled with life, blinking
+as one who draws from darkness into sunshine. He saw Lakla, sprang to
+her, gripped her in his arms.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Lakla!" he cried. "Mavourneen!"  She slipped from his embrace,
+blushing, glancing at the Three shyly, half-fearfully. And again I saw
+the tenderness creep into the inky, flame-shot orbs of the woman
+being; and a tenderness in the others too&mdash;as though they regarded
+some well-beloved child.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You lay in the arms of Death, Larry," she said.  "And the Silent Ones
+drew you from him. Do homage to the Silent Ones, Larry, for they are
+good and they are mighty!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She turned his head with one of the long, white hands&mdash;and he looked
+into the faces of the Three; looked long, was shaken even as had been
+Olaf and myself; was swept by that same wave of power and of&mdash;of&mdash;what
+can I call it?&mdash;<I>holiness</I> that streamed from them.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then for the first time I saw real awe mount into his face. Another
+moment he stared&mdash;and dropped upon one knee and bowed his head before
+them as would a worshipper before the shrine of his saint. And&mdash;I am
+not ashamed to tell it&mdash;I joined him; and with us knelt Lakla and
+Olaf and Rador.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The mist of fiery opal swirled up about the Three; hid them.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And with a long, deep, joyous sigh Lakla took Larry's hand, drew him
+to his feet, and silently we followed them out of that hall of wonder.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But why, in going, did the thought come to me that from where the
+Three sat throned they ever watched the cavern mouth that was the door
+into their abode; and looked down ever into the unfathomable depth in
+which glowed and pulsed that mystic flower, colossal, awesome, of
+green flame that had seemed to me fire of life itself?
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap26"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XXVI
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+The Wooing of Lakla
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+I had slept soundly and dreamlessly; I wakened quietly in the great
+chamber into which Rador had ushered O'Keefe and myself after that
+culminating experience of crowded, nerve-racking hours&mdash;the facing of
+the Three.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Now, lying gazing upward at the high-vaulted ceiling, I heard Larry's
+voice:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"They look like birds." Evidently he was thinking of the Three; a
+silence&mdash;then: "Yes, they look like <I>birds</I>&mdash;and they look, and it's
+meaning no disrespect to them I am at all, they look like
+<I>lizards</I>"&mdash;and another silence&mdash;"they look like some sort of gods, and,
+by the good sword-arm of Brian Boru, they look human, too! And it's
+<I>none</I> of them they are either, so what&mdash;what the&mdash;what the sainted St.
+Bridget are they?" Another short silence, and then in a tone of awed
+and absolute conviction: "That's it, sure! That's what they are&mdash;it
+all hangs in&mdash;they couldn't be anything else&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He gave a whoop; a pillow shot over and caught me across the head.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Wake up!" shouted Larry.  "Wake up, ye seething caldron of fossilized
+superstitions! Wake up, ye bogy-haunted man of scientific unwisdom!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Under pillow and insults I bounced to my feet, filled for a moment
+with quite real wrath; he lay back, roaring with laughter, and my
+anger was swept away.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Doc," he said, very seriously, after this, "I know who the Three
+are!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes?" I queried, with studied sarcasm.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes?" he mimicked.  "Yes!  Ye&mdash;ye" He paused under the menace of my
+look, grinned. "Yes, I know," he continued. "They're of the Tuatha De,
+the old ones, the great people of Ireland, <I>that's</I> who they are!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I knew, of course, of the Tuatha De Danann, the tribes of the god
+Danu, the half-legendary, half-historical clan who found their home in
+Erin some four thousand years before the Christian era, and who have
+left so deep an impress upon the Celtic mind and its myths.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes," said Larry again, "the Tuatha De&mdash;the Ancient Ones who had
+spells that could compel Mananan, who is the spirit of all the seas,
+an' Keithor, who is the god of all green living things, an' even
+Hesus, the unseen god, whose pulse is the pulse of all the firmament;
+yes, an' Orchil too, who sits within the earth an' weaves with the
+shuttle of mystery and her three looms of birth an' life an'
+death&mdash;even Orchil would weave as they commanded!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He was silent&mdash;then:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"They are of them&mdash;the mighty ones&mdash;why else would I have bent my knee
+to them as I would have to the spirit of my dead mother? Why else
+would Lakla, whose gold-brown hair is the hair of Eilidh the Fair,
+whose mouth is the sweet mouth of Deirdre, an' whose soul walked with
+mine ages agone among the fragrant green myrtle of Erin, serve them?"
+he whispered, eyes full of dream.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Have you any idea how they got here?" I asked, not unreasonably.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I haven't thought about that," he replied somewhat testily.  "But at
+once, me excellent man o' wisdom, a number occur to me. One of them is
+that this little party of three might have stopped here on their way
+to Ireland, an' for good reasons of their own decided to stay a while;
+an' another is that they might have come here afterward, havin' got
+wind of what those rats out there were contemplatin', and have stayed
+on the job till the time was ripe to save Ireland from 'em; the rest
+of the world, too, of course," he added magnanimously, "but Ireland in
+particular. And do any of those reasons appeal to ye?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I shook my head.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, what do you think?" he asked wearily.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I think," I said cautiously, "that we face an evolution of highly
+intelligent beings from ancestral sources radically removed from those
+through which mankind ascended. These half-human, highly developed
+batrachians they call the <I>Akka</I> prove that evolution in these
+caverned spaces has certainly pursued one different path than on
+earth. The Englishman, Wells, wrote an imaginative and very
+entertaining book concerning an invasion of earth by Martians, and he
+made his Martians enormously specialized cuttlefish. There was nothing
+inherently improbable in Wells' choice. Man is the ruling animal of
+earth today solely by reason of a series of accidents; under another
+series spiders or ants, or even elephants, could have become the
+dominant race.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I think," I said, even more cautiously, "that the race to which the
+Three belong never appeared on earth's surface; that their development
+took place here, unhindered through aeons. And if this be true, the
+structure of their brains, and therefore all their reactions, must be
+different from ours. Hence their knowledge and command of energies
+unfamiliar to us&mdash;and hence also the question whether they may not
+have an entirely different sense of values, of justice&mdash;and that is
+rather terrifying," I concluded.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Larry shook his head.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That last sort of knocks your argument, Doc," he said. "They had
+sense of justice enough to help <I>me</I> out&mdash;and certainly they know
+love&mdash;for I saw the way they looked at Lakla; and sorrow&mdash;for there
+was no mistaking that in their faces.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No," he went on.  "I hold to my own idea.  They're of the Old People.
+The little leprechaun knew his way here, an' I'll bet it was they who
+sent the word. An' if the O'Keefe banshee comes here&mdash;which save the
+mark!&mdash;I'll bet she'll drop in on the Silent Ones for a social visit
+before she an' her clan get busy. Well, it'll make her feel more at
+home, the good old body. No, Doc, no," he concluded, "I'm right; it
+all fits in too well to be wrong."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I made a last despairing attempt.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Is there anything anywhere in Ireland that would indicate that the
+Tuatha De ever looked like the Three?" I asked&mdash;and again I had
+spoken most unfortunately.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Is there?" he shouted.  "Is there?  By the kilt of Cormack
+MacCormack, I'm glad ye reminded me. It was worryin' me a little
+meself. There was Daghda, who could put on the head of a great boar
+an' the body of a giant fish and cleave the waves an' tear to pieces
+the birlins of any who came against Erin; an' there was Rinn&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+How many more of the metamorphoses of the Old People I might have
+heard, I do not know, for the curtains parted and in walked Rador.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You have rested well," he smiled, "I can see.  The handmaiden bade me
+call you. You are to eat with her in her garden."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Down long corridors we trod and out upon a gardened terrace as
+beautiful as any of those of Yolara's city; bowered, blossoming,
+fragrant, set high upon the cliffs beside the domed castle. A table,
+as of milky jade, was spread at one corner, but the Golden Girl was
+not there. A little path ran on and up, hemmed in by the mass of
+verdure. I looked at it longingly; Rador saw the glance, interpreted
+it, and led me up the stepped sharp slope into a rock embrasure.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Here I was above the foliage, and everywhere the view was clear.
+Below me stretched the incredible bridge, with the frog people
+hurrying back and forth upon it. A pinnacle at my side hid the abyss.
+My eyes followed the cavern ledge. Above it the rock rose bare, but at
+the ends of the semicircular strand a luxuriant vegetation began,
+stretching from the crimson shores back into far distances. Of browns
+and reds and yellows, like an autumn forest, was the foliage, with
+here and there patches of dark-green, as of conifers. Five miles or
+more, on each side, the forests swept, and then were lost to sight in
+the haze.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I turned and faced an immensity of crimson waters, unbroken, a true
+sea, if ever there was one. A breeze blew&mdash;the first real wind I had
+encountered in the hidden places; under it the surface, that had been
+as molten lacquer, rippled and dimpled. Little waves broke with a
+spray of rose-pearls and rubies. The giant Medusae drifted&mdash;stately,
+luminous kaleidoscopic elfin moons.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Far down, peeping around a jutting tower of the cliff, I saw dipping
+with the motion of the waves a floating garden. The flowers, too, were
+luminous&mdash;indeed sparkling&mdash;gleaming brilliants of scarlet and
+vermilions lighter than the flood on which they lay, mauves and odd
+shades of reddish-blue. They gleamed and shone like a little lake of
+jewels.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Rador broke in upon my musings.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Lakla comes!  Let us go down."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was a shy Lakla who came slowly around the end of the path and,
+blushing furiously, held her hands out to Larry. And the Irishman took
+them, placed them over his heart, kissed them with a tenderness that
+had been lacking in the half-mocking, half-fierce caresses he had
+given the priestess. She blushed deeper, holding out the tapering
+fingers&mdash;then pressed them to her own heart.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I like the touch of your lips, Larry," she whispered. "They warm me
+here"&mdash;she pressed her heart again&mdash;"and they send little sparkles of
+light through me." Her brows tilted perplexedly, accenting the nuance
+of diablerie, delicate and fascinating, that they cast upon the flower
+face.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Do you?" whispered the O'Keefe fervently.  "Do you, Lakla?" He bent
+toward her. She caught the amused glance of Rador; drew herself aside
+half-haughtily.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Rador," she said, "is it not time that you and the strong one, Olaf,
+were setting forth?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Truly it is, handmaiden," he answered respectfully enough&mdash;yet with a
+current of laughter under his words. "But as you know the strong one,
+Olaf, wished to see his friends here before we were gone&mdash;and he comes
+even now," he added, glancing down the pathway, along which came
+striding the Norseman.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As he faced us I saw that a transformation had been wrought in him.
+Gone was the pitiful seeking, and gone too the just as pitiful hope.
+The set face softened as he looked at the Golden Girl and bowed low to
+her. He thrust a hand to O'Keefe and to me.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"There is to be battle," he said.  "I go with Rador to call the armies
+of these frog people. As for me&mdash;Lakla has spoken. There is no hope
+for&mdash;for mine Helma in life, but there is hope that we destroy the
+Shining Devil and give <I>mine</I> Helma peace. And with that I am well
+content, <I>ja!</I> Well content!" He gripped our hands again. "We will
+fight!" he muttered. "<I>Ja!</I> And I will have vengeance!" The sternness
+returned; and with a salute Rador and he were gone.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Two great tears rolled from the golden eyes of Lakla.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Not even the Silent Ones can heal those the Shining One has taken,"
+she said. "He asked me&mdash;and it was better that I tell him. It is part
+of the Three's&mdash;<I>punishment</I>&mdash;but of that you will soon learn," she went
+on hurriedly. "Ask me no questions now of the Silent Ones. I thought
+it better for Olaf to go with Rador, to busy himself, to give his mind
+other than sorrow upon which to feed."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Up the path came five of the frog-women, bearing platters and ewers.
+Their bracelets and anklets of jewels were tinkling; their middles
+covered with short kirtles of woven cloth studded with the sparkling
+ornaments.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And here let me say that if I have given the impression that the
+<I>Akka</I> are simply magnified frogs, I regret it. Frog-like they are,
+and hence my phrase for them&mdash;but as unlike the frog, as we know it,
+as man is unlike the chimpanzee. Springing, I hazard, from the
+stegocephalia, the ancestor of the frogs, these batrachians followed a
+different line of evolution and acquired the upright position just as
+man did his from the four-footed folk.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The great staring eyes, the shape of the muzzle were frog-like, but
+the highly developed brain had set upon the head and shape of it vital
+differences. The forehead, for instance, was not low, flat, and
+retreating&mdash;its frontal arch was well defined. The head was, in a
+sense, shapely, and with the females the great horny carapace that
+stood over it like a fantastic helmet was much modified, as were the
+spurs that were so formidable in the male; colouration was different
+also. The torso was upright; the legs a little bent, giving them their
+crouching gait&mdash;but I wander from my subject.[1]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They set their burdens down.  Larry looked at them with interest.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You surely have those things well trained, Lakla," he said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Things!"  The handmaiden arose, eyes flashing with indignation.  "You
+call my <I>Akka</I> things!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well," said Larry, a bit taken aback, "what do you call them?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"My <I>Akka</I> are a <I>people</I>," she retorted.  "As much a people as your race
+or mine. They are good and loyal, and they have speech and arts, and
+they slay not, save for food or to protect themselves. And I think
+them beautiful, Larry, <I>beautiful</I>!" She stamped her foot. "And you call
+them&mdash;<I>things</I>!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Beautiful!  These?  Yet, after all, they were, in their grotesque
+fashion. And to Lakla, surrounded by them, from babyhood, they were
+not strange, at all. Why shouldn't she think them beautiful? The same
+thought must have struck O'Keefe, for he flushed guiltily.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I think them beautiful, too, Lakla," he said remorsefully. "It's my
+not knowing your tongue too well that traps me. <I>Truly</I>, I think them
+beautiful&mdash;I'd tell them so, if I knew their talk."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Lakla dimpled, laughed&mdash;spoke to the attendants in that strange speech
+that was unquestionably a language; they bridled, looked at O'Keefe
+with fantastic coquetry, cracked and boomed softly among themselves.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"They say they like <I>you</I> better than the men of Muria," laughed Lakla.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Did I ever think I'd be swapping compliments with lady frogs!" he
+murmured to me. "Buck up, Larry&mdash;keep your eyes on the captive Irish
+princess!" he muttered to himself.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Rador goes to meet one of the <I>ladala</I> who is slipping through with
+news," said the Golden Girl as we addressed ourselves to the food.
+"Then, with Nak, he and Olaf go to muster the <I>Akka</I>&mdash;for there will
+be battle, and we must prepare. Nak," she added, "is he who went
+before me when you were dancing with Yolara, Larry." She stole a
+swift, mischievous glance at him. "He is headman of all the <I>Akka</I>."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Just what forces can we muster against them when they come, darlin'?"
+said Larry.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Darlin'?"&mdash;the Golden Girl had caught the caress of the word&mdash;"what's
+that?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It's a little word that means Lakla," he answered.  "It does&mdash;that
+is, when I say it; when you say it, then it means Larry."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I like that word," mused Lakla.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You can even say Larry darlin'!" suggested O'Keefe.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Larry darlin'!" said Lakla.  "When they come we shall have first of
+all my <I>Akka</I>&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Can they fight, <I>mavourneen</I>?" interrupted Larry.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Can they fight!  My <I>Akka</I>!" Again her eyes flashed.  "They will
+fight to the last of them&mdash;with the spears that give the swift
+rotting, covered, as they are, with the jelly of those <I>Saddu</I>
+there&mdash;" She pointed through a rift in the foliage across which, on
+the surface of the sea, was floating one of the moon globes&mdash;and now I
+know why Rador had warned Larry against a plunge there. "With spears
+and clubs and with teeth and nails and spurs&mdash;they are a strong and
+brave people, Larry&mdash;darlin', and though they hurl the <I>Keth</I> at them,
+it is slow to work upon them, and they slay even while they are
+passing into the nothingness!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And have we none of the <I>Keth</I>?" he asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No"&mdash;she shook her head&mdash;"none of their weapons have we here,
+although it was&mdash;it was the Ancient Ones who shaped them."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But the Three are of the Ancient Ones?" I cried.  "Surely they can
+tell&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No," she said slowly.  "No&mdash;there is something you must know&mdash;and
+soon; and then the Silent Ones say you will understand. You,
+especially, Goodwin, who worship wisdom."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Then," said Larry, "we have the <I>Akka</I>; and we have the four men of
+us, and among us three guns and about a hundred cartridges&mdash;an'&mdash;an'
+the power of the Three&mdash;but what about the Shining One, Fireworks&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I do not know." Again the indecision that had been in her eyes when
+Yolara had launched her defiance crept back. "The Shining One is
+strong&mdash;and he has his&mdash;slaves!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, we'd better get busy good and quick!" the O'Keefe's voice rang.
+But Lakla, for some reason of her own, would pursue the matter no
+further. The trouble fled from her eyes&mdash;they danced.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Larry darlin'?" she murmured.  "I like the touch of your lips&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You do?" he whispered, all thought flying of anything but the
+beautiful, provocative face so close to his. "Then, <I>acushla</I>, you're
+goin' to get acquainted with 'em! Turn your head, Doc!" he said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And I turned it.  There was quite a long silence, broken by an
+interested, soft outburst of gentle boomings from the serving
+frog-maids. I stole a glance behind me. Lakla's head lay on the
+Irishman's shoulder, the golden eyes misty sunpools of love and
+adoration; and the O'Keefe, a new look of power and strength upon his
+clear-cut features, was gazing down into them with that look which
+rises only from the heart touched for the first time with that true,
+all-powerful love, which is the pulse of the universe itself, the real
+music of the spheres of which Plato dreamed, the love that is stronger
+than death itself, immortal as the high gods and the true soul of all
+that mystery we call life.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then Lakla raised her hands, pressed down Larry's head, kissed him
+between the eyes, drew herself with a trembling little laugh from his
+embrace.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The future Mrs. Larry O'Keefe, Goodwin," said Larry to me a little
+unsteadily.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I took their hands&mdash;and Lakla kissed me!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She turned to the booming&mdash;smiling&mdash;frog-maids; gave them some
+command, for they filed away down the path. Suddenly I felt, well, a
+little superfluous.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"If you don't mind," I said, "I think I'll go up the path there again
+and look about."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But they were so engrossed with each other that they did not even hear
+me&mdash;so I walked away, up to the embrasure where Rador had taken me.
+The movement of the batrachians over the bridge had ceased. Dimly at
+the far end I could see the cluster of the garrison. My thoughts flew
+back to Lakla and to Larry.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+What was to be the end?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+If we won, if we were able to pass from this place, could she live in
+our world? A product of these caverns with their atmosphere and light
+that seemed in some subtle way to be both food and drink&mdash;how would
+she react to the unfamiliar foods and air and light of outer earth?
+Further, here so far as I was able to discover, there were no
+malignant bacilli&mdash;what immunity could Lakla have then to those
+microscopic evils without, which only long ages of sickness and death
+have bought for us a modicum of protection? I began to be oppressed.
+Surely they had been long enough by themselves. I went down the path.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I heard Larry.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It's a green land, <I>mavourneen</I>.  And the sea rocks and dimples
+around it&mdash;blue as the heavens, green as the isle itself, and foam
+horses toss their white manes, and the great clean winds blow over it,
+and the sun shines down on it like your eyes, <I>acushla</I>&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And are you a king of Ireland, Larry darlin'?" Thus Lakla&mdash;
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But enough!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At last we turned to go&mdash;and around the corner of the path I caught
+another glimpse of what I have called the lake of jewels. I pointed to
+it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Those are lovely flowers, Lakla," I said.  "I have never seen
+anything like them in the place from whence we come."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She followed my pointing finger&mdash;laughed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Come," she said, "let me show you them."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She ran down an intersecting way, we following; came out of it upon a
+little ledge close to the brink, three feet or more I suppose about
+it. The Golden Girl's voice rang out in a high-pitched, tremulous,
+throbbing call.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The lake of jewels stirred as though a breeze had passed over it;
+stirred, shook, and then began to move swiftly, a shimmering torrent
+of shining flowers down upon us! She called again, the movement became
+more rapid; the gem blooms streamed closer&mdash;closer, wavering,
+shifting, winding&mdash;at our very feet. Above them hovered a little
+radiant mist. The Golden Girl leaned over; called softly, and up from
+the sparkling mass shot a green vine whose heads were five flowers of
+flaming ruby&mdash;shot up, flew into her hand and coiled about the white
+arm, its quintette of lambent blossoms&mdash;regarding us!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was the thing Lakla had called the <I>Yekta</I>; that with which she had
+threatened the priestess; the thing that carried the dreadful
+death&mdash;and the Golden Girl was handling it like a rose!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Larry swore&mdash;I looked at the thing more closely.  It was a hydroid, a
+development of that strange animal-vegetable that, sometimes almost
+microscopic, waves in the sea depths like a cluster of flowers
+paralyzing its prey with the mysterious force that dwells in its
+blossom heads![2]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Put it down, Lakla," the distress in O'Keefe's voice was deep.  Lakla
+laughed mischievously, caught the real fear for her in his eyes;
+opened her hand, gave another faint call&mdash;and back it flew to its
+fellows.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why, it wouldn't hurt me, Larry!" she expostulated. "They know me!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Put it down!" he repeated hoarsely.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She sighed, gave another sweet, prolonged call.  The lake of
+gems&mdash;rubies and amethysts, mauves and scarlet-tinged blues&mdash;wavered
+and shook even as it had before&mdash;and swept swiftly back to that place
+whence she had drawn them!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then, with Larry and Lakla walking ahead, white arm about his brown
+neck; the O'Keefe still expostulating, the handmaiden laughing
+merrily, we passed through her bower to the domed castle.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Glancing through a cleft I caught sight again of the far end of the
+bridge; noted among the clustered figures of its garrison of the
+frog-men a movement, a flashing of green fire like marshlights on
+spear tips; wondered idly what it was, and then, other thoughts
+crowding in, followed along, head bent, behind the pair who had found
+in what was Olaf's hell, their true paradise.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+[1] The <I>Akka</I> are viviparous.  The female produces progeny at
+five-year intervals, never more than two at a time. They are
+monogamous, like certain of our own <I>Ranidae</I>. Pending my monograph
+upon what little I had time to learn of their interesting habits and
+customs, the curious will find instruction and entertainment in
+Brandes and Schvenichen's <I>Brutpfleige der Schwanzlosen Bat rachier</I>,
+p. 395; and Lilian V. Sampson's <I>Unusual Modes of Breeding among
+Anura</I>, Amer. Nat. xxxiv., 1900.&mdash;W. T. G.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+[2] The <I>Yekta</I> of the Crimson Sea, are as extraordinary developments
+of hydroid forms as the giant <I>Medusae</I>, of which, of course, they are
+not too remote cousins. The closest resemblances to them in outer
+water forms are among the <I>Gymnoblastic Hydroids</I>, notably <I>Clavetella
+prolifera</I>, a most interesting ambulatory form of six tentacles.
+Almost every bather in Southern waters, Northern too, knows the pain
+that contact with certain "jelly fish" produces. The <I>Yekta's</I>
+development was prodigious and, to us, monstrous. It secretes in its
+five heads an almost incredibly swiftly acting poison which I suspect,
+for I had no chance to verify the theory, destroys the entire nervous
+system to the accompaniment of truly infernal agony; carrying at the
+same time the illusion that the torment stretches through infinities
+of time. Both ether and nitrous oxide gas produce in the majority this
+sensation of time extension, without of course the pain symptom. What
+Lakla called the <I>Yekta</I> kiss is I imagine about as close to the
+orthodox idea of Hell as can be conceived. The secret of her control
+over them I had no opportunity of learning in the rush of events that
+followed. Knowledge of the appalling effects of their touch came, she
+told me, from those few "who had been kissed so lightly" that they
+recovered. Certainly nothing, not even the Shining One, was dreaded by
+the Murians as these were&mdash;W. T. G.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap27"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XXVII
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+The Coming of Yolara
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+"Never was there such a girl!" Thus Larry, dreamily, leaning head in
+hand on one of the wide divans of the chamber where Lakla had left us,
+pleading service to the Silent Ones.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"An', by the faith and the honour of the O'Keefes, an' by my dead
+mother's soul may God do with me as I do by her!" he whispered
+fervently.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He relapsed into open-eyed dreaming.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I walked about the room, examining it&mdash;the first opportunity I had
+gained to inspect carefully any of the rooms in the abode of the
+Three. It was octagonal, carpeted with the thick rugs that seemed
+almost as though woven of soft mineral wool, faintly shimmering,
+palest blue. I paced its diagonal; it was fifty yards; the ceiling was
+arched, and either of pale rose metal or metallic covering; it
+collected the light from the high, slitted windows, and shed it,
+diffused, through the room.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Around the octagon ran a low gallery not two feet from the floor,
+balustraded with slender pillars, close set; broken at opposite
+curtained entrances over which hung thick, dull-gold curtainings
+giving the same suggestion of metallic or mineral substance as the
+rugs. Set within each of the eight sides, above the balcony, were
+colossal slabs of lapis lazuli, inset with graceful but unplaceable
+designs in scarlet and sapphire blue.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There was the great divan on which mused Larry; two smaller ones, half
+a dozen low seats and chairs carved apparently of ivory and of dull
+soft gold.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Most curious were tripods, strong, pikelike legs of golden metal four
+feet high, holding small circles of the lapis with intaglios of one
+curious symbol somewhat resembling the ideographs of the Chinese.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There was no dust&mdash;nowhere in these caverned spaces had I found this
+constant companion of ours in the world overhead. My eyes caught a
+sparkle from a corner. Pursuing it I found upon one of the low seats a
+flat, clear crystal oval, remarkably like a lens. I took it and
+stepped up on the balcony. Standing on tiptoe I found I commanded from
+the bottom of a window slit a view of the bridge approach. Scanning it
+I could see no trace of the garrison there, nor of the green spear
+flashes. I placed the crystal to my eyes&mdash;and with a disconcerting
+abruptness the cavern mouth leaped before me, apparently not a hundred
+feet away; decidedly the crystal was a very excellent lens&mdash;but where
+were the guards?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I peered closely.  Nothing!  But now against the aperture I saw a
+score or more of tiny, dancing sparks. An optical illusion, I thought,
+and turned the crystal in another direction. There were no sparklings
+there. I turned it back again&mdash;and there they were. And what were
+they like? Realization came to me&mdash;they were like the little, dancing,
+radiant atoms that had played for a time about the emptiness where had
+stood Sorgar of the Lower Waters before he had been shaken into the
+nothingness! And that green light I had noticed&mdash;the <I>Keth</I>!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A cry on my lips, I turned to Larry&mdash;and the cry died as the heavy
+curtainings at the entrance on my right undulated, parted as though a
+body had slipped through, shook and parted again and again&mdash;with the
+dreadful passing of unseen things!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Larry!" I cried.  "Here!  Quick!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He leaped to his feet, gazed about wildly&mdash;and disappeared!
+Yes&mdash;vanished from my sight like the snuffed flame of a candle or as
+though something moving with the speed of light itself had snatched
+him away!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then from the divan came the sounds of struggle, the hissing of
+straining breaths, the noise of Larry cursing. I leaped over the
+balustrade, drawing my own pistol&mdash;was caught in a pair of mighty
+arms, my elbows crushed to my sides, drawn down until my face pressed
+close to a broad, hairy breast&mdash;and through that obstacle&mdash;formless,
+shadowless, transparent as air itself&mdash;I could still see the battle on
+the divan!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Now there were two sharp reports; the struggle abruptly ceased.  From
+a point not a foot over the great couch, as though oozing from the air
+itself, blood began to drop, faster and ever faster, pouring out of
+nothingness.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And out of that same air, now a dozen feet away, leaped the face of
+Larry&mdash;bodyless, poised six feet above the floor, blazing with
+rage&mdash;floating weirdly, uncannily to a hideous degree, in vacancy.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+His hands flashed out&mdash;armless; they wavered, appearing,
+disappearing&mdash;swiftly tearing something from him. Then there, feet
+hidden, stiff on legs that vanished at the ankles, striking out into
+vision with all the dizzy abruptness with which he had been stricken
+from sight was the O'Keefe, a smoking pistol in hand.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And ever that red stream trickled out of vacancy and spread over the
+couch, dripping to the floor.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I made a mighty movement to escape; was held more firmly&mdash;and then
+close to the face of Larry, flashing out with that terrifying
+instantaneousness even as had his, was the head of Yolara, as
+devilishly mocking as I had ever seen it, the cruelty shining through
+it like delicate white flames from hell&mdash;and beautiful!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Stir not!  Strike not&mdash;until I command!" She flung the words beyond
+her, addressed to the invisible ones who had accompanied her; whose
+presences I sensed filling the chamber. The floating, beautiful head,
+crowned high with corn-silk hair, darted toward the Irishman. He took
+a swift step backward. The eyes of the priestess deepened toward
+purple; sparkled with malice.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"So," she said.  "So, <I>Larree</I>&mdash;you thought you could go from me so
+easily!" She laughed softly. "In my hidden hand I hold the <I>Keth</I>
+cone," she murmured. "Before you can raise the death tube I can smite
+you&mdash;and will. And consider, <I>Larree</I>, if the handmaiden, the <I>choya</I>
+comes, I can vanish&mdash;so"&mdash;the mocking head disappeared, burst forth
+again&mdash;"and slay her with the <I>Keth</I>&mdash;or bid my people seize her and
+bear her to the Shining One!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Tiny beads of sweat stood out on O'Keefe's forehead, and I knew he was
+thinking not of himself, but of Lakla.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What do you want with me, Yolara?" he asked hoarsely.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Nay," came the mocking voice.  "Not Yolara to you, <I>Larree</I>&mdash;call me
+by those sweet names you taught me&mdash;Honey of the Wild Bee-e-s, Net of
+Hearts&mdash;" Again her laughter tinkled.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What do you want with me?" his voice was strained, the lips rigid.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ah, you are afraid, <I>Larree</I>." There was diabolic jubilation in the
+words. "What should I want but that you return with me? Why else did I
+creep through the lair of the dragon worm and pass the path of perils
+but to ask you that? And the <I>choya</I> guards you not well." Again she
+laughed. "We came to the cavern's end and, there were her <I>Akka</I>. And
+the <I>Akka</I> can see us&mdash;as shadows. But it was my desire to surprise
+you with my coming, Larree," the voice was silken. "And I feared that
+they would hasten to be first to bring you that message to delight in
+your joy. And so, <I>Larree</I>, I loosed the <I>Keth</I> upon them&mdash;and gave
+them peace and rest within the nothingness. And the portal below was
+open&mdash;almost in welcome!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Once more the malignant, silver pealing of her laughter.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What do you want with me?" There was wrath in his eyes, and plainly
+he strove for control.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Want!" the silver voice hissed, grew calm.  "Do not Siya and Siyana
+grieve that the rite I pledged them is but half done&mdash;and do they not
+desire it finished? And am I not beautiful? More beautiful than your
+<I>choya</I>?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The fiendishness died from the eyes; they grew blue, wondrous; the
+veil of invisibility slipped down from the neck, the shoulders, half
+revealing the gleaming breasts. And weird, weird beyond all telling
+was that exquisite head and bust floating there in air&mdash;and beautiful,
+sinisterly beautiful beyond all telling, too. So even might Lilith,
+the serpent woman, have shown herself tempting Adam!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And perhaps," she said, "perhaps I want you because I hate you;
+perhaps because I love you&mdash;or perhaps for Lugur or perhaps for the
+Shining One."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And if I go with you?" He said it quietly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Then shall I spare the handmaiden&mdash;and&mdash;who knows?&mdash;take back my
+armies that even now gather at the portal and let the Silent Ones rot
+in peace in their abode&mdash;from which they had no power to keep me," she
+added venomously.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You will swear that, Yolara; swear to go without harming the
+handmaiden?" he asked eagerly. The little devils danced in her eyes. I
+wrenched my face from the smothering contact.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Don't trust her, Larry!" I cried&mdash;and again the grip choked me.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Is that devil in front of you or behind you, old man?" he asked
+quietly, eyes never leaving the priestess. "If he's in front I'll take
+a chance and wing him&mdash;and then you scoot and warn Lakla."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But I could not answer; nor, remembering Yolara's threat, would I, had
+I been able.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Decide quickly!" There was cold threat in her voice.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The curtains toward which O'Keefe had slowly, step by step, drawn
+close, opened. They framed the handmaiden! The face of Yolara changed
+to that gorgon mask that had transformed it once before at sight of
+the Golden Girl. In her blind rage she forgot to cast the occulting
+veil. Her hand darted like a snake out of the folds; poising itself
+with the little silver cone aimed at Lakla.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But before it was wholly poised, before the priestess could loose its
+force, the handmaiden was upon her. Swift as the lithe white wolf
+hound she leaped, and one slender hand gripped Yolara's throat, the
+other the wrist that lifted the quivering death; white limbs wrapped
+about the hidden ones, I saw the golden head bend, the hand that held
+the <I>Keth</I> swept up with a vicious jerk; saw Lakla's teeth sink into
+the wrist&mdash;the blood spurt forth and heard the priestess shriek. The
+cone fell, bounded toward me; with all my strength I wrenched free the
+hand that held my pistol, thrust it against the pressing breast and
+fired.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The clasp upon me relaxed; a red rain stained me; at my feet a little
+pillar of blood jetted; a hand thrust itself from nothingness,
+clawed&mdash;and was still.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Now Yolara was down, Lakla meshed in her writhings and fighting like
+some wild mother whose babes are serpent menaced. Over the two of
+them, astride, stood the O'Keefe, a pike from one of the high tripods
+in his hand&mdash;thrusting, parrying, beating on every side as with a
+broadsword against poniard-clutching hands that thrust themselves out
+of vacancy striving to strike him; stepping here and there, always
+covering, protecting Lakla with his own body even as a caveman of old
+who does battle with his mate for their lives.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The sword-club struck&mdash;and on the floor lay the half body of a dwarf,
+writhing with vanishments and reappearings of legs and arms. Beside
+him was the shattered tripod from which Larry had wrenched his weapon.
+I flung myself upon it, dashed it down to break loose one of the
+remaining supports, struck in midfall one of the unseen even as his
+dagger darted toward me! The seat splintered, leaving in my clutch a
+golden bar. I jumped to Larry's side, guarding his back, whirling it
+like a staff; felt it crunch once&mdash;twice&mdash;through unseen bone and
+muscle.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At the door was a booming.  Into the chamber rushed a dozen of the
+frog-men. While some guarded the entrances, others leaped straight to
+us, and forming a circle about us began to strike with talons and
+spurs at unseen things that screamed and sought to escape. Now here
+and there about the blue rugs great stains of blood appeared; heads of
+dwarfs, torn arms and gashed bodies, half occulted, half revealed. And
+at last the priestess lay silent, vanquished, white body gleaming with
+that uncanny&mdash;fragmentariness&mdash;from her torn robes. Then O'Keefe
+reached down, drew Lakla from her. Shakily, Yolara rose to her feet.
+The handmaiden, face still blazing with wrath, stepped before her;
+with difficulty she steadied her voice.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yolara," she said, "you have defied the Silent Ones, you have
+desecrated their abode, you came to slay these men who are the guests
+of the Silent Ones and me, who am their handmaiden&mdash;why did you do
+these things?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I came for him!" gasped the priestess; she pointed to O'Keefe.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why?" asked Lakla.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Because he is pledged to me," replied Yolara, all the devils that
+were hers in her face. "Because he wooed me! Because he is mine!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That is a lie!" The handmaiden's voice shook with rage. "It is a lie!
+But here and now he shall choose, Yolara. And if you he choose, you
+and he shall go forth from here unmolested&mdash;for Yolara, it is his
+happiness that I most desire, and if you are that happiness&mdash;you shall
+go together. And now, Larry, choose!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Swiftly she stepped beside the priestess; swiftly wrenched the last
+shreds of the hiding robes from her.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There they stood&mdash;Yolara with but the filmiest net of gauze about her
+wonderful body; gleaming flesh shining through it; serpent woman&mdash;-and
+wonderful, too, beyond the dreams even of Phidias&mdash;and hell-fire
+glowing from the purple eyes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And Lakla, like a girl of the Vikings, like one of those warrior maids
+who stood and fought for dun and babes at the side of those old heroes
+of Larry's own green isle; translucent ivory lambent through the rents
+of her torn draperies, and in the wide, golden eyes flaming wrath,
+indeed&mdash;not the diabolic flames of the priestess but the righteous
+wrath of some soul that looking out of paradise sees vile wrong in the
+doing.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Lakla," the O'Keefe's voice was subdued, hurt, "there <I>is</I> no choice.
+I love you and only you&mdash;and have from the moment I saw you. It's not
+easy&mdash;this. God, Goodwin, I feel like an utter cad," he flashed at me.
+"There is no choice, Lakla," he ended, eyes steady upon hers.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The priestess's face grew deadlier still.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What will you do with me?" she asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Keep you," I said, "as hostage."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+O'Keefe was silent; the Golden Girl shook her head.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well would I like to," her face grew dreaming; "but the Silent Ones
+say&mdash;<I>no</I>; they bid me let you go, Yolara&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The Silent Ones," the priestess laughed. "<I>You</I>, Lakla! You fear,
+perhaps, to let me tarry here too close!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Storm gathered again in the handmaiden's eyes; she forced it back.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No," she answered, "the Silent Ones so command&mdash;and for their own
+purposes. Yet do I think, Yolara, that you will have little time to
+feed your wickedness&mdash;tell that to Lugur&mdash;and to your Shining One!"
+she added slowly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mockery and disbelief rode high in the priestess's pose. "Am I to
+return alone&mdash;like this?" she asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Nay, Yolara, nay; you shall be accompanied," said Lakla; "and by
+those who will guard&mdash;and <I>watch</I>&mdash;you well. They are here even now."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The hangings parted, and into the chamber came Olaf and Rador.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The priestess met the fierce hatred and contempt in the eyes of the
+Norseman&mdash;and for the first time lost her bravado.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Let not <I>him</I> go with me," she gasped&mdash;her eyes searched the floor
+frantically.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He goes with you," said Lakla, and threw about Yolara a swathing that
+covered the exquisite, alluring body. "And you shall pass through the
+Portal, not skulk along the path of the worm!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She bent to Rador, whispered to him; he nodded; she had told him, I
+supposed, the secret of its opening.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Come," he said, and with the ice-eyed giant behind her, Yolara, head
+bent, passed out of those hangings through which, but a little before,
+unseen, triumph in her grasp, she had slipped.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then Lakla came to the unhappy O'Keefe, rested her hands on his
+shoulders, looked deep into his eyes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"<I>Did</I> you woo her, even as she said?" she asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Irishman flushed miserably.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I did not," he said.  "I was pleasant to her, of course, because I
+thought it would bring me quicker to you, darlin'."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She looked at him doubtfully; then&mdash;
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I think you must have been <I>very</I>&mdash;pleasant!" was all she said&mdash;and
+leaning, kissed him forgivingly straight on the lips. An extremely
+direct maiden was Lakla, with a truly sovereign contempt for anything
+she might consider non-essentials; and at this moment I decided she
+was wiser even than I had thought her.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He stumbled, feet vanishing; reached down and picked up something that
+in the grasping turned his hand to air.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"One of the invisible cloaks," he said to me.  "There must be quite a
+lot of them about&mdash;I guess Yolara brought her full staff of murderers.
+They're a bit shopworn, probably&mdash;but we're considerably better off
+with 'em in our hands than in hers. And they may come in handy&mdash;who
+knows?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There was a choking rattle at my feet; half the head of a dwarf raised
+out of vacancy; beat twice upon the floor in death throes; fell back.
+Lakla shivered; gave a command. The frog-men moved about; peering here
+and there; lifting unseen folds revealing in stark rigidity torn form
+after form of the priestess's men.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Lakla had been right&mdash;her <I>Akka</I> were thorough fighters!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She called, and to her came the frog-woman who was her attendant.  To
+her the handmaiden spoke, pointing to the batrachians who stood, paws
+and forearms melted beneath the robes they had gathered. She took them
+and passed out&mdash;more grotesque than ever, shattering into streaks of
+vacancies, reappearing with flickers of shining scale and yellow gems
+as the tattered pennants of invisibility fluttered about her.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The frog-men reached down, swung each a dead dwarf in his arms, and
+filed, booming triumphantly away.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And then I remembered the cone of the <I>Keth</I> which had slipped from
+Yolara's hand; knew it had been that for which her wild eyes searched.
+But look as closely as we might, search in every nook and corner as we
+did, we could not find it. Had the dying hand of one of her men
+clutched it and had it been borne away with them? With the thought
+Larry and I raced after the scaled warriors, searched every body they
+carried. It was not there. Perhaps the priestess had found it,
+retrieved it swiftly without our seeing.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Whatever was true&mdash;the cone was gone.  And what a weapon that one
+little holder of the shaking death would have been for us!
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap28"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+In the Lair of the Dweller
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+It is with marked hesitation that I begin this chapter, because in it
+I must deal with an experience so contrary to every known law of
+physics as to seem impossible. Until this time, barring, of course,
+the mystery of the Dweller, I had encountered nothing that was not
+susceptible of naturalistic explanation; nothing, in a word, outside
+the domain of science itself; nothing that I would have felt hesitancy
+in reciting to my colleagues of the International Association of
+Science. Amazing, unfamiliar&mdash;<I>advanced</I>&mdash;as many of the phenomena were,
+still they lay well within the limits of what we have mapped as the
+possible; in regions, it is true, still virgin to the mind of man, but
+toward which that mind is steadily advancing.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But this&mdash;well, I confess that I have a theory that is naturalistic;
+but so abstruse, so difficult to make clear within the short confines
+of the space I have to give it, so dependent upon conceptions that
+even the highest-trained scientific brains find difficult to grasp,
+that I despair.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I can only say that the thing occurred; that it took place in
+precisely the manner I am about to narrate, and that I experienced it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Yet, in justice to myself, I must open up some paths of preliminary
+approach toward the heart of the perplexity. And the first path is the
+realization that our world <I>whatever</I> it is, is certainly <I>not</I> the
+world as we see it! Regarding this I shall refer to a discourse upon
+"Gravitation and the Principle of Relativity," by the distinguished
+English physicist, Dr. A. S. Eddington, which I had the pleasure of
+hearing him deliver before the Royal Institution.[1]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I realize, of course, that it is not true logic to argue&mdash;"The world
+is not as we think it is&mdash;therefore everything we think impossible is
+possible in it." Even if it <I>be</I> different, it is governed by <I>law</I>. The
+truly impossible is that which is outside law, and as nothing <I>can</I> be
+outside law, the impossible <I>cannot</I> exist.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The crux of the matter then becomes our determination whether what we
+think is impossible may or may not be possible under laws still beyond
+our knowledge.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I hope that you will pardon me for this somewhat academic digression,
+but I felt it was necessary, and it has, at least, put me more at
+ease. And now to resume.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+We had watched, Larry and I, the frog-men throw the bodies of Yolara's
+assassins into the crimson waters. As vultures swoop down upon the
+dying, there came sailing swiftly to where the dead men floated,
+dozens of the luminous globes. Their slender, varicoloured tentacles
+whipped out; the giant iridescent bubbles <I>climbed</I> over the cadavers.
+And as they touched them there was the swift dissolution, the melting
+away into putrescence of flesh and bone that I had witnessed when the
+dart touched fruit that time I had saved Rador&mdash;and upon this the
+Medusae gorged; pulsing lambently; their wondrous colours shifting,
+changing, glowing stronger; elfin moons now indeed, but satellites
+whose glimmering beauty was fed by death; alembics of enchantment
+whose glorious hues were sucked from horror.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Sick, I turned away&mdash;O'Keefe as pale as I; passed back into the
+corridor that had opened on the ledge from which we had watched; met
+Lakla hurrying toward us. Before she could speak there throbbed
+faintly about us a vast sighing. It grew into a murmur, a whispering,
+shook us&mdash;then passing like a presence, died away in far distance.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The Portal has opened," said the handmaiden.  A fainter sighing, like
+an echo of the other, mourned about us. "Yolara is gone," she said,
+"the Portal is closed. Now must we hasten&mdash;for the Three have
+commanded that you, Goodwin, and Larry and I tread that strange road
+of which I have spoken, and which Olaf may not take lest his heart
+break&mdash;and we must return ere he and Rador cross the bridge."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Her hand sought Larry's.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Come!" said Lakla, and we walked on; down and down through hall after
+hall, flight upon flight of stairways. Deep, deep indeed, we must be
+beneath the domed castle&mdash;Lakla paused before a curved, smooth breast
+of the crimson stone rounding gently into the passage. She pressed its
+side; it revolved; we entered; it closed behind us.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The room, the&mdash;hollow&mdash;in which we stood was faceted like a diamond;
+and like a cut brilliant its sides glistened&mdash;though dully. Its shape
+was a deep oval, and our path dropped down to a circular polished
+base, roughly two yards in diameter. Glancing behind me I saw that in
+the closing of the entrance there had been left no trace of it save
+the steps that led from where that entrance had been&mdash;and as I looked
+these steps <I>turned</I>, leaving us isolated upon the circle, only the
+faceted walls about us&mdash;and in each of the gleaming faces the three of
+us reflected&mdash;dimly. It was as though we were within a diamond egg
+whose graven angles had been turned <I>inward</I>.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But the oval was not perfect; at my right a screen cut it&mdash;a screen
+that gleamed with fugitive, fleeting luminescences&mdash;stretching from
+the side of our standing place up to the tip of the chamber; slightly
+convex and crisscrossed by millions of fine lines like those upon a
+spectroscopic plate, but with this difference&mdash;that within each line I
+sensed the presence of multitudes of finer lines, dwindling into
+infinitude, ultramicroscopic, traced by some instrument compared to
+whose delicacy our finest tool would be as a crowbar to the needle of
+a micrometer.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A foot or two from it stood something like the standee of a compass,
+bearing, like it a cradled dial under whose crystal ran concentric
+rings of prisoned, lambent vapours, faintly blue. From the edge of the
+dial jutted a little shelf of crystal, a keyboard, in which were cut
+eight small cups.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Within these cups the handmaiden placed her tapering fingers.  She
+gazed down upon the disk; pressed a digit&mdash;and the screen behind us
+slipped noiselessly into another angle.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Put your arm around my waist, Larry, darlin', and stand close," she
+murmured. "You, Goodwin, place your arm over my shoulder."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Wondering, I did as she bade; she pressed other fingers upon the
+shelf's indentations&mdash;three of the rings of vapour spun into intense
+light, raced around each other; from the screen behind us grew a
+radiance that held within itself all spectrums&mdash;not only those seen,
+but those <I>unseen</I> by man's eyes. It waxed brilliant and ever more
+brilliant, all suffusing, passing through me as day streams through a
+window pane!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The enclosing facets burst into a blaze of coruscations, and in each
+sparkling panel I saw our images, shaken and torn like pennants in a
+whirlwind. I turned to look&mdash;was stopped by the handmaiden's swift
+command: "Turn not&mdash;on your life!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The radiance behind me grew; was a rushing tempest of light in which I
+was but the shadow of a shadow. I heard, but not with my ears&mdash;nay with
+<I>mind</I> itself&mdash;a vast roaring; an <I>ordered</I> tumult of sound that came
+hurling from the outposts of space; approaching&mdash;rushing&mdash;hurricane
+out of the heart of the cosmos&mdash;closer, closer. It wrapped itself
+about us with unearthly mighty arms.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And brilliant, ever more brilliant, streamed the radiance through us.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The faceted walls dimmed; in front of me they melted, diaphanously,
+like a gelatinous wall in a blast of flame; through their vanishing,
+under the torrent of driving light, the unthinkable, impalpable
+tornado, I began to move, slowly&mdash;then ever more swiftly!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Still the roaring grew; the radiance streamed&mdash;ever faster we went.
+Cutting down through the length, the <I>extension</I> of me, dropped a wall
+of rock, foreshortened, clenched close; I caught a glimpse of the
+elfin gardens; they whirled, contracted, into a thin&mdash;slice&mdash;of colour
+that was a part of me; another wall of rock shrinking into a thin
+wedge through which I flew, and that at once took its place within me
+like a card slipped beside those others!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Flashing around me, and from Lakla and O'Keefe, were nimbuses of
+flickering scarlet flames. And always the steady hurling
+forward&mdash;appallingly mechanical.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Another barrier of rock&mdash;a gleam of white waters incorporating
+themselves into my&mdash;<I>drawing out</I>&mdash;even as were the flowered moss lands,
+the slicing, rocky walls&mdash;still another rampart of cliff, dwindling
+instantly into the vertical plane of those others. Our flight checked;
+we seemed to hover within, then to sway onward&mdash;slowly, cautiously.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A mist danced ahead of me&mdash;a mist that grew steadily thinner.  We
+stopped, wavered&mdash;the mist cleared.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I looked out into translucent, green distances; shot with swift
+prismatic gleamings; waves and pulsings of luminosity like midday sun
+glow through green, tropic waters: dancing, scintillating veils of
+sparkling atoms that flew, hither and yon, through depths of nebulous
+splendour!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And Lakla and Larry and I were, I saw, like shadow shapes upon a
+smooth breast of stone twenty feet or more above the surface of this
+place&mdash;a surface spangled with tiny white blossoms gleaming wanly
+through creeping veils of phosphorescence like smoke of moon fire. We
+were shadows&mdash;and yet we had substance; we were incorporated with, a
+part of, the rock&mdash;and yet we were living flesh and blood; we
+stretched&mdash;nor will I qualify this&mdash;we <I>stretched</I> through mile upon
+mile of space that weirdly enough gave at one and the same time an
+absolute certainty of immense horizontal lengths and a vertical
+concentration that contained nothing of length, nothing of space
+whatever; we stood <I>there</I> upon the face of the stone&mdash;and still we
+were <I>here</I> within the faceted oval before the screen of radiance!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Steady!" It was Lakla's voice&mdash;and not beside me <I>there</I>, but at my ear
+close before the screen. "Steady, Goodwin! And&mdash;see!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The sparkling haze cleared.  Enormous reaches stretched before me.
+Shimmering up through them, and as though growing in some medium
+thicker than air, was mass upon mass of verdure&mdash;fruiting trees and
+trees laden with pale blossoms, arbours and bowers of pallid blooms,
+like that sea fruit of oblivion&mdash;grapes of Lethe&mdash;that cling to the
+tide-swept walls of the caverns of the Hebrides.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Through them, beyond them, around and about them, drifted and eddied a
+horde&mdash;great as that with which Tamerlane swept down upon Rome, vast
+as the myriads which Genghis Khan rolled upon the califs&mdash;men and
+women and children&mdash;clothed in tatters, half nude and wholly naked;
+slant-eyed Chinese, sloe-eyed Malays, islanders black and brown and
+yellow, fierce-faced warriors of the Solomons with grizzled locks
+fantastically bedizened; Papuans, feline Javans, Dyaks of hill and
+shore; hook-nosed Phoenicians, Romans, straight-browed Greeks, and
+Vikings centuries <I>beyond</I> their lives: scores of the black-haired
+Murians; white faces of our own Westerners&mdash;men and women and
+children&mdash;drifting, eddying&mdash;each stamped with that mingled horror and
+rapture, eyes filled with ecstasy and terror entwined, marked by God
+and devil in embrace&mdash;the seal of the Shining One&mdash;the dead-alive; the
+lost ones!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The loot of the Dweller!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Soul-sick, I gazed.  They lifted to us visages of dread; they swept
+down toward us, glaring upward&mdash;a bank against which other and still
+other waves of faces rolled, were checked, paused; until as far as I
+could see, like billows piled upon an ever-growing barrier, they
+stretched beneath us&mdash;staring&mdash;staring!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Now there was a movement&mdash;far, far away; a concentrating of the
+lambency; the dead-alive swayed, oscillated, separated&mdash;forming a long
+lane against whose outskirts they crowded with avid, hungry
+insistence.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+First only a luminous cloud, then a whirling pillar of splendours
+through the lane came&mdash;the Shining One. As it passed, the dead-alive
+swirled in its wake like leaves behind a whirlwind, eddying, twisting;
+and as the Dweller raced by them, brushing them with its spirallings
+and tentacles, they shone forth with unearthly, awesome
+gleamings&mdash;like vessels of alabaster in which wicks flare suddenly.
+And when it had passed they closed behind it, staring up at us once
+more.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Dweller paused beneath us.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Out of the drifting ruck swam the body of Throckmartin! Throckmartin,
+my friend, to find whom I had gone to the pallid moon door; my friend
+whose call I had so laggardly followed. On his face was the Dweller's
+dreadful stamp; the lips were bloodless; the eyes were wide, lucent,
+something like pale, phosphorescence gleaming within them&mdash;and
+soulless.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He stared straight up at me, unwinking, unrecognizing. Pressing
+against his side was a woman, young and gentle, and lovely&mdash;lovely
+even through the mask that lay upon her face. And her wide eyes, like
+Throckmartin's, glowed with the lurking, unholy fires. She pressed
+against him closely; though the hordes kept up the faint churning,
+these two kept ever together, as though bound by unseen fetters.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And I knew the girl for Edith, his wife, who in vain effort to save
+him had cast herself into the Dweller's embrace!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Throckmartin!" I cried.  "Throckmartin!  I'm here!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Did he hear?  I know now, of course, he could not.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But then I waited&mdash;hope striving to break through the nightmare hands
+that gripped my heart.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Their wide eyes never left me.  There was another movement about them,
+others pushed past them; they drifted back, swaying, eddying&mdash;and
+still staring were lost in the awful throng.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Vainly I strained my gaze to find them again, to force some sign of
+recognition, some awakening of the clean life we know. But they were
+gone. Try as I would I could not see them&mdash;nor Stanton and the
+northern woman named Thora who had been the first of that tragic party
+to be taken by the Dweller.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Throckmartin!" I cried again, despairingly.  My tears blinded me.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I felt Lakla's light touch.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Steady," she commanded, pitifully.  "Steady, Goodwin. You cannot help
+them&mdash;now! Steady and&mdash;watch!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Below us the Shining One had paused&mdash;spiralling, swirling, vibrant
+with all its transcendent, devilish beauty; had paused and was
+contemplating us. Now I could see clearly that nucleus, that core shot
+through with flashing veins of radiance, that ever-shifting shape of
+glory through the shroudings of shimmering, misty plumes, throbbing
+lacy opalescences, vaporous spirallings of prismatic phantom fires.
+Steady over it hung the seven little moons of amethyst, of saffron, of
+emerald and azure and silver, of rose of life and moon white. They
+poised themselves like a diadem&mdash;calm, serene, immobile&mdash;and down
+from them into the Dweller, piercing plumes and swirls and spirals,
+ran countless tiny strands, radiations, finer than the finest spun
+thread of spider's web, gleaming filaments through which seemed to
+run&mdash;<I>power</I>&mdash;from the seven globes; like&mdash;yes, that was it&mdash;miniatures
+of the seven torrents of moon flame that poured through the
+septichromatic, high crystals in the Moon Pool's chamber roof.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Swam out of the coruscating haze the&mdash;face!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Both of man and of woman it was&mdash;like some ancient, androgynous deity
+of Etruscan fanes long dust, and yet neither woman nor man; human and
+unhuman, seraphic and sinister, benign and malefic&mdash;and still no more
+of these four than is flame, which is beautiful whether it warms or
+devours, or wind whether it feathers the trees or shatters them, or
+the wave which is wondrous whether it caresses or kills.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Subtly, undefinably it was of our world and of one not ours.  Its
+lineaments flowed from another sphere, took fleeting familiar
+form&mdash;and as swiftly withdrew whence they had come; something
+amorphous, unearthly&mdash;as of unknown unheeding, unseen gods rushing
+through the depths of star-hung space; and still of our own earth,
+with the very soul of earth peering out from it, caught within it&mdash;and
+in some&mdash;unholy&mdash;way debased.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It had eyes&mdash;eyes that were now only shadows darkening within its
+luminosity like veils falling, and falling, <I>opening</I> windows into the
+unknowable; deepening into softly glowing blue pools, blue as the Moon
+Pool itself; then flashing out, and this only when the&mdash;face&mdash;bore its
+most human resemblance, into twin stars large almost as the crown of
+little moons; and with that same baffling suggestion of peep-holes
+into a world untrodden, alien, perilous to man!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Steady!" came Lakla's voice, her body leaned against mine.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I gripped myself, my brain steadied, I looked again.  And I saw that
+of body, at least body as we know it, the Shining One had
+none&mdash;nothing but the throbbing, pulsing core streaked with lightning
+veins of rainbows; and around this, never still, sheathing it, the
+swirling, glorious veilings of its hell and heaven born radiance.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+So the Dweller stood&mdash;and gazed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then up toward us swept a reaching, questing spiral!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Under my hand Lakla's shoulder quivered; dead-alive and their master
+vanished&mdash;I danced, flickered, <I>within</I> the rock; felt a swift sense of
+shrinking, of withdrawal; slice upon slice the carded walls of stone,
+of silvery waters, of elfin gardens slipped from me as cards are
+withdrawn from a pack, one by one&mdash;slipped, wheeled, flattened, and
+lengthened out as I passed through them and they passed from me.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Gasping, shaken, weak, I stood within the faceted oval chamber; arm
+still about the handmaiden's white shoulder; Larry's hand still
+clutching her girdle.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The roaring, impalpable gale from the cosmos was retreating to the
+outposts of space&mdash;was still; the intense, streaming, flooding
+radiance lessened&mdash;died.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Now have you beheld," said Lakla, "and well you trod the road.  And
+now shall you hear, even as the Silent Ones have commanded, what the
+Shining One is&mdash;and how it came to be."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The steps flashed back; the doorway into the chamber opened.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Larry as silent as I&mdash;we followed her through it.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+[1] Reprinted in full in <I>Nature</I>, in which those sufficiently interested
+may peruse it.&mdash;W. T. G.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap29"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XXIX
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+The Shaping of the Shining One
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+We reached what I knew to be Lakla's own boudoir, if I may so call it.
+Smaller than any of the other chambers of the domed castle in which we
+had been, its intimacy was revealed not only by its faint fragrance
+but by its high mirrors of polished silver and various oddly wrought
+articles of the feminine toilet that lay here and there; things I
+afterward knew to be the work of the artisans of the <I>Akka</I>&mdash;and no
+mean metal workers were they. One of the window slits dropped almost
+to the floor, and at its base was a wide, comfortably cushioned seat
+commanding a view of the bridge and of the cavern ledge. To this the
+handmaiden beckoned us; sank upon it, drew Larry down beside her and
+motioned me to sit close to him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Now this," she said, "is what the Silent Ones have commanded me to
+tell you two: To you Larry, that knowing you may weigh all things in
+your mind and answer as your spirit bids you a question that the Three
+will ask&mdash;and what that is I know not," she murmured, "and I, they
+say, must answer, too&mdash;and it&mdash;frightens me!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The great golden eyes widened; darkened with dread; she sighed, shook
+her head impatiently.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Not like us, and never like us," she spoke low, wonderingly, "the
+Silent Ones say were they. Nor were those from which they sprang like
+those from which we have come. Ancient, ancient beyond thought are the
+<I>Taithu</I>, the race of the Silent Ones. Far, far below this place where
+now we sit, close to earth heart itself were they born; and there they
+dwelt for time upon time, <I>laya</I> upon <I>laya</I> upon <I>laya</I>&mdash;with others,
+not like them, some of which have vanished time upon time agone,
+others that still dwell&mdash;below&mdash;in their&mdash;cradle.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It is hard"&mdash;she hesitated&mdash;"hard to tell this&mdash;that slips through my
+mind&mdash;because I know so little that even as the Three told it to me it
+passed from me for lack of place to stand upon," she went on,
+quaintly. "Something there was of time when earth and sun were but
+cold mists in the&mdash;the heavens&mdash;something of these mists drawing
+together, whirling, whirling, faster and faster&mdash;drawing as they
+whirled more and more of the mists&mdash;growing larger, growing
+warm&mdash;forming at last into the globes they are, with others spinning
+around the sun&mdash;something of regions within this globe where vast fire
+was prisoned and bursting forth tore and rent the young orb&mdash;of one
+such bursting forth that sent what you call moon flying out to company
+us and left behind those spaces whence we now dwell&mdash;and of&mdash;of life
+particles that here and there below grew into the race of the Silent
+Ones, and those others&mdash;but not the <I>Akka</I> which, like you, they say
+came from above&mdash;and all this I do not understand&mdash;do you, Goodwin?"
+she appealed to me.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I nodded&mdash;for what she had related so fragmentarily was in reality an
+excellent approach to the Chamberlain-Moulton theory of a coalescing
+nebula contracting into the sun and its planets.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Astonishing was the recognition of this theory.  Even more so was the
+reference to the life particles, the idea of Arrhenius, the great
+Swede, of life starting on earth through the dropping of minute, life
+<I>spores</I>, propelled through space by the driving power of light and,
+encountering favourable environment here, developing through the vast
+ages into man and every other living thing we know.[1]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Nor was it incredible that in the ancient nebula that was the matrix
+of our solar system similar, or rather <I>dissimilar</I>, particles in all
+but the subtle essence we call life, might have become entangled and,
+resisting every cataclysm as they had resisted the absolute zero of
+outer space, found in these caverned spaces their proper environment
+to develop into the race of the Silent Ones and&mdash;only <I>they</I> could
+tell what else!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"They say," the handmaiden's voice was surer, "they say that in
+their&mdash;cradle&mdash;near earth's heart they grew; grew untroubled by the
+turmoil and disorder which flayed the surface of this globe. And they
+say it was a place of light and that strength came to them from earth
+heart&mdash;strength greater than you and those from which you sprang ever
+derived from sun.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"At last, ancient, ancient beyond all thought, they say again, was
+this time&mdash;they began to know, to&mdash;to&mdash;realize&mdash;themselves. And
+wisdom came ever more swiftly. Up from their cradle, because they did
+not wish to dwell longer with those&mdash;others&mdash;they came and found this
+place.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"When all the face of earth was covered with waters in which lived
+only tiny, hungry things that knew naught save hunger and its
+satisfaction, <I>they</I> had attained wisdom that enabled them to make paths
+such as we have just travelled and to look out upon those waters! And
+<I>laya</I> upon <I>laya</I> thereafter, time upon time, they went upon the
+paths and watched the flood recede; saw great bare flats of steaming
+ooze appear on which crawled and splashed larger things which had
+grown from the tiny hungry ones; watched the flats rise higher and
+higher and green life begin to clothe them; saw mountains uplift and
+vanish.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ever the green life waxed and the things which crept and crawled grew
+greater and took ever different forms; until at last came a time when
+the steaming mists lightened and the things which had begun as little
+more than tiny hungry mouths were huge and monstrous, so huge that the
+tallest of my <I>Akka</I> would not have reached the knee of the smallest
+of them.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But in none of these, in <I>none</I>, was there&mdash;realization&mdash;of
+themselves, say the Three; naught but hunger driving, always driving
+them to still its crying.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"So for time upon time the race of the Silent Ones took the paths no
+more, placing aside the half-thought that they had of making their way
+to earth face even as they had made their way from beside earth heart.
+They turned wholly to the seeking of wisdom&mdash;and after other time on
+time they attained that which killed even the faintest shadow of the
+half-thought. For they crept far within the mysteries of life and
+death, they mastered the illusion of space, they lifted the veils of
+creation and of its twin destruction, and they stripped the covering
+from the flaming jewel of truth&mdash;but when they had crept within those
+mysteries they bid me tell <I>you</I>, Goodwin, they found ever other
+mysteries veiling the way; and after they had uncovered the jewel of
+truth they found it to be a gem of infinite facets and therefore not
+wholly to be read before eternity's unthinkable end!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And for this they were glad&mdash;because now throughout eternity might
+they and theirs pursue knowledge over ways illimitable.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"They conquered light&mdash;light that sprang at their bidding from the
+nothingness that gives birth to all things and in which lie all things
+that are, have been and shall be; light that streamed through their
+bodies cleansing them of all dross; light that was food and drink;
+light that carried their vision afar or bore to them images out of
+space opening many windows through which they gazed down upon life on
+thousands upon thousands of the rushing worlds; light that was the
+flame of life itself and in which they bathed, ever renewing their
+own. They set radiant lamps within the stones, and of black light they
+wove the sheltering shadows and the shadows that slay.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Arose from this people those Three&mdash;the Silent Ones. They led them
+all in wisdom so that in the Three grew&mdash;pride. And the Three built
+them this place in which we sit and set the Portal in its place and
+withdrew from their kind to go alone into the mysteries and to map
+alone the facets of Truth Jewel.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Then there came the ancestors of the&mdash;<I>Akka</I>; not as they are now,
+and glowing but faintly within them the spark of&mdash;self-realization.
+And the <I>Taithu</I> seeing this spark did not slay them. But they took
+the ancient, long untrodden paths and looked forth once more upon
+earth face. Now on the land were vast forests and a chaos of green
+life. On the shores things scaled and fanged, fought and devoured each
+other, and in the green life moved bodies great and small that slew
+and ran from those that would slay.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"They searched for the passage through which the <I>Akka</I> had come and
+closed it. Then the Three took them and brought them here; and taught
+them and blew upon the spark until it burned ever stronger and in time
+they became much as they are now&mdash;my <I>Akka</I>.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The Three took counsel after this and said&mdash;'We have strengthened
+life in these until it has become articulate; shall we not <I>create</I>
+life?'" Again she hesitated, her eyes rapt, dreaming. "The Three are
+speaking," she murmured. "They have my tongue&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And certainly, with an ease and rapidity as though she were but a
+voice through which minds far more facile, more powerful poured their
+thoughts, she spoke.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yea," the golden voice was vibrant.  "We said that what we would
+create should be of the spirit of life itself, speaking to us with the
+tongues of the far-flung stars, of the winds, of the waters, and of
+all upon and within these. Upon that universal matrix of matter, that
+mother of all things that you name the ether, we laboured. Think not
+that her wondrous fertility is limited by what ye see on earth or what
+has been on earth from its beginning. Infinite, infinite are the forms
+the mother bears and countless are the energies that are part of her.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"By our wisdom we had fashioned many windows out of our abode and
+through them we stared into the faces of myriads of worlds, and upon
+them all were the children of ether even as the worlds themselves were
+her children.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Watching we learned, and learning we formed that ye term the Dweller,
+which those without name&mdash;the Shining One. Within the Universal Mother
+we shaped it, to be a voice to tell us her secrets, a lamp to go
+before us lighting the mysteries. Out of the ether we fashioned it,
+giving it the soul of light that still ye know not nor perhaps ever
+may know, and with the essence of life that ye saw blossoming deep in
+the abyss and that is the pulse of earth heart we filled it. And we
+wrought with pain and with love, with yearning and with scorching
+pride and from our travail came the Shining One&mdash;our child!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"There is an energy beyond and above ether, a purposeful, sentient
+force that laps like an ocean the furthest-flung star, that transfuses
+all that ether bears, that sees and speaks and feels in us and in you,
+that is incorporate in beast and bird and reptile, in tree and grass
+and all living things, that sleeps in rock and stone, that finds
+sparkling tongue in jewel and star and in all dwellers within the
+firmament. And this ye call consciousness!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We crowned the Shining One with the seven orbs of light which are the
+channels between it and the sentience we sought to make articulate,
+the portals through which flow its currents and so flowing, become
+choate, vocal, self-realizant within our child.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But as we shaped, there passed some of the essence of our pride; in
+giving will we had given power, perforce, to exercise that will for
+good or for evil, to speak or to be silent, to tell us what we wished
+of that which poured into it through the seven orbs or to withhold
+that knowledge itself; and in forging it from the immortal energies we
+had endowed it with their indifference; open to all consciousness it
+held within it the pole of utter joy and the pole of utter woe with
+all the arc that lies between; all the ecstasies of the countless
+worlds and suns and all their sorrows; all that ye symbolize as gods
+and all ye symbolize as devils&mdash;not negativing each other, for there
+is no such thing as negation, but holding them together, balancing
+them, encompassing them, pole upon pole!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+So <I>this</I> was the explanation of the entwined emotions of joy and terror
+that had changed so appallingly Throckmartin's face and the faces of
+all the Dweller's slaves!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The handmaiden's eyes grew bright, alert, again; the brooding passed
+from her face; the golden voice that had been so deep found its own
+familiar pitch.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I listened while the Three spoke to you," she said.  "Now the shaping
+of the Shining One had been a long, long travail and time had flown
+over the outer world <I>laya</I> upon <I>laya</I>. For a space the Shining One
+was content to dwell here; to be fed with the foods of light: to open
+the eyes of the Three to mystery upon mystery and to read for them
+facet after facet of the gem of truth. Yet as the tides of
+consciousness flowed through it they left behind shadowings and echoes
+of their burdens; and the Shining One grew stronger, always stronger
+of <I>itself within itself</I>. Its will strengthened and now not always was
+it the will of the Three; and the pride that was woven in the making
+of it waxed, while the love for them that its creators had set within
+it waned.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Not ignorant were the <I>Taithu</I> of the work of the Three. First there
+were a few, then more and more who coveted the Shining One and who
+would have had the Three share with them the knowledge it drew in for
+them. But the Silent Ones in their pride, would not.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"There came a time when its will was now <I>all</I> its own, and it rebelled,
+turning its gaze to the wider spaces beyond the Portal, offering
+itself to the many there who would serve it; tiring of the Three,
+their control and their abode.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Now the Shining One has its limitations, even as we.  Over water it
+can pass, through air and through fire; but pass it cannot, through
+rock or metal. So it sent a message&mdash;how I know not&mdash;to the <I>Taithu</I>
+who desired it, whispering to them the secret of the Portal. And when
+the time was ripe they opened the Portal and the Shining One passed
+through it to them; nor would it return to the Three though they
+commanded, and when they would have forced it they found that it had
+hived and hidden a knowledge that they could not overcome.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yet by their arts the Three could have shattered the seven shining
+orbs; but they would not because&mdash;they loved, it!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Those to whom it had gone built for it that place I have shown you,
+and they bowed to it and drew wisdom from it. And ever they turned
+more and more from the ways in which the <I>Taithu</I> had walked&mdash;for it
+seemed that which came to the Shining One through the seven orbs had
+less and less of good and more and more of the power you call evil.
+Knowledge it gave and understanding, yes; but not that which, clear
+and serene, lights the paths of right wisdom; rather were they flares
+pointing the dark roads that lead to&mdash;to the ultimate evil!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Not all of the race of the Three followed the counsel of the Shining
+One. There were many, many, who would have none of it nor of its
+power. So were the <I>Taithu</I> split; and to this place where there had
+been none, came hatred, fear and suspicion. Those who pursued the
+ancient ways went to the Three and pleaded with them to destroy their
+work&mdash;and they would not, for still they loved it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Stronger grew the Dweller and less and less did it lay before its
+worshippers&mdash;for now so they had become&mdash;the fruits of its knowledge;
+and it grew&mdash;restless&mdash;turning its gaze upon earth face even as it had
+turned it from the Three. It whispered to the <I>Taithu</I> to take again
+the paths and look out upon the world. Lo! above them was a great
+fertile land on which dwelt an unfamiliar race, skilled in arts,
+seeking and finding wisdom&mdash;mankind! Mighty builders were they; vast
+were their cities and huge their temples of stone.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"They called their lands Muria and they worshipped a god Thanaroa whom
+they imagined to be the maker of all things, dwelling far away. They
+worshipped as closer gods, not indifferent but to be prayed to and to
+be propitiated, the moon and the sun. Two kings they had, each with
+his council and his court. One was high priest to the moon and the
+other high priest to the sun.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The mass of this people were black-haired, but the sun king and his
+nobles were ruddy with hair like mine; and the moon king and his
+followers were like Yolara&mdash;or Lugur. And this, the Three say,
+Goodwin, came about because for time upon time the law had been that
+whenever a ruddy-haired or ashen-tressed child was born of the
+black-haired it became dedicated at once to either sun god or moon
+god, later wedding and bearing children only to their own kind. Until
+at last from the black-haired came no more of the light-locked ones,
+but the ruddy ones, being stronger, still arose from them."
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+[1] Professor Svante August Arrhenius, in his <I>Worlds in the Making</I>&mdash;the
+conception that life is universally diffused, constantly emitted
+from all habitable worlds in the form of spores which traverse space
+for years and ages, the majority being ultimately destroyed by the
+heat of some blazing star, but some few finding a resting-place on
+globes which have reached the habitable stage.&mdash;W. T. G.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap30"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XXX
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+The Building of the Moon Pool
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+She paused, running her long fingers through her own bronze-flecked
+ringlets. Selective breeding this, with a vengeance, I thought; an
+ancient experiment in heredity which of course would in time result in
+the stamping out of the tendency to depart from type that lies in all
+organisms; resulting, obviously, at last, in three fixed forms of
+black-haired, ruddy-haired, and silver-haired&mdash;but this, with a shock
+of realization it came to me, was also an accurate description of the
+dark-polled <I>ladala</I>, their fair-haired rulers and of the golden-brown
+tressed Lakla!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+How&mdash;questions began to stream through my mind; silenced by the
+handmaiden's voice.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Above, far, far above the abode of the Shining One," she said, "was
+their greatest temple, holding the shrines both of sun and moon. All
+about it were other temples hidden behind mighty walls, each enclosing
+its own space and squared and ruled and standing within a shallow
+lake; the sacred city, the city of the gods of this land&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It is the Nan-Matal that she is describing," I thought.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Out upon all this looked the <I>Taithu</I> who were now but the servants
+of the Shining One as it had been the messenger of the Three," she
+went on. "When they returned the Shining One spoke to them, promising
+them dominion over all that they had seen, yea, <I>under it</I> dominion of
+all earth itself and later perhaps of other earths!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"In the Shining One had grown craft, cunning; knowledge to gain that
+which it desired. Therefore it told its <I>Taithu</I>&mdash;and mayhap told
+them truth&mdash;that not yet was it time for <I>them</I> to go forth; that slowly
+must they pass into that outer world, for they had sprung from heart
+of earth and even it lacked power to swirl unaided into and through
+the above. Then it counselled them, instructing them what to do. They
+hollowed the chamber wherein first I saw you, cutting their way to it
+that path down which from it you sped.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It revealed to them that the force that is within moon flame is kin
+to the force that is within it, for the chamber of its birth was the
+chamber too of moon birth and into it went the subtle essence and
+powers that flow in that earth child: and it taught them how to make
+that which fills what you call the Moon Pool whose opening is close
+behind its Veil hanging upon the gleaming cliffs.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"When this was done it taught them how to make and how to place the
+seven lights through which moon flame streams into Moon Pool&mdash;the
+seven lights that are kin to its own seven orbs even as its fires are
+kin to moon fires&mdash;and which would open for it a path that it could
+tread. And all this the <I>Taithu</I> did, working so secretly that neither
+those of their race whose faces were set against the Shining One nor
+the busy men above know aught of it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"When it was done they moved up the path, clustering within the Moon
+Pool Chamber. Moon flame streamed through the seven globes, poured
+down upon the pool; they saw mists arise, embrace, and become one with
+the moon flame&mdash;and then up through Moon Pool, shaping itself within
+the mists of light, whirling, radiant&mdash;the Shining One!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Almost free, almost loosed upon the world it coveted!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Again it counselled them, and they pierced the passage whose portal
+you found first; set the fires within its stones, and revealing
+themselves to the moon king and his priests spake to them even as the
+Shining One had instructed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Now was the moon king filled with fear when he looked upon the
+<I>Taithu</I>, shrouded with protecting mists of light in Moon Pool
+Chamber, and heard their words. Yet, being crafty, he thought of the
+power that would be his if he heeded and how quickly the strength of
+the sun king would dwindle. So he and his made a pact with the Shining
+One's messengers.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"When next the moon was round and poured its flames down upon Moon
+Pool, the <I>Taithu</I> gathered there again, watched the child of the
+Three take shape within the pillars, speed away&mdash;and out! They heard a
+mighty shouting, a tumult of terror, of awe and of worship; a silence;
+a vast sighing&mdash;and they waited, wrapped in their mists of light, for
+they feared to follow nor were they near the paths that would have
+enabled them to look without.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Another tumult&mdash;and back came the Shining One, murmuring with joy,
+pulsing, triumphant, and clasped within its vapours a man and woman,
+ruddy-haired, golden-eyed, in whose faces rapture and horror lay side
+by side&mdash;gloriously, hideously. And still holding them it danced above
+the Moon Pool and&mdash;sank!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Now must I be brief. <I>Lat</I> after <I>lat</I> the Shining One went forth,
+returning with its sacrifices. And stronger after each it grew&mdash;and
+gayer and more cruel. Ever when it passed with its prey toward the
+pool, the <I>Taithu</I> who watched felt a swift, strong intoxication, a
+drunkenness of spirit, streaming from it to them. And the Shining One
+forgot what it had promised them of dominion&mdash;and in this new evil
+delight they too forgot.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The outer land was torn with hatred and open strife. The moon king
+and his kind, through the guidance of the evil <I>Taithu</I> and the favour
+of the Shining One, had become powerful and the sun king and his were
+darkened. And the moon priests preached that the child of the Three
+was the moon god itself come to dwell with them.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Now vast tides arose and when they withdrew they took with them great
+portions of this country. And the land itself began to sink. Then said
+the moon king that the moon had called to ocean to destroy because
+wroth that another than he was worshipped. The people believed and
+there was slaughter. When it was over there was no more a sun king nor
+any of the ruddy-haired folk; slain were they, slain down to the babe
+at breast.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But still the tides swept higher; still dwindled the land!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"As it shrank multitudes of the fleeing people were led through Moon
+Pool Chamber and carried here. They were what now are called the
+<I>ladala</I>, and they were given place and set to work; and they thrived.
+Came many of the fair-haired; and they were given dwellings. They sat
+beside the evil <I>Taithu</I>; they became drunk even as they with the
+dancing of the Shining One; they learned&mdash;not all; only a little part
+but little enough&mdash;of their arts. And ever the Shining One danced more
+gaily out there within the black amphitheatre; grew ever stronger&mdash;and
+ever the hordes of its slaves behind the Veil increased.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Nor did the <I>Taithu</I> who clung to the old ways check this&mdash;they
+could not. By the sinking of the land above, their own spaces were
+imperilled. All of their strength and all of their wisdom it took to
+keep this land from perishing; nor had they help from those others mad
+for the poison of the Shining One; and they had no time to deal with
+them nor the earth race with whom they had foregathered.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"At last came a slow, vast flood.  It rolled even to the bases of the
+walled islets of the city of the gods&mdash;and within these now were all
+that were left of my people on earth face.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I am of those people," she paused, looking at me proudly, "one of the
+daughters of the sun king whose seed is still alive in the <I>ladala</I>!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As Larry opened his mouth to speak she waved a silencing hand.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"This tide did not recede," she went on.  "And after a time the
+remnant, the moon king leading them, joined those who had already fled
+below. The rocks became still, the quakings ceased, and now those
+Ancient Ones who had been labouring could take breath. And anger grew
+within them as they looked upon the work of their evil kin. Again they
+sought the Three&mdash;and the Three now knew what they had done and their
+pride was humbled. They would not slay the Shining One themselves, for
+still they loved it; but they instructed these others how to undo
+their work; how also they might destroy the evil <I>Taithu</I> were it
+necessary.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Armed with the wisdom of the Three they went forth&mdash;but now the
+Shining One was strong indeed. They could not slay it!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Nay, it knew and was prepared; they could not even pass beyond its
+Veil nor seal its abode. Ah, strong, strong, mighty of will, full of
+craft and cunning had the Shining One become. So they turned upon
+their kind who had gone astray and made them perish, to the last. The
+Shining One came not to the aid of its servants&mdash;though they called;
+for within its will was the thought that they were of no further use
+to it; that it would rest awhile and dance with them&mdash;who had so
+little of the power and wisdom of its <I>Taithu</I> and therefore no reins
+upon it. And while this was happening black-haired and fair-haired ran
+and hid and were but shaking vessels of terror.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The Ancient Ones took counsel.  This was their decision; that they
+would go from the gardens before the Silver Waters&mdash;leaving, since
+they could not kill it, the Shining One with its worshippers. They
+sealed the mouth of the passage that leads to the Moon Pool Chamber
+and they changed the face of the cliff so that none might tell where
+it had been. But the passage itself they left open&mdash;having
+foreknowledge I think, of a thing that was to come to pass in the far
+future&mdash;perhaps it was your journey here, my Larry and Goodwin&mdash;verily
+I think so. And they destroyed all the ways save that which
+we three trod to the Dweller's abode.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"For the last time they went to the Three&mdash;to pass sentence upon them.
+This was the doom&mdash;that here they should remain, alone, among the
+<I>Akka</I>, served by them, until that time dawned when they would have
+will to destroy the evil they had created&mdash;and even now&mdash;loved; nor
+might they seek death, nor follow their judges until this had come to
+pass. This was the doom they put upon the Three for the wickedness
+that had sprung from their pride, and they strengthened it with their
+arts that it might not be broken.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Then they passed&mdash;to a far land they had chosen where the Shining One
+could not go, beyond the Black Precipices of Doul, a green land&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ireland!" interrupted Larry, with conviction, "I knew it."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Since then time upon time had passed," she went on, unheeding.  "The
+people called this place Muria after their sunken land and soon they
+forgot where had been the passage the <I>Taithu</I> had sealed. The moon
+king became the Voice of the Dweller and always with the Voice is a
+woman of the moon king's kin who is its priestess.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And many have been the journeys upward of the Shining One, through
+the Moon Pool&mdash;returning with still others in its coils.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And now again has it grown restless, longing for the wider spaces.
+It has spoken to Yolara and to Lugur even as it did to the dead
+<I>Taithu</I>, promising them dominion. And it has grown stronger, drawing
+to itself power to go far on the moon stream where it will. Thus was
+it able to seize your friend, Goodwin, and Olaf's wife and babe&mdash;and
+many more. Yolara and Lugur plan to open way to earth face; to depart
+with their court and under the Shining One grasp the world!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And this is the tale the Silent Ones bade me tell you&mdash;and it is
+done."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Breathlessly I had listened to the stupendous epic of a long-lost
+world. Now I found speech to voice the question ever with me, the
+thing that lay as close to my heart as did the welfare of Larry,
+indeed the whole object of my quest&mdash;the fate of Throckmartin and
+those who had passed with him into the Dweller's lair; yes, and of
+Olaf's wife, too.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Lakla," I said, "the friend who drew me here and those he loved who
+went before him&mdash;can we not save them?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The Three say no, Goodwin." There was again in her eyes the pity with
+which she had looked upon Olaf. "The Shining One&mdash;<I>feeds</I>&mdash;upon the
+flame of life itself, setting in its place its own fires and its own
+will. Its slaves are only shells through which it gleams. Death, say
+the Three, is the best that can come to them; yet will that be a boon
+great indeed."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But they have souls, <I>mavourneen</I>," Larry said to her. "And they're
+alive still&mdash;in a way. Anyhow, their souls have not gone from them."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I caught a hope from his words&mdash;sceptic though I am&mdash;holding that the
+existence of soul has never been proved by dependable laboratory
+methods&mdash;for they recalled to me that when I had seen Throckmartin,
+Edith had been close beside him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It was days after his wife was taken, that the Dweller seized
+Throckmartin," I cried. "How, if their wills, their life, were indeed
+gone, how did they find each other mid all that horde? How did they
+come together in the Dweller's lair?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I do not know," she answered, slowly.  "You say they loved&mdash;and it is
+true that love is stronger even than death!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"One thing I <I>don't</I> understand"&mdash;this was Larry again&mdash;"is why a girl
+like you keeps coming out of the black-haired crowd; so frequently and
+one might say, so regularly, Lakla. Aren't there ever any red-headed
+boys&mdash;and if they are what becomes of them?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That, Larry, I cannot answer," she said, very frankly. "There was a
+pact of some kind; how made or by whom I know not. But for long the
+Murians feared the return of the <I>Taithu</I> and greatly they feared the
+Three. Even the Shining One feared those who had created it&mdash;for a
+time; and not even now is it eager to face them&mdash;<I>that</I> I know. Nor are
+Yolara and Lugur so <I>sure</I>. It may be that the Three commanded it: but
+how or why I know not. I only know that it is true&mdash;for here am I and
+from where else would I have come?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"From Ireland," said Larry O'Keefe, promptly.  "And that's where
+you're going. For 'tis no place for a girl like you to have been
+brought up&mdash;Lakla; what with people like frogs, and a half-god three
+quarters devil, and red oceans, an' the only Irish things yourself and
+the Silent Ones up there, bless their hearts. It's no place for ye,
+and by the soul of St. Patrick, it's out of it soon ye'll be gettin'!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Larry!  Larry!  If it had but been true&mdash;and I could see Lakla and you
+beside me now!
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap31"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XXXI
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+Larry and the Frog-Men
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+Long had been her tale in the telling, and too long, perhaps, have I
+been in the repeating&mdash;but not every day are the mists rolled away to
+reveal undreamed secrets of earth-youth. And I have set it down here,
+adding nothing, taking nothing from it; translating liberally, it is
+true, but constantly striving, while putting it into idea-forms and
+phraseology to be readily understood by my readers, to keep accurately
+to the spirit. And this, I must repeat, I have done throughout my
+narrative, wherever it has been necessary to record conversation with
+the Murians.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Rising, I found I was painfully stiff&mdash;as muscle-bound as though I had
+actually trudged many miles. Larry, imitating me, gave an involuntary
+groan.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Faith, <I>mavourneen</I>," he said to Lakla, relapsing unconsciously into
+English, "your roads would never wear out shoe-leather, but they've
+got their kick, just the same!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She understood our plight, if not his words; gave a soft little cry of
+mingled pity and self-reproach; forced us back upon the cushions.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, but I'm sorry!" mourned Lakla, leaning over us.  "I had
+forgotten&mdash;for those new to it the way is a weary one, indeed&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She ran to the doorway, whistled a clear high note down the passage.
+Through the hangings came two of the frog-men. She spoke to them
+rapidly. They crouched toward us, what certainly was meant for an
+amiable grin wrinkling the grotesque muzzles, baring the glistening
+rows of needle-teeth. And while I watched them with the fascination
+that they never lost for me, the monsters calmly swung one arm around
+our knees, lifted us up like babies&mdash;and as calmly started to walk
+away with us!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Put me down!  Put me down, I say!" The O'Keefe's voice was both
+outraged and angry; squinting around I saw him struggling violently to
+get to his feet. The <I>Akka</I> only held him tighter, booming
+comfortingly, peering down into his flushed face inquiringly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But, Larry&mdash;darlin'!"&mdash;Lakla's tones were&mdash;well, maternally
+surprised&mdash;"you're stiff and sore, and Kra can carry you quite
+easily."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I <I>won't</I> be carried!" sputtered the O'Keefe.  "Damn it, Goodwin, there
+are such things as the unities even here, an' for a lieutenant of the
+Royal Air Force to be picked up an' carted around like a&mdash;like a
+bundle of rags&mdash;it's not discipline! Put me down, ye <I>omadhaun</I>, or
+I'll poke ye in the snout!" he shouted to his bearer&mdash;who only boomed
+gently, and stared at the handmaiden, plainly for further
+instructions.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But, Larry&mdash;dear!"&mdash;Lakla was plainly distressed&mdash;"it will <I>hurt</I> you
+to walk; and I don't <I>want</I> you to hurt, Larry&mdash;darlin'!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Holy shade of St. Patrick!" moaned Larry; again he made a mighty
+effort to tear himself from the frog-man's grip; gave up with a groan.
+"Listen, <I>alanna</I>!" he said plaintively. "When we get to Ireland, you
+and I, we won't have anybody to pick us up and carry us about every
+time we get a bit tired. And it's getting me in bad habits you are!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, <I>yes</I>, we will, Larry!" cried the handmaiden, "because many, oh,
+many, of my <I>Akka</I> will go with us!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Will you tell this&mdash;BOOB!&mdash;to put me down!" gritted the now
+thoroughly aroused O'Keefe. I couldn't help laughing; he glared at me.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Bo-oo-ob?" exclaimed Lakla.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, boo-oo-ob!" said O'Keefe, "an' I have no desire to explain the
+word in my present position, light of my soul!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The handmaiden sighed, plainly dejected.  But she spoke again to the
+<I>Akka</I>, who gently lowered the O'Keefe to the floor.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I don't understand," she said hopelessly, "if you want to walk, why,
+of course, you shall, Larry." She turned to me.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Do you?" she asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I do not," I said firmly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, then," murmured Lakla, "go you, Larry and Goodwin, with Kra and
+Gulk, and let them minister to you. After, sleep a little&mdash;for not
+soon will Rador and Olaf return. And let me feel your lips before you
+go, Larry&mdash;darlin'!" She covered his eyes caressingly with her soft
+little palms; pushed him away.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Now go," said Lakla, "and rest!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Unashamed I lay back against the horny chest of Gulk; and with a smile
+noticed that Larry, even if he had rebelled at being carried, did not
+disdain the support of Kra's shining, black-scaled arm which, slipping
+around his waist, half-lifted him along.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They parted a hanging and dropped us softly down beside a little pool,
+sparkling with the clear water that had heretofore been brought us in
+the wide basins. Then they began to undress us. And at this point the
+O'Keefe gave up.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Whatever they're going to do we can't stop 'em, Doc!" he moaned.
+"Anyway, I feel as though I've been pulled through a knot-hole, and I
+don't care&mdash;I don't care&mdash;as the song says."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When we were stripped we were lowered gently into the water.  But not
+long did the <I>Akka</I> let us splash about the shallow basin. They lifted
+us out, and from jars began deftly to anoint and rub us with aromatic
+unguents.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I think that in all the medley of grotesque, of tragic, of baffling,
+strange and perilous experiences in that underground world none was
+more bizarre than this&mdash;valeting. I began to laugh, Larry joined me,
+and then Kra and Gulk joined in our merriment with deep batrachian
+cachinnations and gruntings. Then, having finished apparelling us and
+still chuckling, the two touched our arms and led us out, into a room
+whose circular sides were ringed with soft divans. Still smiling, I
+sank at once into sleep.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+How long I slumbered I do not know.  A low and thunderous booming
+coming through the deep window slit, reverberated through the room and
+awakened me. Larry yawned; arose briskly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Sounds as though the bass drums of every jazz band in New York were
+serenading us!" he observed. Simultaneously we sprang to the window;
+peered through.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+We were a little above the level of the bridge, and its full length
+was plain before us. Thousands upon thousands of the <I>Akka</I> were
+crowding upon it, and far away other hordes filled like a glittering
+thicket both sides of the cavern ledge's crescent strand. On black
+scale and orange scale the crimson light fell, picking them off in
+little flickering points.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Upon the platform from which sprang the smaller span over the abyss
+were Lakla, Olaf, and Rador; the handmaiden clearly acting as
+interpreter between them and the giant she had called Nak, the Frog
+King.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Come on!" shouted Larry.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Out of the open portal we ran; over the World Heart Bridge&mdash;and
+straight into the group.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh!" cried Lakla, "I didn't want you to wake up so soon,
+Larry&mdash;darlin'!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"See here, <I>mavourneen</I>!" Indignation thrilled in the Irishman's
+voice. "I'm not going to be done up with baby-ribbons and laid away in
+a cradle for safe-keeping while a fight is on; don't think it. Why
+didn't you call me?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You needed rest!" There was indomitable determination in the
+handmaiden's tones, the eternal maternal shining defiant from her
+eyes. "You were tired and you hurt! You shouldn't have got up!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Needed the rest!" groaned Larry.  "Look here, Lakla, what do you
+think I am?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You're all I have," said that maiden firmly, "and I'm going to take
+care of you, Larry&mdash;darlin'! Don't you ever think anything else."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, pulse of my heart, considering my delicate health and general
+fragility, would it hurt me, do you think, to be told what's going
+on?" he asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Not at all, Larry!" answered the handmaiden serenely. "Yolara went
+through the Portal. She was very, <I>very</I> angry&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"She was all the devil's woman that she is!" rumbled Olaf.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Rador met the messenger," went on the Golden Girl calmly.  "The
+<I>ladala</I> are ready to rise when Lugur and Yolara lead their hosts
+against us. They will strike at those left behind. And in the meantime
+we shall have disposed my <I>Akka</I> to meet Yolara's men. And on that
+disposal we must all take counsel, you, Larry, and Rador, Olaf and
+Goodwin and Nak, the ruler of the <I>Akka</I>."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Did the messenger give any idea when Yolara expects to make her
+little call?" asked Larry.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes," she answered.  "They prepare, and we may expect them in&mdash;" She
+gave the equivalent of about thirty-six hours of our time.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But, Lakla," I said, the doubt that I had long been holding finding
+voice, "should the Shining One come&mdash;with its slaves&mdash;are the Three
+strong enough to cope with it?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There was troubled doubt in her own eyes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I do not know," she said at last, frankly.  "You have heard their
+story. What they promise is that they will help. I do not know&mdash;any
+more than do you, Goodwin!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I looked up at the dome beneath which I knew the dread Trinity stared
+forth; even down upon us. And despite the awe, the assurance, I had
+felt when I stood before them I, too, doubted.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well," said Larry, "you and I, uncle," he turned to Rador, "and Olaf
+here had better decide just what part of the battle we'll lead&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Lead!" the handmaiden was appalled. "<I>You</I> lead, Larry? Why you are
+to stay with Goodwin and with me&mdash;up there, there we can watch."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Heart's beloved," O'Keefe was stern indeed.  "A thousand times I've
+looked Death straight in the face, peered into his eyes. Yes, and with
+ten thousand feet of space under me an' bursting shells tickling the
+ribs of the boat I was in. An' d'ye think I'll sit now on the
+grandstand an' watch while a game like this is being pulled? Ye don't
+know your future husband, soul of my delight!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And so we started toward the golden opening, squads of the frog-men
+following us soldierly and disappearing about the huge structure. Nor
+did we stop until we came to the handmaiden's boudoir. There we seated
+ourselves.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Now," said Larry, "two things I want to know.  First&mdash;how many can
+Yolara muster against us; second, how many of these <I>Akka</I> have we to
+meet them?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Rador gave our equivalent for eighty thousand men as the force Yolara
+could muster without stripping her city. Against this force, it
+appeared, we could count, roughly, upon two hundred thousand of the
+<I>Akka</I>.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And they're some fighters!" exclaimed Larry.  "Hell, with odds like
+that what're you worrying about? It's over before it's begun."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But, <I>Larree</I>," objected Rador to this, "you forget that the nobles
+will have the <I>Keth</I>&mdash;and other things; also that the soldiers have
+fought against the <I>Akka</I> before and will be shielded very well from
+their spears and clubs&mdash;and that their blades and javelins can bite
+through the scales of Nak's warriors. They have many things&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Uncle," interjected O'Keefe, "one thing they have is your nerve.
+Why, we're more than two to one. And take it from me&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Without warning dropped the tragedy!
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap32"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XXXII
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+"Your Love; Your Lives; Your Souls!"
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+Lakla had taken no part in the talk since we had reached her bower.
+She had seated herself close to the O'Keefe. Glancing at her I had
+seen steal over her face that brooding, listening look that was hers
+whenever in that mysterious communion with the Three. It vanished;
+swiftly she arose; interrupted the Irishman without ceremony.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Larry darlin'," said the handmaiden.  "The Silent Ones summon us!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"When do we go?" I asked; Larry's face grew bright with interest.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The time is now," she said&mdash;and hesitated.  "Larry dear, put your
+arms about me," she faltered, "for there is something cold that
+catches at my heart&mdash;and I am afraid."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At his exclamation she gathered herself together; gave a shaky little
+laugh.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It's because I love you so that fear has power to plague me," she
+told him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Without another word he bent and kissed her; in silence we passed on,
+his arm still about her girdled waist, golden head and black close
+together. Soon we stood before the crimson slab that was the door to
+the sanctuary of the Silent Ones. She poised uncertainly before it;
+then with a defiant arching of the proud little head that sent all the
+bronze-flecked curls flying, she pressed. It slipped aside and once
+more the opalescence gushed out, flooding all about us.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dazzled as before, I followed through the lambent cascades pouring
+from the high, carved walls; paused, and my eyes clearing, looked
+up&mdash;straight into the faces of the Three. The angled orbs centred upon
+the handmaiden; softened as I had seen them do when first we had faced
+them. She smiled up; seemed to listen.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Come closer," she commanded, "close to the feet of the Silent Ones."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+We moved, pausing at the very base of the dais.  The sparkling mists
+thinned; the great heads bent slightly over us; through the veils I
+caught a glimpse of huge columnar necks, enormous shoulders covered
+with draperies as of pale-blue fire.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I came back to attention with a start, for Lakla was answering a
+question only heard by her, and, answering it aloud, I perceived for
+our benefit; for whatever was the mode of communication between those
+whose handmaiden she was, and her, it was clearly independent of
+speech.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He has been told," she said, "even as you commanded."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Did I see a shadow of pain flit across the flickering eyes? Wondering,
+I glanced at Lakla's face and there was a dawn of foreboding and
+bewilderment. For a little she held her listening attitude; then the
+gaze of the Three left her; focused upon the O'Keefe.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Thus speak the Silent Ones&mdash;through Lakla, their handmaiden," the
+golden voice was like low trumpet notes. "At the threshold of doom is
+that world of yours above. Yea, even the doom, Goodwin, that ye
+dreamed and the shadow of which, looking into your mind they see, say
+the Three. For not upon earth and never upon earth can man find means
+to destroy the Shining One."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She listened again&mdash;and the foreboding deepened to an amazed fear.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"They say, the Silent Ones," she went on, "that they know not whether
+even they have power to destroy. Energies we know nothing of entered
+into its shaping and are part of it; and still other energies it has
+gathered to itself"&mdash;she paused; a shadow of puzzlement crept into her
+voice "and other energies still, forces that ye <I>do</I> know and symbolize
+by certain names&mdash;hatred and pride and lust and many others which are
+forces real as that hidden in the <I>Keth</I>; and among them&mdash;fear, which
+weakens all those others&mdash;" Again she paused.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But within it is nothing of that greatest of all, that which can make
+powerless all the evil others, that which we call&mdash;love," she ended
+softly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'd like to be the one to put a little more <I>fear</I> in the beast,"
+whispered Larry to me, grimly in our own English. The three weird
+heads bent, ever so slightly&mdash;and I gasped, and Larry grew a little
+white as Lakla nodded&mdash;
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"They say, Larry," she said, "that there you touch one side of the
+heart of the matter&mdash;for it is through the way of fear the Silent Ones
+hope to strike at the very life of the Shining One!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The visage Larry turned to me was eloquent of wonder; and mine
+reflected it&mdash;for what <I>really</I> were this Three to whom our minds were
+but open pages, so easily read? Not long could we conjecture; Lakla
+broke the little silence.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"This, they say, is what is to happen.  First will come upon us Lugur
+and Yolara with all their host. Because of fear the Shining One will
+lurk behind within its lair; for despite all, the Dweller <I>does</I> dread
+the Three, and only them. With this host the Voice and the priestess
+will strive to conquer. And if they do, then will they be strong
+enough, too, to destroy us all. For if they take the abode they banish
+from the Dweller all fear and sound the end of the Three.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Then will the Shining One be all free indeed; free to go out into the
+world, free to do there as it wills!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But if they do not conquer&mdash;and the Shining One comes not to their
+aid, abandoning them even as it abandoned its own <I>Taithu</I>&mdash;then will
+the Three be loosed from a part of their doom, and they will go
+through the Portal, seek the Shining One beyond the Veil, and,
+piercing it through fear's opening, destroy it."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That's quite clear," murmured the O'Keefe in my ear. "Weaken the
+morale&mdash;then smash. I've seen it happen a dozen times in Europe. While
+they've got their nerve there's not a thing you can do; get their
+nerve&mdash;and not a thing can they do. And yet in both cases they're the
+same men."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Lakla had been listening again.  She turned, thrust out hands to
+Larry, a wild hope in her eyes&mdash;and yet a hope half shamed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"They say," she cried, "that they give us choice.  Remembering that
+your world doom hangs in the balance, we have choice&mdash;choice to stay
+and help fight Yolara's armies&mdash;and they say they look not lightly on
+that help. Or choice to go&mdash;and if so be you choose the latter, then
+will they show another way that leads into your world!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A flush had crept over the O'Keefe's face as she was speaking.  He
+took her hands and looked long into the golden eyes; glancing up I saw
+the Trinity were watching them intently&mdash;imperturbably.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What do you say, <I>mavourneen</I>?" asked Larry gently.  The handmaiden
+hung her head; trembled.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Your words shall be mine, O one I love," she whispered. "So going or
+staying, I am beside you."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And you, Goodwin?" he turned to me.  I shrugged my shoulders&mdash;after
+all I had no one to care.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It's up to you, Larry," I remarked, deliberately choosing his own
+phraseology.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The O'Keefe straightened, squared his shoulders, gazed straight into
+the flame-flickering eyes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We stick!" he said briefly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Shamefacedly I recall now that at the time I thought this
+colloquialism not only irreverent, but in somewhat bad taste. I am
+glad to say I was alone in that bit of weakness. The face that Lakla
+turned to Larry was radiant with love, and although the shamed hope
+had vanished from the sweet eyes, they were shining with adoring
+pride. And the marble visages of the Three softened, and the little
+flames died down.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Wait," said Lakla, "there is one other thing they say we must answer
+before they will hold us to that promise&mdash;wait&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She listened, and then her face grew white&mdash;white as those of the
+Three themselves; the glorious eyes widened, stark terror filling
+them; the whole lithe body of her shook like a reed in the wind.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Not that!" she cried out to the Three.  "Oh, not that!  Not
+Larry&mdash;let me go even as you will&mdash;but not him!" She threw up frantic
+hands to the woman-being of the Trinity. "Let <I>me</I> bear it alone," she
+wailed. "Alone&mdash;mother! Mother!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Three bent their heads toward her, their faces pitiful, and from
+the eyes of the woman One rolled&mdash;tears! Larry leaped to Lakla's side.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+<I>"Mavourneen!"</I> he cried.  "Sweetheart, what have they said to you?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He glared up at the Silent Ones, his hand twitching toward the
+high-hung pistol holster.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The handmaiden swung to him; threw white arms around his neck; held
+her head upon his heart until her sobbing ceased.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"This they&mdash;say&mdash;the Silent Ones," she gasped and then all the courage
+of her came back. "O heart of mine!" she whispered to Larry, gazing
+deep into his eyes, his anxious face cupped between her white palms.
+"This they say&mdash;that should the Shining One come to succour Yolara and
+Lugur, should it conquer its fear&mdash;and&mdash;do this&mdash;then is there but one
+way left to destroy it&mdash;and to save your world."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She swayed; he gripped her tightly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But one way&mdash;you and I must go&mdash;together&mdash;into its embrace!  Yea, we
+must pass within it&mdash;loving each other, loving the world, realizing to
+the full all that we sacrifice and sacrificing all, our love, our
+lives, perhaps even that you call soul, O loved one; must give
+ourselves <I>all</I> to the Shining One&mdash;gladly, freely, our love for each
+other flaming high within us&mdash;that this curse shall pass away! For if
+we do this, pledge the Three, then shall that power of love we carry
+into it weaken for a time all that evil which the Shining One has
+become&mdash;and in that time the Three can strike and slay!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The blood rushed from my heart; scientist that I am, essentially, my
+reason rejected any such solution as this of the activities of the
+Dweller. Was it not, the thought flashed, a propitiation by the Three
+out of their own weakness&mdash;and as it flashed I looked up to see their
+eyes, full of sorrow, on mine&mdash;and knew they read the thought. Then
+into the whirling vortex of my mind came steadying reflections&mdash;of
+history changed by the power of hate, of passion, of ambition, and
+most of all, by love. Was there not actual dynamic energy in these
+things&mdash;was there not a Son of Man who hung upon a cross on Calvary?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Dear love o' mine," said the O'Keefe quietly, "is it in your heart to
+say <I>yes</I> to this?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Larry," she spoke low, "what is in your heart is in mine; but I did
+so want to go with you, to live with you&mdash;to&mdash;to bear you children,
+Larry&mdash;and to see the sun."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+My eyes were wet; dimly through them I saw his gaze on me.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"If the world <I>is</I> at stake," he whispered, "why of course there's only
+one thing to do. God knows I never was afraid when I was fighting up
+there&mdash;and many a better man than me has gone West with shell and
+bullet for the same idea; but these things aren't shell and
+bullet&mdash;but I hadn't Lakla then&mdash;and it's the damned <I>doubt</I> I have
+behind it all."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He turned to the Three&mdash;and did I in their poise sense a rigidity, an
+anxiety that sat upon them as alienly as would divinity upon men?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Tell me this, Silent Ones," he cried.  "If we do this, Lakla and I,
+is it <I>sure</I> you are that you can slay the&mdash;Thing, and save my world? Is
+it <I>sure</I> you are?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+For the first and the last time, I heard the voice of the Silent Ones.
+It was the man-being at the right who spoke.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We are sure," the tones rolled out like deepest organ notes, shaking,
+vibrating, assailing the ears as strangely as their appearance struck
+the eyes. Another moment the O'Keefe stared at them. Once more he
+squared his shoulders; lifted Lakla's chin and smiled into her eyes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We stick!" he said again, nodding to the Three.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Over the visages of the Trinity fell benignity that was&mdash;awesome; the
+tiny flames in the jet orbs vanished, leaving them wells in which
+brimmed serenity, hope&mdash;an extraordinary joyfulness. The woman sat
+upright, tender gaze fixed upon the man and girl. Her great shoulders
+raised as though she had lifted her arms and had drawn to her those
+others. The three faces pressed together for a fleeting moment; raised
+again. The woman bent forward&mdash;and as she did so, Lakla and Larry, as
+though drawn by some outer force, were swept upon the dais.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Out from the sparkling mist stretched two hands, enormously long,
+six-fingered, thumbless, a faint tracery of golden scales upon their
+white backs, utterly unhuman and still in some strange way beautiful,
+radiating power and&mdash;all womanly!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They stretched forth; they touched the bent heads of Lakla and the
+O'Keefe; caressed them, drew them together, softly stroked
+them&mdash;lovingly, with more than a touch of benediction. And withdrew!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The sparkling mists rolled up once more, hiding the Silent Ones.  As
+silently as once before we had gone we passed out of the place of
+light, beyond the crimson stone, back to the handmaiden's chamber.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Only once on our way did Larry speak.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Cheer up, darlin'," he said to her, "it's a long way yet before the
+finish. An' are you thinking that Lugur and Yolara are going to pull
+this thing off? Are you?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The handmaiden only looked at him, eyes love and sorrow filled.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"They are!" said Larry.  "They are!  Like HELL they are!"
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap33"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+The Meeting of Titans
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+It is not my intention, nor is it possible no matter how interesting
+to me, to set down <I>ad seriatim</I> the happenings of the next twelve
+hours. But a few will not be denied recital.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+O'Keefe regained cheerfulness.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"After all, Doc," he said to me, "it's a beautiful scrap we're going
+to have. At the worst the worst is no more than the leprechaun warned
+about. I would have told the Taitha De about the banshee raid he
+promised me; but I was a bit taken off my feet at the time. The old
+girl an' all the clan'll be along, said the little green man, an' I
+bet the Three will be damned glad of it, take it from me."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Lakla, shining-eyed and half fearful too:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I have other tidings that I am afraid will please you little,
+Larry&mdash;darlin'. The Silent Ones say that you must not go into battle
+yourself. You must stay here with me, and with Goodwin&mdash;for
+if&mdash;if&mdash;the Shining One does come, then must we be here to meet it.
+And you might not be, you know, Larry, if you fight," she said,
+looking shyly up at him from under the long lashes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The O'Keefe's jaw dropped.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That's about the hardest yet," he answered slowly.  "Still&mdash;I see
+their point; the lamb corralled for the altar has no right to stray
+out among the lions," he added grimly. "Don't worry, sweet," he told
+her. "As long as I've sat in the game I'll stick to the rules."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Olaf took fierce joy in the coming fray. "The Norns spin close to the
+end of this web," he rumbled. "<I>Ja!</I> And the threads of Lugur and the
+Heks woman are between their fingers for the breaking! Thor will be
+with me, and I have fashioned me a hammer in glory of Thor." In his
+hand was an enormous mace of black metal, fully five feet long,
+crowned with a massive head.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I pass to the twelve hours' closing.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At the end of the <I>coria</I> road where the giant fernland met the edge
+of the cavern's ruby floor, hundreds of the <I>Akka</I> were stationed in
+ambush, armed with their spears tipped with the rotting death and
+their nail-studded, metal-headed clubs. These were to attack when the
+Murians debauched from the <I>corials</I>. We had little hope of doing more
+here than effect some attrition of Yolara's hosts, for at this place
+the captains of the Shining One could wield the <I>Keth</I> and their other
+uncanny weapons freely. We had learned, too, that every forge and
+artisan had been put to work to make an armour Marakinoff had devised
+to withstand the natural battle equipment of the frog-people&mdash;and both
+Larry and I had a disquieting faith in the Russian's ingenuity.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At any rate the numbers against us would be lessened.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Next, under the direction of the frog-king, levies commanded by
+subsidiary chieftains had completed rows of rough walls along the
+probable route of the Murians through the cavern. These afforded the
+<I>Akka</I> a fair protection behind which they could hurl their darts and
+spears&mdash;curiously enough they had never developed the bow as a weapon.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At the opening of the cavern a strong barricade stretched almost to
+the two ends of the crescent strand; almost, I say, because there had
+not been time to build it entirely across the mouth.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And from edge to edge of the titanic bridge, from where it sprang
+outward at the shore of the Crimson Sea to a hundred feet away from
+the golden door of the abode, barrier after barrier was piled.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Behind the wall defending the mouth of the cavern, waited other
+thousands of the <I>Akka</I>. At each end of the unfinished barricade they
+were mustered thickly, and at right and left of the crescent where
+their forest began, more legions were assembled to make way up to the
+ledge as opportunity offered.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Rank upon rank they manned the bridge barriers; they swarmed over the
+pinnacles and in the hollows of the island's ragged outer lip; the
+domed castle was a hive of them, if I may mix my metaphors&mdash;and the
+rocks and gardens that surrounded the abode glittered with them.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Now," said the handmaiden, "there's nothing else we can do&mdash;save
+wait."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She led us out through her bower and up the little path that ran to
+the embrasure.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Through the quiet came a sound, a sighing, a half-mournful whispering
+that beat about us and fled away.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"They come!" cried Lakla, the light of battle in her eyes. Larry drew
+her to him, raised her in his arms, kissed her.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"A woman!" acclaimed the O'Keefe.  "A real woman&mdash;and mine!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+With the cry of the Portal there was movement among the <I>Akka</I>, the
+glint of moving spears, flash of metal-tipped clubs, rattle of horny
+spurs, rumblings of battle-cries.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And we waited&mdash;waited it seemed interminably, gaze fastened upon the
+low wall across the cavern mouth. Suddenly I remembered the crystal
+through which I had peered when the hidden assassins had crept upon
+us. Mentioning it to Lakla, she gave a little cry of vexation, a
+command to her attendant; and not long that faithful if unusual lady
+had returned with a tray of the glasses. Raising mine, I saw the lines
+furthest away leap into sudden activity. Spurred warrior after warrior
+leaped upon the barricade and over it. Flashes of intense, green
+light, mingled with gleams like lightning strokes of concentrated moon
+rays, sprang from behind the wall&mdash;sprang and struck and burned upon
+the scales of the batrachians.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"They come!" whispered Lakla.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At the far ends of the crescent a terrific milling had begun. Here it
+was plain the <I>Akka</I> were holding. Faintly, for the distance was
+great, I could see fresh force upon force rush up and take the places
+of those who had fallen.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Over each of these ends, and along the whole line of the barricade a
+mist of dancing, diamonded atoms began to rise; sparking, coruscating
+points of diamond dust that darted and danced.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+What had once been Lakla's guardians&mdash;dancing now in the nothingness!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"God, but it's hard to stay here like this!" groaned the O'Keefe;
+Olaf's teeth were bared, the lips drawn back in such a fighting grin
+as his ancestors berserk on their raven ships must have borne; Rador
+was livid with rage; the handmaiden's nostrils flaring wide, all her
+wrathful soul in her eyes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Suddenly, while we looked, the rocky wall which the <I>Akka</I> had built
+at the cavern mouth&mdash;was not! It vanished, as though an unseen,
+unbelievably gigantic hand had with the lightning's speed swept it
+away. And with it vanished, too, long lines of the great amphibians
+close behind it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then down upon the ledge, dropping into the Crimson Sea, sending up
+geysers of ruby spray, dashing on the bridge, crushing the frog-men,
+fell a shower of stone, mingled with distorted shapes and fragments
+whose scales still flashed meteoric as they hurled from above.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That which makes things fall upward," hissed Olaf. "That which I saw
+in the garden of Lugur!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The fiendish agency of destruction which Marakinoff had revealed to
+Larry; the force that cut off gravitation and sent all things within
+its range racing outward into space!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And now over the debris upon the ledge, striking with long sword and
+daggers, here and there a captain flashing the green ray, moving on in
+ordered squares, came the soldiers of the Shining One. Nearer and
+nearer the verge of the ledge they pushed Nak's warriors. Leaping upon
+the dwarfs, smiting them with spear and club, with teeth and spur, the
+<I>Akka</I> fought like devils. Quivering under the ray, they leaped and
+dragged down and slew.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Now there was but one long line of the frog-men at the very edge of
+the cliff.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And ever the clouds of dancing, diamonded atoms grew thicker over them
+all!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+That last thin line of the <I>Akka</I> was going; yet they fought to the
+last, and none toppled over the lip without at least one of the
+armoured Murians in his arms.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+My gaze dropped to the foot of the cliffs.  Stretched along their
+length was a wide ribbon of beauty&mdash;a shimmering multitude of
+gleaming, pulsing, prismatic moons; glowing, glowing ever brighter,
+ever more wondrous&mdash;the gigantic Medusae globes feasting on dwarf and
+frog-man alike!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Across the waters, faintly, came a triumphant shouting from Lugur's
+and Yolara's men!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Was the ruddy light of the place lessening, growing paler, changing to
+a faint rose? There was an exclamation from Larry; something like hope
+relaxed the drawn muscles of his face. He pointed to the aureate dome
+wherein sat the Three&mdash;and then I saw!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Out of it, through the long transverse slit through which the Silent
+Ones kept their watch on cavern, bridge, and abyss, a torrent of the
+opalescent light was pouring. It cascaded like a waterfall, and as it
+flowed it spread whirling out, in columns and eddies, clouds and wisps
+of misty, curdled coruscations. It hung like a veil over all the
+islands, filtering everywhere, driving back the crimson light as
+though possessed of impenetrable substance&mdash;and still it cast not the
+faintest shadowing upon our vision.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Good God!" breathed Larry.  "Look!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The radiance was marching&mdash;<I>marching</I>&mdash;down the colossal bridge. It
+moved swiftly, in some unthinkable way <I>intelligently</I>. It swathed the
+<I>Akka</I>, and closer, ever closer it swept toward the approach upon
+which Yolara's men had now gained foothold.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+From their ranks came flash after flash of the green ray&mdash;aimed at
+the abode! But as the light sped and struck the opalescence it was
+blotted out! The shimmering mists seemed to enfold, to dissipate it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Lakla drew a deep breath.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The Silent Ones forgive me for doubting them," she whispered; and
+again hope blossomed on her face even as it did on Larry's.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The frog-men were gaining.  Clothed in the armour of that mist, they
+pressed back from the bridge-head the invaders. There was another
+prodigious movement at the ends of the crescent, and racing up,
+pressing against the dwarfs, came other legions of Nak's warriors. And
+re-enforcing those out on the prodigious arch, the frog-men stationed
+in the gardens below us poured back to the castle and out through the
+open Portal.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"They're licked!" shouted Larry.  "They're&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+So quickly I could not follow the movement his automatic leaped to his
+hand&mdash;spoke, once and again and again. Rador leaped to the head of the
+little path, sword in hand; Olaf, shouting and whirling his mace,
+followed. I strove to get my own gun quickly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+For up that path were running twoscore of Lugur's men, while from
+below Lugur's own voice roared.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Quick!  Slay not the handmaiden or her lover!  Carry them down.
+Quick! But slay the others!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The handmaiden raced toward Larry, stopped, whistled shrilly&mdash;again
+and again. Larry's pistol was empty, but as the dwarfs rushed upon him
+I dropped two of them with mine. It jammed&mdash;I could not use it; I
+sprang to his side. Rador was down, struggling in a heap of Lugur's
+men. Olaf, a Viking of old, was whirling his great hammer, and
+striking, striking through armour, flesh, and bone.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Larry was down, Lakla flew to him.  But the Norseman, now streaming
+blood from a dozen wounds, caught a glimpse of her coming, turned,
+thrust out a mighty hand, sent her reeling back, and then with his
+hammer cracked the skulls of those trying to drag the O'Keefe down the
+path.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A cry from Lakla&mdash;the dwarfs had seized her, had lifted her despite
+her struggles, were carrying her away. One I dropped with the butt of
+my useless pistol, and then went down myself under the rush of
+another.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Through the clamour I heard a booming of the <I>Akka</I>, closer, closer;
+then through it the bellow of Lugur. I made a mighty effort, swung a
+hand up, and sunk my fingers in the throat of the soldier striving to
+kill me. Writhing over him, my fingers touched a poniard; I thrust it
+deep, staggered to my feet.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The O'Keefe, shielding Lakla, was battling with a long sword against a
+half dozen of the soldiers. I started toward him, was struck, and
+under the impact hurled to the ground. Dizzily I raised myself&mdash;and
+leaning upon my elbow, stared and moved no more. For the dwarfs lay
+dead, and Larry, holding Lakla tightly, was staring even as I, and
+ranged at the head of the path were the <I>Akka</I>, whose booming advance
+in obedience to the handmaiden's call I had heard.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And at what we all stared was Olaf, crimson with his wounds, and
+Lugur, in blood-red armour, locked in each other's grip, struggling,
+smiting, tearing, kicking, and swaying about the little space before
+the embrasure. I crawled over toward the O'Keefe. He raised his
+pistol, dropped it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Can't hit him without hitting Olaf," he whispered.  Lakla signalled
+the frog-men; they advanced toward the two&mdash;but Olaf saw them, broke
+the red dwarf's hold, sent Lugur reeling a dozen feet away.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No!" shouted the Norseman, the ice of his pale-blue eyes glinting
+like frozen flames, blood streaming down his face and dripping from
+his hands. "No! Lugur is mine! None but me slays him! Ho, you Lugur&mdash;"
+and cursed him and Yolara and the Dweller hideously&mdash;I cannot set
+those curses down here.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They spurred Lugur.  Mad now as the Norseman, the red dwarf sprang.
+Olaf struck a blow that would have killed an ordinary man, but Lugur
+only grunted, swept in, and seized him about the waist; one mighty arm
+began to creep up toward Huldricksson's throat.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"'Ware, Olaf!" cried O'Keefe; but Olaf did not answer. He waited until
+the red dwarf's hand was close to his shoulder; and then, with an
+incredibly rapid movement&mdash;once before had I seen something like it
+in a wrestling match between Papuans&mdash;he had twisted Lugur around;
+twisted him so that Olaf's right arm lay across the tremendous breast,
+the left behind the neck, and Olaf's left leg held the Voice's
+armoured thighs viselike against his right knee while over that knee
+lay the small of the red dwarf's back.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+For a second or two the Norseman looked down upon his enemy,
+motionless in that paralyzing grip. And then&mdash;slowly&mdash;he began to
+break him!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Lakla gave a little cry; made a motion toward the two. But Larry drew
+her head down against his breast, hiding her eyes; then fastened his
+own upon the pair, white-faced, stern.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Slowly, ever so slowly, proceeded Olaf.  Twice Lugur moaned.  At the
+end he screamed&mdash;horribly. There was a cracking sound, as of a stout
+stick snapped.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Huldricksson stooped, silently.  He picked up the limp body of the
+Voice, not yet dead, for the eyes rolled, the lips strove to speak;
+lifted it, walked to the parapet, swung it twice over his head, and
+cast it down to the red waters!
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap34"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+The Coming of the Shining One
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+The Norseman turned toward us.  There was now no madness in his eyes;
+only a great weariness. And there was peace on the once tortured face.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Helma," he whispered, "I go a little before!  Soon you will come to
+me&mdash;to me and the Yndling who will await you&mdash;Helma, <I>meine liebe!</I>"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Blood gushed from his mouth; he swayed, fell.  And thus died Olaf
+Huldricksson.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+We looked down upon him; nor did Lakla, nor Larry, nor I try to hide
+our tears. And as we stood the <I>Akka</I> brought to us that other mighty
+fighter, Rador; but in him there was life, and we attended to him
+there as best we could.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then Lakla spoke.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We will bear him into the castle where we may give him greater care,"
+she said. "For, lo! the hosts of Yolara have been beaten back; and on
+the bridge comes Nak with tidings."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+We looked over the parapet.  It was even as she had said. Neither on
+ledge nor bridge was there trace of living men of Muria&mdash;only heaps of
+slain that lay everywhere&mdash;and thick against the cavern mouth still
+danced the flashing atoms of those the green ray had destroyed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Over!" exclaimed Larry incredulously.  "We live then&mdash;heart of
+mine!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The Silent Ones recall their veils," she said, pointing to the dome.
+Back through the slitted opening the radiance was streaming;
+withdrawing from sea and island; marching back over the bridge with
+that same ordered, intelligent motion. Behind it the red light
+pressed, like skirmishers on the heels of a retreating army.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And yet&mdash;" faltered the handmaiden as we passed into her chamber, and
+doubtful were the eyes she turned upon the O'Keefe.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I don't believe," he said, "there's a kick left in them&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+What was that sound beating into the chamber faintly, so faintly?  My
+heart gave a great throb and seemed to stop for an eternity. What was
+it&mdash;coming nearer, ever nearer? Now Lakla and O'Keefe heard it, life
+ebbing from lips and cheeks.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Nearer, nearer&mdash;a music as of myriads of tiny crystal bells, tinkling,
+tinkling&mdash;a storm of pizzicati upon violins of glass! Nearer,
+nearer&mdash;not sweetly now, nor luring; no&mdash;raging, wrathful, sinister
+beyond words; sweeping on; nearer&mdash;
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Dweller!  The Shining One!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+We leaped to the narrow window; peered out, aghast.  The bell notes
+swept through and about us, a hurricane. The crescent strand was once
+more a ferment. Back, back were the <I>Akka</I> being swept, as though by
+brooms, tottering on the edge of the ledge, falling into the waters.
+Swiftly they were finished; and where they had fought was an eddying
+throng clothed in tatters or naked, swaying, drifting, arms
+tossing&mdash;like marionettes of Satan.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The dead-alive!  The slaves of the Dweller!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They swayed and tossed, and then, like water racing through an opened
+dam, they swept upon the bridge-head. On and on they pushed, like the
+bore of a mighty tide. The frog-men strove against them, clubbing,
+spearing, tearing them. But even those worst smitten seemed not to
+fall. On they pushed, driving forward, irresistible&mdash;a battering ram
+of flesh and bone. They clove the masses of the <I>Akka</I>, pressing them
+to the sides of the bridge and over. Through the open gates they
+forced them&mdash;for there was no room for the frog-men to stand against
+that implacable tide.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then those of the <I>Akka</I> who were left turned their backs and ran.  We
+heard the clang of the golden wings of the portal, and none too soon
+to keep out the first of the Dweller's dreadful hordes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Now upon the cavern ledge and over the whole length of the bridge
+there were none but the dead-alive, men and women, black-polled
+<I>ladala</I>, sloe-eyed Malays, slant-eyed Chinese, men of every race that
+sailed the seas&mdash;milling, turning, swaying, like leaves caught in a
+sluggish current.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The bell notes became sharper, more insistent.  At the cavern mouth a
+radiance began to grow&mdash;a gleaming from which the atoms of diamond
+dust seemed to try to flee. As the radiance grew and the crystal notes
+rang nearer, every head of that hideous multitude turned stiffly,
+slowly toward the right, looking toward the far bridge end; their eyes
+fixed and glaring; every face an inhuman mask of rapture and of
+horror!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A movement shook them.  Those in the centre began to stream back,
+faster and ever faster, leaving motionless deep ranks on each side.
+Back they flowed until from golden doors to cavern mouth a wide lane
+stretched, walled on each side by the dead-alive.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The far radiance became brighter; it gathered itself at the end of the
+dreadful lane; it was shot with sparklings and with pulsings of
+polychromatic light. The crystal storm was intolerable, piercing the
+ears with countless tiny lances; brighter still the radiance.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+From the cavern swirled the Shining One!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Dweller paused, seemed to scan the island of the Silent Ones half
+doubtfully; then slowly, stately, it drifted out upon the bridge.
+Closer it drew; behind it glided Yolara at the head of a company of
+her dwarfs, and at her side was the hag of the Council whose face was
+the withered, shattered echo of her own.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Slower grew the Dweller's pace as it drew nearer.  Did I sense in it a
+doubt, an uncertainty? The crystal-tongued, unseen choristers that
+accompanied it subtly seemed to reflect the doubt; their notes were
+not sure, no longer insistent; rather was there in them an undertone
+of hesitancy, of warning! Yet on came the Shining One until it stood
+plain beneath us, searching with those eyes that thrust from and
+withdrew into unknown spheres, the golden gateway, the cliff face, the
+castle's rounded bulk&mdash;and more intently than any of these, the dome
+wherein sat the Three.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Behind it each face of the dead-alive turned toward it, and those
+beside it throbbed and gleamed with its luminescence.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Yolara crept close, just beyond the reach of its spirals. She
+murmured&mdash;and the Dweller bent toward her, its seven globes steady in
+their shining mists, as though listening. It drew erect once more,
+resumed its doubtful scrutiny. Yolara's face darkened; she turned
+abruptly, spoke to a captain of her guards. A dwarf raced back between
+the palisades of dead-alive.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Now the priestess cried out, her voice ringing like a silver clarion.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ye are done, ye Three!  The Shining One stands at your door,
+demanding entrance. Your beasts are slain and your power is gone. Who
+are ye, says the Shining One, to deny it entrance to the place of its
+birth?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ye do not answer," she cried again, "yet know we that ye hear!  The
+Shining One offers these terms: Send forth your handmaiden and that
+lying stranger she stole; send them forth to us&mdash;and perhaps ye may
+live. But if ye send them not forth, then shall ye too die&mdash;and soon!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+We waited, silent, even as did Yolara&mdash;and again there was no answer
+from the Three.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The priestess laughed; the blue eyes flashed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It is ended!" she cried.  "If you will not open, needs must we open
+for you!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Over the bridge was marching a long double file of the dwarfs.  They
+bore a smoothed and handled tree-trunk whose head was knobbed with a
+huge ball of metal. Past the priestess, past the Shining One, they
+carried it; fifty of them to each side of the ram; and behind them
+stepped&mdash;Marakinoff!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Larry awoke to life.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Now, thank God," he rasped, "I can get that devil, anyway!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He drew his pistol, took careful aim.  Even as he pressed the trigger
+there rang through the abode a tremendous clanging. The ram was
+battering at the gates. O'Keefe's bullet went wild. The Russian must
+have heard the shot; perhaps the missile was closer than we knew. He
+made a swift leap behind the guards; was lost to sight.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Once more the thunderous clanging rang through the castle.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Lakla drew herself erect; down upon her dropped the listening
+aloofness. Gravely she bowed her head.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It is time, O love of mine." She turned to O'Keefe.  "The Silent Ones
+say that the way of fear is closed, but the way of love is open. They
+call upon us to redeem our promise!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+For a hundred heart-beats they clung to each other, breast to breast
+and lip to lip. Below, the clangour was increasing, the great trunk
+swinging harder and faster upon the metal gates. Now Lakla gently
+loosed the arms of the O'Keefe, and for another instant those two
+looked into each other's souls. The handmaiden smiled tremulously.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I would it might have been otherwise, Larry darlin'," she whispered.
+"But at least&mdash;we pass together, dearest of mine!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She leaped to the window.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yolara!" the golden voice rang out sweetly.  The clanging ceased.
+"Draw back your men. We open the Portal and come forth to you and the
+Shining One&mdash;Larry and I."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The priestess's silver chimes of laughter rang out, cruel, mocking.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Come, then, quickly," she jeered.  "For surely both the Shining One
+and I yearn for you!" Her malice-laden laughter chimed high once more.
+"Keep us not lonely long!" the priestess mocked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Larry drew a deep breath, stretched both hands out to me.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It's good-by, I guess, Doc." His voice was strained. "Good-by and
+good luck, old boy. If you get out, and you <I>will</I>, let the old
+<I>Dolphin</I> know I'm gone. And carry on, pal&mdash;and always remember the
+O'Keefe loved you like a brother."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I squeezed his hands desperately.  Then out of my balanceshaking woe a
+strange comfort was born.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Maybe it's not good-by, Larry!" I cried.  "The banshee has not
+cried!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A flash of hope passed over his face; the old reckless grin shone
+forth.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It's so!" he said.  "By the Lord, it's so!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then Lakla bent toward me, and for the second time&mdash;kissed me.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Come!" she said to Larry.  Hand in hand they moved away, into the
+corridor that led to the door outside of which waited the Shining One
+and its priestess.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And unseen by them, wrapped as they were within their love and
+sacrifice, I crept softly behind. For I had determined that if enter
+the Dweller's embrace they must, they should not go alone.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They paused before the Golden Portals; the handmaiden pressed its
+opening lever; the massive leaves rolled back.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Heads high, proudly, serenely, they passed through and out upon the
+hither span. I followed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+On each side of us stood the Dweller's slaves, faces turned rigidly
+toward their master. A hundred feet away the Shining One pulsed and
+spiralled in its evilly glorious lambency of sparkling plumes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Unhesitating, always with that same high serenity, Lakla and the
+O'Keefe, hands clasped like little children, drew closer to that
+wondrous shape. I could not see their faces, but I saw awe fall upon
+those of the watching dwarfs, and into the burning eyes of Yolara
+crept a doubt. Closer they drew to the Dweller, and closer, I
+following them step by step. The Shining One's whirling lessened; its
+tinklings were faint, almost stilled. It seemed to watch them
+apprehensively. A silence fell upon us all, a thick silence, brooding,
+ominous, palpable. Now the pair were face to face with the child of
+the Three&mdash;so near that with one of its misty tentacles it could have
+enfolded them.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And the Shining One drew back!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Yes, drew back&mdash;and back with it stepped Yolara, the doubt in her eyes
+deepening. Onward paced the handmaiden and the O'Keefe&mdash;and step by
+step, as they advanced, the Dweller withdrew; its bell notes chiming
+out, puzzled questioning&mdash;half fearful!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And back it drew, and back until it had reached the very centre of
+that platform over the abyss in whose depths pulsed the green fires of
+earth heart. And there Yolara gripped herself; the hell that seethed
+within her soul leaped out of her eyes, a cry, a shriek of rage, tore
+from her lips.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As at a signal, the Shining One flamed high; its spirals and eddying
+mists swirled madly, the pulsing core of it blazed radiance. A score
+of coruscating tentacles swept straight upon the pair who stood
+intrepid, unresisting, awaiting its embrace. And upon me, lurking
+behind them.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Through me swept a mighty exaltation.  It was the end then&mdash;and I was
+to meet it with them.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Something drew us back, back with an incredible swiftness, and yet as
+gently as a summer breeze sweeps a bit of thistle-down! Drew us back
+from those darting misty arms even as they were a hair-breadth from
+us! I heard the Dweller's bell notes burst out ragingly! I heard
+Yolara scream.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+What was that?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Between the three of us and them was a ring of curdled moon flames,
+swirling about the Shining One and its priestess, pressing in upon
+them, enfolding them!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And within it I glimpsed the faces of the Three&mdash;implacable,
+sorrowful, filled with a supernal power!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Sparks and flashes of white flame darted from the ring, penetrating
+the radiant swathings of the Dweller, striking through its pulsing
+nucleus, piercing its seven crowning orbs.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Now the Shining One's radiance began to dim, the seven orbs to dull;
+the tiny sparkling filaments that ran from them down into the
+Dweller's body snapped, vanished! Through the battling nebulosities
+Yolara's face swam forth&mdash;horror-filled, distorted, inhuman!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The ranks of the dead-alive quivered, moved, writhed, as though each
+felt the torment of the Thing that had enslaved them. The radiance
+that the Three wielded grew more intense, thicker, seemed to expand.
+Within it, suddenly, were scores of flaming triangles&mdash;scores of eyes
+like those of the Silent Ones!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And the Shining One's seven little moons of amber, of silver, of blue
+and amethyst and green, of rose and white, split, shattered, were
+gone! Abruptly the tortured crystal chimings ceased.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dulled, all its soul-shaking beauty dead, blotched and shadowed
+squalidly, its gleaming plumes tarnished, its dancing spirals stripped
+from it, that which had been the Shining One wrapped itself about
+Yolara&mdash;wrapped and drew her into itself; writhed, swayed, and hurled
+itself over the edge of the bridge&mdash;down, down into the green fires of
+the unfathomable abyss&mdash;with its priestess still enfolded in its
+coils!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+From the dwarfs who had watched that terror came screams of panic
+fear. They turned and ran, racing frantically over the bridge toward
+the cavern mouth.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The serried ranks of the dead-alive trembled, shook.  Then from their
+faces tied the horror of wedded ecstasy and anguish. Peace, utter
+peace, followed in its wake.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And as fields of wheat are bent and fall beneath the wind, they fell.
+No longer dead-alive, now all of the blessed dead, freed from their
+dreadful slavery!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Abruptly from the sparkling mists the cloud of eyes was gone.  Faintly
+revealed in them were only the heads of the Silent Ones. And they drew
+before us; were before us! No flames now in their ebon eyes&mdash;for the
+flickering fires were quenched in great tears, streaming down the
+marble white faces. They bent toward us, over us; their radiance
+enfolded us. My eyes darkened. I could not see. I felt a tender hand
+upon my head&mdash;and panic and frozen dread and nightmare web that held
+me fled.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then they, too, were gone.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Upon Larry's breast the handmaiden was sobbing&mdash;sobbing out her
+heart&mdash;but this time with the joy of one who is swept up from the
+very threshold of hell into paradise.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap35"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XXXV
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+"Larry&mdash;Farewell!"
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+"My heart, Larry&mdash;" It was the handmaiden's murmur. "My heart feels
+like a bird that is flying from a nest of sorrow."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+We were pacing down the length of the bridge, guards of the <I>Akka</I>
+beside us, others following with those companies of <I>ladala</I> that had
+rushed to aid us; in front of us the bandaged Rador swung gently
+within a litter; beside him, in another, lay Nak, the frog-king&mdash;much
+less of him than there had been before the battle began, but living.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Hours had passed since the terror I have just related.  My first task
+had been to search for Throckmartin and his wife among the fallen
+multitudes strewn thick as autumn leaves along the flying arch of
+stone, over the cavern ledge, and back, back as far as the eye could
+reach.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At last, Lakla and Larry helping, we found them.  They lay close to
+the bridge-end, not parted&mdash;locked tight in each other's arms, pallid
+face to face, her hair streaming over his breast! As though when that
+unearthly life the Dweller had set within them passed away, their own
+had come back for one fleeting instant&mdash;and they had known each other,
+and clasped before kindly death had taken them.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Love is stronger than all things." The handmaiden was weeping softly.
+"Love never left them. Love was stronger than the Shining One. And
+when its evil fled, love went with them&mdash;wherever souls go."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Of Stanton and Thora there was no trace; nor, after our discovery of
+those other two, did I care to look more. They were dead&mdash;and they
+were free.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+We buried Throckmartin and Edith beside Olaf in Lakla's bower.  But
+before the body of my old friend was placed within the grave I gave it
+a careful and sorrowful examination. The skin was firm and smooth, but
+cold; not the cold of death, but with a chill that set my touching
+fingers tingling unpleasantly. The body was bloodless; the course of
+veins and arteries marked by faintly indented white furrows, as though
+their walls had long collapsed. Lips, mouth, even the tongue, was
+paper white. There was no sign of dissolution as we know it; no shadow
+or stain upon the marble surface. Whatever the force that, streaming
+from the Dweller or impregnating its lair, had energized the
+dead-alive, it was barrier against putrescence of any kind; that at
+least was certain.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But it was not barrier against the poison of the Medusae, for, our sad
+task done, and looking down upon the waters, I saw the pale forms of
+the Dweller's hordes dissolving, vanishing into the shifting glories
+of the gigantic moons sailing down upon them from every quarter of the
+Sea of Crimson.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+While the frog-men, those late levies from the farthest forests, were
+clearing bridge and ledge of cavern of the litter of the dead, we
+listened to a leader of the <I>ladala</I>. They had risen, even as the
+messenger had promised Rador. Fierce had been the struggle in the
+gardened city by the silver waters with those Lugur and Yolara had
+left behind to garrison it. Deadly had been the slaughter of the
+fair-haired, reaping the harvest of hatred they had been sowing so
+long. Not without a pang of regret did I think of the beautiful, gaily
+malicious elfin women destroyed&mdash;evil though they may have been.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The ancient city of Lara was a charnel.  Of all the rulers not
+twoscore had escaped, and these into regions of peril which to
+describe as sanctuary would be mockery. Nor had the <I>ladala</I> fared so
+well. Of all the men and women, for women as well as men had taken
+their part in the swift war, not more than a tenth remained alive.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And the dancing motes of light in the silver air were thick,
+thick&mdash;they whispered.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They told us of the Shining One rushing through the Veil, cometlike,
+its hosts streaming behind it, raging with it, in ranks that seemed
+interminable!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Of the massacre of the priests and priestesses in the Cyclopean
+temple; of the flashing forth of the summoning lights by unseen
+hands&mdash;followed by the tearing of the rainbow curtain, by colossal
+shatterings of the radiant cliffs; the vanishing behind their debris
+of all trace of entrance to the haunted place wherein the hordes of
+the Shining One had slaved&mdash;the sealing of the lair!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then, when the tempest of hate had ended in seething Lara, how,
+thrilled with victory, armed with the weapons of those they had slain,
+they had lifted the Shadow, passed through the Portal, met and
+slaughtered the fleeing remnants of Yolara's men&mdash;only to find the
+tempest stilled here, too.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But of Marakinoff they had seen nothing!  Had the Russian escaped, I
+wondered, or was he lying out there among the dead?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But now the <I>ladala</I> were calling upon Lakla to come with them, to
+govern them.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I don't want to, Larry darlin'," she told him.  "I want to go out
+with you to Ireland. But for a time&mdash;I think the Three would have us
+remain and set that place in order."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The O'Keefe was bothered about something else than the government of
+Muria.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"If they've killed off all the priests, who's to marry us, heart of
+mine?" he worried. "None of those Siya and Siyana rites, no matter
+what," he added hastily.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Marry!" cried the handmaiden incredulously.  "Marry us? Why, Larry
+dear, we <I>are</I> married!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The O'Keefe's astonishment was complete; his jaw dropped; collapse
+seemed imminent.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We are?" he gasped.  "When?" he stammered fatuously.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why, when the Mother drew us together before her; when she put her
+hands on our heads after we had made the promise! Didn't you
+understand that?" asked the handmaiden wonderingly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He looked at her, into the purity of the clear golden eyes, into the
+purity of the soul that gazed out of them; all his own great love
+transfiguring his keen face.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"An' is that enough for you, <I>mavourneen</I>?" he whispered humbly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Enough?" The handmaiden's puzzlement was complete, profound.
+"Enough? Larry darlin', what <I>more</I> could we ask?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He drew a deep breath, clasped her close.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Kiss the bride, Doc!" cried the O'Keefe.  And for the third and,
+soul's sorrow! the last time, Lakla dimpling and blushing, I thrilled
+to the touch of her soft, sweet lips.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Quickly were our preparations for departure made.  Rador, conscious,
+his immense vitality conquering fast his wounds, was to be borne ahead
+of us. And when all was done, Lakla, Larry, and I made our way up to
+the scarlet stone that was the doorway to the chamber of the Three. We
+knew, of course, that they had gone, following, no doubt, those whose
+eyes I had seen in the curdled mists, and who, coming to the aid of
+the Three at last from whatever mysterious place that was their home,
+had thrown their strength with them against the Shining One. Nor were
+we wrong. When the great slab rolled away, no torrents of opalescence
+came rushing out upon us. The vast dome was dim, tenantless; its
+curved walls that had cascaded Light shone now but faintly; the dais
+was empty; its wall of moon-flame radiance gone.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A little time we stood, heads bent, reverent, our hearts filled with
+gratitude and love&mdash;yes, and with pity for that strange trinity so
+alien to us and yet so near; children even as we, though so unlike us,
+of our same Mother Earth.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And what I wondered had been the secret of that promise they had wrung
+from their handmaiden and from Larry. And whence, if what the Three
+had said had been all true&mdash;whence had come their power to avert the
+sacrifice at the very verge of its consummation?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Love is stronger than all things!" had said Lakla.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Was it that they had needed, must have, the force which dwells within
+love, within willing sacrifice, to strengthen their own power and to
+enable them to destroy the evil, glorious Thing so long shielded by
+their own love? Did the thought of sacrifice, the will toward
+abnegation, have to be as strong as the eternals, unshaken by faintest
+thrill of hope, before the Three could make of it their key to unlock
+the Dweller's guard and strike through at its life?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Here was a mystery&mdash;a mystery indeed!  Lakla softly closed the crimson
+stone. The mystery of the red dwarf's appearance was explained when we
+discovered a half-dozen of the water <I>coria</I> moored in a small cove
+not far from where the <I>Sekta</I> flashed their heads of living bloom.
+The dwarfs had borne the shallops with them, and from somewhere beyond
+the cavern ledge had launched them unperceived; stealing up to the
+farther side of the island and risking all in one bold stroke. Well,
+Lugur, no matter what he held of wickedness, held also high courage.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The cavern was paved with the dead-alive, the <I>Akka</I> carrying them out
+by the hundreds, casting them into the waters. Through the lane down
+which the Dweller had passed we went as quickly as we could, coming at
+last to the space where the <I>coria</I> waited. And not long after we
+swung past where the shadow had hung and hovered over the shining
+depths of the Midnight Pool.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Upon Lakla's insistence we passed on to the palace of Lugur, not to
+Yolara's&mdash;I do not know why, but go there then she would not. And
+within one of its columned rooms, maidens of the black-haired folks,
+the wistfulness, the fear, all gone from their sparkling eyes, served
+us.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There came to me a huge desire to see the destruction they had told us
+of the Dweller's lair; to observe for myself whether it was not
+possible to make a way of entrance and to study its mysteries.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I spoke of this, and to my surprise both the handmaiden and the
+O'Keefe showed an almost embarrassed haste to acquiesce in my hesitant
+suggestion.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Sure," cried Larry, "there's lots of time before night!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He caught himself sheepishly; cast a glance at Lakla.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I keep forgettin' there's no night here," he mumbled.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What did you say, Larry?" asked she.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I said I wish we were sitting in our home in Ireland, watching the
+sun go down," he whispered to her. Vaguely I wondered why she blushed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But now I must hasten.  We went to the temple, and here at least the
+ghastly litter of the dead had been cleaned away. We passed through
+the blue-caverned space, crossed the narrow arch that spanned the
+rushing sea stream, and, ascending, stood again upon the ivoried pave
+at the foot of the frowning, towering amphitheatre of jet.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Across the Silver Waters there was sign of neither Web of Rainbows nor
+colossal pillars nor the templed lips that I had seen curving out
+beneath the Veil when the Shining One had swirled out to greet its
+priestess and its voice and to dance with the sacrifices. There was
+but a broken and rent mass of the radiant cliffs against whose base
+the lake lapped.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Long I looked&mdash;and turned away saddened.  Knowing even as I did what
+the irised curtain had hidden, still it was as though some thing of
+supernal beauty and wonder had been swept away, never to be replaced;
+a glamour gone for ever; a work of the high gods destroyed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Let's go back," said Larry abruptly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I dropped a little behind them to examine a bit of carving&mdash;and,
+after all, they did not want me. I watched them pacing slowly ahead,
+his arm around her, black hair close to bronze-gold ringlets. Then I
+followed. Half were they over the bridge when through the roar of the
+imprisoned stream I heard my name called softly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Goodwin!  Dr. Goodwin!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Amazed, I turned.  From behind the pedestal of a carved group
+slunk&mdash;Marakinoff! My premonition had been right. Some way he had
+escaped, slipped through to here. He held his hands high, came forward
+cautiously.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I am finished," he whispered&mdash;"Done!  I don't care what <I>they'll</I> do
+to me." He nodded toward the handmaiden and Larry, now at the end of
+the bridge and passing on, oblivious of all save each other. He drew
+closer. His eyes were sunken, burning, mad; his face etched with deep
+lines, as though a graver's tool had cut down through it. I took a
+step backward.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A grin, like the grimace of a fiend, blasted the Russian's visage.
+He threw himself upon me, his hands clenching at my throat!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Larry!" I yelled&mdash;and as I spun around under the shock of his
+onslaught, saw the two turn, stand paralyzed, then race toward me.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But <I>you'll</I> carry nothing out of here!" shrieked Marakinoff.  "No!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+My foot, darting out behind me, touched vacancy.  The roaring of the
+racing stream deafened me. I felt its mists about me; threw myself
+forward.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I was falling&mdash;falling&mdash;with the Russian's hand strangling me. I
+struck water, sank; the hands that gripped my throat relaxed for a
+moment their clutch. I strove to writhe loose; felt that I was being
+hurled with dreadful speed on&mdash;full realization came&mdash;on the breast of
+that racing torrent dropping from some far ocean cleft and
+rushing&mdash;where? A little time, a few breathless instants, I struggled
+with the devil who clutched me&mdash;inflexibly, indomitably.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then a shrieking as of all the pent winds of the universe in my
+ears&mdash;blackness!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Consciousness returned slowly, agonizedly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Larry!" I groaned.  "Lakla!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A brilliant light was glowing through my closed lids.  It hurt.  I
+opened my eyes, closed them with swords and needles of dazzling pain
+shooting through them. Again I opened them cautiously. It was the sun!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I staggered to my feet.  Behind me was a shattered wall of basalt
+monoliths, hewn and squared. Before me was the Pacific, smooth and
+blue and smiling.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And not far away, cast up on the strand even as I had been,
+was&mdash;Marakinoff!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He lay there, broken and dead indeed.  Yet all the waters through
+which we had passed&mdash;not even the waters of death themselves&mdash;could
+wash from his face the grin of triumph. With the last of my strength I
+dragged the body from the strand and pushed it out into the waves. A
+little billow ran up, coiled about it, and carried it away, ducking
+and bending. Another seized it, and another, playing with it. It
+floated from my sight&mdash;that which had been Marakinoff, with all his
+schemes to turn our fair world into an undreamed-of-hell.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+My strength began to come back to me.  I found a thicket and slept;
+slept it must have been for many hours, for when I again awakened the
+dawn was rosing the east. I will not tell my sufferings. Suffice it to
+say that I found a spring and some fruit, and just before dusk had
+recovered enough to writhe up to the top of the wall and discover
+where I was.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The place was one of the farther islets of the Nan-Matal. To the north
+I caught the shadows of the ruins of Nan-Tauach, where was the moon
+door, black against the sky. Where was the moon door&mdash;which, someway,
+somehow, I must reach, and quickly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At dawn of the next day I got together driftwood and bound it together
+in shape of a rough raft with fallen creepers. Then, with a makeshift
+paddle, I set forth for Nan-Tauach. Slowly, painfully, I crept up to
+it. It was late afternoon before I grounded my shaky craft on the
+little beach between the ruined sea-gates and, creeping up the giant
+steps, made my way to the inner enclosure.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And at its opening I stopped, and the tears ran streaming down my
+cheeks while I wept aloud with sorrow and with disappointment and with
+weariness.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+For the great wall in which had been set the pale slab whose threshold
+we had crossed to the land of the Shining One lay shattered and
+broken. The monoliths were heaped about; the wall had fallen, and
+about them shone a film of water, half covering them.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There was no moon door!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dazed and weeping, I drew closer, climbed upon their outlying
+fragments. I looked out only upon the sea. There had been a great
+subsidence, an earth shock, perhaps, tilting downward all that
+side&mdash;the echo, little doubt, of that cataclysm which had blasted the
+Dweller's lair!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The little squared islet called Tau, in which were hidden the seven
+globes, had entirely disappeared. Upon the waters there was no trace
+of it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The moon door was gone; the passage to the Moon Pool was closed to
+me&mdash;its chamber covered by the sea!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There was no road to Larry&mdash;nor to Lakla!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And there, for me, the world ended.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR><BR>
+
+<PRE>
+  Transcriber's note: I have made the following changes to the text:
+
+  PAGE  LINE  ORIGINAL         CHANGED TO
+     3    14  sinster          sinister
+    17    11  Nam-Tauach       Nan-Tauach
+    22    20  on on            on
+    69    39  'Didn't          "Didn't
+    75    21  'But             "But
+    90    36  "Trolde!"        <I>"Trolde!"</I>
+    91    35  'We              "We
+    96    11  shown            shone
+    96    14  smiled           smiled.
+   105    11  drank            drunk
+   106    24  acomplish        accomplish
+   109    23  'Shake           "Shake
+   111    18  overtstressed    overstressed
+   116    11  increduously     incredulously
+   120    30  Yolar            Yolara
+   128    12  spirtual         spiritual
+   150    13  cushoned         cushioned
+   172    29  semed            seemed
+   204    34  there?"'         there?"
+   208    25  "Its             "It's
+   231     8  meal             metal
+   239     6  suling           sulting
+   248    28  finshed          finished
+   280    29  much             must
+</PRE>
+
+<BR><BR><BR><BR>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Moon Pool, by A. Merritt
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diff --git a/765.txt b/765.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..37c2457
--- /dev/null
+++ b/765.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,12365 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Moon Pool, by A. Merritt
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Moon Pool
+
+Author: A. Merritt
+
+Posting Date: August 16, 2008 [EBook #765]
+Release Date: December, 1996
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MOON POOL ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Judith Boss.  HTML version by Al Haines.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+The Moon Pool
+
+A. MERRITT
+
+
+
+
+Foreword
+
+The publication of the following narrative of Dr. Walter T. Goodwin
+has been authorized by the Executive Council of the International
+Association of Science.
+
+First:
+
+To end officially what is beginning to be called the Throckmartin
+Mystery and to kill the innuendo and scandalous suspicions which have
+threatened to stain the reputations of Dr. David Throckmartin, his
+youthful wife, and equally youthful associate Dr. Charles Stanton ever
+since a tardy despatch from Melbourne, Australia, reported the
+disappearance of the first from a ship sailing to that port, and the
+subsequent reports of the disappearance of his wife and associate from
+the camp of their expedition in the Caroline Islands.
+
+Second:
+
+Because the Executive Council have concluded that Dr. Goodwin's
+experiences in his wholly heroic effort to save the three, and the
+lessons and warnings within those experiences, are too important
+to humanity as a whole to be hidden away in scientific papers
+understandable only to the technically educated; or to be presented
+through the newspaper press in the abridged and fragmentary form
+which the space limitations of that vehicle make necessary.
+
+For these reasons the Executive Council commissioned Mr. A. Merritt
+to transcribe into form to be readily understood by the layman the
+stenographic notes of Dr. Goodwin's own report to the Council,
+supplemented by further oral reminiscences and comments by Dr.
+Goodwin; this transcription, edited and censored by the Executive
+Council of the Association, forms the contents of this book.
+
+Himself a member of the Council, Dr. Walter T. Goodwin, Ph.D.,
+F.R.G.S. etc., is without cavil the foremost of American botanists, an
+observer of international reputation and the author of several epochal
+treaties upon his chosen branch of science. His story, amazing in the
+best sense of that word as it may be, is fully supported by proofs
+brought forward by him and accepted by the organization of which I
+have the honor to be president. What matter has been elided from
+this popular presentation--because of the excessively menacing
+potentialities it contains, which unrestricted dissemination might
+develop--will be dealt with in purely scientific pamphlets of
+carefully guarded circulation.
+
+THE INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF SCIENCE
+  Per J. B. K., President
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+       I  The Thing on the Moon Path
+      II  "Dead!  All Dead!"
+     III  The Moon Rock
+      IV  The First Vanishings
+       V  Into the Moon Pool
+      VI  "The Shining Devil Took Them!"
+     VII  Larry O'Keefe
+    VIII  Olaf's Story
+      IX  A Lost Page of Earth
+       X  The Moon Pool
+      XI  The Flame-Tipped Shadows
+     XII  The End of the Journey
+    XIII  Yolara, Priestess of the Shining One
+     XIV  The Justice of Lora
+      XV  The Angry, Whispering Globe
+     XVI  Yolara of Muria vs. the O'Keefe
+    XVII  The Leprechaun
+   XVIII  The Amphitheatre of Jet
+     XIX  The Madness of Olaf
+      XX  The Tempting of Larry
+     XXI  Larry's Defiance
+    XXII  The Casting of the Shadow
+   XXIII  Dragon Worm and Moss Death
+    XXIV  The Crimson Sea
+     XXV  The Three Silent Ones
+    XXVI  The Wooing of Lakla
+   XXVII  The Coming of Yolara
+  XXVIII  In the Lair of the Dweller
+    XXIX  The Shaping of the Shining One
+     XXX  The Building of the Moon Pool
+    XXXI  Larry and the Frog-Men
+   XXXII  "Your Love; Your Lives; Your Souls!"
+  XXXIII  The Meeting of Titans
+   XXXIV  The Coming of the Shining One
+    XXXV  "Larry--Farewell!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+The Thing on the Moon Path
+
+For two months I had been on the d'Entrecasteaux Islands gathering
+data for the concluding chapters of my book upon the flora of the
+volcanic islands of the South Pacific. The day before I had reached
+Port Moresby and had seen my specimens safely stored on board the
+Southern Queen. As I sat on the upper deck I thought, with homesick
+mind, of the long leagues between me and Melbourne, and the longer
+ones between Melbourne and New York.
+
+It was one of Papua's yellow mornings when she shows herself in her
+sombrest, most baleful mood. The sky was smouldering ochre. Over the
+island brooded a spirit sullen, alien, implacable, filled with the
+threat of latent, malefic forces waiting to be unleashed. It seemed an
+emanation out of the untamed, sinister heart of Papua herself--sinister
+even when she smiles. And now and then, on the wind, came a breath from
+virgin jungles, laden with unfamiliar odours, mysterious and menacing.
+
+It is on such mornings that Papua whispers to you of her immemorial
+ancientness and of her power. And, as every white man must, I fought
+against her spell. While I struggled I saw a tall figure striding down
+the pier; a Kapa-Kapa boy followed swinging a new valise. There was
+something familiar about the tall man. As he reached the gangplank he
+looked up straight into my eyes, stared for a moment, then waved his
+hand.
+
+And now I knew him.  It was Dr. David Throckmartin--"Throck" he was to
+me always, one of my oldest friends and, as well, a mind of the first
+water whose power and achievements were for me a constant inspiration
+as they were, I know, for scores other.
+
+Coincidentally with my recognition came a shock of surprise,
+definitely--unpleasant. It was Throckmartin--but about him was
+something disturbingly unlike the man I had known long so well and to
+whom and to whose little party I had bidden farewell less than a month
+before I myself had sailed for these seas. He had married only a few
+weeks before, Edith, the daughter of Professor William Frazier,
+younger by at least a decade than he but at one with him in his ideals
+and as much in love, if it were possible, as Throckmartin. By virtue
+of her father's training a wonderful assistant, by virtue of her own
+sweet, sound heart a--I use the word in its olden sense--lover. With
+his equally youthful associate Dr. Charles Stanton and a Swedish
+woman, Thora Halversen, who had been Edith Throckmartin's nurse from
+babyhood, they had set forth for the Nan-Matal, that extraordinary
+group of island ruins clustered along the eastern shore of Ponape in
+the Carolines.
+
+I knew that he had planned to spend at least a year among these ruins,
+not only of Ponape but of Lele--twin centres of a colossal riddle of
+humanity, a weird flower of civilization that blossomed ages before
+the seeds of Egypt were sown; of whose arts we know little enough and
+of whose science nothing. He had carried with him unusually complete
+equipment for the work he had expected to do and which, he hoped,
+would be his monument.
+
+What then had brought Throckmartin to Port Moresby, and what was that
+change I had sensed in him?
+
+Hurrying down to the lower deck I found him with the purser.  As I
+spoke he turned, thrust out to me an eager hand--and then I saw what
+was that difference that had so moved me. He knew, of course by my
+silence and involuntary shrinking the shock my closer look had given
+me. His eyes filled; he turned brusquely from the purser, hesitated--then
+hurried off to his stateroom.
+
+"'E looks rather queer--eh?" said the purser.  "Know 'im well, sir?
+Seems to 'ave given you quite a start."
+
+I made some reply and went slowly up to my chair.  There I sat,
+composed my mind and tried to define what it was that had shaken me
+so. Now it came to me. The old Throckmartin was on the eve of his
+venture just turned forty, lithe, erect, muscular; his controlling
+expression one of enthusiasm, of intellectual keenness, of--what shall
+I say--expectant search. His always questioning brain had stamped its
+vigor upon his face.
+
+But the Throckmartin I had seen below was one who had borne some
+scaring shock of mingled rapture and horror; some soul cataclysm that
+in its climax had remoulded, deep from within, his face, setting on it
+seal of wedded ecstasy and despair; as though indeed these two had
+come to him hand in hand, taken possession of him and departing left
+behind, ineradicably, their linked shadows!
+
+Yes--it was that which appalled.  For how could rapture and horror,
+Heaven and Hell mix, clasp hands--kiss?
+
+Yet these were what in closest embrace lay on Throckmartin's face!
+
+Deep in thought, subconsciously with relief, I watched the shore line
+sink behind; welcomed the touch of the wind of the free seas. I had
+hoped, and within the hope was an inexplicable shrinking that I would
+meet Throckmartin at lunch. He did not come down, and I was sensible
+of deliverance within my disappointment. All that afternoon I lounged
+about uneasily but still he kept to his cabin--and within me was no
+strength to summon him. Nor did he appear at dinner.
+
+Dusk and night fell swiftly.  I was warm and went back to my
+deck-chair. The Southern Queen was rolling to a disquieting swell and
+I had the place to myself.
+
+Over the heavens was a canopy of cloud, glowing faintly and testifying
+to the moon riding behind it. There was much phosphorescence. Fitfully
+before the ship and at her sides arose those stranger little swirls of
+mist that swirl up from the Southern Ocean like breath of sea
+monsters, whirl for an instant and disappear.
+
+Suddenly the deck door opened and through it came Throckmartin.  He
+paused uncertainly, looked up at the sky with a curiously eager,
+intent gaze, hesitated, then closed the door behind him.
+
+"Throck," I called.  "Come!  It's Goodwin."
+
+He made his way to me.
+
+"Throck," I said, wasting no time in preliminaries. "What's wrong?
+Can I help you?"
+
+I felt his body grow tense.
+
+"I'm going to Melbourne, Goodwin," he answered.  "I need a few
+things--need them urgently. And more men--white men--"
+
+He stopped abruptly; rose from his chair, gazed intently toward the
+north. I followed his gaze. Far, far away the moon had broken through
+the clouds. Almost on the horizon, you could see the faint
+luminescence of it upon the smooth sea. The distant patch of light
+quivered and shook. The clouds thickened again and it was gone. The
+ship raced on southward, swiftly.
+
+Throckmartin dropped into his chair.  He lighted a cigarette with a
+hand that trembled; then turned to me with abrupt resolution.
+
+"Goodwin," he said.  "I do need help.  If ever man needed it, I do.
+Goodwin--can you imagine yourself in another world, alien, unfamiliar,
+a world of terror, whose unknown joy is its greatest terror of all;
+you all alone there, a stranger! As such a man would need help, so I
+need--"
+
+He paused abruptly and arose; the cigarette dropped from his fingers.
+The moon had again broken through the clouds, and this time much
+nearer. Not a mile away was the patch of light that it threw upon the
+waves. Back of it, to the rim of the sea was a lane of moonlight; a
+gigantic gleaming serpent racing over the edge of the world straight
+and surely toward the ship.
+
+Throckmartin stiffened to it as a pointer does to a hidden covey.  To
+me from him pulsed a thrill of horror--but horror tinged with an
+unfamiliar, an infernal joy. It came to me and passed away--leaving me
+trembling with its shock of bitter sweet.
+
+He bent forward, all his soul in his eyes.  The moon path swept
+closer, closer still. It was now less than half a mile away. From it
+the ship fled--almost as though pursued. Down upon it, swift and
+straight, a radiant torrent cleaving the waves, raced the moon stream.
+
+"Good God!" breathed Throckmartin, and if ever the words were a prayer
+and an invocation they were.
+
+And then, for the first time--I saw--_it_!
+
+The moon path stretched to the horizon and was bordered by darkness.
+It was as though the clouds above had been parted to form a lane-drawn
+aside like curtains or as the waters of the Red Sea were held back to
+let the hosts of Israel through. On each side of the stream was the
+black shadow cast by the folds of the high canopies And straight as a
+road between the opaque walls gleamed, shimmered, and danced the
+shining, racing, rapids of the moonlight.
+
+Far, it seemed immeasurably far, along this stream of silver fire I
+sensed, rather than saw, something coming. It drew first into sight as
+a deeper glow within the light. On and on it swept toward us--an
+opalescent mistiness that sped with the suggestion of some winged
+creature in arrowed flight. Dimly there crept into my mind memory of
+the Dyak legend of the winged messenger of Buddha--the Akla bird
+whose feathers are woven of the moon rays, whose heart is a living
+opal, whose wings in flight echo the crystal clear music of the white
+stars--but whose beak is of frozen flame and shreds the souls of
+unbelievers.
+
+Closer it drew and now there came to me sweet, insistent
+tinklings--like pizzicati on violins of glass; crystal clear; diamonds
+melting into sounds!
+
+Now the Thing was close to the end of the white path; close up to the
+barrier of darkness still between the ship and the sparkling head of
+the moon stream. Now it beat up against that barrier as a bird against
+the bars of its cage. It whirled with shimmering plumes, with swirls
+of lacy light, with spirals of living vapour. It held within it odd,
+unfamiliar gleams as of shifting mother-of-pearl. Coruscations and
+glittering atoms drifted through it as though it drew them from the
+rays that bathed it.
+
+Nearer and nearer it came, borne on the sparkling waves, and ever
+thinner shrank the protecting wall of shadow between it and us. Within
+the mistiness was a core, a nucleus of intenser light--veined,
+opaline, effulgent, intensely alive. And above it, tangled in the
+plumes and spirals that throbbed and whirled were seven glowing
+lights.
+
+Through all the incessant but strangely ordered movement of
+the--_thing_--these lights held firm and steady. They were seven--like
+seven little moons. One was of a pearly pink, one of a delicate
+nacreous blue, one of lambent saffron, one of the emerald you see in
+the shallow waters of tropic isles; a deathly white; a ghostly
+amethyst; and one of the silver that is seen only when the flying fish
+leap beneath the moon.
+
+The tinkling music was louder still.  It pierced the ears with a
+shower of tiny lances; it made the heart beat jubilantly--and checked
+it dolorously. It closed the throat with a throb of rapture and
+gripped it tight with the hand of infinite sorrow!
+
+Came to me now a murmuring cry, stilling the crystal notes.  It was
+articulate--but as though from something utterly foreign to this
+world. The ear took the cry and translated with conscious labour into
+the sounds of earth. And even as it compassed, the brain shrank from
+it irresistibly, and simultaneously it seemed reached toward it with
+irresistible eagerness.
+
+Throckmartin strode toward the front of the deck, straight toward the
+vision, now but a few yards away from the stern. His face had lost all
+human semblance. Utter agony and utter ecstasy--there they were side
+by side, not resisting each other; unholy inhuman companions blending
+into a look that none of God's creatures should wear--and deep, deep
+as his soul! A devil and a God dwelling harmoniously side by side! So
+must Satan, newly fallen, still divine, seeing heaven and
+contemplating hell, have appeared.
+
+And then--swiftly the moon path faded!  The clouds swept over the sky
+as though a hand had drawn them together. Up from the south came a
+roaring squall. As the moon vanished what I had seen vanished with
+it--blotted out as an image on a magic lantern; the tinkling ceased
+abruptly--leaving a silence like that which follows an abrupt thunder
+clap. There was nothing about us but silence and blackness!
+
+Through me passed a trembling as one who has stood on the very verge
+of the gulf wherein the men of the Louisades says lurks the fisher of
+the souls of men, and has been plucked back by sheerest chance.
+
+Throckmartin passed an arm around me.
+
+"It is as I thought," he said.  In his voice was a new note; the calm
+certainty that has swept aside a waiting terror of the unknown. "Now I
+know! Come with me to my cabin, old friend. For now that you too have
+seen I can tell you"--he hesitated--"what it was you saw," he ended.
+
+As we passed through the door we met the ship's first officer.
+Throckmartin composed his face into at least a semblance of normality.
+
+"Going to have much of a storm?" he asked.
+
+"Yes," said the mate.  "Probably all the way to Melbourne."
+
+Throckmartin straightened as though with a new thought. He gripped the
+officer's sleeve eagerly.
+
+"You mean at least cloudy weather--for"--he hesitated--"for the next
+three nights, say?"
+
+"And for three more," replied the mate.
+
+"Thank God!" cried Throckmartin, and I think I never heard such relief
+and hope as was in his voice.
+
+The sailor stood amazed.  "Thank God?" he repeated. "Thank--what d'ye
+mean?"
+
+But Throckmartin was moving onward to his cabin.  I started to follow.
+The first officer stopped me.
+
+"Your friend," he said, "is he ill?"
+
+"The sea!" I answered hurriedly.  "He's not used to it.  I am going to
+look after him."
+
+Doubt and disbelief were plain in the seaman's eyes but I hurried on.
+For I knew now that Throckmartin was ill indeed--but with a sickness
+the ship's doctor nor any other could heal.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+"Dead!  All Dead!"
+
+He was sitting, face in hands, on the side of his berth as I entered.
+He had taken off his coat.
+
+"Throck," I cried.  "What was it?  What are you flying from, man?
+Where is your wife--and Stanton?"
+
+"Dead!" he replied monotonously.  "Dead!  All dead!" Then as I
+recoiled from him--"All dead. Edith, Stanton, Thora--dead--or worse.
+And Edith in the Moon Pool--with them--drawn by what you saw on the
+moon path--that has put its brand upon me--and follows me!"
+
+He ripped open his shirt.
+
+"Look at this," he said.  Around his chest, above his heart, the skin
+was white as pearl. This whiteness was sharply defined against the
+healthy tint of the body. It circled him with an even cincture about
+two inches wide.
+
+"Burn it!" he said, and offered me his cigarette.  I drew back.  He
+gestured--peremptorily. I pressed the glowing end of the cigarette
+into the ribbon of white flesh. He did not flinch nor was there odour
+of burning nor, as I drew the little cylinder away, any mark upon the
+whiteness.
+
+"Feel it!" he commanded again.  I placed my fingers upon the band.  It
+was cold--like frozen marble.
+
+He drew his shirt around him.
+
+"Two things you have seen," he said.  "_It_--and its mark. Seeing,
+you must believe my story. Goodwin, I tell you again that my wife is
+dead--or worse--I do not know; the prey of--what you saw; so, too, is
+Stanton; so Thora. How--"
+
+Tears rolled down the seared face.
+
+"Why did God let it conquer us?  Why did He let it take my Edith?" he
+cried in utter bitterness. "Are there things stronger than God, do you
+think, Walter?"
+
+I hesitated.
+
+"Are there?  Are there?" His wild eyes searched me.
+
+"I do not know just how you define God," I managed at last through my
+astonishment to make answer. "If you mean the will to know, working
+through science--"
+
+He waved me aside impatiently.
+
+"Science," he said.  "What is our science against--that? Or against
+the science of whatever devils that made it--or made the way for it to
+enter this world of ours?"
+
+With an effort he regained control.
+
+"Goodwin," he said, "do you know at all of the ruins on the Carolines;
+the cyclopean, megalithic cities and harbours of Ponape and Lele, of
+Kusaie, of Ruk and Hogolu, and a score of other islets there?
+Particularly, do you know of the Nan-Matal and the Metalanim?"
+
+"Of the Metalanim I have heard and seen photographs," I said.  "They
+call it, don't they, the Lost Venice of the Pacific?"
+
+"Look at this map," said Throckmartin.  "That," he went on, "is
+Christian's chart of Metalanim harbour and the Nan-Matal. Do you see
+the rectangles marked Nan-Tauach?"
+
+"Yes," I said.
+
+"There," he said, "under those walls is the Moon Pool and the seven
+gleaming lights that raise the Dweller in the Pool, and the altar and
+shrine of the Dweller. And there in the Moon Pool with it lie Edith
+and Stanton and Thora."
+
+"The Dweller in the Moon Pool?" I repeated half-incredulously.
+
+"The Thing you saw," said Throckmartin solemnly.
+
+A solid sheet of rain swept the ports, and the Southern Queen began to
+roll on the rising swells. Throckmartin drew another deep breath of
+relief, and drawing aside a curtain peered out into the night. Its
+blackness seemed to reassure him. At any rate, when he sat again he
+was entirely calm.
+
+"There are no more wonderful ruins in the world," he began almost
+casually. "They take in some fifty islets and cover with their
+intersecting canals and lagoons about twelve square miles. Who built
+them? None knows. When were they built? Ages before the memory of
+present man, that is sure. Ten thousand, twenty thousand, a hundred
+thousand years ago--the last more likely.
+
+"All these islets, Walter, are squared, and their shores are frowning
+seawalls of gigantic basalt blocks hewn and put in place by the hands
+of ancient man. Each inner water-front is faced with a terrace of
+those basalt blocks which stand out six feet above the shallow canals
+that meander between them. On the islets behind these walls are
+time-shattered fortresses, palaces, terraces, pyramids; immense
+courtyards strewn with ruins--and all so old that they seem to wither
+the eyes of those who look on them.
+
+"There has been a great subsidence.  You can stand out of Metalanim
+harbour for three miles and look down upon the tops of similar
+monolithic structures and walls twenty feet below you in the water.
+
+"And all about, strung on their canals, are the bulwarked islets with
+their enigmatic walls peering through the dense growths of
+mangroves--dead, deserted for incalculable ages; shunned by those who
+live near.
+
+"You as a botanist are familiar with the evidence that a vast shadowy
+continent existed in the Pacific--a continent that was not rent
+asunder by volcanic forces as was that legendary one of Atlantis in
+the Eastern Ocean.[1] My work in Java, in Papua, and in the Ladrones
+had set my mind upon this Pacific lost land. Just as the Azores are
+believed to be the last high peaks of Atlantis, so hints came to me
+steadily that Ponape and Lele and their basalt bulwarked islets were
+the last points of the slowly sunken western land clinging still to
+the sunlight, and had been the last refuge and sacred places of the
+rulers of that race which had lost their immemorial home under the
+rising waters of the Pacific.
+
+"I believed that under these ruins I might find the evidence
+that I sought.
+
+"My--my wife and I had talked before we were married of making this
+our great work. After the honeymoon we prepared for the expedition.
+Stanton was as enthusiastic as ourselves. We sailed, as you know, last
+May for fulfilment of my dreams.
+
+"At Ponape we selected, not without difficulty, workmen to help
+us--diggers. I had to make extraordinary inducements before I could
+get together my force. Their beliefs are gloomy, these Ponapeans. They
+people their swamps, their forests, their mountains, and shores, with
+malignant spirits--ani they call them. And they are afraid--bitterly
+afraid of the isles of ruins and what they think the ruins hide. I do
+not wonder--now!
+
+"When they were told where they were to go, and how long we expected
+to stay, they murmured. Those who, at last, were tempted made what I
+thought then merely a superstitious proviso that they were to be
+allowed to go away on the three nights of the full moon. Would to God
+we had heeded them and gone too!"
+
+"We passed into Metalanim harbour.  Off to our left--a mile away arose
+a massive quadrangle. Its walls were all of forty feet high and
+hundreds of feet on each side. As we drew by, our natives grew very
+silent; watched it furtively, fearfully. I knew it for the ruins that
+are called Nan-Tauach, the 'place of frowning walls.' And at the
+silence of my men I recalled what Christian had written of this place;
+of how he had come upon its 'ancient platforms and tetragonal
+enclosures of stonework; its wonder of tortuous alleyways and
+labyrinth of shallow canals; grim masses of stonework peering out from
+behind verdant screens; cyclopean barricades,' and of how, when he had
+turned 'into its ghostly shadows, straight-way the merriment of guides
+was hushed and conversation died down to whispers.'"
+
+He was silent for a little time.
+
+"Of course I wanted to pitch our camp there," he went on again
+quietly, "but I soon gave up that idea. The natives were
+panic-stricken--threatened to turn back. 'No,' they said, 'too great
+ani there. We go to any other place--but not there.'
+
+"We finally picked for our base the islet called Uschen-Tau.  It was
+close to the isle of desire, but far enough away from it to satisfy
+our men. There was an excellent camping-place and a spring of fresh
+water. We pitched our tents, and in a couple of days the work was in
+full swing."
+
+
+[1] For more detailed observations on these points refer to G. Volkens,
+Uber die Karolinen Insel Yap, in Verhandlungen Gesellschaft Erdkunde
+Berlin, xxvii (1901); J. S. Kubary, Ethnographische Beitrage zur
+Kentniss des Karolinen Archipel (Leiden, 1889-1892); De Abrade
+Historia del Conflicto de las Carolinas, etc. (Madrid, 1886).--W. T. G.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+The Moon Rock
+
+"I do not intend to tell you now," Throckmartin continued, "the
+results of the next two weeks, nor of what we found. Later--if I am
+allowed, I will lay all that before you. It is sufficient to say that
+at the end of those two weeks I had found confirmation for many of my
+theories.
+
+"The place, for all its decay and desolation, had not infected us with
+any touch of morbidity--that is not Edith, Stanton, or myself. But
+Thora was very unhappy. She was a Swede, as you know, and in her blood
+ran the beliefs and superstitions of the Northland--some of them so
+strangely akin to those of this far southern land; beliefs of spirits
+of mountain and forest and water werewolves and beings malign. From
+the first she showed a curious sensitivity to what, I suppose, may be
+called the 'influences' of the place. She said it 'smelled' of ghosts
+and warlocks.
+
+"I laughed at her then--
+
+"Two weeks slipped by, and at their end the spokesman for our natives
+came to us. The next night was the full of the moon, he said. He
+reminded me of my promise. They would go back to their village in the
+morning; they would return after the third night, when the moon had
+begun to wane. They left us sundry charms for our 'protection,' and
+solemnly cautioned us to keep as far away as possible from Nan-Tauach
+during their absence. Half-exasperated, half-amused I watched them go.
+
+"No work could be done without them, of course, so we decided to spend
+the days of their absence junketing about the southern islets of the
+group. We marked down several spots for subsequent exploration, and on
+the morning of the third day set forth along the east face of the
+breakwater for our camp on Uschen-Tau, planning to have everything in
+readiness for the return of our men the next day.
+
+"We landed just before dusk, tired and ready for our cots.
+It was only a little after ten o'clock that Edith awakened me.
+
+"'Listen!' she said.  'Lean over with your ear close to the ground!'
+
+"I did so, and seemed to hear, far, far below, as though coming up
+from great distances, a faint chanting. It gathered strength, died
+down, ended; began, gathered volume, faded away into silence.
+
+"'It's the waves rolling on rocks somewhere,' I said.  'We're probably
+over some ledge of rock that carries the sound.'
+
+"'It's the first time I've heard it,' replied my wife doubtfully.  We
+listened again. Then through the dim rhythms, deep beneath us, another
+sound came. It drifted across the lagoon that lay between us and
+Nan-Tauach in little tinkling waves. It was music--of a sort; I won't
+describe the strange effect it had upon me. You've felt it--"
+
+"You mean on the deck?" I asked.  Throckmartin nodded.
+
+"I went to the flap of the tent," he continued, "and peered out.
+As I did so Stanton lifted his flap and walked out into the moonlight,
+looking over to the other islet and listening. I called to him.
+
+"'That's the queerest sound!' he said.  He listened again.
+'Crystalline! Like little notes of translucent glass. Like the bells
+of crystal on the sistrums of Isis at Dendarah Temple,' he added
+half-dreamily. We gazed intently at the island. Suddenly, on the
+sea-wall, moving slowly, rhythmically, we saw a little group of
+lights. Stanton laughed.
+
+"'The beggars!' he exclaimed.  'That's why they wanted to get away, is
+it? Don't you see, Dave, it's some sort of a festival--rites of some
+kind that they hold during the full moon! That's why they were so
+eager to have us _keep_ away, too.'
+
+"The explanation seemed good.  I felt a curious sense of relief,
+although I had not been sensible of any oppression.
+
+"'Let's slip over,' suggested Stanton--but I would not.
+
+"'They're a difficult lot as it is,' I said.  'If we break into one of
+their religious ceremonies they'll probably never forgive us. Let's
+keep out of any family party where we haven't been invited.'
+
+"'That's so,' agreed Stanton.
+
+"The strange tinkling rose and fell, rose and fell--
+
+"'There's something--something very unsettling about it,' said Edith
+at last soberly. 'I wonder what they make those sounds with. They
+frighten me half to death, and, at the same time, they make me feel as
+though some enormous rapture were just around the corner.'
+
+"'It's devilish uncanny!' broke in Stanton.
+
+"And as he spoke the flap of Thora's tent was raised and out into the
+moonlight strode the old Swede. She was the great Norse type--tall,
+deep-breasted, moulded on the old Viking lines. Her sixty years had
+slipped from her. She looked like some ancient priestess of Odin.
+
+"She stood there, her eyes wide, brilliant, staring.  She thrust her
+head forward toward Nan-Tauach, regarding the moving lights; she
+listened. Suddenly she raised her arms and made a curious gesture to
+the moon. It was--an archaic--movement; she seemed to drag it from
+remote antiquity--yet in it was a strange suggestion of power, Twice
+she repeated this gesture and--the tinklings died away! She turned to
+us.
+
+"'Go!' she said, and her voice seemed to come from far distances.  'Go
+from here--and quickly! Go while you may. It has called--' She pointed
+to the islet. 'It knows you are here. It waits!' she wailed. 'It
+beckons--the--the--"
+
+"She fell at Edith's feet, and over the lagoon came again the
+tinklings, now with a quicker note of jubilance--almost of triumph.
+
+"We watched beside her throughout the night.  The sounds from
+Nan-Tauach continued until about an hour before moon-set. In the
+morning Thora awoke, none the worse, apparently. She had had bad
+dreams, she said. She could not remember what they were--except that
+they had warned her of danger. She was oddly sullen, and throughout
+the morning her gaze returned again and again half-fascinatedly,
+half-wonderingly to the neighbouring isle.
+
+"That afternoon the natives returned.  And that night on Nan-Tauach
+the silence was unbroken nor were there lights nor sign of life.
+
+"You will understand, Goodwin, how the occurrences I have related
+would excite the scientific curiosity. We rejected immediately, of
+course, any explanation admitting the supernatural.
+
+"Our--symptoms let me call them--could all very easily be accounted
+for. It is unquestionable that the vibrations created by certain
+musical instruments have definite and sometimes extraordinary effect
+upon the nervous system. We accepted this as the explanation of the
+reactions we had experienced, hearing the unfamiliar sounds. Thora's
+nervousness, her superstitious apprehensions, had wrought her up to a
+condition of semi-somnambulistic hysteria. Science could readily
+explain her part in the night's scene.
+
+"We came to the conclusion that there must be a passage-way between
+Ponape and Nan-Tauach known to the natives--and used by them during
+their rites. We decided that on the next departure of our labourers we
+would set forth immediately to Nan-Tauach. We would investigate during
+the day, and at evening my wife and Thora would go back to camp,
+leaving Stanton and me to spend the night on the island, observing
+from some safe hiding-place what might occur.
+
+"The moon waned; appeared crescent in the west; waxed slowly toward
+the full. Before the men left us they literally prayed us to accompany
+them. Their importunities only made us more eager to see what it was
+that, we were now convinced, they wanted to conceal from us. At least
+that was true of Stanton and myself. It was not true of Edith. She was
+thoughtful, abstracted--reluctant.
+
+"When the men were out of sight around the turn of the harbour, we
+took our boat and made straight for Nan-Tauach. Soon its mighty
+sea-wall towered above us. We passed through the water-gate with its
+gigantic hewn prisms of basalt and landed beside a half-submerged
+pier. In front of us stretched a series of giant steps leading into a
+vast court strewn with fragments of fallen pillars. In the centre of
+the court, beyond the shattered pillars, rose another terrace of
+basalt blocks, concealing, I knew, still another enclosure.
+
+"And now, Walter, for the better understanding of what
+follows--and--and--" he hesitated. "Should you decide later to return
+with me or, if I am taken, to--to--follow us--listen carefully to my
+description of this place: Nan-Tauach is literally three rectangles.
+The first rectangle is the sea-wall, built up of monoliths--hewn and
+squared, twenty feet wide at the top. To get to the gateway in the
+sea-wall you pass along the canal marked on the map between Nan-Tauach
+and the islet named Tau. The entrance to the canal is bidden by dense
+thickets of mangroves; once through these the way is clear. The steps
+lead up from the landing of the sea-gate through the entrance to the
+courtyard.
+
+"This courtyard is surrounded by another basalt wall, rectangular,
+following with mathematical exactness the march of the outer
+barricades. The sea-wall is from thirty to forty feet high--originally
+it must have been much higher, but there has been subsidence in parts.
+The wall of the first enclosure is fifteen feet across the top and its
+height varies from twenty to fifty feet--here, too, the gradual
+sinking of the land has caused portions of it to fall.
+
+"Within this courtyard is the second enclosure.  Its terrace, of the
+same basalt as the outer walls, is about twenty feet high. Entrance is
+gained to it by many breaches which time has made in its stonework.
+This is the inner court, the heart of Nan-Tauach! There lies the great
+central vault with which is associated the one name of living being
+that has come to us out of the mists of the past. The natives say it
+was the treasure-house of Chau-te-leur, a mighty king who reigned long
+'before their fathers.' As Chan is the ancient Ponapean word both for
+sun and king, the name means, without doubt, 'place of the sun king.'
+It is a memory of a dynastic name of the race that ruled the Pacific
+continent, now vanished--just as the rulers of ancient Crete took the
+name of Minos and the rulers of Egypt the name of Pharaoh.
+
+"And opposite this place of the sun king is the moon rock that hides
+the Moon Pool.
+
+"It was Stanton who discovered the moon rock.  We had been inspecting
+the inner courtyard; Edith and Thora were getting together our lunch.
+I came out of the vault of Chau-te-leur to find Stanton before a part
+of the terrace studying it wonderingly.
+
+"'What do you make of this?' he asked me as I came up. He pointed to
+the wall. I followed his finger and saw a slab of stone about fifteen
+feet high and ten wide. At first all I noticed was the exquisite
+nicety with which its edges joined the blocks about it. Then I
+realized that its colour was subtly different--tinged with grey and of
+a smooth, peculiar--deadness.
+
+"'Looks more like calcite than basalt,' I said.  I touched it and
+withdrew my hand quickly for at the contact every nerve in my arm
+tingled as though a shock of frozen electricity had passed through it.
+It was not cold as we know cold. It was a chill force--the phrase I
+have used--frozen electricity--describes it better than anything else.
+Stanton looked at me oddly.
+
+"'So you felt it too,' he said.  'I was wondering whether I was
+developing hallucinations like Thora. Notice, by the way, that the
+blocks beside it are quite warm beneath the sun.'
+
+"We examined the slab eagerly.  Its edges were cut as though by an
+engraver of jewels. They fitted against the neighbouring blocks in
+almost a hair-line. Its base was slightly curved, and fitted as
+closely as top and sides upon the huge stones on which it rested. And
+then we noted that these stones had been hollowed to follow the line
+of the grey stone's foot. There was a semicircular depression running
+from one side of the slab to the other. It was as though the grey rock
+stood in the centre of a shallow cup--revealing half, covering half.
+Something about this hollow attracted me. I reached down and felt it.
+Goodwin, although the balance of the stones that formed it, like all
+the stones of the courtyard, were rough and age-worn--this was as
+smooth, as even surfaced as though it had just left the hands of the
+polisher.
+
+"'It's a door!' exclaimed Stanton.  'It swings around in that little
+cup. That's what makes the hollow so smooth.'
+
+"'Maybe you're right,' I replied.  'But how the devil can we open it?'
+
+"We went over the slab again--pressing upon its edges, thrusting
+against its sides. During one of those efforts I happened to look
+up--and cried out. A foot above and on each side of the corner of the
+grey rock's lintel was a slight convexity, visible only from the angle
+at which my gaze struck it.
+
+"We carried with us a small scaling-ladder and up this I went.  The
+bosses were apparently nothing more than chiseled curvatures in the
+stone. I laid my hand on the one I was examining, and drew it back
+sharply. In my palm, at the base of my thumb, I had felt the same
+shock that I had in touching the slab below. I put my hand back. The
+impression came from a spot not more than an inch wide. I went
+carefully over the entire convexity, and six times more the chill ran
+through my arm. There were seven circles an inch wide in the curved
+place, each of which communicated the precise sensation I have
+described. The convexity on the opposite side of the slab gave exactly
+the same results. But no amount of touching or of pressing these spots
+singly or in any combination gave the slightest promise of motion to
+the slab itself.
+
+"'And yet--they're what open it,' said Stanton positively.
+
+"'Why do you say that?' I asked.
+
+"'I--don't know,' he answered hesitatingly.  'But something tells me
+so. Throck,' he went on half earnestly, half laughingly, 'the purely
+scientific part of me is fighting the purely human part of me. The
+scientific part is urging me to find some way to get that slab either
+down or open. The human part is just as strongly urging me to do
+nothing of the sort and get away while I can!'
+
+"He laughed again--shamefacedly.
+
+"'Which shall it be?' he asked--and I thought that in his tone the
+human side of him was ascendant.
+
+"'It will probably stay as it is--unless we blow it to bits,' I said.
+
+"'I thought of that,' he answered, 'and I wouldn't dare,' he added
+soberly enough. And even as I had spoken there came to me the same
+feeling that he had expressed. It was as though something passed out
+of the grey rock that struck my heart as a hand strikes an impious
+lip. We turned away--uneasily, and faced Thora coming through a breach
+on the terrace.
+
+"'Miss Edith wants you quick,' she began--and stopped. Her eyes went
+past me to the grey rock. Her body grew rigid; she took a few stiff
+steps forward and then ran straight to it. She cast herself upon its
+breast, hands and face pressed against it; we heard her scream as
+though her very soul were being drawn from her--and watched her fall
+at its foot. As we picked her up I saw steal from her face the look I
+had observed when first we heard the crystal music of
+Nan-Tauach--that unhuman mingling of opposites!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+The First Vanishings
+
+"We carried Thora back, down to where Edith was waiting. We told her
+what had happened and what we had found. She listened gravely, and as
+we finished Thora sighed and opened her eyes.
+
+"'I would like to see the stone,' she said.  'Charles, you stay here
+with Thora.' We passed through the outer court silently--and stood
+before the rock. She touched it, drew back her hand as I had; thrust
+it forward again resolutely and held it there. She seemed to be
+listening. Then she turned to me.
+
+"'David,' said my wife, and the wistfulness in her voice hurt
+me--'David, would you be very, very disappointed if we went from
+here--without trying to find out any more about it--would you?'
+
+"Walter, I never wanted anything so much in my life as I wanted to
+learn what that rock concealed. Nevertheless, I tried to master my
+desire, and I answered--'Edith, not a bit if you want us to do it.'
+
+"She read my struggle in my eyes.  She turned back toward the grey
+rock. I saw a shiver pass through her. I felt a tinge of remorse and
+pity!
+
+"'Edith,' I exclaimed, 'we'll go!'
+
+"She looked at me again.  'Science is a jealous mistress,' she quoted.
+'No, after all it may be just fancy. At any rate, you can't run away.
+No! But, Dave, I'm going to stay too!'
+
+"And there was no changing her decision.  As we neared the others she
+laid a hand on my arm.
+
+"'Dave,' she said, 'if there should be something--well--inexplicable
+tonight--something that seems--too dangerous--will you promise to go
+back to our own islet tomorrow, if we can--and wait until the natives
+return?'
+
+"I promised eagerly--the desire to stay and see what came with the
+night was like a fire within me.
+
+"We picked a place about five hundred feet away from the steps leading
+into the outer court.
+
+"The spot we had selected was well hidden.  We could not be seen, and
+yet we had a clear view of the stairs and the gateway. We settled down
+just before dusk to wait for whatever might come. I was nearest the
+giant steps; next me Edith; then Thora, and last Stanton.
+
+"Night fell.  After a time the eastern sky began to lighten, and we
+knew that the moon was rising; grew lighter still, and the orb peeped
+over the sea; swam into full sight. I glanced at Edith and then at
+Thora. My wife was intently listening. Thora sat, as she had since we
+had placed ourselves, elbows on knees, her hands covering her face.
+
+"And then from the moonlight flooding us there dripped down on me a
+great drowsiness. Sleep seemed to seep from the rays and fall upon my
+eyes, closing them--closing them inexorably. Edith's hand in mine
+relaxed. Stanton's head fell upon his breast and his body swayed
+drunkenly. I tried to rise--to fight against the profound desire for
+slumber that pressed on me.
+
+"And as I fought, Thora raised her head as though listening; and
+turned toward the gateway. There was infinite despair in her face--and
+expectancy. I tried again to rise--and a surge of sleep rushed over
+me. Dimly, as I sank within it, I heard a crystalline chiming; raised
+my lids once more with a supreme effort.
+
+"Thora, bathed in light, was standing at the top of the stairs.
+
+"Sleep took me for its very own--swept me into the heart of oblivion!
+
+"Dawn was breaking when I wakened.  Recollection rushed back; I thrust
+a panic-stricken hand out toward Edith; touched her and my heart gave
+a great leap of thankfulness. She stirred, sat up, rubbing dazed eyes.
+Stanton lay on his side, back toward us, head in arms.
+
+"Edith looked at me laughingly.  'Heavens!  What sleep!' she said.
+Memory came to her.
+
+"'What happened?' she whispered.  'What made us sleep like that?'
+
+"Stanton awoke.
+
+"'What's the matter!' he exclaimed.  'You look as though you've been
+seeing ghosts.'
+
+"Edith caught my hands.
+
+"'Where's Thora?' she cried.  Before I could answer she had run out
+into the open, calling.
+
+"'Thora was taken,' was all I could say to Stanton, 'together we went
+to my wife, now standing beside the great stone steps, looking up
+fearfully at the gateway into the terraces. There I told them what I
+had seen before sleep had drowned me. And together then we ran up the
+stairs, through the court and to the grey rock.
+
+"The slab was closed as it had been the day before, nor was there
+trace of its having opened. No trace? Even as I thought this Edith
+dropped to her knees before it and reached toward something lying at
+its foot. It was a little piece of gay silk. I knew it for part of the
+kerchief Thora wore about her hair. She lifted the fragment. It had
+been cut from the kerchief as though by a razor-edge; a few threads
+ran from it--down toward the base of the slab; ran on to the base of
+the grey rock and--under it!
+
+"The grey rock was a door!  And it had opened and Thora had passed
+through it!
+
+"I think that for the next few minutes we all were a little insane.
+We beat upon that portal with our hands, with stones and sticks. At
+last reason came back to us.
+
+"Goodwin, during the next two hours we tried every way in our power to
+force entrance through the slab. The rock resisted our drills. We
+tried explosions at the base with charges covered by rock. They made
+not the slightest impression on the surface, expending their force, of
+course, upon the slighter resistance of their coverings.
+
+"Afternoon found us hopeless.  Night was coming on and we would have
+to decide our course of action. I wanted to go to Ponape for help. But
+Edith objected that this would take hours and after we had reached
+there it would be impossible to persuade our men to return with us
+that night, if at all. What then was left? Clearly only one of two
+choices: to go back to our camp, wait for our men, and on their return
+try to persuade them to go with us to Nan-Tauach. But this would mean
+the abandonment of Thora for at least two days. We could not do it; it
+would have been too cowardly.
+
+"The other choice was to wait where we were for night to come; to wait
+for the rock to open as it had the night before, and to make a sortie
+through it for Thora before it could close again.
+
+"Our path lay clear before us.  We had to spend that night on
+Nan-Tauach!
+
+"We had, of course, discussed the sleep phenomena very fully.  If our
+theory that lights, sounds, and Thora's disappearance were linked with
+secret religious rites of the natives, the logical inference was that
+the slumber had been produced by them, perhaps by vapours--you know as
+well as I, what extraordinary knowledge these Pacific peoples have of
+such things. Or the sleep might have been simply a coincidence and
+produced by emanations either gaseous or from plants, natural causes
+which had happened to coincide in their effects with the other
+manifestations. We made some rough and ready but effective
+respirators.
+
+"As dusk fell we looked over our weapons.  Edith was an excellent shot
+with both rifle and pistol. We had decided that my wife was to remain
+in the hiding-place. Stanton would take up a station on the far side
+of the stairway and I would place myself opposite him on the side near
+Edith. The place I picked out was less than two hundred feet from her,
+and I could reassure myself now and then as to her safety as it looked
+down upon the hollow wherein she crouched. From our respective
+stations Stanton and I could command the gateway entrance. His
+position gave him also a glimpse of the outer courtyard.
+
+"A faint glow in the sky heralded the moon.  Stanton and I took our
+places. The moon dawn increased rapidly; the disk swam up, and in a
+moment it was shining in full radiance upon ruins and sea.
+
+"As it rose there came a curious little sighing sound from the inner
+terrace. Stanton straightened up and stared intently through the
+gateway, rifle ready.
+
+"'Stanton, what do you see?' I called cautiously.  He waved a
+silencing hand. I turned my head to look at Edith. A shock ran through
+me. She lay upon her side. Her face, grotesque with its nose and mouth
+covered by the respirator, was turned full toward the moon. She was
+again in deepest sleep!
+
+"As I turned again to call to Stanton, my eyes swept the head of the
+steps and stopped, fascinated. For the moonlight had thickened. It
+seemed to be--curdled--there; and through it ran little gleams and
+veins of shimmering white fire. A languor passed through me. It was
+not the ineffable drowsiness of the preceding night. It was a sapping
+of all will to move. I tried to cry out to Stanton. I had not even the
+will to move my lips. Goodwin--I could not even move my eyes!
+
+"Stanton was in the range of my fixed vision.  I watched him leap up
+the steps and move toward the gateway. The curdled radiance seemed to
+await him. He stepped into it--and was lost to my sight.
+
+"For a dozen heart beats there was silence.  Then a rain of tinklings
+that set the pulses racing with joy and at once checked them with tiny
+fingers of ice--and ringing through them Stanton's voice from the
+courtyard--a great cry--a scream--filled with ecstasy insupportable
+and horror unimaginable! And once more there was silence. I strove to
+burst the bonds that held me. I could not. Even my eyelids were fixed.
+Within them my eyes, dry and aching, burned.
+
+"Then Goodwin--I first saw the--inexplicable!  The crystalline music
+swelled. Where I sat I could take in the gateway and its basalt
+portals, rough and broken, rising to the top of the wall forty feet
+above, shattered, ruined portals--unclimbable. From this gateway an
+intenser light began to flow. It grew, it gushed, and out of it walked
+Stanton.
+
+"Stanton!  But--God!  What a vision!"
+
+A deep tremor shook him.  I waited--waited.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+Into the Moon Pool
+
+"Goodwin," Throckmartin went on at last, "I can describe him only as a
+thing of living light. He radiated light; was filled with light;
+overflowed with it. A shining cloud whirled through and around him in
+radiant swirls, shimmering tentacles, luminescent, coruscating
+spirals.
+
+"His face shone with a rapture too great to be borne by living man,
+and was shadowed with insuperable misery. It was as though it had been
+remoulded by the hand of God and the hand of Satan, working together
+and in harmony. You have seen that seal upon my own. But you have
+never seen it in the degree that Stanton bore it. The eyes were wide
+open and fixed, as though upon some inward vision of hell and heaven!
+
+"The light that filled and surrounded him had a nucleus, a
+core--something shiftingly human shaped--that dissolved and changed,
+gathered itself, whirled through and beyond him and back again. And as
+its shining nucleus passed through him Stanton's whole body pulsed
+radiance. As the luminescence moved, there moved above it, still and
+serene always, seven tiny globes of seven colors, like seven little
+moons.
+
+"Then swiftly Stanton was lifted--levitated--up the unscalable wall
+and to its top. The glow faded from the moonlight, the tinkling music
+grew fainter. I tried again to move. The tears were running down now
+from my rigid lids and they brought relief to my tortured eyes.
+
+"I have said my gaze was fixed.  It was.  But from the side,
+peripherally, it took in a part of the far wall of the outer
+enclosure. Ages seemed to pass and a radiance stole along it. Soon
+drifted into sight the figure that was Stanton. Far away he was--on
+the gigantic wall. But still I could see the shining spirals whirling
+jubilantly around and through him; felt rather than saw his tranced
+face beneath the seven moons. A swirl of crystal notes, and he had
+passed. And all the time, as though from some opened well of light,
+the courtyard gleamed and sent out silver fires that dimmed the
+moonrays, yet seemed strangely to be a part of them.
+
+"At last the moon neared the horizon.  There came a louder burst of
+sound; the second, and last, cry of Stanton, like an echo of his
+first! Again the soft sighing from the inner terrace. Then--utter
+silence!
+
+"The light faded; the moon was setting and with a rush life and power
+to move returned to me. I made a leap for the steps, rushed up them,
+through the gateway and straight to the grey rock. It was closed--as I
+knew it would be. But did I dream it or did I hear, echoing through it
+as though from vast distances a triumphant shouting?
+
+"I ran back to Edith.  At my touch she wakened; looked at me
+wanderingly; raised herself on a hand.
+
+"'Dave!' she said, 'I slept--after all.' She saw the despair on my
+face and leaped to her feet. 'Dave!' she cried. 'What is it? Where's
+Charles?'
+
+"I lighted a fire before I spoke.  Then I told her.  And for the
+balance of that night we sat before the flames, arms around each
+other--like two frightened children."
+
+Abruptly Throckmartin held his hands out to me appealingly.
+
+"Walter, old friend!" he cried.  "Don't look at me as though I were
+mad. It's truth, absolute truth. Wait--" I comforted him as well as I
+could. After a little time he took up his story.
+
+"Never," he said, "did man welcome the sun as we did that morning.  A
+soon as it had risen we went back to the courtyard. The walls whereon
+I had seen Stanton were black and silent. The terraces were as they
+had been. The grey slab was in its place. In the shallow hollow at its
+base was--nothing. Nothing--nothing was there anywhere on the islet
+of Stanton--not a trace.
+
+"What were we to do?  Precisely the same arguments that had kept us
+there the night before held good now--and doubly good. We could not
+abandon these two; could not go as long as there was the faintest hope
+of finding them--and yet for love of each other how could we remain? I
+loved my wife,--how much I never knew until that day; and she loved me
+as deeply.
+
+"'It takes only one each night,' she pleaded.  'Beloved, let it take
+me.'
+
+"I wept, Walter.  We both wept.
+
+"'We will meet it together,' she said.  And it was thus at last that
+we arranged it."
+
+"That took great courage indeed, Throckmartin," I interrupted.  He
+looked at me eagerly.
+
+"You do believe then?" he exclaimed.
+
+"I believe," I said.  He pressed my hand with a grip that nearly
+crushed it.
+
+"Now," he told me.  "I do not fear.  If I--fail, you will follow with
+help?"
+
+I promised.
+
+"We talked it over carefully," he went on, "bringing to bear all our
+power of analysis and habit of calm, scientific thought. We considered
+minutely the time element in the phenomena. Although the deep chanting
+began at the very moment of moonrise, fully five minutes had passed
+between its full lifting and the strange sighing sound from the inner
+terrace. I went back in memory over the happenings of the night
+before. At least ten minutes had intervened between the first
+heralding sigh and the intensification of the moonlight in the
+courtyard. And this glow grew for at least ten minutes more before the
+first burst of the crystal notes. Indeed, more than half an hour must
+have elapsed, I calculated, between the moment the moon showed above
+the horizon and the first delicate onslaught of the tinklings.
+
+"'Edith!' I cried.  'I think I have it!  The grey rock opens five
+minutes after upon the moonrise. But whoever or whatever it is that
+comes through it must wait until the moon has risen higher, or else it
+must come from a distance. The thing to do is not to wait for it, but
+to surprise it before it passes out the door. We will go into the
+inner court early. You will take your rifle and pistol and hide
+yourself where you can command the opening--if the slab does open. The
+instant it opens I will enter. It's our best chance, Edith. I think
+it's our only one.'
+
+"My wife demurred strongly.  She wanted to go with me. But I convinced
+her that it was better for her to stand guard without, prepared to
+help me if I were forced again into the open by what lay behind the
+rock.
+
+"At the half-hour before moonrise we went into the inner court.  I
+took my place at the side of the grey rock. Edith crouched behind a
+broken pillar twenty feet away; slipped her rifle-barrel over it so
+that it would cover the opening.
+
+"The minutes crept by.  The darkness lessened and through the breaches
+of the terrace I watched the far sky softly lighten. With the first
+pale flush the silence of the place intensified. It deepened; became
+unbearably--expectant. The moon rose, showed the quarter, the half,
+then swam up into full sight like a great bubble.
+
+"Its rays fell upon the wall before me and suddenly upon the
+convexities I have described seven little circles of light sprang out.
+They gleamed, glimmered, grew brighter--shone. The gigantic slab
+before me glowed with them, silver wavelets of phosphorescence pulsed
+over its surface and then--it turned as though on a pivot, sighing
+softly as it moved!
+
+"With a word to Edith I flung myself through the opening. A tunnel
+stretched before me. It glowed with the same faint silvery radiance.
+Down it I raced. The passage turned abruptly, passed parallel to the
+walls of the outer courtyard and then once more led downward.
+
+"The passage ended.  Before me was a high vaulted arch. It seemed to
+open into space; a space filled with lambent, coruscating,
+many-coloured mist whose brightness grew even as I watched. I passed
+through the arch and stopped in sheer awe!
+
+"In front of me was a pool.  It was circular, perhaps twenty feet
+wide. Around it ran a low, softly curved lip of glimmering silvery
+stone. Its water was palest blue. The pool with its silvery rim was
+like a great blue eye staring upward.
+
+"Upon it streamed seven shafts of radiance.  They poured down upon the
+blue eye like cylindrical torrents; they were like shining pillars of
+light rising from a sapphire floor.
+
+"One was the tender pink of the pearl; one of the aurora's green; a
+third a deathly white; the fourth the blue in mother-of-pearl; a
+shimmering column of pale amber; a beam of amethyst; a shaft of molten
+silver. Such are the colours of the seven lights that stream upon the
+Moon Pool. I drew closer, awestricken. The shafts did not illumine the
+depths. They played upon the surface and seemed there to diffuse, to
+melt into it. The Pool drank them?
+
+"Through the water tiny gleams of phosphorescence began to dart,
+sparkles and coruscations of pale incandescence. And far, far below I
+sensed a movement, a shifting glow as of a radiant body slowly rising.
+
+"I looked upward, following the radiant pillars to their source.  Far
+above were seven shining globes, and it was from these that the rays
+poured. Even as I watched their brightness grew. They were like seven
+moons set high in some caverned heaven. Slowly their splendour
+increased, and with it the splendour of the seven beams streaming from
+them.
+
+"I tore my gaze away and stared at the Pool.  It had grown milky,
+opalescent. The rays gushing into it seemed to be filling it; it was
+alive with sparklings, scintillations, glimmerings. And the
+luminescence I had seen rising from its depths was larger, nearer!
+
+"A swirl of mist floated up from its surface.  It drifted within the
+embrace of the rosy beam and hung there for a moment. The beam seemed
+to embrace it, sending through it little shining corpuscles, tiny rosy
+spiralings. The mist absorbed the rays, was strengthened by them,
+gained substance. Another swirl sprang into the amber shaft, clung and
+fed there, moved swiftly toward the first and mingled with it. And now
+other swirls arose, here and there, too fast to be counted; hung
+poised in the embrace of the light streams; flashed and pulsed into
+each other.
+
+"Thicker and thicker still they arose until over the surface of the
+Pool was a pulsating pillar of opalescent mist steadily growing
+stronger; drawing within it life from the seven beams falling upon it;
+drawing to it from below the darting, incandescent atoms of the Pool.
+Into its centre was passing the luminescence rising from the far
+depths. And the pillar glowed, throbbed--began to send out questing
+swirls and tendrils--
+
+"There forming before me was That which had walked with Stanton, which
+had taken Thora--the thing I had come to find!
+
+"My brain sprang into action.  My hand threw up the pistol and I fired
+shot after shot into the shining core.
+
+"As I fired, it swayed and shook; gathered again.  I slipped a second
+clip into the automatic and another idea coming to me took careful aim
+at one of the globes in the roof. From thence I knew came the force
+that shaped this Dweller in the Pool--from the pouring rays came its
+strength. If I could destroy them I could check its forming. I fired
+again and again. If I hit the globes I did no damage. The little motes
+in their beams danced with the motes in the mist, troubled. That was
+all.
+
+"But up from the Pool like little bells, like tiny bursting bubbles of
+glass, swarmed the tinkling sounds--their pitch higher, all their
+sweetness lost, angry.
+
+"And out from the Inexplicable swept a shining spiral.
+
+"It caught me above the heart; wrapped itself around me. There rushed
+through me a mingled ecstasy and horror. Every atom of me quivered
+with delight and shrank with despair. There was nothing loathsome in
+it. But it was as though the icy soul of evil and the fiery soul of
+good had stepped together within me. The pistol dropped from my hand.
+
+"So I stood while the Pool gleamed and sparkled; the streams of light
+grew more intense and the radiant Thing that held me gleamed and
+strengthened. Its shining core had shape--but a shape that my eyes and
+brain could not define. It was as though a being of another sphere
+should assume what it might of human semblance, but was not able to
+conceal that what human eyes saw was but a part of it. It was neither
+man nor woman; it was unearthly and androgynous. Even as I found its
+human semblance it changed. And still the mingled rapture and terror
+held me. Only in a little corner of my brain dwelt something
+untouched; something that held itself apart and watched. Was it the
+soul? I have never believed--and yet--
+
+"Over the head of the misty body there sprang suddenly out seven
+little lights. Each was the colour of the beam beneath which it
+rested. I knew now that the Dweller was--complete!
+
+"I heard a scream.  It was Edith's voice.  It came to me that she had
+heard the shots and followed me. I felt every faculty concentrate into
+a mighty effort. I wrenched myself free from the gripping tentacle and
+it swept back. I turned to catch Edith, and as I did so slipped--fell.
+
+"The radiant shape above the Pool leaped swiftly--and straight into it
+raced Edith, arms outstretched to shield me from it! God!
+
+"She threw herself squarely within its splendour," he whispered.  "It
+wrapped its shining self around her. The crystal tinklings burst forth
+jubilantly. The light filled her, ran through and around her as it had
+with Stanton; and dropped down upon her face--the look!
+
+"But her rush had taken her to the very verge of the Moon Pool.  She
+tottered; she fell--with the radiance still holding her, still
+swirling and winding around and through her--into the Moon Pool! She
+sank, and with her went--the Dweller!
+
+"I dragged myself to the brink.  Far down was a shining, many-coloured
+nebulous cloud descending; out of it peered Edith's face,
+disappearing; her eyes stared up at me--and she vanished!
+
+"'Edith!' I cried again.  'Edith, come back to me!'
+
+"And then a darkness fell upon me.  I remember running back through
+the shimmering corridors and out into the courtyard. Reason had left
+me. When it returned I was far out at sea in our boat wholly estranged
+from civilization. A day later I was picked up by the schooner in
+which I came to Port Moresby.
+
+"I have formed a plan; you must hear it, Goodwin--" He fell upon his
+berth. I bent over him. Exhaustion and the relief of telling his story
+had been too much for him. He slept like the dead.
+
+All that night I watched over him.  When dawn broke I went to my room
+to get a little sleep myself. But my slumber was haunted.
+
+The next day the storm was unabated.  Throckmartin came to me at
+lunch. He had regained much of his old alertness.
+
+"Come to my cabin," he said.  There, he stripped his shirt from him.
+"Something is happening," he said. "The mark is smaller." It was as he
+said.
+
+"I'm escaping," he whispered jubilantly, "Just let me get to Melbourne
+safely, and then we'll see who'll win! For, Walter, I'm not at all
+sure that Edith is dead--as we know death--nor that the others are.
+There is something outside experience there--some great mystery."
+
+And all that day he talked to me of his plans.
+
+"There's a natural explanation, of course," he said.  "My theory is
+that the moon rock is of some composition sensitive to the action of
+moon rays; somewhat as the metal selenium is to sun rays. The little
+circles over the top are, without doubt, its operating agency. When
+the light strikes them they release the mechanism that opens the slab,
+just as you can open doors with sun or electric light by an ingenious
+arrangement of selenium-cells. Apparently it takes the strength of the
+full moon both to do this and to summon the Dweller in the Pool. We
+will first try a concentration of the rays of the waning moon upon
+these circles to see whether that will open the rock. If it does we
+will be able to investigate the Pool without interruption
+from--from--what emanates.
+
+"Look, here on the chart are their locations.  I have made this in
+duplicate for you in the event--of something happening--to me. And if
+I lose--you'll come after us, Goodwin, with help--won't you?"
+
+And again I promised.
+
+A little later he complained of increasing sleepiness.
+
+"But it's just weariness," he said.  "Not at all like that other
+drowsiness. It's an hour till moonrise still," he yawned at last.
+"Wake me up a good fifteen minutes before."
+
+He lay upon the berth.  I sat thinking.  I came to myself with a
+guilty start. I had completely lost myself in my deep preoccupation.
+What time was it? I looked at my watch and jumped to the port-hole. It
+was full moonlight; the orb had been up for fully half an hour. I
+strode over to Throckmartin and shook him by the shoulder.
+
+"Up, quick, man!" I cried.  He rose sleepily.  His shirt fell open at
+the neck and I looked, in amazement, at the white band around his
+chest. Even under the electric light it shone softly, as though little
+flecks of light were in it.
+
+Throckmartin seemed only half-awake.  He looked down at his breast,
+saw the glowing cincture, and smiled.
+
+"Yes," he said drowsily, "it's coming--to take me back to Edith!
+Well, I'm glad."
+
+"Throckmartin!" I cried.  "Wake up!  Fight!"
+
+"Fight!" he said.  "No use; come after us!"
+
+He went to the port and sleepily drew aside the curtain. The moon
+traced a broad path of light straight to the ship. Under its rays the
+band around his chest gleamed brighter and brighter; shot forth little
+rays; seemed to writhe.
+
+The lights went out in the cabin; evidently also throughout the ship,
+for I heard shoutings above.
+
+Throckmartin still stood at the open port.  Over his shoulder I saw a
+gleaming pillar racing along the moon path toward us. Through the
+window cascaded a blinding radiance. It gathered Throckmartin to it,
+clothed him in a robe of living opalescence. Light pulsed through and
+from him. The cabin filled with murmurings--
+
+A wave of weakness swept over me, buried me in blackness.  When
+consciousness came back, the lights were again burning brightly.
+
+But of Throckmartin there was no trace!
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+"The Shining Devil Took Them!"
+
+My colleagues of the Association, and you others who may read this my
+narrative, for what I did and did not when full realization returned I
+must offer here, briefly as I can, an explanation; a defense--if you
+will.
+
+My first act was to spring to the open port.  The coma had lasted
+hours, for the moon was now low in the west! I ran to the door to
+sound the alarm. It resisted under my frantic hands; would not open.
+Something fell tinkling to the floor. It was the key and I remembered
+then that Throckmartin had turned it before we began our vigil. With
+memory a hope died that I had not known was in me, the hope that he
+had escaped from the cabin, found refuge elsewhere on the ship.
+
+And as I stooped, fumbling with shaking fingers for the key, a thought
+came to me that drove again the blood from my heart, held me rigid. I
+could sound no alarm on the Southern Queen for Throckmartin!
+
+Conviction of my appalling helplessness was complete. The ensemble of
+the vessel from captain to cabin boy was, to put it conservatively,
+average. None, I knew, save Throckmartin and myself had seen the first
+apparition of the Dweller. Had they witnessed the second? I did not
+know, nor could I risk speaking, not knowing. And not seeing, how
+could they believe? They would have thought me insane--or worse;
+even, it might be, his murderer.
+
+I snapped off the electrics; waited and listened; opened the door with
+infinite caution and slipped, unseen, into my own stateroom. The hours
+until the dawn were eternities of waking nightmare. Reason, resuming
+sway at last, steadied me. Even had I spoken and been believed where
+in these wastes after all the hours could we search for Throckmartin?
+Certainly the captain would not turn back to Port Moresby. And even if
+he did, of what use for me to set forth for the Nan-Matal without the
+equipment which Throckmartin himself had decided was necessary if one
+hoped to cope with the mystery that lurked there?
+
+There was but one thing to do--follow his instructions; get the
+paraphernalia in Melbourne or Sydney if it were possible; if not sail
+to America as swiftly as might be, secure it there and as swiftly
+return to Ponape. And this I determined to do.
+
+Calmness came back to me after I had made this decision. And when I
+went up on deck I knew that I had been right. They had not seen the
+Dweller. They were still discussing the darkening of the ship, talking
+of dynamos burned out, wires short circuited, a half dozen
+explanations of the extinguishment. Not until noon was Throckmartin's
+absence discovered. I told the captain that I had left him early in
+the evening; that, indeed, I knew him but slightly, after all. It
+occurred to none to doubt me, or to question me minutely. Why should
+it have? His strangeness had been noted, commented upon; all who had
+met him had thought him half mad. I did little to discourage the
+impression. And so it came naturally that on the log it was entered
+that he had fallen or leaped from the vessel some time during the
+night.
+
+A report to this effect was made when we entered Melbourne.  I slipped
+quietly ashore and in the press of the war news Throckmartin's
+supposed fate won only a few lines in the newspapers; my own presence
+on the ship and in the city passed unnoticed.
+
+I was fortunate in securing at Melbourne everything I needed except a
+set of Becquerel ray condensers--but these were the very keystone of
+my equipment. Pursuing my search to Sydney I was doubly fortunate in
+finding a firm who were expecting these very articles in a consignment
+due them from the States within a fortnight. I settled down in
+strictest seclusion to await their arrival.
+
+And now it will occur to you to ask why I did not cable, during this
+period of waiting, to the Association; demand aid from it. Or why I
+did not call upon members of the University staffs of either Melbourne
+or Sydney for assistance. At the least, why I did not gather, as
+Throckmartin had hoped to do, a little force of strong men to go with
+me to the Nan-Matal.
+
+To the first two questions I answer frankly--I did not dare. And this
+reluctance, this inhibition, every man jealous of his scientific
+reputation will understand. The story of Throckmartin, the happenings
+I had myself witnessed, were incredible, abnormal, outside the facts
+of all known science. I shrank from the inevitable disbelief, perhaps
+ridicule--nay, perhaps even the graver suspicion that had caused me to
+seal my lips while on the ship. Why I myself could only half believe!
+How then could I hope to convince others?
+
+And as for the third question--I could not take men into the range of
+such a peril without first warning them of what they might encounter;
+and if I did warn them--
+
+It was checkmate!  If it also was cowardice--well, I have atoned for
+it. But I do not hold it so; my conscience is clear.
+
+That fortnight and the greater part of another passed before the ship
+I awaited steamed into port. By that time, between my straining
+anxiety to be after Throckmartin, the despairing thought that every
+moment of delay might be vital to him and his, and my intensely eager
+desire to know whether that shining, glorious horror on the moon path
+did exist or had been hallucination, I was worn almost to the edge of
+madness.
+
+At last the condensers were in my hands.  It was more than a week
+later, however, before I could secure passage back to Port Moresby and
+it was another week still before I started north on the Suwarna, a
+swift little sloop with a fifty-horsepower auxiliary, heading straight
+for Ponape and the Nan-Matal.
+
+We sighted the Brunhilda some five hundred miles south of the
+Carolines. The wind had fallen soon after Papua had dropped astern.
+The Suwarna's ability to make her twelve knots an hour without it had
+made me very fully forgive her for not being as fragrant as the Javan
+flower for which she was named. Da Costa, her captain, was a
+garrulous Portuguese; his mate was a Canton man with all the marks of
+long and able service on some pirate junk; his engineer was a
+half-breed China-Malay who had picked up his knowledge of power
+plants, Heaven alone knew where, and, I had reason to believe, had
+transferred all his religious impulses to the American built deity of
+mechanism he so faithfully served. The crew was made up of six huge,
+chattering Tonga boys.
+
+The Suwarna had cut through Finschafen Huon Gulf to the protection of
+the Bismarcks. She had threaded the maze of the archipelago
+tranquilly, and we were then rolling over the thousand-mile stretch of
+open ocean with New Hanover far behind us and our boat's bow pointed
+straight toward Nukuor of the Monte Verdes. After we had rounded
+Nukuor we should, barring accident, reach Ponape in not more than
+sixty hours.
+
+It was late afternoon, and on the demure little breeze that marched
+behind us came far-flung sighs of spice-trees and nutmeg flowers. The
+slow prodigious swells of the Pacific lifted us in gentle, giant hands
+and sent us as gently down the long, blue wave slopes to the next
+broad, upward slope. There was a spell of peace over the ocean,
+stilling even the Portuguese captain who stood dreamily at the wheel,
+slowly swaying to the rhythmic lift and fall of the sloop.
+
+There came a whining hail from the Tonga boy lookout draped lazily
+over the bow.
+
+"Sail he b'long port side!"
+
+Da Costa straightened and gazed while I raised my glass. The vessel
+was a scant mile away, and must have been visible long before the
+sleepy watcher had seen her. She was a sloop about the size of the
+Suwarna, without power. All sails set, even to a spinnaker she
+carried, she was making the best of the little breeze. I tried to read
+her name, but the vessel jibed sharply as though the hands of the man
+at the wheel had suddenly dropped the helm--and then with equal
+abruptness swung back to her course. The stern came in sight, and on
+it I read Brunhilda.
+
+I shifted my glasses to the man at wheel.  He was crouching down over
+the spokes in a helpless, huddled sort of way, and even as I looked
+the vessel veered again, abruptly as before. I saw the helmsman
+straighten up and bring the wheel about with a vicious jerk.
+
+He stood so for a moment, looking straight ahead, entirely oblivious
+of us, and then seemed again to sink down within himself. It came to
+me that his was the action of a man striving vainly against a
+weariness unutterable. I swept the deck with my glasses. There was no
+other sign of life. I turned to find the Portuguese staring intently
+and with puzzled air at the sloop, now separated from us by a scant
+half mile.
+
+"Something veree wrong I think there, sair," he said in his curious
+English. "The man on deck I know. He is captain and owner of the
+Br-rwun'ild. His name Olaf Huldricksson, what you say--Norwegian. He
+is eithair veree sick or veree tired--but I do not undweerstand where
+is the crew and the starb'd boat is gone--"
+
+He shouted an order to the engineer and as he did so the faint breeze
+failed and the sails of the Brunhilda flapped down inert. We were now
+nearly abreast and a scant hundred yards away. The engine of the
+Suwarna died and the Tonga boys leaped to one of the boats.
+
+"You Olaf Huldricksson!" shouted Da Costa.  "What's a matter wit'
+you?"
+
+The man at the wheel turned toward us.  He was a giant; his shoulders
+enormous, thick chested, strength in every line of him, he towered
+like a viking of old at the rudder bar of his shark ship.
+
+I raised the glass again; his face sprang into the lens and never have
+I seen a visage lined and marked as though by ages of unsleeping
+misery as was that of Olaf Huldricksson!
+
+The Tonga boys had the boat alongside and were waiting at the oars.
+The little captain was dropping into it.
+
+"Wait!" I cried.  I ran into my cabin, grasped my emergency medical
+kit and climbed down the rope ladder. The Tonga boys bent to the oars.
+We reached the side and Da Costa and I each seized a lanyard dangling
+from the stays and swung ourselves on board. Da Costa approached
+Huldricksson softly.
+
+"What's the matter, Olaf?" he began--and then was silent, looking down
+at the wheel. The hands of Huldricksson were lashed fast to the spokes
+by thongs of thin, strong cord; they were swollen and black and the
+thongs had bitten into the sinewy wrists till they were hidden in the
+outraged flesh, cutting so deeply that blood fell, slow drop by drop,
+at his feet! We sprang toward him, reaching out hands to his fetters
+to loose them. Even as we touched them, Huldricksson aimed a vicious
+kick at me and then another at Da Costa which sent the Portuguese
+tumbling into the scuppers.
+
+"Let be!" croaked Huldricksson; his voice was thick and lifeless as
+though forced from a dead throat; his lips were cracked and dry and
+his parched tongue was black. "Let be! Go! Let be!"
+
+The Portuguese had picked himself up, whimpering with rage and knife
+in hand, but as Huldricksson's voice reached him he stopped.
+Amazement crept into his eyes and as he thrust the blade back into
+his belt they softened with pity.
+
+"Something veree wrong wit' Olaf," he murmured to me. "I think he
+crazee!" And then Olaf Huldricksson began to curse us. He did not
+speak--he howled from that hideously dry mouth his imprecations. And
+all the time his red eyes roamed the seas and his hands, clenched and
+rigid on the wheel, dropped blood.
+
+"I go below," said Da Costa nervously.  "His wife, his daughter--" he
+darted down the companionway and was gone.
+
+Huldricksson, silent once more, had slumped down over the wheel.
+
+Da Costa's head appeared at the top of the companion steps.
+
+"There is nobody, nobody," he paused--then--"nobody--nowhere!" His
+hands flew out in a gesture of hopeless incomprehension. "I do not
+understan'."
+
+Then Olaf Huldricksson opened his dry lips and as he spoke a chill ran
+through me, checking my heart.
+
+"The sparkling devil took them!" croaked Olaf Huldricksson, "the
+sparkling devil took them! Took my Helma and my little Freda! The
+sparkling devil came down from the moon and took them!"
+
+He swayed; tears dripped down his cheeks.  Da Costa moved toward him
+again and again Huldricksson watched him, alertly, wickedly, from his
+bloodshot eyes.
+
+I took a hypodermic from my case and filled it with morphine.  I drew
+Da Costa to me.
+
+"Get to the side of him," I whispered, "talk to him." He moved over
+toward the wheel.
+
+"Where is your Helma and Freda, Olaf?" he said.
+
+Huldricksson turned his head toward him.  "The shining devil took
+them," he croaked. "The moon devil that spark--"
+
+A yell broke from him.  I had thrust the needle into his arm just
+above one swollen wrist and had quickly shot the drug through. He
+struggled to release himself and then began to rock drunkenly. The
+morphine, taking him in his weakness, worked quickly. Soon over his
+face a peace dropped. The pupils of the staring eyes contracted. Once,
+twice, he swayed and then, his bleeding, prisoned hands held high and
+still gripping the wheel, he crumpled to the deck.
+
+With utmost difficulty we loosed the thongs, but at last it was done.
+We rigged a little swing and the Tonga boys slung the great inert body
+over the side into the dory. Soon we had Huldricksson in my bunk. Da
+Costa sent half his crew over to the sloop in charge of the Cantonese.
+They took in all sail, stripping Huldricksson's boat to the masts and
+then with the Brunhilda nosing quietly along after us at the end of a
+long hawser, one of the Tonga boys at her wheel, we resumed the way so
+enigmatically interrupted.
+
+I cleansed and bandaged the Norseman's lacerated wrists and sponged
+the blackened, parched mouth with warm water and a mild antiseptic.
+
+Suddenly I was aware of Da Costa's presence and turned. His unease was
+manifest and held, it seemed to me, a queer, furtive anxiety.
+
+"What you think of Olaf, sair?" he asked.  I shrugged my shoulders.
+"You think he killed his woman and his babee?" He went on. "You think
+he crazee and killed all?"
+
+"Nonsense, Da Costa," I answered.  "You saw the boat was gone.  Most
+probably his crew mutinied and to torture him tied him up the way you
+saw. They did the same thing with Hilton of the Coral Lady; you'll
+remember."
+
+"No," he said.  "No.  The crew did not.  Nobody there on board when
+Olaf was tied."
+
+"What!" I cried, startled.  "What do you mean?"
+
+"I mean," he said slowly, "that Olaf tie himself!"
+
+"Wait!" he went on at my incredulous gesture of dissent. "Wait, I show
+you." He had been standing with hands behind his back and now I saw
+that he held in them the cut thongs that had bound Huldricksson. They
+were blood-stained and each ended in a broad leather tip skilfully
+spliced into the cord. "Look," he said, pointing to these leather
+ends. I looked and saw in them deep indentations of teeth. I snatched
+one of the thongs and opened the mouth of the unconscious man on the
+bunk. Carefully I placed the leather within it and gently forced the
+jaws shut on it. It was true. Those marks were where Olaf
+Huldricksson's jaws had gripped.
+
+"Wait!" Da Costa repeated, "I show you." He took other cords and
+rested his hands on the supports of a chair back. Rapidly he twisted
+one of the thongs around his left hand, drew a loose knot, shifted the
+cord up toward his elbow. This left wrist and hand still free and with
+them he twisted the other cord around the right wrist; drew a similar
+knot. His hands were now in the exact position that Huldricksson's had
+been on the Brunhilda but with cords and knots hanging loose. Then Da
+Costa reached down his head, took a leather end in his teeth and with
+a jerk drew the thong that noosed his left hand tight; similarly he
+drew tight the second.
+
+He strained at his fetters.  There before my eyes he had pinioned
+himself so that without aid he could not release himself. And he was
+exactly as Huldricksson had been!
+
+"You will have to cut me loose, sair," he said.  "I cannot move them.
+It is an old trick on these seas. Sometimes it is necessary that a man
+stand at the wheel many hours without help, and he does this so that
+if he sleep the wheel wake him, yes, sair."
+
+I looked from him to the man on the bed.
+
+"But why, sair," said Da Costa slowly, "did Olaf have to tie his
+hands?"
+
+I looked at him, uneasily.
+
+"I don't know," I answered.  "Do you?"
+
+He fidgeted, avoided my eyes, and then rapidly, almost surreptitiously
+crossed himself.
+
+"No," he replied.  "I know nothing.  Some things I have heard--but
+they tell many tales on these seas."
+
+He started for the door.  Before he reached it he turned. "But this I
+do know," he half whispered, "I am damned glad there is no full moon
+tonight." And passed out, leaving me staring after him in amazement.
+What did the Portuguese know?
+
+I bent over the sleeper.  On his face was no trace of that unholy
+mingling of opposites the Dweller stamped upon its victims.
+
+And yet--what was it the Norseman had said?
+
+"The sparkling devil took them!"  Nay, he had been even more
+explicit--"The sparkling devil that came down from the moon!"
+
+Could it be that the Dweller had swept upon the Brunhilda, drawing
+down the moon path Olaf Huldricksson's wife and babe even as it had
+drawn Throckmartin?
+
+As I sat thinking the cabin grew suddenly dark and from above came a
+shouting and patter of feet. Down upon us swept one of the abrupt,
+violent squalls that are met with in those latitudes. I lashed
+Huldricksson fast in the berth and ran up on deck.
+
+The long, peaceful swells had changed into angry, choppy waves from
+the tops of which the spindrift streamed in long stinging lashes.
+
+A half-hour passed; the squall died as quickly as it had arisen.  The
+sea quieted. Over in the west, from beneath the tattered, flying edge
+of the storm, dropped the red globe of the setting sun; dropped slowly
+until it touched the sea rim.
+
+I watched it--and rubbed my eyes and stared again.  For over its
+flaming portal something huge and black moved, like a gigantic
+beckoning finger!
+
+Da Costa had seen it, too, and he turned the Suwarna straight toward
+the descending orb and its strange shadow. As we approached we saw it
+was a little mass of wreckage and that the beckoning finger was a wing
+of canvas, sticking up and swaying with the motion of the waves. On
+the highest point of the wreckage sat a tall figure calmly smoking a
+cigarette.
+
+We brought the Suwarna to, dropped a boat, and with myself as coxswain
+pulled toward a wrecked hydroairplane. Its occupant took a long puff
+at his cigarette, waved a cheerful hand, shouted a greeting. And just
+as he did so a great wave raised itself up behind him, took the
+wreckage, tossed it high in a swelter of foam, and passed on. When we
+had steadied our boat, where wreck and man had been was--nothing.
+
+There came a tug at the side--, two muscular brown hands gripped it
+close to my left, and a sleek, black, wet head showed its top between
+them. Two bright, blue eyes that held deep within them a laughing
+deviltry looked into mine, and a long, lithe body drew itself gently
+over the thwart and seated its dripping self at my feet.
+
+"Much obliged," said this man from the sea.  "I knew somebody was sure
+to come along when the O'Keefe banshee didn't show up."
+
+"The what?" I asked in amazement.
+
+"The O'Keefe banshee--I'm Larry O'Keefe.  It's a far way from Ireland,
+but not too far for the O'Keefe banshee to travel if the O'Keefe was
+going to click in."
+
+I looked again at my astonishing rescue.  He seemed perfectly serious.
+
+"Have you a cigarette?  Mine went out," he said with a grin, as he
+reached a moist hand out for the little cylinder, took it, lighted it.
+
+I saw a lean, intelligent face whose fighting jaw was softened by the
+wistfulness of the clean-cut lips and the honesty that lay side by
+side with the deviltry in the laughing blue eyes; nose of a
+thoroughbred with the suspicion of a tilt; long, well-knit, slender
+figure that I knew must have all the strength of fine steel; the
+uniform of a lieutenant in the Royal Flying Corps of Britain's navy.
+
+He laughed, stretched out a firm hand, and gripped mine.
+
+"Thank you really ever so much, old man," he said.
+
+I liked Larry O'Keefe from the beginning--but I did not dream as the
+Tonga boys pulled us back to the Suwarna bow that liking was to be
+forged into man's strong love for man by fires which souls such as his
+and mine--and yours who read this--could never dream.
+
+Larry!  Larry O'Keefe, where are you now with your leprechauns and
+banshee, your heart of a child, your laughing blue eyes, and your
+fearless soul? Shall I ever see you again, Larry O'Keefe, dear to me
+as some best beloved younger brother? Larry!
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+Larry O'Keefe
+
+Pressing back the questions I longed to ask, I introduced myself.
+Oddly enough, I found that he knew me, or rather my work. He had
+bought, it appeared, my volume upon the peculiar vegetation whose
+habitat is disintegrating lava rock and volcanic ash, that I had
+entitled, somewhat loosely, I could now perceive, Flora of the
+Craters. For he explained naively that he had picked it up, thinking
+it an entirely different sort of a book, a novel in fact--something
+like Meredith's Diana of the Crossways, which he liked greatly.
+
+He had hardly finished this explanation when we touched the side of
+the Suwarna, and I was forced to curb my curiosity until we reached
+the deck.
+
+"That thing you saw me sitting on," he said, after he had thanked the
+bowing little skipper for his rescue, "was all that was left of one of
+his Majesty's best little hydroairplanes after that cyclone threw it
+off as excess baggage. And by the way, about where are we?"
+
+Da Costa gave him our approximate position from the noon reckoning.
+
+O'Keefe whistled.  "A good three hundred miles from where I left the
+H.M.S. Dolphin about four hours ago," he said. "That squall I rode in
+on was some whizzer!
+
+"The Dolphin," he went on, calmly divesting himself of his soaked
+uniform, "was on her way to Melbourne. I'd been yearning for a joy
+ride and went up for an alleged scouting trip. Then that blow shot out
+of nowhere, picked me up, and insisted that I go with it.
+
+"About an hour ago I thought I saw a chance to zoom up and out of it,
+I turned, and _blick_ went my right wing, and down I dropped."
+
+"I don't know how we can notify your ship, Lieutenant O'Keefe," I
+said. "We have no wireless."
+
+"Doctair Goodwin," said Da Costa, "we could change our course,
+sair--perhaps--"
+
+"Thanks--but not a bit of it," broke in O'Keefe.  "Lord alone knows
+where the Dolphin is now. Fancy she'll be nosing around looking for
+me. Anyway, she's just as apt to run into you as you into her. Maybe
+we'll strike something with a wireless, and I'll trouble you to put me
+aboard." He hesitated. "Where are you bound, by the way?" he asked.
+
+"For Ponape," I answered.
+
+"No wireless there," mused O'Keefe.  "Beastly hole. Stopped a week ago
+for fruit. Natives seemed scared to death at us--or something. What
+are you going there for?"
+
+Da Costa darted a furtive glance at me.  It troubled me.
+
+O'Keefe noted my hesitation.
+
+"Oh, I beg your pardon," he said.  "Maybe I oughn't to have asked
+that?"
+
+"It's no secret, Lieutenant," I replied.  "I'm about to undertake some
+exploration work--a little digging among the ruins on the Nan-Matal."
+
+I looked at the Portuguese sharply as I named the place. A pallor
+crept beneath his skin and again he made swiftly the sign of the
+cross, glancing as he did so fearfully to the north. I made up my mind
+then to question him when opportunity came. He turned from his quick
+scrutiny of the sea and addressed O'Keefe.
+
+"There's nothing on board to fit you, Lieutenant."
+
+"Oh, just give me a sheet to throw around me, Captain," said O'Keefe
+and followed him. Darkness had fallen, and as the two disappeared into
+Da Costa's cabin I softly opened the door of my own and listened.
+Huldricksson was breathing deeply and regularly.
+
+I drew my electric-flash, and shielding its rays from my face, looked
+at him. His sleep was changing from the heavy stupor of the drug into
+one that was at least on the borderland of the normal. The tongue had
+lost its arid blackness and the mouth secretions had resumed action.
+Satisfied as to his condition I returned to deck.
+
+O'Keefe was there, looking like a spectre in the cotton sheet he had
+wrapped about him. A deck table had been cleated down and one of the
+Tonga boys was setting it for our dinner. Soon the very creditable
+larder of the Suwarna dressed the board, and O'Keefe, Da Costa, and I
+attacked it. The night had grown close and oppressive. Behind us the
+forward light of the Brunhilda glided and the binnacle lamp threw up a
+faint glow in which her black helmsman's face stood out mistily.
+O'Keefe had looked curiously a number of times at our tow, but had
+asked no questions.
+
+"You're not the only passenger we picked up today," I told him.  "We
+found the captain of that sloop, lashed to his wheel, nearly dead with
+exhaustion, and his boat deserted by everyone except himself."
+
+"What was the matter?" asked O'Keefe in astonishment.
+
+"We don't know," I answered.  "He fought us, and I had to drug him
+before we could get him loose from his lashings. He's sleeping down in
+my berth now. His wife and little girl ought to have been on board,
+the captain here says, but--they weren't."
+
+"Wife and child gone!" exclaimed O'Keefe.
+
+"From the condition of his mouth he must have been alone at the wheel
+and without water at least two days and nights before we found him," I
+replied. "And as for looking for anyone on these waters after such a
+time--it's hopeless."
+
+"That's true," said O'Keefe.  "But his wife and baby!  Poor, poor
+devil!"
+
+He was silent for a time, and then, at my solicitation, began to tell
+us more of himself. He had been little more than twenty when he had
+won his wings and entered the war. He had been seriously wounded at
+Ypres during the third year of the struggle, and when he recovered the
+war was over. Shortly after that his mother had died. Lonely and
+restless, he had re-entered the Air Service, and had remained in it
+ever since.
+
+"And though the war's long over, I get homesick for the lark's land
+with the German planes playing tunes on their machine guns and their
+Archies tickling the soles of my feet," he sighed. "If you're in love,
+love to the limit; and if you hate, why hate like the devil and if
+it's a fight you're in, get where it's hottest and fight like hell--if
+you don't life's not worth the living," sighed he.
+
+I watched him as he talked, feeling my liking for him steadily
+increasing. If I could but have a man like this beside me on the path
+of unknown peril upon which I had set my feet I thought, wistfully. We
+sat and smoked a bit, sipping the strong coffee the Portuguese made so
+well.
+
+Da Costa at last relieved the Cantonese at the wheel. O'Keefe and I
+drew chairs up to the rail. The brighter stars shone out dimly through
+a hazy sky; gleams of phosphorescence tipped the crests of the waves
+and sparkled with an almost angry brilliance as the bow of the Suwarna
+tossed them aside. O'Keefe pulled contentedly at a cigarette. The
+glowing spark lighted the keen, boyish face and the blue eyes, now
+black and brooding under the spell of the tropic night.
+
+"Are you American or Irish, O'Keefe?" I asked suddenly.
+
+"Why?" he laughed.
+
+"Because," I answered, "from your name and your service I would
+suppose you Irish--but your command of pure Americanese makes me
+doubtful."
+
+He grinned amiably.
+
+"I'll tell you how that is," he said.  "My mother was an American--a
+Grace, of Virginia. My father was the O'Keefe, of Coleraine. And these
+two loved each other so well that the heart they gave me is half Irish
+and half American. My father died when I was sixteen. I used to go to
+the States with my mother every other year for a month or two. But
+after my father died we used to go to Ireland every other year. And
+there you are--I'm as much American as I am Irish.
+
+"When I'm in love, or excited, or dreaming, or mad I have the brogue.
+But for the everyday purpose of life I like the United States talk,
+and I know Broadway as well as I do Binevenagh Lane, and the Sound as
+well as St. Patrick's Channel; educated a bit at Eton, a bit at
+Harvard; always too much money to have to make any; in love lots of
+times, and never a heartache after that wasn't a pleasant one, and
+never a real purpose in life until I took the king's shilling and
+earned my wings; something over thirty--and that's me--Larry
+O'Keefe."
+
+"But it was the Irish O'Keefe who sat out there waiting for the
+banshee," I laughed.
+
+"It was that," he said somberly, and I heard the brogue creep over his
+voice like velvet and his eyes grew brooding again. "There's never an
+O'Keefe for these thousand years that has passed without his warning.
+An' twice have I heard the banshee calling--once it was when my
+younger brother died an' once when my father lay waiting to be carried
+out on the ebb tide."
+
+He mused a moment, then went on: "An' once I saw an Annir Choille, a
+girl of the green people, flit like a shade of green fire through
+Carntogher woods, an' once at Dunchraig I slept where the ashes of the
+Dun of Cormac MacConcobar are mixed with those of Cormac an' Eilidh
+the Fair, all burned in the nine flames that sprang from the harping
+of Cravetheen, an' I heard the echo of his dead harpings--"
+
+He paused again and then, softly, with that curiously sweet, high
+voice that only the Irish seem to have, he sang:
+
+    Woman of the white breasts, Eilidh;
+    Woman of the gold-brown hair, and lips of the red, red rowan,
+    Where is the swan that is whiter, with breast more soft,
+    Or the wave on the sea that moves as thou movest, Eilidh.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+Olaf's Story
+
+There was a little silence.  I looked upon him with wonder. Clearly he
+was in deepest earnest. I know the psychology of the Gael is a curious
+one and that deep in all their hearts their ancient traditions and
+beliefs have strong and living roots. And I was both amused and
+touched.
+
+Here was this soldier, who had faced war and its ugly realities
+open-eyed and fearless, picking, indeed, the most dangerous branch of
+service for his own, a modern if ever there was one, appreciative of
+most unmystical Broadway, and yet soberly and earnestly attesting to
+his belief in banshee, in shadowy people of the woods, and phantom
+harpers! I wondered what he would think if he could see the Dweller
+and then, with a pang, that perhaps his superstitions might make him
+an easy prey.
+
+He shook his head half impatiently and ran a hand over his eyes;
+turned to me and grinned:
+
+"Don't think I'm cracked, Professor," he said.  "I'm not. But it takes
+me that way now and then. It's the Irish in me. And, believe it or
+not, I'm telling you the truth."
+
+I looked eastward where the moon, now nearly a week past the full, was
+mounting.
+
+"You can't make me see what you've seen, Lieutenant," I laughed.  "But
+you can make me hear. I've always wondered what kind of a noise a
+disembodied spirit could make without any vocal cords or breath or any
+other earthly sound-producing mechanism. How does the banshee sound?"
+
+O'Keefe looked at me seriously.
+
+"All right," he said.  "I'll show you." From deep down in his throat
+came first a low, weird sobbing that mounted steadily into a keening
+whose mournfulness made my skin creep. And then his hand shot out and
+gripped my shoulder, and I stiffened like stone in my chair--for from
+behind us, like an echo, and then taking up the cry, swelled a wail
+that seemed to hold within it a sublimation of the sorrows of
+centuries! It gathered itself into one heartbroken, sobbing note and
+died away! O'Keefe's grip loosened, and he rose swiftly to his feet.
+
+"It's all right, Professor," he said.  "It's for me.  It found me--all
+this way from Ireland."
+
+Again the silence was rent by the cry.  But now I had located it.  It
+came from my room, and it could mean only one thing--Huldricksson had
+wakened.
+
+"Forget your banshee!" I gasped, and made a jump for the cabin.
+
+Out of the corner of my eye I noted a look of half-sheepish relief
+flit over O'Keefe's face, and then he was beside me. Da Costa shouted
+an order from the wheel, the Cantonese ran up and took it from his
+hands and the little Portuguese pattered down toward us. My hand on
+the door, ready to throw it open, I stopped. What if the Dweller were
+within--what if we had been wrong and it was not dependent for its
+power upon that full flood of moon ray which Throckmartin had thought
+essential to draw it from the blue pool!
+
+From within, the sobbing wail began once more to rise. O'Keefe pushed
+me aside, threw open the door and crouched low within it. I saw an
+automatic flash dully in his hand; saw it cover the cabin from side to
+side, following the swift sweep of his eyes around it. Then he
+straightened and his face, turned toward the berth, was filled with
+wondering pity.
+
+Through the window streamed a shaft of the moonlight. It fell upon
+Huldricksson's staring eyes; in them great tears slowly gathered and
+rolled down his cheeks; from his opened mouth came the woe-laden
+wailing. I ran to the port and drew the curtains. Da Costa snapped the
+lights.
+
+The Norseman's dolorous crying stopped as abruptly as though cut.  His
+gaze rolled toward us. And at one bound he broke through the leashes I
+had buckled round him and faced us, his eyes glaring, his yellow hair
+almost erect with the force of the rage visibly surging through him.
+Da Costa shrunk behind me. O'Keefe, coolly watchful, took a quick step
+that brought him in front of me.
+
+"Where do you take me?" said Huldricksson, and his voice was like the
+growl of a beast. "Where is my boat?"
+
+I touched O'Keefe gently and stood before the giant.
+
+"Listen, Olaf Huldricksson," I said.  "We take you to where the
+sparkling devil took your Helma and your Freda. We follow the
+sparkling devil that came down from the moon. Do you hear me?" I spoke
+slowly, distinctly, striving to pierce the mists that I knew swirled
+around the strained brain. And the words did pierce.
+
+He thrust out a shaking hand.
+
+"You say you follow?" he asked falteringly.  "You know where to
+follow? Where it took my Helma and my little Freda?"
+
+"Just that, Olaf Huldricksson," I answered.  "Just that!  I pledge you
+my life that I know."
+
+Da Costa stepped forward.  "He speaks true, Olaf.  You go faster on
+the Suwarna than on the Br-rw-un'ilda, Olaf, yes."
+
+The giant Norseman, still gripping my hand, looked at him.  "I know
+you, Da Costa," he muttered. "You are all right. Ja! You are a fair
+man. Where is the Brunhilda?"
+
+"She follow be'ind on a big rope, Olaf," soothed the Portuguese.
+"Soon you see her. But now lie down an' tell us, if you can, why you
+tie yourself to your wheel an' what it is that happen, Olaf."
+
+"If you'll tell us how the sparkling devil came it will help us all
+when we get to where it is, Huldricksson," I said.
+
+On O'Keefe's face there was an expression of well-nigh ludicrous doubt
+and amazement. He glanced from one to the other. The giant shifted his
+own tense look from me to the Irishman. A gleam of approval lighted in
+his eyes. He loosed me, and gripped O'Keefe's arm. "Staerk!" he said.
+"Ja--strong, and with a strong heart. A man--ja! He comes too--we
+shall need him--ja!"
+
+"I tell," he muttered, and seated himself on the side of the bunk.
+"It was four nights ago. My Freda"--his voice shook--"Mine Yndling!
+She loved the moonlight. I was at the wheel and my Freda and my Helma
+they were behind me. The moon was behind us and the Brunhilda was like
+a swanboat sailing down with the moonlight sending her, ja.
+
+"I heard my Freda say: 'I see a nisse coming down the track of the
+moon.' And I hear her mother laugh, low, like a mother does when her
+Yndling dreams. I was happy--that night--with my Helma and my Freda,
+and the Brunhilda sailing like a swan-boat, ja. I heard the child say,
+'The nisse comes fast!' And then I heard a scream from my Helma, a
+great scream--like a mare when her foal is torn from her. I spun
+around fast, ja! I dropped the wheel and spun fast! I saw--" He
+covered his eyes with his hands.
+
+The Portuguese had crept close to me, and I heard him panting like a
+frightened dog.
+
+"I saw a white fire spring over the rail," whispered Olaf
+Huldricksson. "It whirled round and round, and it shone like--like
+stars in a whirlwind mist. There was a noise in my ears. It sounded
+like bells--little bells, ja! Like the music you make when you run
+your finger round goblets. It made me sick and dizzy--the hell noise.
+
+"My Helma was--indeholde--what you say--in the middle of the white
+fire. She turned her face to me and she turned it on the child, and my
+Helma's face burned into my heart. Because it was full of fear, and it
+was full of happiness--of glaede. I tell you that the fear in my
+Helma's face made me ice here"--he beat his breast with clenched
+hand--"but the happiness in it burned on me like fire. And I could
+not move--I could not move.
+
+"I said in here"--he touched his head--"I said, 'It is Loki come out
+of Helvede. But he cannot take my Helma, for Christ lives and Loki has
+no power to hurt my Helma or my Freda! Christ lives! Christ lives!' I
+said. But the sparkling devil did not let my Helma go. It drew her to
+the rail; half over it. I saw her eyes upon the child and a little she
+broke away and reached to it. And my Freda jumped into her arms. And
+the fire wrapped them both and they were gone! A little I saw them
+whirling on the moon track behind the Brunhilda--and they were gone!
+
+"The sparkling devil took them!  Loki was loosed, and he had power.  I
+turned the Brunhilda, and I followed where my Helma and mine Yndling
+had gone. My boys crept up and asked me to turn again. But I would
+not. They dropped a boat and left me. I steered straight on the path.
+I lashed my hands to the wheel that sleep might not loose them. I
+steered on and on and on--
+
+"Where was the God I prayed when my wife and child were taken?" cried
+Olaf Huldricksson--and it was as though I heard Throckmartin asking
+that same bitter question. "I have left Him as He left me, ja! I pray
+now to Thor and to Odin, who can fetter Loki." He sank back, covering
+again his eyes.
+
+"Olaf," I said, "what you have called the sparkling devil has taken
+ones dear to me. I, too, was following it when we found you. You shall
+go with me to its home, and there we will try to take from it your
+wife and your child and my friends as well. But now that you may be
+strong for what is before us, you must sleep again."
+
+Olaf Huldricksson looked upon me and in his eyes was that something
+which souls must see in the eyes of Him the old Egyptians called the
+Searcher of Hearts in the Judgment Hall of Osiris.
+
+"You speak truth!" he said at last slowly.  "I will do what you say!"
+
+He stretched out an arm at my bidding.  I gave him a second injection.
+He lay back and soon he was sleeping. I turned toward Da Costa. His
+face was livid and sweating, and he was trembling pitiably. O'Keefe
+stirred.
+
+"You did that mighty well, Dr. Goodwin," he said.  "So well that I
+almost believed you myself."
+
+"What did you think of his story, Mr. O'Keefe?" I asked.
+
+His answer was almost painfully brief and colloquial.
+
+"Nuts!" he said. I was a little shocked, I admit. "I think he's crazy,
+Dr. Goodwin," he corrected himself, quickly. "What else could I
+think?"
+
+I turned to the little Portuguese without answering.
+
+"There's no need for any anxiety tonight, Captain," I said. "Take my
+word for it. You need some rest yourself. Shall I give you a sleeping
+draft?"
+
+"I do wish you would, Dr. Goodwin, sair," he answered gratefully.
+"Tomorrow, when I feel bettair--I would have a talk with you."
+
+I nodded.  He did know something then!  I mixed him an opiate of
+considerable strength. He took it and went to his own cabin.
+
+I locked the door behind him and then, sitting beside the sleeping
+Norseman, I told O'Keefe my story from end to end. He asked few
+questions as I spoke. But after I had finished he cross-examined me
+rather minutely upon my recollections of the radiant phases upon each
+appearance, checking these with Throckmartin's observations of the
+same phenomena in the Chamber of the Moon Pool.
+
+"And now what do you think of it all?" I asked.
+
+He sat silent for a while, looking at Huldricksson.
+
+"Not what you seem to think, Dr. Goodwin," he answered at last,
+gravely. "Let me sleep over it. One thing of course is certain--you
+and your friend Throckmartin and this man here saw--something. But--"
+he was silent again and then continued with a kindness that I found
+vaguely irritating--"but I've noticed that when a scientist gets
+superstitious it--er--takes very hard!
+
+"Here's a few things I can tell you now though," he went on while I
+struggled to speak--"I pray in my heart that we'll meet neither the
+Dolphin nor anything with wireless on board going up. Because, Dr.
+Goodwin, I'd dearly love to take a crack at your Dweller.
+
+"And another thing," said O'Keefe.  "After this--cut out the
+trimmings, Doc, and call me plain Larry, for whether I think you're
+crazy or whether I don't, you're there with the nerve, Professor, and
+I'm for _you_.
+
+"Good night!" said Larry and took himself out to the deck hammock he
+had insisted upon having slung for him, refusing the captain's
+importunities to use his own cabin.
+
+And it was with extremely mixed emotions as to his compliment that I
+watched him go. Superstitious. I, whose pride was my scientific
+devotion to fact and fact alone! Superstitious--and this from a man
+who believed in banshees and ghostly harpers and Irish wood nymphs and
+no doubt in leprechauns and all their tribe!
+
+Half laughing, half irritated, and wholly happy in even the part
+promise of Larry O'Keefe's comradeship on my venture, I arranged a
+couple of pillows, stretched myself out on two chairs and took up my
+vigil beside Olaf Huldricksson.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+A Lost Page of Earth
+
+When I awakened the sun was streaming through the cabin porthole.
+Outside a fresh voice lilted. I lay on my two chairs and listened. The
+song was one with the wholesome sunshine and the breeze blowing
+stiffly and whipping the curtains. It was Larry O'Keefe at his matins:
+
+  The little red lark is shaking his wings,
+  Straight from the breast of his love he springs
+
+Larry's voice soared.
+
+  His wings and his feathers are sunrise red,
+  He hails the sun and his golden head,
+  Good morning, Doc, you are long abed.
+
+This last was a most irreverent interpolation, I well knew. I opened
+my door. O'Keefe stood outside laughing. The Suwarna, her engines
+silent, was making fine headway under all sail, the Brunhilda skipping
+in her wake cheerfully with half her canvas up.
+
+The sea was crisping and dimpling under the wind.  Blue and white was
+the world as far as the eye could reach. Schools of little silvery
+green flying fish broke through the water rushing on each side of us;
+flashed for an instant and were gone. Behind us gulls hovered and
+dipped. The shadow of mystery had retreated far over the rim of this
+wide awake and beautiful world and if, subconsciously, I knew that
+somewhere it was brooding and waiting, for a little while at least I
+was consciously free of its oppression.
+
+"How's the patient?" asked O'Keefe.
+
+He was answered by Huldricksson himself, who must have risen just as I
+left the cabin. The Norseman had slipped on a pair of pajamas and,
+giant torso naked under the sun, he strode out upon us. We all of us
+looked at him a trifle anxiously. But Olaf's madness had left him. In
+his eyes was much sorrow, but the berserk rage was gone.
+
+He spoke straight to me: "You said last night we follow?"
+
+I nodded.
+
+"It is where?" he asked again.
+
+"We go first to Ponape and from there to Metalanim Harbour--to the
+Nan-Matal. You know the place?"
+
+Huldricksson bowed--a white gleam as of ice showing in his blue eyes.
+
+"It is there?" he asked.
+
+"It is there that we must first search," I answered.
+
+"Good!" said Olaf Huldricksson.  "It is good!"
+
+He looked at Da Costa inquiringly and the little Portuguese, following
+his thought, answered his unspoken question.
+
+"We should be at Ponape tomorrow morning early, Olaf."
+
+"Good!" repeated the Norseman.  He looked away, his eyes tear-filled.
+
+A restraint fell upon us; the embarrassment all men experience when
+they feel a great sympathy and a great pity, to neither of which they
+quite know how to give expression. By silent consent we discussed at
+breakfast only the most casual topics.
+
+When the meal was over Huldricksson expressed a desire to go aboard
+the Brunhilda.
+
+The Suwarna hove to and Da Costa and he dropped into the small boat.
+When they reached the Brunhilda's deck I saw Olaf take the wheel and
+the two fall into earnest talk. I beckoned to O'Keefe and we stretched
+ourselves out on the bow hatch under cover of the foresail. He lighted
+a cigarette, took a couple of leisurely puffs, and looked at me
+expectantly.
+
+"Well?" I asked.
+
+"Well," said O'Keefe, "suppose you tell me what you think--and then
+I'll proceed to point out your scientific errors." His eyes twinkled
+mischievously.
+
+"Larry," I replied, somewhat severely, "you may not know that I have a
+scientific reputation which, putting aside all modesty, I may say is
+an enviable one. You used a word last night to which I must interpose
+serious objection. You more than hinted that I hid--superstitions. Let
+me inform you, Larry O'Keefe, that I am solely a seeker, observer,
+analyst, and synthesist of facts. I am not"--and I tried to make my
+tone as pointed as my words--"I am not a believer in phantoms or
+spooks, leprechauns, banshees, or ghostly harpers."
+
+O'Keefe leaned back and shouted with laughter.
+
+"Forgive me, Goodwin," he gasped.  "But if you could have seen
+yourself solemnly disclaiming the banshee"--another twinkle showed in
+his eyes--"and then with all this sunshine and this wide-open
+world"--he shrugged his shoulders--"it's hard to visualize anything
+such as you and Huldricksson have described."
+
+"I know how hard it is, Larry," I answered.  "And don't think I have
+any idea that the phenomenon is supernatural in the sense
+spiritualists and table turners have given that word. I do think it is
+supernormal; energized by a force unknown to modern science--but that
+doesn't mean I think it outside the radius of science."
+
+"Tell me your theory, Goodwin," he said.  I hesitated--for not yet
+had I been able to put into form to satisfy myself any explanation of
+the Dweller.
+
+"I think," I hazarded finally, "it is possible that some members of
+that race peopling the ancient continent which we know existed here in
+the Pacific, have survived. We know that many of these islands are
+honeycombed with caverns and vast subterranean spaces, literally
+underground lands running in some cases far out beneath the ocean
+floor. It is possible that for some reason survivors of this race
+sought refuge in the abysmal spaces, one of whose entrances is on the
+islet where Throckmartin's party met its end.
+
+"As for their persistence in these caverns--we know they possessed a
+high science. They may have gone far in the mastery of certain
+universal forms of energy--especially that we call light. They may
+have developed a civilization and a science far more advanced than
+ours. What I call the Dweller may be one of the results of this
+science. Larry--it may well be that this lost race is planning to
+emerge again upon earth's surface!"
+
+"And is sending out your Dweller as a messenger, a scientific dove
+from their Ark?" I chose to overlook the banter in his question.
+
+"Did you ever hear of the Chamats?" I asked him.  He shook his head.
+
+"In Papua," I explained, "there is a wide-spread and immeasurably old
+tradition that 'imprisoned under the hills' is a race of giants who
+once ruled this region 'when it stretched from sun to sun before the
+moon god drew the waters over it'--I quote from the legend. Not only
+in Papua but throughout Malaysia you find this story. And, so the
+tradition runs, these people--the Chamats--will one day break through
+the hills and rule the world; 'make over the world' is the literal
+translation of the constant phrase in the tale. It was Herbert Spencer
+who pointed out that there is a basis of fact in every myth and legend
+of man. It is possible that these survivors I am discussing form
+Spencer's fact basis for the Malaysian legend.[1]
+
+"This much is sure--the moon door, which is clearly operated by the
+action of moon rays upon some unknown element or combination and the
+crystals through which the moon rays pour down upon the pool their
+prismatic columns, are humanly made mechanisms. So long as they are
+humanly made, and so long as it _is_ this flood of moonlight from which
+the Dweller draws its power of materialization, the Dweller itself, if
+not the product of the human mind, is at least dependent upon the
+product of the human mind for its appearance."
+
+"Wait a minute, Goodwin," interrupted O'Keefe.  "Do you mean to say
+you think that this thing is made of--well--of moonshine?"
+
+"Moonlight," I replied, "is, of course, reflected sunlight. But the
+rays which pass back to earth after their impact on the moon's surface
+are profoundly changed. The spectroscope shows that they lose
+practically all the slower vibrations we call red and infra-red, while
+the extremely rapid vibrations we call the violet and ultra-violet are
+accelerated and altered. Many scientists hold that there is an unknown
+element in the moon--perhaps that which makes the gigantic luminous
+trails that radiate in all directions from the lunar crater
+Tycho--whose energies are absorbed by and carried on the moon rays.
+
+"At any rate, whether by the loss of the vibrations of the red or by
+the addition of this mysterious force, the light of the moon becomes
+something entirely different from mere modified sunlight--just as the
+addition or subtraction of one other chemical in a compound of several
+makes the product a substance with entirely different energies and
+potentialities.
+
+"Now these rays, Larry, are given perhaps still another mysterious
+activity by the globes through which Throckmartin said they passed in
+the Chamber of the Moon Pool. The result is the necessary factor in
+the formation of the Dweller. There would be nothing scientifically
+improbable in such a process. Kubalski, the great Russian physicist,
+produced crystalline forms exhibiting every faculty that we call vital
+by subjecting certain combinations of chemicals to the action of
+highly concentrated rays of various colours. Something in light and
+nothing else produced their pseudo-vitality. We do not begin to know
+how to harness the potentialities of that magnetic vibration of the
+ether we call light."
+
+"Listen, Doc," said Larry earnestly, "I'll take everything you say
+about this lost continent, the people who used to live on it, and
+their caverns, for granted. But by the sword of Brian Boru, you'll
+never get me to fall for the idea that a bunch of moonshine can handle
+a big woman such as you say Throckmartin's Thora was, nor a two-fisted
+man such as you say Throckmartin was, nor Huldricksson's wife--and
+I'll bet she was one of those strapping big northern women too--you'll
+never get me to believe that any bunch of concentrated moonshine could
+handle them and take them waltzing off along a moonbeam back to
+wherever it goes. No, Doc, not on your life, even Tennessee moonshine
+couldn't do that--nix!"
+
+"All right, O'Keefe," I answered, now very much irritated indeed.
+"What's your theory?" And I could not resist adding: "Fairies?"
+
+"Professor," he grinned, "if that Thing's a fairy it's Irish and when
+it sees me it'll be so glad there'll be nothing to it. 'I was lost,
+strayed, or stolen, Larry avick,' it'll say, 'an' I was so homesick
+for the old sod I was desp'rit,' it'll say, an' 'take me back quick
+before I do any more har-rm!' it'll tell me--an' that's the truth.
+
+"Now don't get me wrong.  I believe you all saw something all right.
+But what I think you saw was some kind of gas. All this region is
+volcanic and islands and things are constantly poking up from the sea.
+It's probably gas; a volcanic emanation; something new to us and that
+drives you crazy--lots of kinds of gas do that. It hit the
+Throckmartin party on that island and they probably were all more or
+less delirious all the time; thought they saw things; talked it over
+and--collective hallucination--just like the Angels of Mons and other
+miracles of the war. Somebody sees something that looks like something
+else. He points it out to the man next him. 'Do you see it?' asks he.
+'Sure I see it,' says the other. And there you are--collective
+hallucination.
+
+"When your friends got it bad they most likely jumped overboard one by
+one. Huldricksson sails into a place where it is and it hits his wife.
+She grabs the child and jumps over. Maybe the moon rays make it
+luminous! I've seen gas on the front under the moon that looked like a
+thousand whirling dervish devils. Yes, and you could see the devil's
+faces in it. And if it got into your lungs nothing could ever make you
+think you hadn't seen real devils."
+
+For a time I was silent.
+
+"Larry," I said at last, "whether you are right or I am right, I must
+go to the Nan-Matal. Will you go with me, Larry?"
+
+"Goodwin," he replied, "I surely will.  I'm as interested as you are.
+If we don't run across the Dolphin I'll stick. I'll leave word at
+Ponape, to tell them where I am should they come along. If they report
+me dead for a while there's nobody to care. So that's all right. Only
+old man, be reasonable. You've thought over this so long, you're going
+bug, honestly you are."
+
+And again, the gladness that I might have Larry O'Keefe with me, was
+so great that I forgot to be angry.
+
+
+[1] William Beebe, the famous American naturalist and ornithologist,
+recently fighting in France with America's air force, called attention
+to this remarkable belief in an article printed not long ago in the
+Atlantic Monthly. Still more significant was it that he noted a
+persistent rumour that the breaking out of the buried race was
+close.--W.J. B., Pres. I. A. of S.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+The Moon Pool
+
+Da Costa, who had come aboard unnoticed by either of us, now tapped me
+on the arm.
+
+"Doctair Goodwin," he said, "can I see you in my cabin, sair?"
+
+At last, then, he was going to speak.  I followed him.
+
+"Doctair," he said, when we had entered, "this is a veree strange
+thing that has happened to Olaf. Veree strange. An' the natives of
+Ponape, they have been very much excite' lately.
+
+"Of what they fear I know nothing, nothing!" Again that quick, furtive
+crossing of himself. "But this I have to tell you. There came to me
+from Ranaloa last month a man, a Russian, a doctair, like you. His
+name it was Marakinoff. I take him to Ponape an' the natives there
+they will not take him to the Nan-Matal where he wish to go--no! So I
+take him. We leave in a boat, wit' much instrument carefully tied up.
+I leave him there wit' the boat an' the food. He tell me to tell no
+one an' pay me not to. But you are a friend an' Olaf he depend much
+upon you an' so I tell you, sair."
+
+"You know nothing more than this, Da Costa?" I asked. "Nothing of
+another expedition?"
+
+"No," he shook his head vehemently.  "Nothing more."
+
+"Hear the name Throckmartin while you were there?" I persisted.
+
+"No," his eyes were steady as he answered but the pallor had crept
+again into his face.
+
+I was not so sure.  But if he knew more than he had told me why was he
+afraid to speak? My anxiety deepened and later I sought relief from it
+by repeating the conversation to O'Keefe.
+
+"A Russian, eh," he said.  "Well, they can be damned nice, or
+damned--otherwise. Considering what you did for me, I hope I can look
+him over before the Dolphin shows up."
+
+Next morning we raised Ponape, without further incident, and before
+noon the Suwarna and the Brunhilda had dropped anchor in the harbour.
+Upon the excitement and manifest dread of the natives, when we sought
+among them for carriers and workmen to accompany us, I will not dwell.
+It is enough to say that no payment we offered could induce a single
+one of them to go to the Nan-Matal. Nor would they say why.
+
+Finally it was agreed that the Brunhilda should be left in charge of a
+half-breed Chinaman, whom both Da Costa and Huldricksson knew and
+trusted. We piled her long-boat up with my instruments and food and
+camping equipment. The Suwarna took us around to Metalanim Harbour,
+and there, with the tops of ancient sea walls deep in the blue water
+beneath us, and the ruins looming up out of the mangroves, a scant
+mile from us, left us.
+
+Then with Huldricksson manipulating our small sail, and Larry at the
+rudder, we rounded the titanic wall that swept down into the depths,
+and turned at last into the canal that Throckmartin, on his map, had
+marked as that which, running between frowning Nan-Tauach and its
+satellite islet, Tau, led straight to the gate of the place of ancient
+mysteries.
+
+And as we entered that channel we were enveloped by a silence; a
+silence so intense, so--weighted that it seemed to have substance; an
+alien silence that clung and stifled and still stood aloof from
+us--the living. It was a stillness, such as might follow the long
+tramping of millions into the grave; it was--paradoxical as it may
+be--filled with the withdrawal of life.
+
+Standing down in the chambered depths of the Great Pyramid I had known
+something of such silence--but never such intensity as this. Larry
+felt it and I saw him look at me askance. If Olaf, sitting in the bow,
+felt it, too, he gave no sign; his blue eyes, with again the glint of
+ice within them, watched the channel before us.
+
+As we passed, there arose upon our left sheer walls of black basalt
+blocks, cyclopean, towering fifty feet or more, broken here and there
+by the sinking of their deep foundations.
+
+In front of us the mangroves widened out and filled the canal.  On
+our right the lesser walls of Tau, sombre blocks smoothed and squared
+and set with a cold, mathematical nicety that filled me with vague
+awe, slipped by. Through breaks I caught glimpses of dark ruins and of
+great fallen stones that seemed to crouch and menace us, as we passed.
+Somewhere there, hidden, were the seven globes that poured the moon
+fire down upon the Moon Pool.
+
+Now we were among the mangroves and, sail down, the three of us pushed
+and pulled the boat through their tangled roots and branches. The
+noise of our passing split the silence like a profanation, and from
+the ancient bastions came murmurs--forbidding, strangely sinister. And
+now we were through, floating on a little open space of shadow-filled
+water. Before us lifted the gateway of Nan-Tauach, gigantic, broken,
+incredibly old; shattered portals through which had passed men and
+women of earth's dawn; old with a weight of years that pressed
+leadenly upon the eyes that looked upon it, and yet was in some
+curious indefinable way--menacingly defiant.
+
+Beyond the gate, back from the portals, stretched a flight of enormous
+basalt slabs, a giant's stairway indeed; and from each side of it
+marched the high walls that were the Dweller's pathway. None of us
+spoke as we grounded the boat and dragged it upon a half-submerged
+pier. And when we did speak it was in whispers.
+
+"What next?" asked Larry.
+
+"I think we ought to take a look around," I replied in the same low
+tones. "We'll climb the wall here and take a flash about. The whole
+place ought to be plain as day from that height."
+
+Huldricksson, his blue eyes alert, nodded.  With the greatest
+difficulty we clambered up the broken blocks.
+
+To the east and south of us, set like children's blocks in the midst
+of the sapphire sea, lay dozens of islets, none of them covering more
+than two square miles of surface; each of them a perfect square or
+oblong within its protecting walls.
+
+On none was there sign of life, save for a few great birds that
+hovered here and there, and gulls dipping in the blue waves beyond.
+
+We turned our gaze down upon the island on which we stood.  It was, I
+estimated, about three-quarters of a mile square. The sea wall
+enclosed it. It was really an enormous basalt-sided open cube, and
+within it two other open cubes. The enclosure between the first and
+second wall was stone paved, with here and there a broken pillar and
+long stone benches. The hibiscus, the aloe tree, and a number of small
+shrubs had found place, but seemed only to intensify its stark
+loneliness.
+
+"Wonder where the Russian can be?" asked Larry.
+
+I shook my head.  There was no sign of life here.  Had Marakinoff
+gone--or had the Dweller taken him, too? Whatever had happened, there
+was no trace of him below us or on any of the islets within our range
+of vision. We scrambled down the side of the gateway. Olaf looked at
+me wistfully.
+
+"We start the search now, Olaf," I said.  "And first, O'Keefe, let us
+see whether the grey stone is really here. After that we will set up
+camp, and while I unpack, you and Olaf search the island. It won't
+take long."
+
+Larry gave a look at his service automatic and grinned. "Lead on,
+Macduff," he said. We made our way up the steps, through the outer
+enclosures and into the central square, I confess to a fire of
+scientific curiosity and eagerness tinged with a dread that O'Keefe's
+analysis might be true. Would we find the moving slab and, if so,
+would it be as Throckmartin had described? If so, then even Larry
+would have to admit that here was something that theories of gases and
+luminous emanations would not explain; and the first test of the whole
+amazing story would be passed. But if not--And there before us, the
+faintest tinge of grey setting it apart from its neighbouring blocks
+of basalt, was the moon door!
+
+There was no mistaking it.  This was, in very deed, the portal through
+which Throckmartin had seen pass that gloriously dreadful apparition
+he called the Dweller. At its base was the curious, seemingly polished
+cup-like depression within which, my lost friend had told me, the
+opening door swung.
+
+What was that portal--more enigmatic than was ever sphinx?  And what
+lay beyond it? What did that smooth stone, whose wan deadness
+whispered of ages-old corridors of time opening out into alien,
+unimaginable vistas, hide? It had cost the world of science
+Throckmartin's great brain--as it had cost Throckmartin those he
+loved. It had drawn me to it in search of Throckmartin--and its shadow
+had fallen upon the soul of Olaf the Norseman; and upon what thousands
+upon thousands more I wondered, since the brains that had conceived it
+had vanished with their secret knowledge?
+
+What lay beyond it?
+
+I stretched out a shaking hand and touched the surface of the slab.  A
+faint thrill passed through my hand and arm, oddly unfamiliar and as
+oddly unpleasant; as of electric contact holding the very essence of
+cold. O'Keefe, watching, imitated my action. As his fingers rested on
+the stone his face filled with astonishment.
+
+"It's the door?" he asked.  I nodded.  There was a low whistle from
+him and he pointed up toward the top of the grey stone. I followed the
+gesture and saw, above the moon door and on each side of it, two
+gently curving bosses of rock, perhaps a foot in diameter.
+
+"The moon door's keys," I said.
+
+"It begins to look so," answered Larry.  "If we can find them," he
+added.
+
+"There's nothing we can do till moonrise," I replied.  "And we've none
+too much time to prepare as it is. Come!"
+
+A little later we were beside our boat.  We lightered it, set up the
+tent, and as it was now but a short hour to sundown I bade them leave
+me and make their search. They went off together, and I busied myself
+with opening some of the paraphernalia I had brought with me.
+
+First of all I took out the two Becquerel ray-condensers that I had
+bought in Sydney. Their lenses would collect and intensify to the
+fullest extent any light directed upon them. I had found them most
+useful in making spectroscopic analysis of luminous vapours, and I
+knew that at Yerkes Observatory splendid results had been obtained
+from them in collecting the diffused radiance of the nebulae for the
+same purpose.
+
+If my theory of the grey slab's mechanism were correct, it was
+practically certain that with the satellite only a few nights past the
+full we could concentrate enough light on the bosses to open the rock.
+And as the ray streams through the seven globes described by
+Throckmartin would be too weak to energize the Pool, we could enter
+the chamber free from any fear of encountering its tenant, make our
+preliminary observations and go forth before the moon had dropped so
+far that the concentration in the condensers would fall below that
+necessary to keep the portal from closing.
+
+I took out also a small spectroscope, and a few other instruments for
+the analysis of certain light manifestations and the testing of metal
+and liquid. Finally, I put aside my emergency medical kit.
+
+I had hardly finished examining and adjusting these before O'Keefe and
+Huldricksson returned. They reported signs of a camp at least ten days
+old beside the northern wall of the outer court, but beyond that no
+evidence of others beyond ourselves on Nan-Tauach.
+
+We prepared supper, ate and talked a little, but for the most part
+were silent. Even Larry's high spirits were not in evidence; half a
+dozen times I saw him take out his automatic and look it over. He was
+more thoughtful than I had ever seen him. Once he went into the tent,
+rummaged about a bit and brought out another revolver which, he said,
+he had got from Da Costa, and a half-dozen clips of cartridges. He
+passed the gun over to Olaf.
+
+At last a glow in the southeast heralded the rising moon. I picked up
+my instruments and the medical kit; Larry and Olaf shouldered each a
+short ladder that was part of my equipment, and, with our electric
+flashes pointing the way, walked up the great stairs, through the
+enclosures, and straight to the grey stone.
+
+By this time the moon had risen and its clipped light shone full upon
+the slab. I saw faint gleams pass over it as of fleeting
+phosphorescence--but so faint were they that I could not be sure of
+the truth of my observation.
+
+We set the ladders in place.  Olaf I assigned to stand before the door
+and watch for the first signs of its opening--if open it should. The
+Becquerels were set within three-inch tripods, whose feet I had
+equipped with vacuum rings to enable them to hold fast to the rock.
+
+I scaled one ladder and fastened a condenser over the boss; descended;
+sent Larry up to watch it, and, ascending the second ladder, rapidly
+fixed the other in its place. Then, with O'Keefe watchful on his
+perch, I on mine, and Olaf's eyes fixed upon the moon door, we began
+our vigil. Suddenly there was an exclamation from Larry.
+
+"Seven little lights are beginning to glow on this stone!" he cried.
+
+But I had already seen those beneath my lens begin to gleam out with a
+silvery lustre. Swiftly the rays within the condenser began to thicken
+and increase, and as they did so the seven small circles waxed like
+stars growing out of the dusk, and with a queer--curdled is the best
+word I can find to define it--radiance entirely strange to me.
+
+Beneath me I heard a faint, sighing murmur and then the voice of
+Huldricksson:
+
+"It opens--the stone turns--"
+
+I began to climb down the ladder.  Again came Olaf's voice:
+
+"The stone--it is open--" And then a shriek, a wail of blended anguish
+and pity, of rage and despair--and the sound of swift footsteps racing
+through the wall beneath me!
+
+I dropped to the ground.  The moon door was wide open, and through it
+I caught a glimpse of a corridor filled with a faint, pearly vaporous
+light like earliest misty dawn. But of Olaf I could see--nothing! And
+even as I stood, gaping, from behind me came the sharp crack of a
+rifle; the glass of the condenser at Larry's side flew into fragments;
+he dropped swiftly to the ground, the automatic in his hand flashed
+once, twice, into the darkness.
+
+And the moon door began to pivot slowly, slowly back into its place!
+
+I rushed toward the turning stone with the wild idea of holding it
+open. As I thrust my hands against it there came at my back a snarl
+and an oath and Larry staggered under the impact of a body that had
+flung itself straight at his throat. He reeled at the lip of the
+shallow cup at the base of the slab, slipped upon its polished curve,
+fell and rolled with that which had attacked him, kicking and
+writhing, straight through the narrowing portal into the passage!
+
+Forgetting all else, I sprang to his aid.  As I leaped I felt the
+closing edge of the moon door graze my side. Then, as Larry raised a
+fist, brought it down upon the temple of the man who had grappled with
+him and rose from the twitching body unsteadily to his feet, I heard
+shuddering past me a mournful whisper; spun about as though some
+giant's hand had whirled me--
+
+The end of the corridor no longer opened out into the moonlit square
+of ruined Nan-Tauach. It was barred by a solid mass of glimmering
+stone. The moon door had closed!
+
+O'Keefe took a stumbling step toward the barrier behind us. There was
+no mark of juncture with the shining walls; the slab fitted into the
+sides as closely as a mosaic.
+
+"It's shut all right," said Larry.  "But if there's a way in, there's
+a way out. Anyway, Doc, we're right in the pew we've been heading
+for--so why worry?" He grinned at me cheerfully. The man on the floor
+groaned, and he dropped to his knees beside him.
+
+"Marakinoff!" he cried.
+
+At my exclamation he moved aside, turning the face so I could see it.
+It was clearly Russian, and just as clearly its possessor was one of
+unusual force and intellect.
+
+The strong, massive brow with orbital ridge unusually developed, the
+dominant, high-bridged nose, the straight lips with their more than
+suggestion of latent cruelty, and the strong lines of the jaw beneath
+a black, pointed beard all gave evidence that here was a personality
+beyond the ordinary.
+
+"Couldn't be anybody else," said Larry, breaking in on my thoughts.
+"He must have been watching us over there from Chau-ta-leur's vault
+all the time."
+
+Swiftly he ran practised hands over his body; then stood erect,
+holding out to me two wicked-looking magazine pistols and a knife. "He
+got one of my bullets through his right forearm, too," he said. "Just
+a flesh wound, but it made him drop his rifle. Some arsenal, our
+little Russian scientist, what?"
+
+I opened my medical kit.  The wound was a slight one, and Larry stood
+looking on as I bandaged it.
+
+"Got another one of those condensers?" he asked, suddenly.  "And do
+you suppose Olaf will know enough to use it?"
+
+"Larry," I answered, "Olaf's not outside!  He's in here somewhere!"
+
+His jaw dropped.
+
+"The hell you say!" he whispered.
+
+"Didn't you hear him shriek when the stone opened?" I asked.
+
+"I heard him yell, yes," he said.  "But I didn't know what was the
+matter. And then this wildcat jumped me--" He paused and his eyes
+widened. "Which way did he go?" he asked swiftly. I pointed down the
+faintly glowing passage.
+
+"There's only one way," I said.
+
+"Watch that bird close," hissed O'Keefe, pointing to Marakinoff--and
+pistol in hand stretched his long legs and raced away. I looked down
+at the Russian. His eyes were open, and he reached out a hand to me. I
+lifted him to his feet.
+
+"I have heard," he said.  "We follow, quick.  If you will take my arm,
+please, I am shaken yet, yes--" I gripped his shoulder without a word,
+and the two of us set off down the corridor after O'Keefe. Marakinoff
+was gasping, and his weight pressed upon me heavily, but he moved with
+all the will and strength that were in him.
+
+As we ran I took hasty note of the tunnel.  Its sides were smooth and
+polished, and the light seemed to come not from their surfaces, but
+from far within them--giving to the walls an illusive aspect of
+distance and depth; rendering them in a peculiarly weird
+way--spacious. The passage turned, twisted, ran down, turned again. It
+came to me that the light that illumined the tunnel was given out by
+tiny points deep within the stone, sprang from the points ripplingly
+and spread upon their polished faces.
+
+There was a cry from Larry far ahead.
+
+"Olaf!"
+
+I gripped Marakinoff's arm closer and we sped on.  Now we were coming
+fast to the end of the passage. Before us was a high arch, and through
+it I glimpsed a dim, shifting luminosity as of mist filled with
+rainbows. We reached the portal and I looked into a chamber that might
+have been transported from that enchanted palace of the Jinn King that
+rises beyond the magic mountains of Kaf.
+
+Before me stood O'Keefe and a dozen feet in front of him,
+Huldricksson, with something clasped tightly in his arms. The
+Norseman's feet were at the verge of a shining, silvery lip of stone
+within whose oval lay a blue pool. And down upon this pool staring
+upward like a gigantic eye, fell seven pillars of phantom light--one
+of them amethyst, one of rose, another of white, a fourth of blue, and
+three of emerald, of silver, and of amber. They fell each upon the
+azure surface, and I knew that these were the seven streams of
+radiance, within which the Dweller took shape--now but pale ghosts of
+their brilliancy when the full energy of the moon stream raced through
+them.
+
+Huldricksson bent and placed on the shining silver lip of the Pool
+that which he held--and I saw that it was the body of a child! He set
+it there so gently, bent over the side and thrust a hand down into the
+water. And as he did so he moaned and lurched against the little body
+that lay before him. Instantly the form moved--and slipped over the
+verge into the blue. Huldricksson threw his body over the stone, hands
+clutching, arms thrust deep down--and from his lips issued a
+long-drawn, heart-shrivelling wail of pain and of anguish that held in
+it nothing human!
+
+Close on its wake came a cry from Marakinoff.
+
+"Catch him!" shouted the Russian.  "Drag him back! Quick!"
+
+He leaped forward, but before he could half clear the distance,
+O'Keefe had leaped too, had caught the Norseman by the shoulders and
+toppled him backward, where he lay whimpering and sobbing. And as I
+rushed behind Marakinoff I saw Larry lean over the lip of the Pool and
+cover his eyes with a shaking hand; saw the Russian peer into it with
+real pity in his cold eyes.
+
+Then I stared down myself into the Moon Pool, and there, sinking, was
+a little maid whose dead face and fixed, terror-filled eyes looked
+straight into mine; and ever sinking slowly, slowly--vanished! And I
+knew that this was Olaf's Freda, his beloved yndling!
+
+But where was the mother, and where had Olaf found his babe?
+
+The Russian was first to speak.
+
+"You have nitroglycerin there, yes?" he asked, pointing toward my
+medical kit that I had gripped unconsciously and carried with me
+during the mad rush down the passage. I nodded and drew it out.
+
+"Hypodermic," he ordered next, curtly; took the syringe, filled it
+accurately with its one one-hundredth of a grain dosage, and leaned
+over Huldricksson. He rolled up the sailor's sleeves half-way to the
+shoulder. The arms were white with somewhat of that weird
+semitranslucence that I had seen on Throckmartin's breast where a
+tendril of the Dweller had touched him; and his hands were of the same
+whiteness--like a baroque pearl. Above the line of white, Marakinoff
+thrust the needle.
+
+"He will need all his heart can do," he said to me.
+
+Then he reached down into a belt about his waist and drew from it a
+small, flat flask of what seemed to be lead. He opened it and let a
+few drops of its contents fall on each arm of the Norwegian. The
+liquid sparkled and instantly began to spread over the skin much as
+oil or gasoline dropped on water does--only far more rapidly. And as
+it spread it drew a sparkling film over the marbled flesh and little
+wisps of vapour rose from it. The Norseman's mighty chest heaved with
+agony. His hands clenched. The Russian gave a grunt of satisfaction at
+this, dropped a little more of the liquid, and then, watching closely,
+grunted again and leaned back. Huldricksson's laboured breathing
+ceased, his head dropped upon Larry's knee, and from his arms and
+hands the whiteness swiftly withdrew.
+
+Marakinoff arose and contemplated us--almost benevolently.
+
+"He will all right be in five minutes," he said.  "I know.  I do it to
+pay for that shot of mine, and also because we will need him. Yes." He
+turned to Larry. "You have a poonch like a mule kick, my young
+friend," he said. "Some time you pay me for that, too, eh?" He smiled;
+and the quality of the grimace was not exactly reassuring. Larry
+looked him over quizzically.
+
+"You're Marakinoff, of course," he said.  The Russian nodded,
+betraying no surprise at the recognition.
+
+"And you?" he asked.
+
+"Lieutenant O'Keefe of the Royal Flying Corps," replied Larry,
+saluting. "And this gentleman is Dr. Walter T. Goodwin."
+
+Marakinoff's face brightened.
+
+"The American botanist?" he queried.  I nodded.
+
+"Ah," cried Marakinoff eagerly, "but this is fortunate. Long I have
+desired to meet you. Your work, for an American, is most excellent;
+surprising. But you are wrong in your theory of the development of the
+Angiospermae from Cycadeoidea dacotensis. Da--all wrong--"
+
+I was interrupting him with considerable heat, for my conclusions from
+the fossil Cycadeoidea I knew to be my greatest triumph, when Larry
+broke in upon me rudely.
+
+"Say," he spluttered, "am I crazy or are you?  What in damnation kind
+of a place and time is this to start an argument like that?
+
+"Angiospermae, is it?" exclaimed Larry.  "HELL!"
+
+Marakinoff again regarded him with that irritating air of benevolence.
+
+"You have not the scientific mind, young friend," he said. "The
+poonch, yes! But so has the mule. You must learn that only the fact is
+important--not you, not me, not this"--he pointed to Huldricksson--"or
+its sorrows. Only the fact, whatever it is, is real, yes. But"--he
+turned to me--"another time--"
+
+Huldricksson interrupted him.  The big seaman had risen stiffly to his
+feet and stood with Larry's arm supporting him. He stretched out his
+hands to me.
+
+"I saw her," he whispered.  "I saw mine Freda when the stone swung.
+She lay there--just at my feet. I picked her up and I saw that mine
+Freda was dead. But I hoped--and I thought maybe mine Helma was
+somewhere here, too, So I ran with mine yndling--here--" His voice
+broke. "I thought maybe she was _not_ dead," he went on. "And I saw
+that"--he pointed to the Moon Pool--"and I thought I would bathe her
+face and she might live again. And when I dipped my hands within--the
+life left them, and cold, deadly cold, ran up through them into my
+heart. And mine Freda--she fell--" he covered his eyes, and dropping
+his head on O'Keefe's shoulder, stood, racked by sobs that seemed to
+tear at his very soul.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+The Flame-Tipped Shadows
+
+Marakinoff nodded his head solemnly as Olaf finished.
+
+"Da!" he said.  "That which comes from here took them both--the woman
+and the child. Da! They came clasped within it and the stone shut upon
+them. But why it left the child behind I do not understand."
+
+"How do you know that?" I cried in amazement.
+
+"Because I saw it," answered Marakinoff simply.  "Not only did I see
+it, but hardly had I time to make escape through the entrance before
+it passed whirling and murmuring and its bell sounds all joyous. Da!
+It was what you call the squeak close, that."
+
+"Wait a moment," I said--stilling Larry with a gesture. "Do I
+understand you to say that you were within this place?"
+
+Marakinoff actually beamed upon me.
+
+"Da, Dr. Goodwin," he said, "I went in when that which comes from it
+went out!"
+
+I gaped at him, stricken dumb; into Larry's bellicose attitude crept a
+suggestion of grudging respect; Olaf, trembling, watched silently.
+
+"Dr.  Goodwin and my impetuous young friend, you," went on Marakinoff
+after a moment's silence and I wondered vaguely why he did not include
+Huldricksson in his address--"it is time that we have an
+understanding. I have a proposal to make to you also. It is this; we
+are what you call a bad boat, and all of us are in it. Da! We need all
+hands, is it not so? Let us put together our knowledge and our brains
+and resources--and even a poonch of a mule is a resource," he looked
+wickedly at O'Keefe, "and pull our boat into quiet waters again. After
+that--"
+
+"All very well, Marakinoff," interjected Larry, "but I don't feel very
+safe in any boat with somebody capable of shooting me through the
+back."
+
+Marakinoff waved a deprecatory hand.
+
+"It was natural that," he said, "logical, da!  Here is a very great
+secret, perhaps many secrets to my country invaluable--" He paused,
+shaken by some overpowering emotion; the veins in his forehead grew
+congested, the cold eyes blazed and the guttural voice harshened.
+
+"I do not apologize and I do not explain," rasped Marakinoff.  "But I
+will tell you, da! Here is my country sweating blood in an experiment
+to liberate the world. And here are the other nations ringing us like
+wolves and waiting to spring at our throats at the least sign of
+weakness. And here are you, Lieutenant O'Keefe of the English wolves,
+and you Dr. Goodwin of the Yankee pack--and here in this place may be
+that will enable my country to win its war for the worker. What are
+the lives of you two and this sailor to that? Less than the flies I
+crush with my hand, less than midges in the sunbeam!"
+
+He suddenly gripped himself.
+
+"But that is not now the important thing," he resumed, almost coldly.
+"Not that nor my shooting. Let us squarely the situation face. My
+proposal is so: that we join interests, and what you call see it
+through together; find our way through this place and those secrets
+learn of which I have spoken, if we can. And when that is done we will
+go our ways, to his own land each, to make use of them for our lands
+as each of us may. On my part, I offer my knowledge--and it is very
+valuable, Dr. Goodwin--and my training. You and Lieutenant O'Keefe do
+the same, and this man Olaf, what he can of his strength, for I do not
+think his usefulness lies in his brains, no."
+
+"In effect, Goodwin," broke in Larry as I hesitated, "the professor's
+proposition is this: he wants to know what's going on here but he
+begins to realize it's no one man's job and besides we have the drop
+on him. We're three to his one, and we have all his hardware and
+cutlery. But also we can do better with him than without him--just as
+he can do better with us than without us. It's an even break--for a
+while. But once he gets that information he's looking for, then look
+out. You and Olaf and I are the wolves and the flies and the midges
+again--and the strafing will be about due. Nevertheless, with three to
+one against him, if he can get away with it he deserves to. I'm for
+taking him up, if you are."
+
+There was almost a twinkle in Marakinoff's eyes.
+
+"It is not just as I would have put it, perhaps," he said, "but in its
+skeleton he has right. Nor will I turn my hand against you while we
+are still in danger here. I pledge you my honor on this."
+
+Larry laughed.
+
+"All right, Professor," he grinned.  "I believe you mean every word
+you say. Nevertheless, I'll just keep the guns."
+
+Marakinoff bowed, imperturbably.
+
+"And now," he said, "I will tell you what I know.  I found the secret
+of the door mechanism even as you did, Dr. Goodwin. But by
+carelessness, my condensers were broken. I was forced to wait while I
+sent for others--and the waiting might be for months. I took certain
+precautions, and on the first night of this full moon I hid myself
+within the vault of Chau-ta-leur."
+
+An involuntary thrill of admiration for the man went through me at the
+manifest heroism of this leap in the dark. I could see it reflected in
+Larry's face.
+
+"I hid in the vault," continued Marakinoff, "and I saw that which
+comes from here come out. I waited--long hours. At last, when the moon
+was low, it returned--ecstatically--with a man, a native, in embrace
+enfolded. It passed through the door, and soon then the moon became
+low and the door closed.
+
+"The next night more confidence was mine, yes.  And after that which
+comes had gone, I looked through its open door. I said, 'It will not
+return for three hours. While it is away, why shall I not into its
+home go through the door it has left open?' So I went--even to here. I
+looked at the pillars of light and I tested the liquid of the Pool on
+which they fell. That liquid, Dr. Goodwin, is not water, and it is not
+any fluid known on earth." He handed me a small vial, its neck held in
+a long thong.
+
+"Take this," he said, "and see."
+
+Wonderingly, I took the bottle; dipped it down into the Pool.  The
+liquid was extraordinarily light; seemed, in fact, to give the vial
+buoyancy. I held it to the light. It was striated, streaked, as though
+little living, pulsing veins ran through it. And its blueness, even in
+the vial, held an intensity of luminousness.
+
+"Radioactive," said Marakinoff.  "Some liquid that is intensely
+radioactive; but what it is I know not at all. Upon the living skin it
+acts like radium raised to the nth power and with an element most
+mysterious added. The solution with which I treated him," he pointed
+to Huldricksson, "I had prepared before I came here, from certain
+information I had. It is largely salts of radium and its base is
+Loeb's formula for the neutralization of radium and X-ray burns.
+Taking this man at once, before the degeneration had become really
+active, I could negative it. But after two hours I could have done
+nothing."
+
+He paused a moment.
+
+"Next I studied the nature of these luminous walls.  I concluded that
+whoever had made them, knew the secret of the Almighty's manufacture
+of light from the ether itself! Colossal! Da! But the substance of
+these blocks confines an atomic--how would you say--atomic
+manipulation, a conscious arrangement of electrons, light-emitting and
+perhaps indefinitely so. These blocks are lamps in which oil and wick
+are electrons drawing light waves from ether itself! A Prometheus,
+indeed, this discoverer! I looked at my watch and that little guardian
+warned me that it was time to go. I went. That which comes forth
+returned--this time empty-handed.
+
+"And the next night I did the same thing.  Engrossed in research, I
+let the moments go by to the danger point, and scarcely was I replaced
+within the vault when the shining thing raced over the walls, and in
+its grip the woman and child.
+
+"Then you came--and that is all.  And now--what is it you know?"
+
+Very briefly I went over my story.  His eyes gleamed now and then, but
+he did not interrupt me.
+
+"A great secret!  A colossal secret!" he muttered, when I had ended.
+"We cannot leave it hidden."
+
+"The first thing to do is to try the door," said Larry, matter of
+fact.
+
+"There is no use, my young friend," assured Marakinoff mildly.
+
+"Nevertheless we'll try," said Larry.  We retraced our way through the
+winding tunnel to the end, but soon even O'Keefe saw that any idea of
+moving the slab from within was hopeless. We returned to the Chamber
+of the Pool. The pillars of light were fainter, and we knew that the
+moon was sinking. On the world outside before long dawn would be
+breaking. I began to feel thirst--and the blue semblance of water
+within the silvery rim seemed to glint mockingly as my eyes rested on
+it.
+
+"Da!" it was Marakinoff, reading my thoughts uncannily. "Da!  We will
+be thirsty. And it will be very bad for him of us who loses control
+and drinks of that, my friend. Da!"
+
+Larry threw back his shoulders as though shaking a burden from them.
+
+"This place would give an angel of joy the willies," he said.  "I
+suggest that we look around and find something that will take us
+somewhere. You can bet the people that built it had more ways of
+getting in than that once-a-month family entrance. Doc, you and Olaf
+take the left wall; the professor and I will take the right."
+
+He loosened one of his automatics with a suggestive movement.
+
+"After you, Professor," he bowed, politely, to the Russian. We parted
+and set forth.
+
+The chamber widened out from the portal in what seemed to be the arc
+of an immense circle. The shining walls held a perceptible curve, and
+from this curvature I estimated that the roof was fully three hundred
+feet above us.
+
+The floor was of smooth, mosaic-fitted blocks of a faintly yellow
+tinge. They were not light-emitting like the blocks that formed the
+walls. The radiance from these latter, I noted, had the peculiar
+quality of _thickening_ a few yards from its source, and it was this
+that produced the effect of misty, veiled distances. As we walked, the
+seven columns of rays streaming down from the crystalline globes high
+above us waned steadily; the glow within the chamber lost its
+prismatic shimmer and became an even grey tone somewhat like moonlight
+in a thin cloud.
+
+Now before us, out from the wall, jutted a low terrace.  It was all of
+a pearly rose-coloured stone, slender, graceful pillars of the same
+hue. The face of the terrace was about ten feet high, and all over it
+ran a bas-relief of what looked like short-trailing vines, surmounted
+by five stalks, on the tip of each of which was a flower.
+
+We passed along the terrace.  It turned in an abrupt curve. I heard a
+hail, and there, fifty feet away, at the curving end of a wall
+identical with that where we stood, were Larry and Marakinoff.
+Obviously the left side of the chamber was a duplicate of that we had
+explored. We joined. In front of us the columned barriers ran back a
+hundred feet, forming an alcove. The end of this alcove was another
+wall of the same rose stone, but upon it the design of vines was much
+heavier.
+
+We took a step forward--there was a gasp of awe from the Norseman, a
+guttural exclamation from Marakinoff. For on, or rather within, the
+wall before us, a great oval began to glow, waxed almost to a flame
+and then shone steadily out as though from behind it a light was
+streaming through the stone itself!
+
+And within the roseate oval two flame-tipped shadows appeared, stood
+for a moment, and then seemed to float out upon its surface. The
+shadows wavered; the tips of flame that nimbused them with flickering
+points of vermilion pulsed outward, drew back, darted forth again, and
+once more withdrew themselves--and as they did so the shadows
+thickened--and suddenly there before us stood two figures!
+
+One was a girl--a girl whose great eyes were golden as the fabled
+lilies of Kwan-Yung that were born of the kiss of the sun upon the
+amber goddess the demons of Lao-Tz'e carved for him; whose softly
+curved lips were red as the royal coral, and whose golden-brown hair
+reached to her knees!
+
+And the second was a gigantic frog--A _woman_ frog, head helmeted with
+carapace of shell around which a fillet of brilliant yellow jewels
+shone; enormous round eyes of blue circled with a broad iris of green;
+monstrous body of banded orange and white girdled with strand upon
+strand of the flashing yellow gems; six feet high if an inch, and with
+one webbed paw of its short, powerfully muscled forelegs resting upon
+the white shoulder of the golden-eyed girl!
+
+Moments must have passed as we stood in stark amazement, gazing at
+that incredible apparition. The two figures, although as real as any
+of those who stood beside me, unphantomlike as it is possible to be,
+had a distinct suggestion of--projection.
+
+They were there before us--golden-eyed girl and grotesque
+frog-woman--complete in every line and curve; and still it was as
+though their bodies passed back through distances; as though, to try
+to express the wellnigh inexpressible, the two shapes we were looking
+upon were the end of an infinite number stretching in fine linked
+chain far away, of which the eyes saw only the nearest, while in the
+brain some faculty higher than sight recognized and registered the
+unseen others.
+
+The gigantic eyes of the frog-woman took us all in--unwinkingly.
+Little glints of phosphorescence shone out within the metallic green
+of the outer iris ring. She stood upright, her great legs bowed; the
+monstrous slit of a mouth slightly open, revealing a row of white
+teeth sharp and pointed as lancets; the paw resting on the girl's
+shoulder, half covering its silken surface, and from its five webbed
+digits long yellow claws of polished horn glistened against the
+delicate texture of the flesh.
+
+But if the frog-woman regarded us all, not so did the maiden of the
+rosy wall. Her eyes were fastened upon Larry, drinking him in with
+extraordinary intentness. She was tall, far over the average of women,
+almost as tall, indeed, as O'Keefe himself; not more than twenty years
+old, if that, I thought. Abruptly she leaned forward, the golden eyes
+softened and grew tender; the red lips moved as though she were
+speaking.
+
+Larry took a quick step, and his face was that of one who after
+countless births comes at last upon the twin soul lost to him for
+ages. The frog-woman turned her eyes upon the girl; her huge lips
+moved, and I knew that she was talking! The girl held out a warning
+hand to O'Keefe, and then raised it, resting each finger upon one of
+the five flowers of the carved vine close beside her. Once, twice,
+three times, she pressed upon the flower centres, and I noted that her
+hand was curiously long and slender, the digits like those wonderful
+tapering ones the painters we call the primitive gave to their
+Virgins.
+
+Three times she pressed the flowers, and then looked intently at Larry
+once more. A slow, sweet smile curved the crimson lips. She stretched
+both hands out toward him again eagerly; a burning blush rose swiftly
+over white breasts and flowerlike face.
+
+Like the clicking out of a cinematograph, the pulsing oval faded and
+golden-eyed girl and frog-woman were gone!
+
+And thus it was that Lakla, the handmaiden of the Silent Ones, and
+Larry O'Keefe first looked into each other's hearts!
+
+Larry stood rapt, gazing at the stone.
+
+"Eilidh," I heard him whisper; "Eilidh of the lips like the red, red
+rowan and the golden-brown hair!"
+
+"Clearly of the Ranadae," said Marakinoff, "a development of the
+fossil Labyrinthodonts: you saw her teeth, da?"
+
+"Ranadae, yes," I answered.  "But from the Stegocephalia; of the order
+Ecaudata--"
+
+Never such a complete indignation as was in O'Keefe's voice as he
+interrupted.
+
+"What do you mean--fossils and Stego whatever it is?" he asked.  "She
+was a girl, a wonder girl--a real girl, and Irish, or I'm not an
+O'Keefe!"
+
+"We were talking about the frog-woman, Larry," I said, conciliatingly.
+
+His eyes were wild as he regarded us.
+
+"Say," he said, "if you two had been in the Garden of Eden when Eve
+took the apple, you wouldn't have had time to give her a look for
+counting the scales on the snake!"
+
+He strode swiftly over to the wall.  We followed.  Larry paused,
+stretched his hand up to the flowers on which the tapering fingers of
+the golden-eyed girl had rested.
+
+"It was here she put up her hand," he murmured.  He pressed
+caressingly the carved calyxes, once, twice, a third time even as she
+had--and silently and softly the wall began to split; on each side a
+great stone pivoted slowly, and before us a portal stood, opening into
+a narrow corridor glowing with the same rosy lustre that had gleamed
+around the flame-tipped shadows!
+
+"Have your gun ready, Olaf!" said Larry.  "We follow Golden Eyes," he
+said to me.
+
+"Follow?" I echoed stupidly.
+
+"Follow!" he said.  "She came to show us the way!  Follow? I'd follow
+her through a thousand hells!"
+
+And with Olaf at one end, O'Keefe at the other, both of them with
+automatics in hand, and Marakinoff and I between them, we stepped over
+the threshold.
+
+At our right, a few feet away, the passage ended abruptly in a square
+of polished stone, from which came faint rose radiance. The roof of
+the place was less than two feet over O'Keefe's head.
+
+A yard at left of us lifted a four-foot high, gently curved barricade,
+stretching from wall to wall--and beyond it was blackness; an utter
+and appalling blackness that seemed to gather itself from infinite
+depths. The rose-glow in which we stood was cut off by the blackness
+as though it had substance; it shimmered out to meet it, and was
+checked as though by a blow; indeed, so strong was the suggestion of
+sinister, straining force within the rayless opacity that I shrank
+back, and Marakinoff with me. Not so O'Keefe. Olaf beside him, he
+strode to the wall and peered over. He beckoned us.
+
+"Flash your pocket-light down there," he said to me, pointing into the
+thick darkness below us. The little electric circle quivered down as
+though afraid, and came to rest upon a surface that resembled nothing
+so much as clear, black ice. I ran the light across--here and there.
+The floor of the corridor was of a substance so smooth, so polished,
+that no man could have walked upon it; it sloped downward at a slowly
+increasing angle.
+
+"We'd have to have non-skid chains and brakes on our feet to tackle
+that," mused Larry. Abstractedly be ran his hands over the edge on
+which he was leaning. Suddenly they hesitated and then gripped
+tightly.
+
+"That's a queer one!" he exclaimed.  His right palm was resting upon a
+rounded protuberance, on the side of which were three small circular
+indentations.
+
+"A queer one--" he repeated--and pressed his fingers upon the circles.
+
+There was a sharp click; the slabs that had opened to let us through
+swung swiftly together; a curiously rapid vibration thrilled through
+us, a wind arose and passed over our heads--a wind that grew and grew
+until it became a whistling shriek, then a roar and then a mighty
+humming, to which every atom in our bodies pulsed in rhythm painful
+almost to disintegration!
+
+The rosy wall dwindled in a flash to a point of light and disappeared!
+
+Wrapped in the clinging, impenetrable blackness we were racing,
+dropping, hurling at a frightful speed--where?
+
+And ever that awful humming of the rushing wind and the lightning
+cleaving of the tangible dark--so, it came to me oddly, must the newly
+released soul race through the sheer blackness of outer space up to
+that Throne of Justice, where God sits high above all suns!
+
+I felt Marakinoff creep close to me; gripped my nerve and flashed my
+pocket-light; saw Larry standing, peering, peering ahead, and
+Huldricksson, one strong arm around his shoulders, bracing him. And
+then the speed began to slacken.
+
+Millions of miles, it seemed, below the sound of the unearthly
+hurricane I heard Larry's voice, thin and ghostlike, beneath its
+clamour.
+
+"Got it!" shrilled the voice.  "Got it!  Don't worry!"
+
+The wind died down to the roar, passed back into the whistling shriek
+and diminished to a steady whisper. In the comparative quiet O'Keefe's
+tones now came in normal volume.
+
+"Some little shoot-the-chutes, what?" he shouted.  "Say--if they had
+this at Coney Island or the Crystal Palace! Press all the way in these
+holes and she goes top-high. Diminish pressure--diminish speed. The
+curve of this--dashboard--here sends the wind shooting up over our
+heads--like a windshield. What's behind you?"
+
+I flashed the light back.  The mechanism on which we were ended in
+another wall exactly similar to that over which O'Keefe crouched.
+
+"Well, we can't fall out, anyway," he laughed.  "Wish to hell I knew
+where the brakes were! Look out!"
+
+We dropped dizzily down an abrupt, seemingly endless slope; fell--fell
+as into an abyss--then shot abruptly out of the blackness into a
+throbbing green radiance. O'Keefe's fingers must have pressed down
+upon the controls, for we leaped forward almost with the speed of
+light. I caught a glimpse of luminous immensities on the verge of
+which we flew; of depths inconceivable, and flitting through the
+incredible spaces--gigantic shadows as of the wings of Israfel, which
+are so wide, say the Arabs, the world can cower under them like a
+nestling--and then--again the living blackness!
+
+"What was that?" This from Larry, with the nearest approach to awe
+that he had yet shown.
+
+"Trolldom!" croaked the voice of Olaf.
+
+"Chert!"  This from Marakinoff.  "What a space!"
+
+"Have you considered, Dr. Goodwin," he went on after a pause, "a
+curious thing? We know, or, at least, is it not that nine out of ten
+astronomers believe, that the moon was hurled out of this same region
+we now call the Pacific when the earth was yet like molasses; almost
+molten, I should say. And is it not curious that that which comes from
+the Moon Chamber needs the moon-rays to bring it forth; is it not? And
+is it not significant again that the stone depends upon the moon for
+operating? Da! And last--such a space in mother earth as we just
+glimpsed, how else could it have been torn but by some gigantic
+birth--like that of the moon? Da! I do not put forward these as
+statements of fact--no! But as suggestions--"
+
+I started; there was so much that this might explain--an unknown
+element that responded to the moon-rays in opening the moon door; the
+blue Pool with its weird radioactivity, and the force within it that
+reacted to the same light stream--
+
+It was not inconceivable that a film had drawn over the world wound, a
+film of earth-flesh which drew itself over that colossal abyss after
+our planet had borne its satellite--that world womb did not close
+when her shining child sprang forth--it was possible; and all that we
+know of earth depth is four miles of her eight thousand.
+
+What is there at the heart of earth?  What of that radiant unknown
+element upon the moon mount Tycho? What of that element unknown to us
+as part of earth which is seen only in the corona of the sun at
+eclipse that we call coronium? Yet the earth is child of the sun as
+the moon is earth's daughter. And what of that other unknown element
+we find glowing green in the far-flung nebulae--green as that we had
+just passed through--and that we call nebulium? Yet the sun is child
+of the nebulae as the earth is child of the sun and the moon is child
+of the earth.
+
+And what miracles are there in coronium and nebulium which, as the
+child of nebula and sun, we inherit? Yes--and in Tycho's enigma which
+came from earth heart?
+
+We were flashing down to earth heart!  And what miracles were hidden
+there?
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+The End of the Journey
+
+"Say Doc!" It was Larry's voice flung back at me.  "I was thinking
+about that frog. I think it was her pet. Damn me if I see any
+difference between a frog and a snake, and one of the nicest women I
+ever knew had two pet pythons that followed her around like kittens.
+Not such a devilish lot of choice between a frog and a snake--except
+on the side of the frog? What? Anyway, any pet that girl wants is
+hers, I don't care if it's a leaping twelve-toed lobster or a
+whale-bodied scorpion. Get me?"
+
+By which I knew that our remarks upon the frog woman were still
+bothering O'Keefe.
+
+"He thinks of foolish nothings like the foolish sailor!" grunted
+Marakinoff, acid contempt in his words. "What are their women
+to--this?" He swept out a hand and as though at a signal the car
+poised itself for an instant, then dipped, literally dipped down into
+sheer space; skimmed forward in what was clearly curved flight, rose
+as upon a sweeping upgrade and then began swiftly to slacken its
+fearful speed.
+
+Far ahead a point of light showed; grew steadily; we were within
+it--and softly all movement ceased. How acute had been the strain of
+our journey I did not realize until I tried to stand--and sank back,
+leg-muscles too shaky to bear my weight. The car rested in a slit in
+the centre of a smooth walled chamber perhaps twenty feet square. The
+wall facing us was pierced by a low doorway through which we could see
+a flight of steps leading downward.
+
+The light streamed through a small opening, the base of which was
+twice a tall man's height from the floor. A curving flight of broad,
+low steps led up to it. And now it came to my steadying brain that
+there was something puzzling, peculiar, strangely unfamiliar about
+this light. It was silvery, shaded faintly with a delicate blue and
+flushed lightly with a nacreous rose; but a rose that differed from
+that of the terraces of the Pool Chamber as the rose within the opal
+differs from that within the pearl. In it were tiny, gleaming points
+like the motes in a sunbeam, but sparkling white like the dust of
+diamonds, and with a quality of vibrant vitality; they were as though
+they were alive. The light cast no shadows!
+
+A little breeze came through the oval and played about us. It was
+laden with what seemed the mingled breath of spice flowers and pines.
+It was curiously vivifying, and in it the diamonded atoms of light
+shook and danced.
+
+I stepped out of the car, the Russian following, and began to ascend
+the curved steps toward the opening, at the top of which O'Keefe and
+Olaf already stood. As they looked out I saw both their faces
+change--Olaf's with awe, O'Keefe's with incredulous amaze. I hurried
+to their side.
+
+At first all that I could see was space--a space filled with the same
+coruscating effulgence that pulsed about me. I glanced upward, obeying
+that instinctive impulse of earth folk that bids them seek within the
+sky for sources of light. There was no sky--at least no sky such as we
+know--all was a sparkling nebulosity rising into infinite distances as
+the azure above the day-world seems to fill all the heavens--through
+it ran pulsing waves and flashing javelin rays that were like shining
+shadows of the aurora; echoes, octaves lower, of those brilliant
+arpeggios and chords that play about the poles. My eyes fell beneath
+its splendour; I stared outward.
+
+Miles away, gigantic luminous cliffs sprang sheer from the limits of a
+lake whose waters were of milky opalescence. It was from these cliffs
+that the spangled radiance came, shimmering out from all their
+lustrous surfaces. To left and to right, as far as the eye could see,
+they stretched--and they vanished in the auroral nebulosity on high!
+
+"Look at that!" exclaimed Larry.  I followed his pointing finger.  On
+the face of the shining wall, stretched between two colossal columns,
+hung an incredible veil; prismatic, gleaming with all the colours of
+the spectrum. It was like a web of rainbows woven by the fingers of
+the daughters of the Jinn. In front of it and a little at each side
+was a semi-circular pier, or, better, a plaza of what appeared to be
+glistening, pale-yellow ivory. At each end of its half-circle
+clustered a few low-walled, rose-stone structures, each of them
+surmounted by a number of high, slender pinnacles.
+
+We looked at each other, I think, a bit helplessly--and back again
+through the opening. We were standing, as I have said, at its base.
+The wall in which it was set was at least ten feet thick, and so, of
+course, all that we could see of that which was without were the
+distances that revealed themselves above the outer ledge of the oval.
+
+"Let's take a look at what's under us," said Larry.
+
+He crept out upon the ledge and peered down, the rest of us following.
+A hundred yards beneath us stretched gardens that must have been like
+those of many-columned Iram, which the ancient Addite King had built
+for his pleasure ages before the deluge, and which Allah, so the Arab
+legend tells, took and hid from man, within the Sahara, beyond all
+hope of finding--jealous because they were more beautiful than his in
+paradise. Within them flowers and groves of laced, fernlike trees,
+pillared pavilions nestled.
+
+The trunks of the trees were of emerald, of vermilion, and of
+azure-blue, and the blossoms, whose fragrance was borne to us, shone
+like jewels. The graceful pillars were tinted delicately. I noted that
+the pavilions were double--in a way, two-storied--and that they were
+oddly splotched with circles, with squares, and with oblongs
+of--opacity; noted too that over many this opacity stretched like a
+roof; yet it did not seem material; rather was it--impenetrable
+shadow!
+
+Down through this city of gardens ran a broad shining green
+thoroughfare, glistening like glass and spanned at regular intervals
+with graceful, arched bridges. The road flashed to a wide square,
+where rose, from a base of that same silvery stone that formed the lip
+of the Moon Pool, a titanic structure of seven terraces; and along it
+flitted objects that bore a curious resemblance to the shell of the
+Nautilus. Within them were--human figures! And upon tree-bordered
+promenades on each side walked others!
+
+Far to the right we caught the glint of another emerald-paved road.
+
+And between the two the gardens grew sweetly down to the hither side
+of that opalescent water across which were the radiant cliffs and the
+curtain of mystery.
+
+Thus it was that we first saw the city of the Dweller; blessed and
+accursed as no place on earth, or under or above earth has ever
+been--or, that force willing which some call God, ever again shall be!
+
+"Chert!" whispered Marakinoff.  "Incredible!"
+
+"Trolldom!" gasped Olaf Huldricksson.  "It is Trolldom!"
+
+"Listen, Olaf!" said Larry.  "Cut out that Trolldom stuff! There's no
+Trolldom, or fairies, outside Ireland. Get that! And this isn't
+Ireland. And, buck up, Professor!" This to Marakinoff. "What you see
+down there are people--_just plain people_. And wherever there's people
+is where I live. Get me?
+
+"There's no way in but in--and no way out but out," said O'Keefe.
+"And there's the stairway. Eggs are eggs no matter how they're
+cooked--and people are just people, fellow travellers, no matter what
+dish they are in," he concluded. "Come on!"
+
+With the three of us close behind him, he marched toward the entrance.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+Yolara, Priestess of the Shining One
+
+"You'd better have this handy, Doc." O'Keefe paused at the head of the
+stairway and handed me one of the automatics he had taken from
+Marakinoff.
+
+"Shall I not have one also?" rather anxiously asked the latter.
+
+"When you need it you'll get it," answered O'Keefe.  "I'll tell you
+frankly, though, Professor, that you'll have to show me before I trust
+you with a gun. You shoot too straight--from cover."
+
+The flash of anger in the Russian's eyes turned to a cold
+consideration.
+
+"You say always just what is in your mind, Lieutenant O'Keefe," he
+mused. "Da--that I shall remember!" Later I was to recall this odd
+observation--and Marakinoff was to remember indeed.
+
+In single file, O'Keefe at the head and Olaf bringing up the rear, we
+passed through the portal. Before us dropped a circular shaft, into
+which the light from the chamber of the oval streamed liquidly; set in
+its sides the steps spiralled, and down them we went, cautiously. The
+stairway ended in a circular well; silent--with no trace of exit! The
+rounded stones joined each other evenly--hermetically. Carved on one
+of the slabs was one of the five flowered vines. I pressed my fingers
+upon the calyxes, even as Larry had within the Moon Chamber.
+
+A crack--horizontal, four feet wide--appeared on the wall; widened,
+and as the sinking slab that made it dropped to the level of our eyes,
+we looked through a hundred-feet-long rift in the living rock! The
+stone fell steadily--and we saw that it was a Cyclopean wedge set
+within the slit of the passageway. It reached the level of our feet
+and stopped. At the far end of this tunnel, whose floor was the
+polished rock that had, a moment before, fitted hermetically into its
+roof, was a low, narrow triangular opening through which light
+streamed.
+
+"Nowhere to go but out!" grinned Larry.  "And I'll bet Golden Eyes is
+waiting for us with a taxi!" He stepped forward. We followed,
+slipping, sliding along the glassy surface; and I, for one, had a
+lively apprehension of what our fate would be should that enormous
+mass rise before we had emerged! We reached the end; crept out of the
+narrow triangle that was its exit.
+
+We stood upon a wide ledge carpeted with a thick yellow moss.  I
+looked behind--and clutched O'Keefe's arm. The door through which we
+had come had vanished! There was only a precipice of pale rock, on
+whose surfaces great patches of the amber moss hung; around whose base
+our ledge ran, and whose summits, if summits it had, were hidden, like
+the luminous cliffs, in the radiance above us.
+
+"Nowhere to go but ahead--and Golden Eyes hasn't kept her date!"
+laughed O'Keefe--but somewhat grimly.
+
+We walked a few yards along the ledge and, rounding a corner, faced
+the end of one of the slender bridges. From this vantage point the
+oddly shaped vehicles were plain, and we could see they were, indeed,
+like the shell of the Nautilus and elfinly beautiful. Their drivers
+sat high upon the forward whorl. Their bodies were piled high with
+cushions, upon which lay women half-swathed in gay silken webs. From
+the pavilioned gardens smaller channels of glistening green ran into
+the broad way, much as automobile runways do on earth; and in and out
+of them flashed the fairy shells.
+
+There came a shout from one.  Its occupants had glimpsed us. They
+pointed; others stopped and stared; one shell turned and sped up a
+runway--and quickly over the other side of the bridge came a score of
+men. They were dwarfed--none of them more than five feet high,
+prodigiously broad of shoulder, clearly enormously powerful.
+
+"Trolde!" muttered Olaf, stepping beside O'Keefe, pistol swinging free
+in his hand.
+
+But at the middle of the bridge the leader stopped, waved back his
+men, and came toward us alone, palms outstretched in the immemorial,
+universal gesture of truce. He paused, scanning us with manifest
+wonder; we returned the scrutiny with interest. The dwarf's face was
+as white as Olaf's--far whiter than those of the other three of us;
+the features clean-cut and noble, almost classical; the wide set eyes
+of a curious greenish grey and the black hair curling over his head
+like that on some old Greek statue.
+
+Dwarfed though he was, there was no suggestion of deformity about him.
+The gigantic shoulders were covered with a loose green tunic that
+looked like fine linen. It was caught in at the waist by a broad
+girdle studded with what seemed to be amazonites. In it was thrust a
+long curved poniard resembling the Malaysian kris. His legs were
+swathed in the same green cloth as the upper garment. His feet were
+sandalled.
+
+My gaze returned to his face, and in it I found something subtly
+disturbing; an expression of half-malicious gaiety that underlay the
+wholly prepossessing features like a vague threat; a mocking deviltry
+that hinted at entire callousness to suffering or sorrow; something of
+the spirit that was vaguely alien and disquieting.
+
+He spoke--and, to my surprise, enough of the words were familiar to
+enable me clearly to catch the meaning of the whole. They were
+Polynesian, the Polynesian of the Samoans which is its most ancient
+form, but in some indefinable way--archaic. Later I was to know that
+the tongue bore the same relation to the Polynesian of today as does
+_not_ that of Chaucer, but of the Venerable Bede, to modern English.
+Nor was this to be so astonishing, when with the knowledge came the
+certainty that it was from it the language we call Polynesian sprang.
+
+"From whence do you come, strangers--and how found you your way here?"
+said the green dwarf.
+
+I waved my hand toward the cliff behind us.  His eyes narrowed
+incredulously; he glanced at its drop, upon which even a mountain goat
+could not have made its way, and laughed.
+
+"We came through the rock," I answered his thought. "And we come in
+peace," I added.
+
+"And may peace walk with you," he said half-derisively--"if the
+Shining One wills it!"
+
+He considered us again.
+
+"Show me, strangers, where you came through the rock," he commanded.
+We led the way to where we had emerged from the well of the stairway.
+
+"It was here," I said, tapping the cliff.
+
+"But I see no opening," he said suavely.
+
+"It closed behind us," I answered; and then, for the first time,
+realized how incredible the explanation sounded. The derisive gleam
+passed through his eyes again. But he drew his poniard and gravely
+sounded the rock.
+
+"You give a strange turn to our speech," he said.  "It sounds
+strangely, indeed--as strange as your answers." He looked at us
+quizzically. "I wonder where you learned it! Well, all that you can
+explain to the Afyo Maie." His head bowed and his arms swept out in a
+wide salaam. "Be pleased to come with me!" he ended abruptly.
+
+"In peace?" I asked.
+
+"In peace," he replied--then slowly--"with me at least."
+
+"Oh, come on, Doc!" cried Larry.  "As long as we're here let's see the
+sights. Allons mon vieux!" he called gaily to the green dwarf. The
+latter, understanding the spirit, if not the words, looked at O'Keefe
+with a twinkle of approval; turned then to the great Norseman and
+scanned him with admiration; reached out and squeezed one of the
+immense biceps.
+
+"Lugur will welcome you, at least," he murmured as though to himself.
+He stood aside and waved a hand courteously, inviting us to pass. We
+crossed. At the base of the span one of the elfin shells was waiting.
+
+Beyond, scores had gathered, their occupants evidently discussing us
+in much excitement. The green dwarf waved us to the piles of cushions
+and then threw himself beside us. The vehicle started off smoothly,
+the now silent throng making way, and swept down the green roadway at
+a terrific pace and wholly without vibration, toward the
+seven-terraced tower.
+
+As we flew along I tried to discover the source of the power, but I
+could not--then. There was no sign of mechanism, but that the shell
+responded to some form of energy was certain--the driver grasping a
+small lever which seemed to control not only our speed, but our
+direction.
+
+We turned abruptly and swept up a runway through one of the gardens,
+and stopped softly before a pillared pavilion. I saw now that these
+were much larger than I had thought. The structure to which we had
+been carried covered, I estimated, fully an acre. Oblong, with its
+slender, vari-coloured columns spaced regularly, its walls were like
+the sliding screens of the Japanese--shoji.
+
+The green dwarf hurried us up a flight of broad steps flanked by great
+carved serpents, winged and scaled. He stamped twice upon mosaicked
+stones between two of the pillars, and a screen rolled aside,
+revealing an immense hall scattered about with low divans on which
+lolled a dozen or more of the dwarfish men, dressed identically as he.
+
+They sauntered up to us leisurely; the surprised interest in their
+faces tempered by the same inhumanly gay malice that seemed to be
+characteristic of all these people we had as yet seen.
+
+"The Afyo Maie awaits them, Rador," said one.
+
+The green dwarf nodded, beckoned us, and led the way through the great
+hall and into a smaller chamber whose far side was covered with the
+opacity I had noted from the aerie of the cliff. I examined
+the--blackness--with lively interest.
+
+It had neither substance nor texture; it was not matter--and yet it
+suggested solidity; an entire cessation, a complete absorption of
+light; an ebon veil at once immaterial and palpable. I stretched,
+involuntarily, my hand out toward it, and felt it quickly drawn back.
+
+"Do you seek your end so soon?" whispered Rador.  "But I forget--you
+do not know," he added. "On your life touch not the blackness, ever.
+It--"
+
+He stopped, for abruptly in the density a portal appeared; swinging
+out of the shadow like a picture thrown by a lantern upon a screen.
+Through it was revealed a chamber filled with a soft rosy glow. Rising
+from cushioned couches, a woman and a man regarded us, half leaning
+over a long, low table of what seemed polished jet, laden with flowers
+and unfamiliar fruits.
+
+About the room--that part of it, at least, that I could see--were a
+few oddly shaped chairs of the same substance. On high, silvery
+tripods three immense globes stood, and it was from them that the rose
+glow emanated. At the side of the woman was a smaller globe whose
+roseate gleam was tempered by quivering waves of blue.
+
+"Enter Rador with the strangers!" a clear, sweet voice called.
+
+Rador bowed deeply and stood aside, motioning us to pass.  We entered,
+the green dwarf behind us, and out of the corner of my eye I saw the
+doorway fade as abruptly as it had appeared and again the dense shadow
+fill its place.
+
+"Come closer, strangers.  Be not afraid!" commanded the bell-toned
+voice.
+
+We approached.
+
+The woman, sober scientist that I am, made the breath catch in my
+throat. Never had I seen a woman so beautiful as was Yolara of the
+Dweller's city--and none of so perilous a beauty. Her hair was of the
+colour of the young tassels of the corn and coiled in a regal crown
+above her broad, white brows; her wide eyes were of grey that could
+change to a cornflower blue and in anger deepen to purple; grey or
+blue, they had little laughing devils within them, but when the storm
+of anger darkened them--they were not laughing, no! The silken webs
+that half covered, half revealed her did not hide the ivory whiteness
+of her flesh nor the sweet curve of shoulders and breasts. But for all
+her amazing beauty, she was--sinister! There was cruelty about the
+curving mouth, and in the music of her voice--not conscious cruelty,
+but the more terrifying, careless cruelty of nature itself.
+
+The girl of the rose wall had been beautiful, yes!  But her beauty was
+human, understandable. You could imagine her with a babe in her
+arms--but you could not so imagine this woman. About her loveliness
+hovered something unearthly. A sweet feminine echo of the Dweller was
+Yolara, the Dweller's priestess--and as gloriously, terrifyingly evil!
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+The Justice of Lora
+
+As I looked at her the man arose and made his way round the table
+toward us. For the first time my eyes took in Lugur. A few inches
+taller than the green dwarf, he was far broader, more filled with the
+suggestion of appalling strength.
+
+The tremendous shoulders were four feet wide if an inch, tapering down
+to mighty thewed thighs. The muscles of his chest stood out beneath
+his tunic of red. Around his forehead shone a chaplet of bright-blue
+stones, sparkling among the thick curls of his silver-ash hair.
+
+Upon his face pride and ambition were written large--and power still
+larger. All the mockery, the malice, the hint of callous indifference
+that I had noted in the other dwarfish men were there, too--but
+intensified, touched with the satanic.
+
+The woman spoke again.
+
+"Who are you strangers, and how came you here?"  She turned to Rador.
+"Or is it that they do not understand our tongue?"
+
+"One understands and speaks it--but very badly, O Yolara," answered
+the green dwarf.
+
+"Speak, then, that one of you," she commanded.
+
+But it was Marakinoff who found his voice first, and I marvelled at
+the fluency, so much greater than mine, with which he spoke.
+
+"We came for different purposes.  I to seek knowledge of a kind;
+he"--pointing to me "of another. This man"--he looked at Olaf--"to
+find a wife and child."
+
+The grey-blue eyes had been regarding O'Keefe steadily and with
+plainly increasing interest.
+
+"And why did _you_ come?" she asked him.  "Nay--I would have him speak
+for himself, if he can," she stilled Marakinoff peremptorily.
+
+When Larry spoke it was haltingly, in the tongue that was strange to
+him, searching for the proper words.
+
+"I came to help these men--and because something I could not then
+understand called me, O lady, whose eyes are like forest pools at
+dawn," he answered; and even in the unfamiliar words there was a touch
+of the Irish brogue, and little merry lights danced in the eyes Larry
+had so apostrophized.
+
+"I could find fault with your speech, but none with its burden," she
+said. "What forest pools are I know not, and the dawn has not shone
+upon the people of Lora these many sais of laya.[1] But I sense what you
+mean!"
+
+The eyes deepened to blue as she regarded him.  She smiled.
+
+"Are there many like you in the world from which you come?" she asked
+softly. "Well, we soon shall--"
+
+Lugur interrupted her almost rudely and glowering.
+
+"Best we should know how they came hence," he growled.
+
+She darted a quick look at him, and again the little devils danced in
+her wondrous eyes.
+
+
+[Unquestionably there is a subtle difference between time as we know it
+and time in this subterranean land--its progress there being slower.
+This, however, is only in accord with the well-known doctrine of
+relativity, which predicates both space and time as necessary
+inventions of the human mind to orient itself to the conditions under
+which it finds itself. I tried often to measure this difference, but
+could never do so to my entire satisfaction. The closest I can come to
+it is to say that an hour of our time is the equivalent of an hour and
+five-eighths in Muria. For further information upon this matter of
+relativity the reader may consult any of the numerous books upon the
+subject.--W. T. G.]
+
+
+"Yes, that is true," she said.  "How came you here?"
+
+Again it was Marakinoff who answered--slowly, considering every word.
+
+"In the world above," he said, "there are ruins of cities not built by
+any of those who now dwell there. To us these places called, and we
+sought for knowledge of the wise ones who made them. We found a
+passageway. The way led us downward to a door in yonder cliff, and
+through it we came here."
+
+"Then have you found what you sought?" spoke she.  "For we are of
+those who built the cities. But this gateway in the rock--where is
+it?"
+
+"After we passed, it closed upon us; nor could we after find trace of
+it," answered Marakinoff.
+
+The incredulity that had shown upon the face of the green dwarf fell
+upon theirs; on Lugur's it was clouded with furious anger.
+
+He turned to Rador.
+
+"I could find no opening, lord," said the green dwarf quickly.
+
+And there was so fierce a fire in the eyes of Lugur as he swung back
+upon us that O'Keefe's hand slipped stealthily down toward his pistol.
+
+"Best it is to speak truth to Yolara, priestess of the Shining One,
+and to Lugur, the Voice," he cried menacingly.
+
+"It is the truth," I interposed.  "We came down the passage.  At its
+end was a carved vine, a vine of five flowers"--the fire died from the
+red dwarf's eyes, and I could have sworn to a swift pallor. "I rested
+a hand upon these flowers, and a door opened. But when we had gone
+through it and turned, behind us was nothing but unbroken cliff. The
+door had vanished."
+
+I had taken my cue from Marakinoff.  If he had eliminated the episode
+of car and Moon Pool, he had good reason, I had no doubt; and I would
+be as cautious. And deep within me something cautioned me to say
+nothing of my quest; to stifle all thought of Throckmartin--something
+that warned, peremptorily, finally, as though it were a message from
+Throckmartin himself!
+
+"A vine with five flowers!" exclaimed the red dwarf.  "Was it like
+this, say?"
+
+He thrust forward a long arm.  Upon the thumb of the hand was an
+immense ring, set with a dull-blue stone. Graven on the face of the
+jewel was the symbol of the rosy walls of the Moon Chamber that had
+opened to us their two portals. But cut over the vine were seven
+circles, one about each of the flowers and two larger ones covering,
+intersecting them.
+
+"This is the same," I said; "but these were not there"--I indicated
+the circles.
+
+The woman drew a deep breath and looked deep into Lugur's eyes.
+
+"The sign of the Silent Ones!" he half whispered.
+
+It was the woman who first recovered herself.
+
+"The strangers are weary, Lugur," she said.  "When they are rested
+they shall show where the rocks opened."
+
+I sensed a subtle change in their attitude toward us; a new
+intentness; a doubt plainly tinged with apprehension. What was it they
+feared? Why had the symbol of the vine wrought the change? And who or
+what were the Silent Ones?
+
+Yolara's eyes turned to Olaf, hardened, and grew cold grey.
+Subconsciously I had noticed that from the first the Norseman had been
+absorbed in his regard of the pair; had, indeed, never taken his gaze
+from them; had noticed, too, the priestess dart swift glances toward
+him.
+
+He returned her scrutiny fearlessly, a touch of contempt in the clear
+eyes--like a child watching a snake which he did not dread, but whose
+danger be well knew.
+
+Under that look Yolara stirred impatiently, sensing, I know, its
+meaning.
+
+"Why do you look at me so?" she cried.
+
+An expression of bewilderment passed over Olaf's face.
+
+"I do not understand," he said in English.
+
+I caught a quickly repressed gleam in O'Keefe's eyes.  He knew, as I
+knew, that Olaf must have understood. But did Marakinoff?
+
+Apparently he did not.  But why was Olaf feigning ignorance?
+
+"This man is a sailor from what we call the North," thus Larry
+haltingly. "He is crazed, I think. He tells a strange tale of a
+something of cold fire that took his wife and babe. We found him
+wandering where we were. And because he is strong we brought him with
+us. That is all, O lady, whose voice is sweeter than the honey of the
+wild bees!"
+
+"A shape of cold fire?" she repeated.
+
+"A shape of cold fire that whirled beneath the moon, with the sound of
+little bells," answered Larry, watching her intently.
+
+She looked at Lugur and laughed.
+
+"Then he, too, is fortunate," she said.  "For he has come to the place
+of his something of cold fire--and tell him that he shall join his
+wife and child, in time; that I promise him."
+
+Upon the Norseman's face there was no hint of comprehension, and at
+that moment I formed an entirely new opinion of Olaf's intelligence;
+for certainly it must have been a prodigious effort of the will,
+indeed, that enabled him, understanding, to control himself.
+
+"What does she say?" he asked.
+
+Larry repeated.
+
+"Good!" said Olaf.  "Good!"
+
+He looked at Yolara with well-assumed gratitude.  Lugur, who had been
+scanning his bulk, drew close. He felt the giant muscles which
+Huldricksson accommodatingly flexed for him.
+
+"But he shall meet Valdor and Tahola before he sees those kin of his,"
+he laughed mockingly. "And if he bests them--for reward--his wife and
+babe!"
+
+A shudder, quickly repressed, shook the seaman's frame. The woman bent
+her supremely beautiful head.
+
+"These two," she said, pointing to the Russian and to me, "seem to be
+men of learning. They may be useful. As for this man,"--she smiled at
+Larry--"I would have him explain to me some things." She hesitated.
+"What 'hon-ey of 'e wild bees-s' is." Larry had spoken the words in
+English, and she was trying to repeat them. "As for this man, the
+sailor, do as you please with him, Lugur; always remembering that I
+have given my word that he shall join that wife and babe of his!" She
+laughed sweetly, sinisterly. "And now--take them, Rador--give them
+food and drink and let them rest till we shall call them again."
+
+She stretched out a hand toward O'Keefe.  The Irishman bowed low over
+it, raised it softly to his lips. There was a vicious hiss from Lugur;
+but Yolara regarded Larry with eyes now all tender blue.
+
+"You please me," she whispered.
+
+And the face of Lugur grew darker.
+
+We turned to go.  The rosy, azure-shot globe at her side suddenly
+dulled. From it came a faint bell sound as of chimes far away. She
+bent over it. It vibrated, and then its surface ran with little waves
+of dull colour; from it came a whispering so low that I could not
+distinguish the words--if words they were.
+
+She spoke to the red dwarf.
+
+"They have brought the three who blasphemed the Shining One," she said
+slowly. "Now it is in my mind to show these strangers the justice of
+Lora. What say you, Lugur?"
+
+The red dwarf nodded, his eyes sparkling with a malicious
+anticipation.
+
+The woman spoke again to the globe.  "Bring them here!"
+
+And again it ran swiftly with its film of colours, darkened, and shone
+rosy once more. From without there came a rustle of many feet upon the
+rugs. Yolara pressed a slender hand upon the base of the pedestal of
+the globe beside her. Abruptly the light faded from all, and on the
+same instant the four walls of blackness vanished, revealing on two
+sides the lovely, unfamiliar garden through the guarding rows of
+pillars; at our backs soft draperies hid what lay beyond; before us,
+flanked by flowered screens, was the corridor through which we had
+entered, crowded now by the green dwarfs of the great hall.
+
+The dwarfs advanced.  Each, I now noted, had the same clustering black
+hair of Rador. They separated, and from them stepped three figures--a
+youth of not more than twenty, short, but with the great shoulders of
+all the males we had seen of this race; a girl of seventeen, I judged,
+white-faced, a head taller than the boy, her long, black hair
+dishevelled; and behind these two a stunted, gnarled shape whose head
+was sunk deep between the enormous shoulders, whose white beard fell
+like that of some ancient gnome down to his waist, and whose eyes were
+a white flame of hate. The girl cast herself weeping at the feet of
+the priestess; the youth regarded her curiously.
+
+"You are Songar of the Lower Waters?" murmured Yolara almost
+caressingly. "And this is your daughter and her lover?"
+
+The gnome nodded, the flame in his eyes leaping higher.
+
+"It has come to me that you three have dared blaspheme the Shining
+One, its priestess, and its Voice," went on Yolara smoothly. "Also
+that you have called out to the three Silent Ones. Is it true?"
+
+"Your spies have spoken--and have you not already judged us?" The
+voice of the old dwarf was bitter.
+
+A flicker shot through the eyes of Yolara, again cold grey. The girl
+reached a trembling hand out to the hem of the priestess's veils.
+
+"Tell us why you did these things, Songar," she said.  "Why you did
+them, knowing full well what your--reward--would be."
+
+The dwarf stiffened; he raised his withered arms, and his eyes blazed.
+
+"Because evil are your thoughts and evil are your deeds," he cried.
+"Yours and your lover's, there"--he levelled a finger at Lugur.
+"Because of the Shining One you have made evil, too, and the greater
+wickedness you contemplate--you and he with the Shining One. But I
+tell you that your measure of iniquity is full; the tale of your sin
+near ended! Yea--the Silent Ones have been patient, but soon they will
+speak." He pointed at us. "A sign are _they_--a warning--harlot!" He
+spat the word.
+
+In Yolara's eyes, grown black, the devils leaped unrestrained.
+
+"Is it even so, Songar?" her voice caressed.  "Now ask the Silent Ones
+to help you! They sit afar--but surely they will hear you." The sweet
+voice was mocking. "As for these two, they shall pray to the Shining
+One for forgiveness--and surely the Shining One will take them to its
+bosom! As for you--you have lived long enough, Songar! Pray to the
+Silent Ones, Songar, and pass out into the nothingness--you!"
+
+She dipped down into her bosom and drew forth something that resembled
+a small cone of tarnished silver. She levelled it, a covering clicked
+from its base, and out of it darted a slender ray of intense green
+light.
+
+It struck the old dwarf squarely over the heart, and spread swift as
+light itself, covering him with a gleaming, pale film. She clenched
+her hand upon the cone, and the ray disappeared. She thrust the cone
+back into her breast and leaned forward expectantly; so Lugur and so
+the other dwarfs. From the girl came a low wail of anguish; the boy
+dropped upon his knees, covering his face.
+
+For the moment the white beard stood rigid; then the robe that had
+covered him seemed to melt away, revealing all the knotted, monstrous
+body. And in that body a vibration began, increasing to incredible
+rapidity. It wavered before us like a reflection in a still pond
+stirred by a sudden wind. It grew and grew--to a rhythm whose rapidity
+was intolerable to watch and that still chained the eyes.
+
+The figure grew indistinct, misty.  Tiny sparks in infinite numbers
+leaped from it--like, I thought, the radiant shower of particles
+hurled out by radium when seen under the microscope. Mistier still it
+grew--there trembled before us for a moment a faintly luminous shadow
+which held, here and there, tiny sparkling atoms like those that
+pulsed in the light about us! The glowing shadow vanished, the
+sparkling atoms were still for a moment--and shot away, joining those
+dancing others.
+
+Where the gnomelike form had been but a few seconds before--there was
+nothing!
+
+O'Keefe drew a long breath, and I was sensible of a prickling along my
+scalp.
+
+Yolara leaned toward us.
+
+"You have seen," she said.  Her eyes lingered tigerishly upon Olaf's
+pallid face. "Heed!" she whispered. She turned to the men in green,
+who were laughing softly among themselves.
+
+"Take these two, and go!" she commanded.
+
+"The justice of Lora," said the red dwarf.  "The justice of Lora and
+the Shining One under Thanaroa!"
+
+Upon the utterance of the last word I saw Marakinoff start violently.
+The hand at his side made a swift, surreptitious gesture, so fleeting
+that I hardly caught it. The red dwarf stared at the Russian, and
+there was amazement upon his face.
+
+Swiftly as Marakinoff, he returned it.
+
+"Yolara," the red dwarf spoke, "it would please me to take this man of
+wisdom to my own place for a time. The giant I would have, too."
+
+The woman awoke from her brooding; nodded.
+
+"As you will, Lugur," she said.
+
+And as, shaken to the core, we passed out into the garden into the
+full throbbing of the light, I wondered if all the tiny sparkling
+diamond points that shook about us had once been men like Songar of
+the Lower Waters--and felt my very soul grow sick!
+
+
+[1] Later I was to find that Murian reckoning rested upon the
+extraordinary increased luminosity of the cliffs at the time of full
+moon on earth--this action, to my mind, being linked either with the
+effect of the light streaming globes upon the Moon Pool, whose source
+was in the shining cliffs, or else upon some mysterious affinity of
+their radiant element with the flood of moonlight on earth--the
+latter, most probably, because even when the moon must have been
+clouded above, it made no difference in the phenomenon. Thirteen of
+these shinings forth constituted a laya, one of them a lat. Ten was
+sa; ten times ten times ten a said, or thousand; ten times a thousand
+was a sais. A sais of laya was then literally ten thousand years. What
+we would call an hour was by them called a va. The whole time system
+was, of course, a mingling of time as it had been known to their
+remote, surface-dwelling ancestors, and the peculiar determining
+factors in the vast cavern.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+The Angry, Whispering Globe
+
+Our way led along a winding path between banked masses of softly
+radiant blooms, groups of feathery ferns whose plumes were starred
+with fragrant white and blue flowerets, slender creepers swinging from
+the branches of the strangely trunked trees, bearing along their
+threads orchid-like blossoms both delicately frail and gorgeously
+flamboyant.
+
+The path we trod was an exquisite mosaic--pastel greens and pinks upon
+a soft grey base, garlands of nimbused forms like the flaming rose of
+the Rosicrucians held in the mouths of the flying serpents. A smaller
+pavilion arose before us, single-storied, front wide open.
+
+Upon its threshold Rador paused, bowed deeply, and motioned us within.
+The chamber we entered was large, closed on two sides by screens of
+grey; at the back gay, concealing curtains. The low table of blue
+stone, dressed with fine white cloths, stretched at one side flanked
+by the cushioned divans.
+
+At the left was a high tripod bearing one of the rosy globes we had
+seen in the house of Yolara; at the head of the table a smaller globe
+similar to the whispering one. Rador pressed upon its base, and two
+other screens slid into place across the entrance, shutting in the
+room.
+
+He clapped his hands; the curtains parted, and two girls came through
+them. Tall and willow lithe, their bluish-black hair falling in
+ringlets just below their white shoulders, their clear eyes of
+forget-me-not blue, and skins of extraordinary fineness and
+purity--they were singularly attractive. Each was clad in an extremely
+scanty bodice of silken blue, girdled above a kirtle that came barely
+to their very pretty knees.
+
+"Food and drink," ordered Rador.
+
+They dropped back through the curtains.
+
+"Do you like them?" he asked us.
+
+"Some chickens!" said Larry.  "They delight the heart," he translated
+for Rador.
+
+The green dwarf's next remark made me gasp.
+
+"They are yours," he said.
+
+Before I could question him further upon this extraordinary statement
+the pair re-entered, bearing a great platter on which were small
+loaves, strange fruits, and three immense flagons of rock crystal--two
+filled with a slightly sparkling yellow liquid and the third with a
+purplish drink. I became acutely sensible that it had been hours since
+I had either eaten or drunk. The yellow flagons were set before Larry
+and me, the purple at Rador's hand.
+
+The girls, at his signal, again withdrew.  I raised my glass to my
+lips and took a deep draft. The taste was unfamiliar but delightful.
+
+Almost at once my fatigue disappeared.  I realized a clarity of mind,
+an interesting exhilaration and sense of irresponsibility, of freedom
+from care, that were oddly enjoyable. Larry became immediately his old
+gay self.
+
+The green dwarf regarded us whimsically, sipping from his great flagon
+of rock crystal.
+
+"Much do I desire to know of that world you came from," he said at
+last--"through the rocks," he added, slyly.
+
+"And much do we desire to know of this world of yours, O Rador," I
+answered.
+
+Should I ask him of the Dweller; seek from him a clue to Throckmartin?
+Again, clearly as a spoken command, came the warning to forbear, to
+wait. And once more I obeyed.
+
+"Let us learn, then, from each other." The dwarf was laughing.  "And
+first--are all above like you--drawn out"--he made an expressive
+gesture--"and are there many of you?"
+
+"There are--" I hesitated, and at last spoke the Polynesian that means
+tens upon tens multiplied indefinitely--"there are as many as the
+drops of water in the lake we saw from the ledge where you found us,"
+I continued; "many as the leaves on the trees without. And they are
+all like us--varyingly."
+
+He considered skeptically, I could see, my remark upon our numbers.
+
+"In Muria," he said at last, "the men are like me or like Lugur.  Our
+women are as you see them--like Yolara or those two who served you."
+He hesitated. "And there is a third; but only one."
+
+Larry leaned forward eagerly.
+
+"Brown-haired with glints of ruddy bronze, golden-eyed, and lovely as
+a dream, with long, slender, beautiful hands?" he cried.
+
+"Where saw you _her_?" interrupted the dwarf, starting to his feet.
+
+"Saw her?" Larry recovered himself.  "Nay, Rador, perhaps, I only
+dreamed that there was such a woman."
+
+"See to it, then, that you tell not your dream to Yolara," said the
+dwarf grimly. "For her I meant and her you have pictured is Lakla, the
+hand-maiden to the Silent Ones, and neither Yolara nor Lugur, nay, nor
+the Shining One, love her overmuch, stranger."
+
+"Does she dwell here?" Larry's face was alight.
+
+The dwarf hesitated, glanced about him anxiously.
+
+"Nay," he answered, "ask me no more of her." He was silent for a
+space. "And what do you who are as leaves or drops of water do in that
+world of yours?" he said, plainly bent on turning the subject.
+
+"Keep off the golden-eyed girl, Larry," I interjected.  "Wait till we
+find out why she's tabu."
+
+"Love and battle, strive and accomplish and die; or fail and die,"
+answered Larry--to Rador--giving me a quick nod of acquiescence to my
+warning in English.
+
+"In that at least your world and mine differ little," said the dwarf.
+
+"How great is this world of yours, Rador?" I spoke.
+
+He considered me gravely.
+
+"How great indeed I do not know," he said frankly at last. "The land
+where we dwell with the Shining One stretches along the white waters
+for--" He used a phrase of which I could make nothing. "Beyond this
+city of the Shining One and on the hither shores of the white waters
+dwell the mayia ladala--the common ones." He took a deep draft from
+his flagon. "There are, first, the fair-haired ones, the children of
+the ancient rulers," he continued. "There are, second, we the
+soldiers; and last, the mayia ladala, who dig and till and weave and
+toil and give our rulers and us their daughters, and dance with the
+Shining One!" he added.
+
+"Who rules?" I asked.
+
+"The fair-haired, under the Council of Nine, who are under Yolara, the
+Priestess and Lugur, the Voice," he answered, "who are in turn beneath
+the Shining One!" There was a ring of bitter satire in the last.
+
+"And those three who were judged?"--this from Larry.
+
+"They were of the mayia ladala," he replied, "like those two I gave
+you. But they grow restless. They do not like to dance with the
+Shining One--the blasphemers!" He raised his voice in a sudden great
+shout of mocking laughter.
+
+In his words I caught a fleeting picture of the race--an ancient,
+luxurious, close-bred oligarchy clustered about some mysterious deity;
+a soldier class that supported them; and underneath all the toiling,
+oppressed hordes.
+
+"And is that all?" asked Larry.
+
+"No," he answered.  "There is the Sea of Crimson where--"
+
+Without warning the globe beside us sent out a vicious note, Rador
+turned toward it, his face paling. Its surface crawled with
+whisperings--angry, peremptory!
+
+"I hear!" he croaked, gripping the table.  "I obey!"
+
+He turned to us a face devoid for once of its malice.
+
+"Ask me no more questions, strangers," he said.  "And now, if you are
+done, I will show you where you may sleep and bathe."
+
+He arose abruptly.  We followed him through the hangings, passed
+through a corridor and into another smaller chamber, roofless, the
+sides walled with screens of dark grey. Two cushioned couches were
+there and a curtained door leading into an open, outer enclosure in
+which a fountain played within a wide pool.
+
+"Your bath," said Rador.  He dropped the curtain and came back into
+the room. He touched a carved flower at one side. There was a tiny
+sighing from overhead and instantly across the top spread a veil of
+blackness, impenetrable to light but certainly not to air, for through
+it pulsed little breaths of the garden fragrances. The room filled
+with a cool twilight, refreshing, sleep-inducing. The green dwarf
+pointed to the couches.
+
+"Sleep!" he said.  "Sleep and fear nothing.  My men are on guard
+outside." He came closer to us, the old mocking gaiety sparkling in
+his eyes.
+
+"But I spoke too quickly," he whispered.  "Whether it is because the
+Afyo Maie fears their tongues--or--" he laughed at Larry. "The maids
+are _not_ yours!" Still laughing he vanished through the curtains of the
+room of the fountain before I could ask him the meaning of his curious
+gift, its withdrawal, and his most enigmatic closing remarks.
+
+"Back in the great old days of Ireland," thus Larry breaking into my
+thoughts raptly, the brogue thick, "there was Cairill mac
+Cairill--Cairill Swiftspear. An' Cairill wronged Keevan of Emhain
+Abhlach, of the blood of Angus of the great people when he was
+sleeping in the likeness of a pale reed. Then Keevan put this penance
+on Cairill--that for a year Cairill should wear his body in Emhain
+Abhlach, which is the Land of Faery and for that year Keevan should
+wear the body of Cairill. And it was done.
+
+"In that year Cairill met Emar of the Birds that are one white, one
+red, and one black--and they loved, and from that love sprang Ailill
+their son. And when Ailill was born he took a reed flute and first he
+played slumber on Cairill, and then he played old age so that Cairill
+grew white and withered; then Ailill played again and Cairill became a
+shadow--then a shadow of a shadow--then a breath; and the breath went
+out upon the wind!" He shivered. "Like the old gnome," he whispered,
+"that they called Songar of the Lower Waters!"
+
+He shook his head as though he cast a dream from him. Then, all
+alert--
+
+"But that was in Iceland ages agone.  And there's nothing like that
+here, Doc!" He laughed. "It doesn't scare me one little bit, old boy.
+The pretty devil lady's got the wrong slant. When you've had a pal
+standing beside you one moment--full of life, and joy, and power, and
+potentialities, telling what he's going to do to make the world hum
+when he gets through the slaughter, just running over with zip and pep
+of life, Doc--and the next instant, right in the middle of a laugh--a
+piece of damned shell takes off half his head and with it joy and
+power and all the rest of it"--his face twitched--"well, old man, in
+the face of _that_ mystery a disappearing act such as the devil lady
+treated us to doesn't make much of a dent. Not on me. But by the
+brogans of Brian Boru--if we could have had some of that stuff to turn
+on during the war--oh, boy!"
+
+He was silent, evidently contemplating the idea with vast pleasure.
+And as for me, at that moment my last doubt of Larry O'Keefe vanished,
+I saw that he did believe, really believed, in his banshees, his
+leprechauns and all the old dreams of the Gael--but only within the
+limits of Ireland.
+
+In one drawer of his mind was packed all his superstition, his
+mysticism, and what of weakness it might carry. But face him with any
+peril or problem and the drawer closed instantaneously leaving a mind
+that was utterly fearless, incredulous, and ingenious; swept clean of
+all cobwebs by as fine a skeptic broom as ever brushed a brain.
+
+"Some stuff!" Deepest admiration was in his voice.  "If we'd only had
+it when the war was on--imagine half a dozen of us scooting over the
+enemy batteries and the gunners underneath all at once beginning to
+shake themselves to pieces! Wow!" His tone was rapturous.
+
+"It's easy enough to explain, Larry," I said.  "The effect, that
+is--for what the green ray is made of I don't know, of course. But
+what it does, clearly, is stimulate atomic vibration to such a pitch
+that the cohesion between the particles of matter is broken and the
+body flies to bits--just as a fly-wheel does when its speed gets so
+great that the particles of which _it_ is made can't hold together."
+
+"Shake themselves to pieces is right, then!" he exclaimed.
+
+"Absolutely right," I nodded.  "Everything in Nature vibrates.  And
+all matter--whether man or beast or stone or metal or vegetable--is
+made up of vibrating molecules, which are made up of vibrating atoms
+which are made up of truly infinitely small particles of electricity
+called electrons, and electrons, the base of all matter, are
+themselves perhaps only a vibration of the mysterious ether.
+
+"If a magnifying glass of sufficient size and strength could be placed
+over us we could see ourselves as sieves--our space lattice, as it is
+called. And all that is necessary to break down the lattice, to shake
+us into nothingness, is some agent that will set our atoms vibrating
+at such a rate that at last they escape the unseen cords and fly off.
+
+"The green ray of Yolara is such an agent.  It set up in the dwarf
+that incredibly rapid rhythm that you saw and--shook him not to
+atoms--but to electrons!"
+
+"They had a gun on the West Front--a seventy-five," said O'Keefe,
+"that broke the eardrums of everybody who fired it, no matter what
+protection they used. It looked like all the other seventy-fives--but
+there was something about its sound that did it. They had to recast
+it."
+
+"It's practically the same thing," I replied.  "By some freak its
+vibratory qualities had that effect. The deep whistle of the sunken
+Lusitania would, for instance, make the Singer Building shake to its
+foundations; while the Olympic did not affect the Singer at all but
+made the Woolworth shiver all through. In each case they stimulated
+the atomic vibration of the particular building--"
+
+I paused, aware all at once of an intense drowsiness. O'Keefe,
+yawning, reached down to unfasten his puttees.
+
+"Lord, I'm sleepy!" he exclaimed.  "Can't understand it--what you
+say--most--interesting--Lord!" he yawned again; straightened. "What
+made Reddy take such a shine to the Russian?" he asked.
+
+"Thanaroa," I answered, fighting to keep my eyes open.
+
+"What?"
+
+"When Lugur spoke that name I saw Marakinoff signal him.  Thanaroa is,
+I suspect, the original form of the name of Tangaroa, the greatest god
+of the Polynesians. There's a secret cult to him in the islands.
+Marakinoff may belong to it--he knows it anyway. Lugur recognized the
+signal and despite his surprise answered it."
+
+"So he gave him the high sign, eh?" mused Larry.  "How could they both
+know it?"
+
+"The cult is a very ancient one.  Undoubtedly it had its origin in the
+dim beginnings before these people migrated here," I replied. "It's a
+link--one--of the few links between up there and the lost past--"
+
+"Trouble then," mumbled Larry.  "Hell brewing!  I smell it--Say, Doc,
+is this sleepiness natural? Wonder where my--gas mask--is--" he
+added, half incoherently.
+
+But I myself was struggling desperately against the drugged slumber
+pressing down upon me.
+
+"Lakla!" I heard O'Keefe murmur.  "Lakla of the golden eyes--no
+Eilidh--the Fair!" He made an immense effort, half raised himself,
+grinned faintly.
+
+"Thought this was paradise when I first saw it, Doc," he sighed.  "But
+I know now, if it is, No-Man's Land was the greatest place on earth
+for a honeymoon. They--they've got us, Doc--" He sank back. "Good
+luck, old boy, wherever you're going." His hand waved feebly.
+"Glad--knew--you. Hope--see--you--'gain--"
+
+His voice trailed into silence.  Fighting, fighting with every fibre
+of brain and nerve against the sleep, I felt myself being steadily
+overcome. Yet before oblivion rushed down upon me I seemed to see upon
+the grey-screened wall nearest the Irishman an oval of rosy light
+begin to glow; watched, as my falling lids inexorably fell, a
+flame-tipped shadow waver on it; thicken; condense--and there looking
+down upon Larry, her eyes great golden stars in which intensest
+curiosity and shy tenderness struggled, sweet mouth half smiling, was
+the girl of the Moon Pool's Chamber, the girl whom the green dwarf had
+named--Lakla: the vision Larry had invoked before that sleep which I
+could no longer deny had claimed him--
+
+Closer she came--closer---the eyes were over us.
+
+Then oblivion indeed!
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+Yolara of Muria vs. the O'Keefe
+
+I awakened with all the familiar, homely sensation of a shade having
+been pulled up in a darkened room. I thrilled with a wonderful sense
+of deep rest and restored resiliency. The ebon shadow had vanished
+from above and down into the room was pouring the silvery light. From
+the fountain pool came a mighty splashing and shouts of laughter. I
+jumped and drew the curtain. O'Keefe and Rador were swimming a wild
+race; the dwarf like an otter, out-distancing and playing around the
+Irishman at will.
+
+Had that overpowering sleep--and now I confess that my struggle
+against it had been largely inspired by fear that it was the abnormal
+slumber which Throckmartin had described as having heralded the
+approach of the Dweller before it had carried away Thora and
+Stanton--had that sleep been after all nothing but natural reaction of
+tired nerves and brains?
+
+And that last vision of the golden-eyed girl bending over Larry?  Had
+that also been a delusion of an overstressed mind? Well, it might have
+been, I could not tell. At any rate, I decided, I would speak about it
+to O'Keefe once we were alone again--and then giving myself up to the
+urge of buoyant well-being I shouted like a boy, stripped and joined
+the two in the pool. The water was warm and I felt the unwonted
+tingling of life in every vein increase; something from it seemed to
+pulse through the skin, carrying a clean vigorous vitality that toned
+every fibre. Tiring at last, we swam to the edge and drew ourselves
+out. The green dwarf quickly clothed himself and Larry rather
+carefully donned his uniform.
+
+"The Afyo Maie has summoned us, Doc," he said.  "We're to--well--I
+suppose you'd call it breakfast with her. After that, Rador tells me,
+we're to have a session with the Council of Nine. I suppose Yolara is
+as curious as any lady of--the upper world, as you might put it--and
+just naturally can't wait," he added.
+
+He gave himself a last shake, patted the automatic hidden under his
+left arm, whistled cheerfully.
+
+"After you, my dear Alphonse," he said to Rador, with a low bow.  The
+dwarf laughed, bent in an absurd imitation of Larry's mocking courtesy
+and started ahead of us to the house of the priestess. When he had
+gone a little way on the orchid-walled path I whispered to O'Keefe:
+
+"Larry, when you were falling off to sleep--did you think you saw
+anything?"
+
+"See anything!" he grinned.  "Doc, sleep hit me like a Hun shell.  I
+thought they were pulling the gas on us. I--I had some intention of
+bidding you tender farewells," he continued, half sheepishly. "I think
+I did start 'em, didn't I?"
+
+I nodded.
+
+"But wait a minute--" he hesitated.  "I had a queer sort of dream--"
+
+"'What was it?" I asked eagerly,
+
+"Well," he answered slowly, "I suppose it was because I'd been
+thinking of--Golden Eyes. Anyway, I thought she came through the wall
+and leaned over me--yes, and put one of those long white hands of hers
+on my head--I couldn't raise my lids--but in some queer way I could
+see her. Then it got real dreamish. Why do you ask?"
+
+Rador turned back toward us,
+
+"Later," I answered, "Not now.  When we're alone."
+
+But through me went a little glow of reassurance.  Whatever the maze
+through which we were moving; whatever of menacing evil lurking
+there--the Golden Girl was clearly watching over us; watching with
+whatever unknown powers she could muster.
+
+We passed the pillared entrance; went through a long bowered corridor
+and stopped before a door that seemed to be sliced from a monolith of
+pale jade--high, narrow, set in a wall of opal.
+
+Rador stamped twice and the same supernally sweet, silver bell tones
+of--yesterday, I must call it, although in that place of eternal day
+the term is meaningless--bade us enter. The door slipped aside. The
+chamber was small, the opal walls screening it on three sides, the
+black opacity covering it, the fourth side opening out into a
+delicious little walled garden--a mass of the fragrant, luminous
+blooms and delicately colored fruit. Facing it was a small table of
+reddish wood and from the omnipresent cushions heaped around it arose
+to greet us--Yolara.
+
+Larry drew in his breath with an involuntary gasp of admiration and
+bowed low. My own admiration was as frank--and the priestess was well
+pleased with our homage.
+
+She was swathed in the filmy, half-revelant webs, now of palest blue.
+The corn-silk hair was caught within a wide-meshed golden net in which
+sparkled tiny brilliants, like blended sapphires and diamonds. Her own
+azure eyes sparkled as brightly as they, and I noted again in their
+clear depths the half-eager approval as they rested upon O'Keefe's
+lithe, well-knit figure and his keen, clean-cut face. The high-arched,
+slender feet rested upon soft sandals whose gauzy withes laced the
+exquisitely formed leg to just below the dimpled knee.
+
+"Some giddy wonder!" exclaimed Larry, looking at me and placing a hand
+over his heart. "Put her on a New York roof and she'd empty Broadway.
+Take the cue from me, Doc."
+
+He turned to Yolara, whose face was somewhat puzzled.
+
+"I said, O lady whose shining hair is a web for hearts, that in our
+world your beauty would dazzle the sight of men as would a little
+woman sun!" he said, in the florid imagery to which the tongue lends
+itself so well.
+
+A flush stole up through the translucent skin.  The blue eyes softened
+and she waved us toward the cushions. Black-haired maids stole in,
+placing before us the fruits, the little loaves and a steaming drink
+somewhat the colour and odor of chocolate. I was conscious of
+outrageous hunger.
+
+"What are you named, strangers?" she asked.
+
+"This man is named Goodwin," said O'Keefe.  "As for me, call me
+Larry."
+
+"Nothing like getting acquainted quick," he said to me--but kept his
+eyes upon Yolara as though he were voicing another honeyed phrase. And
+so she took it, for: "You must teach me your tongue," she murmured.
+
+"Then shall I have two words where now I have one to tell you of your
+loveliness," he answered.
+
+"And also that'll take time," he spoke to me.  "Essential occupation
+out of which we can't be drafted to make these fun-loving folk any
+Roman holiday. Get me!"
+
+"Larree," mused Yolara.  "I like the sound.  It is sweet--" and indeed
+it was as she spoke it.
+
+"And what is your land named, Larree?" she continued. "And Goodwin's?"
+She caught the sound perfectly.
+
+"My land, O lady of loveliness, is two--Ireland and America; his but
+one--America."
+
+She repeated the two names--slowly, over and over.  We seized the
+opportunity to attack the food; halting half guiltily as she spoke
+again.
+
+"Oh, but you are hungry!" she cried.  "Eat then." She leaned her chin
+upon her hands and regarded us, whole fountains of questions brimming
+up in her eyes.
+
+"How is it, Larree, that you have two countries and Goodwin but one?"
+she asked, at last unable to keep silent longer.
+
+"I was born in Ireland; he in America.  But I have dwelt long in his
+land and my heart loves each," he said.
+
+She nodded, understandingly.
+
+"Are all the men of Ireland like you, Larree?  As all the men here are
+like Lugur or Rador? I like to look at you," she went on, with naive
+frankness. "I am tired of men like Lugur and Rador. But they are
+strong," she added, swiftly. "Lugur can hold up ten in his two arms
+and raise six with but one hand."
+
+We could not understand her numerals and she raised white fingers to
+illustrate.
+
+"That is little, O lady, to the men of Ireland," replied O'Keefe.
+"Lo, I have seen one of my race hold up ten times ten of our--what
+call you that swift thing in which Rador brought us here?"
+
+"Corial," said she.
+
+"Hold up ten times twenty of our corials with but two fingers--and
+these corials of ours--"
+
+"Coria," said she.
+
+"And these coria of ours are each greater in weight than ten of yours.
+Yes, and I have seen another with but one blow of his hand raise hell!
+
+"And so I have," he murmured to me.  "And both at Forty-second and
+Fifth Avenue, N. Y.--U. S. A."
+
+Yolara considered all this with manifest doubt.
+
+"Hell?" she inquired at last.  "I know not the word."
+
+"Well," answered O'Keefe.  "Say Muria then.  In many ways they are, I
+gather, O heart's delight, one and the same."
+
+Now the doubt in the blue eyes was strong indeed.  She shook her head.
+
+"None of our men can do _that_!" she answered, at length. "Nor do I
+think you could, Larree."
+
+"Oh, no," said Larry easily.  "I never tried to be that strong.  I
+fly," he added, casually.
+
+The priestess rose to her feet, gazing at him with startled eyes.
+
+"Fly!" she repeated incredulously.  "Like a _Zitia_?  A bird?"
+
+Larry nodded--and then seeing the dawning command in her eyes, went on
+hastily.
+
+"Not with my own wings, Yolara.  In a--a corial that moves
+through--what's the word for air, Doc--well, through this--" He made a
+wide gesture up toward the nebulous haze above us. He took a pencil
+and on a white cloth made a hasty sketch of an airplane. "In a--a
+corial like this--" She regarded the sketch gravely, thrust a hand
+down into her girdle and brought forth a keen-bladed poniard; cut
+Larry's markings out and placed the fragment carefully aside.
+
+"That I can understand," she said.
+
+"Remarkably intelligent young woman," muttered O'Keefe.  "Hope I'm not
+giving anything away--but she had me."
+
+"But what are your women like, Larree?  Are they like me?  And how
+many have loved you?" she whispered.
+
+"In all Ireland and America there is none like you, Yolara," he
+answered. "And take that any way you please," he muttered in English.
+She took it, it was evident, as it most pleased her.
+
+"Do you have goddesses?" she asked.
+
+"Every woman in Ireland and America, is a goddess"; thus Larry.
+
+"Now that I do not believe." There was both anger and mockery in her
+eyes. "I know women, Larree--and if that were so there would be no
+peace for men."
+
+"There isn't!" replied he.  The anger died out and she laughed,
+sweetly, understandingly.
+
+"And which goddess do you worship, Larree?"
+
+"You!" said Larry O'Keefe boldly.
+
+"Larry!  Larry!" I whispered.  "Be careful.  It's high explosive."
+
+But the priestess was laughing--little trills of sweet bell notes; and
+pleasure was in each note.
+
+"You are indeed bold, Larree," she said, "to offer me your worship.
+Yet am I pleased by your boldness. Still--Lugur is strong; and you are
+not of those who--what did you say--have tried. And your wings are
+not here--Larree!"
+
+Again her laughter rang out.  The Irishman flushed; it was _touche_
+for Yolara!
+
+"Fear not for me with Lugur," he said, grimly.  "Rather fear for him!"
+
+The laughter died; she looked at him searchingly; a little enigmatic
+smile about her mouth--so sweet and so cruel.
+
+"Well--we shall see," she murmured.  "You say you battle in your
+world. With what?"
+
+"Oh, with this and with that," answered Larry, airily. "We manage--"
+
+"Have you the Keth--I mean that with which I sent Songar into the
+nothingness?" she asked swiftly.
+
+"See what she's driving at?" O'Keefe spoke to me, swiftly. "Well I do!
+But here's where the O'Keefe lands.
+
+"I said," he turned to her, "O voice of silver fire, that your spirit
+is high even as your beauty--and searches out men's souls as does your
+loveliness their hearts. And now listen, Yolara, for what I speak is
+truth"--into his eyes came the far-away gaze; into his voice the Irish
+softness--"Lo, in my land of Ireland, this many of your life's length
+agone--see"--he raised his ten fingers, clenched and unclenched them
+times twenty--"the mighty men of my race, the Taitha-da-Dainn, could
+send men out into the nothingness even as do you with the Keth. And
+this they did by their harpings, and by words spoken--words of power,
+O Yolara, that have their power still--and by pipings and by slaying
+sounds.
+
+"There was Cravetheen who played swift flames from his harp, flying
+flames that ate those they were sent against. And there was Dalua, of
+Hy Brasil, whose pipes played away from man and beast and all living
+things their shadows--and at last played them to shadows too, so that
+wherever Dalua went his shadows that had been men and beast followed
+like a storm of little rustling leaves; yea, and Bel the Harper, who
+could make women's hearts run like wax and men's hearts flame to ashes
+and whose harpings could shatter strong cliffs and bow great trees to
+the sod--"
+
+His eyes were bright, dream-filled; she shrank a little from him,
+faint pallor under the perfect skin.
+
+"I say to you, Yolara, that these things were and are--in Ireland."
+His voice rang strong. "And I have seen men as many as those that are
+in your great chamber this many times over"--he clenched his hands
+once more, perhaps a dozen times--"blasted into nothingness before
+your Keth could even have touched them. Yea--and rocks as mighty as
+those through which we came lifted up and shattered before the lids
+could fall over your blue eyes. And this is truth, Yolara--all truth!
+Stay--have you that little cone of the Keth with which you destroyed
+Songar?"
+
+She nodded, gazing at him, fascinated, fear and puzzlement contending.
+
+"Then use it." He took a vase of crystal from the table, placed it on
+the threshold that led into the garden. "Use it on this--and I will
+show you."
+
+"I will use it upon one of the ladala--" she began eagerly.
+
+The exaltation dropped from him; there was a touch of horror in the
+eyes he turned to her; her own dropped before it.
+
+"It shall be as you say," she said hurriedly.  She drew the shining
+cone from her breast; levelled it at the vase. The green ray leaped
+forth, spread over the crystal, but before its action could even be
+begun, a flash of light shot from O'Keefe's hand, his automatic spat
+and the trembling vase flew into fragments. As quickly as he had drawn
+it, he thrust the pistol back into place and stood there empty handed,
+looking at her sternly. From the anteroom came shouting, a rush of
+feet.
+
+Yolara's face was white, her eyes strained--but her voice was unshaken
+as she called to the clamouring guards:
+
+"It is nothing--go to your places!"
+
+But when the sound of their return had ceased she stared tensely at
+the Irishman--then looked again at the shattered vase.
+
+"It is true!" she cried, "but see, the Keth is--alive!"
+
+I followed her pointing finger.  Each broken bit of the crystal was
+vibrating, shaking its particles out into space. Broken it the bullet
+of Larry's had--but not released it from the grip of the
+disintegrating force. The priestess's face was triumphant.
+
+"But what matters it, O shining urn of beauty--what matters it to the
+vase that is broken what happens to its fragments?" asked Larry,
+gravely--and pointedly.
+
+The triumph died from her face and for a space she was silent;
+brooding.
+
+"Next," whispered O'Keefe to me.  "Lots of surprises in the little
+box; keep your eye on the opening and see what comes out."
+
+We had not long to wait.  There was a sparkle of anger about Yolara,
+something too of injured pride. She clapped her hands; whispered to
+the maid who answered her summons, and then sat back regarding us,
+maliciously.
+
+"You have answered me as to your strength--but you have not proved it;
+but the Keth you have answered. Now answer this!" she said.
+
+She pointed out into the garden.  I saw a flowering branch bend and
+snap as though a hand had broken it--but no hand was there! Saw then
+another and another bend and break, a little tree sway and fall--and
+closer and closer to us came the trail of snapping boughs while down
+into the garden poured the silvery light revealing--nothing! Now a
+great ewer beside a pillar rose swiftly in air and hurled itself
+crashing at my feet. Cushions close to us swirled about as though in
+the vortex of a whirlwind.
+
+And unseen hands held my arms in a mighty clutch fast to my sides,
+another gripped my throat and I felt a needle-sharp poniard point
+pierce my shirt, touch the skin just over my heart!
+
+"Larry!" I cried, despairingly.  I twisted my head; saw that he too
+was caught in this grip of the invisible. But his face was calm, even
+amused.
+
+"Keep cool, Doc!" he said.  "Remember--she wants to learn the
+language!"
+
+Now from Yolara burst chime upon chime of mocking laughter.  She gave
+a command--the hands loosened, the poniard withdrew from my heart;
+suddenly as I had been caught I was free--and unpleasantly weak and
+shaky.
+
+"Have you _that_ in Ireland, Larree!" cried the priestess--and once
+more trembled with laughter.
+
+"A good play, Yolara." His voice was as calm as his face. "But they
+did that in Ireland even before Dalua piped away his first man's
+shadow. And in Goodwin's land they make ships--coria that go on
+water--so you can pass by them and see only sea and sky; and those
+water coria are each of them many times greater than this whole palace
+of yours."
+
+But the priestess laughed on.
+
+"It did get me a little," whispered Larry.  "That wasn't quite up to
+my mark. But God! If we could find that trick out and take it back
+with us!"
+
+"Not so, Larree!" Yolara gasped, through her laughter. "Not so!
+Goodwin's cry betrayed you!"
+
+Her good humour had entirely returned; she was like a mischievous
+child pleased over some successful trick; and like a child she
+cried--"I'll show you!"--signalled again; whispered to the maid who,
+quickly returning, laid before her a long metal case. Yolara took from
+her girdle something that looked like a small pencil, pressed it and
+shot a thin stream of light for all the world like an electric flash,
+upon its hasp. The lid flew open. Out of it she drew three flat, oval
+crystals, faint rose in hue. She handed one to O'Keefe and one to me.
+
+"Look!" she commanded, placing the third before her own eyes.  I
+peered through the stone and instantly there leaped into sight, out of
+thin air--six grinning dwarfs! Each was covered from top of head to
+soles of feet in a web so tenuous that through it their bodies were
+plain. The gauzy stuff seemed to vibrate--its strands to run together
+like quick-silver. I snatched the crystal from my eyes and--the
+chamber was empty! Put it back--and there were the grinning six!
+
+Yolara gave another sign and they disappeared, even from the crystals.
+
+"It is what they wear, Larree," explained Yolara, graciously.  "It is
+something that came to us from--the Ancient Ones. But we have so
+few"--she sighed.
+
+"Such treasures must be two-edged swords, Yolara," commented O'Keefe.
+"For how know you that one within them creeps not to you with hand
+eager to strike?"
+
+"There is no danger," she said indifferently.  "I am the keeper of
+them."
+
+She mused for a space, then abruptly:
+
+"And now no more.  You two are to appear before the Council at a
+certain time--but fear nothing. You, Goodwin, go with Rador about our
+city and increase your wisdom. But you, Larree, await me here in my
+garden--" she smiled at him, provocatively--maliciously, too. "For
+shall not one who has resisted a world of goddesses be given all
+chance to worship when at last he finds his own?"
+
+She laughed--whole-heartedly and was gone.  And at that moment I liked
+Yolara better than ever I had before and--alas--better than ever I
+was to in the future.
+
+I noted Rador standing outside the open jade door and started to go,
+but O'Keefe caught me by the arm.
+
+"Wait a minute," he urged.  "About Golden Eyes--you were going to tell
+me something--it's been on my mind all through that little sparring
+match."
+
+I told him of the vision that had passed through my closing lids.  He
+listened gravely and then laughed.
+
+"Hell of a lot of privacy in this place!" he grinned.  "Ladies who can
+walk through walls and others with regular invisible cloaks to let 'em
+flit wherever they please. Oh, well, don't let it get on your nerves,
+Doc. Remember--everything's natural! That robe stuff is just
+camouflage of course. But Lord, if we could only get a piece of it!"
+
+"The material simply admits all light-vibrations, or perhaps curves
+them, just as the opacities cut them off," I answered. "A man under
+the X-ray is partly invisible; this makes him wholly so. He doesn't
+register, as the people of the motion-picture profession say."
+
+"Camouflage," repeated Larry.  "And as for the Shining One--Say!" he
+snorted. "I'd like to set the O'Keefe banshee up against it. I'll bet
+that old resourceful Irish body would give it the first three bites
+and a strangle hold and wallop it before it knew it had 'em. Oh! Wow!
+Boy Howdy!"
+
+I heard him still chuckling gleefully over this vision as I passed
+along the opal wall with the green dwarf.
+
+A shell was awaiting us.  I paused before entering it to examine the
+polished surface of runway and great road. It was obsidian--volcanic
+glass of pale emerald, unflawed, translucent, with no sign of block or
+juncture. I examined the shell.
+
+"What makes it go?" I asked Rador.  At a word from him the driver
+touched a concealed spring and an aperture appeared beneath the
+control-lever, of which I have spoken in a preceding chapter. Within
+was a small cube of black crystal, through whose sides I saw, dimly, a
+rapidly revolving, glowing ball, not more than two inches in diameter.
+Beneath the cube was a curiously shaped, slender cylinder winding down
+into the lower body of the Nautilus whorl.
+
+"Watch!" said Rador.  He motioned me into the vehicle and took a place
+beside me. The driver touched the lever; a stream of coruscations flew
+from the ball down into the cylinder. The shell started smoothly, and
+as the tiny torrent of shining particles increased it gathered speed.
+
+"The corial does not touch the road," explained Rador. "It is lifted
+so far"--he held his forefinger and thumb less than a sixteenth of an
+inch apart--"above it."
+
+And perhaps here is the best place to explain the activation of the
+shells or coria. The force utilized was atomic energy. Passing from
+the whirling ball the ions darted through the cylinder to two bands of
+a peculiar metal affixed to the base of the vehicles somewhat like
+skids of a sled. Impinging upon these they produced a partial negation
+of gravity, lifting the shell slightly, and at the same time creating
+a powerful repulsive force or thrust that could be directed backward,
+forward, or sidewise at the will of the driver. The creation of this
+energy and the mechanism of its utilization were, briefly, as follows:
+
+
+[Dr. Goodwin's lucid and exceedingly comprehensive description of this
+extraordinary mechanism has been deleted by the Executive Council of
+the International Association of Science as too dangerously suggestive
+to scientists of the Central European Powers with which we were so
+recently at war. It is allowable, however, to state that his
+observations are in the possession of experts in this country, who
+are, unfortunately, hampered in their research not only by the
+scarcity of the radioactive elements that we know, but also by the
+lack of the element or elements unknown to us that entered into the
+formation of the fiery ball within the cube of black crystal.
+Nevertheless, as the principle is so clear, it is believed that these
+difficulties will ultimately be overcome.--J. B. K., President, I. A.
+of S.]
+
+
+The wide, glistening road was gay with the coria.  They darted in and
+out of the gardens; within them the fair-haired, extraordinarily
+beautiful women on their cushions were like princesses of Elfland,
+caught in gorgeous fairy webs, resting within the hearts of flowers.
+In some shells were flaxen-haired dwarfish men of Lugur's type;
+sometimes black-polled brother officers of Rador; often raven-tressed
+girls, plainly hand-maidens of the women; and now and then beauties of
+the lower folk went by with one of the blond dwarfs.
+
+We swept around the turn that made of the jewel-like roadway an
+enormous horseshoe and, speedily, upon our right the cliffs through
+which we had come in our journey from the Moon Pool began to march
+forward beneath their mantles of moss. They formed a gigantic
+abutment, a titanic salient. It had been from the very front of this
+salient's invading angle that we had emerged; on each side of it the
+precipices, faintly glowing, drew back and vanished into distance.
+
+The slender, graceful bridges under which we skimmed ended at openings
+in the upflung, far walls of verdure. Each had its little garrison of
+soldiers. Through some of the openings a rivulet of the green obsidian
+river passed. These were roadways to the farther country, to the land
+of the ladala, Rador told me; adding that none of the lesser folk
+could cross into the pavilioned city unless summoned or with pass.
+
+We turned the bend of the road and flew down that farther emerald
+ribbon we had seen from the great oval. Before us rose the shining
+cliffs and the lake. A half-mile, perhaps, from these the last of the
+bridges flung itself. It was more massive and about it hovered a
+spirit of ancientness lacking in the other spans; also its garrison
+was larger and at its base the tangent way was guarded by two massive
+structures, somewhat like blockhouses, between which it ran. Something
+about it aroused in me an intense curiosity.
+
+"Where does that road lead, Rador?" I asked.
+
+"To the one place above all of which I may not tell you, Goodwin," he
+answered. And again I wondered.
+
+We skimmed slowly out upon the great pier.  Far to the left was the
+prismatic, rainbow curtain between the Cyclopean pillars. On the white
+waters graceful shells--lacustrian replicas of the Elf chariots--swam,
+but none was near that distant web of wonder.
+
+"Rador--what is that?" I asked.
+
+"It is the Veil of the Shining One!" he answered slowly.
+
+Was the Shining One that which we named the Dweller?
+
+"What is the Shining One?" I cried, eagerly.  Again he was silent.
+Nor did he speak until we had turned on our homeward way.
+
+And lively as my interest, my scientific curiosity, were--I was
+conscious suddenly of acute depression. Beautiful, wondrously
+beautiful this place was--and yet in its wonder dwelt a keen edge of
+menace, of unease--of inexplicable, inhuman woe; as though in a secret
+garden of God a soul should sense upon it the gaze of some lurking
+spirit of evil which some way, somehow, had crept into the sanctuary
+and only bided its time to spring.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+The Leprechaun
+
+The shell carried us straight back to the house of Yolara. Larry was
+awaiting me. We stood again before the tenebrous wall where first we
+had faced the priestess and the Voice. And as we stood, again the
+portal appeared with all its disconcerting, magical abruptness.
+
+But now the scene was changed.  Around the jet table were grouped a
+number of figures--Lugur, Yolara beside him; seven others--all of them
+fair-haired and all men save one who sat at the left of the
+priestess--an old, old woman, how old I could not tell, her face
+bearing traces of beauty that must once have been as great as Yolara's
+own, but now ravaged, in some way awesome; through its ruins the
+fearful, malicious gaiety shining out like a spirit of joy held within
+a corpse!
+
+Began then our examination, for such it was.  And as it progressed I
+was more and more struck by the change in the O'Keefe. All flippancy
+was gone, rarely did his sense of humour reveal itself in any of his
+answers. He was like a cautious swordsman, fencing, guarding, studying
+his opponent; or rather, like a chess-player who keeps sensing some
+far-reaching purpose in the game: alert, contained, watchful. Always
+he stressed the power of our surface races, their multitudes, their
+solidarity.
+
+Their questions were myriad.  What were our occupations? Our system of
+government? How great were the waters? The land? Intensely interested
+were they in the World War, querying minutely into its causes, its
+effects. In our weapons their interest was avid. And they were
+exceedingly minute in their examination of us as to the ruins which
+had excited our curiosity; their position and surroundings--and if
+others than ourselves might be expected to find and pass through their
+entrance!
+
+At this I shot a glance at Lugur.  He did not seem unduly interested.
+I wondered if the Russian had told him as yet of the girl of the rosy
+wall of the Moon Pool Chamber and the real reasons for our search.
+Then I answered as briefly as possible--omitting all reference to
+these things. The red dwarf watched me with unmistakable
+amusement--and I knew Marakinoff had told him. But clearly Lugur had
+kept his information even from Yolara; and as clearly she had spoken
+to none of that episode when O'Keefe's automatic had shattered the
+Keth-smitten vase. Again I felt that sense of deep bewilderment--of
+helpless search for clue to all the tangle.
+
+For two hours we were questioned and then the priestess called Rador
+and let us go.
+
+Larry was sombre as we returned.  He walked about the room uneasily.
+
+"Hell's brewing here all right," he said at last, stopping before me.
+"I can't make out just the particular brand--that's all that bothers
+me. We're going to have a stiff fight, that's sure. What I want to do
+quick is to find the Golden Girl, Doc. Haven't seen her on the wall
+lately, have you?" he queried, hopefully fantastic.
+
+"Laugh if you want to," he went on.  "But she's our best bet.  It's
+going to be a race between her and the O'Keefe banshee--but I put my
+money on her. I had a queer experience while I was in that garden,
+after you'd left." His voice grew solemn. "Did you ever see a
+leprechaun, Doc?" I shook my head again, as solemnly. "He's a little
+man in green," said Larry. "Oh, about as high as your knee. I saw one
+once--in Carntogher Woods. And as I sat there, half asleep, in
+Yolara's garden, the living spit of him stepped out from one of those
+bushes, twirling a little shillalah.
+
+"'It's a tight box ye're gettin' in, Larry avick,' said he, 'but don't
+ye be downhearted, lad.'
+
+"'I'm carrying on,' said I, 'but you're a long way from Ireland,' I
+said, or thought I did.
+
+"'Ye've a lot o' friends there,' he answered.  'An' where the heart
+rests the feet are swift to follow. Not that I'm sayin' I'd like to
+live here, Larry,' said he.
+
+"'I know where my heart is now,' I told him.  'It rests on a girl with
+golden eyes and the hair and swan-white breast of Eilidh the Fair--but
+me feet don't seem to get me to her,' I said."
+
+The brogue thickened.
+
+"An' the little man in green nodded his head an' whirled his
+shillalah.
+
+"'It's what I came to tell ye,' says he.  'Don't ye fall for the
+Bhean-Nimher, the serpent woman wit' the blue eyes; she's a daughter
+of Ivor, lad--an' don't ye do nothin' to make the brown-haired coleen
+ashamed o' ye, Larry O'Keefe. I knew yer great, great grandfather an'
+his before him, aroon,' says he, 'an' wan o' the O'Keefe failin's is
+to think their hearts big enough to hold all the wimmen o' the world.
+A heart's built to hold only wan permanently, Larry,' he says, 'an'
+I'm warnin' ye a nice girl don't like to move into a place all
+cluttered up wid another's washin' an' mendin' an' cookin' an' other
+things pertainin' to general wife work. Not that I think the blue-eyed
+wan is keen for mendin' an' cookin'!' says he.
+
+"'You don't have to be comin' all this way to tell me that,' I answer.
+
+"'Well, I'm just a tellin' you,' he says.  'Ye've got some rough
+knocks comin', Larry. In fact, ye're in for a devil of a time. But,
+remember that ye're the O'Keefe,' says he. 'An' while the bhoys are
+all wid ye, avick, ye've got to be on the job yourself.'
+
+"'I hope,' I tell him, 'that the O'Keefe banshee can find her way here
+in time--that is, if it's necessary, which I hope it won't be.'
+
+"'Don't ye worry about that,' says he.  'Not that she's keen on
+leavin' the ould sod, Larry. The good ould soul's in quite a state o'
+mind about ye, aroon. I don't mind tellin' ye, lad, that she's
+mobilizing all the clan an' if she _has_ to come for ye, avick, they'll
+be wid her an' they'll sweep this joint clean before ye go. What
+they'll do to it'll make the Big Wind look like a summer breeze on
+Lough Lene! An' that's about all, Larry. We thought a voice from the
+Green Isle would cheer ye. Don't fergit that ye're the O'Keefe an' I
+say it again--all the bhoys are wid ye. But we want t' kape bein'
+proud o' ye, lad!'
+
+"An' I looked again and there was only a bush waving."
+
+There wasn't a smile in my heart--or if there was it was a very tender
+one.
+
+"I'm going to bed," he said abruptly.  "Keep an eye on the wall, Doc!"
+
+Between the seven sleeps that followed, Larry and I saw but little of
+each other. Yolara sought him more and more. Thrice we were called
+before the Council; once we were at a great feast, whose splendours
+and surprises I can never forget. Largely I was in the company of
+Rador. Together we two passed the green barriers into the
+dwelling-place of the ladala.
+
+They seemed provided with everything needful for life. But everywhere
+was an oppressiveness, a gathering together of hate, that was
+spiritual rather than material--as tangible as the latter and far, far
+more menacing!
+
+"They do not like to dance with the Shining One," was Rador's constant
+and only reply to my efforts to find the cause.
+
+Once I had concrete evidence of the mood.  Glancing behind me, I saw a
+white, vengeful face peer from behind a tree-trunk, a hand lift, a
+shining dart speed from it straight toward Rador's back. Instinctively
+I thrust him aside. He turned upon me angrily. I pointed to where the
+little missile lay, still quivering, on the ground. He gripped my
+hand.
+
+"That, some day I will repay!" he said.  I looked again at the thing.
+At its end was a tiny cone covered with a glistening, gelatinous
+substance.
+
+Rador pulled from a tree beside us a fruit somewhat like an apple.
+
+"Look!" he said.  He dropped it upon the dart--and at once, before my
+eyes, in less than ten seconds, the fruit had rotted away!
+
+"That's what would have happened to Rador but for you, friend!" he
+said.
+
+Come now between this and the prelude to the latter half of the drama
+whose history this narrative is--only scattering and necessarily
+fragmentary observations.
+
+First--the nature of the ebon opacities, blocking out the spaces
+between the pavilion-pillars or covering their tops like roofs, These
+were magnetic fields, light absorbers, negativing the vibrations of
+radiance; literally screens of electric force which formed as
+impervious a barrier to light as would have screens of steel.
+
+They instantaneously made night appear in a place where no night was.
+But they interposed no obstacle to air or to sound. They were
+extremely simple in their inception--no more miraculous than is glass,
+which, inversely, admits the vibrations of light, but shuts out those
+coarser ones we call air--and, partly, those others which produce upon
+our auditory nerves the effects we call sound.
+
+Briefly their mechanism was this:
+
+
+[For the same reason that Dr. Goodwin's exposition of the mechanism
+of the atomic engines was deleted, his description of the
+light-destroying screens has been deleted by the Executive
+Council.--J. B. F., President, I. A. of S.]
+
+
+There were two favoured classes of the ladala--the soldiers and the
+dream-makers. The dream-makers were the most astonishing social
+phenomena, I think, of all. Denied by their circumscribed environment
+the wider experiences of us of the outer world, the Murians had
+perfected an amazing system of escape through the imagination.
+
+They were, too, intensely musical.  Their favourite instruments were
+double flutes; immensely complex pipe-organs; harps, great and small.
+They had another remarkable instrument made up of a double octave of
+small drums which gave forth percussions remarkably disturbing to the
+emotional centres.
+
+It was this love of music that gave rise to one of the few truly
+humorous incidents of our caverned life. Larry came to me--it was just
+after our fourth sleep, I remember.
+
+"Come on to a concert," he said.
+
+We skimmed off to one of the bridge garrisons.  Rador called the
+two-score guards to attention; and then, to my utter stupefaction, the
+whole company, O'Keefe leading them, roared out the anthem, "God Save
+the King." They sang--in a closer approach to the English than might
+have been expected scores of miles below England's level. "Send him
+victorious! Happy and glorious!" they bellowed.
+
+He quivered with suppressed mirth at my paralysis of surprise.
+
+"Taught 'em that for Marakinoff's benefit!" he gasped. "Wait till that
+Red hears it. He'll blow up.
+
+"Just wait until you hear Yolara lisp a pretty little thing I taught
+her," said Larry as we set back for what we now called home. There was
+an impish twinkle in his eyes.
+
+And I did hear.  For it was not many minutes later that the priestess
+condescended to command me to come to her with O'Keefe.
+
+"Show Goodwin how much you have learned of our speech, O lady of the
+lips of honeyed flame!" murmured Larry.
+
+She hesitated; smiled at him, and then from that perfect mouth, out of
+the exquisite throat, in the voice that was like the chiming of little
+silver bells, she trilled a melody familiar to me indeed:
+
+    "She's only a bird in a gilded cage,
+      A bee-yu-tiful sight to see--"
+
+And so on to the bitter end.
+
+"She thinks it's a love-song," said Larry when we had left. "It's only
+part of a repertoire I'm teaching her. Honestly, Doc, it's the only
+way I can keep my mind clear when I'm with her," he went on earnestly.
+"She's a devil-ess from hell--but a wonder. Whenever I find myself
+going I get her to sing that, or Take Back Your Gold! or some other
+ancient lay, and I'm back again--pronto--with the right perspective!
+POP goes all the mystery! 'Hell!' I say, 'she's only a woman!'"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+The Amphitheatre of Jet
+
+For hours the black-haired folk had been streaming across the bridges,
+flowing along the promenade by scores and by hundreds, drifting down
+toward the gigantic seven-terraced temple whose interior I had never
+as yet seen, and from whose towering exterior, indeed, I had always
+been kept far enough away--unobtrusively, but none the less decisively--to
+prevent any real observation. The structure, I had estimated,
+nevertheless, could not reach less than a thousand feet above its
+silvery base, and the diameter of its circular foundation was about
+the same.
+
+I wondered what was bringing the _ladala_ into Lora, and where they
+were vanishing. All of them were flower-crowned with the luminous,
+lovely blooms--old and young, slender, mocking-eyed girls, dwarfed
+youths, mothers with their babes, gnomed oldsters--on they poured,
+silent for the most part and sullen--a sullenness that held acid
+bitterness even as their subtle, half-sinister, half-gay malice seemed
+tempered into little keen-edged flames, oddly, menacingly defiant.
+
+There were many of the green-clad soldiers along the way, and the
+garrison of the only bridge span I could see had certainly been
+doubled.
+
+Wondering still, I turned from my point of observation and made my way
+back to our pavilion, hoping that Larry, who had been with Yolara for
+the past two hours, had returned. Hardly had I reached it before Rador
+came hurrying up, in his manner a curious exultance mingled with what
+in anyone else I would have called a decided nervousness.
+
+"Come!" he commanded before I could speak.  "The Council has made
+decision--and _Larree_ is awaiting you."
+
+"What has been decided?" I panted as we sped along the mosaic path
+that led to the house of Yolara. "And why is Larry awaiting me?"
+
+And at his answer I felt my heart pause in its beat and through me
+race a wave of mingled panic and eagerness.
+
+"The Shining One dances!" had answered the green dwarf. "And you are
+to worship!"
+
+What was this dancing of the Shining One, of which so often he had
+spoken?
+
+Whatever my forebodings, Larry evidently had none.
+
+"Great stuff!" he cried, when we had met in the great antechamber now
+empty of the dwarfs. "Hope it will be worth seeing--have to be
+something damned good, though, to catch me, after what I've seen of
+shows at the front," he added.
+
+And remembering, with a little shock of apprehension, that he had no
+knowledge of the Dweller beyond my poor description of it--for there
+are no words actually to describe what that miracle of interwoven
+glory and horror was--I wondered what Larry O'Keefe would say and do
+when he did behold it!
+
+Rador began to show impatience.
+
+"Come!" he urged.  "There is much to be done--and the time grows
+short!"
+
+He led us to a tiny fountain room in whose miniature pool the white
+waters were concentrated, pearl-like and opalescent in their circling
+rim.
+
+"Bathe!" he commanded; and set the example by stripping himself and
+plunging within. Only a minute or two did the green dwarf allow us,
+and he checked us as we were about to don our clothing.
+
+Then, to my intense embarrassment, without warning, two of the
+black-haired girls entered, bearing robes of a peculiar dull-blue hue.
+At our manifest discomfort Rador's laughter roared out. He took the
+garments from the pair, motioned them to leave us, and, still
+laughing, threw one around me. Its texture was soft, but decidedly
+metallic--like some blue metal spun to the fineness of a spider's
+thread. The garment buckled tightly at the throat, was girdled at the
+waist, and, below this cincture, fell to the floor, its folds being
+held together by a half-dozen looped cords; from the shoulders a hood
+resembling a monk's cowl.
+
+Rador cast this over my head; it completely covered my face, but was
+of so transparent a texture that I could see, though somewhat mistily,
+through it. Finally he handed us both a pair of long gloves of the
+same material and high stockings, the feet of which were
+gloved--five-toed.
+
+And again his laughter rang out at our manifest surprise.
+
+"The priestess of the Shining One does not altogether trust the
+Shining One's Voice," he said at last. "And these are to guard against
+any sudden--errors. And fear not, Goodwin," he went on kindly. "Not
+for the Shining One itself would Yolara see harm come to _Larree_
+here--nor, because of him, to you. But I would not stake much on the
+great white one. And for him I am sorry, for him I do like well."
+
+"Is he to be with us?" asked Larry eagerly.
+
+"He is to be where we go," replied the dwarf soberly.
+
+Grimly Larry reached down and drew from his uniform his automatic.  He
+popped a fresh clip into the pocket fold of his girdle. The pistol he
+slung high up beneath his arm-pit.
+
+The green dwarf looked at the weapon curiously.  O'Keefe tapped it.
+
+"This," said Larry, "slays quicker than the _Keth_--I take it so no
+harm shall come to the blue-eyed one whose name is Olaf. If I should
+raise it--be you not in its way, Rador!" he added significantly.
+
+The dwarf nodded again, his eyes sparkling.  He thrust a hand out to
+both of us.
+
+"A change comes," he said.  "What it is I know not, nor how it will
+fall. But this remember--Rador is more friend to you than you yet can
+know. And now let us go!" he ended abruptly.
+
+He led us, not through the entrance, but into a sloping passage ending
+in a blind wall; touched a symbol graven there, and it opened,
+precisely as had the rosy barrier of the Moon Pool Chamber. And, just
+as there, but far smaller, was a passage end, a low curved wall facing
+a shaft not black as had been that abode of living darkness, but
+faintly luminescent. Rador leaned over the wall. The mechanism clicked
+and started; the door swung shut; the sides of the car slipped into
+place, and we swept swiftly down the passage; overhead the wind
+whistled. In a few moments the moving platform began to slow down. It
+stopped in a closed chamber no larger than itself.
+
+Rador drew his poniard and struck twice upon the wall with its hilt.
+Immediately a panel moved away, revealing a space filled with faint,
+misty blue radiance. And at each side of the open portal stood four of
+the dwarfish men, grey-headed, old, clad in flowing garments of white,
+each pointing toward us a short silver rod.
+
+Rador drew from his girdle a ring and held it out to the first dwarf.
+He examined it, handed it to the one beside him, and not until each
+had inspected the ring did they lower their curious weapons;
+containers of that terrific energy they called the _Keth_, I thought;
+and later was to know that I had been right.
+
+We stepped out; the doors closed behind us.  The place was weird
+enough. Its pave was a greenish-blue stone resembling lapis lazuli. On
+each side were high pedestals holding carved figures of the same
+material. There were perhaps a score of these, but in the mistiness I
+could not make out their outlines. A droning, rushing roar beat upon
+our ears; filled the whole cavern.
+
+"I smell the sea," said Larry suddenly.
+
+The roaring became deep-toned, clamorous, and close in front of us a
+rift opened. Twenty feet in width, it cut the cavern floor and
+vanished into the blue mist on each side. The cleft was spanned by one
+solid slab of rock not more than two yards wide. It had neither
+railing nor other protection.
+
+The four leading priests marched out upon it one by one, and we
+followed. In the middle of the span they knelt. Ten feet beneath us
+was a torrent of blue sea-water racing with prodigious speed between
+polished walls. It gave the impression of vast depth. It roared as it
+sped by, and far to the right was a low arch through which it
+disappeared. It was so swift that its surface shone like polished blue
+steel, and from it came the blessed, _our worldly_, familiar ocean
+breath that strengthened my soul amazingly and made me realize how
+earth-sick I was.
+
+Whence came the stream, I marvelled, forgetting for the moment, as we
+passed on again, all else. Were we closer to the surface of earth than
+I had thought, or was this some mighty flood falling through an
+opening in sea floor, Heaven alone knew how many miles above us,
+losing itself in deeper abysses beyond these? How near and how far
+this was from the truth I was to learn--and never did truth come to
+man in more dreadful guise!
+
+The roaring fell away, the blue haze lessened.  In front of us
+stretched a wide flight of steps, huge as those which had led us into
+the courtyard of Nan-Tauach through the ruined sea-gate. We scaled it;
+it narrowed; from above light poured through a still narrower opening.
+Side by side Larry and I passed out of it.
+
+We had emerged upon an enormous platform of what seemed to be
+glistening ivory. It stretched before us for a hundred yards or more
+and then shelved gently into the white waters. Opposite--not a mile
+away--was that prodigious web of woven rainbows Rador had called the
+Veil of the Shining One. There it shone in all its unearthly grandeur,
+on each side of the Cyclopean pillars, as though a mountain should
+stretch up arms raising between them a fairy banner of auroral
+glories. Beneath it was the curved, scimitar sweep of the pier with
+its clustered, gleaming temples.
+
+Before that brief, fascinated glance was done, there dropped upon my
+soul a sensation as of brooding weight intolerable; a spiritual
+oppression as though some vastness was falling, pressing, stifling me,
+I turned--and Larry caught me as I reeled.
+
+"Steady!  Steady, old man!" he whispered.
+
+At first all that my staggering consciousness could realize was an
+immensity, an immeasurable uprearing that brought with it the same
+throat-gripping vertigo as comes from gazing downward from some great
+height--then a blur of white faces--intolerable shinings of hundreds
+upon thousands of eyes. Huge, incredibly huge, a colossal amphitheatre
+of jet, a stupendous semi-circle, held within its mighty arc the ivory
+platform on which I stood.
+
+It reared itself almost perpendicularly hundreds of feet up into the
+sparkling heavens, and thrust down on each side its ebon
+bulwarks--like monstrous paws. Now, the giddiness from its sheer
+greatness passing, I saw that it was indeed an amphitheatre sloping
+slightly backward tier after tier, and that the white blur of faces
+against its blackness, the gleaming of countless eyes were those of
+myriads of the people who sat silent, flower-garlanded, their gaze
+focused upon the rainbow curtain and sweeping over me like a
+torrent--tangible, appalling!
+
+Five hundred feet beyond, the smooth, high retaining wall of the
+amphitheatre raised itself--above it the first terrace of the seats,
+and above this, dividing the tiers for another half a thousand feet
+upward, set within them like a panel, was a dead-black surface in
+which shone faintly with a bluish radiance a gigantic disk; above it
+and around it a cluster of innumerable smaller ones.
+
+On each side of me, bordering the platform, were scores of small
+pillared alcoves, a low wall stretching across their fronts; delicate,
+fretted grills shielding them, save where in each lattice an opening
+stared--it came to me that they were like those stalls in ancient
+Gothic cathedrals wherein for centuries had kneeled paladins and
+people of my own race on earth's fair face. And within these alcoves
+were gathered, score upon score, the elfin beauties, the dwarfish men
+of the fair-haired folk. At my right, a few feet from the opening
+through which we had come, a passageway led back between the fretted
+stalls. Half-way between us and the massive base of the amphitheatre a
+dais rose. Up the platform to it a wide ramp ascended; and on ramp and
+dais and along the centre of the gleaming platform down to where it
+kissed the white waters, a broad ribbon of the radiant flowers lay
+like a fairy carpet.
+
+On one side of this dais, meshed in a silken web that hid no line or
+curve of her sweet body, white flesh gleaming through its folds, stood
+Yolara; and opposite her, crowned with a circlet of flashing blue
+stones, his mighty body stark bare, was Lugur!
+
+O'Keefe drew a long breath; Rador touched my arm and, still dazed, I
+let myself be drawn into the aisle and through a corridor that ran
+behind the alcoves. At the back of one of these the green dwarf
+paused, opened a door, and motioned us within.
+
+Entering, I found that we were exactly opposite where the ramp ran up
+to the dais--and that Yolara was not more than fifty feet away. She
+glanced at O'Keefe and smiled. Her eyes were ablaze with little
+dancing points of light; her body seemed to palpitate, the rounded
+delicate muscles beneath the translucent skin to run with joyful
+little eager waves!
+
+Larry whistled softly.
+
+"There's Marakinoff!" he said.
+
+I looked where he pointed.  Opposite us sat the Russian, clothed as we
+were, leaning forward, his eyes eager behind his glasses; but if he
+saw us he gave no sign.
+
+"And there's Olaf!" said O'Keefe.
+
+Beneath the carved stall in which sat the Russian was an aperture and
+within it was Huldricksson. Unprotected by pillars or by grills,
+opening clear upon the platform, near him stretched the trail of
+flowers up to the great dais which Lugur and Yolara the priestess
+guarded. He sat alone, and my heart went out to him.
+
+O'Keefe's face softened.
+
+"Bring him here," he said to Rador.
+
+The green dwarf was looking at the Norseman, too, a shade of pity upon
+his mocking face. He shook his head.
+
+"Wait!" he said.  "You can do nothing now--and it may be there will be
+no need to do anything," he added; but I could feel that there was
+little of conviction in his words.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+The Madness of Olaf
+
+Yolara threw her white arms high.  From the mountainous tiers came a
+mighty sigh; a rippling ran through them. And upon the moment, before
+Yolara's arms fell, there issued, apparently from the air around us, a
+peal of sound that might have been the shouting of some playful god
+hurling great suns through the net of stars. It was like the deepest
+notes of all the organs in the world combined in one; summoning,
+majestic, cosmic!
+
+It held within it the thunder of the spheres rolling through the
+infinite, the birth-song of suns made manifest in the womb of space;
+echoes of creation's supernal chord! It shook the body like a pulse
+from the heart of the universe--pulsed--and died away.
+
+On its death came a blaring as of all the trumpets of conquering hosts
+since the first Pharaoh led his swarms--triumphal, compelling!
+Alexander's clamouring hosts, brazen-throated wolf-horns of Caesar's
+legions, blare of trumpets of Genghis Khan and his golden horde,
+clangor of the locust levies of Tamerlane, bugles of Napoleon's
+armies--war-shout of all earth's conquerors! And it died!
+
+Fast upon it, a throbbing, muffled tumult of harp sounds, mellownesses
+of myriads of wood horns, the subdued sweet shrilling of multitudes of
+flutes, Pandean pipings--inviting, carrying with them the calling of
+waterfalls in the hidden places, rushing brooks and murmuring forest
+winds--calling, calling, languorous, lulling, dripping into the brain
+like the very honeyed essence of sound.
+
+And after them a silence in which the memory of the music seemed to
+beat, to beat ever more faintly, through every quivering nerve.
+
+From me all fear, all apprehension, had fled.  In their place was
+nothing but joyous anticipation, a supernal freedom from even the
+shadow of the shadow of care or sorrow; not now did anything
+matter--Olaf or his haunted, hate-filled eyes; Throckmartin or his
+fate--nothing of pain, nothing of agony, nothing of striving nor
+endeavour nor despair in that wide outer world that had turned
+suddenly to a troubled dream.
+
+Once more the first great note pealed out!  Once more it died and from
+the clustered spheres a kaleidoscopic blaze shot as though drawn from
+the majestic sound itself. The many-coloured rays darted across the
+white waters and sought the face of the irised Veil. As they touched,
+it sparkled, flamed, wavered, and shook with fountains of prismatic
+colour.
+
+The light increased--and in its intensity the silver air darkened.
+Faded into shadow that white mosaic of flower-crowned faces set in the
+amphitheatre of jet, and vast shadows dropped upon the high-flung
+tiers and shrouded them. But on the skirts of the rays the fretted
+stalls in which we sat with the fair-haired ones blazed out,
+iridescent, like jewels.
+
+I was sensible of an acceleration of every pulse; a wild stimulation
+of every nerve. I felt myself being lifted above the world--close to
+the threshold of the high gods--soon their essence and their power
+would stream out into me! I glanced at Larry. His eyes were--wild--with
+life!
+
+I looked at Olaf--and in his face was none of this--only hate, and
+hate, and hate.
+
+The peacock waves streamed out over the waters, cleaving the seeming
+darkness, a rainbow path of glory. And the Veil flashed as though all
+the rainbows that had ever shone were burning within it. Again the
+mighty sound pealed.
+
+Into the centre of the Veil the light drew itself, grew into an
+intolerable brightness--and with a storm of tinklings, a tempest of
+crystalline notes, a tumult of tiny chimings, through it sped--the
+Shining One!
+
+Straight down that radiant path, its high-flung plumes of feathery
+flame shimmering, its coruscating spirals whirling, its seven globes
+of seven colours shining above its glowing core, it raced toward us.
+The hurricane of bells of diamond glass were jubilant, joyous. I felt
+O'Keefe grip my arm; Yolara threw her white arms out in a welcoming
+gesture; I heard from the tier a sigh of rapture--and in it a
+poignant, wailing under-tone of agony!
+
+Over the waters, down the light stream, to the end of the ivory pier,
+flew the Shining One. Through its crystal _pizzicati_ drifted
+inarticulate murmurings--deadly sweet, stilling the heart and setting
+it leaping madly.
+
+For a moment it paused, poised itself, and then came whirling down the
+flower path to its priestess, slowly, ever more slowly. It hovered for
+a moment between the woman and the dwarf, as though contemplating
+them; turned to her with its storm of tinklings softened, its
+murmurings infinitely caressing. Bent toward it, Yolara seemed to
+gather within herself pulsing waves of power; she was terrifying;
+gloriously, maddeningly evil; and as gloriously, maddeningly heavenly!
+Aphrodite and the Virgin! Tanith of the Carthaginians and St. Bride of
+the Isles! A queen of hell and a princess of heaven--in one!
+
+Only for a moment did that which we had called the Dweller and which
+these named the Shining One, pause. It swept up the ramp to the dais,
+rested there, slowly turning, plumes and spirals lacing and unlacing,
+throbbing, pulsing. Now its nucleus grew plainer, stronger--human in a
+fashion, and all inhuman; neither man nor woman; neither god nor
+devil; subtly partaking of all. Nor could I doubt that whatever it
+was, within that shining nucleus was something sentient; something
+that had will and energy, and in some awful, supernormal
+fashion--intelligence!
+
+Another trumpeting--a sound of stones opening--a long, low wail of
+utter anguish--something moved shadowy in the river of light, and
+slowly at first, then ever more rapidly, shapes swam through it. There
+were half a score of them--girls and youths, women and men. The
+Shining One poised itself, regarded them. They drew closer, and in the
+eyes of each and in their faces was the bud of that awful
+intermingling of emotions, of joy and sorrow, ecstasy and terror, that
+I had seen in full blossom on Throckmartin's.
+
+The Thing began again its murmurings--now infinitely caressing,
+coaxing--like the song of a siren from some witched star! And the
+bell-sounds rang out--compellingly, calling--calling--calling--
+
+I saw Olaf lean far out of his place; saw, half-consciously, at
+Lugur's signal, three of the dwarfs creep in and take places,
+unnoticed, behind him.
+
+Now the first of the figures rushed upon the dais--and paused.  It was
+the girl who had been brought before Yolara when the gnome named
+Songar was driven into the nothingness! With all the quickness of
+light a spiral of the Shining One stretched out and encircled her.
+
+At its touch there was an infinitely dreadful shrinking and, it
+seemed, a simultaneous hurling of herself into its radiance. As it
+wrapped its swirls around her, permeated her--the crystal chorus
+burst forth--tumultuously; through and through her the radiance
+pulsed. Began then that infinitely dreadful, but infinitely glorious,
+rhythm they called the dance of the Shining One. And as the girl
+swirled within its sparkling mists another and another flew into its
+embrace, until, at last, the dais was an incredible vision; a mad
+star's Witches' Sabbath; an altar of white faces and bodies gleaming
+through living flame; transfused with rapture insupportable and horror
+that was hellish--and ever, radiant plumes and spirals expanding, the
+core of the Shining One waxed--growing greater--as it consumed, as it
+drew into and through itself the life-force of these lost ones!
+
+So they spun, interlaced--and there began to pulse from them life,
+vitality, as though the very essence of nature was filling us. Dimly I
+recognized that what I was beholding was vampirism inconceivable! The
+banked tiers chanted. The mighty sounds pealed forth!
+
+It was a Saturnalia of demigods!
+
+Then, whirling, bell-notes storming, the Shining One withdrew slowly
+from the dais down the ramp, still embracing, still interwoven with
+those who had thrown themselves into its spirals. They drifted with it
+as though half-carried in dreadful dance; white faces sealed--forever--into
+that semblance of those who held within linked God and devil--I
+covered my eyes!
+
+I heard a gasp from O'Keefe; opened my eyes and sought his; saw the
+wildness vanish from them as he strained forward. Olaf had leaned far
+out, and as he did so the dwarfs beside him caught him, and whether by
+design or through his own swift, involuntary movement, thrust him half
+into the Dweller's path. The Dweller paused in its gyrations--seemed
+to watch him. The Norseman's face was crimson, his eyes blazing. He
+threw himself back and, with one defiant shout, gripped one of the
+dwarfs about the middle and sent him hurtling through the air,
+straight at the radiant Thing! A whirling mass of legs and arms, the
+dwarf flew--then in midflight stopped as though some gigantic
+invisible hand had caught him, and--was dashed down upon the platform
+not a yard from the Shining One!
+
+Like a broken spider he moved--feebly--once, twice. From the Dweller
+shot a shimmering tentacle--touched him--recoiled. Its crystal
+tinklings changed into an angry chiming. From all about--jewelled
+stalls and jet peak--came a sigh of incredulous horror.
+
+Lugur leaped forward.  On the instant Larry was over the low barrier
+between the pillars, rushing to the Norseman's side. And even as they
+ran there was another wild shout from Olaf, and he hurled himself out,
+straight at the throat of the Dweller!
+
+But before he could touch the Shining One, now motionless--and never
+was the thing more horrible than then, with the purely human
+suggestion of surprise plain in its poise--Larry had struck him
+aside.
+
+I tried to follow--and was held by Rador.  He was trembling--but not
+with fear. In his face was incredulous hope, inexplicable eagerness.
+
+"Wait!" he said.  "Wait!"
+
+The Shining One stretched out a slow spiral, and as it did so I saw
+the bravest thing man has ever witnessed. Instantly O'Keefe thrust
+himself between it and Olaf, pistol out. The tentacle touched him, and
+the dull blue of his robe flashed out into blinding, intense azure
+light. From the automatic in his gloved hand came three quick bursts
+of flame straight into the Thing. The Dweller drew back; the
+bell-sounds swelled.
+
+Lugur paused, his hand darted up, and in it was one of the silver
+_Keth_ cones. But before he could flash it upon the Norseman, Larry
+had unlooped his robe, thrown its fold over Olaf, and, holding him
+with one hand away from the Shining One, thrust with the other his
+pistol into the dwarf's stomach. His lips moved, but I could not hear
+what he said. But Lugur understood, for his hand dropped.
+
+Now Yolara was there--all this had taken barely more than five
+seconds. She thrust herself between the three men and the Dweller. She
+spoke to it--and the wild buzzing died down; the gay crystal tinklings
+burst forth again. The Thing murmured to her--began to whirl--faster,
+faster--passed down the ivory pier, out upon the waters, bearing with
+it, meshed in its light, the sacrifices--swept on ever more swiftly,
+triumphantly and turning, turning, with its ghastly crew, vanished
+through the Veil!
+
+Abruptly the polychromatic path snapped out.  The silver light poured
+in upon us. From all the amphitheatre arose a clamour, a shouting.
+Marakinoff, his eyes staring, was leaning out, listening. Unrestrained
+now by Rador, I vaulted the wall and rushed forward. But not before I
+had heard the green dwarf murmur:
+
+"There is something stronger than the Shining One!  Two things--yea--a
+strong heart--and hate!"
+
+Olaf, panting, eyes glazed, trembling, shrank beneath my hand.
+
+"The devil that took my Helma!" I heard him whisper. "The Shining
+Devil!"
+
+"Both these men," Lugur was raging, "they shall dance with the Shining
+one. And this one, too." He pointed at me malignantly.
+
+"This man is mine," said the priestess, and her voice was menacing.
+She rested her hand on Larry's shoulder. "He shall not dance. No--nor
+his friend. I have told you I dare not for this one!" She pointed to
+Olaf.
+
+"Neither this man, nor this," said Larry, "shall be harmed. This is my
+word, Yolara!"
+
+"Even so," she answered quietly, "my lord!"
+
+I saw Marakinoff stare at O'Keefe with a new and curiously speculative
+interest. Lugur's eyes grew hellish; he raised his arms as though to
+strike her. Larry's pistol prodded him rudely enough.
+
+"No rough stuff now, kid!" said O'Keefe in English.  The red dwarf
+quivered, turned--caught a robe from a priest standing by, and threw
+it over himself. The _ladala_, shouting, gesticulating, fighting with
+the soldiers, were jostling down from the tiers of jet.
+
+"Come!" commanded Yolara--her eyes rested upon Larry.  "Your heart is
+great, indeed--my lord!" she murmured; and her voice was very sweet.
+"Come!"
+
+"This man comes with us, Yolara," said O'Keefe pointing to Olaf.
+
+"Bring him," she said.  "Bring him--only tell him to look no more upon
+me as before!" she added fiercely.
+
+Beside her the three of us passed along the stalls, where sat the
+fair-haired, now silent, at gaze, as though in the grip of some great
+doubt. Silently Olaf strode beside me. Rador had disappeared. Down the
+stairway, through the hall of turquoise mist, over the rushing
+sea-stream we went and stood beside the wall through which we had
+entered. The white-robed ones had gone.
+
+Yolara pressed; the portal opened.  We stepped upon the car; she took
+the lever; we raced through the faintly luminous corridor to the house
+of the priestess.
+
+And one thing now I knew sick at heart and soul the truth had come to
+me--no more need to search for Throckmartin. Behind that Veil, in the
+lair of the Dweller, dead-alive like those we had just seen swim in
+its shining train was he, and Edith, Stanton and Thora and Olaf
+Huldricksson's wife!
+
+The car came to rest; the portal opened; Yolara leaped out lightly,
+beckoned and flitted up the corridor. She paused before an ebon
+screen. At a touch it vanished, revealing an entrance to a small blue
+chamber, glowing as though cut from the heart of some gigantic
+sapphire; bare, save that in its centre, upon a low pedestal, stood a
+great globe fashioned from milky rock-crystal; upon its surface were
+faint tracings as of seas and continents, but, if so, either of some
+other world or of this world in immemorial past, for in no way did
+they resemble the mapped coastlines of our earth.
+
+Poised upon the globe, rising from it out into space, locked in each
+other's arms, lips to lips, were two figures, a woman and a man, so
+exquisite, so lifelike, that for the moment I failed to realize that
+they, too, were carved of the crystal. And before this shrine--for
+nothing else could it be, I knew--three slender cones raised
+themselves: one of purest white flame, one of opalescent water, and
+the third of--moonlight! There was no mistaking them, the height of a
+tall man each stood--but how water, flame and light were held so
+evenly, so steadily in their spire-shapes, I could not tell.
+
+Yolara bowed lowly--once, twice, thrice.  She turned to O'Keefe, nor
+by slightest look or gesture betrayed she knew others were there than
+he. The blue eyes wide, searching, unfathomable, she drew close; put
+white hands on his shoulders, looked down into his very soul.
+
+"My lord," she murmured.  "Now listen well for I, Yolara, give you
+three things--myself, and the Shining One, and the power that is the
+Shining One's--yea, and still a fourth thing that is all three--power
+over all upon that world from whence you came! These, my lord, ye
+shall have. I swear it"--she turned toward the altar--uplifted her
+arms--"by Siya and by Siyana, and by the flame, by the water, and by
+the light!"[1]
+
+Her eyes grew purple dark.
+
+"Let none dare to take you from me!  Nor ye go from me unbidden!" she
+whispered fiercely.
+
+Then swiftly, still ignoring us, she threw her arms about O'Keefe,
+pressed her white body to his breast, lips raised, eyes closed,
+seeking his. O'Keefe's arms tightened around her, his head dropped
+lips seeking, finding hers--passionately! From Olaf came a deep
+indrawn breath that was almost a groan. But not in my heart could I
+find blame for the Irishman!
+
+The priestess opened eyes now all misty blue, thrust him back, stood
+regarding him. O'Keefe, dead-white, raised a trembling hand to his
+face.
+
+"And thus have I sealed my oath, O my lord!" she whispered.  For the
+first time she seemed to recognize our presence, stared at us a
+moment, then through us, and turned to O'Keefe.
+
+"Go, now!" she said.  "Soon Rador shall come for you. Then--well,
+after that let happen what will!"
+
+
+She smiled once more at him--so sweetly; turned toward the figures
+upon the great globe; sank upon her knees before them. Quietly we
+crept away; still silent, made our way to the little pavilion. But as
+we passed we heard a tumult from the green roadway; shouts of men, now
+and then a woman's scream. Through a rift in the garden I glimpsed a
+jostling crowd on one of the bridges: green dwarfs struggling with the
+_ladala_--and all about droned a humming as of a giant hive disturbed!
+
+Larry threw himself down upon one of the divans, covered his face with
+his hands, dropped them to catch in Olaf's eyes troubled reproach,
+looked at me.
+
+"_I_ couldn't help it," he said, half defiantly--half-miserably.
+"God, what a woman! I _couldn't_ help it!"
+
+"Larry," I asked.  "Why didn't you tell her you didn't love
+her--then?"
+
+He gazed at me--the old twinkle back in his eye.
+
+"Spoken like a scientist, Doc!" he exclaimed.  "I suppose if a burning
+angel struck you out of nowhere and threw itself about you, you would
+most dignifiedly tell it you didn't want to be burned. For God's sake,
+don't talk nonsense, Goodwin!" he ended, almost peevishly.
+
+"Evil!  Evil!" The Norseman's voice was deep, nearly a chant.  "All
+here is of evil: Trolldom and Helvede it is, Ja! And that she
+_djaevelsk_ of beauty--what is she but harlot of that shining devil
+they worship. I, Olaf Huldricksson, know what she meant when she held
+out to you power over all the world, _Ja!_--as if the world had not
+devils enough in it now!"
+
+"What?" The cry came from both O'Keefe and myself at once.
+
+Olaf made a gesture of caution, relapsed into sullen silence.  There
+were footsteps on the path, and into sight came Rador--but a Rador
+changed. Gone was every vestige of his mockery; curiously solemn, he
+saluted O'Keefe and Olaf with that salute which, before this, I had
+seen given only to Yolara and to Lugur. There came a swift quickening
+of the tumult--died away. He shrugged mighty shoulders.
+
+"The _ladala_ are awake!" he said.  "So much for what two brave men
+can do!" He paused thoughtfully. "Bones and dust jostle not each other
+for place against the grave wall!" he added oddly. "But if bones and
+dust have revealed to them that they still--live--"
+
+He stopped abruptly, eyes seeking the globe that bore and sent forth
+speech.[2]
+
+"The _Afyo Maie_ has sent me to watch over you till she summons you,"
+he announced clearly. "There is to be a--feast. You, _Larree_, you
+Goodwin, are to come. I remain here with--Olaf."
+
+"No harm to him!" broke in O'Keefe sharply.  Rador touched his heart,
+his eyes.
+
+"By the Ancient Ones, and by my love for you, and by what you twain
+did before the Shining One--I swear it!" he whispered.
+
+Rador clapped palms; a soldier came round the path, in his grip a long
+flat box of polished wood. The green dwarf took it, dismissed him,
+threw open the lid.
+
+"Here is your apparel for the feast, _Larree_," he said, pointing to
+the contents.
+
+O'Keefe stared, reached down and drew out a white, shimmering, softly
+metallic, long-sleeved tunic, a broad, silvery girdle, leg swathings
+of the same argent material, and sandals that seemed to be cut out
+from silver. He made a quick gesture of angry dissent.
+
+"Nay, _Larree_!" muttered the dwarf.  "Wear them--I counsel it--I pray
+it--ask me not why," he went on swiftly, looking again at the globe.
+
+O'Keefe, as I, was impressed by his earnestness.  The dwarf made a
+curiously expressive pleading gesture. O'Keefe abruptly took the
+garments; passed into the room of the fountain.
+
+"The Shining One dances not again?" I asked.
+
+"No," he said.  "No"--he hesitate--"it is the usual feast that follows
+the sacrament! Lugur--and Double Tongue, who came with you, will be
+there," he added slowly.
+
+"Lugur--" I gasped in astonishment.  "After what happened--he will be
+there?"
+
+"Perhaps because of what happened, Goodwin, my friend," he
+answered--his eyes again full of malice; "and there will be
+others--friends of Yolara--friends of Lugur--and perhaps
+another"--his voice was almost inaudible--"one whom they have not
+called--" He halted, half-fearfully, glancing at the globe; put finger
+to lips and spread himself out upon one of the couches.
+
+"Strike up the band"--came O'Keefe's voice--"here comes the hero!"
+
+He strode into the room.  I am bound to say that the admiration in
+Rador's eyes was reflected in my own, and even, if involuntarily, in
+Olaf's.
+
+"A son of Siyana!" whispered Rador.
+
+He knelt, took from his girdle-pouch a silk-wrapped something, unwound
+it--and, still kneeling, drew out a slender poniard of gleaming white
+metal, hilted with the blue stones; he thrust it into O'Keefe's
+girdle; then gave him again the rare salute.
+
+"Come," he ordered and took us to the head of the pathway.
+
+"Now," he said grimly, "let the Silent Ones show their power--if they
+still have it!"
+
+And with this strange benediction, he turned back.
+
+"For God's sake, Larry," I urged as we approached the house of the
+priestess, "you'll be careful!"
+
+He nodded--but I saw with a little deadly pang of apprehension in my
+heart a puzzled, lurking doubt within his eyes.
+
+As we ascended the serpent steps Marakinoff appeared. He gave a signal
+to our guards--and I wondered what influence the Russian had attained,
+for promptly, without question, they drew aside. At me he smiled
+amiably.
+
+"Have you found your friends yet?" he went on--and now I sensed
+something deeply sinister in him. "No! It is too bad! Well, don't give
+up hope." He turned to O'Keefe.
+
+"Lieutenant, I would like to speak to you--alone!"
+
+"I've no secrets from Goodwin," answered O'Keefe.
+
+"So?" queried Marakinoff, suavely.  He bent, whispered to Larry.
+
+The Irishman started, eyed him with a certain shocked incredulity,
+then turned to me.
+
+"Just a minute, Doc!" he said, and I caught the suspicion of a wink.
+They drew aside, out of ear-shot. The Russian talked rapidly. Larry
+was all attention. Marakinoff's earnestness became intense; O'Keefe
+interrupted--appeared to question. Marakinoff glanced at me and as his
+gaze shifted from O'Keefe, I saw a flame of rage and horror blaze up
+in the latter's eyes. At last the Irishman appeared to consider
+gravely; nodded as though he had arrived at some decision, and
+Marakinoff thrust his hand to him.
+
+And only I could have noticed Larry's shrinking, his microscopic
+hesitation before he took it, and his involuntary movement, as though
+to shake off something unclean, when the clasp had ended.
+
+Marakinoff, without another look at me, turned and went quickly
+within. The guards took their places. I looked at Larry inquiringly.
+
+"Don't ask a thing now, Doc!" he said tensely.  "Wait till we get
+home. But we've got to get damned busy and quick--I'll tell you that
+now--"
+
+
+[1] I have no space here even to outline the eschatology of this
+people, nor to catalogue their pantheon. Siya and Siyana typified
+worldly love. Their ritual was, however, singularly free from those
+degrading elements usually found in love-cults. Priests and
+priestesses of all cults dwelt in the immense seven-terraced
+structure, of which the jet amphitheatre was the water side. The
+symbol, icon, representation, of Siya and Siyana--the globe and the
+up-striving figures--typified earthly love, feet bound to earth, but
+eyes among the stars. Hell or heaven I never heard formulated, nor
+their equivalents; unless that existence in the Shining One's domain
+could serve for either. Over all this was Thanaroa, remote; unheeding,
+but still maker and ruler of all--an absentee First Cause personified!
+Thanaroa seemed to be the one article of belief in the creed of the
+soldiers--Rador, with his reverence for the Ancient Ones, was an
+exception. Whatever there was, indeed, of high, truly religious
+impulse among the Murians, this far, High God had. I found this
+exceedingly interesting, because it had long been my theory--to put
+the matter in the shape of a geometrical formula--that the real
+attractiveness of gods to man increases uniformly according to the
+square of their distance--W. T. G.
+
+[2] I find that I have neglected to explain the working of these
+interesting mechanisms that were telephonic, dictaphonic, telegraphic
+in one. I must assume that my readers are familiar with the receiving
+apparatus of wireless telegraphy, which must be "tuned" by the
+operator until its own vibratory quality is in exact harmony with the
+vibrations--the extremely rapid impacts--of those short electric
+wavelengths we call Hertzian, and which carry the wireless messages. I
+must assume also that they are familiar with the elementary fact of
+physics that the vibrations of light and sound are interchangeable.
+The hearing-talking globes utilize both these principles, and with
+consummate simplicity. The light with which they shone was produced by
+an atomic "motor" within their base, similar to that which activated
+the merely illuminating globes. The composition of the phonic spheres
+gave their surfaces an acute sensitivity and resonance. In conjunction
+with its energizing power, the metal set up what is called a "field of
+force," which linked it with every particle of its kind no matter how
+distant. When vibrations of speech impinged upon the resonant surface
+its rhythmic light-vibrations were broken, just as a telephone
+transmitter breaks an electric current. Simultaneously these
+light-vibrations were changed into sound--on the surfaces of all
+spheres tuned to that particular instrument. The "crawling" colours
+which showed themselves at these times were literally the voice of the
+speaker in its spectrum equivalent. While usually the sounds produced
+required considerable familiarity with the apparatus to be understood
+quickly, they could, on occasion, be made startlingly loud and
+clear--as I was soon to realize--W. T. G.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+The Tempting of Larry
+
+We paused before thick curtains, through which came the faint murmur
+of many voices. They parted; out came two--ushers, I suppose, they
+were--in cuirasses and kilts that reminded me somewhat of
+chain-mail--the first armour of any kind here that I had seen. They
+held open the folds.
+
+The chamber, on whose threshold we stood, was far larger than either
+anteroom or hall of audience. Not less than three hundred feet long
+and half that in depth, from end to end of it ran two huge
+semi-circular tables, paralleling each other, divided by a wide aisle,
+and heaped with flowers, with fruits, with viands unknown to me, and
+glittering with crystal flagons, beakers, goblets of as many hues as
+the blooms. On the gay-cushioned couches that flanked the tables,
+lounging luxuriously, were scores of the fair-haired ruling class and
+there rose a little buzz of admiration, oddly mixed with a
+half-startled amaze, as their gaze fell upon O'Keefe in all his
+silvery magnificence. Everywhere the light-giving globes sent their
+roseate radiance.
+
+The cuirassed dwarfs led us through the aisle.  Within the arc of the
+inner half--circle was another glittering board, an oval. But of those
+seated there, facing us--I had eyes for only one--Yolara! She swayed
+up to greet O'Keefe--and she was like one of those white lily maids,
+whose beauty Hoang-Ku, the sage, says made the Gobi first a paradise,
+and whose lusts later the burned-out desert that it is. She held out
+hands to Larry, and on her face was passion--unashamed, unhiding.
+
+She was Circe--but Circe conquered.  Webs of filmiest white clung to
+the rose-leaf body. Twisted through the corn-silk hair a threaded
+circlet of pale sapphires shone; but they were pale beside Yolara's
+eyes. O'Keefe bent, kissed her hands, something more than mere
+admiration flaming from him. She saw--and, smiling, drew him down
+beside her.
+
+It came to me that of all, only these two, Yolara and O'Keefe, were in
+white--and I wondered; then with a tightening of nerves ceased to
+wonder as there entered--Lugur! He was all in scarlet, and as he
+strode forward a silence fell a tense, strained silence.
+
+His gaze turned upon Yolara, rested upon O'Keefe, and instantly his
+face grew--dreadful--there is no other word than that for it.
+Marakinoff leaned forward from the centre of the table, near whose end
+I sat, touched and whispered to him swiftly. With appalling effort the
+red dwarf controlled himself; he saluted the priestess ironically, I
+thought; took his place at the further end of the oval. And now I
+noted that the figures between were the seven of that Council of which
+the Shining One's priestess and Voice were the heads. The tension
+relaxed, but did not pass--as though a storm-cloud should turn away,
+but still lurk, threatening.
+
+My gaze ran back.  This end of the room was draped with the
+exquisitely coloured, graceful curtains looped with gorgeous garlands.
+Between curtains and table, where sat Larry and the nine, a circular
+platform, perhaps ten yards in diameter, raised itself a few feet
+above the floor, its gleaming surface half-covered with the luminous
+petals, fragrant, delicate.
+
+On each side below it, were low carven stools.  The curtains parted
+and softly entered girls bearing their flutes, their harps, the
+curiously emotion-exciting, octaved drums. They sank into their
+places. They touched their instruments; a faint, languorous measure
+throbbed through the rosy air.
+
+The stage was set!  What was to be the play?
+
+Now about the tables passed other dusky-haired maids, fair bosoms
+bare, their scanty kirtles looped high, pouring out the wines for the
+feasters.
+
+My eyes sought O'Keefe.  Whatever it had been that Marakinoff had
+said, clearly it now filled his mind--even to the exclusion of the
+wondrous woman beside him. His eyes were stern, cold--and now and
+then, as he turned them toward the Russian, filled with a curious
+speculation. Yolara watched him, frowned, gave a low order to the Hebe
+behind her.
+
+The girl disappeared, entered again with a ewer that seemed cut of
+amber. The priestess poured from it into Larry's glass a clear liquid
+that shook with tiny sparkles of light. She raised the glass to her
+lips, handed it to him. Half-smiling, half-abstractedly, he took it,
+touched his own lips where hers had kissed; drained it. A nod from
+Yolara and the maid refilled his goblet.
+
+At once there was a swift transformation in the Irishman. His
+abstraction vanished; the sternness fled; his eyes sparkled. He leaned
+caressingly toward Yolara; whispered. Her blue eyes flashed
+triumphantly; her chiming laughter rang. She raised her own glass--but
+within it was not that clear drink that filled Larry's! And again he
+drained his own; and, lifting it, full once more, caught the baleful
+eyes of Lugur, and held it toward him mockingly. Yolara swayed
+close--alluring, tempting. He arose, face all reckless gaiety; rollicking
+deviltry.
+
+"A toast!" he cried in English, "to the Shining One--and may the hell
+where it belongs soon claim it!"
+
+He had used their own word for their god--all else had been in his own
+tongue, and so, fortunately, they did not understand. But the contempt
+in his action they did recognize--and a dead, a fearful silence fell
+upon them all. Lugur's eyes blazed, little sparks of crimson in their
+green. The priestess reached up, caught at O'Keefe. He seized the soft
+hand; caressed it; his gaze grew far away, sombre.
+
+"The Shining One." He spoke low.  "An' now again I see the faces of
+those who dance with it. It is the Fires of Mora--come, God alone
+knows how--from Erin--to this place. The Fires of Mora!" He
+contemplated the hushed folk before him; and then from his lips came
+that weirdest, most haunting of the lyric legends of Erin--the Curse
+of Mora:
+
+    "The fretted fires of Mora blew o'er him in the night;
+    He thrills no more to loving, nor weeps for past delight.
+    For when those flames have bitten, both grief and joy take flight--"
+
+Again Yolara tried to draw him down beside her; and once more he
+gripped her hand. His eyes grew fixed--he crooned:
+
+    "And through the sleeping silence his feet must track the tune,
+    When the world is barred and speckled with silver of the moon--"
+
+He stood, swaying, for a moment, and then, laughing, let the priestess
+have her way; drained again the glass.
+
+And now my heart was cold, indeed--for what hope was there left with
+Larry mad, wild drunk!
+
+The silence was unbroken--elfin women and dwarfs glancing furtively at
+each other. But now Yolara arose, face set, eyes flashing grey.
+
+"Hear you, the Council, and you, Lugur--and all who are here!" she
+cried. "Now I, the priestess of the Shining One, take, as is my right,
+my mate. And this is he!" She pointed down upon Larry. He glanced up
+at her.
+
+"Can't quite make out what you say, Yolara," he muttered thickly.
+"But say anything--you like--I love your voice!"
+
+I turned sick with dread.  Yolara's hand stole softly upon the
+Irishman's curls caressingly.
+
+"You know the law, Yolara." Lugur's voice was flat, deadly, "You may
+not mate with other than your own kind. And this man is a stranger--a
+barbarian--food for the Shining One!" Literally, he spat the phrase.
+
+"No, not of our kind--Lugur--higher!" Yolara answered serenely.  "Lo,
+a son of Siya and of Siyana!"
+
+"A lie!" roared the red dwarf.  "A lie!"
+
+"The Shining One revealed it to me!" said Yolara sweetly. "And if ye
+believe not, Lugur--go ask of the Shining One if it be not truth!"
+
+There was bitter, nameless menace in those last words--and whatever
+their hidden message to Lugur, it was potent. He stood, choking, face
+hell-shadowed--Marakinoff leaned out again, whispered. The red dwarf
+bowed, now wholly ironically; resumed his place and his silence. And
+again I wondered, icy-hearted, what was the power the Russian had so
+to sway Lugur.
+
+"What says the Council?" Yolara demanded, turning to them.
+
+Only for a moment they consulted among themselves. Then the woman,
+whose face was a ravaged shrine of beauty, spoke.
+
+"The will of the priestess is the will of the Council!" she answered.
+
+Defiance died from Yolara's face; she looked down at Larry tenderly.
+He sat swaying, crooning.
+
+"Bid the priests come," she commanded, then turned to the silent room.
+"By the rites of Siya and Siyana, Yolara takes their son for her
+mate!" And again her hand stole down possessingly, serpent soft, to
+the drunken head of the O'Keefe.
+
+The curtains parted widely.  Through them filed, two by two, twelve
+hooded figures clad in flowing robes of the green one sees in forest
+vistas of opening buds of dawning spring. Of each pair one bore
+clasped to breast a globe of that milky crystal in the sapphire
+shrine-room; the other a harp, small, shaped somewhat like the ancient
+clarsach of the Druids.
+
+Two by two they stepped upon the raised platform, placed gently upon
+it each their globe; and two by two crouched behind them. They formed
+now a star of six points about the petalled dais, and, simultaneously,
+they drew from their faces the covering cowls.
+
+I half-rose--youths and maidens these of the fair-haired; and youths
+and maids more beautiful than any of those I had yet seen--for upon
+their faces was little of that disturbing mockery to which I have been
+forced so often, because of the deep impression it made upon me, to
+refer. The ashen-gold of the maiden priestesses' hair was wound about
+their brows in shining coronals. The pale locks of the youths were
+clustered within circlets of translucent, glimmering gems like
+moonstones. And then, crystal globe alternately before and harp
+alternately held by youth and maid, they began to sing.
+
+What was that song, I do not know--nor ever shall. Archaic, ancient
+beyond thought, it seemed--not with the ancientness of things that for
+uncounted ages have been but wind-driven dust. Rather was it the
+ancientness of the golden youth of the world, love lilts of earth
+younglings, with light of new-born suns drenching them, chorals of
+young stars mating in space; murmurings of April gods and goddesses. A
+languor stole through me. The rosy lights upon the tripods began to
+die away, and as they faded the milky globes gleamed forth brighter,
+ever brighter. Yolara rose, stretched a hand to Larry, led him through
+the sextuple groups, and stood face to face with him in the centre of
+their circle.
+
+The rose-light died; all that immense chamber was black, save for the
+circle of the glowing spheres. Within this their milky radiance grew
+brighter--brighter. The song whispered away. A throbbing arpeggio
+dripped from the harps, and as the notes pulsed out, up from the
+globes, as though striving to follow, pulsed with them tips of
+moon-fire cones, such as I had seen before Yolara's altar. Weirdly,
+caressingly, compellingly the harp notes throbbed in repeated,
+re-repeated theme, holding within itself the same archaic golden
+quality I had noted in the singing. And over the moon flame pinnacles
+rose higher!
+
+Yolara lifted her arms; within her hands were clasped O'Keefe's.  She
+raised them above their two heads and slowly, slowly drew him with her
+into a circling, graceful step, tendrillings delicate as the slow
+spirallings of twilight mist upon some still stream.
+
+As they swayed the rippling arpeggios grew louder, and suddenly the
+slender pinnacles of moon fire bent, dipped, flowed to the floor,
+crept in a shining ring around those two--and began to rise, a
+gleaming, glimmering, enchanted barrier--rising, ever rising--hiding
+them!
+
+With one swift movement Yolara unbound her circlet of pale sapphires,
+shook loose the waves of her silken hair. It fell, a rippling,
+wondrous cascade, veiling both her and O'Keefe to their girdles--and
+now the shining coils of moon fire had crept to their knees--was
+circling higher--higher.
+
+And ever despair grew deeper in my soul!
+
+What was that!  I started to my feet, and all around me in the
+darkness I heard startled motion. From without came a blaring of
+trumpets, the sound of running men, loud murmurings. The tumult drew
+closer. I heard cries of "Lakla! Lakla!" Now it was at the very
+threshold and within it, oddly, as though--punctuating--the clamour, a
+deep-toned, almost abysmal, booming sound--thunderously bass and
+reverberant.
+
+Abruptly the harpings ceased; the moon fires shuddered, fell, and
+began to sweep back into the crystal globes; Yolara's swaying form
+grew rigid, every atom of it listening. She threw aside the veiling
+cloud of hair, and in the gleam of the last retreating spirals her
+face glared out like some old Greek mask of tragedy.
+
+The sweet lips that even at their sweetest could never lose their
+delicate cruelty, had no sweetness now. They were drawn into a
+square--inhuman as that of the Medusa; in her eyes were the fires of
+the pit, and her hair seemed to writhe like the serpent locks of that
+Gorgon whose mouth she had borrowed; all her beauty was transformed
+into a nameless thing--hideous, inhuman, blasting! If this was the
+true soul of Yolara springing to her face, then, I thought, God help
+us in very deed!
+
+I wrested my gaze away to O'Keefe.  All drunkenness gone, himself
+again, he was staring down at her, and in his eyes were loathing and
+horror unutterable. So they stood--and the light fled.
+
+Only for a moment did the darkness hold.  With lightning swiftness the
+blackness that was the chamber's other wall vanished. Through a portal
+open between grey screens, the silver sparkling radiance poured.
+
+And through the portal marched, two by two, incredible, nightmare
+figures--frog-men, giants, taller by nearly a yard than even tall
+O'Keefe! Their enormous saucer eyes were irised by wide bands of
+green-flecked red, in which the phosphorescence flickered. Their long
+muzzles, lips half-open in monstrous grin, held rows of glistening,
+slender, lancet sharp fangs. Over the glaring eyes arose a horny
+helmet, a carapace of black and orange scales, studded with foot-long
+lance-headed horns.
+
+They lined themselves like soldiers on each side of the wide table
+aisle, and now I could see that their horny armour covered shoulders
+and backs, ran across the chest in a knobbed cuirass, and at wrists
+and heels jutted out into curved, murderous spurs. The webbed hands
+and feet ended in yellow, spade-shaped claws.
+
+They carried spears, ten feet, at least, in length, the heads of which
+were pointed cones, glistening with that same covering, from whose
+touch of swift decay I had so narrowly saved Rador.
+
+They were grotesque, yes--more grotesque than anything I had ever seen
+or dreamed, and they were--terrible!
+
+And then, quietly, through their ranks came--a girl!  Behind her,
+enormous pouch at his throat swelling in and out menacingly, in one
+paw a treelike, spike-studded mace, a frog-man, huger than any of the
+others, guarding. But of him I caught but a fleeting, involuntary
+impression--all my gaze was for her.
+
+For it was she who had pointed out to us the way from the peril of the
+Dweller's lair on Nan-Tauach. And as I looked at her, I marvelled that
+ever could I have thought the priestess more beautiful. Into the eyes
+of O'Keefe rushed joy and an utter abasement of shame.
+
+And from all about came murmurs--edged with anger, half-incredulous,
+tinged with fear:
+
+"Lakla!"
+
+"Lakla!"
+
+"The handmaiden!"
+
+She halted close beside me.  From firm little chin to dainty buskined
+feet she was swathed in the soft robes of dull, almost coppery hue.
+The left arm was hidden, the right free and gloved. Wound tight about
+it was one of the vines of the sculptured wall and of Lugur's circled
+signet-ring. Thick, a vivid green, its five tendrils ran between her
+fingers, stretching out five flowered heads that gleamed like blossoms
+cut from gigantic, glowing rubies.
+
+So she stood contemplating Yolara.  Then drawn perhaps by my gaze, she
+dropped her eyes upon me; golden, translucent, with tiny flecks of
+amber in their aureate irises, the soul that looked through them was
+as far removed from that flaming out of the priestess as zenith is
+above nadir.
+
+I noted the low, broad brow, the proud little nose, the tender mouth,
+and the soft--sunlight--glow that seemed to transfuse the delicate
+skin. And suddenly in the eyes dawned a smile--sweet, friendly, a
+touch of roguishness, profoundly reassuring in its all humanness. I
+felt my heart expand as though freed from fetters, a recrudescence of
+confidence in the essential reality of things--as though in nightmare
+the struggling consciousness should glimpse some familiar face and
+know the terrors with which it strove were but dreams. And
+involuntarily I smiled back at her.
+
+She raised her head and looked again at Yolara, contempt and a certain
+curiosity in her gaze; at O'Keefe--and through the softened eyes
+drifted swiftly a shadow of sorrow, and on its fleeting wings deepest
+interest, and hovering over that a naive approval as reassuringly
+human as had been her smile.
+
+She spoke, and her voice, deep-timbred, liquid gold as was Yolara's
+all silver, was subtly the synthesis of all the golden glowing beauty
+of her.
+
+"The Silent Ones have sent me, O Yolara," she said.  "And this is
+their command to you--that you deliver to me to bring before them
+three of the four strangers who have found their way here. For him
+there who plots with Lugur"--she pointed at Marakinoff, and I saw
+Yolara start--"they have no need. Into his heart the Silent Ones have
+looked; and Lugur and you may keep him, Yolara!"
+
+There was honeyed venom in the last words.
+
+Yolara was herself now; only the edge of shrillness on her voice
+revealed her wrath as she answered.
+
+"And whence have the Silent Ones gained power to command, _choya_?"
+
+This last, I knew, was a very vulgar word; I had heard Rador use it in
+a moment of anger to one of the serving maids, and it meant,
+approximately, "kitchen girl," "scullion." Beneath the insult and the
+acid disdain, the blood rushed up under Lakla's ambered ivory skin.
+
+"Yolara"--her voice was low--"of no use is it to question me. I am but
+the messenger of the Silent Ones. And one thing only am I bidden to
+ask you--do you deliver to me the three strangers?"
+
+Lugur was on his feet; eagerness, sardonic delight, sinister
+anticipation thrilling from him--and my same glance showed Marakinoff,
+crouched, biting his finger-nails, glaring at the Golden Girl.
+
+"No!" Yolara spat the word.  "No!  Now by Thanaroa and by the Shining
+One, no!" Her eyes blazed, her nostrils were wide, in her fair throat
+a little pulse beat angrily. "You, Lakla--take you my message to the
+Silent Ones. Say to them that I keep this man"--she pointed to
+Larry--"because he is mine. Say to them that I keep the yellow-haired
+one and him"--she pointed to me--"because it pleases me.
+
+"Tell them that upon their mouths I place my foot, so!"--she stamped
+upon the dais viciously--"and that in their faces I spit!"--and her
+action was hideously snakelike. "And say last to them, you handmaiden,
+that if _you_ they dare send to Yolara again, she will feed _you_ to
+the Shining One! Now--go!"
+
+The handmaiden's face was white.
+
+"Not unforeseen by the three was this, Yolara," she replied.  "And did
+you speak as you have spoken then was I bidden to say this to you."
+Her voice deepened. "Three _tal_ have you to take counsel, Yolara. And
+at the end of that time these things must you have determined--either
+to do or not to do: first, send the strangers to the Silent Ones;
+second, give up, you and Lugur and all of you, that dream you have of
+conquest of the world without; and, third, forswear the Shining One!
+And if you do not one and all these things, then are you done, your
+cup of life broken, your wine of life spilled. Yea, Yolara, for you
+and the Shining One, Lugur and the Nine and all those here and their
+kind shall pass! This say the Silent Ones, 'Surely shall all of ye
+pass and be as though never had ye been!'"
+
+Now a gasp of rage and fear arose from all those around me--but the
+priestess threw back her head and laughed loud and long. Into the
+silver sweet chiming of her laughter clashed that of Lugur--and after
+a little the nobles took it up, till the whole chamber echoed with
+their mirth. O'Keefe, lips tightening, moved toward the Handmaiden,
+and almost imperceptibly, but peremptorily, she waved him back.
+
+"Those _are_ great words--great words indeed, _choya_," shrilled Yolara
+at last; and again Lakla winced beneath the word. "Lo, for _laya_ upon
+_laya_, the Shining One has been freed from the Three; and for _laya_
+upon _laya_ they have sat helpless, rotting. Now I ask you
+again--whence comes their power to lay their will upon me, and whence
+comes their strength to wrestle with the Shining One and the beloved
+of the Shining One?"
+
+And again she laughed--and again Lugur and all the fairhaired joined
+in her laughter.
+
+Into the eyes of Lakla I saw creep a doubt, a wavering; as though deep
+within her the foundations of her own belief were none too firm.
+
+She hesitated, turning upon O'Keefe gaze in which rested more than
+suggestion of appeal! And Yolara saw, too, for she flushed with
+triumph, stretched a finger toward the handmaiden.
+
+"Look!" she cried.  "Look!  Why, even _she_ does not believe!" Her
+voice grew silk of silver--merciless, cruel. "Now am I minded to send
+another answer to the Silent Ones. Yea! But not by _you_, Lakla; by
+these"--she pointed to the frog-men, and, swift as light, her hand
+darted into her bosom, bringing forth the little shining cone of
+death.
+
+But before she could level it the Golden Girl had released that hidden
+left arm and thrown over her face a fold of the metallic swathings.
+Swifter than Yolara, she raised the arm that held the vine--and now I
+knew this was no inert blossoming thing.
+
+It was alive!
+
+It writhed down her arm, and its five rubescent flower heads thrust
+out toward the priestess--vibrating, quivering, held in leash only by
+the light touch of the handmaiden at its very end.
+
+From the swelling throat pouch of the monster behind her came a
+succession of the reverberant boomings. The frogmen wheeled, raised
+their lances, levelled them at the throng. Around the reaching ruby
+flowers a faint red mist swiftly grew.
+
+The silver cone dropped from Yolara's rigid fingers; her eyes grew
+stark with horror; all her unearthly loveliness fled from her; she
+stood pale-lipped. The Handmaiden dropped the protecting veil--and now
+it was she who laughed.
+
+"It would seem, then, Yolara, that there _is_ a thing of the Silent Ones
+ye fear!" she said. "Well--the kiss of the _Yekta_ I promise you in
+return for the embrace of your Shining One."
+
+She looked at Larry, long, searchingly, and suddenly again with all
+that effect of sunlight bursting into dark places, her smile shone
+upon him. She nodded, half gaily; looked down upon me, the little
+merry light dancing in her eyes; waved her hand to me.
+
+She spoke to the giant frog-man.  He wheeled behind her as she turned,
+facing the priestess, club upraised, fangs glistening. His troop moved
+not a jot, spears held high. Lakla began to pass slowly--almost, I
+thought, tauntingly--and as she reached the portal Larry leaped from
+the dais.
+
+"_Alanna_!" he cried.  "You'll not be leavin' me just when I've found
+you!"
+
+In his excitement he spoke in his own tongue, the velvet brogue
+appealing. Lakla turned, contemplated O'Keefe, hesitant,
+unquestionably longingly, irresistibly like a child making up her mind
+whether she dared or dared not take a delectable something offered
+her.
+
+"I go with you," said O'Keefe, this time in her own speech.  "Come on,
+Doc!" He reached out a hand to me.
+
+But now Yolara spoke.  Life and beauty had flowed back into her face,
+and in the purple eyes all her hosts of devils were gathered.
+
+"Do you forget what I promised you before Siya and Siyana?  And do you
+think that you can leave me--me--as though I were a _choya_--like
+_her_." She pointed to Lakla. "Do you--"
+
+"Now, listen, Yolara," Larry interrupted almost plaintively.  "No
+promise has passed from me to you--and why would you hold me?" He
+passed unconsciously into English. "Be a good sport, Yolara," he
+urged, "You _have_ got a very devil of a temper, you know, and so have
+I; and we'd be really awfully uncomfortable together. And why don't
+you get rid of that devilish pet of yours, and be good!"
+
+She looked at him, puzzled, Marakinoff leaned over, translated to
+Lugur. The red dwarf smiled maliciously, drew near the priestess;
+whispered to her what was without doubt as near as he could come in
+the Murian to Larry's own very colloquial phrases.
+
+Yolara's lips writhed.
+
+"Hear me, Lakla!" she cried.  "Now would I not let you take this man
+from me were I to dwell ten thousand _laya_ in the agony of the
+_Yekta's_ kiss. This I swear to you--by Thanaroa, by my heart, and by
+my strength--and may my strength wither, my heart rot in my breast,
+and Thanaroa forget me if I do!"
+
+"Listen, Yolara"--began O'Keefe again.
+
+"Be silent, you!" It was almost a shriek.  And her hand again sought
+in her breast for the cone of rhythmic death.
+
+Lugur touched her arm, whispered again, The glint of guile shone in
+her eyes; she laughed softly, relaxed.
+
+"The Silent Ones, Lakla, bade you say that they--allowed--me three
+_tal_ to decide," she said suavely. "Go now in peace, Lakla, and say
+that Yolara has heard, and that for the three _tal_ they--allow--her
+she will take council." The handmaiden hesitated.
+
+"The Silent Ones have said it," she answered at last.  "Stay you here,
+strangers"---the long lashes drooped as her eyes met O'Keefe's and a
+hint of blush was in her cheeks--"stay you here, strangers, till then.
+But, Yolara, see you on that heart and strength you have sworn by that
+they come to no harm--else that which you have invoked shall come upon
+you swiftly indeed--and that I promise you," she added.
+
+Their eyes met, clashed, burned into each other--black flame from
+Abaddon and golden flame from Paradise.
+
+"Remember!" said Lakla, and passed through the portal. The gigantic
+frog-man boomed a thunderous note of command, his grotesque guards
+turned and slowly followed their mistress; and last of all passed out
+the monster with the mace.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+Larry's Defiance
+
+A clamour arose from all the chambers; stilled in an instant by a
+motion of Yolara's hand. She stood silent, regarding O'Keefe with
+something other now than blind wrath; something half regretful, half
+beseeching. But the Irishman's control was gone.
+
+"Yolara,"--his voice shook with rage, and he threw caution to the
+wind--"now hear _me_. I go where I will and when I will. Here shall we
+stay until the time she named is come. And then we follow her, whether
+you will or not. And if any should have thought to stop us--tell them
+of that flame that shattered the vase," he added grimly.
+
+The wistfulness died out of her eyes, leaving them cold. But no answer
+made she to him.
+
+"What Lakla has said, the Council must consider, and at once." The
+priestess was facing the nobles. "Now, friends of mine, and friends of
+Lugur, must all feud, all rancour, between us end." She glanced
+swiftly at Lugur. "The _ladala_ are stirring, and the Silent Ones
+threaten. Yet fear not--for are we not strong under the Shining One?
+And now--leave us."
+
+Her hand dropped to the table, and she gave, evidently, a signal, for
+in marched a dozen or more of the green dwarfs.
+
+"Take these two to their place," she commanded, pointing to us.
+
+The green dwarfs clustered about us.  Without another look at the
+priestess O'Keefe marched beside me, between them, from the chamber.
+And it was not until we had reached the pillared entrance that Larry
+spoke.
+
+"I hate to talk like that to a woman, Doc," he said, "and a pretty
+woman, at that. But first she played me with a marked deck, and then
+not only pinched all the chips, but drew a gun on me. What the
+hell! she nearly had me--_married_--to her. I don't know what the stuff
+was she gave me; but, take it from me, if I had the recipe for that
+brew I could sell it for a thousand dollars a jolt at Forty-second and
+Broadway.
+
+"One jigger of it, and you forget there is a trouble in the world;
+three of them, and you forget there is a world. No excuse for it, Doc;
+and I don't care what you say or what Lakla may say--it wasn't my
+fault, and I don't hold it up against myself for a damn."
+
+"I must admit that I'm a bit uneasy about her threats," I said,
+ignoring all this. He stopped abruptly.
+
+"What're you afraid of?"
+
+"Mostly," I answered dryly, "I have no desire to dance with the
+Shining One!"
+
+"Listen to me, Goodwin," He took up his walk impatiently.  "I've all
+the love and admiration for you in the world; but this place has got
+your nerve. Hereafter one Larry O'Keefe, of Ireland and the little old
+U. S. A., leads this party. Nix on the tremolo stop, nix on the
+superstition! I'm the works. Get me?"
+
+"Yes, I get you!" I exclaimed testily enough.  "But to use your own
+phrase, kindly can the repeated references to superstition."
+
+"Why should I?" He was almost wrathful.  "You scientific people build
+up whole philosophies on the basis of things you never saw, and you
+scoff at people who believe in other things that you think _they_ never
+saw and that don't come under what you label scientific. You talk
+about paradoxes--why, your scientist, who thinks he is the most
+skeptical, the most materialistic aggregation of atoms ever gathered
+at the exact mathematical centre of Missouri, has more blind faith
+than a dervish, and more credulity, more superstition, than a
+cross-eyed smoke beating it past a country graveyard in the dark of
+the moon!"
+
+"Larry!" I cried, dazed.
+
+"Olaf's no better," he said.  "But I can make allowances for him.
+He's a sailor. No, sir. What this expedition needs is a man without
+superstition. And remember this. The leprechaun promised that I'd have
+full warning before anything happened. And if we do have to go out,
+we'll see that banshee bunch clean up before we do, and pass in a
+blaze of glory. And don't forget it. Hereafter--I'm--in--charge!"
+
+By this time we were before our pavilion; and neither of us in a very
+amiable mood I'm afraid. Rador was awaiting us with a score of his
+men.
+
+"Let none pass in here without authority--and let none pass out unless
+I accompany them," he ordered bruskly. "Summon one of the swiftest of
+the _coria_ and have it wait in readiness," he added, as though by
+afterthought.
+
+But when we had entered and the screens were drawn together his manner
+changed; all eagerness he questioned us. Briefly we told him of the
+happenings at the feast, of Lakla's dramatic interruption, and of what
+had followed.
+
+"Three _tal_," he said musingly; "three _tal_ the Silent Ones have
+allowed--and Yolara agreed." He sank back, silent and thoughtful.[1]
+
+"_Ja!_"  It was Olaf. "_Ja!_  I told you the Shining Devil's mistress
+was all evil. _Ja!_ Now I begin again that tale I started when he
+came"--he glanced toward the preoccupied Rador. "And tell him not what
+I say should he ask. For I trust none here in Trolldom, save the
+_Jomfrau_--the White Virgin!
+
+"After the oldster was _adsprede_"--Olaf once more used that
+expressive Norwegian word for the dissolving of Songar--"I knew that
+it was a time for cunning. I said to myself, 'If they think I have no
+ears to hear, they will speak; and it may be I will find a way to save
+my Helma and Dr. Goodwin's friends, too.' _Ja_, and they did speak.
+
+"The red _Trolde_ asked the Russian how came it he was a worshipper of
+Thanaroa." I could not resist a swift glance of triumph toward
+O'Keefe. "And the Russian," rumbled Olaf, "said that all his people
+worshipped Thanaroa and had fought against the other nations that
+denied him.
+
+"And then we had come to Lugur's palace.  They put me in rooms, and
+there came to me men who rubbed and oiled me and loosened my muscles.
+The next day I wrestled with a great dwarf they called Valdor. He was
+a mighty man, and long we struggled, and at last I broke his back. And
+Lugur was pleased, so that I sat with him at feast and with the
+Russian, too. And again, not knowing that I understood them, they
+talked.
+
+"The Russian had gone fast and far.  They talked of Lugur as emperor
+of all Europe, and Marakinoff under him. They spoke of the green light
+that shook life from the oldster; and Lugur said that the secret of it
+had been the Ancient Ones' and that the Council had not too much of
+it. But the Russian said that among his race were many wise men who
+could make more once they had studied it.
+
+"And the next day I wrestled with a great dwarf named Tahola, mightier
+far than Valdor. Him I threw after a long, long time, and his back
+also I broke. Again Lugur was pleased. And again we sat at table, he
+and the Russian and I. This time they spoke of something these
+_Trolde_ have which opens up a _Svaelc_--abysses into which all in its
+range drops up into the sky!"
+
+"What!" I exclaimed.
+
+"I know about them," said Larry.  "Wait!"
+
+"Lugur had drunk much," went on Olaf.  "He was boastful.  The Russian
+pressed him to show this thing. After a while the red one went out and
+came back with a little golden box. He and the Russian went into the
+garden. I followed them. There was a _lille Hoj_--a mound--of stones
+in that garden on which grew flowers and trees.
+
+"Lugur pressed upon the box, and a spark no bigger than a sand grain
+leaped out and fell beside the stones. Lugur pressed again, and a blue
+light shot from the box and lighted on the spark. The spark that had
+been no bigger than a grain of sand grew and grew as the blue struck
+it. And then there was a sighing, a wind blew--and the stones and the
+flowers and the trees were not. They were _forsvinde_--vanished!
+
+"Then Lugur, who had been laughing, grew quickly sober; for he thrust
+the Russian back--far back. And soon down into the garden came
+tumbling the stones and the trees, but broken and shattered, and
+falling as though from a great height. And Lugur said that of _this_
+something they had much, for its making was a secret handed down by
+their own forefathers and not by the Ancient Ones.
+
+"They feared to use it, he said, for a spark thrice as large as that
+he had used would have sent all that garden falling upward and might
+have opened a way to the outside before--he said just this--'_before
+we are ready to go out into it!_'
+
+"The Russian questioned much, but Lugur sent for more drink and grew
+merrier and threatened him, and the Russian was silent through fear.
+Thereafter I listened when I could, and little more I learned, but
+that little enough. _Ja!_ Lugur is hot for conquest; so Yolara and so
+the Council. They tire of it here and the Silent Ones make their minds
+not too easy, no, even though they jeer at them! And this they plan--to
+rule our world with their Shining Devil."
+
+The Norseman was silent for a moment; then voice deep, trembling--
+
+"Trolldom is awake; Helvede crouches at Earth Gate whining to be
+loosed into a world already devil ridden! And we are but three!"
+
+I felt the blood drive out of my heart.  But Larry's was the fighting
+face of the O'Keefes of a thousand years. Rador glanced at him, arose,
+stepped through the curtains; returned swiftly with the Irishman's
+uniform.
+
+"Put it on," he said, bruskly; again fell back into his silence and
+whatever O'Keefe had been about to say was submerged in his wild and
+joyful whoop. He ripped from him glittering tunic and leg swathings.
+
+"Richard is himself again!" he shouted; and each garment as he donned
+it, fanned his old devil-may-care confidence to a higher flame. The
+last scrap of it on, he drew himself up before us.
+
+"Bow down, ye divils!" he cried.  "Bang your heads on the floor and do
+homage to Larry the First, Emperor of Great Britain, Autocrat of all
+Ireland, Scotland, England, and Wales, and adjacent waters and
+islands! Kneel, ye scuts, kneel."
+
+"Larry," I cried, "are you going crazy?"
+
+"Not a bit of it," he said.  "I'm that and more if Comrade Marakinoff
+is on the level. Whoop! Bring forth the royal jewels an' put a whole
+new bunch of golden strings in Tara's harp an' down with the Sassenach
+forever! Whoop!"
+
+He did a wild jig.
+
+"Lord how good the old togs feel," he grinned.  "The touch of 'em has
+gone to my head. But it's straight stuff I'm telling you about my
+empire."
+
+He sobered.
+
+"Not that it's not serious enough at that.  A lot that Olaf's told us
+I've surmised from hints dropped by Yolara. But I got the full key to
+it from the Red himself when he stopped me just before--before"--he
+reddened--"well, just before I acquired that brand-new brand of souse.
+
+"Maybe he had a hint--maybe he just surmised that I knew a lot more
+than I did. And he thought Yolara and I were going to be loving little
+turtle doves. Also he figured that Yolara had a lot more influence
+with the Unholy Fireworks than Lugur. Also that being a woman she
+could be more easily handled. All this being so, what was the logical
+thing for himself to do? Sure, you get me, Steve! Throw down Lugur and
+make an alliance with me! So _he_ calmly offered to ditch the red dwarf
+if I would deliver Yolara. My reward from Russia was to be said
+emperorship! Can you beat it? Good Lord!"
+
+He went off into a perfect storm of laughter.  But not to me in the
+light of what Russia has done and has proved herself capable, did this
+thing seem at all absurd; rather in it I sensed the dawn of
+catastrophe colossal.
+
+"And yet," he was quiet enough now, "I'm a bit scared. They've got the
+_Keth_ ray and those gravity-destroying bombs--"
+
+"Gravity-destroying bombs!" I gasped.
+
+"Sure," he said.  "The little fairy that sent the trees and stones
+kiting up from Lugur's garden. Marakinoff licked his lips over them.
+They cut off gravity, just about as the shadow screens cut off
+light--and consequently whatever's in their range goes shooting just
+naturally up to the moon--
+
+"They get my goat, why deny it?" went on Larry.  "With them and the
+_Keth_ and gentle invisible soldiers walking around assassinating at
+will--well, the worst Bolsheviki are only puling babes, eh, Doc?
+
+"I don't mind the Shining One," said O'Keefe, "one splash of a
+downtown New York high-pressure fire hose would do for it! But the
+others--are the goods! Believe me!"
+
+But for once O'Keefe's confidence found no echo within me. Not
+lightly, as he, did I hold that dread mystery, the Dweller--and a
+vision passed before me, a vision of an Apocalypse undreamed by the
+Evangelist.
+
+A vision of the Shining One swirling into our world, a monstrous,
+glorious flaming pillar of incarnate, eternal Evil--of peoples
+passing through its radiant embrace into that hideous, unearthly
+life-in-death which I had seen enfold the sacrifices--of armies
+trembling into dancing atoms of diamond dust beneath the green ray's
+rhythmic death--of cities rushing out into space upon the wings of
+that other demoniac force which Olaf had watched at work--of a haunted
+world through which the assassins of the Dweller's court stole
+invisible, carrying with them every passion of hell--of the rallying
+to the Thing of every sinister soul and of the weak and the
+unbalanced, mystics and carnivores of humanity alike; for well I knew
+that, once loosed, not any nation could hold this devil-god for long
+and that swiftly its blight would spread!
+
+And then a world that was all colossal reek of cruelty and terror; a
+welter of lusts, of hatreds and of torment; a chaos of horror in which
+the Dweller waxing ever stronger, the ghastly hordes of those it had
+consumed growing ever greater, wreaked its inhuman will!
+
+At the last a ruined planet, a cosmic plague, spinning through the
+shuddering heavens; its verdant plains, its murmuring forests, its
+meadows and its mountains manned only by a countless crew of soulless,
+mindless dead-alive, their shells illumined with the Dweller's
+infernal glory--and flaming over this vampirized earth like a flare
+from some hell far, infinitely far, beyond the reach of man's farthest
+flung imagining--the Dweller!
+
+Rador jumped to his feet; walked to the whispering globe. He bent over
+its base; did something with its mechanism; beckoned to us. The globe
+swam rapidly, faster than ever I had seen it before. A low humming
+arose, changed into a murmur, and then from it I heard Lugur's voice
+clearly.
+
+"It is to be war then?"
+
+There was a chorus of assent--from the Council, I thought.
+
+"I will take the tall one named--_Larree_." It was the priestess's
+voice. "After the three _tal_, you may have him, Lugur, to do with as
+you will."
+
+"No!" it was Lugur's voice again, but with a rasp of anger. "All must
+die."
+
+"He shall die," again Yolara.  "But I would that first he see Lakla
+pass--and that she know what is to happen to him."
+
+"No!" I started--for this was Marakinoff.  "Now is no time, Yolara,
+for one's own desires. This is my counsel. At the end of the three
+_tal_ Lakla will come for our answer. Your men will be in ambush and
+they will slay her and her escort quickly with the _Keth_. But not
+till that is done must the three be slain--and then quickly. With
+Lakla dead we shall go forth to the Silent Ones--and I promise you
+that I will find the way to destroy them!"
+
+"It is well!" It was Lugur.
+
+"It _is_ well, Yolara." It was a woman's voice, and I knew it for that
+old one of ravaged beauty. "Cast from your mind whatever is in it for
+this stranger--either of love or hatred. In this the Council is with
+Lugur and the man of wisdom."
+
+There was a silence.  Then came the priestess's voice, sullen
+but--beaten.
+
+"It is well!"
+
+"Let the three be taken now by Rador to the temple and given to the
+High Priest Sator"--thus Lugur--"until what we have planned comes to
+pass."
+
+Rador gripped the base of the globe; abruptly it ceased its spinning.
+He turned to us as though to speak and even as he did so its bell note
+sounded peremptorily and on it the colour films began to creep at
+their accustomed pace.
+
+"I hear," the green dwarf whispered.  "They shall be taken there at
+once." The globe grew silent. He stepped toward us.
+
+"You have heard," he turned to us.
+
+"Not on your life, Rador," said Larry.  "Nothing doing!" And then in
+the Murian's own tongue. "We follow Lakla, Rador. And _you_ lead the
+way." He thrust the pistol close to the green dwarf's side.
+
+Rador did not move.
+
+"Of what use, _Larree_?" he said, quietly.  "Me you can slay--but in
+the end you will be taken. Life is not held so dear in Muria that my
+men out there or those others who can come quickly will let you
+by--even though you slay many. And in the end they will overpower
+you."
+
+There was a trace of irresolution in O'Keefe's face.
+
+"And," added Rador, "if I let you go I dance with the Shining One--or
+worse!"
+
+O'Keefe's pistol hand dropped.
+
+"You're a good sport, Rador, and far be it from me to get you in bad,"
+he said. "Take us to the temple--when we get there--well, your
+responsibility ends, doesn't it?"
+
+The green dwarf nodded; on his face a curious expression--was it
+relief? Or was it emotion higher than this?
+
+He turned curtly.
+
+"Follow," he said.  We passed out of that gay little pavilion that had
+come to be home to us even in this alien place. The guards stood at
+attention.
+
+"You, Sattoya, stand by the globe," he ordered one of them.  "Should
+the _Afyo Maie_ ask, say that I am on my way with the strangers even
+as she has commanded."
+
+We passed through the lines to the _corial_ standing like a great
+shell at the end of the runway leading into the green road.
+
+"Wait you here," he said curtly to the driver.  The green dwarf
+ascended to his seat, sought the lever and we swept on--on and out
+upon the glistening obsidian.
+
+Then Rador faced us and laughed.
+
+"_Larree_," he cried, "I love you for that spirit of yours! And did
+you think that Rador would carry to the temple prison a man who would
+take the chances of torment upon his own shoulders to save him? Or
+you, Goodwin, who saved him from the rotting death? For what did I
+take the _corial_ or lift the veil of silence that I might hear what
+threatened you--"
+
+He swept the _corial_ to the left, away from the temple approach.
+
+"I am done with Lugur and with Yolara and the Shining One!" cried
+Rador. "My hand is for you three and for Lakla and those to whom she
+is handmaiden!"
+
+The shell leaped forward; seemed to fly.
+
+
+[1] A _tal_ in Muria is the equivalent of thirty hours of earth surface
+time.--W. T. G.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+The Casting of the Shadow
+
+Now we were racing down toward that last span whose ancientness had
+set it apart from all the other soaring arches. The shell's speed
+slackened; we approached warily.
+
+"We pass there?" asked O'Keefe.
+
+The green dwarf nodded, pointing to the right where the bridge ended
+in a broad platform held high upon two gigantic piers, between which
+ran a spur from the glistening road. Platform and bridge were swarming
+with men-at-arms; they crowded the parapets, looking down upon us
+curiously but with no evidence of hostility. Rador drew a deep breath
+of relief.
+
+"We don't have to break our way through, then?" There was
+disappointment in the Irishman's voice.
+
+"No use, _Larree_!" Smiling, Rador stopped the _corial_ just beneath
+the arch and beside one of the piers. "Now, listen well. They have had
+no warning, hence does Yolara still think us on the way to the temple.
+This is the gateway of the Portal--and the gateway is closed by the
+Shadow. Once I commanded here and I know its laws. This must I do--by
+craft persuade Serku, the keeper of the gateway, to lift the Shadow;
+or raise it myself. And that will be hard and it may well be that in
+the struggle life will be stripped of us all. Yet is it better to die
+fighting than to dance with the Shining One!"
+
+He swept the shell around the pier.  Opened a wide plaza paved with
+the volcanic glass, but black as that down which we had sped from the
+chamber of the Moon Pool. It shone like a mirrored lakelet of jet; on
+each side of it arose what at first glance seemed towering bulwarks of
+the same ebon obsidian; at second, revealed themselves as structures
+hewn and set in place by men; polished faces pierced by dozens of
+high, narrow windows.
+
+Down each facade a stairway fell, broken by small landings on which a
+door opened; they dropped to a broad ledge of greyish stone edging the
+lip of this midnight pool and upon it also fell two wide flights from
+either side of the bridge platform. Along all four stairways the
+guards were ranged; and here and there against the ledge stood the
+shells--in a curiously comforting resemblance to parked motors in our
+own world.
+
+The sombre walls bulked high; curved and ended in two obelisked
+pillars from which, like a tremendous curtain, stretched a barrier of
+that tenebrous gloom which, though weightless as shadow itself, I now
+knew to be as impenetrable as the veil between life and death. In this
+murk, unlike all others I had seen, I sensed movement, a quivering, a
+tremor constant and rhythmic; not to be seen, yet caught by some
+subtle sense; as though through it beat a swift pulse of--black
+light.
+
+The green dwarf turned the _corial_ slowly to the edge at the right;
+crept cautiously on toward where, not more than a hundred feet from
+the barrier, a low, wide entrance opened in the fort. Guarding its
+threshold stood two guards, armed with broadswords, double-handed,
+terminating in a wide lunette mouthed with murderous fangs. These they
+raised in salute and through the portal strode a dwarf huge as Rador,
+dressed as he and carrying only the poniard that was the badge of
+office of Muria's captainry.
+
+The green dwarf swept the shell expertly against the ledge; leaped
+out.
+
+"Greeting, Serku!" he answered.  "I was but looking for the _coria_ of
+Lakla."
+
+"Lakla!" exclaimed Serku.  "Why, the handmaiden passed with her _Akka_
+nigh a _va_ ago!"
+
+"Passed!" The astonishment of the green dwarf was so real that half
+was I myself deceived. "You let her _pass_?"
+
+"Certainly I let her pass--" But under the green dwarf's stern gaze
+the truculence of the guardian faded. "Why should I not?" he asked,
+apprehensively.
+
+"Because Yolara commanded otherwise," answered Rador, coldly.
+
+"There came no command to me."  Little beads of sweat stood out on
+Serku's forehead.
+
+"Serku," interrupted the green dwarf swiftly, "truly is my heart wrung
+for you. This is a matter of Yolara and of Lugur and the Council; yes,
+even of the Shining One! And the message was sent--and the fate,
+mayhap, of all Muria rested upon your obedience and the return of
+Lakla with these strangers to the Council. Now truly is my heart
+wrung, for there are few I would less like to see dance with the
+Shining One than you, Serku," he ended, softly.
+
+Livid now was the gateway's guardian, his great frame shaking.
+
+"Come with me and speak to Yolara," he pleaded.  "There came no
+message--tell her--"
+
+"Wait, Serku!" There was a thrill as of inspiration in Rador's voice.
+"This _corial_ is of the swiftest--Lakla's are of the slowest. With
+Lakla scarce a _va_ ahead we can reach her before she enters the
+Portal. Lift you the Shadow--we will bring her back, and this will I
+do for you, Serku."
+
+Doubt tempered Serku's panic.
+
+"Why not go alone, Rador, leaving the strangers here with me?" he
+asked--and I thought not unreasonably.
+
+"Nay, then." The green dwarf was brusk.  "Lakla will not return unless
+I carry to her these men as evidence of our good faith. Come--we will
+speak to Yolara and she shall judge you--" He started away--but Serku
+caught his arm.
+
+"No, Rador, no!" he whispered, again panic-stricken.  "Go you--as you
+will. But bring her back! Speed, Rador!" He sprang toward the
+entrance. "I lift the Shadow--"
+
+Into the green dwarf's poise crept a curious, almost a listening,
+alertness. He leaped to Serku's side.
+
+"I go with you," I heard.  "Some little I can tell you--" They were
+gone.
+
+"Fine work!" muttered Larry.  "Nominated for a citizen of Ireland when
+we get out of this, one Rador of--"
+
+The Shadow trembled--shuddered into nothingness; the obelisked
+outposts that had held it framed a ribbon of roadway, high banked with
+verdure, vanishing in green distances.
+
+And then from the portal sped a shriek, a death cry!  It cut through
+the silence of the ebon pit like a whimpering arrow. Before it had
+died, down the stairways came pouring the guards. Those at the
+threshold raised their swords and peered within. Abruptly Rador was
+between them. One dropped his hilt and gripped him--the green dwarf's
+poniard flashed and was buried in his throat. Down upon Rador's head
+swept the second blade. A flame leaped from O'Keefe's hand and the
+sword seemed to fling itself from its wielder's grasp--another flash
+and the soldier crumpled. Rador threw himself into the shell, darted
+to the high seat--and straight between the pillars of the Shadow we
+flew!
+
+There came a crackling, a darkness of vast wings flinging down upon
+us. The _corial's_ flight was checked as by a giant's hand. The shell
+swerved sickeningly; there was an oddly metallic splintering; it
+quivered; shot ahead. Dizzily I picked myself up and looked behind.
+
+The Shadow had fallen--but too late, a bare instant too late.  And
+shrinking as we fled from it, still it seemed to strain like some
+fettered Afrit from Eblis, throbbing with wrath, seeking with every
+malign power it possessed to break its bonds and pursue. Not until
+long after were we to know that it had been the dying hand of Serku,
+groping out of oblivion, that had cast it after us as a fowler upon an
+escaping bird.
+
+"Snappy work, Rador!" It was Larry speaking.  "But they cut the end
+off your bus all right!"
+
+A full quarter of the hindward whorl was gone, sliced off cleanly.
+Rador noted it with anxious eyes.
+
+"That is bad," he said, "but not too bad perhaps.  All depends upon
+how closely Lugur and his men can follow us."
+
+He raised a hand to O'Keefe in salute.
+
+"But to you, _Larree_, I owe my life--not even the _Keth_ could have
+been as swift to save me as that death flame of yours--friend!"
+
+The Irishman waved an airy hand.
+
+"Serku"--the green dwarf drew from his girdle the bloodstained
+poniard--"Serku I was forced to slay. Even as he raised the Shadow the
+globe gave the alarm. Lugur follows with twice ten times ten of his
+best--" He hesitated. "Though we have escaped the Shadow it has taken
+toll of our swiftness. May we reach the Portal before it closes upon
+Lakla--but if we do not--" He paused again. "Well--I know a way--but
+it is not one I am gay to follow--no!"
+
+He snapped open the aperture that held the ball flaming within the
+dark crystal; peered at it anxiously. I crept to the torn end of the
+_corial_. The edges were crumbling, disintegrated. They powdered in my
+fingers like dust. Mystified still, I crept back where Larry, sheer
+happiness pouring from him, was whistling softly and polishing up his
+automatic. His gaze fell upon Olaf's grim, sad face and softened.
+
+"Buck up, Olaf!" he said.  "We've got a good fighting chance.  Once we
+link up with Lakla and her crowd I'm betting that we get your
+wife--never doubt it! The baby--" he hesitated awkwardly. The
+Norseman's eyes filled; he stretched a hand to the O'Keefe.
+
+"The _Yndling_--she is of the _de Dode_," he half whispered, "of the
+blessed dead. For her I have no fear and for her vengeance will be
+given me. _Ja!_ But my Helma--she is of the dead-alive--like those we
+saw whirling like leaves in the light of the Shining Devil--and I
+would that she too were of _de Dode_--and at rest. I do not know how
+to fight the Shining Devil--no!"
+
+His bitter despair welled up in his voice.
+
+"Olaf," Larry's voice was gentle.  "We'll come out on top--I know it.
+Remember one thing. All this stuff that seems so strange and--and,
+well, sort of supernatural, is just a lot of tricks we're not hep to
+as yet. Why, Olaf, suppose you took a Fijian when the war was on and
+set him suddenly down in London with autos rushing past, sirens
+blowing, Archies popping, a dozen enemy planes dropping bombs, and the
+searchlights shooting all over the sky--wouldn't he think he was among
+thirty-third degree devils in some exclusive circle of hell? Sure he
+would! And yet everything he saw would be natural--just as natural as
+all this is, once we get the answer to it. Not that we're Fijians, of
+course, but the principle is the same."
+
+The Norseman considered this; nodded gravely.
+
+"_Ja!_" he answered at last.  "And at least we can fight.  That is why
+I have turned to Thor of the battles, _Ja!_ And _one_ have I hope in for
+mine Helma--the white maiden. Since I have turned to the old gods it
+has been made clear to me that I shall slay Lugur and that the _Heks_,
+the evil witch Yolara, shall also die. But I would talk with the white
+maiden."
+
+"All right," said Larry, "but just don't be afraid of what you don't
+understand. There's another thing"--he hesitated, nervously--"there's
+another thing that may startle you a bit when we meet up with
+Lakla--her--er--frogs!"
+
+"Like the frog-woman we saw on the wall?" asked Olaf.
+
+"Yes," went on Larry, rapidly.  "It's this way--I figure that the
+frogs grow rather large where she lives, and they're a bit different
+too. Well, Lakla's got a lot of 'em trained. Carry spears and clubs
+and all that junk--just like trained seals or monkeys or so on in the
+circus. Probably a custom of the place. Nothing queer about that,
+Olaf. Why people have all kinds of pets--armadillos and snakes and
+rabbits, kangaroos and elephants and tigers."
+
+Remembering how the frog-woman had stuck in Larry's mind from the
+outset, I wondered whether all this was not more to convince himself
+than Olaf.
+
+"Why, I remember a nice girl in Paris who had four pet pythons--" he
+went on.
+
+But I listened no more, for now I was sure of my surmise. The road had
+begun to thrust itself through high-flung, sharply pinnacled masses
+and rounded outcroppings of rock on which clung patches of the amber
+moss.
+
+The trees had utterly vanished, and studding the moss-carpeted plains
+were only clumps of a willowy shrub from which hung, like grapes,
+clusters of white waxen blooms. The light too had changed; gone were
+the dancing, sparkling atoms and the silver had faded to a soft,
+almost ashen greyness. Ahead of us marched a rampart of coppery cliffs
+rising, like all these mountainous walls we had seen, into the
+immensities of haze. Something long drifting in my subconsciousness
+turned to startled realization. The speed of the shell was slackening!
+The aperture containing the ionizing mechanism was still open; I
+glanced within, The whirling ball of fire was not dimmed, but its
+coruscations, instead of pouring down through the cylinder, swirled
+and eddied and shot back as though trying to re-enter their source.
+Rador nodded grimly.
+
+"The Shadow takes its toll," he said.
+
+We topped a rise--Larry gripped my arm.
+
+"Look!" he cried, and pointed.  Far, far behind us, so far that the
+road was but a glistening thread, a score of shining points came
+speeding.
+
+"Lugur and his men," said Rador.
+
+"Can't you step on her?" asked Larry.
+
+"Step on her?" repeated the green dwarf, puzzled.
+
+"Give her more speed; push her," explained O'Keefe.
+
+Rador looked about him.  The coppery ramparts were close, not more
+than three or four miles distant; in front of us the plain lifted in a
+long rolling swell, and up this the _corial_ essayed to go--with a
+terrifying lessening of speed. Faintly behind us came shootings, and
+we knew that Lugur drew close. Nor anywhere was there sign of Lakla
+nor her frogmen.
+
+Now we were half-way to the crest; the shell barely crawled and from
+beneath it came a faint hissing; it quivered, and I knew that its base
+was no longer held above the glassy surface but rested on it.
+
+"One last chance!" exclaimed Rador.  He pressed upon the control lever
+and wrenched it from its socket. Instantly the sparkling ball
+expanded, whirling with prodigious rapidity and sending a cascade of
+coruscations into the cylinder. The shell rose; leaped through the
+air; the dark crystal split into fragments; the fiery ball dulled;
+died--but upon the impetus of that last thrust we reached the crest.
+Poised there for a moment, I caught a glimpse of the road dropping
+down the side of an enormous moss-covered, bowl-shaped valley whose
+sharply curved sides ended abruptly at the base of the towering
+barrier.
+
+Then down the steep, powerless to guide or to check the shell, we
+plunged in a meteor rush straight for the annihilating adamantine
+breasts of the cliffs!
+
+Now the quick thinking of Larry's air training came to our aid.  As
+the rampart reared close he threw himself upon Rador; hurled him and
+himself against the side of the flying whorl. Under the shock the
+finely balanced machine swerved from its course. It struck the soft,
+low bank of the road, shot high in air, bounded on through the thick
+carpeting, whirled like a dervish and fell upon its side. Shot from
+it, we rolled for yards, but the moss saved broken bones or serious
+bruise.
+
+"Quick!" cried the green dwarf.  He seized an arm, dragged me to my
+feet, began running to the cliff base not a hundred feet away. Beside
+us raced O'Keefe and Olaf. At our left was the black road. It stopped
+abruptly--was cut off by a slab of polished crimson stone a hundred
+feet high, and as wide, set within the coppery face of the barrier. On
+each side of it stood pillars, cut from the living rock and immense,
+almost, as those which held the rainbow veil of the Dweller. Across
+its face weaved unnameable carvings--but I had no time for more than a
+glance. The green dwarf gripped my arm again.
+
+"Quick!" he cried again.  "The handmaiden has passed!"
+
+At the right of the Portal ran a low wall of shattered rock. Over this
+we raced like rabbits. Hidden behind it was a narrow path. Crouching,
+Rador in the lead, we sped along it; three hundred, four hundred yards
+we raced--and the path ended in a _cul de sac_! To our ears was borne
+a louder shouting.
+
+The first of the pursuing shells had swept over the lip of the great
+bowl, poised for a moment as we had and then began a cautious descent.
+Within it, scanning the slopes, I saw Lugur.
+
+"A little closer and I'll get him!" whispered Larry viciously.  He
+raised his pistol.
+
+His hand was caught in a mighty grip; Rador, eyes blazing, stood
+beside him.
+
+"No!" rasped the green dwarf.  He heaved a shoulder against one of the
+boulders that formed the pocket. It rocked aside, revealing a slit.
+
+"In!" ordered he, straining against the weight of the stone. O'Keefe
+slipped through. Olaf at his back, I following. With a lightning leap
+the dwarf was beside me, the huge rock missing him by a hair breadth
+as it swung into place!
+
+We were in Cimmerian darkness.  I felt for my pocket-flash and
+recalled with distress that I had left it behind with my medicine kit
+when we fled from the gardens. But Rador seemed to need no light.
+
+"Grip hands!" he ordered.  We crept, single file, holding to each
+other like children, through the black. At last the green dwarf
+paused.
+
+"Await me here," he whispered.  "Do not move.  And for your lives--be
+silent!"
+
+And he was gone.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+Dragon Worm and Moss Death
+
+For a small eternity--to me at least--we waited.  Then as silent as
+ever the green dwarf returned. "It is well," he said, some of the
+strain gone from his voice. "Grip hands again, and follow."
+
+"Wait a bit, Rador," this was Larry.  "Does Lugur know this side
+entrance? If he does, why not let Olaf and me go back to the opening
+and pick them off as they come in? We could hold the lot--and in the
+meantime you and Goodwin could go after Lakla for help."
+
+"Lugur knows the secret of the Portal--if he dare use it," answered
+the captain, with a curious indirection. "And now that they have
+challenged the Silent Ones I think he _will_ dare. Also, he will find
+our tracks--and it may be that he knows this hidden way."
+
+"Well, for God's sake!" O'Keefe's appalled bewilderment was almost
+ludicrous. "If _he_ knows all that, and _you_ knew all that, why
+didn't you let me click him when I had the chance?"
+
+"_Larree_," the green dwarf was oddly humble.  "It seemed good to me,
+too--at first. And then I heard a command, heard it clearly, to stop
+you--that Lugur die not now, lest a greater vengeance fail!"
+
+"Command?  From whom?" The Irishman's voice distilled out of the
+blackness the very essence of bewilderment.
+
+"I thought," Rador was whispering--"I thought it came from the Silent
+Ones!"
+
+"Superstition!" groaned O'Keefe in utter exasperation. "Always
+superstition! What can you do against it!
+
+"Never mind, Rador." His sense of humour came to his aid.  "It's too
+late now, anyway. Where do we go from here, old dear?" he laughed.
+
+"We tread the path of one I am not fain to meet," answered Rador.
+"But if meet we must, point the death tubes at the pale shield he
+bears upon his throat and send the flame into the flower of cold fire
+that is its centre--nor look into his eyes!"
+
+Again Larry gasped, and I with him.
+
+"It's getting too deep for me, Doc," he muttered dejectedly.  "Can you
+make head or tail of it?"
+
+"No," I answered, shortly enough, "but Rador fears something and
+that's his description of it."
+
+"Sure," he replied, "only it's a code I don't understand." I could
+feel his grin. "All right for the flower of cold fire, Rador, and I
+won't look into his eyes," he went on cheerfully. "But hadn't we
+better be moving?"
+
+"Come!" said the soldier; again hand in hand we went blindly on.
+
+O'Keefe was muttering to himself.
+
+"Flower of cold fire!  Don't look into his eyes!  Some joint!
+Damned superstition." Then he chuckled and carolled, softly:
+
+    "Oh, mama, pin a cold rose on me;
+    Two young frog-men are in love with me;
+    Shut my eyes so I can't see."
+
+"Sh!" Rador was warning; he began whispering.  "For half a _va_ we go
+along a way of death. From its peril we pass into another against
+whose dangers I can guard you. But in part this is in view of the
+roadway and it may be that Lugur will see us. If so, we must fight as
+best we can. If we pass these two roads safely, then is the way to the
+Crimson Sea clear, nor need we fear Lugur nor any. And there is
+another thing--that Lugur does not know--when he opens the Portal the
+Silent Ones will hear and Lakla and the _Akka_ will be swift to greet
+its opener."
+
+"Rador," I asked, "how know _you_ all this?"
+
+"The handmaiden is my own sister's child," he answered quietly.
+
+O'Keefe drew a long breath.
+
+"Uncle," he remarked casually in English, "meet the man who's going to
+be your nephew!"
+
+And thereafter he never addressed the green dwarf except by the
+avuncular title, which Rador, humorously enough, apparently conceived
+to be one of respectful endearment.
+
+For me a light broke.  Plain now was the reason for his foreknowledge
+of Lakla's appearance at the feast where Larry had so narrowly escaped
+Yolara's spells; plain the determining factor that had cast his lot
+with ours, and my confidence, despite his discourse of mysterious
+perils, experienced a remarkable quickening.
+
+Speculation as to the marked differences in pigmentation and
+appearance of niece and uncle was dissipated by my consciousness that
+we were now moving in a dim half-light. We were in a fairly wide
+tunnel. Not far ahead the gleam filtered, pale yellow like sunlight
+sifting through the leaves of autumn poplars. And as we drove closer
+to its source I saw that it did indeed pass through a leafy screen
+hanging over the passage end. This Rador drew aside cautiously,
+beckoned us and we stepped through.
+
+It appeared to be a tunnel cut through soft green mould. Its base was
+a flat strip of pathway a yard wide from which the walls curved out in
+perfect cylindrical form, smoothed and evened with utmost nicety.
+Thirty feet wide they were at their widest, then drew toward each
+other with no break in their symmetry; they did not close. Above was,
+roughly, a ten-foot rift, ragged edged, through which poured light
+like that in the heart of pale amber, a buttercup light shot through
+with curiously evanescent bronze shadows.
+
+"Quick!" commanded Rador, uneasily, and set off at a sharp pace.
+
+Now, my eyes accustomed to the strange light, I saw that the tunnel's
+walls were of moss. In them I could trace fringe leaf and curly leaf,
+pressings of enormous bladder caps (Physcomitrium), immense splashes
+of what seemed to be the scarlet-crested Cladonia, traceries of huge
+moss veils, crushings of teeth (peristome) gigantic; spore cases brown
+and white, saffron and ivory, hot vermilions and cerulean blues,
+pressed into an astounding mosaic by some titanic force.
+
+"Hurry!" It was Rador calling.  I had lagged behind.
+
+He quickened the pace to a half-run; we were climbing; panting.  The
+amber light grew stronger; the rift above us wider. The tunnel curved;
+on the left a narrow cleft appeared. The green dwarf leaped toward it,
+thrust us within, pushed us ahead of him up a steep rocky
+fissure--well-nigh, indeed, a chimney. Up and up this we scrambled
+until my lungs were bursting and I thought I could climb no more. The
+crevice ended; we crawled out and sank, even Rador, upon a little
+leaf-carpeted clearing circled by lacy tree ferns.
+
+Gasping, legs aching, we lay prone, relaxed, drawing back strength and
+breath. Rador was first to rise. Thrice he bent low as in homage,
+then--
+
+"Give thanks to the Silent Ones--for their power has been over us!" he
+exclaimed.
+
+Dimly I wondered what he meant.  Something about the fern leaf at
+which I had been staring aroused me. I leaped to my feet and ran to
+its base. This was no fern, no! It was fern _moss_! The largest of its
+species I had ever found in tropic jungles had not been more than two
+inches high, and this was--twenty feet! The scientific fire I had
+experienced in the tunnel returned uncontrollable. I parted the
+fronds, gazed out--
+
+My outlook commanded a vista of miles--and that vista! A _Fata
+Morgana_ of plantdom! A land of flowered sorcery!
+
+Forests of tree-high mosses spangled over with blooms of every
+conceivable shape and colour; cataracts and clusters, avalanches and
+nets of blossoms in pastels, in dulled metallics, in gorgeous
+flamboyant hues; some of them phosphorescent and shining like living
+jewels; some sparkling as though with dust of opals, of sapphires, of
+rubies and topazes and emeralds; thickets of convolvuli like the
+trumpets of the seven archangels of Mara, king of illusion, which are
+shaped from the bows of splendours arching his highest heaven!
+
+And moss veils like banners of a marching host of Titans; pennons and
+bannerets of the sunset; gonfalons of the Jinn; webs of faery;
+oriflammes of elfland!
+
+Springing up through that polychromatic flood myriads of
+pedicles--slender and straight as spears, or soaring in spirals, or
+curving with undulations gracile as the white serpents of Tanit in
+ancient Carthaginian groves--and all surmounted by a fantasy of spore
+cases in shapes of minaret and turret, domes and spires and cones,
+caps of Phrygia and bishops' mitres, shapes grotesque and
+unnameable--shapes delicate and lovely!
+
+They hung high poised, nodding and swaying--like goblins hovering over
+_Titania's_ court; cacophony of Cathay accenting the _Flower Maiden_
+music of "Parsifal"; _bizarrerie_ of the angled, fantastic beings that
+people the Javan pantheon watching a bacchanal of houris in Mohammed's
+paradise!
+
+Down upon it all poured the amber light; dimmed in the distances by
+huge, drifting darkenings lurid as the flying mantles of the
+hurricane.
+
+And through the light, like showers of jewels, myriads of birds,
+darting, dipping, soaring, and still other myriads of gigantic,
+shimmering butterflies.
+
+A sound came to us, reaching out like the first faint susurrus of the
+incoming tide; sighing, sighing, growing stronger--now its mournful
+whispering quivered all about us, shook us--then passing like a
+Presence, died away in far distances.
+
+"The Portal!" said Rador.  "Lugur has entered!"
+
+He, too, parted the fronds and peered back along our path.  Peering
+with him we saw the barrier through which we had come stretching
+verdure-covered walls for miles three or more away. Like a mole burrow
+in a garden stretched the trail of the tunnel; here and there we could
+look down within the rift at its top; far off in it I thought I saw
+the glint of spears.
+
+"They come!" whispered Rador.  "Quick!  We must not meet them here!"
+
+And then--
+
+"Holy St. Brigid!" gasped Larry.
+
+From the rift in the tunnel's continuation, nigh a mile beyond the
+cleft through which we had fled, lifted a crown of horns--of
+tentacles--erect, alert, of mottled gold and crimson; lifted
+higher--and from a monstrous scarlet head beneath them blazed two
+enormous, obloid eyes, their depths wells of purplish phosphorescence;
+higher still--noseless, earless, chinless; a livid, worm mouth from
+which a slender scarlet tongue leaped like playing flames! Slowly it
+rose--its mighty neck cuirassed with gold and scarlet scales from
+whose polished surfaces the amber light glinted like flakes of fire;
+and under this neck shimmered something like a palely luminous silvery
+shield, guarding it. The head of horror mounted--and in the shield's
+centre, full ten feet across, glowing, flickering, shining
+out--coldly, was a rose of white flame, a "flower of cold fire" even
+as Rador had said.
+
+Now swiftly the Thing upreared, standing like a scaled tower a hundred
+feet above the rift, its eyes scanning that movement I had seen along
+the course of its lair. There was a hissing; the crown of horns fell,
+whipped and writhed like the tentacles of an octopus; the towering
+length dropped back.
+
+"Quick!" gasped Rador and through the fern moss, along the path and
+down the other side of the steep we raced.
+
+Behind us for an instant there was a rushing as of a torrent; a
+far-away, faint, agonized screaming--silence!
+
+"No fear _now_ from those who followed," whispered the green dwarf,
+pausing.
+
+"Sainted St. Patrick!" O'Keefe gazed ruminatively at his automatic.
+"An' he expected me to kill _that_ with this. Well, as Fergus O'Connor
+said when they sent him out to slaughter a wild bull with a potato
+knife: 'Ye'll niver rayilize how I appreciate the confidence ye show
+in me!'
+
+"What was it, Doc?" he asked.
+
+"The dragon worm!" Rador said.
+
+"It was Helvede Orm--the hell worm!" groaned Olaf.
+
+"There you go again--" blazed Larry; but the green dwarf was hurrying
+down the path and swiftly we followed, Larry muttering, Olaf mumbling,
+behind me.
+
+The green dwarf was signalling us for caution.  He pointed through a
+break in a grove of fifty-foot cedar mosses--we were skirting the
+glassy road! Scanning it we found no trace of Lugur and wondered
+whether he too had seen the worm and had fled. Quickly we passed on;
+drew away from the _coria_ path. The mosses began to thin; less and
+less they grew, giving way to low clumps that barely offered us
+shelter. Unexpectedly another screen of fern moss stretched before us.
+Slowly Rador made his way through it and stood hesitating.
+
+The scene in front of us was oddly weird and depressing; in some
+indefinable way--dreadful. Why, I could not tell, but the impression
+was plain; I shrank from it. Then, self-analyzing, I wondered whether
+it could be the uncanny resemblance the heaps of curious mossy fungi
+scattered about had to beast and bird--yes, and to man--that was the
+cause of it. Our path ran between a few of them. To the left they were
+thick. They were viridescent, almost metallic hued--verd-antique.
+Curiously indeed were they like distorted images of dog and deerlike
+forms, of birds--of _dwarfs_ and here and there the simulacra of the
+giant frogs! Spore cases, yellowish green, as large as mitres and much
+resembling them in shape protruded from the heaps. My repulsion grew
+into a distinct nausea.
+
+Rador turned to us a face whiter far than that with which he had
+looked upon the dragon worm.
+
+"Now for your lives," he whispered, "tread softly here as I do--and
+speak not at all!"
+
+He stepped forward on tiptoe, slowly with utmost caution. We crept
+after him; passed the heaps beside the path--and as I passed my skin
+crept and I shrank and saw the others shrink too with that unnameable
+loathing; nor did the green dwarf pause until he had reached the brow
+of a small hillock a hundred yards beyond. And he was trembling.
+
+"Now what are we up against?" grumbled O'Keefe.
+
+The green dwarf stretched a hand; stiffened; gazed over to the left of
+us beyond a lower hillock upon whose broad crest lay a file of the
+moss shapes. They fringed it, their mitres having a grotesque
+appearance of watching what lay below. The glistening road lay
+there--and from it came a shout. A dozen of the _coria_ clustered,
+filled with Lugur's men and in one of them Lugur himself, laughing
+wickedly!
+
+There was a rush of soldiers and up the low hillock raced a score of
+them toward us.
+
+"Run!" shouted Rador.
+
+"Not much!" grunted Larry--and took swift aim at Lugur. The automatic
+spat: Olaf's echoed. Both bullets went wild, for Lugur, still
+laughing, threw himself into the protection of the body of his shell.
+But following the shots, from the file of moss heaps on the crest,
+came a series of muffled explosions. Under the pistol's concussions
+the mitred caps had burst and instantly all about the running soldiers
+grew a cloud of tiny, glistening white spores--like a little cloud of
+puff-ball dust many times magnified. Through this cloud I glimpsed
+their faces, stricken with agony.
+
+Some turned to fly, but before they could take a second step stood
+rigid.
+
+The spore cloud drifted and eddied about them; rained down on their
+heads and half bare breasts, covered their garments--and swiftly they
+began to change! Their features grew indistinct--merged! The
+glistening white spores that covered them turned to a pale yellow,
+grew greenish, spread and swelled, darkened. The eyes of one of the
+soldiers glinted for a moment--and then were covered by the swift
+growth!
+
+Where but a few moments before had been men were only grotesque heaps,
+swiftly melting, swiftly rounding into the semblance of the mounds
+that lay behind us--and already beginning to take on their gleam of
+ancient viridescence!
+
+The Irishman was gripping my arm fiercely; the pain brought me back to
+my senses.
+
+"Olaf's right," he gasped.  "This _is_ hell!  I'm sick." And he was,
+frankly and without restraint. Lugur and his others awakened from
+their nightmare; piled into the _coria_, wheeled, raced away.
+
+"On!" said Rador thickly. "Two perils have we passed--the Silent Ones
+watch over us!"
+
+Soon we were again among the familiar and so unfamiliar moss giants.
+I knew what I had seen and this time Larry could not call
+me--superstitious. In the jungles of Borneo I had examined that other
+swiftly developing fungus which wreaks the vengeance of some of the
+hill tribes upon those who steal their women; gripping with its
+microscopic hooks into the flesh; sending quick, tiny rootlets through
+the skin down into the capillaries, sucking life and thriving and
+never to be torn away until the living thing it clings to has been
+sapped dry. Here was but another of the species in which the
+development's rate was incredibly accelerated. Some of this I tried to
+explain to O'Keefe as we sped along, reassuring him.
+
+"But they turned to moss before our eyes!" he said.
+
+Again I explained, patiently.  But he seemed to derive no comfort at
+all from my assurances that the phenomena were entirely natural and,
+aside from their more terrifying aspect, of peculiar interest to the
+botanist.
+
+"I know," was all he would say.  "But suppose one of those things had
+burst while we were going through--God!"
+
+I was wondering how I could with comparative safety study the fungus
+when Rador stopped; in front of us was again the road ribbon.
+
+"Now is all danger passed," he said.  "The way lies open and Lugur has
+fled--"
+
+There was a flash from the road.  It passed me like a little lariat of
+light. It struck Larry squarely between the eyes, spread over his face
+and drew itself within!
+
+"Down!" cried Rador, and hurled me to the ground.  My head struck
+sharply; I felt myself grow faint; Olaf fell beside me; I saw the
+green dwarf draw down the O'Keefe; he collapsed limply, face still,
+eyes staring. A shout--and from the roadway poured a host of Lugur's
+men; I could hear Lugur bellowing.
+
+There came a rush of little feet; soft, fragrant draperies brushed my
+face; dimly I watched Lakla bend over the Irishman.
+
+She straightened--her arms swept out and the writhing vine, with its
+tendrilled heads of ruby bloom, five flames of misty incandescence,
+leaped into the faces of the soldiers now close upon us. It darted at
+their throats, striking, coiling, and striking again; coiling and
+uncoiling with incredible rapidity and flying from leverage points of
+throats, of faces, of breasts like a spring endowed with
+consciousness, volition and hatred--and those it struck stood rigid as
+stone with faces masks of inhuman fear and anguish; and those still
+unstricken fled.
+
+Another rush of feet--and down upon Lugur's forces poured the
+frog-men, their booming giant leading, thrusting with their lances,
+tearing and rending with talons and fangs and spurs.
+
+Against that onslaught the dwarfs could not stand.  They raced for the
+shells; I heard Lugur shouting, menacingly--and then Lakla's voice,
+pealing like a golden bugle of wrath.
+
+"Go, Lugur!" she cried.  "Go--that you and Yolara and your Shining One
+may die together! Death for you, Lugur--death for you all! Remember
+Lugur--death!"
+
+There was a great noise within my head--no matter, Lakla was
+here--Lakla here--but too late--Lugur had outplayed us; moss death nor
+dragon worm had frightened him away--he had crept back to trap
+us--Lakla had come too late--Larry was dead--Larry! But I had heard no
+banshee wailing--and Larry had said he could not die without that
+warning--no, Larry was not dead. So ran the turbulent current of my
+mind.
+
+A horny arm lifted me; two enormous, oddly gentle saucer eyes were
+staring into mine; my head rolled; I caught a glimpse of the Golden
+Girl kneeling beside the O'Keefe.
+
+The noise in my head grew thunderous--was carrying me away on its
+thunder--swept me into soft, blind darkness.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+The Crimson Sea
+
+I was in the heart of a rose pearl, swinging, swinging; no, I was in a
+rosy dawn cloud, pendulous in space. Consciousness flooded me, in
+reality I was in the arms of one of the man frogs, carrying me as
+though I were a babe, and we were passing through some place suffused
+with glow enough like heart of pearl or dawn cloud to justify my
+awakening vagaries.
+
+Just ahead walked Lakla in earnest talk with Rador, and content enough
+was I for a time to watch her. She had thrown off the metallic robes;
+her thick braids of golden brown hair with their flame glints of
+bronze were twined in a high coronal meshed in silken net of green;
+little clustering curls escaped from it, clinging to the nape of the
+proud white neck, shyly kissing it. From her shoulders fell a loose,
+sleeveless garment of shimmering green belted with a high golden
+girdle; skirt folds dropping barely below the knees.
+
+She had cast aside her buskins, too, and the slender, high-arched feet
+were sandalled. Between the buckled edges of her kirtle I caught
+gleams of translucent ivory as exquisitely moulded, as delectably
+rounded, as those revealed so naively beneath the hem.
+
+Something was knocking at the doors of my consciousness--some tragic
+thing. What was it? Larry! Where was Larry? I remembered; raised my
+head abruptly; saw at my side another frog-man carrying O'Keefe, and
+behind him, Olaf, step instinct with grief, following like some
+faithful, wistful dog who has lost a loved master. Upon my movement
+the monster bearing me halted, looked down inquiringly, uttered a
+deep, booming note that held the quality of interrogation.
+
+Lakla turned; the clear, golden eyes were sorrowful, the sweet mouth
+drooping; but her loveliness, her gentleness, that undefinable
+synthesis of all her tender self that seemed always to circle her with
+an atmosphere of lucid normality, lulled my panic.
+
+"Drink this," she commanded, holding a small vial to my lips.
+
+Its contents were aromatic, unfamiliar but astonishingly effective,
+for as soon as they passed my lips I felt a surge of strength;
+consciousness was restored.
+
+"Larry!" I cried.  "Is he dead?"
+
+Lakla shook her head; her eyes were troubled.
+
+"No," she said; "but he is like one dead--and yet unlike--"
+
+"Put me down," I demanded of my bearer.
+
+He tightened his hold; round eyes upon the Golden Girl. She spoke--in
+sonorous, reverberating monosyllables--and I was set upon my feet; I
+leaped to the side of the Irishman. He lay limp, with a disquieting,
+abnormal sequacity, as though every muscle were utterly flaccid; the
+antithesis of the _rigor mortis_, thank God, but terrifyingly toward
+the other end of its arc; a syncope I had never known. The flesh was
+stone cold; the pulse barely perceptible, long intervalled; the
+respiration undiscoverable; the pupils of the eyes were enormously
+dilated; it was as though life had been drawn from every nerve.
+
+"A light flashed from the road.  It struck his face and seemed to sink
+in," I said.
+
+"I saw," answered Rador; "but what it was I know not; and I thought I
+knew all the weapons of our rulers." He glanced at me curiously. "Some
+talk there has been that the stranger who came with you, Double
+Tongue, was making new death tools for Lugur," he ended.
+
+Marakinoff!  The Russian at work already in this storehouse of
+devastating energies, fashioning the weapons for his plots! The
+Apocalyptic vision swept back upon me--
+
+"He is not dead." Lakla's voice was poignant.  "He is not dead; and
+the Three have wondrous healing. They can restore him if they
+will--and they will, they _will_!" For a moment she was silent. "Now
+their gods help Lugur and Yolara," she whispered; "for come what may,
+whether the Silent Ones be strong or weak, if he dies, surely shall I
+fall upon them and I will slay those two--yea, though I, too perish!"
+
+"Yolara and Lugur shall both die." Olaf's eyes were burning.  "But
+Lugur is mine to slay."
+
+That pity I had seen before in Lakla's eyes when she looked upon the
+Norseman banished the white wrath from them. She turned, half
+hurriedly, as though to escape his gaze.
+
+"Walk with us," she said to me, "unless you are still weak."
+
+I shook my head, gave a last look at O'Keefe; there was nothing I
+could do; I stepped beside her. She thrust a white arm into mine
+protectingly, the wonderfully moulded hand with its long, tapering
+fingers catching about my wrist; my heart glowed toward her.
+
+"Your medicine is potent, handmaiden," I answered.  "And the touch of
+your hand would give me strength enough, even had I not drunk it," I
+added in Larry's best manner.
+
+Her eyes danced, trouble flying.
+
+"Now, that was well spoken for such a man of wisdom as Rador tells me
+you are," she laughed; and a little pang shot through me. Could not a
+lover of science present a compliment without it always seeming to be
+as unusual as plucking a damask rose from a cabinet of fossils?
+
+Mustering my philosophy, I smiled back at her.  Again I noted that
+broad, classic brow, with the little tendrils of shining bronze
+caressing it, the tilted, delicate, nut-brown brows that gave a
+curious touch of innocent _diablerie_ to the lovely face--flowerlike,
+pure, high-bred, a touch of roguishness, subtly alluring, sparkling
+over the maiden Madonnaness that lay ever like a delicate, luminous
+suggestion beneath it; the long, black, curling lashes--the tender,
+rounded, bare left breast--
+
+"I have always liked you," she murmured naively, "since first I saw
+you in that place where the Shining One goes forth into your world.
+And I am glad you like my medicine as well as that you carry in the
+black box that you left behind," she added swiftly.
+
+"How know you of that, Lakla?" I gasped.
+
+"Oft and oft I came to him there, and to you, while you lay sleeping.
+How call you _him_?" She paused.
+
+"Larry!" I said.
+
+"Larry!" she repeated it excellently.  "And you?"
+
+"Goodwin," said Rador.
+
+I bowed quite as though I were being introduced to some charming young
+lady met in that old life now seemingly aeons removed.
+
+"Yes--Goodwin." she said.  "Oft and oft I came.  Sometimes I thought
+you saw me. And _he_--did he not dream of me sometime--?" she asked
+wistfully.
+
+"He did." I said, "and watched for you." Then amazement grew vocal.
+"But how came you?" I asked.
+
+"By a strange road," she whispered, "to see that all was well with
+_him_--and to look into his heart; for I feared Yolara and her beauty.
+But I saw that she was not in his heart." A blush burned over her,
+turning even the little bare breast rosy. "It is a strange road," she
+went on hurriedly. "Many times have I followed it and watched the
+Shining One bear back its prey to the blue pool; seen the woman _he_
+seeks"--she made a quick gesture toward Olaf--"and a babe cast from
+her arms in the last pang of her mother love; seen another woman throw
+herself into the Shining One's embrace to save a man she loved; and I
+could not help!" Her voice grew deep, thrilled. "The friend, it comes
+to me, who drew you here, Goodwin!"
+
+She was silent, walking as one who sees visions and listens to voices
+unheard by others, Rador made a warning gesture; I crowded back my
+questions, glanced about me. We were passing over a smooth strand,
+hard packed as some beach of long-thrust-back ocean. It was like
+crushed garnets, each grain stained deep red, faintly sparkling. On
+each side were distances, the floor stretching away into them bare of
+vegetation--stretching on and on into infinitudes of rosy mist, even
+as did the space above.
+
+Flanking and behind us marched the giant batrachians, fivescore of
+them at least, black scale and crimson scale lustrous and gleaming in
+the rosaceous radiance; saucer eyes shining circles of phosphorescence
+green, purple, red; spurs clicking as they crouched along with a gait
+at once grotesque and formidable.
+
+Ahead the mist deepened into a ruddier glow; through it a long, dark
+line began to appear--the mouth I thought of the caverned space
+through which we were going; it was just before us; over us--we stood
+bathed in a flood of rubescence!
+
+A sea stretched before us--a crimson sea, gleaming like that lost
+lacquer of royal coral and the Flame Dragon's blood which Fu S'cze set
+upon the bower he built for his stolen sun maiden--that going toward
+it she might think it the sun itself rising over the summer seas.
+Unmoved by wave or ripple, it was placid as some deep woodland pool
+when night rushes up over the world.
+
+It seemed molten--or as though some hand great enough to rock earth
+had distilled here from conflagrations of autumn sunsets their flaming
+essences.
+
+A fish broke through, large as a shark, blunt-headed, flashing bronze,
+ridged and mailed as though with serrate plates of armour. It leaped
+high, shaking from it a sparkling spray of rubies; dropped and shot up
+a geyser of fiery gems.
+
+Across my line of vision, moving stately over the sea, floated a half
+globe, luminous, diaphanous, its iridescence melting into turquoise,
+thence to amethyst, to orange, to scarlet shot with rose, to
+vermilion, a translucent green, thence back into the iridescence;
+behind it four others, and the least of them ten feet in diameter, and
+the largest no less than thirty. They drifted past like bubbles blown
+from froth of rainbows by pipes in mouths of Titans' young. Then from
+the base of one arose a tangle of shimmering strands, long, slender
+whiplashes that played about and sank slowly again beneath the crimson
+surface.
+
+I gasped--for the fish had been a _ganoid_--that ancient, armoured
+form that was perhaps the most intelligent of all life on our planet
+during the Devonian era, but which for age upon age had vanished, save
+for its fossils held in the embrace of the stone that once was their
+soft bottom beds; and the half-globes were _Medusae_, jelly-fish--but
+of a size, luminosity, and colour unheard of.
+
+Now Lakla cupped her mouth with pink palms and sent a clarion note
+ringing out. The ledge on which we stood continued a few hundred feet
+before us, falling abruptly, though from no great height to the
+Crimson Sea; at right and left it extended in a long semicircle.
+Turning to the right whence she had sent her call, I saw rising a mile
+or more away, veiled lightly by the haze, a rainbow, a gigantic
+prismatic arch, flattened, I thought, by some quality of the strange
+atmosphere. It sprang from the ruddy strand, leaped the crimson tide,
+and dropped three miles away upon a precipitous, jagged upthrust of
+rock frowning black from the lacquered depths.
+
+And surmounting a higher ledge beyond this upthrust a huge dome of
+dull gold, Cyclopean, striking eyes and mind with something unhumanly
+alien, baffling; sending the mind groping, as though across the
+deserts of space, from some far-flung star, should fall upon us linked
+sounds, coherent certainly, meaningful surely, vaguely familiar--yet
+never to be translated into any symbol or thought of our own
+particular planet.
+
+The sea of crimson lacquer, with its floating moons of luminous
+colour--this bow of prismed stone leaping to the weird isle crowned by
+the anomalous, aureate excrescence--the half human batrachians-the
+elfland through which we had passed, with all its hidden wonders and
+terrors--I felt the foundations of my cherished knowledge shaking.
+Was this all a dream? Was this body of mine lying somewhere, fighting
+a fevered death, and all these but images floating through the
+breaking chambers of my brain? My knees shook; involuntarily I
+groaned.
+
+Lakla turned, looked at me anxiously, slipped a soft arm behind me,
+held me till the vertigo passed.
+
+"Patience," she said.  "The bearers come.  Soon you shall rest."
+
+I looked; down toward us from the bow's end were leaping swiftly
+another score of the frog-men. Some bore litters, high, handled, not
+unlike palanquins--
+
+"Asgard!" Olaf stood beside me, eyes burning, pointing to the arch.
+"Bifrost Bridge, sharp as sword edge, over which souls go to Valhalla.
+And _she_--she is a Valkyr--a sword maiden, _Ja!_"
+
+I gripped the Norseman's hand.  It was hot, and a pang of remorse shot
+through me. If this place had so shaken me, how must it have shaken
+Olaf? It was with relief that I watched him, at Lakla's gentle
+command, drop into one of the litters and lie back, eyes closed, as
+two of the monsters raised its yoke to their scaled shoulders. Nor was
+it without further relief that I myself lay back on the soft velvety
+cushions of another.
+
+The cavalcade began to move.  Lakla had ordered O'Keefe placed beside
+her, and she sat, knees crossed Orient fashion, leaning over the pale
+head on her lap, the white, tapering fingers straying fondly through
+his hair.
+
+Presently I saw her reach up, slowly unwind the coronal of her
+tresses, shake them loose, and let them fall like a veil over her and
+him.
+
+Her head bent low; I heard a soft sobbing--I turned away my gaze, lorn
+enough in my own heart, God knew!
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+The Three Silent Ones
+
+The arch was closer--and in my awe I forgot for the moment Larry and
+aught else. For this was no rainbow, no thing born of light and mist,
+no Bifrost Bridge of myth--no! It was a flying arch of stone, stained
+with flares of Tyrian purples, of royal scarlets, of blues dark as the
+Gulf Stream's ribbon, sapphires soft as midday May skies, splashes of
+chromes and greens--a palette of giantry, a bridge of wizardry; a
+hundred, nay, a thousand, times greater than that of Utah which the
+Navaho call Nonnegozche and worship, as well they may, as a god, and
+which is itself a rainbow in eternal rock.
+
+It sprang from the ledge and winged its prodigious length in one low
+arc over the sea's crimson breast, as though in some ancient paroxysm
+of earth it had been hurled molten, crystallizing into that stupendous
+span and still flaming with the fires that had moulded it.
+
+Closer we came and closer, while I watched spellbound; now we were at
+its head, and the litter-bearers swept upon it. All of five hundred
+feet wide it was, surface smooth as a city road, sides low walled,
+curving inward as though in the jetting-out of its making the edges of
+the plastic rock had curled.
+
+On and on we sped; the high thrusting precipices upon which the
+bridge's far end rested, frowned close; the enigmatic, dully shining
+dome loomed ever greater. Now we had reached that end; were passing
+over a smooth plaza whose level floor was enclosed, save for a rift in
+front of us, by the fanged tops of the black cliffs.
+
+From this rift stretched another span, half a mile long, perhaps,
+widening at its centre into a broad platform, continuing straight to
+two massive gates set within the face of the second cliff wall like
+panels, and of the same dull gold as the dome rising high beyond. And
+this smaller arch leaped a pit, an abyss, of which the outer
+precipices were the rim holding back from the pit the red flood.
+
+We were rapidly approaching; now upon the platform; my bearers were
+striding closely along the side; I leaned far out--a giddiness seized
+me! I gazed down into depth upon vertiginous depth; an abyss
+indeed--an abyss dropping to world's base like that in which the
+Babylonians believed writhed Talaat, the serpent mother of Chaos; a
+pit that struck down into earth's heart itself.
+
+Now, what was that--distance upon unfathomable distance below?  A
+stupendous glowing like the green fire of life itself. What was it
+like? I had it! It was like the corona of the sun in eclipse--that
+burgeoning that makes of our luminary when moon veils it an incredible
+blossoming of splendours in the black heavens.
+
+And strangely, strangely, it was like the Dweller's beauty when with
+its dazzling spirallings and writhings it raced amid its storm of
+crystal bell sounds!
+
+The abyss was behind us; we had paused at the golden portals; they
+swung inward. A wide corridor filled with soft light was before us,
+and on its threshold stood--bizarre, yellow gems gleaming, huge muzzle
+wide in what was evidently meant for a smile of welcome--the woman
+frog of the Moon Pool wall.
+
+Lakla raised her head; swept back the silken tent of her hair and
+gazed at me with eyes misty from weeping. The frog-woman crept to her
+side; gazed down upon Larry; spoke--_spoke_--to the Golden Girl in a
+swift stream of the sonorous, reverberant monosyllables; and Lakla
+answered her in kind. The webbed digits swept over O'Keefe's face,
+felt at his heart; she shook her head and moved ahead of us up the
+passage.
+
+Still borne in the litters we went on, winding, ascending until at
+last they were set down in a great hall carpeted with soft fragrant
+rushes and into which from high narrow slits streamed the crimson
+light from without.
+
+I jumped over to Larry, there had been no change in his condition;
+still the terrifying limpness, the slow, infrequent pulsation. Rador
+and Olaf--and the fever now seemed to be gone from him--came and stood
+beside me, silent.
+
+"I go to the Three," said Lakla.  "Wait you here."  She passed through
+a curtaining; then as swiftly as she had gone she returned through the
+hangings, tresses braided, a swathing of golden gauze about her.
+
+"Rador," she said, "bear you Larry--for into your heart the Silent
+Ones would look. And fear nothing," she added at the green dwarf's
+disconcerted, almost fearful start.
+
+Rador bowed, was thrust aside by Olaf.
+
+"No," said the Norseman; "I will carry him."
+
+He lifted Larry like a child against his broad breast.  The dwarf
+glanced quickly at Lakla; she nodded.
+
+"Come!" she commanded, and held aside the folds.
+
+Of that journey I have few memories.  I only know that we went through
+corridor upon corridor; successions of vast halls and chambers, some
+carpeted with the rushes, others with rugs into which the feet sank as
+into deep, soft meadows; spaces illumined by the rubrous light, and
+spaces in which softer lights held sway.
+
+We paused before a slab of the same crimson stone as that the green
+dwarf had called the portal, and upon its polished surface weaved the
+same unnameable symbols. The Golden Girl pressed upon its side; it
+slipped softly back; a torrent of opalescence gushed out of the
+opening--and as one in a dream I entered.
+
+We were, I knew, just under the dome; but for the moment, caught in
+the flood of radiance, I could see nothing. It was like being held
+within a fire opal--so brilliant, so flashing, was it. I closed my
+eyes, opened them; the lambency cascaded from the vast curves of the
+globular walls; in front of me was a long, narrow opening in them,
+through which, far away, I could see the end of the wizards' bridge
+and the ledged mouth of the cavern through which we had come; against
+the light from within beat the crimson light from without--and was
+checked as though by a barrier.
+
+I felt Lakla's touch; turned.
+
+A hundred paces away was a dais, its rim raised a yard above the
+floor. From the edge of this rim streamed upward a steady, coruscating
+mist of the opalescence, veined even as was that of the Dweller's
+shining core and shot with milky shadows like curdled moonlight; up it
+stretched like a wall.
+
+Over it, from it, down upon me, gazed three faces--two clearly male,
+one a woman's. At the first I thought them statues, and then the eyes
+of them gave the lie to me; for the eyes were alive, terribly, and if
+I could admit the word--_supernaturally_--alive.
+
+They were thrice the size of the human eye and triangular, the apex of
+the angle upward; black as jet, pupilless, filled with tiny, leaping
+red flames.
+
+Over them were foreheads, not as ours--high and broad and visored;
+their sides drawn forward into a vertical ridge, a prominence, an
+upright wedge, somewhat like the visored heads of a few of the great
+lizards--and the heads, long, narrowing at the back, were fully twice
+the size of mankind's!
+
+Upon the brows were caps--and with a fearful certainty I knew that
+they were _not_ caps--long, thick strands of gleaming yellow, feathered
+scales thin as sequins! Sharp, curving noses like the beaks of the
+giant condors; mouths thin, austere; long, powerful, pointed chins;
+the--_flesh_--of the faces white as the whitest marble; and wreathing
+up to them, covering all their bodies, the shimmering, curdled, misty
+fires of opalescence!
+
+Olaf stood rigid; my own heart leaped wildly.  What--what were these
+beings?
+
+I forced myself to look again--and from their gaze streamed a current
+of reassurance, of good will--nay, of intense spiritual strength. I
+saw that they were not fierce, not ruthless, not inhuman, despite
+their strangeness; no, they were kindly; in some unmistakable way,
+benign and sorrowful--so sorrowful! I straightened, gazed back at them
+fearlessly. Olaf drew a deep breath, gazed steadily too, the hardness,
+the despair wiped from his face.
+
+Now Lakla drew closer to the dais; the three pairs of eyes searched
+hers, the woman's with an ineffable tenderness; some message seemed to
+pass between the Three and the Golden Girl. She bowed low, turned to
+the Norseman.
+
+"Place Larry there," she said softly--"there at the feet of the Silent
+Ones."
+
+She pointed into the radiant mist; Olaf started, hesitated, stared
+from Lakla to the Three, searched for a moment their eyes--and
+something like a smile drifted through them. He stepped forward,
+lifted O'Keefe, set him squarely within the covering light. It
+wavered, rolled upward, swirled about the body, steadied again--and
+within it there was no sign of Larry!
+
+Again the mist wavered, shook, and seemed to climb higher, hiding the
+chins, the beaked noses, the brows of that incredible Trinity--but
+before it ceased to climb, I thought the yellow feathered heads bent;
+sensed a movement as though they lifted something.
+
+The mist fell; the eyes gleamed out again, inscrutable.
+
+And groping out of the radiance, pausing at the verge of the dais,
+leaping down from it, came Larry, laughing, filled with life, blinking
+as one who draws from darkness into sunshine. He saw Lakla, sprang to
+her, gripped her in his arms.
+
+"Lakla!" he cried. "Mavourneen!"  She slipped from his embrace,
+blushing, glancing at the Three shyly, half-fearfully. And again I saw
+the tenderness creep into the inky, flame-shot orbs of the woman
+being; and a tenderness in the others too--as though they regarded
+some well-beloved child.
+
+"You lay in the arms of Death, Larry," she said.  "And the Silent Ones
+drew you from him. Do homage to the Silent Ones, Larry, for they are
+good and they are mighty!"
+
+She turned his head with one of the long, white hands--and he looked
+into the faces of the Three; looked long, was shaken even as had been
+Olaf and myself; was swept by that same wave of power and of--of--what
+can I call it?--_holiness_ that streamed from them.
+
+Then for the first time I saw real awe mount into his face. Another
+moment he stared--and dropped upon one knee and bowed his head before
+them as would a worshipper before the shrine of his saint. And--I am
+not ashamed to tell it--I joined him; and with us knelt Lakla and
+Olaf and Rador.
+
+The mist of fiery opal swirled up about the Three; hid them.
+
+And with a long, deep, joyous sigh Lakla took Larry's hand, drew him
+to his feet, and silently we followed them out of that hall of wonder.
+
+But why, in going, did the thought come to me that from where the
+Three sat throned they ever watched the cavern mouth that was the door
+into their abode; and looked down ever into the unfathomable depth in
+which glowed and pulsed that mystic flower, colossal, awesome, of
+green flame that had seemed to me fire of life itself?
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+The Wooing of Lakla
+
+I had slept soundly and dreamlessly; I wakened quietly in the great
+chamber into which Rador had ushered O'Keefe and myself after that
+culminating experience of crowded, nerve-racking hours--the facing of
+the Three.
+
+Now, lying gazing upward at the high-vaulted ceiling, I heard Larry's
+voice:
+
+"They look like birds." Evidently he was thinking of the Three; a
+silence--then: "Yes, they look like _birds_--and they look, and it's
+meaning no disrespect to them I am at all, they look like
+_lizards_"--and another silence--"they look like some sort of gods, and,
+by the good sword-arm of Brian Boru, they look human, too! And it's
+_none_ of them they are either, so what--what the--what the sainted St.
+Bridget are they?" Another short silence, and then in a tone of awed
+and absolute conviction: "That's it, sure! That's what they are--it
+all hangs in--they couldn't be anything else--"
+
+He gave a whoop; a pillow shot over and caught me across the head.
+
+"Wake up!" shouted Larry.  "Wake up, ye seething caldron of fossilized
+superstitions! Wake up, ye bogy-haunted man of scientific unwisdom!"
+
+Under pillow and insults I bounced to my feet, filled for a moment
+with quite real wrath; he lay back, roaring with laughter, and my
+anger was swept away.
+
+"Doc," he said, very seriously, after this, "I know who the Three
+are!"
+
+"Yes?" I queried, with studied sarcasm.
+
+"Yes?" he mimicked.  "Yes!  Ye--ye" He paused under the menace of my
+look, grinned. "Yes, I know," he continued. "They're of the Tuatha De,
+the old ones, the great people of Ireland, _that's_ who they are!"
+
+I knew, of course, of the Tuatha De Danann, the tribes of the god
+Danu, the half-legendary, half-historical clan who found their home in
+Erin some four thousand years before the Christian era, and who have
+left so deep an impress upon the Celtic mind and its myths.
+
+"Yes," said Larry again, "the Tuatha De--the Ancient Ones who had
+spells that could compel Mananan, who is the spirit of all the seas,
+an' Keithor, who is the god of all green living things, an' even
+Hesus, the unseen god, whose pulse is the pulse of all the firmament;
+yes, an' Orchil too, who sits within the earth an' weaves with the
+shuttle of mystery and her three looms of birth an' life an'
+death--even Orchil would weave as they commanded!"
+
+He was silent--then:
+
+"They are of them--the mighty ones--why else would I have bent my knee
+to them as I would have to the spirit of my dead mother? Why else
+would Lakla, whose gold-brown hair is the hair of Eilidh the Fair,
+whose mouth is the sweet mouth of Deirdre, an' whose soul walked with
+mine ages agone among the fragrant green myrtle of Erin, serve them?"
+he whispered, eyes full of dream.
+
+"Have you any idea how they got here?" I asked, not unreasonably.
+
+"I haven't thought about that," he replied somewhat testily.  "But at
+once, me excellent man o' wisdom, a number occur to me. One of them is
+that this little party of three might have stopped here on their way
+to Ireland, an' for good reasons of their own decided to stay a while;
+an' another is that they might have come here afterward, havin' got
+wind of what those rats out there were contemplatin', and have stayed
+on the job till the time was ripe to save Ireland from 'em; the rest
+of the world, too, of course," he added magnanimously, "but Ireland in
+particular. And do any of those reasons appeal to ye?"
+
+I shook my head.
+
+"Well, what do you think?" he asked wearily.
+
+"I think," I said cautiously, "that we face an evolution of highly
+intelligent beings from ancestral sources radically removed from those
+through which mankind ascended. These half-human, highly developed
+batrachians they call the _Akka_ prove that evolution in these
+caverned spaces has certainly pursued one different path than on
+earth. The Englishman, Wells, wrote an imaginative and very
+entertaining book concerning an invasion of earth by Martians, and he
+made his Martians enormously specialized cuttlefish. There was nothing
+inherently improbable in Wells' choice. Man is the ruling animal of
+earth today solely by reason of a series of accidents; under another
+series spiders or ants, or even elephants, could have become the
+dominant race.
+
+"I think," I said, even more cautiously, "that the race to which the
+Three belong never appeared on earth's surface; that their development
+took place here, unhindered through aeons. And if this be true, the
+structure of their brains, and therefore all their reactions, must be
+different from ours. Hence their knowledge and command of energies
+unfamiliar to us--and hence also the question whether they may not
+have an entirely different sense of values, of justice--and that is
+rather terrifying," I concluded.
+
+Larry shook his head.
+
+"That last sort of knocks your argument, Doc," he said. "They had
+sense of justice enough to help _me_ out--and certainly they know
+love--for I saw the way they looked at Lakla; and sorrow--for there
+was no mistaking that in their faces.
+
+"No," he went on.  "I hold to my own idea.  They're of the Old People.
+The little leprechaun knew his way here, an' I'll bet it was they who
+sent the word. An' if the O'Keefe banshee comes here--which save the
+mark!--I'll bet she'll drop in on the Silent Ones for a social visit
+before she an' her clan get busy. Well, it'll make her feel more at
+home, the good old body. No, Doc, no," he concluded, "I'm right; it
+all fits in too well to be wrong."
+
+I made a last despairing attempt.
+
+"Is there anything anywhere in Ireland that would indicate that the
+Tuatha De ever looked like the Three?" I asked--and again I had
+spoken most unfortunately.
+
+"Is there?" he shouted.  "Is there?  By the kilt of Cormack
+MacCormack, I'm glad ye reminded me. It was worryin' me a little
+meself. There was Daghda, who could put on the head of a great boar
+an' the body of a giant fish and cleave the waves an' tear to pieces
+the birlins of any who came against Erin; an' there was Rinn--"
+
+How many more of the metamorphoses of the Old People I might have
+heard, I do not know, for the curtains parted and in walked Rador.
+
+"You have rested well," he smiled, "I can see.  The handmaiden bade me
+call you. You are to eat with her in her garden."
+
+Down long corridors we trod and out upon a gardened terrace as
+beautiful as any of those of Yolara's city; bowered, blossoming,
+fragrant, set high upon the cliffs beside the domed castle. A table,
+as of milky jade, was spread at one corner, but the Golden Girl was
+not there. A little path ran on and up, hemmed in by the mass of
+verdure. I looked at it longingly; Rador saw the glance, interpreted
+it, and led me up the stepped sharp slope into a rock embrasure.
+
+Here I was above the foliage, and everywhere the view was clear.
+Below me stretched the incredible bridge, with the frog people
+hurrying back and forth upon it. A pinnacle at my side hid the abyss.
+My eyes followed the cavern ledge. Above it the rock rose bare, but at
+the ends of the semicircular strand a luxuriant vegetation began,
+stretching from the crimson shores back into far distances. Of browns
+and reds and yellows, like an autumn forest, was the foliage, with
+here and there patches of dark-green, as of conifers. Five miles or
+more, on each side, the forests swept, and then were lost to sight in
+the haze.
+
+I turned and faced an immensity of crimson waters, unbroken, a true
+sea, if ever there was one. A breeze blew--the first real wind I had
+encountered in the hidden places; under it the surface, that had been
+as molten lacquer, rippled and dimpled. Little waves broke with a
+spray of rose-pearls and rubies. The giant Medusae drifted--stately,
+luminous kaleidoscopic elfin moons.
+
+Far down, peeping around a jutting tower of the cliff, I saw dipping
+with the motion of the waves a floating garden. The flowers, too, were
+luminous--indeed sparkling--gleaming brilliants of scarlet and
+vermilions lighter than the flood on which they lay, mauves and odd
+shades of reddish-blue. They gleamed and shone like a little lake of
+jewels.
+
+Rador broke in upon my musings.
+
+"Lakla comes!  Let us go down."
+
+It was a shy Lakla who came slowly around the end of the path and,
+blushing furiously, held her hands out to Larry. And the Irishman took
+them, placed them over his heart, kissed them with a tenderness that
+had been lacking in the half-mocking, half-fierce caresses he had
+given the priestess. She blushed deeper, holding out the tapering
+fingers--then pressed them to her own heart.
+
+"I like the touch of your lips, Larry," she whispered. "They warm me
+here"--she pressed her heart again--"and they send little sparkles of
+light through me." Her brows tilted perplexedly, accenting the nuance
+of diablerie, delicate and fascinating, that they cast upon the flower
+face.
+
+"Do you?" whispered the O'Keefe fervently.  "Do you, Lakla?" He bent
+toward her. She caught the amused glance of Rador; drew herself aside
+half-haughtily.
+
+"Rador," she said, "is it not time that you and the strong one, Olaf,
+were setting forth?"
+
+"Truly it is, handmaiden," he answered respectfully enough--yet with a
+current of laughter under his words. "But as you know the strong one,
+Olaf, wished to see his friends here before we were gone--and he comes
+even now," he added, glancing down the pathway, along which came
+striding the Norseman.
+
+As he faced us I saw that a transformation had been wrought in him.
+Gone was the pitiful seeking, and gone too the just as pitiful hope.
+The set face softened as he looked at the Golden Girl and bowed low to
+her. He thrust a hand to O'Keefe and to me.
+
+"There is to be battle," he said.  "I go with Rador to call the armies
+of these frog people. As for me--Lakla has spoken. There is no hope
+for--for mine Helma in life, but there is hope that we destroy the
+Shining Devil and give _mine_ Helma peace. And with that I am well
+content, _ja!_ Well content!" He gripped our hands again. "We will
+fight!" he muttered. "_Ja!_ And I will have vengeance!" The sternness
+returned; and with a salute Rador and he were gone.
+
+Two great tears rolled from the golden eyes of Lakla.
+
+"Not even the Silent Ones can heal those the Shining One has taken,"
+she said. "He asked me--and it was better that I tell him. It is part
+of the Three's--_punishment_--but of that you will soon learn," she went
+on hurriedly. "Ask me no questions now of the Silent Ones. I thought
+it better for Olaf to go with Rador, to busy himself, to give his mind
+other than sorrow upon which to feed."
+
+Up the path came five of the frog-women, bearing platters and ewers.
+Their bracelets and anklets of jewels were tinkling; their middles
+covered with short kirtles of woven cloth studded with the sparkling
+ornaments.
+
+And here let me say that if I have given the impression that the
+_Akka_ are simply magnified frogs, I regret it. Frog-like they are,
+and hence my phrase for them--but as unlike the frog, as we know it,
+as man is unlike the chimpanzee. Springing, I hazard, from the
+stegocephalia, the ancestor of the frogs, these batrachians followed a
+different line of evolution and acquired the upright position just as
+man did his from the four-footed folk.
+
+The great staring eyes, the shape of the muzzle were frog-like, but
+the highly developed brain had set upon the head and shape of it vital
+differences. The forehead, for instance, was not low, flat, and
+retreating--its frontal arch was well defined. The head was, in a
+sense, shapely, and with the females the great horny carapace that
+stood over it like a fantastic helmet was much modified, as were the
+spurs that were so formidable in the male; colouration was different
+also. The torso was upright; the legs a little bent, giving them their
+crouching gait--but I wander from my subject.[1]
+
+They set their burdens down.  Larry looked at them with interest.
+
+"You surely have those things well trained, Lakla," he said.
+
+"Things!"  The handmaiden arose, eyes flashing with indignation.  "You
+call my _Akka_ things!"
+
+"Well," said Larry, a bit taken aback, "what do you call them?"
+
+"My _Akka_ are a _people_," she retorted.  "As much a people as your race
+or mine. They are good and loyal, and they have speech and arts, and
+they slay not, save for food or to protect themselves. And I think
+them beautiful, Larry, _beautiful_!" She stamped her foot. "And you call
+them--_things_!"
+
+Beautiful!  These?  Yet, after all, they were, in their grotesque
+fashion. And to Lakla, surrounded by them, from babyhood, they were
+not strange, at all. Why shouldn't she think them beautiful? The same
+thought must have struck O'Keefe, for he flushed guiltily.
+
+"I think them beautiful, too, Lakla," he said remorsefully. "It's my
+not knowing your tongue too well that traps me. _Truly_, I think them
+beautiful--I'd tell them so, if I knew their talk."
+
+Lakla dimpled, laughed--spoke to the attendants in that strange speech
+that was unquestionably a language; they bridled, looked at O'Keefe
+with fantastic coquetry, cracked and boomed softly among themselves.
+
+"They say they like _you_ better than the men of Muria," laughed Lakla.
+
+"Did I ever think I'd be swapping compliments with lady frogs!" he
+murmured to me. "Buck up, Larry--keep your eyes on the captive Irish
+princess!" he muttered to himself.
+
+"Rador goes to meet one of the _ladala_ who is slipping through with
+news," said the Golden Girl as we addressed ourselves to the food.
+"Then, with Nak, he and Olaf go to muster the _Akka_--for there will
+be battle, and we must prepare. Nak," she added, "is he who went
+before me when you were dancing with Yolara, Larry." She stole a
+swift, mischievous glance at him. "He is headman of all the _Akka_."
+
+"Just what forces can we muster against them when they come, darlin'?"
+said Larry.
+
+"Darlin'?"--the Golden Girl had caught the caress of the word--"what's
+that?"
+
+"It's a little word that means Lakla," he answered.  "It does--that
+is, when I say it; when you say it, then it means Larry."
+
+"I like that word," mused Lakla.
+
+"You can even say Larry darlin'!" suggested O'Keefe.
+
+"Larry darlin'!" said Lakla.  "When they come we shall have first of
+all my _Akka_--"
+
+"Can they fight, _mavourneen_?" interrupted Larry.
+
+"Can they fight!  My _Akka_!" Again her eyes flashed.  "They will
+fight to the last of them--with the spears that give the swift
+rotting, covered, as they are, with the jelly of those _Saddu_
+there--" She pointed through a rift in the foliage across which, on
+the surface of the sea, was floating one of the moon globes--and now I
+know why Rador had warned Larry against a plunge there. "With spears
+and clubs and with teeth and nails and spurs--they are a strong and
+brave people, Larry--darlin', and though they hurl the _Keth_ at them,
+it is slow to work upon them, and they slay even while they are
+passing into the nothingness!"
+
+"And have we none of the _Keth_?" he asked.
+
+"No"--she shook her head--"none of their weapons have we here,
+although it was--it was the Ancient Ones who shaped them."
+
+"But the Three are of the Ancient Ones?" I cried.  "Surely they can
+tell--"
+
+"No," she said slowly.  "No--there is something you must know--and
+soon; and then the Silent Ones say you will understand. You,
+especially, Goodwin, who worship wisdom."
+
+"Then," said Larry, "we have the _Akka_; and we have the four men of
+us, and among us three guns and about a hundred cartridges--an'--an'
+the power of the Three--but what about the Shining One, Fireworks--"
+
+"I do not know." Again the indecision that had been in her eyes when
+Yolara had launched her defiance crept back. "The Shining One is
+strong--and he has his--slaves!"
+
+"Well, we'd better get busy good and quick!" the O'Keefe's voice rang.
+But Lakla, for some reason of her own, would pursue the matter no
+further. The trouble fled from her eyes--they danced.
+
+"Larry darlin'?" she murmured.  "I like the touch of your lips--"
+
+"You do?" he whispered, all thought flying of anything but the
+beautiful, provocative face so close to his. "Then, _acushla_, you're
+goin' to get acquainted with 'em! Turn your head, Doc!" he said.
+
+And I turned it.  There was quite a long silence, broken by an
+interested, soft outburst of gentle boomings from the serving
+frog-maids. I stole a glance behind me. Lakla's head lay on the
+Irishman's shoulder, the golden eyes misty sunpools of love and
+adoration; and the O'Keefe, a new look of power and strength upon his
+clear-cut features, was gazing down into them with that look which
+rises only from the heart touched for the first time with that true,
+all-powerful love, which is the pulse of the universe itself, the real
+music of the spheres of which Plato dreamed, the love that is stronger
+than death itself, immortal as the high gods and the true soul of all
+that mystery we call life.
+
+Then Lakla raised her hands, pressed down Larry's head, kissed him
+between the eyes, drew herself with a trembling little laugh from his
+embrace.
+
+"The future Mrs. Larry O'Keefe, Goodwin," said Larry to me a little
+unsteadily.
+
+I took their hands--and Lakla kissed me!
+
+She turned to the booming--smiling--frog-maids; gave them some
+command, for they filed away down the path. Suddenly I felt, well, a
+little superfluous.
+
+"If you don't mind," I said, "I think I'll go up the path there again
+and look about."
+
+But they were so engrossed with each other that they did not even hear
+me--so I walked away, up to the embrasure where Rador had taken me.
+The movement of the batrachians over the bridge had ceased. Dimly at
+the far end I could see the cluster of the garrison. My thoughts flew
+back to Lakla and to Larry.
+
+What was to be the end?
+
+If we won, if we were able to pass from this place, could she live in
+our world? A product of these caverns with their atmosphere and light
+that seemed in some subtle way to be both food and drink--how would
+she react to the unfamiliar foods and air and light of outer earth?
+Further, here so far as I was able to discover, there were no
+malignant bacilli--what immunity could Lakla have then to those
+microscopic evils without, which only long ages of sickness and death
+have bought for us a modicum of protection? I began to be oppressed.
+Surely they had been long enough by themselves. I went down the path.
+
+I heard Larry.
+
+"It's a green land, _mavourneen_.  And the sea rocks and dimples
+around it--blue as the heavens, green as the isle itself, and foam
+horses toss their white manes, and the great clean winds blow over it,
+and the sun shines down on it like your eyes, _acushla_--"
+
+"And are you a king of Ireland, Larry darlin'?" Thus Lakla--
+
+But enough!
+
+At last we turned to go--and around the corner of the path I caught
+another glimpse of what I have called the lake of jewels. I pointed to
+it.
+
+"Those are lovely flowers, Lakla," I said.  "I have never seen
+anything like them in the place from whence we come."
+
+She followed my pointing finger--laughed.
+
+"Come," she said, "let me show you them."
+
+She ran down an intersecting way, we following; came out of it upon a
+little ledge close to the brink, three feet or more I suppose about
+it. The Golden Girl's voice rang out in a high-pitched, tremulous,
+throbbing call.
+
+The lake of jewels stirred as though a breeze had passed over it;
+stirred, shook, and then began to move swiftly, a shimmering torrent
+of shining flowers down upon us! She called again, the movement became
+more rapid; the gem blooms streamed closer--closer, wavering,
+shifting, winding--at our very feet. Above them hovered a little
+radiant mist. The Golden Girl leaned over; called softly, and up from
+the sparkling mass shot a green vine whose heads were five flowers of
+flaming ruby--shot up, flew into her hand and coiled about the white
+arm, its quintette of lambent blossoms--regarding us!
+
+It was the thing Lakla had called the _Yekta_; that with which she had
+threatened the priestess; the thing that carried the dreadful
+death--and the Golden Girl was handling it like a rose!
+
+Larry swore--I looked at the thing more closely.  It was a hydroid, a
+development of that strange animal-vegetable that, sometimes almost
+microscopic, waves in the sea depths like a cluster of flowers
+paralyzing its prey with the mysterious force that dwells in its
+blossom heads![2]
+
+"Put it down, Lakla," the distress in O'Keefe's voice was deep.  Lakla
+laughed mischievously, caught the real fear for her in his eyes;
+opened her hand, gave another faint call--and back it flew to its
+fellows.
+
+"Why, it wouldn't hurt me, Larry!" she expostulated. "They know me!"
+
+"Put it down!" he repeated hoarsely.
+
+She sighed, gave another sweet, prolonged call.  The lake of
+gems--rubies and amethysts, mauves and scarlet-tinged blues--wavered
+and shook even as it had before--and swept swiftly back to that place
+whence she had drawn them!
+
+Then, with Larry and Lakla walking ahead, white arm about his brown
+neck; the O'Keefe still expostulating, the handmaiden laughing
+merrily, we passed through her bower to the domed castle.
+
+Glancing through a cleft I caught sight again of the far end of the
+bridge; noted among the clustered figures of its garrison of the
+frog-men a movement, a flashing of green fire like marshlights on
+spear tips; wondered idly what it was, and then, other thoughts
+crowding in, followed along, head bent, behind the pair who had found
+in what was Olaf's hell, their true paradise.
+
+
+[1] The _Akka_ are viviparous.  The female produces progeny at
+five-year intervals, never more than two at a time. They are
+monogamous, like certain of our own _Ranidae_. Pending my monograph
+upon what little I had time to learn of their interesting habits and
+customs, the curious will find instruction and entertainment in
+Brandes and Schvenichen's _Brutpfleige der Schwanzlosen Bat rachier_,
+p. 395; and Lilian V. Sampson's _Unusual Modes of Breeding among
+Anura_, Amer. Nat. xxxiv., 1900.--W. T. G.
+
+[2] The _Yekta_ of the Crimson Sea, are as extraordinary developments
+of hydroid forms as the giant _Medusae_, of which, of course, they are
+not too remote cousins. The closest resemblances to them in outer
+water forms are among the _Gymnoblastic Hydroids_, notably _Clavetella
+prolifera_, a most interesting ambulatory form of six tentacles.
+Almost every bather in Southern waters, Northern too, knows the pain
+that contact with certain "jelly fish" produces. The _Yekta's_
+development was prodigious and, to us, monstrous. It secretes in its
+five heads an almost incredibly swiftly acting poison which I suspect,
+for I had no chance to verify the theory, destroys the entire nervous
+system to the accompaniment of truly infernal agony; carrying at the
+same time the illusion that the torment stretches through infinities
+of time. Both ether and nitrous oxide gas produce in the majority this
+sensation of time extension, without of course the pain symptom. What
+Lakla called the _Yekta_ kiss is I imagine about as close to the
+orthodox idea of Hell as can be conceived. The secret of her control
+over them I had no opportunity of learning in the rush of events that
+followed. Knowledge of the appalling effects of their touch came, she
+told me, from those few "who had been kissed so lightly" that they
+recovered. Certainly nothing, not even the Shining One, was dreaded by
+the Murians as these were--W. T. G.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+The Coming of Yolara
+
+"Never was there such a girl!" Thus Larry, dreamily, leaning head in
+hand on one of the wide divans of the chamber where Lakla had left us,
+pleading service to the Silent Ones.
+
+"An', by the faith and the honour of the O'Keefes, an' by my dead
+mother's soul may God do with me as I do by her!" he whispered
+fervently.
+
+He relapsed into open-eyed dreaming.
+
+I walked about the room, examining it--the first opportunity I had
+gained to inspect carefully any of the rooms in the abode of the
+Three. It was octagonal, carpeted with the thick rugs that seemed
+almost as though woven of soft mineral wool, faintly shimmering,
+palest blue. I paced its diagonal; it was fifty yards; the ceiling was
+arched, and either of pale rose metal or metallic covering; it
+collected the light from the high, slitted windows, and shed it,
+diffused, through the room.
+
+Around the octagon ran a low gallery not two feet from the floor,
+balustraded with slender pillars, close set; broken at opposite
+curtained entrances over which hung thick, dull-gold curtainings
+giving the same suggestion of metallic or mineral substance as the
+rugs. Set within each of the eight sides, above the balcony, were
+colossal slabs of lapis lazuli, inset with graceful but unplaceable
+designs in scarlet and sapphire blue.
+
+There was the great divan on which mused Larry; two smaller ones, half
+a dozen low seats and chairs carved apparently of ivory and of dull
+soft gold.
+
+Most curious were tripods, strong, pikelike legs of golden metal four
+feet high, holding small circles of the lapis with intaglios of one
+curious symbol somewhat resembling the ideographs of the Chinese.
+
+There was no dust--nowhere in these caverned spaces had I found this
+constant companion of ours in the world overhead. My eyes caught a
+sparkle from a corner. Pursuing it I found upon one of the low seats a
+flat, clear crystal oval, remarkably like a lens. I took it and
+stepped up on the balcony. Standing on tiptoe I found I commanded from
+the bottom of a window slit a view of the bridge approach. Scanning it
+I could see no trace of the garrison there, nor of the green spear
+flashes. I placed the crystal to my eyes--and with a disconcerting
+abruptness the cavern mouth leaped before me, apparently not a hundred
+feet away; decidedly the crystal was a very excellent lens--but where
+were the guards?
+
+I peered closely.  Nothing!  But now against the aperture I saw a
+score or more of tiny, dancing sparks. An optical illusion, I thought,
+and turned the crystal in another direction. There were no sparklings
+there. I turned it back again--and there they were. And what were
+they like? Realization came to me--they were like the little, dancing,
+radiant atoms that had played for a time about the emptiness where had
+stood Sorgar of the Lower Waters before he had been shaken into the
+nothingness! And that green light I had noticed--the _Keth_!
+
+A cry on my lips, I turned to Larry--and the cry died as the heavy
+curtainings at the entrance on my right undulated, parted as though a
+body had slipped through, shook and parted again and again--with the
+dreadful passing of unseen things!
+
+"Larry!" I cried.  "Here!  Quick!"
+
+He leaped to his feet, gazed about wildly--and disappeared!
+Yes--vanished from my sight like the snuffed flame of a candle or as
+though something moving with the speed of light itself had snatched
+him away!
+
+Then from the divan came the sounds of struggle, the hissing of
+straining breaths, the noise of Larry cursing. I leaped over the
+balustrade, drawing my own pistol--was caught in a pair of mighty
+arms, my elbows crushed to my sides, drawn down until my face pressed
+close to a broad, hairy breast--and through that obstacle--formless,
+shadowless, transparent as air itself--I could still see the battle on
+the divan!
+
+Now there were two sharp reports; the struggle abruptly ceased.  From
+a point not a foot over the great couch, as though oozing from the air
+itself, blood began to drop, faster and ever faster, pouring out of
+nothingness.
+
+And out of that same air, now a dozen feet away, leaped the face of
+Larry--bodyless, poised six feet above the floor, blazing with
+rage--floating weirdly, uncannily to a hideous degree, in vacancy.
+
+His hands flashed out--armless; they wavered, appearing,
+disappearing--swiftly tearing something from him. Then there, feet
+hidden, stiff on legs that vanished at the ankles, striking out into
+vision with all the dizzy abruptness with which he had been stricken
+from sight was the O'Keefe, a smoking pistol in hand.
+
+And ever that red stream trickled out of vacancy and spread over the
+couch, dripping to the floor.
+
+I made a mighty movement to escape; was held more firmly--and then
+close to the face of Larry, flashing out with that terrifying
+instantaneousness even as had his, was the head of Yolara, as
+devilishly mocking as I had ever seen it, the cruelty shining through
+it like delicate white flames from hell--and beautiful!
+
+"Stir not!  Strike not--until I command!" She flung the words beyond
+her, addressed to the invisible ones who had accompanied her; whose
+presences I sensed filling the chamber. The floating, beautiful head,
+crowned high with corn-silk hair, darted toward the Irishman. He took
+a swift step backward. The eyes of the priestess deepened toward
+purple; sparkled with malice.
+
+"So," she said.  "So, _Larree_--you thought you could go from me so
+easily!" She laughed softly. "In my hidden hand I hold the _Keth_
+cone," she murmured. "Before you can raise the death tube I can smite
+you--and will. And consider, _Larree_, if the handmaiden, the _choya_
+comes, I can vanish--so"--the mocking head disappeared, burst forth
+again--"and slay her with the _Keth_--or bid my people seize her and
+bear her to the Shining One!"
+
+Tiny beads of sweat stood out on O'Keefe's forehead, and I knew he was
+thinking not of himself, but of Lakla.
+
+"What do you want with me, Yolara?" he asked hoarsely.
+
+"Nay," came the mocking voice.  "Not Yolara to you, _Larree_--call me
+by those sweet names you taught me--Honey of the Wild Bee-e-s, Net of
+Hearts--" Again her laughter tinkled.
+
+"What do you want with me?" his voice was strained, the lips rigid.
+
+"Ah, you are afraid, _Larree_." There was diabolic jubilation in the
+words. "What should I want but that you return with me? Why else did I
+creep through the lair of the dragon worm and pass the path of perils
+but to ask you that? And the _choya_ guards you not well." Again she
+laughed. "We came to the cavern's end and, there were her _Akka_. And
+the _Akka_ can see us--as shadows. But it was my desire to surprise
+you with my coming, Larree," the voice was silken. "And I feared that
+they would hasten to be first to bring you that message to delight in
+your joy. And so, _Larree_, I loosed the _Keth_ upon them--and gave
+them peace and rest within the nothingness. And the portal below was
+open--almost in welcome!"
+
+Once more the malignant, silver pealing of her laughter.
+
+"What do you want with me?" There was wrath in his eyes, and plainly
+he strove for control.
+
+"Want!" the silver voice hissed, grew calm.  "Do not Siya and Siyana
+grieve that the rite I pledged them is but half done--and do they not
+desire it finished? And am I not beautiful? More beautiful than your
+_choya_?"
+
+The fiendishness died from the eyes; they grew blue, wondrous; the
+veil of invisibility slipped down from the neck, the shoulders, half
+revealing the gleaming breasts. And weird, weird beyond all telling
+was that exquisite head and bust floating there in air--and beautiful,
+sinisterly beautiful beyond all telling, too. So even might Lilith,
+the serpent woman, have shown herself tempting Adam!
+
+"And perhaps," she said, "perhaps I want you because I hate you;
+perhaps because I love you--or perhaps for Lugur or perhaps for the
+Shining One."
+
+"And if I go with you?" He said it quietly.
+
+"Then shall I spare the handmaiden--and--who knows?--take back my
+armies that even now gather at the portal and let the Silent Ones rot
+in peace in their abode--from which they had no power to keep me," she
+added venomously.
+
+"You will swear that, Yolara; swear to go without harming the
+handmaiden?" he asked eagerly. The little devils danced in her eyes. I
+wrenched my face from the smothering contact.
+
+"Don't trust her, Larry!" I cried--and again the grip choked me.
+
+"Is that devil in front of you or behind you, old man?" he asked
+quietly, eyes never leaving the priestess. "If he's in front I'll take
+a chance and wing him--and then you scoot and warn Lakla."
+
+But I could not answer; nor, remembering Yolara's threat, would I, had
+I been able.
+
+"Decide quickly!" There was cold threat in her voice.
+
+The curtains toward which O'Keefe had slowly, step by step, drawn
+close, opened. They framed the handmaiden! The face of Yolara changed
+to that gorgon mask that had transformed it once before at sight of
+the Golden Girl. In her blind rage she forgot to cast the occulting
+veil. Her hand darted like a snake out of the folds; poising itself
+with the little silver cone aimed at Lakla.
+
+But before it was wholly poised, before the priestess could loose its
+force, the handmaiden was upon her. Swift as the lithe white wolf
+hound she leaped, and one slender hand gripped Yolara's throat, the
+other the wrist that lifted the quivering death; white limbs wrapped
+about the hidden ones, I saw the golden head bend, the hand that held
+the _Keth_ swept up with a vicious jerk; saw Lakla's teeth sink into
+the wrist--the blood spurt forth and heard the priestess shriek. The
+cone fell, bounded toward me; with all my strength I wrenched free the
+hand that held my pistol, thrust it against the pressing breast and
+fired.
+
+The clasp upon me relaxed; a red rain stained me; at my feet a little
+pillar of blood jetted; a hand thrust itself from nothingness,
+clawed--and was still.
+
+Now Yolara was down, Lakla meshed in her writhings and fighting like
+some wild mother whose babes are serpent menaced. Over the two of
+them, astride, stood the O'Keefe, a pike from one of the high tripods
+in his hand--thrusting, parrying, beating on every side as with a
+broadsword against poniard-clutching hands that thrust themselves out
+of vacancy striving to strike him; stepping here and there, always
+covering, protecting Lakla with his own body even as a caveman of old
+who does battle with his mate for their lives.
+
+The sword-club struck--and on the floor lay the half body of a dwarf,
+writhing with vanishments and reappearings of legs and arms. Beside
+him was the shattered tripod from which Larry had wrenched his weapon.
+I flung myself upon it, dashed it down to break loose one of the
+remaining supports, struck in midfall one of the unseen even as his
+dagger darted toward me! The seat splintered, leaving in my clutch a
+golden bar. I jumped to Larry's side, guarding his back, whirling it
+like a staff; felt it crunch once--twice--through unseen bone and
+muscle.
+
+At the door was a booming.  Into the chamber rushed a dozen of the
+frog-men. While some guarded the entrances, others leaped straight to
+us, and forming a circle about us began to strike with talons and
+spurs at unseen things that screamed and sought to escape. Now here
+and there about the blue rugs great stains of blood appeared; heads of
+dwarfs, torn arms and gashed bodies, half occulted, half revealed. And
+at last the priestess lay silent, vanquished, white body gleaming with
+that uncanny--fragmentariness--from her torn robes. Then O'Keefe
+reached down, drew Lakla from her. Shakily, Yolara rose to her feet.
+The handmaiden, face still blazing with wrath, stepped before her;
+with difficulty she steadied her voice.
+
+"Yolara," she said, "you have defied the Silent Ones, you have
+desecrated their abode, you came to slay these men who are the guests
+of the Silent Ones and me, who am their handmaiden--why did you do
+these things?"
+
+"I came for him!" gasped the priestess; she pointed to O'Keefe.
+
+"Why?" asked Lakla.
+
+"Because he is pledged to me," replied Yolara, all the devils that
+were hers in her face. "Because he wooed me! Because he is mine!"
+
+"That is a lie!" The handmaiden's voice shook with rage. "It is a lie!
+But here and now he shall choose, Yolara. And if you he choose, you
+and he shall go forth from here unmolested--for Yolara, it is his
+happiness that I most desire, and if you are that happiness--you shall
+go together. And now, Larry, choose!"
+
+Swiftly she stepped beside the priestess; swiftly wrenched the last
+shreds of the hiding robes from her.
+
+There they stood--Yolara with but the filmiest net of gauze about her
+wonderful body; gleaming flesh shining through it; serpent woman---and
+wonderful, too, beyond the dreams even of Phidias--and hell-fire
+glowing from the purple eyes.
+
+And Lakla, like a girl of the Vikings, like one of those warrior maids
+who stood and fought for dun and babes at the side of those old heroes
+of Larry's own green isle; translucent ivory lambent through the rents
+of her torn draperies, and in the wide, golden eyes flaming wrath,
+indeed--not the diabolic flames of the priestess but the righteous
+wrath of some soul that looking out of paradise sees vile wrong in the
+doing.
+
+"Lakla," the O'Keefe's voice was subdued, hurt, "there _is_ no choice.
+I love you and only you--and have from the moment I saw you. It's not
+easy--this. God, Goodwin, I feel like an utter cad," he flashed at me.
+"There is no choice, Lakla," he ended, eyes steady upon hers.
+
+The priestess's face grew deadlier still.
+
+"What will you do with me?" she asked.
+
+"Keep you," I said, "as hostage."
+
+O'Keefe was silent; the Golden Girl shook her head.
+
+"Well would I like to," her face grew dreaming; "but the Silent Ones
+say--_no_; they bid me let you go, Yolara--"
+
+"The Silent Ones," the priestess laughed. "_You_, Lakla! You fear,
+perhaps, to let me tarry here too close!"
+
+Storm gathered again in the handmaiden's eyes; she forced it back.
+
+"No," she answered, "the Silent Ones so command--and for their own
+purposes. Yet do I think, Yolara, that you will have little time to
+feed your wickedness--tell that to Lugur--and to your Shining One!"
+she added slowly.
+
+Mockery and disbelief rode high in the priestess's pose. "Am I to
+return alone--like this?" she asked.
+
+"Nay, Yolara, nay; you shall be accompanied," said Lakla; "and by
+those who will guard--and _watch_--you well. They are here even now."
+
+The hangings parted, and into the chamber came Olaf and Rador.
+
+The priestess met the fierce hatred and contempt in the eyes of the
+Norseman--and for the first time lost her bravado.
+
+"Let not _him_ go with me," she gasped--her eyes searched the floor
+frantically.
+
+"He goes with you," said Lakla, and threw about Yolara a swathing that
+covered the exquisite, alluring body. "And you shall pass through the
+Portal, not skulk along the path of the worm!"
+
+She bent to Rador, whispered to him; he nodded; she had told him, I
+supposed, the secret of its opening.
+
+"Come," he said, and with the ice-eyed giant behind her, Yolara, head
+bent, passed out of those hangings through which, but a little before,
+unseen, triumph in her grasp, she had slipped.
+
+Then Lakla came to the unhappy O'Keefe, rested her hands on his
+shoulders, looked deep into his eyes.
+
+"_Did_ you woo her, even as she said?" she asked.
+
+The Irishman flushed miserably.
+
+"I did not," he said.  "I was pleasant to her, of course, because I
+thought it would bring me quicker to you, darlin'."
+
+She looked at him doubtfully; then--
+
+"I think you must have been _very_--pleasant!" was all she said--and
+leaning, kissed him forgivingly straight on the lips. An extremely
+direct maiden was Lakla, with a truly sovereign contempt for anything
+she might consider non-essentials; and at this moment I decided she
+was wiser even than I had thought her.
+
+He stumbled, feet vanishing; reached down and picked up something that
+in the grasping turned his hand to air.
+
+"One of the invisible cloaks," he said to me.  "There must be quite a
+lot of them about--I guess Yolara brought her full staff of murderers.
+They're a bit shopworn, probably--but we're considerably better off
+with 'em in our hands than in hers. And they may come in handy--who
+knows?"
+
+There was a choking rattle at my feet; half the head of a dwarf raised
+out of vacancy; beat twice upon the floor in death throes; fell back.
+Lakla shivered; gave a command. The frog-men moved about; peering here
+and there; lifting unseen folds revealing in stark rigidity torn form
+after form of the priestess's men.
+
+Lakla had been right--her _Akka_ were thorough fighters!
+
+She called, and to her came the frog-woman who was her attendant.  To
+her the handmaiden spoke, pointing to the batrachians who stood, paws
+and forearms melted beneath the robes they had gathered. She took them
+and passed out--more grotesque than ever, shattering into streaks of
+vacancies, reappearing with flickers of shining scale and yellow gems
+as the tattered pennants of invisibility fluttered about her.
+
+The frog-men reached down, swung each a dead dwarf in his arms, and
+filed, booming triumphantly away.
+
+And then I remembered the cone of the _Keth_ which had slipped from
+Yolara's hand; knew it had been that for which her wild eyes searched.
+But look as closely as we might, search in every nook and corner as we
+did, we could not find it. Had the dying hand of one of her men
+clutched it and had it been borne away with them? With the thought
+Larry and I raced after the scaled warriors, searched every body they
+carried. It was not there. Perhaps the priestess had found it,
+retrieved it swiftly without our seeing.
+
+Whatever was true--the cone was gone.  And what a weapon that one
+little holder of the shaking death would have been for us!
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+In the Lair of the Dweller
+
+It is with marked hesitation that I begin this chapter, because in it
+I must deal with an experience so contrary to every known law of
+physics as to seem impossible. Until this time, barring, of course,
+the mystery of the Dweller, I had encountered nothing that was not
+susceptible of naturalistic explanation; nothing, in a word, outside
+the domain of science itself; nothing that I would have felt hesitancy
+in reciting to my colleagues of the International Association of
+Science. Amazing, unfamiliar--_advanced_--as many of the phenomena were,
+still they lay well within the limits of what we have mapped as the
+possible; in regions, it is true, still virgin to the mind of man, but
+toward which that mind is steadily advancing.
+
+But this--well, I confess that I have a theory that is naturalistic;
+but so abstruse, so difficult to make clear within the short confines
+of the space I have to give it, so dependent upon conceptions that
+even the highest-trained scientific brains find difficult to grasp,
+that I despair.
+
+I can only say that the thing occurred; that it took place in
+precisely the manner I am about to narrate, and that I experienced it.
+
+Yet, in justice to myself, I must open up some paths of preliminary
+approach toward the heart of the perplexity. And the first path is the
+realization that our world _whatever_ it is, is certainly _not_ the
+world as we see it! Regarding this I shall refer to a discourse upon
+"Gravitation and the Principle of Relativity," by the distinguished
+English physicist, Dr. A. S. Eddington, which I had the pleasure of
+hearing him deliver before the Royal Institution.[1]
+
+I realize, of course, that it is not true logic to argue--"The world
+is not as we think it is--therefore everything we think impossible is
+possible in it." Even if it _be_ different, it is governed by _law_. The
+truly impossible is that which is outside law, and as nothing _can_ be
+outside law, the impossible _cannot_ exist.
+
+The crux of the matter then becomes our determination whether what we
+think is impossible may or may not be possible under laws still beyond
+our knowledge.
+
+I hope that you will pardon me for this somewhat academic digression,
+but I felt it was necessary, and it has, at least, put me more at
+ease. And now to resume.
+
+We had watched, Larry and I, the frog-men throw the bodies of Yolara's
+assassins into the crimson waters. As vultures swoop down upon the
+dying, there came sailing swiftly to where the dead men floated,
+dozens of the luminous globes. Their slender, varicoloured tentacles
+whipped out; the giant iridescent bubbles _climbed_ over the cadavers.
+And as they touched them there was the swift dissolution, the melting
+away into putrescence of flesh and bone that I had witnessed when the
+dart touched fruit that time I had saved Rador--and upon this the
+Medusae gorged; pulsing lambently; their wondrous colours shifting,
+changing, glowing stronger; elfin moons now indeed, but satellites
+whose glimmering beauty was fed by death; alembics of enchantment
+whose glorious hues were sucked from horror.
+
+Sick, I turned away--O'Keefe as pale as I; passed back into the
+corridor that had opened on the ledge from which we had watched; met
+Lakla hurrying toward us. Before she could speak there throbbed
+faintly about us a vast sighing. It grew into a murmur, a whispering,
+shook us--then passing like a presence, died away in far distance.
+
+"The Portal has opened," said the handmaiden.  A fainter sighing, like
+an echo of the other, mourned about us. "Yolara is gone," she said,
+"the Portal is closed. Now must we hasten--for the Three have
+commanded that you, Goodwin, and Larry and I tread that strange road
+of which I have spoken, and which Olaf may not take lest his heart
+break--and we must return ere he and Rador cross the bridge."
+
+Her hand sought Larry's.
+
+"Come!" said Lakla, and we walked on; down and down through hall after
+hall, flight upon flight of stairways. Deep, deep indeed, we must be
+beneath the domed castle--Lakla paused before a curved, smooth breast
+of the crimson stone rounding gently into the passage. She pressed its
+side; it revolved; we entered; it closed behind us.
+
+The room, the--hollow--in which we stood was faceted like a diamond;
+and like a cut brilliant its sides glistened--though dully. Its shape
+was a deep oval, and our path dropped down to a circular polished
+base, roughly two yards in diameter. Glancing behind me I saw that in
+the closing of the entrance there had been left no trace of it save
+the steps that led from where that entrance had been--and as I looked
+these steps _turned_, leaving us isolated upon the circle, only the
+faceted walls about us--and in each of the gleaming faces the three of
+us reflected--dimly. It was as though we were within a diamond egg
+whose graven angles had been turned _inward_.
+
+But the oval was not perfect; at my right a screen cut it--a screen
+that gleamed with fugitive, fleeting luminescences--stretching from
+the side of our standing place up to the tip of the chamber; slightly
+convex and crisscrossed by millions of fine lines like those upon a
+spectroscopic plate, but with this difference--that within each line I
+sensed the presence of multitudes of finer lines, dwindling into
+infinitude, ultramicroscopic, traced by some instrument compared to
+whose delicacy our finest tool would be as a crowbar to the needle of
+a micrometer.
+
+A foot or two from it stood something like the standee of a compass,
+bearing, like it a cradled dial under whose crystal ran concentric
+rings of prisoned, lambent vapours, faintly blue. From the edge of the
+dial jutted a little shelf of crystal, a keyboard, in which were cut
+eight small cups.
+
+Within these cups the handmaiden placed her tapering fingers.  She
+gazed down upon the disk; pressed a digit--and the screen behind us
+slipped noiselessly into another angle.
+
+"Put your arm around my waist, Larry, darlin', and stand close," she
+murmured. "You, Goodwin, place your arm over my shoulder."
+
+Wondering, I did as she bade; she pressed other fingers upon the
+shelf's indentations--three of the rings of vapour spun into intense
+light, raced around each other; from the screen behind us grew a
+radiance that held within itself all spectrums--not only those seen,
+but those _unseen_ by man's eyes. It waxed brilliant and ever more
+brilliant, all suffusing, passing through me as day streams through a
+window pane!
+
+The enclosing facets burst into a blaze of coruscations, and in each
+sparkling panel I saw our images, shaken and torn like pennants in a
+whirlwind. I turned to look--was stopped by the handmaiden's swift
+command: "Turn not--on your life!"
+
+The radiance behind me grew; was a rushing tempest of light in which I
+was but the shadow of a shadow. I heard, but not with my ears--nay with
+_mind_ itself--a vast roaring; an _ordered_ tumult of sound that came
+hurling from the outposts of space; approaching--rushing--hurricane
+out of the heart of the cosmos--closer, closer. It wrapped itself
+about us with unearthly mighty arms.
+
+And brilliant, ever more brilliant, streamed the radiance through us.
+
+The faceted walls dimmed; in front of me they melted, diaphanously,
+like a gelatinous wall in a blast of flame; through their vanishing,
+under the torrent of driving light, the unthinkable, impalpable
+tornado, I began to move, slowly--then ever more swiftly!
+
+Still the roaring grew; the radiance streamed--ever faster we went.
+Cutting down through the length, the _extension_ of me, dropped a wall
+of rock, foreshortened, clenched close; I caught a glimpse of the
+elfin gardens; they whirled, contracted, into a thin--slice--of colour
+that was a part of me; another wall of rock shrinking into a thin
+wedge through which I flew, and that at once took its place within me
+like a card slipped beside those others!
+
+Flashing around me, and from Lakla and O'Keefe, were nimbuses of
+flickering scarlet flames. And always the steady hurling
+forward--appallingly mechanical.
+
+Another barrier of rock--a gleam of white waters incorporating
+themselves into my--_drawing out_--even as were the flowered moss lands,
+the slicing, rocky walls--still another rampart of cliff, dwindling
+instantly into the vertical plane of those others. Our flight checked;
+we seemed to hover within, then to sway onward--slowly, cautiously.
+
+A mist danced ahead of me--a mist that grew steadily thinner.  We
+stopped, wavered--the mist cleared.
+
+I looked out into translucent, green distances; shot with swift
+prismatic gleamings; waves and pulsings of luminosity like midday sun
+glow through green, tropic waters: dancing, scintillating veils of
+sparkling atoms that flew, hither and yon, through depths of nebulous
+splendour!
+
+And Lakla and Larry and I were, I saw, like shadow shapes upon a
+smooth breast of stone twenty feet or more above the surface of this
+place--a surface spangled with tiny white blossoms gleaming wanly
+through creeping veils of phosphorescence like smoke of moon fire. We
+were shadows--and yet we had substance; we were incorporated with, a
+part of, the rock--and yet we were living flesh and blood; we
+stretched--nor will I qualify this--we _stretched_ through mile upon
+mile of space that weirdly enough gave at one and the same time an
+absolute certainty of immense horizontal lengths and a vertical
+concentration that contained nothing of length, nothing of space
+whatever; we stood _there_ upon the face of the stone--and still we
+were _here_ within the faceted oval before the screen of radiance!
+
+"Steady!" It was Lakla's voice--and not beside me _there_, but at my ear
+close before the screen. "Steady, Goodwin! And--see!"
+
+The sparkling haze cleared.  Enormous reaches stretched before me.
+Shimmering up through them, and as though growing in some medium
+thicker than air, was mass upon mass of verdure--fruiting trees and
+trees laden with pale blossoms, arbours and bowers of pallid blooms,
+like that sea fruit of oblivion--grapes of Lethe--that cling to the
+tide-swept walls of the caverns of the Hebrides.
+
+Through them, beyond them, around and about them, drifted and eddied a
+horde--great as that with which Tamerlane swept down upon Rome, vast
+as the myriads which Genghis Khan rolled upon the califs--men and
+women and children--clothed in tatters, half nude and wholly naked;
+slant-eyed Chinese, sloe-eyed Malays, islanders black and brown and
+yellow, fierce-faced warriors of the Solomons with grizzled locks
+fantastically bedizened; Papuans, feline Javans, Dyaks of hill and
+shore; hook-nosed Phoenicians, Romans, straight-browed Greeks, and
+Vikings centuries _beyond_ their lives: scores of the black-haired
+Murians; white faces of our own Westerners--men and women and
+children--drifting, eddying--each stamped with that mingled horror and
+rapture, eyes filled with ecstasy and terror entwined, marked by God
+and devil in embrace--the seal of the Shining One--the dead-alive; the
+lost ones!
+
+The loot of the Dweller!
+
+Soul-sick, I gazed.  They lifted to us visages of dread; they swept
+down toward us, glaring upward--a bank against which other and still
+other waves of faces rolled, were checked, paused; until as far as I
+could see, like billows piled upon an ever-growing barrier, they
+stretched beneath us--staring--staring!
+
+Now there was a movement--far, far away; a concentrating of the
+lambency; the dead-alive swayed, oscillated, separated--forming a long
+lane against whose outskirts they crowded with avid, hungry
+insistence.
+
+First only a luminous cloud, then a whirling pillar of splendours
+through the lane came--the Shining One. As it passed, the dead-alive
+swirled in its wake like leaves behind a whirlwind, eddying, twisting;
+and as the Dweller raced by them, brushing them with its spirallings
+and tentacles, they shone forth with unearthly, awesome
+gleamings--like vessels of alabaster in which wicks flare suddenly.
+And when it had passed they closed behind it, staring up at us once
+more.
+
+The Dweller paused beneath us.
+
+Out of the drifting ruck swam the body of Throckmartin! Throckmartin,
+my friend, to find whom I had gone to the pallid moon door; my friend
+whose call I had so laggardly followed. On his face was the Dweller's
+dreadful stamp; the lips were bloodless; the eyes were wide, lucent,
+something like pale, phosphorescence gleaming within them--and
+soulless.
+
+He stared straight up at me, unwinking, unrecognizing. Pressing
+against his side was a woman, young and gentle, and lovely--lovely
+even through the mask that lay upon her face. And her wide eyes, like
+Throckmartin's, glowed with the lurking, unholy fires. She pressed
+against him closely; though the hordes kept up the faint churning,
+these two kept ever together, as though bound by unseen fetters.
+
+And I knew the girl for Edith, his wife, who in vain effort to save
+him had cast herself into the Dweller's embrace!
+
+"Throckmartin!" I cried.  "Throckmartin!  I'm here!"
+
+Did he hear?  I know now, of course, he could not.
+
+But then I waited--hope striving to break through the nightmare hands
+that gripped my heart.
+
+Their wide eyes never left me.  There was another movement about them,
+others pushed past them; they drifted back, swaying, eddying--and
+still staring were lost in the awful throng.
+
+Vainly I strained my gaze to find them again, to force some sign of
+recognition, some awakening of the clean life we know. But they were
+gone. Try as I would I could not see them--nor Stanton and the
+northern woman named Thora who had been the first of that tragic party
+to be taken by the Dweller.
+
+"Throckmartin!" I cried again, despairingly.  My tears blinded me.
+
+I felt Lakla's light touch.
+
+"Steady," she commanded, pitifully.  "Steady, Goodwin. You cannot help
+them--now! Steady and--watch!"
+
+Below us the Shining One had paused--spiralling, swirling, vibrant
+with all its transcendent, devilish beauty; had paused and was
+contemplating us. Now I could see clearly that nucleus, that core shot
+through with flashing veins of radiance, that ever-shifting shape of
+glory through the shroudings of shimmering, misty plumes, throbbing
+lacy opalescences, vaporous spirallings of prismatic phantom fires.
+Steady over it hung the seven little moons of amethyst, of saffron, of
+emerald and azure and silver, of rose of life and moon white. They
+poised themselves like a diadem--calm, serene, immobile--and down
+from them into the Dweller, piercing plumes and swirls and spirals,
+ran countless tiny strands, radiations, finer than the finest spun
+thread of spider's web, gleaming filaments through which seemed to
+run--_power_--from the seven globes; like--yes, that was it--miniatures
+of the seven torrents of moon flame that poured through the
+septichromatic, high crystals in the Moon Pool's chamber roof.
+
+Swam out of the coruscating haze the--face!
+
+Both of man and of woman it was--like some ancient, androgynous deity
+of Etruscan fanes long dust, and yet neither woman nor man; human and
+unhuman, seraphic and sinister, benign and malefic--and still no more
+of these four than is flame, which is beautiful whether it warms or
+devours, or wind whether it feathers the trees or shatters them, or
+the wave which is wondrous whether it caresses or kills.
+
+Subtly, undefinably it was of our world and of one not ours.  Its
+lineaments flowed from another sphere, took fleeting familiar
+form--and as swiftly withdrew whence they had come; something
+amorphous, unearthly--as of unknown unheeding, unseen gods rushing
+through the depths of star-hung space; and still of our own earth,
+with the very soul of earth peering out from it, caught within it--and
+in some--unholy--way debased.
+
+It had eyes--eyes that were now only shadows darkening within its
+luminosity like veils falling, and falling, _opening_ windows into the
+unknowable; deepening into softly glowing blue pools, blue as the Moon
+Pool itself; then flashing out, and this only when the--face--bore its
+most human resemblance, into twin stars large almost as the crown of
+little moons; and with that same baffling suggestion of peep-holes
+into a world untrodden, alien, perilous to man!
+
+"Steady!" came Lakla's voice, her body leaned against mine.
+
+I gripped myself, my brain steadied, I looked again.  And I saw that
+of body, at least body as we know it, the Shining One had
+none--nothing but the throbbing, pulsing core streaked with lightning
+veins of rainbows; and around this, never still, sheathing it, the
+swirling, glorious veilings of its hell and heaven born radiance.
+
+So the Dweller stood--and gazed.
+
+Then up toward us swept a reaching, questing spiral!
+
+Under my hand Lakla's shoulder quivered; dead-alive and their master
+vanished--I danced, flickered, _within_ the rock; felt a swift sense of
+shrinking, of withdrawal; slice upon slice the carded walls of stone,
+of silvery waters, of elfin gardens slipped from me as cards are
+withdrawn from a pack, one by one--slipped, wheeled, flattened, and
+lengthened out as I passed through them and they passed from me.
+
+Gasping, shaken, weak, I stood within the faceted oval chamber; arm
+still about the handmaiden's white shoulder; Larry's hand still
+clutching her girdle.
+
+The roaring, impalpable gale from the cosmos was retreating to the
+outposts of space--was still; the intense, streaming, flooding
+radiance lessened--died.
+
+"Now have you beheld," said Lakla, "and well you trod the road.  And
+now shall you hear, even as the Silent Ones have commanded, what the
+Shining One is--and how it came to be."
+
+The steps flashed back; the doorway into the chamber opened.
+
+Larry as silent as I--we followed her through it.
+
+
+[1] Reprinted in full in _Nature_, in which those sufficiently interested
+may peruse it.--W. T. G.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+The Shaping of the Shining One
+
+We reached what I knew to be Lakla's own boudoir, if I may so call it.
+Smaller than any of the other chambers of the domed castle in which we
+had been, its intimacy was revealed not only by its faint fragrance
+but by its high mirrors of polished silver and various oddly wrought
+articles of the feminine toilet that lay here and there; things I
+afterward knew to be the work of the artisans of the _Akka_--and no
+mean metal workers were they. One of the window slits dropped almost
+to the floor, and at its base was a wide, comfortably cushioned seat
+commanding a view of the bridge and of the cavern ledge. To this the
+handmaiden beckoned us; sank upon it, drew Larry down beside her and
+motioned me to sit close to him.
+
+"Now this," she said, "is what the Silent Ones have commanded me to
+tell you two: To you Larry, that knowing you may weigh all things in
+your mind and answer as your spirit bids you a question that the Three
+will ask--and what that is I know not," she murmured, "and I, they
+say, must answer, too--and it--frightens me!"
+
+The great golden eyes widened; darkened with dread; she sighed, shook
+her head impatiently.
+
+"Not like us, and never like us," she spoke low, wonderingly, "the
+Silent Ones say were they. Nor were those from which they sprang like
+those from which we have come. Ancient, ancient beyond thought are the
+_Taithu_, the race of the Silent Ones. Far, far below this place where
+now we sit, close to earth heart itself were they born; and there they
+dwelt for time upon time, _laya_ upon _laya_ upon _laya_--with others,
+not like them, some of which have vanished time upon time agone,
+others that still dwell--below--in their--cradle.
+
+"It is hard"--she hesitated--"hard to tell this--that slips through my
+mind--because I know so little that even as the Three told it to me it
+passed from me for lack of place to stand upon," she went on,
+quaintly. "Something there was of time when earth and sun were but
+cold mists in the--the heavens--something of these mists drawing
+together, whirling, whirling, faster and faster--drawing as they
+whirled more and more of the mists--growing larger, growing
+warm--forming at last into the globes they are, with others spinning
+around the sun--something of regions within this globe where vast fire
+was prisoned and bursting forth tore and rent the young orb--of one
+such bursting forth that sent what you call moon flying out to company
+us and left behind those spaces whence we now dwell--and of--of life
+particles that here and there below grew into the race of the Silent
+Ones, and those others--but not the _Akka_ which, like you, they say
+came from above--and all this I do not understand--do you, Goodwin?"
+she appealed to me.
+
+I nodded--for what she had related so fragmentarily was in reality an
+excellent approach to the Chamberlain-Moulton theory of a coalescing
+nebula contracting into the sun and its planets.
+
+Astonishing was the recognition of this theory.  Even more so was the
+reference to the life particles, the idea of Arrhenius, the great
+Swede, of life starting on earth through the dropping of minute, life
+_spores_, propelled through space by the driving power of light and,
+encountering favourable environment here, developing through the vast
+ages into man and every other living thing we know.[1]
+
+Nor was it incredible that in the ancient nebula that was the matrix
+of our solar system similar, or rather _dissimilar_, particles in all
+but the subtle essence we call life, might have become entangled and,
+resisting every cataclysm as they had resisted the absolute zero of
+outer space, found in these caverned spaces their proper environment
+to develop into the race of the Silent Ones and--only _they_ could
+tell what else!
+
+"They say," the handmaiden's voice was surer, "they say that in
+their--cradle--near earth's heart they grew; grew untroubled by the
+turmoil and disorder which flayed the surface of this globe. And they
+say it was a place of light and that strength came to them from earth
+heart--strength greater than you and those from which you sprang ever
+derived from sun.
+
+"At last, ancient, ancient beyond all thought, they say again, was
+this time--they began to know, to--to--realize--themselves. And
+wisdom came ever more swiftly. Up from their cradle, because they did
+not wish to dwell longer with those--others--they came and found this
+place.
+
+"When all the face of earth was covered with waters in which lived
+only tiny, hungry things that knew naught save hunger and its
+satisfaction, _they_ had attained wisdom that enabled them to make paths
+such as we have just travelled and to look out upon those waters! And
+_laya_ upon _laya_ thereafter, time upon time, they went upon the
+paths and watched the flood recede; saw great bare flats of steaming
+ooze appear on which crawled and splashed larger things which had
+grown from the tiny hungry ones; watched the flats rise higher and
+higher and green life begin to clothe them; saw mountains uplift and
+vanish.
+
+"Ever the green life waxed and the things which crept and crawled grew
+greater and took ever different forms; until at last came a time when
+the steaming mists lightened and the things which had begun as little
+more than tiny hungry mouths were huge and monstrous, so huge that the
+tallest of my _Akka_ would not have reached the knee of the smallest
+of them.
+
+"But in none of these, in _none_, was there--realization--of
+themselves, say the Three; naught but hunger driving, always driving
+them to still its crying.
+
+"So for time upon time the race of the Silent Ones took the paths no
+more, placing aside the half-thought that they had of making their way
+to earth face even as they had made their way from beside earth heart.
+They turned wholly to the seeking of wisdom--and after other time on
+time they attained that which killed even the faintest shadow of the
+half-thought. For they crept far within the mysteries of life and
+death, they mastered the illusion of space, they lifted the veils of
+creation and of its twin destruction, and they stripped the covering
+from the flaming jewel of truth--but when they had crept within those
+mysteries they bid me tell _you_, Goodwin, they found ever other
+mysteries veiling the way; and after they had uncovered the jewel of
+truth they found it to be a gem of infinite facets and therefore not
+wholly to be read before eternity's unthinkable end!
+
+"And for this they were glad--because now throughout eternity might
+they and theirs pursue knowledge over ways illimitable.
+
+"They conquered light--light that sprang at their bidding from the
+nothingness that gives birth to all things and in which lie all things
+that are, have been and shall be; light that streamed through their
+bodies cleansing them of all dross; light that was food and drink;
+light that carried their vision afar or bore to them images out of
+space opening many windows through which they gazed down upon life on
+thousands upon thousands of the rushing worlds; light that was the
+flame of life itself and in which they bathed, ever renewing their
+own. They set radiant lamps within the stones, and of black light they
+wove the sheltering shadows and the shadows that slay.
+
+"Arose from this people those Three--the Silent Ones. They led them
+all in wisdom so that in the Three grew--pride. And the Three built
+them this place in which we sit and set the Portal in its place and
+withdrew from their kind to go alone into the mysteries and to map
+alone the facets of Truth Jewel.
+
+"Then there came the ancestors of the--_Akka_; not as they are now,
+and glowing but faintly within them the spark of--self-realization.
+And the _Taithu_ seeing this spark did not slay them. But they took
+the ancient, long untrodden paths and looked forth once more upon
+earth face. Now on the land were vast forests and a chaos of green
+life. On the shores things scaled and fanged, fought and devoured each
+other, and in the green life moved bodies great and small that slew
+and ran from those that would slay.
+
+"They searched for the passage through which the _Akka_ had come and
+closed it. Then the Three took them and brought them here; and taught
+them and blew upon the spark until it burned ever stronger and in time
+they became much as they are now--my _Akka_.
+
+"The Three took counsel after this and said--'We have strengthened
+life in these until it has become articulate; shall we not _create_
+life?'" Again she hesitated, her eyes rapt, dreaming. "The Three are
+speaking," she murmured. "They have my tongue--"
+
+And certainly, with an ease and rapidity as though she were but a
+voice through which minds far more facile, more powerful poured their
+thoughts, she spoke.
+
+"Yea," the golden voice was vibrant.  "We said that what we would
+create should be of the spirit of life itself, speaking to us with the
+tongues of the far-flung stars, of the winds, of the waters, and of
+all upon and within these. Upon that universal matrix of matter, that
+mother of all things that you name the ether, we laboured. Think not
+that her wondrous fertility is limited by what ye see on earth or what
+has been on earth from its beginning. Infinite, infinite are the forms
+the mother bears and countless are the energies that are part of her.
+
+"By our wisdom we had fashioned many windows out of our abode and
+through them we stared into the faces of myriads of worlds, and upon
+them all were the children of ether even as the worlds themselves were
+her children.
+
+"Watching we learned, and learning we formed that ye term the Dweller,
+which those without name--the Shining One. Within the Universal Mother
+we shaped it, to be a voice to tell us her secrets, a lamp to go
+before us lighting the mysteries. Out of the ether we fashioned it,
+giving it the soul of light that still ye know not nor perhaps ever
+may know, and with the essence of life that ye saw blossoming deep in
+the abyss and that is the pulse of earth heart we filled it. And we
+wrought with pain and with love, with yearning and with scorching
+pride and from our travail came the Shining One--our child!
+
+"There is an energy beyond and above ether, a purposeful, sentient
+force that laps like an ocean the furthest-flung star, that transfuses
+all that ether bears, that sees and speaks and feels in us and in you,
+that is incorporate in beast and bird and reptile, in tree and grass
+and all living things, that sleeps in rock and stone, that finds
+sparkling tongue in jewel and star and in all dwellers within the
+firmament. And this ye call consciousness!
+
+"We crowned the Shining One with the seven orbs of light which are the
+channels between it and the sentience we sought to make articulate,
+the portals through which flow its currents and so flowing, become
+choate, vocal, self-realizant within our child.
+
+"But as we shaped, there passed some of the essence of our pride; in
+giving will we had given power, perforce, to exercise that will for
+good or for evil, to speak or to be silent, to tell us what we wished
+of that which poured into it through the seven orbs or to withhold
+that knowledge itself; and in forging it from the immortal energies we
+had endowed it with their indifference; open to all consciousness it
+held within it the pole of utter joy and the pole of utter woe with
+all the arc that lies between; all the ecstasies of the countless
+worlds and suns and all their sorrows; all that ye symbolize as gods
+and all ye symbolize as devils--not negativing each other, for there
+is no such thing as negation, but holding them together, balancing
+them, encompassing them, pole upon pole!"
+
+So _this_ was the explanation of the entwined emotions of joy and terror
+that had changed so appallingly Throckmartin's face and the faces of
+all the Dweller's slaves!
+
+The handmaiden's eyes grew bright, alert, again; the brooding passed
+from her face; the golden voice that had been so deep found its own
+familiar pitch.
+
+"I listened while the Three spoke to you," she said.  "Now the shaping
+of the Shining One had been a long, long travail and time had flown
+over the outer world _laya_ upon _laya_. For a space the Shining One
+was content to dwell here; to be fed with the foods of light: to open
+the eyes of the Three to mystery upon mystery and to read for them
+facet after facet of the gem of truth. Yet as the tides of
+consciousness flowed through it they left behind shadowings and echoes
+of their burdens; and the Shining One grew stronger, always stronger
+of _itself within itself_. Its will strengthened and now not always was
+it the will of the Three; and the pride that was woven in the making
+of it waxed, while the love for them that its creators had set within
+it waned.
+
+"Not ignorant were the _Taithu_ of the work of the Three. First there
+were a few, then more and more who coveted the Shining One and who
+would have had the Three share with them the knowledge it drew in for
+them. But the Silent Ones in their pride, would not.
+
+"There came a time when its will was now _all_ its own, and it rebelled,
+turning its gaze to the wider spaces beyond the Portal, offering
+itself to the many there who would serve it; tiring of the Three,
+their control and their abode.
+
+"Now the Shining One has its limitations, even as we.  Over water it
+can pass, through air and through fire; but pass it cannot, through
+rock or metal. So it sent a message--how I know not--to the _Taithu_
+who desired it, whispering to them the secret of the Portal. And when
+the time was ripe they opened the Portal and the Shining One passed
+through it to them; nor would it return to the Three though they
+commanded, and when they would have forced it they found that it had
+hived and hidden a knowledge that they could not overcome.
+
+"Yet by their arts the Three could have shattered the seven shining
+orbs; but they would not because--they loved, it!
+
+"Those to whom it had gone built for it that place I have shown you,
+and they bowed to it and drew wisdom from it. And ever they turned
+more and more from the ways in which the _Taithu_ had walked--for it
+seemed that which came to the Shining One through the seven orbs had
+less and less of good and more and more of the power you call evil.
+Knowledge it gave and understanding, yes; but not that which, clear
+and serene, lights the paths of right wisdom; rather were they flares
+pointing the dark roads that lead to--to the ultimate evil!
+
+"Not all of the race of the Three followed the counsel of the Shining
+One. There were many, many, who would have none of it nor of its
+power. So were the _Taithu_ split; and to this place where there had
+been none, came hatred, fear and suspicion. Those who pursued the
+ancient ways went to the Three and pleaded with them to destroy their
+work--and they would not, for still they loved it.
+
+"Stronger grew the Dweller and less and less did it lay before its
+worshippers--for now so they had become--the fruits of its knowledge;
+and it grew--restless--turning its gaze upon earth face even as it had
+turned it from the Three. It whispered to the _Taithu_ to take again
+the paths and look out upon the world. Lo! above them was a great
+fertile land on which dwelt an unfamiliar race, skilled in arts,
+seeking and finding wisdom--mankind! Mighty builders were they; vast
+were their cities and huge their temples of stone.
+
+"They called their lands Muria and they worshipped a god Thanaroa whom
+they imagined to be the maker of all things, dwelling far away. They
+worshipped as closer gods, not indifferent but to be prayed to and to
+be propitiated, the moon and the sun. Two kings they had, each with
+his council and his court. One was high priest to the moon and the
+other high priest to the sun.
+
+"The mass of this people were black-haired, but the sun king and his
+nobles were ruddy with hair like mine; and the moon king and his
+followers were like Yolara--or Lugur. And this, the Three say,
+Goodwin, came about because for time upon time the law had been that
+whenever a ruddy-haired or ashen-tressed child was born of the
+black-haired it became dedicated at once to either sun god or moon
+god, later wedding and bearing children only to their own kind. Until
+at last from the black-haired came no more of the light-locked ones,
+but the ruddy ones, being stronger, still arose from them."
+
+
+[1] Professor Svante August Arrhenius, in his _Worlds in the Making_--the
+conception that life is universally diffused, constantly emitted
+from all habitable worlds in the form of spores which traverse space
+for years and ages, the majority being ultimately destroyed by the
+heat of some blazing star, but some few finding a resting-place on
+globes which have reached the habitable stage.--W. T. G.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+The Building of the Moon Pool
+
+She paused, running her long fingers through her own bronze-flecked
+ringlets. Selective breeding this, with a vengeance, I thought; an
+ancient experiment in heredity which of course would in time result in
+the stamping out of the tendency to depart from type that lies in all
+organisms; resulting, obviously, at last, in three fixed forms of
+black-haired, ruddy-haired, and silver-haired--but this, with a shock
+of realization it came to me, was also an accurate description of the
+dark-polled _ladala_, their fair-haired rulers and of the golden-brown
+tressed Lakla!
+
+How--questions began to stream through my mind; silenced by the
+handmaiden's voice.
+
+"Above, far, far above the abode of the Shining One," she said, "was
+their greatest temple, holding the shrines both of sun and moon. All
+about it were other temples hidden behind mighty walls, each enclosing
+its own space and squared and ruled and standing within a shallow
+lake; the sacred city, the city of the gods of this land--"
+
+"It is the Nan-Matal that she is describing," I thought.
+
+"Out upon all this looked the _Taithu_ who were now but the servants
+of the Shining One as it had been the messenger of the Three," she
+went on. "When they returned the Shining One spoke to them, promising
+them dominion over all that they had seen, yea, _under it_ dominion of
+all earth itself and later perhaps of other earths!
+
+"In the Shining One had grown craft, cunning; knowledge to gain that
+which it desired. Therefore it told its _Taithu_--and mayhap told
+them truth--that not yet was it time for _them_ to go forth; that slowly
+must they pass into that outer world, for they had sprung from heart
+of earth and even it lacked power to swirl unaided into and through
+the above. Then it counselled them, instructing them what to do. They
+hollowed the chamber wherein first I saw you, cutting their way to it
+that path down which from it you sped.
+
+"It revealed to them that the force that is within moon flame is kin
+to the force that is within it, for the chamber of its birth was the
+chamber too of moon birth and into it went the subtle essence and
+powers that flow in that earth child: and it taught them how to make
+that which fills what you call the Moon Pool whose opening is close
+behind its Veil hanging upon the gleaming cliffs.
+
+"When this was done it taught them how to make and how to place the
+seven lights through which moon flame streams into Moon Pool--the
+seven lights that are kin to its own seven orbs even as its fires are
+kin to moon fires--and which would open for it a path that it could
+tread. And all this the _Taithu_ did, working so secretly that neither
+those of their race whose faces were set against the Shining One nor
+the busy men above know aught of it.
+
+"When it was done they moved up the path, clustering within the Moon
+Pool Chamber. Moon flame streamed through the seven globes, poured
+down upon the pool; they saw mists arise, embrace, and become one with
+the moon flame--and then up through Moon Pool, shaping itself within
+the mists of light, whirling, radiant--the Shining One!
+
+"Almost free, almost loosed upon the world it coveted!
+
+"Again it counselled them, and they pierced the passage whose portal
+you found first; set the fires within its stones, and revealing
+themselves to the moon king and his priests spake to them even as the
+Shining One had instructed.
+
+"Now was the moon king filled with fear when he looked upon the
+_Taithu_, shrouded with protecting mists of light in Moon Pool
+Chamber, and heard their words. Yet, being crafty, he thought of the
+power that would be his if he heeded and how quickly the strength of
+the sun king would dwindle. So he and his made a pact with the Shining
+One's messengers.
+
+"When next the moon was round and poured its flames down upon Moon
+Pool, the _Taithu_ gathered there again, watched the child of the
+Three take shape within the pillars, speed away--and out! They heard a
+mighty shouting, a tumult of terror, of awe and of worship; a silence;
+a vast sighing--and they waited, wrapped in their mists of light, for
+they feared to follow nor were they near the paths that would have
+enabled them to look without.
+
+"Another tumult--and back came the Shining One, murmuring with joy,
+pulsing, triumphant, and clasped within its vapours a man and woman,
+ruddy-haired, golden-eyed, in whose faces rapture and horror lay side
+by side--gloriously, hideously. And still holding them it danced above
+the Moon Pool and--sank!
+
+"Now must I be brief. _Lat_ after _lat_ the Shining One went forth,
+returning with its sacrifices. And stronger after each it grew--and
+gayer and more cruel. Ever when it passed with its prey toward the
+pool, the _Taithu_ who watched felt a swift, strong intoxication, a
+drunkenness of spirit, streaming from it to them. And the Shining One
+forgot what it had promised them of dominion--and in this new evil
+delight they too forgot.
+
+"The outer land was torn with hatred and open strife. The moon king
+and his kind, through the guidance of the evil _Taithu_ and the favour
+of the Shining One, had become powerful and the sun king and his were
+darkened. And the moon priests preached that the child of the Three
+was the moon god itself come to dwell with them.
+
+"Now vast tides arose and when they withdrew they took with them great
+portions of this country. And the land itself began to sink. Then said
+the moon king that the moon had called to ocean to destroy because
+wroth that another than he was worshipped. The people believed and
+there was slaughter. When it was over there was no more a sun king nor
+any of the ruddy-haired folk; slain were they, slain down to the babe
+at breast.
+
+"But still the tides swept higher; still dwindled the land!
+
+"As it shrank multitudes of the fleeing people were led through Moon
+Pool Chamber and carried here. They were what now are called the
+_ladala_, and they were given place and set to work; and they thrived.
+Came many of the fair-haired; and they were given dwellings. They sat
+beside the evil _Taithu_; they became drunk even as they with the
+dancing of the Shining One; they learned--not all; only a little part
+but little enough--of their arts. And ever the Shining One danced more
+gaily out there within the black amphitheatre; grew ever stronger--and
+ever the hordes of its slaves behind the Veil increased.
+
+"Nor did the _Taithu_ who clung to the old ways check this--they
+could not. By the sinking of the land above, their own spaces were
+imperilled. All of their strength and all of their wisdom it took to
+keep this land from perishing; nor had they help from those others mad
+for the poison of the Shining One; and they had no time to deal with
+them nor the earth race with whom they had foregathered.
+
+"At last came a slow, vast flood.  It rolled even to the bases of the
+walled islets of the city of the gods--and within these now were all
+that were left of my people on earth face.
+
+"I am of those people," she paused, looking at me proudly, "one of the
+daughters of the sun king whose seed is still alive in the _ladala_!"
+
+As Larry opened his mouth to speak she waved a silencing hand.
+
+"This tide did not recede," she went on.  "And after a time the
+remnant, the moon king leading them, joined those who had already fled
+below. The rocks became still, the quakings ceased, and now those
+Ancient Ones who had been labouring could take breath. And anger grew
+within them as they looked upon the work of their evil kin. Again they
+sought the Three--and the Three now knew what they had done and their
+pride was humbled. They would not slay the Shining One themselves, for
+still they loved it; but they instructed these others how to undo
+their work; how also they might destroy the evil _Taithu_ were it
+necessary.
+
+"Armed with the wisdom of the Three they went forth--but now the
+Shining One was strong indeed. They could not slay it!
+
+"Nay, it knew and was prepared; they could not even pass beyond its
+Veil nor seal its abode. Ah, strong, strong, mighty of will, full of
+craft and cunning had the Shining One become. So they turned upon
+their kind who had gone astray and made them perish, to the last. The
+Shining One came not to the aid of its servants--though they called;
+for within its will was the thought that they were of no further use
+to it; that it would rest awhile and dance with them--who had so
+little of the power and wisdom of its _Taithu_ and therefore no reins
+upon it. And while this was happening black-haired and fair-haired ran
+and hid and were but shaking vessels of terror.
+
+"The Ancient Ones took counsel.  This was their decision; that they
+would go from the gardens before the Silver Waters--leaving, since
+they could not kill it, the Shining One with its worshippers. They
+sealed the mouth of the passage that leads to the Moon Pool Chamber
+and they changed the face of the cliff so that none might tell where
+it had been. But the passage itself they left open--having
+foreknowledge I think, of a thing that was to come to pass in the far
+future--perhaps it was your journey here, my Larry and Goodwin--verily
+I think so. And they destroyed all the ways save that which
+we three trod to the Dweller's abode.
+
+"For the last time they went to the Three--to pass sentence upon them.
+This was the doom--that here they should remain, alone, among the
+_Akka_, served by them, until that time dawned when they would have
+will to destroy the evil they had created--and even now--loved; nor
+might they seek death, nor follow their judges until this had come to
+pass. This was the doom they put upon the Three for the wickedness
+that had sprung from their pride, and they strengthened it with their
+arts that it might not be broken.
+
+"Then they passed--to a far land they had chosen where the Shining One
+could not go, beyond the Black Precipices of Doul, a green land--"
+
+"Ireland!" interrupted Larry, with conviction, "I knew it."
+
+"Since then time upon time had passed," she went on, unheeding.  "The
+people called this place Muria after their sunken land and soon they
+forgot where had been the passage the _Taithu_ had sealed. The moon
+king became the Voice of the Dweller and always with the Voice is a
+woman of the moon king's kin who is its priestess.
+
+"And many have been the journeys upward of the Shining One, through
+the Moon Pool--returning with still others in its coils.
+
+"And now again has it grown restless, longing for the wider spaces.
+It has spoken to Yolara and to Lugur even as it did to the dead
+_Taithu_, promising them dominion. And it has grown stronger, drawing
+to itself power to go far on the moon stream where it will. Thus was
+it able to seize your friend, Goodwin, and Olaf's wife and babe--and
+many more. Yolara and Lugur plan to open way to earth face; to depart
+with their court and under the Shining One grasp the world!
+
+"And this is the tale the Silent Ones bade me tell you--and it is
+done."
+
+Breathlessly I had listened to the stupendous epic of a long-lost
+world. Now I found speech to voice the question ever with me, the
+thing that lay as close to my heart as did the welfare of Larry,
+indeed the whole object of my quest--the fate of Throckmartin and
+those who had passed with him into the Dweller's lair; yes, and of
+Olaf's wife, too.
+
+"Lakla," I said, "the friend who drew me here and those he loved who
+went before him--can we not save them?"
+
+"The Three say no, Goodwin." There was again in her eyes the pity with
+which she had looked upon Olaf. "The Shining One--_feeds_--upon the
+flame of life itself, setting in its place its own fires and its own
+will. Its slaves are only shells through which it gleams. Death, say
+the Three, is the best that can come to them; yet will that be a boon
+great indeed."
+
+"But they have souls, _mavourneen_," Larry said to her. "And they're
+alive still--in a way. Anyhow, their souls have not gone from them."
+
+I caught a hope from his words--sceptic though I am--holding that the
+existence of soul has never been proved by dependable laboratory
+methods--for they recalled to me that when I had seen Throckmartin,
+Edith had been close beside him.
+
+"It was days after his wife was taken, that the Dweller seized
+Throckmartin," I cried. "How, if their wills, their life, were indeed
+gone, how did they find each other mid all that horde? How did they
+come together in the Dweller's lair?"
+
+"I do not know," she answered, slowly.  "You say they loved--and it is
+true that love is stronger even than death!"
+
+"One thing I _don't_ understand"--this was Larry again--"is why a girl
+like you keeps coming out of the black-haired crowd; so frequently and
+one might say, so regularly, Lakla. Aren't there ever any red-headed
+boys--and if they are what becomes of them?"
+
+"That, Larry, I cannot answer," she said, very frankly. "There was a
+pact of some kind; how made or by whom I know not. But for long the
+Murians feared the return of the _Taithu_ and greatly they feared the
+Three. Even the Shining One feared those who had created it--for a
+time; and not even now is it eager to face them--_that_ I know. Nor are
+Yolara and Lugur so _sure_. It may be that the Three commanded it: but
+how or why I know not. I only know that it is true--for here am I and
+from where else would I have come?"
+
+"From Ireland," said Larry O'Keefe, promptly.  "And that's where
+you're going. For 'tis no place for a girl like you to have been
+brought up--Lakla; what with people like frogs, and a half-god three
+quarters devil, and red oceans, an' the only Irish things yourself and
+the Silent Ones up there, bless their hearts. It's no place for ye,
+and by the soul of St. Patrick, it's out of it soon ye'll be gettin'!"
+
+Larry!  Larry!  If it had but been true--and I could see Lakla and you
+beside me now!
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+Larry and the Frog-Men
+
+Long had been her tale in the telling, and too long, perhaps, have I
+been in the repeating--but not every day are the mists rolled away to
+reveal undreamed secrets of earth-youth. And I have set it down here,
+adding nothing, taking nothing from it; translating liberally, it is
+true, but constantly striving, while putting it into idea-forms and
+phraseology to be readily understood by my readers, to keep accurately
+to the spirit. And this, I must repeat, I have done throughout my
+narrative, wherever it has been necessary to record conversation with
+the Murians.
+
+Rising, I found I was painfully stiff--as muscle-bound as though I had
+actually trudged many miles. Larry, imitating me, gave an involuntary
+groan.
+
+"Faith, _mavourneen_," he said to Lakla, relapsing unconsciously into
+English, "your roads would never wear out shoe-leather, but they've
+got their kick, just the same!"
+
+She understood our plight, if not his words; gave a soft little cry of
+mingled pity and self-reproach; forced us back upon the cushions.
+
+"Oh, but I'm sorry!" mourned Lakla, leaning over us.  "I had
+forgotten--for those new to it the way is a weary one, indeed--"
+
+She ran to the doorway, whistled a clear high note down the passage.
+Through the hangings came two of the frog-men. She spoke to them
+rapidly. They crouched toward us, what certainly was meant for an
+amiable grin wrinkling the grotesque muzzles, baring the glistening
+rows of needle-teeth. And while I watched them with the fascination
+that they never lost for me, the monsters calmly swung one arm around
+our knees, lifted us up like babies--and as calmly started to walk
+away with us!
+
+"Put me down!  Put me down, I say!" The O'Keefe's voice was both
+outraged and angry; squinting around I saw him struggling violently to
+get to his feet. The _Akka_ only held him tighter, booming
+comfortingly, peering down into his flushed face inquiringly.
+
+"But, Larry--darlin'!"--Lakla's tones were--well, maternally
+surprised--"you're stiff and sore, and Kra can carry you quite
+easily."
+
+"I _won't_ be carried!" sputtered the O'Keefe.  "Damn it, Goodwin, there
+are such things as the unities even here, an' for a lieutenant of the
+Royal Air Force to be picked up an' carted around like a--like a
+bundle of rags--it's not discipline! Put me down, ye _omadhaun_, or
+I'll poke ye in the snout!" he shouted to his bearer--who only boomed
+gently, and stared at the handmaiden, plainly for further
+instructions.
+
+"But, Larry--dear!"--Lakla was plainly distressed--"it will _hurt_ you
+to walk; and I don't _want_ you to hurt, Larry--darlin'!"
+
+"Holy shade of St. Patrick!" moaned Larry; again he made a mighty
+effort to tear himself from the frog-man's grip; gave up with a groan.
+"Listen, _alanna_!" he said plaintively. "When we get to Ireland, you
+and I, we won't have anybody to pick us up and carry us about every
+time we get a bit tired. And it's getting me in bad habits you are!"
+
+"Oh, _yes_, we will, Larry!" cried the handmaiden, "because many, oh,
+many, of my _Akka_ will go with us!"
+
+"Will you tell this--BOOB!--to put me down!" gritted the now
+thoroughly aroused O'Keefe. I couldn't help laughing; he glared at me.
+
+"Bo-oo-ob?" exclaimed Lakla.
+
+"Yes, boo-oo-ob!" said O'Keefe, "an' I have no desire to explain the
+word in my present position, light of my soul!"
+
+The handmaiden sighed, plainly dejected.  But she spoke again to the
+_Akka_, who gently lowered the O'Keefe to the floor.
+
+"I don't understand," she said hopelessly, "if you want to walk, why,
+of course, you shall, Larry." She turned to me.
+
+"Do you?" she asked.
+
+"I do not," I said firmly.
+
+"Well, then," murmured Lakla, "go you, Larry and Goodwin, with Kra and
+Gulk, and let them minister to you. After, sleep a little--for not
+soon will Rador and Olaf return. And let me feel your lips before you
+go, Larry--darlin'!" She covered his eyes caressingly with her soft
+little palms; pushed him away.
+
+"Now go," said Lakla, "and rest!"
+
+Unashamed I lay back against the horny chest of Gulk; and with a smile
+noticed that Larry, even if he had rebelled at being carried, did not
+disdain the support of Kra's shining, black-scaled arm which, slipping
+around his waist, half-lifted him along.
+
+They parted a hanging and dropped us softly down beside a little pool,
+sparkling with the clear water that had heretofore been brought us in
+the wide basins. Then they began to undress us. And at this point the
+O'Keefe gave up.
+
+"Whatever they're going to do we can't stop 'em, Doc!" he moaned.
+"Anyway, I feel as though I've been pulled through a knot-hole, and I
+don't care--I don't care--as the song says."
+
+When we were stripped we were lowered gently into the water.  But not
+long did the _Akka_ let us splash about the shallow basin. They lifted
+us out, and from jars began deftly to anoint and rub us with aromatic
+unguents.
+
+I think that in all the medley of grotesque, of tragic, of baffling,
+strange and perilous experiences in that underground world none was
+more bizarre than this--valeting. I began to laugh, Larry joined me,
+and then Kra and Gulk joined in our merriment with deep batrachian
+cachinnations and gruntings. Then, having finished apparelling us and
+still chuckling, the two touched our arms and led us out, into a room
+whose circular sides were ringed with soft divans. Still smiling, I
+sank at once into sleep.
+
+How long I slumbered I do not know.  A low and thunderous booming
+coming through the deep window slit, reverberated through the room and
+awakened me. Larry yawned; arose briskly.
+
+"Sounds as though the bass drums of every jazz band in New York were
+serenading us!" he observed. Simultaneously we sprang to the window;
+peered through.
+
+We were a little above the level of the bridge, and its full length
+was plain before us. Thousands upon thousands of the _Akka_ were
+crowding upon it, and far away other hordes filled like a glittering
+thicket both sides of the cavern ledge's crescent strand. On black
+scale and orange scale the crimson light fell, picking them off in
+little flickering points.
+
+Upon the platform from which sprang the smaller span over the abyss
+were Lakla, Olaf, and Rador; the handmaiden clearly acting as
+interpreter between them and the giant she had called Nak, the Frog
+King.
+
+"Come on!" shouted Larry.
+
+Out of the open portal we ran; over the World Heart Bridge--and
+straight into the group.
+
+"Oh!" cried Lakla, "I didn't want you to wake up so soon,
+Larry--darlin'!"
+
+"See here, _mavourneen_!" Indignation thrilled in the Irishman's
+voice. "I'm not going to be done up with baby-ribbons and laid away in
+a cradle for safe-keeping while a fight is on; don't think it. Why
+didn't you call me?"
+
+"You needed rest!" There was indomitable determination in the
+handmaiden's tones, the eternal maternal shining defiant from her
+eyes. "You were tired and you hurt! You shouldn't have got up!"
+
+"Needed the rest!" groaned Larry.  "Look here, Lakla, what do you
+think I am?"
+
+"You're all I have," said that maiden firmly, "and I'm going to take
+care of you, Larry--darlin'! Don't you ever think anything else."
+
+"Well, pulse of my heart, considering my delicate health and general
+fragility, would it hurt me, do you think, to be told what's going
+on?" he asked.
+
+"Not at all, Larry!" answered the handmaiden serenely. "Yolara went
+through the Portal. She was very, _very_ angry--"
+
+"She was all the devil's woman that she is!" rumbled Olaf.
+
+"Rador met the messenger," went on the Golden Girl calmly.  "The
+_ladala_ are ready to rise when Lugur and Yolara lead their hosts
+against us. They will strike at those left behind. And in the meantime
+we shall have disposed my _Akka_ to meet Yolara's men. And on that
+disposal we must all take counsel, you, Larry, and Rador, Olaf and
+Goodwin and Nak, the ruler of the _Akka_."
+
+"Did the messenger give any idea when Yolara expects to make her
+little call?" asked Larry.
+
+"Yes," she answered.  "They prepare, and we may expect them in--" She
+gave the equivalent of about thirty-six hours of our time.
+
+"But, Lakla," I said, the doubt that I had long been holding finding
+voice, "should the Shining One come--with its slaves--are the Three
+strong enough to cope with it?"
+
+There was troubled doubt in her own eyes.
+
+"I do not know," she said at last, frankly.  "You have heard their
+story. What they promise is that they will help. I do not know--any
+more than do you, Goodwin!"
+
+I looked up at the dome beneath which I knew the dread Trinity stared
+forth; even down upon us. And despite the awe, the assurance, I had
+felt when I stood before them I, too, doubted.
+
+"Well," said Larry, "you and I, uncle," he turned to Rador, "and Olaf
+here had better decide just what part of the battle we'll lead--"
+
+"Lead!" the handmaiden was appalled. "_You_ lead, Larry? Why you are
+to stay with Goodwin and with me--up there, there we can watch."
+
+"Heart's beloved," O'Keefe was stern indeed.  "A thousand times I've
+looked Death straight in the face, peered into his eyes. Yes, and with
+ten thousand feet of space under me an' bursting shells tickling the
+ribs of the boat I was in. An' d'ye think I'll sit now on the
+grandstand an' watch while a game like this is being pulled? Ye don't
+know your future husband, soul of my delight!"
+
+And so we started toward the golden opening, squads of the frog-men
+following us soldierly and disappearing about the huge structure. Nor
+did we stop until we came to the handmaiden's boudoir. There we seated
+ourselves.
+
+"Now," said Larry, "two things I want to know.  First--how many can
+Yolara muster against us; second, how many of these _Akka_ have we to
+meet them?"
+
+Rador gave our equivalent for eighty thousand men as the force Yolara
+could muster without stripping her city. Against this force, it
+appeared, we could count, roughly, upon two hundred thousand of the
+_Akka_.
+
+"And they're some fighters!" exclaimed Larry.  "Hell, with odds like
+that what're you worrying about? It's over before it's begun."
+
+"But, _Larree_," objected Rador to this, "you forget that the nobles
+will have the _Keth_--and other things; also that the soldiers have
+fought against the _Akka_ before and will be shielded very well from
+their spears and clubs--and that their blades and javelins can bite
+through the scales of Nak's warriors. They have many things--"
+
+"Uncle," interjected O'Keefe, "one thing they have is your nerve.
+Why, we're more than two to one. And take it from me--"
+
+Without warning dropped the tragedy!
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+"Your Love; Your Lives; Your Souls!"
+
+Lakla had taken no part in the talk since we had reached her bower.
+She had seated herself close to the O'Keefe. Glancing at her I had
+seen steal over her face that brooding, listening look that was hers
+whenever in that mysterious communion with the Three. It vanished;
+swiftly she arose; interrupted the Irishman without ceremony.
+
+"Larry darlin'," said the handmaiden.  "The Silent Ones summon us!"
+
+"When do we go?" I asked; Larry's face grew bright with interest.
+
+"The time is now," she said--and hesitated.  "Larry dear, put your
+arms about me," she faltered, "for there is something cold that
+catches at my heart--and I am afraid."
+
+At his exclamation she gathered herself together; gave a shaky little
+laugh.
+
+"It's because I love you so that fear has power to plague me," she
+told him.
+
+Without another word he bent and kissed her; in silence we passed on,
+his arm still about her girdled waist, golden head and black close
+together. Soon we stood before the crimson slab that was the door to
+the sanctuary of the Silent Ones. She poised uncertainly before it;
+then with a defiant arching of the proud little head that sent all the
+bronze-flecked curls flying, she pressed. It slipped aside and once
+more the opalescence gushed out, flooding all about us.
+
+Dazzled as before, I followed through the lambent cascades pouring
+from the high, carved walls; paused, and my eyes clearing, looked
+up--straight into the faces of the Three. The angled orbs centred upon
+the handmaiden; softened as I had seen them do when first we had faced
+them. She smiled up; seemed to listen.
+
+"Come closer," she commanded, "close to the feet of the Silent Ones."
+
+We moved, pausing at the very base of the dais.  The sparkling mists
+thinned; the great heads bent slightly over us; through the veils I
+caught a glimpse of huge columnar necks, enormous shoulders covered
+with draperies as of pale-blue fire.
+
+I came back to attention with a start, for Lakla was answering a
+question only heard by her, and, answering it aloud, I perceived for
+our benefit; for whatever was the mode of communication between those
+whose handmaiden she was, and her, it was clearly independent of
+speech.
+
+"He has been told," she said, "even as you commanded."
+
+Did I see a shadow of pain flit across the flickering eyes? Wondering,
+I glanced at Lakla's face and there was a dawn of foreboding and
+bewilderment. For a little she held her listening attitude; then the
+gaze of the Three left her; focused upon the O'Keefe.
+
+"Thus speak the Silent Ones--through Lakla, their handmaiden," the
+golden voice was like low trumpet notes. "At the threshold of doom is
+that world of yours above. Yea, even the doom, Goodwin, that ye
+dreamed and the shadow of which, looking into your mind they see, say
+the Three. For not upon earth and never upon earth can man find means
+to destroy the Shining One."
+
+She listened again--and the foreboding deepened to an amazed fear.
+
+"They say, the Silent Ones," she went on, "that they know not whether
+even they have power to destroy. Energies we know nothing of entered
+into its shaping and are part of it; and still other energies it has
+gathered to itself"--she paused; a shadow of puzzlement crept into her
+voice "and other energies still, forces that ye _do_ know and symbolize
+by certain names--hatred and pride and lust and many others which are
+forces real as that hidden in the _Keth_; and among them--fear, which
+weakens all those others--" Again she paused.
+
+"But within it is nothing of that greatest of all, that which can make
+powerless all the evil others, that which we call--love," she ended
+softly.
+
+"I'd like to be the one to put a little more _fear_ in the beast,"
+whispered Larry to me, grimly in our own English. The three weird
+heads bent, ever so slightly--and I gasped, and Larry grew a little
+white as Lakla nodded--
+
+"They say, Larry," she said, "that there you touch one side of the
+heart of the matter--for it is through the way of fear the Silent Ones
+hope to strike at the very life of the Shining One!"
+
+The visage Larry turned to me was eloquent of wonder; and mine
+reflected it--for what _really_ were this Three to whom our minds were
+but open pages, so easily read? Not long could we conjecture; Lakla
+broke the little silence.
+
+"This, they say, is what is to happen.  First will come upon us Lugur
+and Yolara with all their host. Because of fear the Shining One will
+lurk behind within its lair; for despite all, the Dweller _does_ dread
+the Three, and only them. With this host the Voice and the priestess
+will strive to conquer. And if they do, then will they be strong
+enough, too, to destroy us all. For if they take the abode they banish
+from the Dweller all fear and sound the end of the Three.
+
+"Then will the Shining One be all free indeed; free to go out into the
+world, free to do there as it wills!
+
+"But if they do not conquer--and the Shining One comes not to their
+aid, abandoning them even as it abandoned its own _Taithu_--then will
+the Three be loosed from a part of their doom, and they will go
+through the Portal, seek the Shining One beyond the Veil, and,
+piercing it through fear's opening, destroy it."
+
+"That's quite clear," murmured the O'Keefe in my ear. "Weaken the
+morale--then smash. I've seen it happen a dozen times in Europe. While
+they've got their nerve there's not a thing you can do; get their
+nerve--and not a thing can they do. And yet in both cases they're the
+same men."
+
+Lakla had been listening again.  She turned, thrust out hands to
+Larry, a wild hope in her eyes--and yet a hope half shamed.
+
+"They say," she cried, "that they give us choice.  Remembering that
+your world doom hangs in the balance, we have choice--choice to stay
+and help fight Yolara's armies--and they say they look not lightly on
+that help. Or choice to go--and if so be you choose the latter, then
+will they show another way that leads into your world!"
+
+A flush had crept over the O'Keefe's face as she was speaking.  He
+took her hands and looked long into the golden eyes; glancing up I saw
+the Trinity were watching them intently--imperturbably.
+
+"What do you say, _mavourneen_?" asked Larry gently.  The handmaiden
+hung her head; trembled.
+
+"Your words shall be mine, O one I love," she whispered. "So going or
+staying, I am beside you."
+
+"And you, Goodwin?" he turned to me.  I shrugged my shoulders--after
+all I had no one to care.
+
+"It's up to you, Larry," I remarked, deliberately choosing his own
+phraseology.
+
+The O'Keefe straightened, squared his shoulders, gazed straight into
+the flame-flickering eyes.
+
+"We stick!" he said briefly.
+
+Shamefacedly I recall now that at the time I thought this
+colloquialism not only irreverent, but in somewhat bad taste. I am
+glad to say I was alone in that bit of weakness. The face that Lakla
+turned to Larry was radiant with love, and although the shamed hope
+had vanished from the sweet eyes, they were shining with adoring
+pride. And the marble visages of the Three softened, and the little
+flames died down.
+
+"Wait," said Lakla, "there is one other thing they say we must answer
+before they will hold us to that promise--wait--"
+
+She listened, and then her face grew white--white as those of the
+Three themselves; the glorious eyes widened, stark terror filling
+them; the whole lithe body of her shook like a reed in the wind.
+
+"Not that!" she cried out to the Three.  "Oh, not that!  Not
+Larry--let me go even as you will--but not him!" She threw up frantic
+hands to the woman-being of the Trinity. "Let _me_ bear it alone," she
+wailed. "Alone--mother! Mother!"
+
+The Three bent their heads toward her, their faces pitiful, and from
+the eyes of the woman One rolled--tears! Larry leaped to Lakla's side.
+
+_"Mavourneen!"_ he cried.  "Sweetheart, what have they said to you?"
+
+He glared up at the Silent Ones, his hand twitching toward the
+high-hung pistol holster.
+
+The handmaiden swung to him; threw white arms around his neck; held
+her head upon his heart until her sobbing ceased.
+
+"This they--say--the Silent Ones," she gasped and then all the courage
+of her came back. "O heart of mine!" she whispered to Larry, gazing
+deep into his eyes, his anxious face cupped between her white palms.
+"This they say--that should the Shining One come to succour Yolara and
+Lugur, should it conquer its fear--and--do this--then is there but one
+way left to destroy it--and to save your world."
+
+She swayed; he gripped her tightly.
+
+"But one way--you and I must go--together--into its embrace!  Yea, we
+must pass within it--loving each other, loving the world, realizing to
+the full all that we sacrifice and sacrificing all, our love, our
+lives, perhaps even that you call soul, O loved one; must give
+ourselves _all_ to the Shining One--gladly, freely, our love for each
+other flaming high within us--that this curse shall pass away! For if
+we do this, pledge the Three, then shall that power of love we carry
+into it weaken for a time all that evil which the Shining One has
+become--and in that time the Three can strike and slay!"
+
+The blood rushed from my heart; scientist that I am, essentially, my
+reason rejected any such solution as this of the activities of the
+Dweller. Was it not, the thought flashed, a propitiation by the Three
+out of their own weakness--and as it flashed I looked up to see their
+eyes, full of sorrow, on mine--and knew they read the thought. Then
+into the whirling vortex of my mind came steadying reflections--of
+history changed by the power of hate, of passion, of ambition, and
+most of all, by love. Was there not actual dynamic energy in these
+things--was there not a Son of Man who hung upon a cross on Calvary?
+
+"Dear love o' mine," said the O'Keefe quietly, "is it in your heart to
+say _yes_ to this?"
+
+"Larry," she spoke low, "what is in your heart is in mine; but I did
+so want to go with you, to live with you--to--to bear you children,
+Larry--and to see the sun."
+
+My eyes were wet; dimly through them I saw his gaze on me.
+
+"If the world _is_ at stake," he whispered, "why of course there's only
+one thing to do. God knows I never was afraid when I was fighting up
+there--and many a better man than me has gone West with shell and
+bullet for the same idea; but these things aren't shell and
+bullet--but I hadn't Lakla then--and it's the damned _doubt_ I have
+behind it all."
+
+He turned to the Three--and did I in their poise sense a rigidity, an
+anxiety that sat upon them as alienly as would divinity upon men?
+
+"Tell me this, Silent Ones," he cried.  "If we do this, Lakla and I,
+is it _sure_ you are that you can slay the--Thing, and save my world? Is
+it _sure_ you are?"
+
+For the first and the last time, I heard the voice of the Silent Ones.
+It was the man-being at the right who spoke.
+
+"We are sure," the tones rolled out like deepest organ notes, shaking,
+vibrating, assailing the ears as strangely as their appearance struck
+the eyes. Another moment the O'Keefe stared at them. Once more he
+squared his shoulders; lifted Lakla's chin and smiled into her eyes.
+
+"We stick!" he said again, nodding to the Three.
+
+Over the visages of the Trinity fell benignity that was--awesome; the
+tiny flames in the jet orbs vanished, leaving them wells in which
+brimmed serenity, hope--an extraordinary joyfulness. The woman sat
+upright, tender gaze fixed upon the man and girl. Her great shoulders
+raised as though she had lifted her arms and had drawn to her those
+others. The three faces pressed together for a fleeting moment; raised
+again. The woman bent forward--and as she did so, Lakla and Larry, as
+though drawn by some outer force, were swept upon the dais.
+
+Out from the sparkling mist stretched two hands, enormously long,
+six-fingered, thumbless, a faint tracery of golden scales upon their
+white backs, utterly unhuman and still in some strange way beautiful,
+radiating power and--all womanly!
+
+They stretched forth; they touched the bent heads of Lakla and the
+O'Keefe; caressed them, drew them together, softly stroked
+them--lovingly, with more than a touch of benediction. And withdrew!
+
+The sparkling mists rolled up once more, hiding the Silent Ones.  As
+silently as once before we had gone we passed out of the place of
+light, beyond the crimson stone, back to the handmaiden's chamber.
+
+Only once on our way did Larry speak.
+
+"Cheer up, darlin'," he said to her, "it's a long way yet before the
+finish. An' are you thinking that Lugur and Yolara are going to pull
+this thing off? Are you?"
+
+The handmaiden only looked at him, eyes love and sorrow filled.
+
+"They are!" said Larry.  "They are!  Like HELL they are!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+The Meeting of Titans
+
+It is not my intention, nor is it possible no matter how interesting
+to me, to set down _ad seriatim_ the happenings of the next twelve
+hours. But a few will not be denied recital.
+
+O'Keefe regained cheerfulness.
+
+"After all, Doc," he said to me, "it's a beautiful scrap we're going
+to have. At the worst the worst is no more than the leprechaun warned
+about. I would have told the Taitha De about the banshee raid he
+promised me; but I was a bit taken off my feet at the time. The old
+girl an' all the clan'll be along, said the little green man, an' I
+bet the Three will be damned glad of it, take it from me."
+
+Lakla, shining-eyed and half fearful too:
+
+"I have other tidings that I am afraid will please you little,
+Larry--darlin'. The Silent Ones say that you must not go into battle
+yourself. You must stay here with me, and with Goodwin--for
+if--if--the Shining One does come, then must we be here to meet it.
+And you might not be, you know, Larry, if you fight," she said,
+looking shyly up at him from under the long lashes.
+
+The O'Keefe's jaw dropped.
+
+"That's about the hardest yet," he answered slowly.  "Still--I see
+their point; the lamb corralled for the altar has no right to stray
+out among the lions," he added grimly. "Don't worry, sweet," he told
+her. "As long as I've sat in the game I'll stick to the rules."
+
+Olaf took fierce joy in the coming fray. "The Norns spin close to the
+end of this web," he rumbled. "_Ja!_ And the threads of Lugur and the
+Heks woman are between their fingers for the breaking! Thor will be
+with me, and I have fashioned me a hammer in glory of Thor." In his
+hand was an enormous mace of black metal, fully five feet long,
+crowned with a massive head.
+
+I pass to the twelve hours' closing.
+
+At the end of the _coria_ road where the giant fernland met the edge
+of the cavern's ruby floor, hundreds of the _Akka_ were stationed in
+ambush, armed with their spears tipped with the rotting death and
+their nail-studded, metal-headed clubs. These were to attack when the
+Murians debauched from the _corials_. We had little hope of doing more
+here than effect some attrition of Yolara's hosts, for at this place
+the captains of the Shining One could wield the _Keth_ and their other
+uncanny weapons freely. We had learned, too, that every forge and
+artisan had been put to work to make an armour Marakinoff had devised
+to withstand the natural battle equipment of the frog-people--and both
+Larry and I had a disquieting faith in the Russian's ingenuity.
+
+At any rate the numbers against us would be lessened.
+
+Next, under the direction of the frog-king, levies commanded by
+subsidiary chieftains had completed rows of rough walls along the
+probable route of the Murians through the cavern. These afforded the
+_Akka_ a fair protection behind which they could hurl their darts and
+spears--curiously enough they had never developed the bow as a weapon.
+
+At the opening of the cavern a strong barricade stretched almost to
+the two ends of the crescent strand; almost, I say, because there had
+not been time to build it entirely across the mouth.
+
+And from edge to edge of the titanic bridge, from where it sprang
+outward at the shore of the Crimson Sea to a hundred feet away from
+the golden door of the abode, barrier after barrier was piled.
+
+Behind the wall defending the mouth of the cavern, waited other
+thousands of the _Akka_. At each end of the unfinished barricade they
+were mustered thickly, and at right and left of the crescent where
+their forest began, more legions were assembled to make way up to the
+ledge as opportunity offered.
+
+Rank upon rank they manned the bridge barriers; they swarmed over the
+pinnacles and in the hollows of the island's ragged outer lip; the
+domed castle was a hive of them, if I may mix my metaphors--and the
+rocks and gardens that surrounded the abode glittered with them.
+
+"Now," said the handmaiden, "there's nothing else we can do--save
+wait."
+
+She led us out through her bower and up the little path that ran to
+the embrasure.
+
+Through the quiet came a sound, a sighing, a half-mournful whispering
+that beat about us and fled away.
+
+"They come!" cried Lakla, the light of battle in her eyes. Larry drew
+her to him, raised her in his arms, kissed her.
+
+"A woman!" acclaimed the O'Keefe.  "A real woman--and mine!"
+
+With the cry of the Portal there was movement among the _Akka_, the
+glint of moving spears, flash of metal-tipped clubs, rattle of horny
+spurs, rumblings of battle-cries.
+
+And we waited--waited it seemed interminably, gaze fastened upon the
+low wall across the cavern mouth. Suddenly I remembered the crystal
+through which I had peered when the hidden assassins had crept upon
+us. Mentioning it to Lakla, she gave a little cry of vexation, a
+command to her attendant; and not long that faithful if unusual lady
+had returned with a tray of the glasses. Raising mine, I saw the lines
+furthest away leap into sudden activity. Spurred warrior after warrior
+leaped upon the barricade and over it. Flashes of intense, green
+light, mingled with gleams like lightning strokes of concentrated moon
+rays, sprang from behind the wall--sprang and struck and burned upon
+the scales of the batrachians.
+
+"They come!" whispered Lakla.
+
+At the far ends of the crescent a terrific milling had begun. Here it
+was plain the _Akka_ were holding. Faintly, for the distance was
+great, I could see fresh force upon force rush up and take the places
+of those who had fallen.
+
+Over each of these ends, and along the whole line of the barricade a
+mist of dancing, diamonded atoms began to rise; sparking, coruscating
+points of diamond dust that darted and danced.
+
+What had once been Lakla's guardians--dancing now in the nothingness!
+
+"God, but it's hard to stay here like this!" groaned the O'Keefe;
+Olaf's teeth were bared, the lips drawn back in such a fighting grin
+as his ancestors berserk on their raven ships must have borne; Rador
+was livid with rage; the handmaiden's nostrils flaring wide, all her
+wrathful soul in her eyes.
+
+Suddenly, while we looked, the rocky wall which the _Akka_ had built
+at the cavern mouth--was not! It vanished, as though an unseen,
+unbelievably gigantic hand had with the lightning's speed swept it
+away. And with it vanished, too, long lines of the great amphibians
+close behind it.
+
+Then down upon the ledge, dropping into the Crimson Sea, sending up
+geysers of ruby spray, dashing on the bridge, crushing the frog-men,
+fell a shower of stone, mingled with distorted shapes and fragments
+whose scales still flashed meteoric as they hurled from above.
+
+"That which makes things fall upward," hissed Olaf. "That which I saw
+in the garden of Lugur!"
+
+The fiendish agency of destruction which Marakinoff had revealed to
+Larry; the force that cut off gravitation and sent all things within
+its range racing outward into space!
+
+And now over the debris upon the ledge, striking with long sword and
+daggers, here and there a captain flashing the green ray, moving on in
+ordered squares, came the soldiers of the Shining One. Nearer and
+nearer the verge of the ledge they pushed Nak's warriors. Leaping upon
+the dwarfs, smiting them with spear and club, with teeth and spur, the
+_Akka_ fought like devils. Quivering under the ray, they leaped and
+dragged down and slew.
+
+Now there was but one long line of the frog-men at the very edge of
+the cliff.
+
+And ever the clouds of dancing, diamonded atoms grew thicker over them
+all!
+
+That last thin line of the _Akka_ was going; yet they fought to the
+last, and none toppled over the lip without at least one of the
+armoured Murians in his arms.
+
+My gaze dropped to the foot of the cliffs.  Stretched along their
+length was a wide ribbon of beauty--a shimmering multitude of
+gleaming, pulsing, prismatic moons; glowing, glowing ever brighter,
+ever more wondrous--the gigantic Medusae globes feasting on dwarf and
+frog-man alike!
+
+Across the waters, faintly, came a triumphant shouting from Lugur's
+and Yolara's men!
+
+Was the ruddy light of the place lessening, growing paler, changing to
+a faint rose? There was an exclamation from Larry; something like hope
+relaxed the drawn muscles of his face. He pointed to the aureate dome
+wherein sat the Three--and then I saw!
+
+Out of it, through the long transverse slit through which the Silent
+Ones kept their watch on cavern, bridge, and abyss, a torrent of the
+opalescent light was pouring. It cascaded like a waterfall, and as it
+flowed it spread whirling out, in columns and eddies, clouds and wisps
+of misty, curdled coruscations. It hung like a veil over all the
+islands, filtering everywhere, driving back the crimson light as
+though possessed of impenetrable substance--and still it cast not the
+faintest shadowing upon our vision.
+
+"Good God!" breathed Larry.  "Look!"
+
+The radiance was marching--_marching_--down the colossal bridge. It
+moved swiftly, in some unthinkable way _intelligently_. It swathed the
+_Akka_, and closer, ever closer it swept toward the approach upon
+which Yolara's men had now gained foothold.
+
+From their ranks came flash after flash of the green ray--aimed at
+the abode! But as the light sped and struck the opalescence it was
+blotted out! The shimmering mists seemed to enfold, to dissipate it.
+
+Lakla drew a deep breath.
+
+"The Silent Ones forgive me for doubting them," she whispered; and
+again hope blossomed on her face even as it did on Larry's.
+
+The frog-men were gaining.  Clothed in the armour of that mist, they
+pressed back from the bridge-head the invaders. There was another
+prodigious movement at the ends of the crescent, and racing up,
+pressing against the dwarfs, came other legions of Nak's warriors. And
+re-enforcing those out on the prodigious arch, the frog-men stationed
+in the gardens below us poured back to the castle and out through the
+open Portal.
+
+"They're licked!" shouted Larry.  "They're--"
+
+So quickly I could not follow the movement his automatic leaped to his
+hand--spoke, once and again and again. Rador leaped to the head of the
+little path, sword in hand; Olaf, shouting and whirling his mace,
+followed. I strove to get my own gun quickly.
+
+For up that path were running twoscore of Lugur's men, while from
+below Lugur's own voice roared.
+
+"Quick!  Slay not the handmaiden or her lover!  Carry them down.
+Quick! But slay the others!"
+
+The handmaiden raced toward Larry, stopped, whistled shrilly--again
+and again. Larry's pistol was empty, but as the dwarfs rushed upon him
+I dropped two of them with mine. It jammed--I could not use it; I
+sprang to his side. Rador was down, struggling in a heap of Lugur's
+men. Olaf, a Viking of old, was whirling his great hammer, and
+striking, striking through armour, flesh, and bone.
+
+Larry was down, Lakla flew to him.  But the Norseman, now streaming
+blood from a dozen wounds, caught a glimpse of her coming, turned,
+thrust out a mighty hand, sent her reeling back, and then with his
+hammer cracked the skulls of those trying to drag the O'Keefe down the
+path.
+
+A cry from Lakla--the dwarfs had seized her, had lifted her despite
+her struggles, were carrying her away. One I dropped with the butt of
+my useless pistol, and then went down myself under the rush of
+another.
+
+Through the clamour I heard a booming of the _Akka_, closer, closer;
+then through it the bellow of Lugur. I made a mighty effort, swung a
+hand up, and sunk my fingers in the throat of the soldier striving to
+kill me. Writhing over him, my fingers touched a poniard; I thrust it
+deep, staggered to my feet.
+
+The O'Keefe, shielding Lakla, was battling with a long sword against a
+half dozen of the soldiers. I started toward him, was struck, and
+under the impact hurled to the ground. Dizzily I raised myself--and
+leaning upon my elbow, stared and moved no more. For the dwarfs lay
+dead, and Larry, holding Lakla tightly, was staring even as I, and
+ranged at the head of the path were the _Akka_, whose booming advance
+in obedience to the handmaiden's call I had heard.
+
+And at what we all stared was Olaf, crimson with his wounds, and
+Lugur, in blood-red armour, locked in each other's grip, struggling,
+smiting, tearing, kicking, and swaying about the little space before
+the embrasure. I crawled over toward the O'Keefe. He raised his
+pistol, dropped it.
+
+"Can't hit him without hitting Olaf," he whispered.  Lakla signalled
+the frog-men; they advanced toward the two--but Olaf saw them, broke
+the red dwarf's hold, sent Lugur reeling a dozen feet away.
+
+"No!" shouted the Norseman, the ice of his pale-blue eyes glinting
+like frozen flames, blood streaming down his face and dripping from
+his hands. "No! Lugur is mine! None but me slays him! Ho, you Lugur--"
+and cursed him and Yolara and the Dweller hideously--I cannot set
+those curses down here.
+
+They spurred Lugur.  Mad now as the Norseman, the red dwarf sprang.
+Olaf struck a blow that would have killed an ordinary man, but Lugur
+only grunted, swept in, and seized him about the waist; one mighty arm
+began to creep up toward Huldricksson's throat.
+
+"'Ware, Olaf!" cried O'Keefe; but Olaf did not answer. He waited until
+the red dwarf's hand was close to his shoulder; and then, with an
+incredibly rapid movement--once before had I seen something like it
+in a wrestling match between Papuans--he had twisted Lugur around;
+twisted him so that Olaf's right arm lay across the tremendous breast,
+the left behind the neck, and Olaf's left leg held the Voice's
+armoured thighs viselike against his right knee while over that knee
+lay the small of the red dwarf's back.
+
+For a second or two the Norseman looked down upon his enemy,
+motionless in that paralyzing grip. And then--slowly--he began to
+break him!
+
+Lakla gave a little cry; made a motion toward the two. But Larry drew
+her head down against his breast, hiding her eyes; then fastened his
+own upon the pair, white-faced, stern.
+
+Slowly, ever so slowly, proceeded Olaf.  Twice Lugur moaned.  At the
+end he screamed--horribly. There was a cracking sound, as of a stout
+stick snapped.
+
+Huldricksson stooped, silently.  He picked up the limp body of the
+Voice, not yet dead, for the eyes rolled, the lips strove to speak;
+lifted it, walked to the parapet, swung it twice over his head, and
+cast it down to the red waters!
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+
+The Coming of the Shining One
+
+The Norseman turned toward us.  There was now no madness in his eyes;
+only a great weariness. And there was peace on the once tortured face.
+
+"Helma," he whispered, "I go a little before!  Soon you will come to
+me--to me and the Yndling who will await you--Helma, _meine liebe!_"
+
+Blood gushed from his mouth; he swayed, fell.  And thus died Olaf
+Huldricksson.
+
+We looked down upon him; nor did Lakla, nor Larry, nor I try to hide
+our tears. And as we stood the _Akka_ brought to us that other mighty
+fighter, Rador; but in him there was life, and we attended to him
+there as best we could.
+
+Then Lakla spoke.
+
+"We will bear him into the castle where we may give him greater care,"
+she said. "For, lo! the hosts of Yolara have been beaten back; and on
+the bridge comes Nak with tidings."
+
+We looked over the parapet.  It was even as she had said. Neither on
+ledge nor bridge was there trace of living men of Muria--only heaps of
+slain that lay everywhere--and thick against the cavern mouth still
+danced the flashing atoms of those the green ray had destroyed.
+
+"Over!" exclaimed Larry incredulously.  "We live then--heart of
+mine!"
+
+"The Silent Ones recall their veils," she said, pointing to the dome.
+Back through the slitted opening the radiance was streaming;
+withdrawing from sea and island; marching back over the bridge with
+that same ordered, intelligent motion. Behind it the red light
+pressed, like skirmishers on the heels of a retreating army.
+
+"And yet--" faltered the handmaiden as we passed into her chamber, and
+doubtful were the eyes she turned upon the O'Keefe.
+
+"I don't believe," he said, "there's a kick left in them--"
+
+What was that sound beating into the chamber faintly, so faintly?  My
+heart gave a great throb and seemed to stop for an eternity. What was
+it--coming nearer, ever nearer? Now Lakla and O'Keefe heard it, life
+ebbing from lips and cheeks.
+
+Nearer, nearer--a music as of myriads of tiny crystal bells, tinkling,
+tinkling--a storm of pizzicati upon violins of glass! Nearer,
+nearer--not sweetly now, nor luring; no--raging, wrathful, sinister
+beyond words; sweeping on; nearer--
+
+The Dweller!  The Shining One!
+
+We leaped to the narrow window; peered out, aghast.  The bell notes
+swept through and about us, a hurricane. The crescent strand was once
+more a ferment. Back, back were the _Akka_ being swept, as though by
+brooms, tottering on the edge of the ledge, falling into the waters.
+Swiftly they were finished; and where they had fought was an eddying
+throng clothed in tatters or naked, swaying, drifting, arms
+tossing--like marionettes of Satan.
+
+The dead-alive!  The slaves of the Dweller!
+
+They swayed and tossed, and then, like water racing through an opened
+dam, they swept upon the bridge-head. On and on they pushed, like the
+bore of a mighty tide. The frog-men strove against them, clubbing,
+spearing, tearing them. But even those worst smitten seemed not to
+fall. On they pushed, driving forward, irresistible--a battering ram
+of flesh and bone. They clove the masses of the _Akka_, pressing them
+to the sides of the bridge and over. Through the open gates they
+forced them--for there was no room for the frog-men to stand against
+that implacable tide.
+
+Then those of the _Akka_ who were left turned their backs and ran.  We
+heard the clang of the golden wings of the portal, and none too soon
+to keep out the first of the Dweller's dreadful hordes.
+
+Now upon the cavern ledge and over the whole length of the bridge
+there were none but the dead-alive, men and women, black-polled
+_ladala_, sloe-eyed Malays, slant-eyed Chinese, men of every race that
+sailed the seas--milling, turning, swaying, like leaves caught in a
+sluggish current.
+
+The bell notes became sharper, more insistent.  At the cavern mouth a
+radiance began to grow--a gleaming from which the atoms of diamond
+dust seemed to try to flee. As the radiance grew and the crystal notes
+rang nearer, every head of that hideous multitude turned stiffly,
+slowly toward the right, looking toward the far bridge end; their eyes
+fixed and glaring; every face an inhuman mask of rapture and of
+horror!
+
+A movement shook them.  Those in the centre began to stream back,
+faster and ever faster, leaving motionless deep ranks on each side.
+Back they flowed until from golden doors to cavern mouth a wide lane
+stretched, walled on each side by the dead-alive.
+
+The far radiance became brighter; it gathered itself at the end of the
+dreadful lane; it was shot with sparklings and with pulsings of
+polychromatic light. The crystal storm was intolerable, piercing the
+ears with countless tiny lances; brighter still the radiance.
+
+From the cavern swirled the Shining One!
+
+The Dweller paused, seemed to scan the island of the Silent Ones half
+doubtfully; then slowly, stately, it drifted out upon the bridge.
+Closer it drew; behind it glided Yolara at the head of a company of
+her dwarfs, and at her side was the hag of the Council whose face was
+the withered, shattered echo of her own.
+
+Slower grew the Dweller's pace as it drew nearer.  Did I sense in it a
+doubt, an uncertainty? The crystal-tongued, unseen choristers that
+accompanied it subtly seemed to reflect the doubt; their notes were
+not sure, no longer insistent; rather was there in them an undertone
+of hesitancy, of warning! Yet on came the Shining One until it stood
+plain beneath us, searching with those eyes that thrust from and
+withdrew into unknown spheres, the golden gateway, the cliff face, the
+castle's rounded bulk--and more intently than any of these, the dome
+wherein sat the Three.
+
+Behind it each face of the dead-alive turned toward it, and those
+beside it throbbed and gleamed with its luminescence.
+
+Yolara crept close, just beyond the reach of its spirals. She
+murmured--and the Dweller bent toward her, its seven globes steady in
+their shining mists, as though listening. It drew erect once more,
+resumed its doubtful scrutiny. Yolara's face darkened; she turned
+abruptly, spoke to a captain of her guards. A dwarf raced back between
+the palisades of dead-alive.
+
+Now the priestess cried out, her voice ringing like a silver clarion.
+
+"Ye are done, ye Three!  The Shining One stands at your door,
+demanding entrance. Your beasts are slain and your power is gone. Who
+are ye, says the Shining One, to deny it entrance to the place of its
+birth?"
+
+"Ye do not answer," she cried again, "yet know we that ye hear!  The
+Shining One offers these terms: Send forth your handmaiden and that
+lying stranger she stole; send them forth to us--and perhaps ye may
+live. But if ye send them not forth, then shall ye too die--and soon!"
+
+We waited, silent, even as did Yolara--and again there was no answer
+from the Three.
+
+The priestess laughed; the blue eyes flashed.
+
+"It is ended!" she cried.  "If you will not open, needs must we open
+for you!"
+
+Over the bridge was marching a long double file of the dwarfs.  They
+bore a smoothed and handled tree-trunk whose head was knobbed with a
+huge ball of metal. Past the priestess, past the Shining One, they
+carried it; fifty of them to each side of the ram; and behind them
+stepped--Marakinoff!
+
+Larry awoke to life.
+
+"Now, thank God," he rasped, "I can get that devil, anyway!"
+
+He drew his pistol, took careful aim.  Even as he pressed the trigger
+there rang through the abode a tremendous clanging. The ram was
+battering at the gates. O'Keefe's bullet went wild. The Russian must
+have heard the shot; perhaps the missile was closer than we knew. He
+made a swift leap behind the guards; was lost to sight.
+
+Once more the thunderous clanging rang through the castle.
+
+Lakla drew herself erect; down upon her dropped the listening
+aloofness. Gravely she bowed her head.
+
+"It is time, O love of mine." She turned to O'Keefe.  "The Silent Ones
+say that the way of fear is closed, but the way of love is open. They
+call upon us to redeem our promise!"
+
+For a hundred heart-beats they clung to each other, breast to breast
+and lip to lip. Below, the clangour was increasing, the great trunk
+swinging harder and faster upon the metal gates. Now Lakla gently
+loosed the arms of the O'Keefe, and for another instant those two
+looked into each other's souls. The handmaiden smiled tremulously.
+
+"I would it might have been otherwise, Larry darlin'," she whispered.
+"But at least--we pass together, dearest of mine!"
+
+She leaped to the window.
+
+"Yolara!" the golden voice rang out sweetly.  The clanging ceased.
+"Draw back your men. We open the Portal and come forth to you and the
+Shining One--Larry and I."
+
+The priestess's silver chimes of laughter rang out, cruel, mocking.
+
+"Come, then, quickly," she jeered.  "For surely both the Shining One
+and I yearn for you!" Her malice-laden laughter chimed high once more.
+"Keep us not lonely long!" the priestess mocked.
+
+Larry drew a deep breath, stretched both hands out to me.
+
+"It's good-by, I guess, Doc." His voice was strained. "Good-by and
+good luck, old boy. If you get out, and you _will_, let the old
+_Dolphin_ know I'm gone. And carry on, pal--and always remember the
+O'Keefe loved you like a brother."
+
+I squeezed his hands desperately.  Then out of my balanceshaking woe a
+strange comfort was born.
+
+"Maybe it's not good-by, Larry!" I cried.  "The banshee has not
+cried!"
+
+A flash of hope passed over his face; the old reckless grin shone
+forth.
+
+"It's so!" he said.  "By the Lord, it's so!"
+
+Then Lakla bent toward me, and for the second time--kissed me.
+
+"Come!" she said to Larry.  Hand in hand they moved away, into the
+corridor that led to the door outside of which waited the Shining One
+and its priestess.
+
+And unseen by them, wrapped as they were within their love and
+sacrifice, I crept softly behind. For I had determined that if enter
+the Dweller's embrace they must, they should not go alone.
+
+They paused before the Golden Portals; the handmaiden pressed its
+opening lever; the massive leaves rolled back.
+
+Heads high, proudly, serenely, they passed through and out upon the
+hither span. I followed.
+
+On each side of us stood the Dweller's slaves, faces turned rigidly
+toward their master. A hundred feet away the Shining One pulsed and
+spiralled in its evilly glorious lambency of sparkling plumes.
+
+Unhesitating, always with that same high serenity, Lakla and the
+O'Keefe, hands clasped like little children, drew closer to that
+wondrous shape. I could not see their faces, but I saw awe fall upon
+those of the watching dwarfs, and into the burning eyes of Yolara
+crept a doubt. Closer they drew to the Dweller, and closer, I
+following them step by step. The Shining One's whirling lessened; its
+tinklings were faint, almost stilled. It seemed to watch them
+apprehensively. A silence fell upon us all, a thick silence, brooding,
+ominous, palpable. Now the pair were face to face with the child of
+the Three--so near that with one of its misty tentacles it could have
+enfolded them.
+
+And the Shining One drew back!
+
+Yes, drew back--and back with it stepped Yolara, the doubt in her eyes
+deepening. Onward paced the handmaiden and the O'Keefe--and step by
+step, as they advanced, the Dweller withdrew; its bell notes chiming
+out, puzzled questioning--half fearful!
+
+And back it drew, and back until it had reached the very centre of
+that platform over the abyss in whose depths pulsed the green fires of
+earth heart. And there Yolara gripped herself; the hell that seethed
+within her soul leaped out of her eyes, a cry, a shriek of rage, tore
+from her lips.
+
+As at a signal, the Shining One flamed high; its spirals and eddying
+mists swirled madly, the pulsing core of it blazed radiance. A score
+of coruscating tentacles swept straight upon the pair who stood
+intrepid, unresisting, awaiting its embrace. And upon me, lurking
+behind them.
+
+Through me swept a mighty exaltation.  It was the end then--and I was
+to meet it with them.
+
+Something drew us back, back with an incredible swiftness, and yet as
+gently as a summer breeze sweeps a bit of thistle-down! Drew us back
+from those darting misty arms even as they were a hair-breadth from
+us! I heard the Dweller's bell notes burst out ragingly! I heard
+Yolara scream.
+
+What was that?
+
+Between the three of us and them was a ring of curdled moon flames,
+swirling about the Shining One and its priestess, pressing in upon
+them, enfolding them!
+
+And within it I glimpsed the faces of the Three--implacable,
+sorrowful, filled with a supernal power!
+
+Sparks and flashes of white flame darted from the ring, penetrating
+the radiant swathings of the Dweller, striking through its pulsing
+nucleus, piercing its seven crowning orbs.
+
+Now the Shining One's radiance began to dim, the seven orbs to dull;
+the tiny sparkling filaments that ran from them down into the
+Dweller's body snapped, vanished! Through the battling nebulosities
+Yolara's face swam forth--horror-filled, distorted, inhuman!
+
+The ranks of the dead-alive quivered, moved, writhed, as though each
+felt the torment of the Thing that had enslaved them. The radiance
+that the Three wielded grew more intense, thicker, seemed to expand.
+Within it, suddenly, were scores of flaming triangles--scores of eyes
+like those of the Silent Ones!
+
+And the Shining One's seven little moons of amber, of silver, of blue
+and amethyst and green, of rose and white, split, shattered, were
+gone! Abruptly the tortured crystal chimings ceased.
+
+Dulled, all its soul-shaking beauty dead, blotched and shadowed
+squalidly, its gleaming plumes tarnished, its dancing spirals stripped
+from it, that which had been the Shining One wrapped itself about
+Yolara--wrapped and drew her into itself; writhed, swayed, and hurled
+itself over the edge of the bridge--down, down into the green fires of
+the unfathomable abyss--with its priestess still enfolded in its
+coils!
+
+From the dwarfs who had watched that terror came screams of panic
+fear. They turned and ran, racing frantically over the bridge toward
+the cavern mouth.
+
+The serried ranks of the dead-alive trembled, shook.  Then from their
+faces tied the horror of wedded ecstasy and anguish. Peace, utter
+peace, followed in its wake.
+
+And as fields of wheat are bent and fall beneath the wind, they fell.
+No longer dead-alive, now all of the blessed dead, freed from their
+dreadful slavery!
+
+Abruptly from the sparkling mists the cloud of eyes was gone.  Faintly
+revealed in them were only the heads of the Silent Ones. And they drew
+before us; were before us! No flames now in their ebon eyes--for the
+flickering fires were quenched in great tears, streaming down the
+marble white faces. They bent toward us, over us; their radiance
+enfolded us. My eyes darkened. I could not see. I felt a tender hand
+upon my head--and panic and frozen dread and nightmare web that held
+me fled.
+
+Then they, too, were gone.
+
+Upon Larry's breast the handmaiden was sobbing--sobbing out her
+heart--but this time with the joy of one who is swept up from the
+very threshold of hell into paradise.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV
+
+"Larry--Farewell!"
+
+"My heart, Larry--" It was the handmaiden's murmur. "My heart feels
+like a bird that is flying from a nest of sorrow."
+
+We were pacing down the length of the bridge, guards of the _Akka_
+beside us, others following with those companies of _ladala_ that had
+rushed to aid us; in front of us the bandaged Rador swung gently
+within a litter; beside him, in another, lay Nak, the frog-king--much
+less of him than there had been before the battle began, but living.
+
+Hours had passed since the terror I have just related.  My first task
+had been to search for Throckmartin and his wife among the fallen
+multitudes strewn thick as autumn leaves along the flying arch of
+stone, over the cavern ledge, and back, back as far as the eye could
+reach.
+
+At last, Lakla and Larry helping, we found them.  They lay close to
+the bridge-end, not parted--locked tight in each other's arms, pallid
+face to face, her hair streaming over his breast! As though when that
+unearthly life the Dweller had set within them passed away, their own
+had come back for one fleeting instant--and they had known each other,
+and clasped before kindly death had taken them.
+
+"Love is stronger than all things." The handmaiden was weeping softly.
+"Love never left them. Love was stronger than the Shining One. And
+when its evil fled, love went with them--wherever souls go."
+
+Of Stanton and Thora there was no trace; nor, after our discovery of
+those other two, did I care to look more. They were dead--and they
+were free.
+
+We buried Throckmartin and Edith beside Olaf in Lakla's bower.  But
+before the body of my old friend was placed within the grave I gave it
+a careful and sorrowful examination. The skin was firm and smooth, but
+cold; not the cold of death, but with a chill that set my touching
+fingers tingling unpleasantly. The body was bloodless; the course of
+veins and arteries marked by faintly indented white furrows, as though
+their walls had long collapsed. Lips, mouth, even the tongue, was
+paper white. There was no sign of dissolution as we know it; no shadow
+or stain upon the marble surface. Whatever the force that, streaming
+from the Dweller or impregnating its lair, had energized the
+dead-alive, it was barrier against putrescence of any kind; that at
+least was certain.
+
+But it was not barrier against the poison of the Medusae, for, our sad
+task done, and looking down upon the waters, I saw the pale forms of
+the Dweller's hordes dissolving, vanishing into the shifting glories
+of the gigantic moons sailing down upon them from every quarter of the
+Sea of Crimson.
+
+While the frog-men, those late levies from the farthest forests, were
+clearing bridge and ledge of cavern of the litter of the dead, we
+listened to a leader of the _ladala_. They had risen, even as the
+messenger had promised Rador. Fierce had been the struggle in the
+gardened city by the silver waters with those Lugur and Yolara had
+left behind to garrison it. Deadly had been the slaughter of the
+fair-haired, reaping the harvest of hatred they had been sowing so
+long. Not without a pang of regret did I think of the beautiful, gaily
+malicious elfin women destroyed--evil though they may have been.
+
+The ancient city of Lara was a charnel.  Of all the rulers not
+twoscore had escaped, and these into regions of peril which to
+describe as sanctuary would be mockery. Nor had the _ladala_ fared so
+well. Of all the men and women, for women as well as men had taken
+their part in the swift war, not more than a tenth remained alive.
+
+And the dancing motes of light in the silver air were thick,
+thick--they whispered.
+
+They told us of the Shining One rushing through the Veil, cometlike,
+its hosts streaming behind it, raging with it, in ranks that seemed
+interminable!
+
+Of the massacre of the priests and priestesses in the Cyclopean
+temple; of the flashing forth of the summoning lights by unseen
+hands--followed by the tearing of the rainbow curtain, by colossal
+shatterings of the radiant cliffs; the vanishing behind their debris
+of all trace of entrance to the haunted place wherein the hordes of
+the Shining One had slaved--the sealing of the lair!
+
+Then, when the tempest of hate had ended in seething Lara, how,
+thrilled with victory, armed with the weapons of those they had slain,
+they had lifted the Shadow, passed through the Portal, met and
+slaughtered the fleeing remnants of Yolara's men--only to find the
+tempest stilled here, too.
+
+But of Marakinoff they had seen nothing!  Had the Russian escaped, I
+wondered, or was he lying out there among the dead?
+
+But now the _ladala_ were calling upon Lakla to come with them, to
+govern them.
+
+"I don't want to, Larry darlin'," she told him.  "I want to go out
+with you to Ireland. But for a time--I think the Three would have us
+remain and set that place in order."
+
+The O'Keefe was bothered about something else than the government of
+Muria.
+
+"If they've killed off all the priests, who's to marry us, heart of
+mine?" he worried. "None of those Siya and Siyana rites, no matter
+what," he added hastily.
+
+"Marry!" cried the handmaiden incredulously.  "Marry us? Why, Larry
+dear, we _are_ married!"
+
+The O'Keefe's astonishment was complete; his jaw dropped; collapse
+seemed imminent.
+
+"We are?" he gasped.  "When?" he stammered fatuously.
+
+"Why, when the Mother drew us together before her; when she put her
+hands on our heads after we had made the promise! Didn't you
+understand that?" asked the handmaiden wonderingly.
+
+He looked at her, into the purity of the clear golden eyes, into the
+purity of the soul that gazed out of them; all his own great love
+transfiguring his keen face.
+
+"An' is that enough for you, _mavourneen_?" he whispered humbly.
+
+"Enough?" The handmaiden's puzzlement was complete, profound.
+"Enough? Larry darlin', what _more_ could we ask?"
+
+He drew a deep breath, clasped her close.
+
+"Kiss the bride, Doc!" cried the O'Keefe.  And for the third and,
+soul's sorrow! the last time, Lakla dimpling and blushing, I thrilled
+to the touch of her soft, sweet lips.
+
+Quickly were our preparations for departure made.  Rador, conscious,
+his immense vitality conquering fast his wounds, was to be borne ahead
+of us. And when all was done, Lakla, Larry, and I made our way up to
+the scarlet stone that was the doorway to the chamber of the Three. We
+knew, of course, that they had gone, following, no doubt, those whose
+eyes I had seen in the curdled mists, and who, coming to the aid of
+the Three at last from whatever mysterious place that was their home,
+had thrown their strength with them against the Shining One. Nor were
+we wrong. When the great slab rolled away, no torrents of opalescence
+came rushing out upon us. The vast dome was dim, tenantless; its
+curved walls that had cascaded Light shone now but faintly; the dais
+was empty; its wall of moon-flame radiance gone.
+
+A little time we stood, heads bent, reverent, our hearts filled with
+gratitude and love--yes, and with pity for that strange trinity so
+alien to us and yet so near; children even as we, though so unlike us,
+of our same Mother Earth.
+
+And what I wondered had been the secret of that promise they had wrung
+from their handmaiden and from Larry. And whence, if what the Three
+had said had been all true--whence had come their power to avert the
+sacrifice at the very verge of its consummation?
+
+"Love is stronger than all things!" had said Lakla.
+
+Was it that they had needed, must have, the force which dwells within
+love, within willing sacrifice, to strengthen their own power and to
+enable them to destroy the evil, glorious Thing so long shielded by
+their own love? Did the thought of sacrifice, the will toward
+abnegation, have to be as strong as the eternals, unshaken by faintest
+thrill of hope, before the Three could make of it their key to unlock
+the Dweller's guard and strike through at its life?
+
+Here was a mystery--a mystery indeed!  Lakla softly closed the crimson
+stone. The mystery of the red dwarf's appearance was explained when we
+discovered a half-dozen of the water _coria_ moored in a small cove
+not far from where the _Sekta_ flashed their heads of living bloom.
+The dwarfs had borne the shallops with them, and from somewhere beyond
+the cavern ledge had launched them unperceived; stealing up to the
+farther side of the island and risking all in one bold stroke. Well,
+Lugur, no matter what he held of wickedness, held also high courage.
+
+The cavern was paved with the dead-alive, the _Akka_ carrying them out
+by the hundreds, casting them into the waters. Through the lane down
+which the Dweller had passed we went as quickly as we could, coming at
+last to the space where the _coria_ waited. And not long after we
+swung past where the shadow had hung and hovered over the shining
+depths of the Midnight Pool.
+
+Upon Lakla's insistence we passed on to the palace of Lugur, not to
+Yolara's--I do not know why, but go there then she would not. And
+within one of its columned rooms, maidens of the black-haired folks,
+the wistfulness, the fear, all gone from their sparkling eyes, served
+us.
+
+There came to me a huge desire to see the destruction they had told us
+of the Dweller's lair; to observe for myself whether it was not
+possible to make a way of entrance and to study its mysteries.
+
+I spoke of this, and to my surprise both the handmaiden and the
+O'Keefe showed an almost embarrassed haste to acquiesce in my hesitant
+suggestion.
+
+"Sure," cried Larry, "there's lots of time before night!"
+
+He caught himself sheepishly; cast a glance at Lakla.
+
+"I keep forgettin' there's no night here," he mumbled.
+
+"What did you say, Larry?" asked she.
+
+"I said I wish we were sitting in our home in Ireland, watching the
+sun go down," he whispered to her. Vaguely I wondered why she blushed.
+
+But now I must hasten.  We went to the temple, and here at least the
+ghastly litter of the dead had been cleaned away. We passed through
+the blue-caverned space, crossed the narrow arch that spanned the
+rushing sea stream, and, ascending, stood again upon the ivoried pave
+at the foot of the frowning, towering amphitheatre of jet.
+
+Across the Silver Waters there was sign of neither Web of Rainbows nor
+colossal pillars nor the templed lips that I had seen curving out
+beneath the Veil when the Shining One had swirled out to greet its
+priestess and its voice and to dance with the sacrifices. There was
+but a broken and rent mass of the radiant cliffs against whose base
+the lake lapped.
+
+Long I looked--and turned away saddened.  Knowing even as I did what
+the irised curtain had hidden, still it was as though some thing of
+supernal beauty and wonder had been swept away, never to be replaced;
+a glamour gone for ever; a work of the high gods destroyed.
+
+"Let's go back," said Larry abruptly.
+
+I dropped a little behind them to examine a bit of carving--and,
+after all, they did not want me. I watched them pacing slowly ahead,
+his arm around her, black hair close to bronze-gold ringlets. Then I
+followed. Half were they over the bridge when through the roar of the
+imprisoned stream I heard my name called softly.
+
+"Goodwin!  Dr. Goodwin!"
+
+Amazed, I turned.  From behind the pedestal of a carved group
+slunk--Marakinoff! My premonition had been right. Some way he had
+escaped, slipped through to here. He held his hands high, came forward
+cautiously.
+
+"I am finished," he whispered--"Done!  I don't care what _they'll_ do
+to me." He nodded toward the handmaiden and Larry, now at the end of
+the bridge and passing on, oblivious of all save each other. He drew
+closer. His eyes were sunken, burning, mad; his face etched with deep
+lines, as though a graver's tool had cut down through it. I took a
+step backward.
+
+A grin, like the grimace of a fiend, blasted the Russian's visage.
+He threw himself upon me, his hands clenching at my throat!
+
+"Larry!" I yelled--and as I spun around under the shock of his
+onslaught, saw the two turn, stand paralyzed, then race toward me.
+
+"But _you'll_ carry nothing out of here!" shrieked Marakinoff.  "No!"
+
+My foot, darting out behind me, touched vacancy.  The roaring of the
+racing stream deafened me. I felt its mists about me; threw myself
+forward.
+
+I was falling--falling--with the Russian's hand strangling me. I
+struck water, sank; the hands that gripped my throat relaxed for a
+moment their clutch. I strove to writhe loose; felt that I was being
+hurled with dreadful speed on--full realization came--on the breast of
+that racing torrent dropping from some far ocean cleft and
+rushing--where? A little time, a few breathless instants, I struggled
+with the devil who clutched me--inflexibly, indomitably.
+
+Then a shrieking as of all the pent winds of the universe in my
+ears--blackness!
+
+Consciousness returned slowly, agonizedly.
+
+"Larry!" I groaned.  "Lakla!"
+
+A brilliant light was glowing through my closed lids.  It hurt.  I
+opened my eyes, closed them with swords and needles of dazzling pain
+shooting through them. Again I opened them cautiously. It was the sun!
+
+I staggered to my feet.  Behind me was a shattered wall of basalt
+monoliths, hewn and squared. Before me was the Pacific, smooth and
+blue and smiling.
+
+And not far away, cast up on the strand even as I had been,
+was--Marakinoff!
+
+He lay there, broken and dead indeed.  Yet all the waters through
+which we had passed--not even the waters of death themselves--could
+wash from his face the grin of triumph. With the last of my strength I
+dragged the body from the strand and pushed it out into the waves. A
+little billow ran up, coiled about it, and carried it away, ducking
+and bending. Another seized it, and another, playing with it. It
+floated from my sight--that which had been Marakinoff, with all his
+schemes to turn our fair world into an undreamed-of-hell.
+
+My strength began to come back to me.  I found a thicket and slept;
+slept it must have been for many hours, for when I again awakened the
+dawn was rosing the east. I will not tell my sufferings. Suffice it to
+say that I found a spring and some fruit, and just before dusk had
+recovered enough to writhe up to the top of the wall and discover
+where I was.
+
+The place was one of the farther islets of the Nan-Matal. To the north
+I caught the shadows of the ruins of Nan-Tauach, where was the moon
+door, black against the sky. Where was the moon door--which, someway,
+somehow, I must reach, and quickly.
+
+At dawn of the next day I got together driftwood and bound it together
+in shape of a rough raft with fallen creepers. Then, with a makeshift
+paddle, I set forth for Nan-Tauach. Slowly, painfully, I crept up to
+it. It was late afternoon before I grounded my shaky craft on the
+little beach between the ruined sea-gates and, creeping up the giant
+steps, made my way to the inner enclosure.
+
+And at its opening I stopped, and the tears ran streaming down my
+cheeks while I wept aloud with sorrow and with disappointment and with
+weariness.
+
+For the great wall in which had been set the pale slab whose threshold
+we had crossed to the land of the Shining One lay shattered and
+broken. The monoliths were heaped about; the wall had fallen, and
+about them shone a film of water, half covering them.
+
+There was no moon door!
+
+Dazed and weeping, I drew closer, climbed upon their outlying
+fragments. I looked out only upon the sea. There had been a great
+subsidence, an earth shock, perhaps, tilting downward all that
+side--the echo, little doubt, of that cataclysm which had blasted the
+Dweller's lair!
+
+The little squared islet called Tau, in which were hidden the seven
+globes, had entirely disappeared. Upon the waters there was no trace
+of it.
+
+The moon door was gone; the passage to the Moon Pool was closed to
+me--its chamber covered by the sea!
+
+There was no road to Larry--nor to Lakla!
+
+And there, for me, the world ended.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  Transcriber's note: I have made the following changes to the text:
+
+  PAGE  LINE  ORIGINAL         CHANGED TO
+     3    14  sinster          sinister
+    17    11  Nam-Tauach       Nan-Tauach
+    22    20  on on            on
+    69    39  'Didn't          "Didn't
+    75    21  'But             "But
+    90    36  "Trolde!"        _"Trolde!"_
+    91    35  'We              "We
+    96    11  shown            shone
+    96    14  smiled           smiled.
+   105    11  drank            drunk
+   106    24  acomplish        accomplish
+   109    23  'Shake           "Shake
+   111    18  overtstressed    overstressed
+   116    11  increduously     incredulously
+   120    30  Yolar            Yolara
+   128    12  spirtual         spiritual
+   150    13  cushoned         cushioned
+   172    29  semed            seemed
+   204    34  there?"'         there?"
+   208    25  "Its             "It's
+   231     8  meal             metal
+   239     6  suling           sulting
+   248    28  finshed          finished
+   280    29  much             must
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Moon Pool, by A. Merritt
+
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+**The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Moon Pool by A. Merritt**
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+The Moon Pool
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+by A. Merritt
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+December, 1996 [Etext #765]
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+**The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Moon Pool by A. Merritt**
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+*END*THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END*
+
+
+
+
+
+The Moon Pool
+
+A. MERRITT
+
+
+
+
+Foreword
+
+
+The publication of the following narrative of Dr. Walter
+T. Goodwin has been authorized by the Executive Council
+of the International Association of Science.
+
+First:
+
+To end officially what is beginning to be called the
+Throckmartin Mystery and to kill the innuendo and scan-
+dalous suspicions which have threatened to stain the repu-
+tations of Dr. David Throckmartin, his youthful wife, and
+equally youthful associate Dr. Charles Stanton ever since
+a tardy despatch from Melbourne, Australia, reported the
+disappearance of the first from a ship sailing to that port,
+and the subsequent reports of the disappearance of his wife
+and associate from the camp of their expedition in the
+Caroline Islands.
+
+Second:
+
+Because the Executive Council have concluded that Dr.
+Goodwin's experiences in his wholly heroic effort to save
+the three, and the lessons and warnings within those ex-
+periences, are too important to humanity as a whole to be
+hidden away in scientific papers understandable only to
+the technically educated; or to be presented through the
+newspaper press in the abridged and fragmentary form
+which the space limitations of that vehicle make necessary.
+
+For these reasons the Executive Council commissioned
+Mr. A. Merritt to transcribe into form to be readily under-
+stood by the layman the stenographic notes of Dr. Good-
+win's own report to the Council, supplemented by further
+oral reminiscences and comments by Dr. Goodwin; this
+transcription, edited and censored by the Executive Coun-
+cil of the Association, forms the contents of this book.
+
+Himself a member of the Council, Dr. Walter T. Goodwin,
+Ph.D., F.R.G.S. etc., is without cavil the foremost of
+American botanists, an observer of international reputa-
+tion and the author of several epochal treaties upon his
+chosen branch of science.  His story, amazing in the best
+sense of that word as it may be, is fully supported by
+proofs brought forward by him and accepted by the or-
+ganization of which I have the honor to be president.  What
+matter has been elided from this popular presentation--
+because of the excessively menacing potentialities it con-
+tains, which unrestricted dissemination might develop--will
+be dealt with in purely scientific pamphlets of carefully
+guarded circulation.
+
+THE INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF SCIENCE
+Per J. B. K., President
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+The Thing on the Moon Path
+
+
+FOR two months I had been on the d'Entrecasteaux Islands
+gathering data for the concluding chapters of my book
+upon the flora of the volcanic islands of the South Pacific.
+The day before I had reached Port Moresby and had seen
+my specimens safely stored on board the Southern Queen.
+As I sat on the upper deck I thought, with homesick mind,
+of the long leagues between me and Melbourne, and the
+longer ones between Melbourne and New York.
+
+It was one of Papua's yellow mornings when she shows
+herself in her sombrest, most baleful mood.  The sky was
+smouldering ochre.  Over the island brooded a spirit sullen,
+alien, implacable, filled with the threat of latent, malefic
+forces waiting to be unleashed.  It seemed an emanation out
+of the untamed, sinister heart of Papua herself--sinister even
+when she smiles.  And now and then, on the wind, came a
+breath from virgin jungles, laden with unfamiliar odours,
+mysterious and menacing.
+
+It is on such mornings that Papua whispers to you of her
+immemorial ancientness and of her power.  And, as every
+white man must, I fought against her spell.  While I struggled
+I saw a tall figure striding down the pier; a Kapa-Kapa boy
+followed swinging a new valise.  There was something
+familiar about the tall man.  As he reached the gangplank he
+looked up straight into my eyes, stared for a moment, then
+waved his hand.
+
+And now I knew him.  It was Dr. David Throckmartin--
+"Throck" he was to me always, one of my oldest friends
+and, as well, a mind of the first water whose power and
+achievements were for me a constant inspiration as they
+were, I know, for scores other.
+
+Coincidentally with my recognition came a shock of sur-
+prise, definitely--unpleasant.  It was Throckmartin--but
+about him was something disturbingly unlike the man I
+had known long so well and to whom and to whose little
+party I had bidden farewell less than a month before I
+myself had sailed for these seas.  He had married only a
+few weeks before, Edith, the daughter of Professor William
+Frazier, younger by at least a decade than he but at one
+with him in his ideals and as much in love, if it were pos-
+sible, as Throckmartin.  By virtue of her father's training
+a wonderful assistant, by virtue of her own sweet, sound
+heart a--I use the word in its olden sense--lover.  With his
+equally youthful associate Dr. Charles Stanton and a Swed-
+ish woman, Thora Halversen, who had been Edith Throck-
+martin's nurse from babyhood, they had set forth for the
+Nan-Matal, that extraordinary group of island ruins clus-
+tered along the eastern shore of Ponape in the Carolines.
+
+I knew that he had planned to spend at least a year
+among these ruins, not only of Ponape but of Lele--twin
+centres of a colossal riddle of humanity, a weird flower of
+civilization that blossomed ages before the seeds of Egypt
+were sown; of whose arts we know little enough and of
+whose science nothing.  He had carried with him unusually
+complete equipment for the work he had expected to do
+and which, he hoped, would be his monument.
+
+What then had brought Throckmartin to Port Moresby,
+and what was that change I had sensed in him?
+
+Hurrying down to the lower deck I found him with the
+purser.  As I spoke he turned, thrust out to me an eager
+hand--and then I saw what was that difference that had so
+moved me.  He knew, of course by my silence and involun-
+tary shrinking the shock my closer look had given me.  His
+eyes filled; he turned brusquely from the purser, hesitated
+--then hurried off to his stateroom.
+
+"'E looks rather queer--eh?" said the purser.  "Know 'im
+well, sir?  Seems to 'ave given you quite a start."
+
+I made some reply and went slowly up to my chair.  There
+I sat, composed my mind and tried to define what it was
+that had shaken me so.  Now it came to me.  The old
+Throckmartin was on the eve of his venture just turned
+forty, lithe, erect, muscular; his controlling expression one
+of enthusiasm, of intellectual keenness, of--what shall I say
+--expectant search.  His always questioning brain had
+stamped its vigor upon his face.
+
+But the Throckmartin I had seen below was one who had
+borne some scaring shock of mingled rapture and horror;
+some soul cataclysm that in its climax had remoulded,
+deep from within, his face, setting on it seal of wedded
+ecstasy and despair; as though indeed these two had come
+to him hand in hand, taken possession of him and departing
+left behind, ineradicably, their linked shadows!
+
+Yes--it was that which appalled.  For how could rapture
+and horror, Heaven and Hell mix, clasp hands--kiss?
+
+Yet these were what in closest embrace lay on Throck-
+martin's face!
+
+Deep in thought, subconsciously with relief, I watched
+the shore line sink behind; welcomed the touch of the wind
+of the free seas.  I had hoped, and within the hope was an
+inexplicable shrinking that I would meet Throckmartin at
+lunch.  He did not come down, and I was sensible of de-
+liverance within my disappointment.  All that afternoon I
+lounged about uneasily but still he kept to his cabin--and
+within me was no strength to summon him.  Nor did he
+appear at dinner.
+
+Dusk and night fell swiftly.  I was warm and went back to
+my deck-chair.  The Southern Queen was rolling to a dis-
+quieting swell and I had the place to myself.
+
+Over the heavens was a canopy of cloud, glowing faintly
+and testifying to the moon riding behind it.  There was much
+phosphorescence.  Fitfully before the ship and at her sides
+arose those stranger little swirls of mist that swirl up from
+the Southern Ocean like breath of sea monsters, whirl for an
+instant and disappear.
+
+ Suddenly the deck door opened and through it came
+Throckmartin.  He paused uncertainly, looked up at the sky
+with a curiously eager, intent gaze, hesitated, then closed
+the door behind him.
+
+ "Throck," I called.  "Come!  It's Goodwin."
+
+ He made his way to me.
+
+ "Throck," I said, wasting no time in preliminaries.
+"What's wrong?  Can I help you?"
+
+ I felt his body grow tense.
+
+ "I'm going to Melbourne, Goodwin," he answered.  "I
+need a few things--need them urgently.  And more men--
+white men--"
+
+He stopped abruptly; rose from his chair, gazed intently
+toward the north.  I followed his gaze.  Far, far away the
+moon had broken through the clouds.  Almost on the hori-
+zon, you could see the faint luminescence of it upon the
+smooth sea.  The distant patch of light quivered and shook.
+The clouds thickened again and it was gone.  The ship raced
+on southward, swiftly.
+
+Throckmartin dropped into his chair.  He lighted a cigar-
+ette with a hand that trembled; then turned to me with
+abrupt resolution.
+
+"Goodwin," he said.  "I do need help.  If ever man needed
+it, I do.  Goodwin--can you imagine yourself in another
+world, alien, unfamiliar, a world of terror, whose unknown
+joy is its greatest terror of all; you all alone there, a
+stranger!  As such a man would need help, so I need--"
+
+He paused abruptly and arose; the cigarette dropped from
+his fingers.  The moon had again broken through the clouds,
+and this time much nearer.  Not a mile away was the patch
+of light that it threw upon the waves.  Back of it, to the rim
+of the sea was a lane of moonlight; a gigantic gleaming ser-
+pent racing over the edge of the world straight and surely
+toward the ship.
+
+Throckmartin stiffened to it as a pointer does to a hidden
+covey.  To me from him pulsed a thrill of horror--but
+horror tinged with an unfamiliar, an infernal joy.  It came
+to me and passed away--leaving me trembling with its
+shock of bitter sweet.
+
+He bent forward, all his soul in his eyes.  The moon path
+swept closer, closer still.  It was now less than half a mile
+away.  From it the ship fled--almost as though pursued.
+Down upon it, swift and straight, a radiant torrent cleaving
+the waves, raced the moon stream.
+
+"Good God!" breathed Throckmartin, and if ever the
+words were a prayer and an invocation they were.
+
+And then, for the first time--I saw--IT!
+
+The moon path stretched to the horizon and was bor-
+dered by darkness.  It was as though the clouds above had
+been parted to form a lane-drawn aside like curtains or as
+the waters of the Red Sea were held back to let the hosts
+of Israel through.  On each side of the stream was the black
+shadow cast by the folds of the high canopies And straight
+as a road between the opaque walls gleamed, shimmered,
+and danced the shining, racing, rapids of the moonlight
+
+Far, it seemed immeasurably far, along this stream of
+silver fire I sensed, rather than saw, something coming.  It
+drew first into sight as a deeper glow within the light.  On
+and on it swept toward us--an opalescent mistiness that
+sped with the suggestion of some winged creature in
+arrowed flight.  Dimly there crept into my mind memory of
+the Dyak legend of the winged messenger of Buddha--
+the Akla bird whose feathers are woven of the moon rays,
+whose heart is a living opal, whose wings in flight echo the
+crystal clear music of the white stars--but whose beak is
+of frozen flame and shreds the souls of unbelievers.
+
+Closer it drew and now there came to me sweet, insistent
+tinklings--like pizzicati on violins of glass; crystal clear;
+diamonds melting into sounds!
+
+Now the Thing was close to the end of the white path;
+close up to the barrier of darkness still between the ship
+and the sparkling head of the moon stream.  Now it beat up
+against that barrier as a bird against the bars of its cage.  It
+whirled with shimmering plumes, with swirls of lacy light,
+with spirals of living vapour.  It held within it odd, un-
+familiar gleams as of shifting mother-of-pearl.  Coruscations
+and glittering atoms drifted through it as though it drew
+them from the rays that bathed it.
+
+Nearer and nearer it came, borne on the sparkling waves,
+and ever thinner shrank the protecting wall of shadow be-
+tween it and us.  Within the mistiness was a core, a nucleus
+of intenser light--veined, opaline, effulgent, intensely alive.
+And above it, tangled in the plumes and spirals that
+throbbed and whirled were seven glowing lights.
+
+Through all the incessant but strangely ordered move-
+ment of the--THING--these lights held firm and steady.  They
+were seven--like seven little moons.  One was of a pearly
+pink, one of a delicate nacreous blue, one of lambent
+saffron, one of the emerald you see in the shallow waters
+of tropic isles; a deathly white; a ghostly amethyst; and
+one of the silver that is seen only when the flying fish leap
+beneath the moon.
+
+The tinkling music was louder still.  It pierced the ears
+with a shower of tiny lances; it made the heart beat jubi-
+lantly--and checked it dolorously.  It closed the throat with
+a throb of rapture and gripped it tight with the hand of
+infinite sorrow!
+
+Came to me now a murmuring cry, stilling the crystal
+notes.  It was articulate--but as though from something
+utterly foreign to this world.  The ear took the cry and trans-
+lated with conscious labour into the sounds of earth.  And
+even as it compassed, the brain shrank from it irresistibly,
+and simultaneously it seemed reached toward it with irre-
+sistible eagerness.
+
+Throckmartin strode toward the front of the deck,
+straight toward the vision, now but a few yards away from
+the stern.  His face had lost all human semblance.  Utter
+agony and utter ecstasy--there they were side by side, not
+resisting each other; unholy inhuman companions blending
+into a look that none of God's creatures should wear--
+and deep, deep as his soul!  A devil and a God dwelling
+harmoniously side by side!  So must Satan, newly fallen,
+still divine, seeing heaven and contemplating hell, have
+appeared.
+
+And then--swiftly the moon path faded!  The clouds
+swept over the sky as though a hand had drawn them to-
+gether.  Up from the south came a roaring squall.  As the
+moon vanished what I had seen vanished with it--blotted
+out as an image on a magic lantern; the tinkling ceased
+abruptly--leaving a silence like that which follows an
+abrupt thunder clap.  There was nothing about us but silence
+and blackness!
+
+Through me passed a trembling as one who has stood on
+the very verge of the gulf wherein the men of the Louisades
+says lurks the fisher of the souls of men, and has been
+plucked back by sheerest chance.
+
+Throckmartin passed an arm around me.
+
+"It is as I thought," he said.  In his voice was a new note;
+the calm certainty that has swept aside a waiting terror of
+the unknown.  "Now I know!  Come with me to my cabin,
+old friend.  For now that you too have seen I can tell you"--
+he hesitated--"what it was you saw," he ended.
+
+As we passed through the door we met the ship's first
+officer.  Throckmartin composed his face into at least a sem-
+blance of normality.
+
+ "Going to have much of a storm?" he asked.
+
+ "Yes," said the mate.  "Probably all the way to Mel-
+bourne."
+
+Throckmartin straightened as though with a new thought.
+He gripped the officer's sleeve eagerly.
+
+"You mean at least cloudy weather--for"--he hesitated
+--"for the next three nights, say?"
+
+ "And for three more," replied the mate.
+
+"Thank God!" cried Throckmartin, and I think I never
+heard such relief and hope as was in his voice.
+
+ The sailor stood amazed.  "Thank God?" he repeated.
+"Thank--what d'ye mean?"
+
+But Throckmartin was moving onward to his cabin.  I
+started to follow.  The first officer stopped me.
+
+ "Your friend," he said, "is he ill?"
+
+"The sea!" I answered hurriedly.  "He's not used to it.  I
+am going to look after him."
+
+Doubt and disbelief were plain in the seaman's eyes but
+I hurried on.  For I knew now that Throckmartin was ill
+indeed--but with a sickness the ship's doctor nor any other
+could heal.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+"Dead!  All Dead!"
+
+HE WAS SITTING, face in hands, on the side of his berth
+as I entered.  He had taken off his coat.
+
+"Throck," I cried.  "What was it?  What are you flying
+from, man?  Where is your wife--and Stanton?"
+
+"Dead!" he replied monotonously.  "Dead!  All dead!"
+Then as I recoiled from him--"All dead.  Edith, Stanton,
+Thora--dead--or worse.  And Edith in the Moon Pool--
+with them--drawn by what you saw on the moon path--
+that has put its brand upon me--and follows me!"
+
+He ripped open his shirt.
+
+"Look at this," he said.  Around his chest, above his
+heart, the skin was white as pearl.  This whiteness was
+sharply defined against the healthy tint of the body.  It
+circled him with an even cincture about two inches wide.
+
+"Burn it!" he said, and offered me his cigarette.  I drew
+back.  He gestured--peremptorily.  I pressed the glowing
+end of the cigarette into the ribbon of white flesh.  He did
+not flinch nor was there odour of burning nor, as I drew
+the little cylinder away, any mark upon the whiteness.
+
+"Feel it!" he commanded again.  I placed my fingers upon
+the band.  It was cold--like frozen marble.
+
+He drew his shirt around him.
+
+"Two things you have seen," he said.  "IT--and its mark.
+Seeing, you must believe my story.  Goodwin, I tell you
+again that my wife is dead--or worse--I do not know; the
+prey of--what you saw; so, too, is Stanton; so Thora.
+How--"
+
+Tears rolled down the seared face.
+
+"Why did God let it conquer us?  Why did He let it take
+my Edith?" he cried in utter bitterness.  "Are there things
+stronger than God, do you think, Walter?"
+
+ I hesitated.
+
+ "Are there?  Are there?" His wild eyes searched me.
+
+"I do not know just how you define God," I managed at
+last through my astonishment to make answer.  "If you
+mean the will to know, working through science--"
+
+He waved me aside impatiently.
+
+"Science," he said.  "What is our science against--that?
+Or against the science of whatever devils that made it--or
+made the way for it to enter this world of ours?"
+
+With an effort he regained control.
+
+"Goodwin," he said, "do you know at all of the ruins on
+the Carolines; the cyclopean, megalithic cities and harbours
+of Ponape and Lele, of Kusaie, of Ruk and Hogolu, and a
+score of other islets there?  Particularly, do you know of
+the Nan-Matal and the Metalanim?"
+
+"Of the Metalanim I have heard and seen photographs,"
+I said.  "They call it, don't they, the Lost Venice of the
+Pacific?"
+
+"Look at this map," said Throckmartin.  "That," he went
+on, "is Christian's chart of Metalanim harbour and the Nan-
+Matal.  Do you see the rectangles marked Nan-Tauach?"
+
+"Yes," I said.
+
+"There," he said, "under those walls is the Moon Pool
+and the seven gleaming lights that raise the Dweller in the
+Pool, and the altar and shrine of the Dweller.  And there in
+the Moon Pool with it lie Edith and Stanton and Thora."
+
+ "The Dweller in the Moon Pool?" I repeated half-
+incredulously.
+
+ "The Thing you saw," said Throckmartin solemnly.
+
+A solid sheet of rain swept the ports, and the Southern
+Queen began to roll on the rising swells.  Throckmartin
+drew another deep breath of relief, and drawing aside a
+curtain peered out into the night.  Its blackness seemed to
+reassure him.  At any rate, when he sat again he was entirely
+calm.
+
+"There are no more wonderful ruins in the world," he
+began almost casually.  "They take in some fifty islets and
+cover with their intersecting canals and lagoons about
+twelve square miles.  Who built them?  None knows.  When
+were they built?  Ages before the memory of present man,
+that is sure.  Ten thousand, twenty thousand, a hundred
+thousand years ago--the last more likely.
+
+"All these islets, Walter, are squared, and their shores are
+frowning seawalls of gigantic basalt blocks hewn and put in
+place by the hands of ancient man.  Each inner water-front
+is faced with a terrace of those basalt blocks which stand
+out six feet above the shallow canals that meander between
+them.  On the islets behind these walls are time-shattered
+fortresses, palaces, terraces, pyramids; immense courtyards
+strewn with ruins--and all so old that they seem to wither
+the eyes of those who look on them.
+
+"There has been a great subsidence.  You can stand out of
+Metalanim harbour for three miles and look down upon
+the tops of similar monolithic structures and walls twenty
+feet below you in the water.
+
+"And all about, strung on their canals, are the bulwarked
+islets with their enigmatic walls peering through the dense
+growths of mangroves--dead, deserted for incalculable
+ages; shunned by those who live near.
+
+"You as a botanist are familiar with the evidence that a
+vast shadowy continent existed in the Pacific--a continent
+that was not rent asunder by volcanic forces as was that
+legendary one of Atlantis in the Eastern Ocean.*1 My work
+in Java, in Papua, and in the Ladrones had set my mind
+upon this Pacific lost land.  Just as the Azores are believed
+to be the last high peaks of Atlantis, so hints came to me
+steadily that Ponape and Lele and their basalt bulwarked
+islets were the last points of the slowly sunken western land
+clinging still to the sunlight, and had been the last refuge
+and sacred places of the rulers of that race which had lost
+their immemorial home under the rising waters of the
+Pacific.
+
+
+*1 For more detailed observations on these points refer to G. Volkens,
+Uber die Karolinen Insel Yap, in Verhandlungen Gesellschaft Erd-
+kunde Berlin, xxvii (1901); J. S. Kubary, Ethnographische Beitrage
+zur Kentniss des Karolinen Archipel (Leiden, 1889-1892); De Abrade
+Historia del Conflicto de las Carolinas, etc. (Madrid, 1886).--W. T. G.
+
+
+
+"I believed that under these ruins I might find the evi-
+dence that I sought.
+
+"My--my wife and I had talked before we were married
+of making this our great work.  After the honeymoon we
+prepared for the expedition.  Stanton was as enthusiastic as
+ourselves.  We sailed, as you know, last May for fulfilment
+of my dreams.
+
+
+ "At Ponape we selected, not without difficulty, workmen
+to help us--diggers.  I had to make extraordinary induce-
+ments before I could get together my force.  Their beliefs are
+gloomy, these Ponapeans.  They people their swamps, their
+forests, their mountains, and shores, with malignant spirits--
+ani they call them.  And they are afraid--bitterly afraid of
+the isles of ruins and what they think the ruins hide.  I do not
+wonder--now!
+
+"When they were told where they were to go, and how
+long we expected to stay, they murmured.  Those who, at last,
+were tempted made what I thought then merely a super-
+stitious proviso that they were to be allowed to go away on
+the three nights of the full moon.  Would to God we had
+heeded them and gone too!"
+
+"We passed into Metalanim harbour.  Off to our left--a
+mile away arose a massive quadrangle.  Its walls were all of
+forty feet high and hundreds of feet on each side.  As we drew
+by, our natives grew very silent; watched it furtively, fear-
+fully.  I knew it for the ruins that are called Nan-Tauach, the
+'place of frowning walls.' And at the silence of my men I
+recalled what Christian had written of this place; of how he
+had come upon its 'ancient platforms and tetragonal enclo-
+sures of stonework; its wonder of tortuous alleyways and
+labyrinth of shallow canals; grim masses of stonework peer-
+ing out from behind verdant screens; cyclopean barricades,'
+and of how, when he had turned 'into its ghostly shadows,
+straight-way the merriment of guides was hushed and con-
+versation died down to whispers.'
+
+He was silent for a little time.
+
+"Of course I wanted to pitch our camp there," he went on
+again quietly, "but I soon gave up that idea.  The natives were
+panic-stricken--threatened to turn back.  'No,' they said, 'too
+great ani there.  We go to any other place--but not there.'
+
+"We finally picked for our base the islet called Uschen-
+Tau.  It was close to the isle of desire, but far enough away
+from it to satisfy our men.  There was an excellent camping-
+place and a spring of fresh water.  We pitched our tents, and
+in a couple of days the work was in full swing."
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+The Moon Rock
+
+"I DO not intend to tell you now," Throckmartin continued,
+"the results of the next two weeks, nor of what we found.
+Later--if I am allowed, I will lay all that before you.  It is
+sufficient to say that at the end of those two weeks I had
+found confirmation for many of my theories.
+
+"The place, for all its decay and desolation, had not in-
+fected us with any touch of morbidity--that is not Edith,
+Stanton, or myself.  But Thora was very unhappy.  She was a
+Swede, as you know, and in her blood ran the beliefs and su-
+perstitions of the Northland--some of them so strangely akin
+to those of this far southern land; beliefs of spirits of moun-
+tain and forest and water werewolves and beings malign.
+From the first she showed a curious sensitivity to what, I
+suppose, may be called the 'influences' of the place.  She said
+it 'smelled' of ghosts and warlocks.
+
+ "I laughed at her then--
+
+"Two weeks slipped by, and at their end the spokesman for
+our natives came to us.  The next night was the full of the
+moon, he said.  He reminded me of my promise.  They would
+go back to their village in the morning; they would return
+after the third night, when the moon had begun to wane.
+They left us sundry charms for our 'protection,' and solemnly
+cautioned us to keep as far away as possible from Nan-
+Tauach during their absence.  Half-exasperated, half-amused
+I watched them go.
+
+"No work could be done without them, of course, so we
+decided to spend the days of their absence junketing about
+the southern islets of the group.  We marked down several
+spots for subsequent exploration, and on the morning of the
+third day set forth along the east face of the breakwater for
+our camp on Uschen-Tau, planning to have everything in
+readiness for the return of our men the next day.
+
+ "We landed just before dusk, tired and ready for our cots.
+It was only a little after ten o'clock that Edith awakened me.
+
+ "'Listen!' she said.  'Lean over with your ear close to the
+ground!'
+
+"I did so, and seemed to hear, far, far below, as though
+coming up from great distances, a faint chanting.  It gathered
+strength, died down, ended; began, gathered volume, faded
+away into silence.
+
+"'It's the waves rolling on rocks somewhere,' I said.  'We're
+probably over some ledge of rock that carries the sound.'
+
+ "'It's the first time I've heard it,' replied my wife doubt-
+fully.  We listened again.  Then through the dim rhythms,
+deep beneath us, another sound came.  It drifted across the
+lagoon that lay between us and Nan-Tauach in little tinkling
+waves.  It was music--of a sort; I won't describe the strange
+effect it had upon me.  You've felt it--"
+
+ "You mean on the deck?" I asked.  Throckmartin nodded.
+
+"I went to the flap of the tent," he continued, "and peered
+out.  As I did so Stanton lifted his flap and walked out into the
+moonlight, looking over to the other islet and listening.  I
+called to him.
+
+"'That's the queerest sound!' he said.  He listened again.
+'Crystalline!  Like little notes of translucent glass.  Like the
+bells of crystal on the sistrums of Isis at Dendarah Temple,'
+he added half-dreamily.  We gazed intently at the island.
+Suddenly, on the sea-wall, moving slowly, rhythmically, we
+saw a little group of lights.  Stanton laughed.
+
+"'The beggars!' he exclaimed.  'That's why they wanted to
+get away, is it?  Don't you see, Dave, it's some sort of a fes-
+tival--rites of some kind that they hold during the full moon!
+That's why they were so eager to have us KEEP away, too.'
+
+ "The explanation seemed good.  I felt a curious sense of re-
+lief, although I had not been sensible of any oppression.
+
+"'Let's slip over,' suggested Stanton--but I would not.
+
+"'They're a difficult lot as it is,' I said.  'If we break into one
+of their religious ceremonies they'll probably never forgive
+us. Let's keep out of any family party where we haven't been
+invited.'
+
+ "'That's so,' agreed Stanton.
+
+ "The strange tinkling rose and fell, rose and fell--
+
+"'There's something--something very unsettling about it,'
+said Edith at last soberly.  'I wonder what they make those
+sounds with.  They frighten me half to death, and, at the same
+time. they make me feel as though some enormous rapture
+were just around the corner.'
+
+ "'It's devilish uncanny!' broke in Stanton.
+
+"And as he spoke the flap of Thora's tent was raised and
+out into the moonlight strode the old Swede.  She was the
+great Norse type--tall, deep-breasted, moulded on the old
+Viking lines.  Her sixty years had slipped from her.  She
+looked like some ancient priestess of Odin.
+
+"She stood there, her eyes wide, brilliant, staring.  She
+thrust her head forward toward Nan-Tauach, regarding the
+moving lights; she listened.  Suddenly she raised her arms
+and made a curious gesture to the moon.  It was--an archaic
+--movement; she seemed to drag it from remote antiquity--
+yet in it was a strange suggestion of power, Twice she re-
+peated this gesture and--the tinklings died away!  She turned
+to us.
+
+"'Go!' she said, and her voice seemed to come from far
+distances.  'Go from here--and quickly!  Go while you may.
+It has called--' She pointed to the islet.  'It knows you are
+here.  It waits!' she wailed.  'It beckons--the--the--"
+
+"She fell at Edith's feet, and over the lagoon came again
+the tinklings, now with a quicker note of jubilance--almost
+of triumph.
+
+"We watched beside her throughout the night.  The sounds
+from Nan-Tauach continued until about an hour before
+moon-set.  In the morning Thora awoke, none the worse, ap-
+parently.  She had had bad dreams, she said.  She could not
+remember what they were--except that they had warned her
+of danger.  She was oddly sullen, and throughout the morning
+her gaze returned again and again half-fascinatedly, half-
+wonderingly to the neighbouring isle.
+
+"That afternoon the natives returned.  And that night on
+Nan-Tauach the silence was unbroken nor were there lights
+nor sign of life.
+
+"You will understand, Goodwin, how the occurrences I
+have related would excite the scientific curiosity.  We rejected
+immediately, of course, any explanation admitting the super-
+natural.
+
+"Our--symptoms let me call them--could all very easily
+be accounted for.  It is unquestionable that the vibrations
+created by certain musical instruments have definite and
+sometimes extraordinary effect upon the nervous system.  We
+accepted this as the explanation of the reactions we had ex-
+perienced, hearing the unfamiliar sounds.  Thora's nervous-
+ness, her superstitious apprehensions, had wrought her up to
+a condition of semi-somnambulistic hysteria.  Science could
+readily explain her part in the night's scene.
+
+"We came to the conclusion that there must be a passage-
+way between Ponape and Nan-Tauach known to the natives
+--and used by them during their rites.  We decided that on
+the next departure of our labourers we would set forth im-
+mediately to Nan-Tauach.  We would investigate during the
+day, and at evening my wife and Thora would go back to
+camp, leaving Stanton and me to spend the night on the
+island, observing from some safe hiding-place what might
+occur.
+
+"The moon waned; appeared crescent in the west; waxed
+slowly toward the full.  Before the men left us they literally
+prayed us to accompany them.  Their importunities only made
+us more eager to see what it was that, we were now con-
+vinced, they wanted to conceal from us.  At least that was
+true of Stanton and myself.  It was not true of Edith.  She was
+thoughtful, abstracted--reluctant.
+
+"When the men were out of sight around the turn of the
+harbour, we took our boat and made straight for Nan-
+Tauach.  Soon its mighty sea-wall towered above us.  We
+passed through the water-gate with its gigantic hewn prisms
+of basalt and landed beside a half-submerged pier.  In front
+of us stretched a series of giant steps leading into a vast court
+strewn with fragments of fallen pillars.  In the centre of the
+court, beyond the shattered pillars, rose another terrace of
+basalt blocks, concealing, I knew, still another enclosure.
+
+"And now, Walter, for the better understanding of what
+follows--and--and--" he hesitated.  "Should you decide
+later to return with me or, if I am taken, to--to--follow us--
+listen carefully to my description of this place: Nan-Tauach
+is literally three rectangles.  The first rectangle is the sea-wall,
+built up of monoliths--hewn and squared, twenty feet wide
+at the top.  To get to the gateway in the sea-wall you pass
+along the canal marked on the map between Nan-Tauach
+and the islet named Tau.  The entrance to the canal is bidden
+by dense thickets of mangroves; once through these the way
+is clear.  The steps lead up from the landing of the sea-gate
+through the entrance to the courtyard.
+
+"This courtyard is surrounded by another basalt wall, rec-
+tangular, following with mathematical exactness the march
+of the outer barricades.  The sea-wall is from thirty to forty
+feet high--originally it must have been much higher, but
+there has been subsidence in parts.  The wall of the first en-
+closure is fifteen feet across the top and its height varies from
+twenty to fifty feet--here, too, the gradual sinking of the land
+has caused portions of it to fall.
+
+"Within this courtyard is the second enclosure.  Its terrace,
+of the same basalt as the outer walls, is about twenty feet
+high.  Entrance is gained to it by many breaches which time
+has made in its stonework.  This is the inner court, the heart
+of Nan-Tauach!  There lies the great central vault with which
+is associated the one name of living being that has come to us
+out of the mists of the past.  The natives say it was the treas-
+ure-house of Chau-te-leur, a mighty king who reigned long
+'before their fathers.' As Chan is the ancient Ponapean word
+both for sun and king, the name means, without doubt, 'place
+of the sun king.' It is a memory of a dynastic name of the
+race that ruled the Pacific continent, now vanished--just as
+the rulers of ancient Crete took the name of Minos and the
+rulers of Egypt the name of Pharaoh.
+
+"And opposite this place of the sun king is the moon rock
+that hides the Moon Pool.
+
+"It was Stanton who discovered the moon rock.  We had
+been inspecting the inner courtyard; Edith and Thora were
+getting together our lunch.  I came out of the vault of Chau-
+te-leur to find Stanton before a part of the terrace studying
+it wonderingly.
+
+"'What do you make of this?' he asked me as I came up.
+He pointed to the wall.  I followed his finger and saw a slab of
+stone about fifteen feet high and ten wide.  At first all I no-
+ticed was the exquisite nicety with which its edges joined the
+blocks about it.  Then I realized that its colour was subtly dif-
+ferent--tinged with grey and of a smooth, peculiar--dead-
+ness.
+
+"'Looks more like calcite than basalt,' I said.  I touched it
+and withdrew my hand quickly for at the contact every nerve
+in my arm tingled as though a shock of frozen electricity had
+passed through it.  It was not cold as we know cold.  It was a
+chill force--the phrase I have used--frozen electricity--de-
+scribes it better than anything else.  Stanton looked at me
+oddly.
+
+"'So you felt it too,' he said.  'I was wondering whether I
+was developing hallucinations like Thora.  Notice, by the way,
+that the blocks beside it are quite warm beneath the sun.'
+
+"We examined the slab eagerly.  Its edges were cut as
+though by an engraver of jewels.  They fitted against the
+neighbouring blocks in almost a hair-line.  Its base was
+slightly curved, and fitted as closely as top and sides upon the
+huge stones on which it rested.  And then we noted that these
+stones had been hollowed to follow the line of the grey stone's
+foot.  There was a semicircular depression running from one
+side of the slab to the other.  It was as though the grey rock
+stood in the centre of a shallow cup--revealing half, covering
+half.  Something about this hollow attracted me.  I reached
+down and felt it.  Goodwin, although the balance of the stones
+that formed it, like all the stones of the courtyard, were
+rough and age-worn--this was as smooth, as even surfaced as
+though it had just left the hands of the polisher.
+
+"'It's a door!' exclaimed Stanton.  'It swings around in that
+little cup.  That's what makes the hollow so smooth.'
+
+"'Maybe you're right,' I replied.  'But how the devil can we
+open it?'
+
+"We went over the slab again--pressing upon its edges,
+thrusting against its sides.  During one of those efforts I hap-
+pened to look up--and cried out.  A foot above and on each
+side of the corner of the grey rock's lintel was a slight con-
+vexity, visible only from the angle at which my gaze struck it.
+
+"We carried with us a small scaling-ladder and up this I
+went.  The bosses were apparently nothing more than chis-
+eled curvatures in the stone.  I laid my hand on the one I was
+examining, and drew it back sharply.  In my palm, at the base
+of my thumb, I had felt the same shock that I had in touch-
+ing the slab below.  I put my hand back.  The impression came
+from a spot not more than an inch wide.  I went carefully
+over the entire convexity, and six times more the chill ran
+through my arm.  There were seven circles an inch wide in
+the curved place, each of which communicated the precise
+sensation I have described.  The convexity on the opposite
+side of the slab gave exactly the same results.  But no amount
+of touching or of pressing these spots singly or in any com-
+bination gave the slightest promise of motion to the slab
+itself.
+
+ "'And yet--they're what open it,' said Stanton positively.
+
+ "'Why do you say that?' I asked.
+
+"'I--don't know,' he answered hesitatingly.  'But some-
+thing tells me so.  Throck,' he went on half earnestly, half
+laughingly, 'the purely scientific part of me is fighting the
+purely human part of me.  The scientific part is urging me to
+find some way to get that slab either down or open.  The hu-
+man part is just as strongly urging me to do nothing of the
+sort and get away while I can!'
+
+ "He laughed again--shamefacedly.
+
+"'Which shall it be?' he asked--and I thought that in his
+tone the human side of him was ascendant.
+
+"'It will probably stay as it is--unless we blow it to bits,'
+I said.
+
+"'I thought of that,' he answered, 'and I wouldn't dare,'
+he added soberly enough.  And even as I had spoken there
+came to me the same feeling that he had expressed.  It was as
+though something passed out of the grey rock that struck my
+heart as a hand strikes an impious lip.  We turned away--un-
+easily, and faced Thora coming through a breach on the ter-
+race.
+
+'Miss Edith wants you quick,' she began--and stopped.
+Her eyes went past me to the grey rock.  Her body grew rigid;
+she took a few stiff steps forward and then ran straight to it.
+She cast herself upon its breast, hands and face pressed
+against it; we heard her scream as though her very soul were
+being drawn from her--and watched her fall at its foot.  As
+we picked her up I saw steal from her face the look I had ob-
+served when first we heard the crystal music of Nan-Tauach
+--that unhuman mingling of opposites!"
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+The First Vanishings
+
+"WE CARRIED Thora back, down to where Edith was waiting.
+We told her what had happened and what we had found.
+She listened gravely, and as we finished Thora sighed and
+opened her eyes.
+
+"'I would like to see the stone,' she said.  'Charles, you stay
+here with Thora.' We passed through the outer court silently
+--and stood before the rock.  She touched it, drew back her
+hand as I had; thrust it forward again resolutely and held it
+there.  She seemed to be listening.  Then she turned to me.
+
+"'David,' said my wife, and the wistfulness in her voice
+hurt me--'David, would you be very, very disappointed if we
+went from here--without trying to find out any more about
+it--would you?'
+
+"Walter, I never wanted anything so much in my life as I
+wanted to learn what that rock concealed.  Nevertheless, I
+tried to master my desire, and I answered--'Edith, not a bit
+if you want us to do it.'
+
+"She read my struggle in my eyes.  She turned back toward
+the grey rock.  I saw a shiver pass through her.  I felt a tinge
+of remorse and pity!
+
+ "'Edith,' I exclaimed, 'we'll go!'
+
+"She looked at me again.  'Science is a jealous mistress,' she
+quoted.  'No, after all it may be just fancy.  At any rate, you
+can't run away.  No!  But, Dave, I'm going to stay too!'
+
+"And there was no changing her decision.  As we neared
+the others she laid a hand on my arm.
+
+"'Dave,' she said, 'if there should be something--well--
+inexplicable tonight--something that seems--too dangerous
+--will you promise to go back to our own islet tomorrow, if
+we can--and wait until the natives return?'
+
+"I promised eagerly--the desire to stay and see what came
+with the night was like a fire within me.
+
+"We picked a place about five hundred feet away from the
+steps leading into the outer court.
+
+"The spot we had selected was well hidden.  We could not
+be seen, and yet we had a clear view of the stairs and the
+gateway.  We settled down just before dusk to wait for what-
+ever might come.  I was nearest the giant steps; next me
+Edith; then Thora, and last Stanton.
+
+"Night fell.  After a time the eastern sky began to lighten,
+and we knew that the moon was rising; grew lighter still, and
+the orb peeped over the sea; swam into full sight.  I glanced
+at Edith and then at Thora.  My wife was intently listening.
+Thora sat, as she had since we had placed ourselves, elbows
+on knees, her hands covering her face.
+
+"And then from the moonlight flooding us there dripped
+down on me a great drowsiness.  Sleep seemed to seep from
+the rays and fall upon my eyes, closing them--closing them
+inexorably.  Edith's hand in mine relaxed.  Stanton's head fell
+upon his breast and his body swayed drunkenly.  I tried to
+rise--to fight against the profound desire for slumber that
+pressed on me.
+
+"And as I fought, Thora raised her head as though listen-
+ing; and turned toward the gateway.  There was infinite des-
+pair in her face--and expectancy.  I tried again to rise--and a
+surge of sleep rushed over me.  Dimly, as I sank within it, I
+heard a crystalline chiming; raised my lids once more with a
+supreme effort.
+
+"Thora, bathed in light, was standing at the top of the
+stairs.
+
+"Sleep took me for its very own--swept me into the heart
+of oblivion!
+
+"Dawn was breaking when I wakened.  Recollection rushed
+back; I thrust a panic-stricken hand out toward Edith;
+touched her and my heart gave a great leap of thankfulness.
+She stirred, sat up, rubbing dazed eyes.  Stanton lay on his
+side, back toward us, head in arms.
+
+"Edith looked at me laughingly.  'Heavens!  What sleep!'
+she said.  Memory came to her.
+
+"'What happened?' she whispered.  'What made us sleep
+like that?'
+
+ "Stanton awoke.
+
+"'What's the matter!' he exclaimed.  'You look as though
+you've been seeing ghosts.'
+
+ "Edith caught my hands.
+
+"'Where's Thora?' she cried.  Before I could answer she
+had run out into the open, calling.
+
+"'Thora was taken,' was all I could say to Stanton, 'to-
+gether we went to my wife, now standing beside the great
+stone steps, looking up fearfully at the gateway into the ter-
+races.  There I told them what I had seen before sleep had
+drowned me.  And together then we ran up the stairs, through
+the court and to the grey rock.
+
+"The slab was closed as it had been the day before, nor was
+there trace of its having opened.  No trace?  Even as I thought
+this Edith dropped to her knees before it and reached toward
+something lying at its foot.  It was a little piece of gay silk.  I
+knew it for part of the kerchief Thora wore about her hair.
+She lifted the fragment.  It had been cut from the kerchief as
+though by a razor-edge; a few threads ran from it--down to-
+ward the base of the slab; ran on to the base of the grey rock
+and--under it!
+
+"The grey rock was a door!  And it had opened and Thora
+had passed through it!
+
+"I think that for the next few minutes we all were a little
+insane.  We beat upon that portal with our hands, with stones
+and sticks.  At last reason came back to us.
+
+"Goodwin, during the next two hours we tried every way
+in our power to force entrance through the slab.  The rock re-
+sisted our drills.  We tried explosions at the base with charges
+covered by rock.  They made not the slightest impression on
+the surface, expending their force, of course, upon the
+slighter resistance of their coverings.
+
+"Afternoon found us hopeless.  Night was coming on and
+we would have to decide our course of action.  I wanted to go
+to Ponape for help.  But Edith objected that this would take
+hours and after we had reached there it would be impossible
+to persuade our men to return with us that night, if at all.
+What then was left?  Clearly only one of two choices: to go
+back to our camp, wait for our men, and on their return try
+to persuade them to go with us to Nan-Tauach.  But this
+would mean the abandonment of Thora for at least two days.
+We could not do it; it would have been too cowardly.
+
+"The other choice was to wait where we were for night to
+come; to wait for the rock to open as it had the night before,
+and to make a sortie through it for Thora before it could
+close again.
+
+"Our path lay clear before us.  We had to spend that night
+on Nan-Tauach!
+
+"We had, of course, discussed the sleep phenomena very
+fully.  If our theory that lights, sounds, and Thora's disap-
+pearance were linked with secret religious rites of the na-
+tives, the logical inference was that the slumber had been
+produced by them, perhaps by vapours--you know as well as
+I, what extraordinary knowledge these Pacific peoples have
+of such things.  Or the sleep might have been simply a coin-
+cidence and produced by emanations either gaseous or from
+plants, natural causes which had happened to coincide in
+their effects with the other manifestations.  We made some
+rough and ready but effective respirators.
+
+"As dusk fell we looked over our weapons.  Edith was an
+excellent shot with both rifle and pistol.  We had decided that
+my wife was to remain in the hiding-place.  Stanton would
+take up a station on the far side of the stairway and I would
+place myself opposite him on the side near Edith.  The place
+I picked out was less than two hundred feet from her, and I
+could reassure myself now and then as to her safety as it
+looked down upon the hollow wherein she crouched.  From
+our respective stations Stanton and I could command the
+gateway entrance.  His position gave him also a glimpse of
+the outer courtyard.
+
+"A faint glow in the sky heralded the moon.  Stanton and I
+took our places.  The moon dawn increased rapidly; the disk
+swam up, and in a moment it was shining in full radiance
+upon ruins and sea.
+
+"As it rose there came a curious little sighing sound from
+the inner terrace.  Stanton straightened up and stared in-
+tently through the gateway, rifle ready.
+
+"'Stanton, what do you see?' I called cautiously.  He waved
+a silencing hand.  I turned my head to look at Edith.  A shock
+ran through me.  She lay upon her side.  Her face, grotesque
+with its nose and mouth covered by the respirator, was
+turned full toward the moon.  She was again in deepest sleep!
+
+"As I turned again to call to Stanton, my eyes swept the
+head of the steps and stopped, fascinated.  For the moon-
+light had thickened.  It seemed to be--curdled--there; and
+through it ran little gleams and veins of shimmering white
+fire.  A languor passed through me.  It was not the ineffable
+drowsiness of the preceding night.  It was a sapping of all will
+to move.  I tried to cry out to Stanton.  I had not even the will
+to move my lips.  Goodwin--I could not even move my eyes!
+
+"Stanton was in the range of my fixed vision.  I watched
+him leap up the steps and move toward the gateway.  The
+curdled radiance seemed to await him.  He stepped into it--
+and was lost to my sight.
+
+"For a dozen heart beats there was silence.  Then a rain of
+tinklings that set the pulses racing with joy and at once
+checked them with tiny fingers of ice--and ringing through
+them Stanton's voice from the courtyard--a great cry--a
+scream--filled with ecstasy insupportable and horror un-
+imaginable!  And once more there was silence.  I strove to
+burst the bonds that held me.  I could not.  Even my eyelids
+were fixed.  Within them my eyes, dry and aching, burned.
+
+"Then Goodwin--I first saw the--inexplicable!  The crys-
+talline music swelled.  Where I sat I could take in the gate-
+way and its basalt portals, rough and broken, rising to the
+top of the wall forty feet above, shattered, ruined portals--
+unclimbable.  From this gateway an intenser light began to
+flow.  It grew, it gushed, and out of it walked Stanton.
+
+ "Stanton!  But--God!  What a vision!"
+
+ A deep tremor shook him.  I waited--waited.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+Into the Moon Pool
+
+"GOODWIN," Throckmartin went on at last, "I can describe
+him only as a thing of living light.  He radiated light; was
+filled with light; overflowed with it.  A shining cloud whirled
+through and around him in radiant swirls, shimmering ten-
+tacles, luminescent, coruscating spirals.
+
+"His face shone with a rapture too great to be borne by
+living man, and was shadowed with insuperable misery.  It
+was as though it had been remoulded by the hand of God and
+the hand of Satan, working together and in harmony.  You
+have seen that seal upon my own.  But you have never seen
+it in the degree that Stanton bore it.  The eyes were wide
+open and fixed, as though upon some inward vision of hell
+and heaven!
+
+"The light that filled and surrounded him had a nucleus, a
+core--something shiftingly human shaped--that dissolved
+and changed, gathered itself, whirled through and beyond
+him and back again.  And as its shining nucleus passed
+through him Stanton's whole body pulsed radiance.  As the
+luminescence moved, there moved above it, still and serene
+always, seven tiny globes of seven colors, like seven little
+moons.
+
+"Then swiftly Stanton was lifted--levitated--up the un-
+scalable wall and to its top.  The glow faded from the moon-
+light, the tinkling music grew fainter.  I tried again to move.
+The tears were running down now from my rigid lids and
+they brought relief to my tortured eyes.
+
+"I have said my gaze was fixed.  It was.  But from the side,
+peripherally, it took in a part of the far wall of the outer en-
+closure.  Ages seemed to pass and a radiance stole along it.
+Soon drifted into sight the figure that was Stanton.  Far away
+he was--on the gigantic wall.  But still I could see the shin-
+ing spirals whirling jubilantly around and through him; felt
+rather than saw his tranced face beneath the seven moons.
+A swirl of crystal notes, and he had passed.  And all the time,
+as though from some opened well of light, the courtyard
+gleamed and sent out silver fires that dimmed the moon-
+rays, yet seemed strangely to be a part of them.
+
+"At last the moon neared the horizon.  There came a louder
+burst of sound; the second, and last, cry of Stanton, like an
+echo of his first!  Again the soft sighing from the inner ter-
+race.  Then--utter silence!
+
+"The light faded; the moon was setting and with a rush
+life and power to move returned to me.  I made a leap for the
+steps, rushed up them, through the gateway and straight to
+the grey rock.  It was closed--as I knew it would be.  But did
+I dream it or did I bear, echoing through it as though from
+vast distances a triumphant shouting?
+
+"I ran back to Edith.  At my touch she wakened; looked
+at me wanderingly; raised herself on a hand.
+
+"'Dave!' she said, 'I slept--after all.' She saw the despair
+on my face and leaped to her feet.  'Dave!' she cried.  'What
+is it?  Where's Charles?'
+
+"I lighted a fire before I spoke.  Then I told her.  And for
+the balance of that night we sat before the flames, arms
+around each other--like two frightened children."
+
+Abruptly Throckmartin held his hands out to me appeal-
+ingly.
+
+Walter, old friend!" he cried.  "Don't look at me as though
+I were mad.  It's truth, absolute truth.  Wait--" I comforted
+him as well as I could.  After a little time he took up his story.
+
+"Never," he said, "did man welcome the sun as we did
+that morning.  A soon as it had risen we went back to the
+courtyard.  The walls whereon I had seen Stanton were black
+and silent.  The terraces were as they had been.  The grey
+slab was in its place.  In the shallow hollow at its base was--
+nothing.  Nothing--nothing was there anywhere on the islet
+of Stanton--not a trace.
+
+"What were we to do?  Precisely the same arguments that
+had kept us there the night before held good now--and
+doubly good.  We could not abandon these two; could not go
+as long as there was the faintest hope of finding them--and
+yet for love of each other how could we remain?  I loved my
+wife,--how much I never knew until that day; and she loved
+me as deeply.
+
+'It takes only one each night,' she pleaded.  'Beloved, let
+it take me.'
+
+ "I wept, Walter.  We both wept.
+
+"'We will meet it together,' she said.  And it was thus at
+last that we arranged it."
+
+"That took great courage indeed, Throckmartin," I inter-
+rupted.  He looked at me eagerly.
+
+ "You do believe then?" he exclaimed.
+
+"I believe," I said.  He pressed my hand with a grip that
+nearly crushed it.
+
+"Now," he told me.  "I do not fear.  If I--fail, you will fol-
+low with help?"
+
+I promised.
+
+"We talked it over carefully," he went on, "bringing to
+bear all our power of analysis and habit of calm, scientific
+thought.  We considered minutely the time element in the
+phenomena.  Although the deep chanting began at the very
+moment of moonrise, fully five minutes had passed between
+its full lifting and the strange sighing sound from the inner
+terrace.  I went back in memory over the happenings of the
+night before.  At least ten minutes had intervened between
+the first heralding sigh and the intensification of the moon-
+light in the courtyard.  And this glow grew for at least ten
+minutes more before the first burst of the crystal notes.  In-
+deed, more than half an hour must have elapsed, I calculated,
+between the moment the moon showed above the horizon
+and the first delicate onslaught of the tinklings.
+
+"'Edith!' I cried.  'I think I have it!  The grey rock opens
+five minutes after upon the moonrise.  But whoever or what-
+ever it is that comes through it must wait until the moon has
+risen higher, or else it must come from a distance.  The thing
+to do is not to wait for it, but to surprise it before it passes
+out the door.  We will go into the inner court early.  You will
+take your rifle and pistol and hide yourself where you can
+command the opening--if the slab does open.  The instant it
+opens I will enter.  It's our best chance, Edith.  I think it's our
+only one.'
+
+"My wife demurred strongly.  She wanted to go with me.
+But I convinced her that it was better for her to stand guard
+without, prepared to help me if I were forced again into the
+open by what lay behind the rock.
+
+"At the half-hour before moonrise we went into the inner
+court.  I took my place at the side of the grey rock.  Edith
+crouched behind a broken pillar twenty feet away; slipped
+her rifle-barrel over it so that it would cover the opening.
+
+"The minutes crept by.  The darkness lessened and through
+the breaches of the terrace I watched the far sky softly
+lighten.  With the first pale flush the silence of the place
+intensified.  It deepened; became unbearably--expectant.  The
+moon rose, showed the quarter, the half, then swam up into
+full sight like a great bubble.
+
+"Its rays fell upon the wall before me and suddenly upon
+the convexities I have described seven little circles of light
+sprang out.  They gleamed, glimmered, grew brighter--shone.
+The gigantic slab before me glowed with them, silver wave-
+lets of phosphorescence pulsed over its surface and then--
+it turned as though on a pivot, sighing softly as it moved!
+
+"With a word to Edith I flung myself through the opening.
+A tunnel stretched before me.  It glowed with the same faint
+silvery radiance.  Down it I raced.  The passage turned ab-
+ruptly, passed parallel to the walls of the outer courtyard
+and then once more led downward.
+
+"The passage ended.  Before me was a high vaulted arch.
+It seemed to open into space; a space filled with lambent,
+coruscating, many-coloured mist whose brightness grew even
+as I watched.  I passed through the arch and stopped in sheer
+awe!
+
+"In front of me was a pool.  It was circular, perhaps twenty
+feet wide.  Around it ran a low, softly curved lip of glimmer-
+ing silvery stone.  Its water was palest blue.  The pool with its
+silvery rim was like a great blue eye staring upward.
+
+"Upon it streamed seven shafts of radiance.  They poured
+down upon the blue eye like cylindrical torrents; they were
+like shining pillars of light rising from a sapphire floor.
+
+"One was the tender pink of the pearl; one of the aurora's
+green; a third a deathly white; the fourth the blue in mother-
+of-pearl; a shimmering column of pale amber; a beam of
+amethyst; a shaft of molten silver.  Such are the colours of
+the seven lights that stream upon the Moon Pool.  I drew
+closer, awestricken.  The shafts did not illumine the depths.
+They played upon the surface and seemed there to diffuse,
+to melt into it.  The Pool drank them?
+
+"Through the water tiny gleams of phosphorescence be-
+gan to dart, sparkles and coruscations of pale incandescence.
+And far, far below I sensed a movement, a shifting glow as
+of a radiant body slowly rising.
+
+"I looked upward, following the radiant pillars to their
+source.  Far above were seven shining globes, and it was from
+these that the rays poured.  Even as I watched their bright-
+ness grew.  They were like seven moons set high in some
+caverned heaven.  Slowly their splendour increased, and with
+it the splendour of the seven beams streaming from them.
+
+"I tore my gaze away and stared at the Pool.  It had grown
+milky, opalescent.  The rays gushing into it seemed to be
+filling it; it was alive with sparklings, scintillations, glimmer-
+ings.  And the luminescence I had seen rising from its depths
+was larger, nearer!
+
+"A swirl of mist floated up from its surface.  It drifted
+within the embrace of the rosy beam and hung there for a
+moment.  The beam seemed to embrace it, sending through
+it little shining corpuscles, tiny rosy spiralings.  The mist
+absorbed the rays, was strengthened by them, gained sub-
+stance.  Another swirl sprang into the amber shaft, clung and
+fed there, moved swiftly toward the first and mingled with
+it. And now other swirls arose, here and there, too fast to
+be counted; hung poised in the embrace of the light streams;
+flashed and pulsed into each other.
+
+"Thicker and thicker still they arose until over the surface
+of the Pool was a pulsating pillar of opalescent mist steadily
+growing stronger; drawing within it life from the seven
+beams falling upon it; drawing to it from below the darting,
+incandescent atoms of the Pool.  Into its centre was passing
+the luminescence rising from the far depths.  And the pillar
+glowed, throbbed--began to send out questing swirls and
+tendrils--
+
+"There forming before me was That which had walked
+with Stanton, which had taken Thora--the thing I had come
+to find!
+
+"My brain sprang into action.  My hand threw up the pistol
+and I fired shot after shot into the shining core.
+
+"As I fired, it swayed and shook; gathered again.  I slipped
+a second clip into the automatic and another idea coming
+to me took careful aim at one of the globes in the roof.  From
+thence I knew came the force that shaped this Dweller in
+the Pool--from the pouring rays came its strength.  If I could
+destroy them I could check its forming.  I fired again and
+again.  If I hit the globes I did no damage.  The little motes
+in their beams danced with the motes in the mist, troubled.
+That was all.
+
+"But up from the Pool like little bells, like tiny bursting
+bubbles of glass, swarmed the tinkling sounds--their pitch
+higher, all their sweetness lost, angry.
+
+"And out from the Inexplicable swept a shining spiral.
+
+"It caught me above the heart; wrapped itself around me.
+There rushed through me a mingled ecstasy and horror.
+Every atom of me quivered with delight and shrank with
+despair.  There was nothing loathsome in it.  But it was as
+though the icy soul of evil and the fiery soul of good had
+stepped together within me.  The pistol dropped from my
+hand.
+
+"So I stood while the Pool gleamed and sparkled; the
+streams of light grew more intense and the radiant Thing
+that held me gleamed and strengthened.  Its shining core had
+shape--but a shape that my eyes and brain could not define.
+It was as though a being of another sphere should assume
+what it might of human semblance, but was not able to con-
+ceal that what human eyes saw was but a part of it.  It was
+neither man nor woman; it was unearthly and androgynous.
+Even as I found its human semblance it changed.  And still
+the mingled rapture and terror held me.  Only in a little corner
+of my brain dwelt something untouched; something that held
+itself apart and watched.  Was it the soul?  I have never be-
+lieved--and yet--
+
+"Over the head of the misty body there sprang suddenly
+out seven little lights.  Each was the colour of the beam be-
+neath which it rested.  I knew now that the Dweller was--
+complete!
+
+"I heard a scream.  It was Edith's voice.  It came to me
+that she had heard the shots and followed me.  I felt every
+faculty concentrate into a mighty effort.  I wrenched myself
+free from the gripping tentacle and it swept back.  I turned
+to catch Edith, and as I did so slipped--fell.
+
+"The radiant shape above the Pool leaped swiftly--and
+straight into it raced Edith, arms outstretched to shield me
+from it!  God!
+
+"She threw herself squarely within its splendour," he
+whispered.  "It wrapped its shining self around her.  The crys-
+tal tinklings burst forth jubilantly.  The light filled her, ran
+through and around her as it had with Stanton; and dropped
+down upon her face--the look!
+
+"But her rush had taken her to the very verge of the
+Moon Pool.  She tottered; she fell--with the radiance still
+holding her, still swirling and winding around and through
+her--into the Moon Pool!  She sank, and with her went--the
+Dweller!
+
+"I dragged myself to the brink.  Far down was a shining,
+many-coloured nebulous cloud descending; out of it peered
+Edith's face, disappearing; her eyes stared up at me--and
+she vanished!
+
+ "'Edith!' I cried again.  'Edith, come back to me!'
+
+"And then a darkness fell upon me.  I remember running
+back through the shimmering corridors and out into the
+courtyard.  Reason had left me.  When it returned I was far
+out at sea in our boat wholly estranged from civilization.  A
+day later I was picked up by the schooner in which I came to
+Port Moresby.
+
+"I have formed a plan; you must bear it, Goodwin--" He
+fell upon his berth.  I bent over him.  Exhaustion and the re-
+lief of telling his story had been too much for him.  He slept
+like the dead.
+
+All that night I watched over him.  When dawn broke I
+went to my room to get a little sleep myself.  But my slumber
+was haunted.
+
+The next day the storm was unabated.  Throckmartin came
+to me at lunch.  He had regained much of his old alertness.
+
+"Come to my cabin," he said.  There, he stripped his shirt
+from him.  "Something is happening," he said.  "The mark is
+smaller." It was as he said.
+
+"I'm escaping," he whispered jubilantly, "Just let me get
+to Melbourne safely, and then we'll see who'll win!  For,
+Walter, I'm not at all sure that Edith is dead--as we know
+death--nor that the others are.  There is something outside
+experience there--some great mystery."
+
+And all that day he talked to me of his plans.
+
+"There's a natural explanation, of course," he said.  "My
+theory is that the moon rock is of some composition sensitive
+to the action of moon rays; somewhat as the metal selenium
+is to sun rays.  The little circles over the top are, without
+doubt, its operating agency.  When the light strikes them
+they release the mechanism that opens the slab, just as you
+can open doors with sun or electric light by an ingenious ar-
+rangement of selenium-cells.  Apparently it takes the strength
+of the full moon both to do this and to summon the Dweller
+in the Pool.  We will first try a concentration of the rays of
+the waning moon upon these circles to see whether that will
+open the rock.  If it does we will be able to investigate the
+Pool without interruption from--from--what emanates.
+
+"Look, here on the chart are their locations.  I have made
+this in duplicate for you in the event--of something hap-
+pening--to me.  And if I lose--you'll come after us, Good-
+win, with help--won't you?"
+
+ And again I promised.
+
+ A little later he complained of increasing sleepiness.
+
+"But it's just weariness," he said.  "Not at all like that other
+drowsiness.  It's an hour till moonrise still," he yawned at
+last.  "Wake me up a good fifteen minutes before."
+
+He lay upon the berth.  I sat thinking.  I came to myself
+with a guilty start.  I had completely lost myself in my deep
+preoccupation.  What time was it?  I looked at my watch and
+jumped to the port-hole.  It was full moonlight; the orb had
+been up for fully half an hour.  I strode over to Throckmartin
+and shook him by the shoulder.
+
+"Up, quick, man!" I cried.  He rose sleepily.  His shirt fell
+open at the neck and I looked, in amazement, at the white
+band around his chest.  Even under the electric light it shone
+softly, as though little flecks of light were in it.
+
+Throckmartin seemed only half-awake.  He looked down
+at his breast, saw the glowing cincture, and smiled.
+
+"Yes," he said drowsily, "it's coming--to take me back to
+Edith!  Well, I'm glad."
+
+ "Throckmartin!" I cried.  "Wake up!  Fight!"
+
+ "Fight!" he said.  "No use; come after us!"
+
+He went to the port and sleepily drew aside the curtain.
+The moon traced a broad path of light straight to the ship.
+Under its rays the band around his chest gleamed brighter
+and brighter; shot forth little rays; seemed to writhe.
+
+The lights went out in the cabin; evidently also through-
+out the ship, for I heard shoutings above.
+
+Throckmartin still stood at the open port.  Over his shoul-
+der I saw a gleaming pillar racing along the moon path to-
+ward us.  Through the window cascaded a blinding radiance.
+It gathered Throckmartin to it, clothed him in a robe of
+living opalescence.  Light pulsed through and from him.  The
+cabin filled with murmurings--
+
+A wave of weakness swept over me, buried me in black-
+ness.  When consciousness came back, the lights were again
+burning brightly.
+
+ But of Throckmartin there was no trace!
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+"The Shining Devil Took Them!"
+
+MY COLLEAGUES of the Association, and you others who
+may read this my narrative, for what I did and did not when
+full realization returned I must offer here, briefly as I can,
+an explanation; a defense--if you will.
+
+My first act was to spring to the open port.  The coma had
+lasted hours, for the moon was now low in the west!  I ran
+to the door to sound the alarm.  It resisted under my frantic
+hands; would not open.  Something fell tinkling to the floor.
+It was the key and I remembered then that Throckmartin
+had turned it before we began our vigil.  With memory a
+hope died that I had not known was in me, the hope that
+he had escaped from the cabin, found refuge elsewhere on
+the ship.
+
+And as I stooped, fumbling with shaking fingers for the
+key, a thought came to me that drove again the blood from
+my heart, held me rigid.  I could sound no alarm on the
+Southern Queen for Throckmartin!
+
+Conviction of my appalling helplessness was complete.
+The ensemble of the vessel from captain to cabin boy was,
+to put it conservatively, average.  None, I knew, save Throck-
+martin and myself had seen the first apparition of the
+Dweller.  Had they witnessed the second?  I did not know,
+nor could I risk speaking, not knowing.  And not seeing, how
+could they believe?  They would have thought me insane--
+or worse; even, it might be, his murderer.
+
+I snapped off the electrics; waited and listened; opened the
+door with infinite caution and slipped, unseen, into my own
+stateroom.  The hours until the dawn were eternities of wak-
+ing nightmare.  Reason, resuming sway at last, steadied me.
+Even had I spoken and been believed where in these wastes
+after all the hours could we search for Throckmartin?  Cer-
+tainly the captain would not turn back to Port Moresby.  And
+even if he did, of what use for me to set forth for the Nan-
+Matal without the equipment which Throckmartin himself
+had decided was necessary if one hoped to cope with the
+mystery that lurked there?
+
+There was but one thing to do--follow his instructions;
+get the paraphernalia in Melbourne or Sydney if it were
+possible; if not sail to America as swiftly as might be, secure
+it there and as swiftly return to Ponape.  And this I deter-
+mined to do.
+
+Calmness came back to me after I had made this decision.
+And when I went up on deck I knew that I had been right.
+They had not seen the Dweller.  They were still discussing
+the darkening of the ship, talking of dynamos burned out,
+wires short circuited, a half dozen explanations of the ex-
+tinguishment.  Not until noon was Throckmartin's absence
+discovered.  I told the captain that I had left him early in the
+evening; that, indeed, I knew him but slightly, after all.  It
+occurred to none to doubt me, or to question me minutely.
+Why should it have?  His strangeness had been noted, com-
+mented upon; all who had met him had thought him half
+mad.  I did little to discourage the impression.  And so it came
+naturally that on the log it was entered that he had fallen
+or leaped from the vessel some time during the night.
+
+A report to this effect was made when we entered Mel-
+bourne.  I slipped quietly ashore and in the press of the war
+news Throckmartin's supposed fate won only a few lines in
+the newspapers; my own presence on the ship and in the
+city passed unnoticed.
+
+I was fortunate in securing at Melbourne everything I
+needed except a set of Becquerel ray condensers--but these
+were the very keystone of my equipment.  Pursuing my
+search to Sydney I was doubly fortunate in finding a firm
+who were expecting these very articles in a consignment due
+them from the States within a fortnight.  I settled down in
+strictest seclusion to await their arrival.
+
+And now it will occur to you to ask why I did not cable,
+during this period of waiting, to the Association; demand
+aid from it.  Or why I did not call upon members of the Uni-
+versity staffs of either Melbourne or Sydney for assistance.
+At the least, why I did not gather, as Throckmartin had
+hoped to do, a little force of strong men to go with me to the
+Nan-Matal.
+
+To the first two questions I answer frankly--I did not dare.
+And this reluctance, this inhibition, every man jealous of his
+scientific reputation will understand.  The story of Throck-
+martin, the happenings I had myself witnessed, were in-
+credible, abnormal, outside the facts of all known science.  I
+shrank from the inevitable disbelief, perhaps ridicule--nay,
+perhaps even the graver suspicion that had caused me to
+seal my lips while on the ship.  Why I myself could only half
+believe!  How then could I hope to convince others?
+
+And as for the third question--I could not take men into
+the range of such a peril without first warning them of what
+they might encounter; and if I did warn them--
+
+It was checkmate!  If it also was cowardice--well, I have
+atoned for it.  But I do not hold it so; my conscience is clear.
+
+That fortnight and the greater part of another passed be-
+fore the ship I awaited steamed into port.  By that time, be-
+tween my straining anxiety to be after Throckmartin, the
+despairing thought that every moment of delay might be
+vital to him and his, and my intensely eager desire to know
+whether that shining, glorious horror on the moon path did
+exist or had been hallucination, I was worn almost to the
+edge of madness.
+
+At last the condensers were in my hands.  It was more than
+a week later, however, before I could secure passage back
+to Port Moresby and it was another week still before I
+started north on the Suwarna, a swift little sloop with a fifty-
+horsepower auxiliary, heading straight for Ponape and the
+Nan-Matal.
+
+ We sighted the Brunhilda some five hundred miles south
+of the Carolines.  The wind had fallen soon after Papua had
+dropped astern.  The Suwarna's ability to make her twelve
+knots an hour without it had made me very fully forgive
+her for not being as fragrant as the Javan flower for which
+she was named.  Da Costa, her captain, was a garrulous
+Portuguese; his mate was a Canton man with all the marks
+of long and able service on some pirate junk; his engineer
+was a half-breed China-Malay who had picked up his knowl-
+edge of power plants, Heaven alone knew where, and, I had
+reason to believe, had transferred all his religious impulses
+to the American built deity of mechanism he so faithfully
+served.  The crew was made up of six huge, chattering Tonga
+boys.
+
+The Suwarna had cut through Finschafen Huon Gulf to
+the protection of the Bismarcks.  She had threaded the maze
+of the archipelago tranquilly, and we were then rolling over
+the thousand-mile stretch of open ocean with New Hanover
+far behind us and our boat's bow pointed straight toward
+Nukuor of the Monte Verdes.  After we had rounded Nukuor
+we should, barring accident, reach Ponape in not more than
+sixty hours.
+
+It was late afternoon, and on the demure little breeze that
+marched behind us came far-flung sighs of spice-trees and
+nutmeg flowers.  The slow prodigious swells of the Pacific
+lifted us in gentle, giant hands and sent us as gently down
+the long, blue wave slopes to the next broad, upward slope.
+There was a spell of peace over the ocean, stilling even the
+Portuguese captain who stood dreamily at the wheel, slowly
+swaying to the rhythmic lift and fall of the sloop.
+
+There came a whining hail from the Tonga boy lookout
+draped lazily over the bow.
+
+"Sail he b'long port side!"
+
+Da Costa straightened and gazed while I raised my glass.
+The vessel was a scant mile away, and must have been visible
+long before the sleepy watcher had seen her.  She was a
+sloop about the size of the Suwarna, without power.  All
+sails set, even to a spinnaker she carried, she was making
+the best of the little breeze.  I tried to read her name, but
+the vessel jibed sharply as though the hands of the man at
+the wheel had suddenly dropped the helm--and then with
+equal abruptness swung back to her course.  The stern came
+in sight, and on it I read Brunhilda.
+
+I shifted my glasses to the man at wheel.  He was crouch-
+ing down over the spokes in a helpless, huddled sort of way,
+and even as I looked the vessel veered again, abruptly as
+before.  I saw the helmsman straighten up and bring the
+wheel about with a vicious jerk.
+
+He stood so for a moment, looking straight ahead, entirely
+oblivious of us, and then seemed again to sink down within
+himself.  It came to me that his was the action of a man striv-
+ing vainly against a weariness unutterable.  I swept the deck
+with my glasses.  There was no other sign of life.  I turned to
+find the Portuguese staring intently and with puzzled air at
+the sloop, now separated from us by a scant half mile.
+
+"Something veree wrong I think there, sair," he said in
+his curious English.  "The man on deck I know.  He is cap-
+tain and owner of the Br-rwun'ild.  His name Olaf Huldricks-
+son, what you say--Norwegian.  He is eithair veree sick or
+veree tired--but I do not undweerstand where is the crew
+and the starb'd boat is gone--"
+
+He shouted an order to the engineer and as he did so the
+faint breeze failed and the sails of the Brunhilda flapped
+down inert.  We were now nearly abreast and a scant hun-
+dred yards away.  The engine of the Suwarna died and the
+Tonga boys leaped to one of the boats.
+
+"You Olaf Huldricksson!" shouted Da Costa.  "What's a
+matter wit' you?"
+
+The man at the wheel turned toward us.  He was a giant;
+his shoulders enormous, thick chested, strength in every line
+of him, he towered like a viking of old at the rudder bar of
+his shark ship.
+
+I raised the glass again; his face sprang into the lens and
+never have I seen a visage lined and marked as though by
+ages of unsleeping misery as was that of Olaf Huldricksson!
+
+The Tonga boys had the boat alongside and were waiting
+at the oars.  The little captain was dropping into it.
+
+"Wait!" I cried.  I ran into my cabin, grasped my emerg-
+ency medical kit and climbed down the rope ladder.  The
+Tonga boys bent to the oars.  We reached the side and Da
+Costa and I each seized a lanyard dangling from the stays
+and swung ourselves on board.  Da Costa approached Hul-
+dricksson softly.
+
+"What's the matter, Olaf?" he began--and then was silent,
+looking down at the wheel.  The hands of Huldricksson were
+lashed fast to the spokes by thongs of thin, strong cord; they
+were swollen and black and the thongs had bitten into the
+sinewy wrists till they were hidden in the outraged flesh,
+cutting so deeply that blood fell, slow drop by drop, at his
+feet!  We sprang toward him, reaching out hands to his fetters
+to loose them.  Even as we touched them, Huldricksson
+aimed a vicious kick at me and then another at Da Costa
+which sent the Portuguese tumbling into the scuppers.
+
+"Let be!" croaked Huldricksson; his voice was thick and
+lifeless as though forced from a dead throat; his lips were
+cracked and dry and his parched tongue was black.  "Let be!
+Go!  Let be!"
+
+ The Portuguese had picked himself up, whimpering with
+rage and knife in hand, but as Huldricksson's voice reached
+him he stopped.  Amazement crept into his eyes and as he
+thrust the blade back into his belt they softened with pity.
+
+"Something veree wrong wit' Olaf," he murmured to me.
+"I think he crazee!" And then Olaf Huldricksson began to
+curse us.  He did not speak--he howled from that hideously
+dry mouth his imprecations.  And all the time his red eyes
+roamed the seas and his hands, clenched and rigid on the
+wheel, dropped blood.
+
+"I go below," said Da Costa nervously.  "His wife, his
+daughter--" he darted down the companionway and was
+gone.
+
+Huldricksson, silent once more, had slumped down over
+the wheel.
+
+Da Costa's head appeared at the top of the companion
+steps.
+
+"There is nobody, nobody," he paused--then--"nobody
+--nowhere!" His hands flew out in a gesture of hopeless in-
+comprehension.  "I do not understan'."
+
+Then Olaf Huldricksson opened his dry lips and as he
+spoke a chill ran through me, checking my heart.
+
+"The sparkling devil took them!" croaked Olaf Huldricks-
+son, "the sparkling devil took them!  Took my Helma and my
+little Freda!  The sparkling devil came down from the moon
+and took them!"
+
+He swayed; tears dripped down his cheeks.  Da Costa
+moved toward him again and again Huldricksson watched
+him, alertly, wickedly, from his bloodshot eyes.
+
+I took a hypodermic from my case and filled it with mor-
+phine.  I drew Da Costa to me.
+
+"Get to the side of him," I whispered, "talk to him." He
+moved over toward the wheel.
+
+"Where is your Helma and Freda, Olaf?" he said.
+
+Huldricksson turned his head toward him.  "The shining
+devil took them," he croaked.  "The moon devil that
+spark--"
+
+A yell broke from him.  I had thrust the needle into his
+arm just above one swollen wrist and had quickly shot the
+drug through.  He struggled to release himself and then be-
+gan to rock drunkenly.  The morphine, taking him in his
+weakness, worked quickly.  Soon over his face a peace
+dropped.  The pupils of the staring eyes contracted.  Once,
+twice, he swayed and then, his bleeding, prisoned hands held
+high and still gripping the wheel, he crumpled to the deck.
+
+With utmost difficulty we loosed the thongs, but at last it
+was done.  We rigged a little swing and the Tonga boys slung
+the great inert body over the side into the dory.  Soon we had
+Huldricksson in my bunk.  Da Costa sent half his crew over
+to the sloop in charge of the Cantonese.  They took in all sail,
+stripping Huldricksson's boat to the masts and then with
+the Brunhilda nosing quietly along after us at the end of a
+long hawser, one of the Tonga boys at her wheel, we re-
+sumed the way so enigmatically interrupted.
+
+I cleansed and bandaged the Norseman's lacerated wrists
+and sponged the blackened, parched mouth with warm water
+and a mild antiseptic.
+
+Suddenly I was aware of Da Costa's presence and turned.
+His unease was manifest and held, it seemed to me, a queer,
+furtive anxiety.
+
+"What you think of Olaf, sair?" he asked.  I shrugged my
+shoulders.  "You think he killed his woman and his babee?"
+He went on.  "You think he crazee and killed all?"
+
+"Nonsense, Da Costa," I answered.  "You saw the boat
+was gone.  Most probably his crew mutinied and to torture
+him tied him up the way you saw.  They did the same thing
+with Hilton of the Coral Lady; you'll remember."
+
+"No," he said.  "No.  The crew did not.  Nobody there on
+board when Olaf was tied."
+
+ "What!" I cried, startled.  "What do you mean?"
+
+ "I mean," he said slowly, "that Olaf tie himself!"
+
+"Wait!" he went on at my incredulous gesture of dissent.
+"Wait, I show you." He had been standing with hands behind
+his back and now I saw that he held in them the cut thongs
+that had bound Huldricksson.  They were blood-stained and
+each ended in a broad leather tip skilfully spliced into the
+cord.  "Look," he said, pointing to these leather ends.  I
+looked and saw in them deep indentations of teeth.  I snatched
+one of the thongs and opened the mouth of the unconscious
+man on the bunk.  Carefully I placed the leather within it and
+gently forced the jaws shut on it.  It was true.  Those marks
+were where Olaf Huldricksson's jaws had gripped.
+
+"Wait!" Da Costa repeated, "I show you." He took other
+cords and rested his hands on the supports of a chair back.
+Rapidly he twisted one of the thongs around his left hand,
+drew a loose knot, shifted the cord up toward his elbow.
+This left wrist and hand still free and with them he twisted
+the other cord around the right wrist; drew a similar knot.
+His hands were now in the exact position that Huldricks-
+son's had been on the Brunhilda but with cords and knots
+hanging loose.  Then Da Costa reached down his head, took
+a leather end in his teeth and with a jerk drew the thong
+that noosed his left hand tight; similarly he drew tight the
+second.
+
+He strained at his fetters.  There before my eyes he had
+pinioned himself so that without aid he could not release
+himself.  And he was exactly as Huldricksson had been!
+
+"You will have to cut me loose, sair," he said.  "I cannot
+move them.  It is an old trick on these seas.  Sometimes it is
+necessary that a man stand at the wheel many hours with-
+out help, and he does this so that if he sleep the wheel wake
+him, yes, sair."
+
+ I looked from him to the man on the bed.
+
+"But why, sair," said Da Costa slowly, "did Olaf have to
+tie his hands?"
+
+ I looked at him, uneasily.
+
+ "I don't know," I answered.  "Do you?"
+
+He fidgeted, avoided my eyes, and then rapidly, almost
+surreptitiously crossed himself.
+
+"No," he replied.  "I know nothing.  Some things I have
+heard--but they tell many tales on these seas."
+
+He started for the door.  Before he reached it he turned.
+"But this I do know," he half whispered, "I am damned glad
+there is no full moon tonight." And passed out, leaving me
+staring after him in amazement.  What did the Portuguese
+know?
+
+I bent over the sleeper.  On his face was no trace of that
+unholy mingling of opposites the Dweller stamped upon its
+victims.
+
+ And yet--what was it the Norseman had said?
+
+ "The sparkling devil took them!"  Nay, he had been even
+more explicit--"The sparkling devil that came down from
+the moon!"
+
+Could it be that the Dweller had swept upon the Brun-
+hilda, drawing down the moon path Olaf Huldricksson's
+wife and babe even as it had drawn Throckmartin?
+
+As I sat thinking the cabin grew suddenly dark and from
+above came a shouting and patter of feet.  Down upon us
+swept one of the abrupt, violent squalls that are met with in
+those latitudes.  I lashed Huldricksson fast in the berth and
+ran up on deck.
+
+The long, peaceful swells had changed into angry, choppy
+waves from the tops of which the spindrift streamed in long
+stinging lashes.
+
+A half-hour passed; the squall died as quickly as it had
+arisen.  The sea quieted.  Over in the west, from beneath the
+tattered, flying edge of the storm, dropped the red globe of
+the setting sun; dropped slowly until it touched the sea rim.
+
+I watched it--and rubbed my eyes and stared again.  For
+over its flaming portal something huge and black moved,
+like a gigantic beckoning finger!
+
+Da Costa had seen it, too, and he turned the Suwarna
+straight toward the descending orb and its strange shadow.
+As we approached we saw it was a little mass of wreckage
+and that the beckoning finger was a wing of canvas, sticking
+up and swaying with the motion of the waves.  On the high-
+est point of the wreckage sat a tall figure calmly smoking a
+cigarette.
+
+We brought the Suwarna to, dropped a boat, and with my-
+self as coxswain pulled toward a wrecked hydroairplane.  Its
+occupant took a long puff at his cigarette, waved a cheerful
+hand, shouted a greeting.  And just as he did so a great wave
+raised itself up behind him, took the wreckage, tossed it high
+in a swelter of foam, and passed on.  When we had steadied
+our boat, where wreck and man had been was--nothing.
+
+There came a tug at the side--, two muscular brown
+hands gripped it close to my left, and a sleek, black, wet head
+showed its top between them.  Two bright, blue eyes that
+held deep within them a laughing deviltry looked into mine,
+and a long, lithe body drew itself gently over the thwart and
+seated its dripping self at my feet.
+
+"Much obliged," said this man from the sea.  "I knew
+somebody was sure to come along when the O'Keefe ban-
+shee didn't show up."
+
+"The what?" I asked in amazement.
+
+"The O'Keefe banshee--I'm Larry O'Keefe.  It's a far
+way from Ireland, but not too far for the O'Keefe banshee
+to travel if the O'Keefe was going to click in."
+
+I looked again at my astonishing rescue.  He seemed per-
+fectly serious.
+
+"Have you a cigarette?  Mine went out," he said with a
+grin, as he reached a moist hand out for the little cylinder,
+took it, lighted it.
+
+I saw a lean, intelligent face whose fighting jaw was soft-
+ened by the wistfulness of the clean-cut lips and the honesty
+that lay side by side with the deviltry in the laughing blue
+eyes; nose of a thoroughbred with the suspicion of a tilt;
+long, well-knit, slender figure that I knew must have all the
+strength of fine steel; the uniform of a lieutenant in the
+Royal Flying Corps of Britain's navy.
+
+ He laughed, stretched out a firm hand, and gripped mine.
+
+ "Thank you really ever so much, old man," he said.
+
+I liked Larry O'Keefe from the beginning--but I did not
+dream as the Tonga boys pulled us back to the Suwarna bow
+that liking was to be forged into man's strong love for man
+by fires which souls such as his and mine--and yours who
+read this--could never dream.
+
+Larry!  Larry O'Keefe, where are you now with your
+leprechauns and banshee, your heart of a child, your laugh-
+ing blue eyes, and your fearless soul?  Shall I ever see you
+again, Larry O'Keefe, dear to me as some best beloved
+younger brother?  Larry!
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+Larry O'Keefe
+
+PRESSING BACK the questions I longed to ask, I introduced
+myself.  Oddly enough, I found that he knew me, or rather
+my work.  He had bought, it appeared, my volume upon the
+peculiar vegetation whose habitat is disintegrating lava rock
+and volcanic ash, that I had entitled, somewhat loosely, I
+could now perceive, Flora of the Craters.  For he explained
+naively that he had picked it up, thinking it an entirely
+different sort of a book, a novel in fact--something like
+Meredith's Diana of the Crossways, which he liked greatly.
+
+He had hardly finished this explanation when we touched
+the side of the Suwarna, and I was forced to curb my curi-
+osity until we reached the deck.
+
+"That thing you saw me sitting on," he said, after he had
+thanked the bowing little skipper for his rescue, "was all
+that was left of one of his Majesty's best little hydroairplanes
+after that cyclone threw it off as excess baggage.  And by the
+way, about where are we?"
+
+Da Costa gave him our approximate position from the
+noon reckoning.
+
+O'Keefe whistled.  "A good three hundred miles from
+where I left the H.M.S. Dolphin about four hours ago," he
+said.  "That squall I rode in on was some whizzer!
+
+"The Dolphin," he went on, calmly divesting himself of
+his soaked uniform, "was on her way to Melbourne.  I'd been
+yearning for a joy ride and went up for an alleged scouting
+trip.  Then that blow shot out of nowhere, picked me up, and
+insisted that I go with it.
+
+"About an hour ago I thought I saw a chance to zoom up
+and out of it, I turned, and BLICK went my right wing, and
+down I dropped."
+
+"I don't know how we can notify your ship, Lieutenant
+O'Keefe," I said.  "We have no wireless."
+
+"Doctair Goodwin," said Da Costa, "we could change our
+course, sair--perhaps--"
+
+"Thanks--but not a bit of it," broke in O'Keefe.  "Lord
+alone knows where the Dolphin is now.  Fancy she'll be nos-
+ing around looking for me.  Anyway, she's just as apt to run
+into you as you into her.  Maybe we'll strike something with
+a wireless, and I'll trouble you to put me aboard." He hesi-
+tated.  "Where are you bound, by the way?" he asked.
+
+"For Ponape," I answered.
+
+"No wireless there," mused O'Keefe.  "Beastly hole.
+Stopped a week ago for fruit.  Natives seemed scared to death
+at us--or something.  What are you going there for?"
+
+ Da Costa darted a furtive glance at me.  It troubled me.
+
+ O'Keefe noted my hesitation.
+
+"Oh, I beg your pardon," he said.  "Maybe I oughn't to
+have asked that?"
+
+"It's no secret, Lieutenant," I replied.  "I'm about to under-
+take some exploration work--a little digging among the
+ruins on the Nan-Matal."
+
+I looked at the Portuguese sharply as I named the place.
+A pallor crept beneath his skin and again he made swiftly
+the sign of the cross, glancing as he did so fearfully to the
+north.  I made up my mind then to question him when op-
+portunity came.  He turned from his quick scrutiny of the
+sea and addressed O'Keefe.
+
+"There's nothing on board to fit you, Lieutenant."
+
+"Oh, just give me a sheet to throw around me, Captain,"
+said O'Keefe and followed him.  Darkness had fallen, and as
+the two disappeared into Da Costa's cabin I softly opened
+the door of my own and listened.  Huldricksson was breath-
+ing deeply and regularly.
+
+I drew my electric-flash, and shielding its rays from my
+face, looked at him.  His sleep was changing from the heavy
+stupor of the drug into one that was at least on the border-
+land of the normal.  The tongue had lost its arid blackness
+and the mouth secretions had resumed action.  Satisfied as to
+his condition I returned to deck.
+
+O'Keefe was there, looking like a spectre in the cotton
+sheet he had wrapped about him.  A deck table had been
+cleated down and one of the Tonga boys was setting it for
+our dinner.  Soon the very creditable larder of the Suwarna
+dressed the board, and O'Keefe, Da Costa, and I attacked it.
+The night had grown close and oppressive.  Behind us the
+forward light of the Brunhilda glided and the binnacle lamp
+threw up a faint glow in which her black helmsman's face
+stood out mistily.  O'Keefe had looked curiously a number
+of times at our tow, but had asked no questions.
+
+"You're not the only passenger we picked up today," I
+told him.  "We found the captain of that sloop, lashed to his
+wheel, nearly dead with exhaustion, and his boat deserted by
+everyone except himself."
+
+"What was the matter?" asked O'Keefe in astonishment.
+
+"We don't know," I answered.  "He fought us, and I had
+to drug him before we could get him loose from his lashings.
+He's sleeping down in my berth now.  His wife and little girl
+ought to have been on board, the captain here says, but--
+they weren't."
+
+"Wife and child gone!" exclaimed O'Keefe.
+
+"From the condition of his mouth he must have been
+alone at the wheel and without water at least two days and
+nights before we found him," I replied.  "And as for looking
+for anyone on these waters after such a time--it's hopeless."
+
+"That's true," said O'Keefe.  "But his wife and baby!  Poor,
+poor devil!"
+
+He was silent for a time, and then, at my solicitation, be-
+gan to tell us more of himself.  He had been little more than
+twenty when he had won his wings and entered the war.  He
+had been seriously wounded at Ypres during the third year
+of the struggle, and when he recovered the war was over.
+Shortly after that his mother had died.  Lonely and restless,
+he had re-entered the Air Service, and had remained in it
+ever since.
+
+"And though the war's long over, I get homesick for the
+lark's land with the German planes playing tunes on their
+machine guns and their Archies tickling the soles of my
+feet," he sighed.  "If you're in love, love to the limit; and if
+you hate, why hate like the devil and if it's a fight you're in,
+get where it's hottest and fight like hell--if you don't life's
+not worth the living," sighed he.
+
+I watched him as he talked, feeling my liking for him
+steadily increasing.  If I could but have a man like this be-
+side me on the path of unknown peril upon which I had set
+my feet I thought, wistfully.  We sat and smoked a bit, sip-
+ping the strong coffee the Portuguese made so well.
+
+Da Costa at last relieved the Cantonese at the wheel.
+O'Keefe and I drew chairs up to the rail.  The brighter stars
+shone out dimly through a hazy sky; gleams of phosphores-
+cence tipped the crests of the waves and sparkled with an
+almost angry brilliance as the bow of the Suwarna tossed
+them aside.  O'Keefe pulled contentedly at a cigarette.  The
+glowing spark lighted the keen, boyish face and the blue
+eyes, now black and brooding under the spell of the tropic
+night.
+
+ "Are you American or Irish, O'Keefe?" I asked suddenly.
+
+ "Why?" he laughed.
+
+"Because," I answered, "from your name and your service
+I would suppose you Irish--but your command of pure
+Americanese makes me doubtful."
+
+He grinned amiably.
+
+"I'll tell you how that is," he said.  "My mother was an
+American--a Grace, of Virginia.  My father was the
+O'Keefe, of Coleraine.  And these two loved each other so
+well that the heart they gave me is half Irish and half
+American.  My father died when I was sixteen.  I used to go
+to the States with my mother every other year for a month
+or two.  But after my father died we used to go to Ireland
+every other year.  And there you are--I'm as much Ameri-
+can as I am Irish.
+
+"When I'm in love, or excited, or dreaming, or mad I
+have the brogue.  But for the everyday purpose of life I like
+the United States talk, and I know Broadway as well as I do
+Binevenagh Lane, and the Sound as well as St. Patrick's
+Channel; educated a bit at Eton, a bit at Harvard; always
+too much money to have to make any; in love lots of times,
+and never a heartache after that wasn't a pleasant one, and
+never a real purpose in life until I took the king's shilling
+and earned my wings; something over thirty--and that's me
+--Larry O'Keefe."
+
+"But it was the Irish O'Keefe who sat out there waiting
+for the banshee," I laughed.
+
+"It was that," he said somberly, and I heard the brogue
+creep over his voice like velvet and his eyes grew brooding
+again.  "There's never an O'Keefe for these thousand years
+that has passed without his warning.  An' twice have I heard
+the banshee calling--once it was when my younger brother
+died an' once when my father lay waiting to be carried out
+on the ebb tide."
+
+He mused a moment, then went on: "An' once I saw an
+Annir Choille, a girl of the green people, flit like a shade of
+green fire through Carntogher woods, an' once at Dun-
+chraig I slept where the ashes of the Dun of Cormac Mac-
+Concobar are mixed with those of Cormac an' Eilidh the
+Fair, all burned in the nine flames that sprang from the harp-
+ing of Cravetheen, an' I heard the echo of his dead harp-
+ings--"
+
+He paused again and then, softly, with that curiously
+sweet, high voice that only the Irish seem to have, he sang:
+
+
+Woman of the white breasts, Eilidh;
+Woman of the gold-brown hair, and lips of the red, red rowan,
+Where is the swan that is whiter, with breast more soft,
+Or the wave on the sea that moves as thou movest, Eilidh.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+Olaf's Story
+
+THERE was a little silence.  I looked upon him with wonder.
+Clearly he was in deepest earnest.  I know the psychology
+of the Gael is a curious one and that deep in all their hearts
+their ancient traditions and beliefs have strong and living
+roots.  And I was both amused and touched.
+
+Here was this soldier, who had faced war and its ugly
+realities open-eyed and fearless, picking, indeed, the most
+dangerous branch of service for his own, a modern if ever
+there was one, appreciative of most unmystical Broadway,
+and yet soberly and earnestly attesting to his belief in ban-
+shee, in shadowy people of the woods, and phantom harpers!
+I wondered what he would think if he could see the Dweller
+and then, with a pang, that perhaps his superstitions might
+make him an easy prey.
+
+He shook his head half impatiently and ran a hand over
+his eyes; turned to me and grinned:
+
+"Don't think I'm cracked, Professor," he said.  "I'm not.
+But it takes me that way now and then.  It's the Irish in me.
+And, believe it or not, I'm telling you the truth."
+
+I looked eastward where the moon, now nearly a week
+past the full, was mounting.
+
+"You can't make me see what you've seen, Lieutenant," I
+laughed.  "But you can make me hear.  I've always wondered
+what kind of a noise a disembodied spirit could make with-
+out any vocal cords or breath or any other earthly sound-
+producing mechanism.  How does the banshee sound?"
+
+O'Keefe looked at me seriously.
+
+"All right," he said.  "I'll show you." From deep down in
+his throat came first a low, weird sobbing that mounted
+steadily into a keening whose mournfulness made my skin
+creep.  And then his hand shot out and gripped my shoulder,
+and I stiffened like stone in my chair--for from behind us,
+like an echo, and then taking up the cry, swelled a wail that
+seemed to hold within it a sublimation of the sorrows of
+centuries!  It gathered itself into one heartbroken, sobbing
+note and died away!  O'Keefe's grip loosened, and he rose
+swiftly to his feet.
+
+"It's all right, Professor," he said.  "It's for me.  It found
+me--all this way from Ireland."
+
+Again the silence was rent by the cry.  But now I had lo-
+cated it.  It came from my room, and it could mean only one
+thing--Huldricksson had wakened.
+
+"Forget your banshee!" I gasped, and made a jump for the
+cabin.
+
+Out of the corner of my eye I noted a look of half-sheep-
+ish relief flit over O'Keefe's face, and then he was beside me.
+Da Costa shouted an order from the wheel, the Cantonese
+ran up and took it from his hands and the little Portuguese
+pattered down toward us.  My hand on the door, ready to
+throw it open, I stopped.  What if the Dweller were within--
+what if we had been wrong and it was not dependent for its
+power upon that full flood of moon ray which Throck-
+martin had thought essential to draw it from the blue pool!
+
+From within, the sobbing wail began once more to rise.
+O'Keefe pushed me aside, threw open the door and crouched
+low within it.  I saw an automatic flash dully in his hand; saw
+it cover the cabin from side to side, following the swift sweep
+of his eyes around it.  Then he straightened and his face,
+turned toward the berth, was filled with wondering pity.
+
+Through the window streamed a shaft of the moonlight.
+It fell upon Huldricksson's staring eyes; in them great tears
+slowly gathered and rolled down his cheeks; from his opened
+mouth came the woe-laden wailing.  I ran to the port and
+drew the curtains.  Da Costa snapped the lights.
+
+The Norseman's dolorous crying stopped as abruptly as
+though cut.  His gaze rolled toward us.  And at one bound
+he broke through the leashes I had buckled round him and
+faced us, his eyes glaring, his yellow hair almost erect with
+the force of the rage visibly surging through him.  Da Costa
+shrunk behind me.  O'Keefe, coolly watchful, took a quick
+step that brought him in front of me.
+
+"Where do you take me?" said Huldricksson, and his
+voice was like the growl of a beast.  "Where is my boat?"
+
+I touched O'Keefe gently and stood before the giant.
+
+"Listen, Olaf Huldricksson," I said.  "We take you to
+where the sparkling devil took your Helma and your Freda.
+We follow the sparkling devil that came down from the
+moon.  Do you hear me?" I spoke slowly, distinctly, striving
+to pierce the mists that I knew swirled around the strained
+brain.  And the words did pierce.
+
+He thrust out a shaking hand.
+
+"You say you follow?" he asked falteringly.  "You know
+where to follow?  Where it took my Helma and my little
+Freda?"
+
+"Just that, Olaf Huldricksson," I answered.  "Just that!  I
+pledge you my life that I know."
+
+Da Costa stepped forward.  "He speaks true, Olaf.  You go
+faster on the Suwarna than on the Br-rw-un'ilda, Olaf, yes."
+
+The giant Norseman, still gripping my hand, looked at
+him.  "I know you, Da Costa," he muttered.  "You are all
+right.  Ja!  You are a fair man.  Where is the Brunhilda?"
+
+"She follow be'ind on a big rope, Olaf," soothed the Por-
+tuguese.  "Soon you see her.  But now lie down an' tell us, if
+you can, why you tie yourself to your wheel an' what it is
+that happen, Olaf."
+
+"If you'll tell us how the sparkling devil came it will help
+us all when we get to where it is, Huldricksson," I said.
+
+On O'Keefe's face there was an expression of well-nigh lu-
+dicrous doubt and amazement.  He glanced from one to the
+other.  The giant shifted his own tense look from me to the
+Irishman.  A gleam of approval lighted in his eyes.  He loosed
+me, and gripped O'Keefe's arm. "Staerk!" he said. "Ja--
+strong, and with a strong heart.  A man--ja!  He comes too--
+we shall need him--ja!"
+
+"I tell," he muttered, and seated himself on the side of the
+bunk.  "It was four nights ago.  My Freda"--his voice shook
+--"Mine Yndling!  She loved the moonlight.  I was at the
+wheel and my Freda and my Helma they were behind me.
+The moon was behind us and the Brunhilda was like a swan-
+boat sailing down with the moonlight sending her, ja.
+
+"I heard my Freda say: 'I see a nisse coming down the
+track of the moon.' And I hear her mother laugh, low, like a
+mother does when her Yndling dreams.  I was happy--that
+night--with my Helma and my Freda, and the Brunhilda
+sailing like a swan-boat, ja.  I heard the child say, 'The nisse
+comes fast!' And then I heard a scream from my Helma, a
+great scream--like a mare when her foal is torn from her.  I
+spun around fast, ja!  I dropped the wheel and spun fast!  I
+saw--" He covered his eyes with his hands.
+
+The Portuguese had crept close to me, and I heard him
+panting like a frightened dog.
+
+"I saw a white fire spring over the rail," whispered Olaf
+Huldricksson.  "It whirled round and round, and it shone like
+--like stars in a whirlwind mist.  There was a noise in my
+ears.  It sounded like bells--little bells, ja!  Like the music
+you make when you run your finger round goblets.  It made
+me sick and dizzy--the hell noise.
+
+"My Helma was--indeholde--what you say--in the mid-
+dle of the white fire.  She turned her face to me and she
+turned it on the child, and my Helma's face burned into my
+heart.  Because it was full of fear, and it was full of happi-
+ness--of glaede.  I tell you that the fear in my Helma's face
+made me ice here"--he beat his breast with clenched hand--
+"but the happiness in it burned on me like fire.  And I could
+not move--I could not move.
+
+"I said in here"--he touched his head--"I said, 'It is Loki
+come out of Helvede.  But he cannot take my Helma, for
+Christ lives and Loki has no power to hurt my Helma or my
+Freda!  Christ lives!  Christ lives!' I said.  But the sparkling
+devil did not let my Helma go.  It drew her to the rail; half
+over it.  I saw her eyes upon the child and a little she broke
+away and reached to it.  And my Freda jumped into her
+arms.  And the fire wrapped them both and they were gone!  A
+little I saw them whirling on the moon track behind the
+Brunhilda--and they were gone!
+
+"The sparkling devil took them!  Loki was loosed, and he
+had power.  I turned the Brunhilda, and I followed where
+my Helma and mine Yndling had gone.  My boys crept up
+and asked me to turn again.  But I would not.  They dropped
+a boat and left me.  I steered straight on the path.  I lashed
+my hands to the wheel that sleep might not loose them.  I
+steered on and on and on--
+
+"Where was the God I prayed when my wife and child
+were taken?" cried Olaf Huldricksson--and it was as though
+I heard Throckmartin asking that same bitter question.  "I
+have left Him as He left me, ja!  I pray now to Thor and to
+Odin, who can fetter Loki." He sank back, covering again
+his eyes.
+
+"Olaf," I said, "what you have called the sparkling devil
+has taken ones dear to me.  I, too, was following it when we
+found you.  You shall go with me to its home, and there we
+will try to take from it your wife and your child and my
+friends as well.  But now that you may be strong for what is
+before us, you must sleep again."
+
+Olaf Huldricksson looked upon me and in his eyes was
+that something which souls must see in the eyes of Him the
+old Egyptians called the Searcher of Hearts in the Judgment
+Hall of Osiris.
+
+"You speak truth!" he said at last slowly.  "I will do what
+you say!"
+
+He stretched out an arm at my bidding.  I gave him a sec-
+ond injection.  He lay back and soon he was sleeping.  I turned
+toward Da Costa.  His face was livid and sweating, and he
+was trembling pitiably.  O'Keefe stirred.
+
+"You did that mighty well, Dr. Goodwin," he said.  "So
+well that I almost believed you myself."
+
+"What did you think of his story, Mr. O'Keefe?" I asked.
+
+His answer was almost painfully brief and colloquial.
+
+"Nuts!" he said. I was a little shocked, I admit. "I think
+he's crazy, Dr. Goodwin," he corrected himself, quickly.
+"What else could I think?"
+
+I turned to the little Portuguese without answering.
+
+"There's no need for any anxiety tonight, Captain," I said.
+"Take my word for it. You need some rest yourself.  Shall I
+give you a sleeping draft?"
+
+"I do wish you would, Dr. Goodwin, sair," he answered
+gratefully.  "Tomorrow, when I feel bettair--I would have a
+talk with you."
+
+I nodded.  He did know something then!  I mixed him an
+opiate of considerable strength.  He took it and went to his
+own cabin.
+
+I locked the door behind him and then, sitting beside the
+sleeping Norseman, I told O'Keefe my story from end to end.
+He asked few questions as I spoke.  But after I had finished
+he cross-examined me rather minutely upon my recollec-
+tions of the radiant phases upon each appearance, checking
+these with Throckmartin's observations of the same phe-
+nomena in the Chamber of the Moon Pool.
+
+"And now what do you think of it all?" I asked.
+
+He sat silent for a while, looking at Huldricksson.
+
+"Not what you seem to think, Dr. Goodwin," he answered
+at last, gravely.  "Let me sleep over it.  One thing of course
+is certain--you and your friend Throckmartin and this man
+here saw--something.  But--" he was silent again and then
+continued with a kindness that I found vaguely irritating--
+"but I've noticed that when a scientist gets superstitious it--
+er--takes very hard!
+
+"Here's a few things I can tell you now though," he went
+on while I struggled to speak--"I pray in my heart that we'll
+meet neither the Dolphin nor anything with wireless on
+board going up.  Because, Dr. Goodwin, I'd dearly love to
+take a crack at your Dweller.
+
+"And another thing," said O'Keefe.  "After this--cut out
+the trimmings, Doc, and call me plain Larry, for whether I
+think you're crazy or whether I don't, you're there with the
+nerve, Professor, and I'm for YOU.
+
+"Good night!" said Larry and took himself out to the deck
+hammock he had insisted upon having slung for him, re-
+fusing the captain's importunities to use his own cabin.
+
+And it was with extremely mixed emotions as to his com-
+pliment that I watched him go.  Superstitious.  I, whose pride
+was my scientific devotion to fact and fact alone!  Supersti-
+tious--and this from a man who believed in banshees and
+ghostly harpers and Irish wood nymphs and no doubt in
+leprechauns and all their tribe!
+
+Half laughing, half irritated, and wholly happy in even
+the part promise of Larry O'Keefe's comradeship on my ven-
+ture, I arranged a couple of pillows, stretched myself out on
+two chairs and took up my vigil beside Olaf Huldricksson.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+A Lost Page of Earth
+
+WHEN I awakened the sun was streaming through the cabin
+porthole.  Outside a fresh voice lilted.  I lay on my two chairs
+and listened.  The song was one with the wholesome sunshine
+and the breeze blowing stiffly and whipping the curtains.  It
+was Larry O'Keefe at his matins:
+
+
+The little red lark is shaking his wings,
+Straight from the breast of his love he springs
+
+
+Larry's voice soared.
+
+
+His wings and his feathers are sunrise red,
+He hails the sun and his golden head,
+Good morning, Doc, you are long abed.
+
+
+
+This last was a most irreverent interpolation, I well knew.
+I opened my door.  O'Keefe stood outside laughing.  The
+Suwarna, her engines silent, was making fine headway under
+all sail, the Brunhilda skipping in her wake cheerfully with
+half her canvas up.
+
+The sea was crisping and dimpling under the wind.  Blue
+and white was the world as far as the eye could reach.
+Schools of little silvery green flying fish broke through the
+water rushing on each side of us; flashed for an instant and
+were gone.  Behind us gulls hovered and dipped.  The shadow
+of mystery had retreated far over the rim of this wide awake
+and beautiful world and if, subconsciously, I knew that some-
+where it was brooding and waiting, for a little while at least
+I was consciously free of its oppression.
+
+"How's the patient?" asked O'Keefe.
+
+He was answered by Huldricksson himself, who must have
+risen just as I left the cabin.  The Norseman had slipped on a
+pair of pajamas and, giant torso naked under the sun, he
+strode out upon us.  We all of us looked at him a trifle anx-
+iously.  But Olaf's madness had left him.  In his eyes was
+much sorrow, but the berserk rage was gone.
+
+He spoke straight to me: "You said last night we follow?"
+
+I nodded.
+
+"It is where?" he asked again.
+
+"We go first to Ponape and from there to Metalanim Har-
+bour--to the Nan-Matal.  You know the place?"
+
+Huldricksson bowed--a white gleam as of ice showing in
+his blue eyes.
+
+"It is there?" he asked.
+
+"It is there that we must first search," I answered.
+
+"Good!" said Olaf Huldricksson.  "It is good!"
+
+He looked at Da Costa inquiringly and the little Portu-
+guese, following his thought, answered his unspoken ques-
+tion.
+
+"We should be at Ponape tomorrow morning early, Olaf."
+
+"Good!" repeated the Norseman.  He looked away, his eyes
+tear-filled.
+
+A restraint fell upon us; the embarrassment all men ex-
+perience when they feel a great sympathy and a great pity,
+to neither of which they quite know how to give expression.
+By silent consent we discussed at breakfast only the most
+casual topics.
+
+When the meal was over Huldricksson expressed a desire
+to go aboard the Brunhilda.
+
+The Suwarna hove to and Da Costa and he dropped into
+the small boat.  When they reached the Brunhilda's deck I
+saw Olaf take the wheel and the two fall into earnest talk.  I
+beckoned to O'Keefe and we stretched ourselves out on the
+bow hatch under cover of the foresail.  He lighted a cigarette,
+took a couple of leisurely puffs, and looked at me expect-
+antly.
+
+"Well?" I asked.
+
+"Well," said O'Keefe, "suppose you tell me what you
+think--and then I'll proceed to point out your scientific
+errors." His eyes twinkled mischievously.
+
+"Larry," I replied, somewhat severely, "you may not know
+that I have a scientific reputation which, putting aside all
+modesty, I may say is an enviable one.  You used a word last
+night to which I must interpose serious objection.  You more
+than hinted that I hid--superstitions.  Let me inform you,
+Larry O'Keefe, that I am solely a seeker, observer, analyst,
+and synthesist of facts.  I am not"--and I tried to make my
+tone as pointed as my words--"I am not a believer in phan-
+toms or spooks, leprechauns, banshees, or ghostly harpers."
+
+O'Keefe leaned back and shouted with laughter.
+
+"Forgive me, Goodwin," he gasped.  "But if you could
+have seen yourself solemnly disclaiming the banshee"--
+another twinkle showed in his eyes--"and then with all this
+sunshine and this wide-open world"--he shrugged his
+shoulders--"it's hard to visualize anything such as you and
+Huldricksson have described."
+
+"I know how hard it is, Larry," I answered.  "And don't
+think I have any idea that the phenomenon is supernatural
+in the sense spiritualists and table turners have given that
+word.  I do think it is supernormal; energized by a force un-
+known to modern science--but that doesn't mean I think it
+outside the radius of science."
+
+"Tell me your theory, Goodwin," he said.  I hesitated--
+for not yet had I been able to put into form to satisfy myself
+any explanation of the Dweller.
+
+"I think," I hazarded finally, "it is possible that some
+members of that race peopling the ancient continent which
+we know existed here in the Pacific, have survived.  We know
+that many of these islands are honeycombed with caverns
+and vast subterranean spaces, literally underground lands
+running in some cases far out beneath the ocean floor.  It is
+possible that for some reason survivors of this race sought
+refuge in the abysmal spaces, one of whose entrances is on
+the islet where Throckmartin's party met its end.
+
+"As for their persistence in these caverns--we know they
+possessed a high science.  They may have gone far in the
+mastery of certain universal forms of energy--especially
+that we call light.  They may have developed a civilization
+and a science far more advanced than ours.  What I call the
+Dweller may be one of the results of this science.  Larry--it
+may well be that this lost race is planning to emerge again
+upon earth's surface!"
+
+"And is sending out your Dweller as a messenger, a sci-
+entific dove from their Ark?" I chose to overlook the banter
+in his question.
+
+"Did you ever hear of the Chamats?" I asked him.  He
+shook his head.
+
+"In Papua," I explained, "there is a wide-spread and im-
+measurably old tradition that 'imprisoned under the hills' is
+a race of giants who once ruled this region 'when it stretched
+from sun to sun before the moon god drew the waters over
+it'--I quote from the legend.  Not only in Papua but through-
+out Malaysia you find this story.  And, so the tradition runs,
+these people--the Chamats--will one day break through the
+hills and rule the world; 'make over the world' is the literal
+translation of the constant phrase in the tale.  It was Herbert
+Spencer who pointed out that there is a basis of fact in every
+myth and legend of man.  It is possible that these survivors I
+am discussing form Spencer's fact basis for the Malaysian legend.1
+
+
+*1William Beebe, the famous American naturalist and ornithologist,
+recently fighting in France with America's air force, called attention
+to this remarkable belief in an article printed not long ago in the
+Atlantic Monthly.  Still more significant was it that he noted a per-
+sistent rumour that the breaking out of the buried race was close.--
+W.J. B., Pres. I. A. of S.
+
+
+
+"This much is sure--the moon door, which is clearly
+operated by the action of moon rays upon some unknown
+element or combination and the crystals through which the
+moon rays pour down upon the pool their prismatic columns,
+are humanly made mechanisms.  So long as they are humanly
+made, and so long as it IS this flood of moonlight from which
+the Dweller draws its power of materialization, the Dweller
+itself, if not the product of the human mind, is at least de-
+pendent upon the product of the human mind for its appear-
+ance."
+
+"Wait a minute, Goodwin," interrupted O'Keefe.  "Do
+you mean to say you think that this thing is made of--well
+--of moonshine?"
+
+"Moonlight," I replied, "is, of course, reflected sunlight.
+But the rays which pass back to earth after their impact on
+the moon's surface are profoundly changed.  The spectro-
+scope shows that they lose practically all the slower vibra-
+tions we call red and infra-red, while the extremely rapid
+vibrations we call the violet and ultra-violet are accelerated
+and altered.  Many scientists hold that there is an unknown
+element in the moon--perhaps that which makes the gigantic
+luminous trails that radiate in all directions from the lunar
+crater Tycho--whose energies are absorbed by and carried
+on the moon rays.
+
+
+
+"At any rate, whether by the loss of the vibrations of the
+red or by the addition of this mysterious force, the light of
+the moon becomes something entirely different from mere
+modified sunlight--just as the addition or subtraction of one
+other chemical in a compound of several makes the product
+a substance with entirely different energies and potentiali-
+ties.
+
+"Now these rays, Larry, are given perhaps still another
+mysterious activity by the globes through which Throck-
+martin said they passed in the Chamber of the Moon Pool.
+The result is the necessary factor in the formation of the
+Dweller.  There would be nothing scientifically improbable
+in such a process.  Kubalski, the great Russian physicist, pro-
+duced crystalline forms exhibiting every faculty that we call
+vital by subjecting certain combinations of chemicals to the
+action of highly concentrated rays of various colours.  Some-
+thing in light and nothing else produced their pseudo-vitality.
+We do not begin to know how to harness the potentialities of
+that magnetic vibration of the ether we call light."
+
+"Listen, Doc," said Larry earnestly, "I'll take everything
+you say about this lost continent, the people who used to live
+on it, and their caverns, for granted.  But by the sword of
+Brian Boru, you'll never get me to fall for the idea that a
+bunch of moonshine can handle a big woman such as you
+say Throckmartin's Thora was, nor a two-fisted man such as
+you say Throckmartin was, nor Huldricksson's wife--and
+I'll bet she was one of those strapping big northern women
+too--you'll never get me to believe that any bunch of con-
+centrated moonshine could handle them and take them
+waltzing off along a moonbeam back to wherever it goes.
+No, Doc, not on your life, even Tennessee moonshine
+couldn't do that--nix!"
+
+"All right, O'Keefe," I answered, now very much irritated
+indeed.  "What's your theory?" And I could not resist add-
+ing: "Fairies?"
+
+"Professor," he grinned, "if that Thing's a fairy it's Irish
+and when it sees me it'll be so glad there'll be nothing to it.
+'I was lost, strayed, or stolen, Larry avick,' it'll say, 'an' I
+was so homesick for the old sod I was desp'rit,' it'll say, an'
+'take me back quick before I do any more har-rm!' it'll tell
+me--an' that's the truth.
+
+"Now don't get me wrong.  I believe you all saw something
+all right.  But what I think you saw was some kind of gas.
+All this region is volcanic and islands and things are con-
+stantly poking up from the sea.  It's probably gas; a volcanic
+emanation; something new to us and that drives you crazy
+--lots of kinds of gas do that.  It hit the Throckmartin party
+on that island and they probably were all more or less de-
+lirious all the time; thought they saw things; talked it over
+and--collective hallucination--just like the Angels of Mons
+and other miracles of the war.  Somebody sees something
+that looks like something else.  He points it out to the man
+next him.  'Do you see it?' asks he.  'Sure I see it,' says the
+other.  And there you are--collective hallucination.
+
+"When your friends got it bad they most likely jumped
+overboard one by one.  Huldricksson sails into a place where
+it is and it hits his wife.  She grabs the child and jumps over.
+Maybe the moon rays make it luminous!  I've seen gas on the
+front under the moon that looked like a thousand whirling
+dervish devils.  Yes, and you could see the devil's faces in it.
+And if it got into your lungs nothing could ever make you
+think you hadn't seen real devils."
+
+For a time I was silent.
+
+"Larry," I said at last, "whether you are right or I am
+right, I must go to the Nan-Matal.  Will you go with me,
+Larry?"
+
+"Goodwin," he replied, "I surely will.  I'm as interested as
+you are.  If we don't run across the Dolphin I'll stick.  I'll
+leave word at Ponape, to tell them where I am should they
+come along.  If they report me dead for a while there's no-
+body to care.  So that's all right.  Only old man, be reasonable.
+You've thought over this so long, you're going bug, honestly
+you are."
+
+And again, the gladness that I might have Larry O'Keefe
+with me, was so great that I forgot to be angry.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+The Moon Pool
+
+
+DA COSTA, who had come aboard unnoticed by either of us,
+now tapped me on the arm.
+
+"Doctair Goodwin," he said, "can I see you in my cabin,
+sair?"
+
+At last, then, he was going to speak.  I followed him.
+
+"Doctair," he said, when we had entered, "this is a veree
+strange thing that has happened to Olaf.  Veree strange.  An'
+the natives of Ponape, they have been very much excite'
+lately.
+
+"Of what they fear I know nothing, nothing!" Again that
+quick, furtive crossing of himself.  "But this I have to tell
+you.  There came to me from Ranaloa last month a man, a
+Russian, a doctair, like you.  His name it was Marakinoff.  I
+take him to Ponape an' the natives there they will not take
+him to the Nan-Matal where he wish to go--no!  So I take
+him.  We leave in a boat, wit' much instrument carefully tied
+up. I leave him there wit' the boat an' the food.  He tell me
+to tell no one an' pay me not to.  But you are a friend an'
+Olaf he depend much upon you an' so I tell you, sair."
+
+"You know nothing more than this, Da Costa?" I asked.
+"Nothing of another expedition?"
+
+"No," he shook his head vehemently.  "Nothing more."
+
+"Hear the name Throckmartin while you were there?"
+I persisted.
+
+"No," his eyes were steady as he answered but the pallor
+had crept again into his face.
+
+I was not so sure.  But if he knew more than he had told
+me why was he afraid to speak?  My anxiety deepened and
+later I sought relief from it by repeating the conversation to
+O'Keefe.
+
+"A Russian, eh," he said.  "Well, they can be damned nice,
+or damned--otherwise.  Considering what you did for me, I
+hope I can look him over before the Dolphin shows up."
+
+Next morning we raised Ponape, without further incident,
+and before noon the Suwarna and the Brunhilda had dropped
+anchor in the harbour.  Upon the excitement and manifest
+dread of the natives, when we sought among them for car-
+riers and workmen to accompany us, I will not dwell.  It is
+enough to say that no payment we offered could induce a
+single one of them to go to the Nan-Matal.  Nor would they
+say why.
+
+Finally it was agreed that the Brunhilda should be left in
+charge of a half-breed Chinaman, whom both Da Costa and
+Huldricksson knew and trusted.  We piled her long-boat up
+with my instruments and food and camping equipment.  The
+Suwarna took us around to Metalanim Harbour, and there,
+with the tops of ancient sea walls deep in the blue water be-
+neath us, and the ruins looming up out of the mangroves, a
+scant mile from us, left us.
+
+Then with Huldricksson manipulating our small sail, and
+Larry at the rudder, we rounded the titanic wall that swept
+down into the depths, and turned at last into the canal that
+Throckmartin, on his map, had marked as that which, run-
+ning between frowning Nan-Tauach and its satellite islet,
+Tau, led straight to the gate of the place of ancient mysteries.
+
+And as we entered that channel we were enveloped by a
+silence; a silence so intense, so--weighted that it seemed to
+have substance; an alien silence that clung and stifled and
+still stood aloof from us--the living.  It was a stillness, such
+as might follow the long tramping of millions into the grave;
+it was--paradoxical as it may be--filled with the withdrawal
+of life.
+
+Standing down in the chambered depths of the Great
+Pyramid I had known something of such silence--but never
+such intensity as this.  Larry felt it and I saw him look at me
+askance.  If Olaf, sitting in the bow, felt it, too, he gave no
+sign; his blue eyes, with again the glint of ice within them,
+watched the channel before us.
+
+As we passed, there arose upon our left sheer walls of
+black basalt blocks, cyclopean, towering fifty feet or more,
+broken here and there by the sinking of their deep founda-
+tions.
+
+In front of us the mangroves widened out and filled the
+acanal.  On our right the lesser walls of Tau, sombre blocks
+smoothed and squared and set with a cold, mathematical
+nicety that filled me with vague awe, slipped by.  Through
+breaks I caught glimpses of dark ruins and of great fallen
+stones that seemed to crouch and menace us, as we passed.
+Somewhere there, hidden, were the seven globes that poured
+the moon fire down upon the Moon Pool.
+
+Now we were among the mangroves and, sail down, the
+three of us pushed and pulled the boat through their tangled
+roots and branches.  The noise of our passing split the silence
+like a profanation, and from the ancient bastions came mur-
+murs--forbidding, strangely sinister.  And now we were
+through, floating on a little open space of shadow-filled
+water.  Before us lifted the gateway of Nan-Tauach, gigantic,
+broken, incredibly old; shattered portals through which had
+passed men and women of earth's dawn; old with a weight
+of years that pressed leadenly upon the eyes that looked
+upon it, and yet was in some curious indefinable way--men-
+acingly defiant.
+
+Beyond the gate, back from the portals, stretched a flight
+of enormous basalt slabs, a giant's stairway indeed; and
+from each side of it marched the high walls that were the
+Dweller's pathway.  None of us spoke as we grounded the
+boat and dragged it upon a half-submerged pier.  And when
+we did speak it was in whispers.
+
+"What next?" asked Larry.
+
+"I think we ought to take a look around," I replied in the
+same low tones.  "We'll climb the wall here and take a flash
+about.  The whole place ought to be plain as day from that
+height."
+
+Huldricksson, his blue eyes alert, nodded.  With the great-
+est difficulty we clambered up the broken blocks.
+
+To the east and south of us, set like children's blocks in
+the midst of the sapphire sea, lay dozens of islets, none of
+them covering more than two square miles of surface; each
+of them a perfect square or oblong within its protecting
+walls.
+
+On none was there sign of life, save for a few great birds
+that hovered here and there, and gulls dipping in the blue
+waves beyond.
+
+We turned our gaze down upon the island on which we
+stood.  It was, I estimated, about three-quarters of a mile
+square.  The sea wall enclosed it. it was really an enormous
+basalt-sided open cube, and within it two other open cubes.
+The enclosure between the first and second wall was stone
+paved, with here and there a broken pillar and long stone
+benches.  The hibiscus, the aloe tree, and a number of small
+shrubs had found place, but seemed only to intensify its stark
+loneliness.
+
+"Wonder where the Russian can be?" asked Larry.
+
+I shook my head.  There was no sign of life here.  Had
+Marakinoff gone--or had the Dweller taken him, too?  What-
+ever had happened, there was no trace of him below us or
+on any of the islets within our range of vision.  We scram-
+bled down the side of the gateway.  Olaf looked at me wist-
+fully.
+
+"We start the search now, Olaf," I said.  "And first,
+O'Keefe, let us see whether the grey stone is really here.
+After that we will set up camp, and while I unpack, you and
+Olaf search the island.  It won't take long."
+
+Larry gave a look at his service automatic and grinned.
+"Lead on, Macduff," he said.  We made our way up the steps,
+through the outer enclosures and into the central square, I
+confess to a fire of scientific curiosity and eagerness tinged
+with a dread that O'Keefe's analysis might be true.  Would
+we find the moving slab and, if so, would it be as Throck-
+martin had described?  If so, then even Larry would have to
+admit that here was something that theories of gases and
+luminous emanations would not explain; and the first test of
+the whole amazing story would be passed.  But if not--
+
+And there before us, the faintest tinge of grey setting it
+apart from its neighbouring blocks of basalt, was the moon
+door!
+
+There was no mistaking it.  This was, in very deed, the
+portal through which Throckmartin had seen pass that glori-
+ously dreadful apparition he called the Dweller.  At its base
+was the curious, seemingly polished cup-like depression
+within which, my lost friend had told me, the opening door
+swung.
+
+What was that portal--more enigmatic than was ever
+sphinx?  And what lay beyond it?  What did that smooth
+stone, whose wan deadness whispered of ages-old corridors
+of time opening out into alien, unimaginable vistas, hide?  It
+had cost the world of science Throckmartin's great brain--
+as it had cost Throckmartin those he loved.  It had drawn me
+to it in search of Throckmartin--and its shadow had fallen
+upon the soul of Olaf the Norseman; and upon what thou-
+sands upon thousands more I wondered, since the brains
+that had conceived it had vanished with their secret knowl-
+edge?
+
+What lay beyond it?
+
+I stretched out a shaking hand and touched the surface of
+the slab.  A faint thrill passed through my hand and arm,
+oddly unfamiliar and as oddly unpleasant; as of electric con-
+tact holding the very essence of cold.  O'Keefe, watching,
+imitated my action.  As his fingers rested on the stone his face
+filled with astonishment.
+
+"It's the door?" he asked.  I nodded.  There was a low
+whistle from him and he pointed up toward the top of the
+grey stone.  I followed the gesture and saw, above the moon
+door and on each side of it, two gently curving bosses of
+rock, perhaps a foot in diameter.
+
+"The moon door's keys," I said.
+
+"It begins to look so," answered Larry.  "If we can find
+them," he added.
+
+"There's nothing we can do till moonrise," I replied.  "And
+we've none too much time to prepare as it is.  Come!"
+
+A little later we were beside our boat.  We lightered it,
+set up the tent, and as it was now but a short hour to sun-
+down I bade them leave me and make their search.  They
+went off together, and I busied myself with opening some of
+the paraphernalia I had brought with me.
+
+First of all I took out the two Becquerel ray-condensers
+that I had bought in Sydney.  Their lenses would collect and
+intensify to the fullest extent any light directed upon them.
+I had found them most useful in making spectroscopic
+analysis of luminous vapours, and I knew that at Yerkes Ob-
+servatory splendid results had been obtained from them in
+collecting the diffused radiance of the nebulae for the same
+purpose.
+
+If my theory of the grey slab's mechanism were correct,
+it was practically certain that with the satellite only a few
+nights past the full we could concentrate enough light on
+the bosses to open the rock.  And as the ray streams through
+the seven globes described by Throckmartin would be too
+weak to energize the Pool, we could enter the chamber free
+from any fear of encountering its tenant, make our prelimi-
+nary observations and go forth before the moon had dropped
+so far that the concentration in the condensers would fall
+below that necessary to keep the portal from closing.
+
+I took out also a small spectroscope, and a few other in-
+struments for the analysis of certain light manifestations and
+the testing of metal and liquid.  Finally, I put aside my
+emergency medical kit.
+
+I had hardly finished examining and adjusting these be-
+fore O'Keefe and Huldricksson returned.  They reported
+signs of a camp at least ten days old beside the northern
+wall of the outer court, but beyond that no evidence of others
+beyond ourselves on Nan-Tauach.
+
+We prepared supper, ate and talked a little, but for the
+most part were silent.  Even Larry's high spirits were not in
+evidence; half a dozen times I saw him take out his auto-
+matic and look it over.  He was more thoughtful than I had
+ever seen him.  Once he went into the tent, rummaged about
+a bit and brought out another revolver which, he said, he
+had got from Da Costa, and a half-dozen clips of cartridges.
+He passed the gun over to Olaf.
+
+At last a glow in the southeast heralded the rising moon.
+I picked up my instruments and the medical kit; Larry and
+Olaf shouldered each a short ladder that was part of my
+equipment, and, with our electric flashes pointing the way,
+walked up the great stairs, through the enclosures, and
+straight to the grey stone.
+
+By this time the moon had risen and its clipped light shone
+full upon the slab.  I saw faint gleams pass over it as of fleet-
+ing phosphorescence--but so faint were they that I could
+not be sure of the truth of my observation.
+
+We set the ladders in place.  Olaf I assigned to stand be-
+fore the door and watch for the first signs of its opening--
+if open it should.  The Becquerels were set within three-inch
+tripods, whose feet I had equipped with vacuum rings to
+enable them to hold fast to the rock.
+
+I scaled one ladder and fastened a condenser over the boss;
+descended; sent Larry up to watch it, and, ascending the
+second ladder, rapidly fixed the other in its place.  Then, with
+O'Keefe watchful on his perch, I on mine, and Olaf's eyes
+fixed upon the moon door, we began our vigil.  Suddenly
+there was an exclamation from Larry.
+
+67
+
+
+MERRITT
+
+
+"Seven little lights are beginning to glow on this stone!"
+he cried.
+
+But I had already seen those beneath my lens begin to
+gleam out with a silvery lustre.  Swiftly the rays within the
+condenser began to thicken and increase, and as they did so
+the seven small circles waxed like stars growing out of the
+dusk, and with a queer--curdled is the best word I can find
+to define it--radiance entirely strange to me.
+
+Beneath me I heard a faint, sighing murmur and then the
+voice of Huldricksson:
+
+"It opens--the stone turns--"
+
+I began to climb down the ladder.  Again came Olaf's
+voice:
+
+"The stone--it is open--" And then a shriek, a wail of
+blended anguish and pity, of rage and despair--and the
+sound of swift footsteps racing through the wall beneath me!
+
+I dropped to the ground.  The moon door was wide open,
+and through it I caught a glimpse of a corridor filled with a
+faint, pearly vaporous light like earliest misty dawn.  But of
+Olaf I could see--nothing!  And even as I stood, gaping, from
+behind me came the sharp crack of a rifle; the glass of the
+condenser at Larry's side flew into fragments; he dropped
+swiftly to the ground, the automatic in his hand flashed once,
+twice, into the darkness.
+
+And the moon door began to pivot slowly, slowly back
+into its place!
+
+I rushed toward the turning stone with the wild idea of
+holding it open.  As I thrust my hands against it there came
+at my back a snarl and an oath and Larry staggered under
+the impact of a body that had flung itself straight at his
+throat.  He reeled at the lip of the shallow cup at the base
+of the slab, slipped upon its polished curve, fell and rolled
+with that which had attacked him, kicking and writhing,
+straight through the narrowing portal into the passage!
+
+Forgetting all else, I sprang to his aid.  As I leaped I felt the
+closing edge of the moon door graze my side.  Then, as Larry
+raised a fist, brought it down upon the temple of the man
+who had grappled with him and rose from the twitching
+body unsteadily to his feet, I heard shuddering past me a
+mournful whisper; spun about as though some giant's hand
+had whirled me--
+
+The end of the corridor no longer opened out into the
+moonlit square of ruined Nan-Tauach.  It was barred by a
+solid mass of glimmering stone.  The moon door had closed!
+
+O'Keefe took a stumbling step toward the barrier behind
+us. There was no mark of juncture with the shining walls;
+the slab fitted into the sides as closely as a mosaic.
+
+"It's shut all right," said Larry.  "But if there's a way in,
+there's a way out.  Anyway, Doc, we're right in the pew we've
+been heading for--so why worry?" He grinned at me cheer-
+fully.  The man on the floor groaned, and he dropped to his
+knees beside him.
+
+"Marakinoff!" he cried.
+
+At my exclamation he moved aside, turning the face so I
+could see it.  It was clearly Russian, and just as clearly its
+possessor was one of unusual force and intellect.
+
+The strong, massive brow with orbital ridge unusually de-
+veloped, the dominant, high-bridged nose, the straight lips
+with their more than suggestion of latent cruelty, and the
+strong lines of the jaw beneath a black, pointed beard all
+gave evidence that here was a personality beyond the ordi-
+nary.
+
+"Couldn't be anybody else," said Larry, breaking in on
+my thoughts.  "He must have been watching us over there
+from Chau-ta-leur's vault all the time."
+
+Swiftly he ran practised hands over his body; then stood
+erect, holding out to me two wicked-looking magazine pis-
+tols and a knife.  "He got one of my bullets through his right
+forearm, too," he said.  "Just a flesh wound, but it made him
+drop his rifle.  Some arsenal, our little Russian scientist,
+what?"
+
+I opened my medical kit.  The wound was a slight one,
+and Larry stood looking on as I bandaged it.
+
+"Got another one of those condensers?" he asked, sud-
+denly.  "And do you suppose Olaf will know enough to use
+it?"
+
+"Larry," I answered, "Olaf's not outside!  He's in here
+somewhere!"
+
+His jaw dropped.
+
+"The hell you say!" he whispered.
+
+"Didn't you hear him shriek when the stone opened?" I
+asked.
+
+"I heard him yell, yes," he said.  "But I didn't know what
+was the matter.  And then this wildcat jumped me--"  He
+paused and his eyes widened.  "Which way did he go?" he
+asked swiftly.  I pointed down the faintly glowing passage.
+
+"There's only one way," I said.
+
+"Watch that bird close," hissed O'Keefe, pointing to Mara-
+kinoff--and pistol in hand stretched his long legs and raced
+away.  I looked down at the Russian.  His eyes were open,
+and he reached out a hand to me.  I lifted him to his feet.
+
+"I have heard," he said.  "We follow, quick.  If you will take
+my arm, please, I am shaken yet, yes--"  I gripped his
+shoulder without a word, and the two of us set off down the
+corridor after O'Keefe.  Marakinoff was gasping, and his
+weight pressed upon me heavily, but he moved with all the
+will and strength that were in him.
+
+As we ran I took hasty note of the tunnel.  Its sides were
+smooth and polished, and the light seemed to come not from
+their surfaces, but from far within them--giving to the walls
+an illusive aspect of distance and depth; rendering them in a
+peculiarly weird way--spacious.  The passage turned,
+twisted, ran down, turned again.  It came to me that the light
+that illumined the tunnel was given out by tiny points deep
+within the stone, sprang from the points ripplingly and
+spread upon their polished faces.
+
+There was a cry from Larry far ahead.
+
+"Olaf!"
+
+I gripped Marakinoff's arm closer and we sped on.  Now
+we were coming fast to the end of the passage.  Before us
+was a high arch, and through it I glimpsed a dim, shifting
+luminosity as of mist filled with rainbows.  We reached the
+portal and I looked into a chamber that might have been
+transported from that enchanted palace of the Jinn King
+that rises beyond the magic mountains of Kaf.
+
+Before me stood O'Keefe and a dozen feet in front of him,
+Huldricksson, with something clasped tightly in his arms.
+The Norseman's feet were at the verge of a shining, silvery
+lip of stone within whose oval lay a blue pool.  And down
+upon this pool staring upward like a gigantic eye, fell seven
+pillars of phantom light--one of them amethyst, one of rose,
+another of white, a fourth of blue, and three of emerald, of
+silver, and of amber.  They fell each upon the azure surface,
+and I knew that these were the seven streams of radiance,
+within which the Dweller took shape--now but pale ghosts
+of their brilliancy when the full energy of the moon stream
+raced through them.
+
+Huldricksson bent and placed on the shining silver lip of
+the Pool that which he held--and I saw that it was the body
+of a child!  He set it there so gently, bent over the side and
+thrust a hand down into the water.  And as he did so he
+moaned and lurched against the little body that lay before
+him.  Instantly the form moved--and slipped over the verge
+into the blue.  Huldricksson threw his body over the stone,
+hands clutching, arms thrust deep down--and from his lips
+issued a long-drawn, heart-shrivelling wail of pain and of
+anguish that held in it nothing human!
+
+Close on its wake came a cry from Marakinoff.
+
+"Catch him!" shouted the Russian.  "Drag him back!
+Quick!"
+
+He leaped forward, but before he could half clear the dis-
+tance, O'Keefe had leaped too, had caught the Norseman by
+the shoulders and toppled him backward, where he lay
+whimpering and sobbing.  And as I rushed behind Marakinoff
+I saw Larry lean over the lip of the Pool and cover his eyes
+with a shaking hand; saw the Russian peer into it with real
+pity in his cold eyes.
+
+Then I stared down myself into the Moon Pool, and there,
+sinking, was a little maid whose dead face and fixed, terror-
+filled eyes looked straight into mine; and ever sinking
+slowly, slowly--vanished!  And I knew that this was Olaf's
+Freda, his beloved yndling!
+
+But where was the mother, and where had Olaf found his
+babe?
+
+The Russian was first to speak.
+
+"You have nitroglycerin there, yes?" he asked, pointing
+toward my medical kit that I had gripped unconsciously and
+carried with me during the mad rush down the passage.  I
+nodded and drew it out.
+
+"Hypodermic," he ordered next, curtly; took the syringe,
+filled it accurately with its one one-hundredth of a grain
+dosage, and leaned over Huldricksson.  He rolled up the
+sailor's sleeves half-way to the shoulder.  The arms were
+white with somewhat of that weird semitranslucence that I
+had seen on Throckmartin's breast where a tendril of the
+Dweller had touched him; and his hands were of the same
+whiteness--like a baroque pearl.  Above the line of white,
+Marakinoff thrust the needle.
+
+"He will need all his heart can do," he said to me.
+
+Then he reached down into a belt about his waist and drew
+from it a small, flat flask of what seemed to be lead.  He
+opened it and let a few drops of its contents fall on each arm
+of the Norwegian.  The liquid sparkled and instantly began
+to spread over the skin much as oil or gasoline dropped on
+water does--only far more rapidly.  And as it spread it drew
+a sparkling film over the marbled flesh and little wisps of
+vapour rose from it.  The Norseman's mighty chest heaved
+with agony.  His hands clenched.  The Russian gave a grunt
+of satisfaction at this, dropped a little more of the liquid, and
+then, watching closely, grunted again and leaned back.  Hul-
+dricksson's laboured breathing ceased, his head dropped
+upon Larry's knee, and from his arms and hands the white-
+ness swiftly withdrew.
+
+Marakinoff arose and contemplated us--almost benevo-
+lently.
+
+"He will all right be in five minutes," he said.  "I know.  I
+do it to pay for that shot of mine, and also because we will
+need him.  Yes." He turned to Larry.  "You have a poonch like
+a mule kick, my young friend," he said.  "Some time you pay
+me for that, too, eh?" He smiled; and the quality of the
+grimace was not exactly reassuring.  Larry looked him over
+quizzically.
+
+"You're Marakinoff, of course," he said.  The Russian
+nodded, betraying no surprise at the recognition.
+
+"And you?" he asked.
+
+"Lieutenant O'Keefe of the Royal Flying Corps," replied
+Larry, saluting.  "And this gentleman is Dr. Walter T. Good-
+win."
+
+Marakinoff's face brightened.
+
+"The American botanist?" he queried.  I nodded.
+
+"Ah," cried Marakinoff eagerly, "but this is fortunate.
+Long I have desired to meet you.  Your work, for an Amer-
+ican, is most excellent; surprising.  But you are wrong in
+your theory of the development of the Angiospermae from
+Cycadeoidea dacotensis.  Da--all wrong--"
+
+I was interrupting him with considerable heat, for my
+conclusions from the fossil Cycadeoidea I knew to be my
+greatest triumph, when Larry broke in upon me rudely.
+
+"Say," he spluttered, "am I crazy or are you?  What in
+damnation kind of a place and time is this to start an argu-
+ment like that?
+
+"Angiospermae, is it?" exclaimed Larry.  "HELL!"
+
+Marakinoff again regarded him with that irritating air of
+benevolence.
+
+"You have not the scientific mind, young friend," he said.
+"The poonch, yes!  But so has the mule.  You must learn that
+only the fact is important--not you, not me, not this"--he
+pointed to Huldricksson--"or its sorrows.  Only the fact,
+whatever it is, is real, yes.  But"--he turned to me--"another
+time--"
+
+Huldricksson interrupted him.  The big seaman had risen
+stiffly to his feet and stood with Larry's arm supporting him.
+He stretched out his hands to me.
+
+"I saw her," he whispered.  "I saw mine Freda when the
+stone swung.  She lay there--just at my feet.  I picked her up
+and I saw that mine Freda was dead.  But I hoped--and I
+thought maybe mine Helma was somewhere here, too, So I
+ran with mine yndling--here--" His voice broke.  "I thought
+maybe she was NOT dead," he went on.  "And I saw that"--
+he pointed to the Moon Pool-- "and I thought I would
+bathe her face and she might live again.  And when I dipped
+my hands within--the life left them, and cold, deadly cold,
+ran up through them into my heart.  And mine Freda--she
+fell--" he covered his eyes, and dropping his head on
+O'Keefe's shoulder, stood, racked by sobs that seemed to
+tear at his very soul.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+The Flame-Tipped Shadows
+
+MARAKINOFF nodded his head solemnly as Olaf finished.
+
+"Da!" he said.  "That which comes from here took them
+both--the woman and the child. Da!  They came clasped
+within it and the stone shut upon them.  But why it left the
+child behind I do not understand."
+
+"How do you know that?" I cried in amazement.
+
+"Because I saw it," answered Marakinoff simply.  "Not
+only did I see it, but hardly had I time to make escape
+through the entrance before it passed whirling and murmur-
+ing and its bell sounds all joyous. Da!  It was what you call
+the squeak close, that."
+
+"Wait a moment," I said--stilling Larry with a gesture.
+"Do I understand you to say that you were within this
+place?"
+
+Marakinoff actually beamed upon me.
+
+"Da, Dr. Goodwin," he said, "I went in when that which
+comes from it went out!"
+
+I gaped at him, stricken dumb; into Larry's bellicose at-
+titude crept a suggestion of grudging respect; Olaf, tremb-
+ling, watched silently.
+
+"Dr.  Goodwin and my impetuous young friend, you,"
+went on Marakinoff after a moment's silence and I won-
+dered vaguely why he did not include Huldricksson in his
+address--"it is time that we have an understanding.  I have
+a proposal to make to you also.  It is this; we are what you
+call a bad boat, and all of us are in it.  Da!  We need all
+hands, is it not so?  Let us put together our knowledge and
+our brains and resources--and even a poonch of a mule is a
+resource," he looked wickedly at O'Keefe, "and pull our
+boat into quiet waters again.  After that--"
+
+"All very well, Marakinoff," interjected Larry, "but I don't
+feel very safe in any boat with somebody capable of shoot-
+ing me through the back."
+
+Marakinoff waved a deprecatory hand.
+
+"It was natural that," he said, "logical, da!  Here is a very
+great secret, perhaps many secrets to my country invalua-
+ble--" He paused, shaken by some overpowering emotion;
+the veins in his forehead grew congested, the cold eyes
+blazed and the guttural voice harshened.
+
+"I do not apologize and I do not explain," rasped Mara-
+kinoff.  "But I will tell you, da!  Here is my country sweating
+blood in an experiment to liberate the world.  And here are
+the other nations ringing us like wolves and waiting to
+spring at our throats at the least sign of weakness.  And here
+are you, Lieutenant O'Keefe of the English wolves, and you
+Dr. Goodwin of the Yankee pack--and here in this place
+may be that will enable my country to win its war for the
+worker.  What are the lives of you two and this sailor to that?
+Less than the flies I crush with my hand, less than midges
+in the sunbeam!"
+
+He suddenly gripped himself.
+
+"But that is not now the important thing," he resumed,
+almost coldly.  "Not that nor my shooting.  Let us squarely the
+situation face.  My proposal is so: that we join interests, and
+what you call see it through together; find our way through
+this place and those secrets learn of which I have spoken,
+if we can.  And when that is done we will go our ways, to his
+own land each, to make use of them for our lands as each of
+us may.  On my part, I offer my knowledge--and it is very
+valuable, Dr. Goodwin--and my training.  You and Lieu-
+tenant O'Keefe do the same, and this man Olaf, what he
+can of his strength, for I do not think his usefulness lies in
+his brains, no."
+
+"In effect, Goodwin," broke in Larry as I hesitated, "the
+professor's proposition is this: he wants to know what's go-
+ing on here but he begins to realize it's no one man's job
+and besides we have the drop on him.  We're three to his one,
+and we have all his hardware and cutlery.  But also we can
+do better with him than without him--just as he can do
+better with us than without us.  It's an even break--for a
+while.  But once he gets that information he's looking for,
+then look out.  You and Olaf and I are the wolves and the
+flies and the midges again--and the strafing will be about
+due.  Nevertheless, with three to one against him, if he can
+get away with it he deserves to.  I'm for taking him up, if you
+are."
+
+There was almost a twinkle in Marakinoff's eyes.
+
+"It is not just as I would have put it, perhaps," he said,
+"but in its skeleton he has right.  Nor will I turn my hand
+against you while we are still in danger here.  I pledge you
+my honor on this."
+
+Larry laughed.
+
+"All right, Professor," he grinned.  "I believe you mean
+every word you say.  Nevertheless, I'll just keep the guns."
+
+Marakinoff bowed, imperturbably.
+
+"And now," he said, "I will tell you what I know.  I found
+the secret of the door mechanism even as you did, Dr. Good-
+win.  But by carelessness, my condensers were broken.  I was
+forced to wait while I sent for others--and the waiting might
+be for months.  I took certain precautions, and on the first
+night of this full moon I hid myself within the vault of
+Chau-ta-leur."
+
+An involuntary thrill of admiration for the man went
+through me at the manifest heroism of this leap in the dark.
+I could see it reflected in Larry's face.
+
+"I hid in the vault," continued Marakinoff, "and I saw
+that which comes from here come out.  I waited--long hours.
+At last, when the moon was low, it returned--ecstatically--
+with a man, a native, in embrace enfolded.  It passed through
+the door, and soon then the moon became low and the door
+closed.
+
+"The next night more confidence was mine, yes.  And after
+that which comes had gone, I looked through its open door.
+I said, "It will not return for three hours.  While it is away,
+why shall I not into its home go through the door it has left
+open?' So I went--even to here.  I looked at the pillars of
+light and I tested the liquid of the Pool on which they fell.
+That liquid, Dr. Goodwin, is not water, and it is not any
+fluid known on earth." He handed me a small vial, its neck
+held in a long thong.
+
+"Take this," he said, "and see."
+
+Wonderingly, I took the bottle; dipped it down into the
+Pool.  The liquid was extraordinarily light; seemed, in fact,
+to give the vial buoyancy.  I held it to the light.  It was striated,
+streaked, as though little living, pulsing veins ran through it.
+And its blueness, even in the vial, held an intensity of lumi-
+nousness.
+
+"Radioactive," said Marakinoff.  "Some liquid that is in-
+tensely radioactive; but what it is I know not at all.  Upon the
+living skin it acts like radium raised to the nth power and
+with an element most mysterious added.  The solution with
+which I treated him," he pointed to Huldricksson, "I had
+prepared before I came here, from certain information I
+had.  It is largely salts of radium and its base is Loeb's
+formula for the neutralization of radium and X-ray burns.
+Taking this man at once, before the degeneration had be-
+come really active, I could negative it.  But after two hours
+I could have done nothing."
+
+He paused a moment.
+
+"Next I studied the nature of these luminous walls.  I
+concluded that whoever had made them, knew the secret of
+the Almighty's manufacture of light from the ether itself!
+Colossal!  Da!  But the substance of these blocks confines an
+atomic--how would you say--atomic manipulation, a
+conscious arrangement of electrons, light-emitting and per-
+haps indefinitely so.  These blocks are lamps in which oil and
+wick are electrons drawing light waves from ether itself!  A
+Prometheus, indeed, this discoverer!  I looked at my watch
+and that little guardian warned me that it was time to go.
+I went.  That which comes forth returned--this time empty-
+handed.
+
+"And the next night I did the same thing.  Engrossed in
+research, I let the moments go by to the danger point, and
+scarcely was I replaced within the vault when the shining
+thing raced over the walls, and in its grip the woman and
+child
+
+"Then you came--and that is all.  And now--what is it
+you know?"
+
+Very briefly I went over my story.  His eyes gleamed now
+and then, but he did not interrupt me.
+
+"A great secret!  A colossal secret!" he muttered, when I
+had ended.  "We cannot leave it hidden."
+
+"The first thing to do is to try the door," said Larry, mat-
+ter of fact.
+
+"There is no use, my young friend," assured Marakinoff
+mildly.
+
+"Nevertheless we'll try," said Larry.  We retraced our
+way through the winding tunnel to the end, but soon even
+O'Keefe saw that any idea of moving the slab from within
+was hopeless.  We returned to the Chamber of the Pool.  The
+pillars of light were fainter, and we knew that the moon was
+sinking.  On the world outside before long dawn would be
+breaking.  I began to feel thirst--and the blue semblance of
+water within the silvery rim seemed to glint mockingly as
+my eyes rested on it.
+
+"Da!" it was Marakinoff, reading my thoughts uncannily.
+"Da!  We will be thirsty.  And it will be very bad for him of
+us who loses control and drinks of that, my friend.  Da!"
+
+Larry threw back his shoulders as though shaking a burden
+from them.
+
+"This place would give an angel of joy the willies," he
+said.  "I suggest that we look around and find something that
+will take us somewhere.  You can bet the people that built it
+had more ways of getting in than that once-a-month family
+entrance.  Doc, you and Olaf take the left wall; the professor
+and I will take the right."
+
+He loosened one of his automatics with a suggestive move-
+ment.
+
+"After you, Professor," he bowed, politely, to the Russian.
+We parted and set forth.
+
+The chamber widened out from the portal in what seemed
+to be the arc of an immense circle.  The shining walls held a
+perceptible curve, and from this curvature I estimated that
+the roof was fully three hundred feet above us.
+
+The floor was of smooth, mosaic-fitted blocks of a faintly
+yellow tinge.  They were not light-emitting like the blocks
+that formed the walls.  The radiance from these latter, I
+noted, had the peculiar quality of THICKENING a few yards
+from its source, and it was this that produced the effect of
+misty, veiled distances.  As we walked, the seven columns of
+rays streaming down from the crystalline globes high above
+us waned steadily; the glow within the chamber lost its pris-
+matic shimmer and became an even grey tone somewhat like
+moonlight in a thin cloud.
+
+Now before us, out from the wall, jutted a low terrace.  It
+was all of a pearly rose-coloured stone, slender, graceful pil-
+lars of the same hue.  The face of the terrace was about ten
+feet high, and all over it ran a bas-relief of what looked like
+short-trailing vines, surmounted by five stalks, on the tip of
+each of which was a flower.
+
+We passed along the terrace.  It turned in an abrupt curve.
+I heard a hail, and there, fifty feet away, at the curving end
+of a wall identical with that where we stood, were Larry and
+Marakinoff.  Obviously the left side of the chamber was a
+duplicate of that we had explored.  We joined.  In front of us
+the columned barriers ran back a hundred feet, forming an
+alcove.  The end of this alcove was another wall of the same
+rose stone, but upon it the design of vines was much heavier.
+
+We took a step forward--there was a gasp of awe from
+the Norseman, a guttural exclamation from Marakinoff.  For
+on, or rather within, the wall before us, a great oval began to
+glow, waxed almost to a flame and then shone steadily out as
+though from behind it a light was streaming through the
+stone itself!
+
+And within the roseate oval two flame-tipped shadows
+appeared, stood for a moment, and then seemed to float out
+upon its surface.  The shadows wavered; the tips of flame that
+nimbused them with flickering points of vermilion pulsed
+outward, drew back, darted forth again, and once more
+withdrew themselves--and as they did so the shadows thick-
+ened--and suddenly there before us stood two figures!
+
+One was a girl--a girl whose great eyes were golden as the
+fabled lilies of Kwan-Yung that were born of the kiss of the
+sun upon the amber goddess the demons of Lao-Tz'e carved
+for him; whose softly curved lips were red as the royal coral,
+and whose golden-brown hair reached to her knees!
+
+And the second was a gigantic frog--A WOMAN frog, head
+helmeted with carapace of shell around which a fillet of bril-
+liant yellow jewels shone; enormous round eyes of blue
+circled with a broad iris of green; monstrous body of banded
+orange and white girdled with strand upon strand of the
+flashing yellow gems; six feet high if an inch, and with one
+webbed paw of its short, powerfully muscled forelegs resting
+upon the white shoulder of the golden-eyed girl!
+
+Moments must have passed as we stood in stark amaze-
+ment, gazing at that incredible apparition.  The two figures,
+although as real as any of those who stood beside me, un-
+phantomlike as it is possible to be, had a distinct suggestion
+of--projection.
+
+They were there before us--golden-eyed girl and gro-
+tesque frog-woman--complete in every line and curve; and
+still it was as though their bodies passed back through dis-
+tances; as though, to try to express the wellnigh inexpressi-
+ble, the two shapes we were looking upon were the end of an
+infinite number stretching in fine linked chain far away, of
+which the eyes saw only the nearest, while in the brain some
+faculty higher than sight recognized and registered the un-
+seen others.
+
+The gigantic eyes of the frog-woman took us all in--
+unwinkingly.  Little glints of phosphorescence shone out
+within the metallic green of the outer iris ring.  She stood
+upright, her great legs bowed; the monstrous slit of a mouth
+slightly open, revealing a row of white teeth sharp and
+pointed as lancets; the paw resting on the girl's shoulder, half
+covering its silken surface, and from its five webbed digits
+long yellow claws of polished horn glistened against the
+delicate texture of the flesh.
+
+But if the frog-woman regarded us all, not so did the
+maiden of the rosy wall.  Her eyes were fastened upon Larry,
+drinking him in with extraordinary intentness.  She was tall,
+far over the average of women, almost as tall, indeed, as
+O'Keefe himself; not more than twenty years old, if that,
+I thought.  Abruptly she leaned forward, the golden eyes
+softened and grew tender; the red lips moved as though she
+were speaking.
+
+Larry took a quick step, and his face was that of one who
+after countless births comes at last upon the twin soul lost to
+him for ages.  The frog-woman turned her eyes upon the girl;
+her huge lips moved, and I knew that she was talking!  The
+girl held out a warning hand to O'Keefe, and then raised it,
+resting each finger upon one of the five flowers of the carved
+vine close beside her.  Once, twice, three times, she pressed
+upon the flower centres, and I noted that her hand was curi-
+ously long and slender, the digits like those wonderful taper-
+ing ones the painters we call the primitive gave to their Vir-
+gins.
+
+Three times she pressed the flowers, and then looked in-
+tently at Larry once more.  A slow, sweet smile curved the
+crimson lips.  She stretched both hands out toward him again
+eagerly; a burning blush rose swiftly over white breasts and
+flowerlike face.
+
+Like the clicking out of a cinematograph, the pulsing oval
+faded and golden-eyed girl and frog-woman were gone!
+
+And thus it was that Lakla, the handmaiden of the Silent
+Ones, and Larry O'Keefe first looked into each other's
+hearts!
+
+Larry stood rapt, gazing at the stone.
+
+"Eilidh," I heard him whisper; "Eilidh of the lips like the
+red, red rowan and the golden-brown hair!"
+
+"Clearly of the Ranadae," said Marakinoff, "a develop-
+ment of the fossil Labyrinthodonts: you saw her teeth, da?"
+
+"Ranadae, yes," I answered.  "But from the Stegocephalia;
+of the order Ecaudata--"
+
+Never such a complete indignation as was in O'Keefe's
+voice as he interrupted.
+
+"What do you mean--fossils and Stego whatever it is?"
+he asked.  "She was a girl, a wonder girl--a real girl, and
+Irish, or I'm not an O'Keefe!"
+
+"We were talking about the frog-woman, Larry," I said,
+conciliatingly.
+
+His eyes were wild as he regarded us.
+
+"Say," he said, "if you two had been in the Garden of
+Eden when Eve took the apple, you wouldn't have had time
+to give her a look for counting the scales on the snake!"
+
+He strode swiftly over to the wall.  We followed.  Larry
+paused, stretched his hand up to the flowers on which the
+tapering fingers of the golden-eyed girl had rested.
+
+"It was here she put up her hand," he murmured.  He
+pressed caressingly the carved calyxes, once, twice, a third
+time even as she had--and silently and softly the wall began
+to split; on each side a great stone pivoted slowly, and before
+us a portal stood, opening into a narrow corridor glowing
+with the same rosy lustre that had gleamed around the
+flame-tipped shadows!
+
+"Have your gun ready, Olaf!" said Larry.  "We follow
+Golden Eyes," he said to me.
+
+"Follow?" I echoed stupidly.
+
+"Follow!" he said.  "She came to show us the way!  Follow?
+I'd follow her through a thousand hells!"
+
+And with Olaf at one end, O'Keefe at the other, both of
+them with automatics in hand, and Marakinoff and I be-
+tween them, we stepped over the threshold.
+
+At our right, a few feet away, the passage ended abruptly
+in a square of polished stone, from which came faint rose
+radiance.  The roof of the place was less than two feet over
+O'Keefe's head.
+
+A yard at left of us lifted a four-foot high, gently curved
+barricade, stretching from wall to wall--and beyond it was
+blackness; an utter and appalling blackness that seemed to
+gather itself from infinite depths.  The rose-glow in which
+we stood was cut off by the blackness as though it had sub-
+stance; it shimmered out to meet it, and was checked as
+though by a blow; indeed, so strong was the suggestion of
+sinister, straining force within the rayless opacity that I
+shrank back, and Marakinoff with me.  Not so O'Keefe.  Olaf
+beside him, he strode to the wall and peered over.  He beck-
+oned us.
+
+"Flash your pocket-light down there," be said to me, point-
+ing into the thick darkness below us.  The little electric circle
+quivered down as though afraid, and came to rest upon a
+surface that resembled nothing so much as clear, black ice.  I
+ran the light across--here and there.  The floor of the corridor
+was of a substance so smooth, so polished, that no man could
+have walked upon it; it sloped downward at a slowly increas-
+ing angle.
+
+"We'd have to have non-skid chains and brakes on our
+feet to tackle that," mused Larry.  Abstractedly be ran his
+hands over the edge on which he was leaning.  Suddenly they
+hesitated and then gripped tightly.
+
+"That's a queer one!" he exclaimed.  His right palm was
+resting upon a rounded protuberance, on the side of which
+were three small circular indentations.
+
+"A queer one--" he repeated--and pressed his fingers
+upon the circles.
+
+There was a sharp click; the slabs that had opened to let
+us through swung swiftly together; a curiously rapid vibra-
+tion thrilled through us, a wind arose and passed over our
+heads--a wind that grew and grew until it became a whistling
+shriek, then a roar and then a mighty humming, to which
+every atom in our bodies pulsed in rhythm painful almost
+to disintegration!
+
+The rosy wall dwindled in a flash to a point of light and
+disappeared!
+
+Wrapped in the clinging, impenetrable blackness we were
+racing, dropping, hurling at a frightful speed--where?
+
+And ever that awful humming of the rushing wind and
+the lightning cleaving of the tangible dark--so, it came to
+me oddly, must the newly released soul race through the
+sheer blackness of outer space up to that Throne of Justice,
+where God sits high above all suns!
+
+I felt Marakinoff creep close to me; gripped my nerve and
+flashed my pocket-light; saw Larry standing, peering, peer-
+ing ahead, and Huldricksson, one strong arm around his
+shoulders, bracing him.  And then the speed began to slacken.
+
+Millions of miles, it seemed, below the sound of the un-
+earthly hurricane I heard Larry's voice, thin and ghostlike,
+beneath its clamour.
+
+"Got it!" shrilled the voice.  "Got it!  Don't worry!"
+
+The wind died down to the roar, passed back into the
+whistling shriek and diminished to a steady whisper.  In the
+comparative quiet O'Keefe's tones now came in normal
+volume.
+
+"Some little shoot-the-chutes, what?" he shouted.  "Say--
+if they had this at Coney Island or the Crystal Palace!  Press
+all the way in these holes and she goes top-high.  Diminish
+pressure--diminish speed.  The curve of this--dashboard--
+here sends the wind shooting up over our heads--like a
+windshield.  What's behind you?"
+
+I flashed the light back.  The mechanism on which we
+were ended in another wall exactly similar to that over which
+O'Keefe crouched.
+
+"Well, we can't fall out, anyway," he laughed.  "Wish to
+hell I knew where the brakes were!  Look out!"
+
+We dropped dizzily down an abrupt, seemingly endless
+slope; fell--fell as into an abyss--then shot abruptly out of
+the blackness into a throbbing green radiance.  O'Keefe's
+fingers must have pressed down upon the controls, for we
+leaped forward almost with the speed of light.  I caught a
+glimpse of luminous immensities on the verge of which we
+flew; of depths inconceivable, and flitting through the incred-
+ible spaces--gigantic shadows as of the wings of Israfel,
+which are so wide, say the Arabs, the world can cower
+under them like a nestling--and then--again the living
+blackness!
+
+ "What was that?" This from Larry, with the nearest ap-
+proach to awe that he had yet shown.
+
+"Trolldom!" croaked the voice of Olaf.
+
+"Chert!"  This from Marakinoff.  "What a space!"
+
+"Have you considered, Dr. Goodwin," be went on after a
+pause, "a curious thing?  We know, or, at least, is it not that
+nine out of ten astronomers believe, that the moon was
+hurled out of this same region we now call the Pacific when
+the earth was yet like molasses; almost molten, I should say.
+And is it not curious that that which comes from the Moon
+Chamber needs the moon-rays to bring it forth; is it not?
+And is it not significant again that the stone depends upon
+the moon for operating?  Da!  And last--such a space in
+mother earth as we just glimpsed, how else could it have been
+torn but by some gigantic birth--like that of the moon?  Da!
+I do not put forward these as statements of fact--no!  But as
+suggestions--"
+
+I started; there was so much that this might explain--an
+unknown element that responded to the moon-rays in open-
+ing the moon door; the blue Pool with its weird radioactivity,
+and the force within it that reacted to the same light
+stream--
+
+It was not inconceivable that a film had drawn over the
+world wound, a film of earth-flesh which drew itself over
+that colossal abyss after our planet had borne its satellite--
+that world womb did not close when her shining child sprang
+forth--it was possible; and all that we know of earth depth
+is four miles of her eight thousand.
+
+What is there at the heart of earth?  What of that radiant
+unknown element upon the moon mount Tycho?  What of
+that element unknown to us as part of earth which is seen
+only in the corona of the sun at eclipse that we call coro-
+nium?  Yet the earth is child of the sun as the moon is earth's
+daughter.  And what of that other unknown element we find
+glowing green in the far-flung nebulae--green as that we had
+just passed through--and that we call nebulium?  Yet the sun
+is child of the nebulae as the earth is child of the sun and
+the moon is child of the earth.
+
+And what miracles are there in coronium and nebulium
+which, as the child of nebula and sun, we inherit?  Yes--and
+in Tycho's enigma which came from earth heart?
+
+We were flashing down to earth heart!  And what miracles
+were hidden there?
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+The End of the Journey
+
+"SAY DOC!" It was Larry's voice flung back at me.  "I was
+thinking about that frog.  I think it was her pet.  Damn me
+if I see any difference between a frog and a snake, and one
+of the nicest women I ever knew had two pet pythons that
+followed her around like kittens.  Not such a devilish lot of
+choice between a frog and a snake--except on the side of
+the frog?  What?  Anyway, any pet that girl wants is hers,
+I don't care if it's a leaping twelve-toed lobster or a whale-
+bodied scorpion.  Get me?"
+
+By which I knew that our remarks upon the frog woman
+were still bothering O'Keefe.
+
+"He thinks of foolish nothings like the foolish sailor!"
+grunted Marakinoff, acid contempt in his words.  "What are
+their women to--this?" He swept out a hand and as though
+at a signal the car poised itself for an instant, then dipped,
+literally dipped down into sheer space; skimmed forward in
+what was clearly curved flight, rose as upon a sweeping up-
+grade and then began swiftly to slacken its fearful speed.
+
+Far ahead a point of light showed; grew steadily; we were
+within it--and softly all movement ceased.  How acute had
+been the strain of our journey I did not realize until I tried
+to stand--and sank back, leg-muscles too shaky to bear my
+weight.  The car rested in a slit in the centre of a smooth
+walled chamber perhaps twenty feet square.  The wall facing
+us was pierced by a low doorway through which we could
+see a flight of steps leading downward.
+
+The light streamed through a small opening, the base of
+which was twice a tall man's height from the floor.  A curving
+flight of broad, low steps led up to it.  And now it came to my
+steadying brain that there was something puzzling, peculiar,
+strangely unfamiliar about this light.  It was silvery, shaded
+faintly with a delicate blue and flushed lightly with a nacre-
+ous rose; but a rose that differed from that of the terraces of
+the Pool Chamber as the rose within the opal differs from
+that within the pearl.  In it were tiny, gleaming points like
+the motes in a sunbeam, but sparkling white like the dust of
+diamonds, and with a quality of vibrant vitality; they were
+as though they were alive.  The light cast no shadows!
+
+A little breeze came through the oval and played about us.
+It was laden with what seemed the mingled breath of spice
+flowers and pines.  It was curiously vivifying, and in it the
+diamonded atoms of light shook and danced.
+
+I stepped out of the car, the Russian following, and began
+to ascend the curved steps toward the opening, at the top of
+which O'Keefe and Olaf already stood.  As they looked out I
+saw both their faces change--Olaf's with awe, O'Keefe's
+with incredulous amaze.  I hurried to their side.
+
+At first all that I could see was space--a space filled with
+the same coruscating effulgence that pulsed about me.  I
+glanced upward, obeying that instinctive impulse of earth
+folk that bids them seek within the sky for sources of light.
+There was no sky--at least no sky such as we know--all
+was a sparkling nebulosity rising into infinite distances as the
+azure above the day-world seems to fill all the heavens--
+through it ran pulsing waves and flashing javelin rays that
+were like shining shadows of the aurora; echoes, octaves
+lower, of those brilliant arpeggios and chords that play about
+the poles.  My eyes fell beneath its splendour; I stared out-
+ward.
+
+Miles away, gigantic luminous cliffs sprang sheer from
+the limits of a lake whose waters were of milky opalescence.
+It was from these cliffs that the spangled radiance came,
+shimmering out from all their lustrous surfaces.  To left and
+to right, as far as the eye could see, they stretched--and
+they vanished in the auroral nebulosity on high!
+
+"Look at that!" exclaimed Larry.  I followed his pointing
+finger.  On the face of the shining wall, stretched between two
+colossal columns, hung an incredible veil; prismatic, gleam-
+ing with all the colours of the spectrum.  It was like a web
+of rainbows woven by the fingers of the daughters of the
+Jinn.  In front of it and a little at each side was a semi-circular
+pier, or, better, a plaza of what appeared to be glistening,
+pale-yellow ivory.  At each end of its half-circle clustered a
+few low-walled, rose-stone structures, each of them sur-
+mounted by a number of high, slender pinnacles.
+
+We looked at each other, I think, a bit helplessly--and
+back again through the opening.  We were standing, as I have
+said, at its base.  The wall in which it was set was at least ten
+feet thick, and so, of course, all that we could see of that
+which was without were the distances that revealed them-
+selves above the outer ledge of the oval.
+
+"Let's take a look at what's under us," said Larry.
+
+He crept out upon the ledge and peered down, the rest of
+us following.  A hundred yards beneath us stretched gardens
+that must have been like those of many-columned Iram,
+which the ancient Addite King had built for his pleasure ages
+before the deluge, and which Allah, so the Arab legend tells,
+took and hid from man, within the Sahara, beyond all hope of
+finding--jealous because they were more beautiful than his
+in paradise.  Within them flowers and groves of laced, fern-
+like trees, pillared pavilions nestled.
+
+The trunks of the trees were of emerald, of vermilion, and
+of azure-blue, and the blossoms, whose fragrance was borne
+to us, shone like jewels.  The graceful pillars were tinted
+delicately.  I noted that the pavilions were double--in a way,
+two-storied--and that they were oddly splotched with circles,
+with squares, and with oblongs of--opacity; noted too that
+over many this opacity stretched like a roof; yet it did not
+seem material; rather was it--impenetrable shadow!
+
+Down through this city of gardens ran a broad shining
+green thoroughfare, glistening like glass and spanned at reg-
+ular intervals with graceful, arched bridges.  The road flashed
+to a wide square, where rose, from a base of that same silvery
+stone that formed the lip of the Moon Pool, a titanic struc-
+ture of seven terraces; and along it flitted objects that bore
+a curious resemblance to the shell of the Nautilus.  Within
+them were--human figures!  And upon tree-bordered prome-
+nades on each side walked others!
+
+Far to the right we caught the glint of another emerald-
+paved road.
+
+And between the two the gardens grew sweetly down to
+the hither side of that opalescent water across which were
+the radiant cliffs and the curtain of mystery.
+
+Thus it was that we first saw the city of the Dweller;
+blessed and accursed as no place on earth, or under or above
+earth has ever been--or, that force willing which some call
+God, ever again shall be!
+
+"Chert!" whispered Marakinoff.  "Incredible!"
+
+"Trolldom!" gasped Olaf Huldricksson.  "It is Trolldom!"
+
+"Listen, Olaf!" said Larry.  "Cut out that Trolldom stuff!
+There's no Trolldom, or fairies, outside Ireland.  Get that!
+And this isn't Ireland.  And, buck up, Professor!" This to
+Marakinoff.  "What you see down there are people--JUST PLAIN
+PEOPLE.  And wherever there's people is where I live.  Get me?
+
+"There's no way in but in--and no way out but out," said
+O'Keefe.  "And there's the stairway.  Eggs are eggs no matter
+how they're cooked--and people are just people, fellow
+travellers, no matter what dish they are in," he concluded.
+"Come on!"
+
+With the three of us close behind him, he marched toward
+the entrance.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+Yolara, Priestess of the Shining One
+
+"YOU'D better have this handy, Doc." O'Keefe paused at the
+head of the stairway and handed me one of the automatics
+he had taken from Marakinoff.
+
+"Shall I not have one also?" rather anxiously asked the
+latter.
+
+"When you need it you'll get it," answered O'Keefe.  "I'll
+tell you frankly, though, Professor, that you'll have to show
+me before I trust you with a gun.  You shoot too straight--
+from cover."
+
+The flash of anger in the Russian's eyes turned to a cold
+consideration.
+
+"You say always just what is in your mind, Lieutenant
+O'Keefe," he mused.  "Da--that I shall remember!" Later I
+was to recall this odd observation--and Marakinoff was to
+remember indeed.
+
+In single file, O'Keefe at the head and Olaf bringing up
+the rear, we passed through the portal.  Before us dropped a
+circular shaft, into which the light from the chamber of the
+oval streamed liquidly; set in its sides the steps spiralled, and
+down them we went, cautiously.  The stairway ended in a
+circular well; silent--with no trace of exit!  The rounded
+stones joined each other evenly--hermetically.  Carved on
+one of the slabs was one of the five flowered vines.  I pressed
+my fingers upon the calyxes, even as Larry had within the
+Moon Chamber.
+
+A crack--horizontal, four feet wide--appeared on the
+wall; widened, and as the sinking slab that made it dropped
+to the level of our eyes, we looked through a hundred-feet-
+long rift in the living rock!  The stone fell steadily--and we
+saw that it was a Cyclopean wedge set within the slit of the
+passageway.  It reached the level of our feet and stopped.  At
+the far end of this tunnel, whose floor was the polished rock
+that had, a moment before, fitted hermetically into its roof,
+was a low, narrow triangular opening through which light
+streamed.
+
+"Nowhere to go but out!" grinned Larry.  "And I'll bet
+Golden Eyes is waiting for us with a taxi!" He stepped for-
+ward.  We followed, slipping, sliding along the glassy surface;
+and I, for one, had a lively apprehension of what our fate
+would be should that enormous mass rise before we had
+emerged!  We reached the end; crept out of the narrow tri-
+angle that was its exit.
+
+We stood upon a wide ledge carpeted with a thick yellow
+moss.  I looked behind--and clutched O'Keefe's arm.  The
+door through which we had come had vanished!  There was
+only a precipice of pale rock, on whose surfaces great patches
+of the amber moss hung; around whose base our ledge ran,
+and whose summits, if summits it had, were hidden, like the
+luminous cliffs, in the radiance above us.
+
+"Nowhere to go but ahead--and Golden Eyes hasn't kept
+her date!" laughed O'Keefe--but somewhat grimly.
+
+We walked a few yards along the ledge and, rounding a
+corner, faced the end of one of the slender bridges.  From this
+vantage point the oddly shaped vehicles were plain, and we
+could see they were, indeed, like the shell of the Nautilus and
+elfinly beautiful.  Their drivers sat high upon the forward
+whorl.  Their bodies were piled high with cushions, upon
+which lay women half-swathed in gay silken webs.  From
+the pavilioned gardens smaller channels of glistening green
+ran into the broad way, much as automobile runways do on
+earth; and in and out of them flashed the fairy shells.
+
+There came a shout from one.  Its occupants had glimpsed
+us. They pointed; others stopped and stared; one shell turned
+and sped up a runway--and quickly over the other side of
+the bridge came a score of men.  They were dwarfed--none
+of them more than five feet high, prodigiously broad of
+shoulder, clearly enormously powerful.
+
+"Trolde!" muttered Olaf, stepping beside O'Keefe, pistol
+swinging free in his hand.
+
+But at the middle of the bridge the leader stopped, waved
+back his men, and came toward us alone, palms outstretched
+in the immemorial, universal gesture of truce.  He paused,
+scanning us with manifest wonder; we returned the scrutiny
+with interest.  The dwarf's face was as white as Olaf's--far
+whiter than those of the other three of us; the features clean-
+cut and noble, almost classical; the wide set eyes of a curious
+greenish grey and the black hair curling over his head like
+that on some old Greek statue.
+
+Dwarfed though he was, there was no suggestion of de-
+formity about him.  The gigantic shoulders were covered with
+a loose green tunic that looked like fine linen.  It was caught
+in at the waist by a broad girdle studded with what seemed
+to be amazonites.  In it was thrust a long curved poniard
+resembling the Malaysian kris.  His legs were swathed in the
+same green cloth as the upper garment.  His feet were
+sandalled.
+
+My gaze returned to his face, and in it I found something
+subtly disturbing; an expression of half-malicious gaiety that
+underlay the wholly prepossessing features like a vague
+threat; a mocking deviltry that hinted at entire callousness
+to suffering or sorrow; something of the spirit that was
+vaguely alien and disquieting.
+
+He spoke--and, to my surprise, enough of the words were
+familiar to enable me clearly to catch the meaning of the
+whole.  They were Polynesian, the Polynesian of the Samoans
+which is its most ancient form, but in some indefinable way--
+archaic.  Later I was to know that the tongue bore the same
+relation to the Polynesian of today as does NOT that of
+Chaucer, but of the Venerable Bede, to modern English.  Nor
+was this to be so astonishing, when with the knowledge came
+the certainty that it was from it the language we call Poly-
+nesian sprang.
+
+"From whence do you come, strangers--and how found
+you your way here?" said the green dwarf.
+
+I waved my hand toward the cliff behind us.  His eyes nar-
+rowed incredulously; he glanced at its drop, upon which
+even a mountain goat could not have made its way, and
+laughed.
+
+"We came through the rock," I answered his thought.
+"And we come in peace," I added.
+
+"And may peace walk with you," he said half-derisively--
+"if the Shining One wills it!"
+
+He considered us again.
+
+"Show me, strangers, where you came through the rock,"
+he commanded.  We led the way to where we had emerged
+from the well of the stairway.
+
+"It was here," I said, tapping the cliff.
+
+"But I see no opening," he said suavely.
+
+"It closed behind us," I answered; and then, for the first
+time, realized how incredible the explanation sounded.  The
+derisive gleam passed through his eyes again.  But he drew
+his poniard and gravely sounded the rock.
+
+"You give a strange turn to our speech," he said.  "It
+sounds strangely, indeed--as strange as your answers." He
+looked at us quizzically.  "I wonder where you learned it!
+Well, all that you can explain to the Afyo Maie." His head
+bowed and his arms swept out in a wide salaam.  "Be pleased
+to come with me!" he ended abruptly.
+
+"In peace?" I asked.
+
+"In peace," he replied--then slowly--"with me at least."
+
+"Oh, come on, Doc!" cried Larry.  "As long as we're here
+let's see the sights. Allons mon vieux!" he called gaily to the
+green dwarf.  The latter, understanding the spirit, if not the
+words, looked at O'Keefe with a twinkle of approval; turned
+then to the great Norseman and scanned him with admira-
+tion; reached out and squeezed one of the immense biceps.
+
+"Lugur will welcome you, at least," he murmured as
+though to himself.  He stood aside and waved a hand courte-
+ously, inviting us to pass.  We crossed.  At the base of the
+span one of the elfin shells was waiting.
+
+Beyond, scores had gathered, their occupants evidently
+discussing us in much excitement.  The green dwarf waved
+us to the piles of cushions and then threw himself beside us.
+The vehicle started off smoothly, the now silent throng mak-
+ing way, and swept down the green roadway at a terrific pace
+and wholly without vibration, toward the seven-terraced
+tower.
+
+As we flew along I tried to discover the source of the
+power, but I could not--then.  There was no sign of mechan-
+ism, but that the shell responded to some form of energy was
+certain--the driver grasping a small lever which seemed to
+control not only our speed, but our direction.
+
+We turned abruptly and swept up a runway through one
+of the gardens, and stopped softly before a pillared pavilion.
+I saw now that these were much larger than I had thought.
+The structure to which we had been carried covered, I esti-
+mated, fully an acre.  Oblong, with its slender, vari-coloured
+columns spaced regularly, its walls were like the sliding
+screens of the Japanese--shoji.
+
+The green dwarf hurried us up a flight of broad steps
+flanked by great carved serpents, winged and scaled.  He
+stamped twice upon mosaicked stones between two of the
+pillars, and a screen rolled aside, revealing an immense hall
+scattered about with low divans on which lolled a dozen or
+more of the dwarfish men, dressed identically as he.
+
+They sauntered up to us leisurely; the surprised interest
+in their faces tempered by the same inhumanly gay malice
+that seemed to be characteristic of all these people we had
+as yet seen.
+
+"The Afyo Maie awaits them, Rador," said one.
+
+The green dwarf nodded, beckoned us, and led the way
+through the great hall and into a smaller chamber whose far
+side was covered with the opacity I had noted from the aerie
+of the cliff.  I examined the--blackness--with lively interest.
+
+It had neither substance nor texture; it was not matter--
+and yet it suggested solidity; an entire cessation, a complete
+absorption of light; an ebon veil at once immaterial and pal-
+pable.  I stretched, involuntarily, my hand out toward it, and
+felt it quickly drawn back.
+
+"Do you seek your end so soon?" whispered Rador.  "But
+I forget--you do not know," he added.  "On your life touch
+not the blackness, ever.  It--"
+
+He stopped, for abruptly in the density a portal appeared;
+swinging out of the shadow like a picture thrown by a lan-
+tern upon a screen.  Through it was revealed a chamber filled
+with a soft rosy glow.  Rising from cushioned couches, a
+woman and a man regarded us, half leaning over a long,
+low table of what seemed polished jet, laden with flowers
+and unfamiliar fruits.
+
+About the room--that part of it, at least, that I could see--
+were a few oddly shaped chairs of the same substance.  On
+high, silvery tripods three immense globes stood, and it was
+from them that the rose glow emanated.  At the side of the
+woman was a smaller globe whose roseate gleam was tem-
+pered by quivering waves of blue.
+
+"Enter Rador with the strangers!" a clear, sweet voice
+called.
+
+Rador bowed deeply and stood aside, motioning us to
+pass.  We entered, the green dwarf behind us, and out of the
+corner of my eye I saw the doorway fade as abruptly as it
+had appeared and again the dense shadow fill its place.
+
+"Come closer, strangers.  Be not afraid!" commanded the
+bell-toned voice.
+
+We approached.
+
+The woman, sober scientist that I am, made the breath
+catch in my throat.  Never had I seen a woman so beautiful
+as was Yolara of the Dweller's city--and none of so perilous
+a beauty.  Her hair was of the colour of the young tassels of
+the corn and coiled in a regal crown above her broad, white
+brows; her wide eyes were of grey that could change to a
+cornflower blue and in anger deepen to purple; grey or blue,
+they had little laughing devils within them, but when the
+storm of anger darkened them--they were not laughing, no!
+The silken webs that half covered, half revealed her did not
+hide the ivory whiteness of her flesh nor the sweet curve of
+shoulders and breasts.  But for all her amazing beauty, she
+was--sinister!  There was cruelty about the curving mouth,
+and in the music of her voice--not conscious cruelty, but
+the more terrifying, careless cruelty of nature itself.
+
+The girl of the rose wall had been beautiful, yes!  But her
+beauty was human, understandable.  You could imagine her
+with a babe in her arms--but you could not so imagine this
+woman.  About her loveliness hovered something unearthly.
+A sweet feminine echo of the Dweller was Yolara, the Dwell-
+er's priestess--and as gloriously, terrifyingly evil!
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+The Justice of Lora
+
+AS I LOOKED at her the man arose and made his way round
+the table toward us.  For the first time my eyes took in
+Lugur.  A few inches taller than the green dwarf, he was far
+broader, more filled with the suggestion of appalling strength.
+
+The tremendous shoulders were four feet wide if an inch,
+tapering down to mighty thewed thighs.  The muscles of his
+chest stood out beneath his tunic of red.  Around his forehead
+shone a chaplet of bright-blue stones, sparkling among the
+thick curls of his silver-ash hair.
+
+Upon his face pride and ambition were written large--
+and power still larger.  All the mockery, the malice, the hint
+of callous indifference that I had noted in the other dwarfish
+men were there, too--but intensified, touched with the
+satanic.
+
+The woman spoke again.
+
+"Who are you strangers, and how came you here?"  She
+turned to Rador.  "Or is it that they do not understand our
+tongue?"
+
+"One understands and speaks it--but very badly, O
+Yolara," answered the green dwarf.
+
+"Speak, then, that one of you," she commanded.
+
+But it was Marakinoff who found his voice first, and I
+marvelled at the fluency, so much greater than mine, with
+which he spoke.
+
+"We came for different purposes.  I to seek knowledge of a
+kind; he"--pointing to me "of another.  This man"--he
+looked at Olaf--"to find a wife and child."
+
+The grey-blue eyes had been regarding O'Keefe steadily
+and with plainly increasing interest.
+
+"And why did YOU come?" she asked him.  "Nay--I would
+have him speak for himself, if he can," she stilled Marakinoff
+peremptorily.
+
+When Larry spoke it was haltingly, in the tongue that was
+strange to him, searching for the proper words.
+
+"I came to help these men--and because something I
+could not then understand called me, O lady, whose eyes are
+like forest pools at dawn," he answered; and even in the un-
+familiar words there was a touch of the Irish brogue, and
+little merry lights danced in the eyes Larry had so apostro-
+phized.
+
+"I could find fault with your speech, but none with its
+burden," she said.  "What forest pools are I know not, and the
+dawn has not shone upon the people of Lora these many
+sais of laya.1  But I sense what you mean!"
+
+
+*1 Later I was to find that Murian reckoning rested upon the ex-
+traordinary increased luminosity of the cliffs at the time of full moon
+on earth--this action, to my mind, being linked either with the effect
+of the light streaming globes upon the Moon Pool, whose source was
+in the shining cliffs, or else upon some mysterious affinity of their
+radiant element with the flood of moonlight on earth--the latter, most
+probably, because even when the moon must have been clouded above,
+it made no difference in the phenomenon.  Thirteen of these shinings
+forth constituted a laya, one of them a lat.  Ten was sa; ten times ten
+times ten a said, or thousand; ten times a thousand was a sais.  A sais
+of laya was then literally ten thousand years.  What we would call an
+hour was by them called a va.  The whole time system was, of course,
+a mingling of time as it had been known to their remote, surface-
+dwelling ancestors, and the peculiar determining factors in the vast cavern.
+
+
+
+The eyes deepened to blue as she regarded him.  She smiled.
+
+"Are there many like you in the world from which you come?"
+she asked softly.  "Well, we soon shall--"
+
+Lugur interrupted her almost rudely and glowering.
+
+"Best we should know how they came hence," he growled.
+
+She darted a quick look at him, and again the little devils
+danced in her wondrous eyes.
+
+
+
+Unquestionably there is a subtle difference between time as we know
+it and time in this subterranean land--its progress there being slower.
+This, however, is only in accord with the well-known doctrine of rela-
+tivity, which predicates both space and time as necessary inventions of
+the human mind to orient itself to the conditions under which it finds
+itself.  I tried often to measure this difference, but could never do so
+to my entire satisfaction.  The closest I can come to it is to say that
+an hour of our time is the equivalent of an hour and five-eighths in
+Muria.  For further information upon this matter of relativity the
+reader may consult any of the numerous books upon the subject.--
+W. T. G.
+
+"Yes, that is true," she said.  "How came you here?"
+
+Again it was Marakinoff who answered--slowly, consider-
+ing every word.
+
+"In the world above," he said, "there are ruins of cities
+not built by any of those who now dwell there.  To us these
+places called, and we sought for knowledge of the wise ones
+who made them.  We found a passageway.  The way led us
+downward to a door in yonder cliff, and through it we came
+here."
+
+"Then have you found what you sought?" spoke she.  "For
+we are of those who built the cities.  But this gateway in the
+rock--where is it?"
+
+"After we passed, it closed upon us; nor could we after
+find trace of it," answered Marakinoff.
+
+The incredulity that had shown upon the face of the green
+dwarf fell upon theirs; on Lugur's it was clouded with furious
+anger.
+
+He turned to Rador.
+
+"I could find no opening, lord," said the green dwarf
+quickly.
+
+And there was so fierce a fire in the eyes of Lugur as he
+swung back upon us that O'Keefe's hand slipped stealthily
+down toward his pistol.
+
+"Best it is to speak truth to Yolara, priestess of the Shining
+One, and to Lugur, the Voice," he cried menacingly.
+
+"It is the truth," I interposed.  "We came down the pass-
+age.  At its end was a carved vine, a vine of five flowers"--the
+fire died from the red dwarf's eyes, and I could have sworn
+to a swift pallor.  "I rested a hand upon these flowers, and a
+door opened.  But when we had gone through it and turned,
+behind us was nothing but unbroken cliff.  The door had
+vanished."
+
+I had taken my cue from Marakinoff.  If he had eliminated
+the episode of car and Moon Pool, he had good reason, I had
+no doubt; and I would be as cautious.  And deep within me
+something cautioned me to say nothing of my quest; to stifle
+all thought of Throckmartin--something that warned, per-
+emptorily, finally, as though it were a message from Throck-
+martin himself!
+
+"A vine with five flowers!" exclaimed the red dwarf.  "Was
+it like this, say?"
+
+He thrust forward a long arm.  Upon the thumb of the
+hand was an immense ring, set with a dull-blue stone.
+Graven on the face of the jewel was the symbol of the rosy
+walls of the Moon Chamber that had opened to us their two
+portals.  But cut over the vine were seven circles, one about
+each of the flowers and two larger ones covering, intersect-
+ing them.
+
+"This is the same," I said; "but these were not there"--
+I indicated the circles.
+
+The woman drew a deep breath and looked deep into
+Lugur's eyes.
+
+"The sign of the Silent Ones!" he half whispered.
+
+It was the woman who first recovered herself.
+
+"The strangers are weary, Lugur," she said.  "When they
+are rested they shall show where the rocks opened."
+
+I sensed a subtle change in their attitude toward us; a new
+intentness; a doubt plainly tinged with apprehension.  What
+was it they feared?  Why had the symbol of the vine wrought
+the change?  And who or what were the Silent Ones?
+
+Yolara's eyes turned to Olaf, hardened, and grew cold
+grey.  Subconsciously I had noticed that from the first the
+Norseman had been absorbed in his regard of the pair; had,
+indeed, never taken his gaze from them; had noticed, too,
+the priestess dart swift glances toward him.
+
+He returned her scrutiny fearlessly, a touch of contempt in
+the clear eyes--like a child watching a snake which he did
+not dread, but whose danger be well knew.
+
+Under that look Yolara stirred impatiently, sensing, I
+know, its meaning.
+
+"Why do you look at me so?" she cried.
+
+An expression of bewilderment passed over Olaf's face.
+
+"I do not understand," he said in English.
+
+I caught a quickly repressed gleam in O'Keefe's eyes.  He
+knew, as I knew, that Olaf must have understood.  But did
+Marakinoff?
+
+Apparently he did not.  But why was Olaf feigning igno-
+rance?
+
+"This man is a sailor from what we call the North," thus
+Larry haltingly.  "He is crazed, I think.  He tells a strange tale
+of a something of cold fire that took his wife and babe.
+We found him wandering where we were.  And because he is
+strong we brought him with us.  That is all, O lady, whose
+voice is sweeter than the honey of the wild bees!"
+
+"A shape of cold fire?" she repeated.
+
+"A shape of cold fire that whirled beneath the moon, with
+the sound of little bells," answered Larry, watching her in-
+tently.
+
+She looked at Lugur and laughed.
+
+"Then he, too, is fortunate," she said.  "For he has come
+to the place of his something of cold fire--and tell him that
+he shall join his wife and child, in time; that I promise him."
+
+Upon the Norseman's face there was no hint of compre-
+hension, and at that moment I formed an entirely new opin-
+ion of Olaf's intelligence; for certainly it must have been a
+prodigious effort of the will, indeed, that enabled him, under-
+standing, to control himself.
+
+"What does she say?" he asked.
+
+Larry repeated.
+
+"Good!" said Olaf.  "Good!"
+
+He looked at Yolara with well-assumed gratitude.  Lugur,
+who had been scanning his bulk, drew close.  He felt the giant
+muscles which Huldricksson accommodatingly flexed for
+him.
+
+"But he shall meet Valdor and Tahola before he sees those
+kin of his," he laughed mockingly.  "And if he bests them--
+for reward--his wife and babe!"
+
+A shudder, quickly repressed, shook the seaman's frame.
+The woman bent her supremely beautiful head.
+
+"These two," she said, pointing to the Russian and to me,
+"seem to be men of learning.  They may be useful.  As for this
+man,"--she smiled at Larry--"I would have him explain to
+me some things." She hesitated.  "What 'hon-ey of 'e wild
+bees-s' is." Larry had spoken the words in English, and she
+was trying to repeat them.  "As for this man, the sailor, do
+as you please with him, Lugur; always remembering that I
+have given my word that he shall join that wife and babe of
+his!" She laughed sweetly, sinisterly.  "And now--take them,
+Rador--give them food and drink and let them rest till we
+shall call them again."
+
+She stretched out a hand toward O'Keefe.  The Irishman
+bowed low over it, raised it softly to his lips.  There was a
+vicious hiss from Lugur; but Yolara regarded Larry with
+eyes now all tender blue.
+
+"You please me," she whispered.
+
+And the face of Lugur grew darker.
+
+We turned to go.  The rosy, azure-shot globe at her side
+suddenly dulled.  From it came a faint bell sound as of chimes
+far away.  She bent over it.  It vibrated, and then its surface
+ran with little waves of dull colour; from it came a whisper-
+ing so low that I could not distinguish the words--if words
+they were.
+
+She spoke to the red dwarf.
+
+"They have brought the three who blasphemed the Shin-
+ing One," she said slowly.  "Now it is in my mind to show
+these strangers the justice of Lora.  What say you, Lugur?"
+
+The red dwarf nodded, his eyes sparkling with a malicious
+anticipation.
+
+The woman spoke again to the globe.  "Bring them here!"
+
+And again it ran swiftly with its film of colours, darkened,
+and shone rosy once more.  From without there came a rustle
+of many feet upon the rugs.  Yolara pressed a slender hand
+upon the base of the pedestal of the globe beside her.
+Abruptly the light faded from all, and on the same instant
+the four walls of blackness vanished, revealing on two sides
+the lovely, unfamiliar garden through the guarding rows of
+pillars; at our backs soft draperies hid what lay beyond;
+before us, flanked by flowered screens, was the corridor
+through which we had entered, crowded now by the green
+dwarfs of the great hall.
+
+The dwarfs advanced.  Each, I now noted, had the same
+clustering black hair of Rador.  They separated, and from
+them stepped three figures--a youth of not more than twenty,
+short, but with the great shoulders of all the males we had
+seen of this race; a girl of seventeen, I judged, white-faced,
+a head taller than the boy, her long, black hair dishevelled;
+and behind these two a stunted, gnarled shape whose head
+was sunk deep between the enormous shoulders, whose white
+beard fell like that of some ancient gnome down to his waist,
+and whose eyes were a white flame of hate.  The girl cast her-
+self weeping at the feet of the priestess; the youth regarded
+her curiously.
+
+"You are Songar of the Lower Waters?" murmured Yolara
+almost caressingly.  "And this is your daughter and her
+lover?"
+
+The gnome nodded, the flame in his eyes leaping higher.
+
+"It has come to me that you three have dared blaspheme
+the Shining One, its priestess, and its Voice," went on Yo-
+lara smoothly.  "Also that you have called out to the three
+Silent Ones.  Is it true?"
+
+"Your spies have spoken--and have you not already
+judged us?" The voice of the old dwarf was bitter.
+
+A flicker shot through the eyes of Yolara, again cold grey.
+The girl reached a trembling hand out to the hem of the
+priestess's veils.
+
+"Tell us why you did these things, Songar," she said.  "Why
+you did them, knowing full well what your--reward--would be."
+
+The dwarf stiffened; he raised his withered arms, and his
+eyes blazed.
+
+"Because evil are your thoughts and evil are your deeds,"
+he cried.  "Yours and your lover's, there"--he levelled a
+finger at Lugur.  "Because of the Shining One you have made
+evil, too, and the greater wickedness you contemplate--
+you and he with the Shining One.  But I tell you that your
+measure of iniquity is full; the tale of your sin near ended!
+Yea--the Silent Ones have been patient, but soon they will
+speak." He pointed at us.  "A sign are THEY--a warning--
+harlot!"  He spat the word.
+
+In Yolara's eyes, grown black, the devils leaped unrestrained.
+
+"Is it even so, Songar?" her voice caressed.  "Now ask the
+Silent Ones to help you!  They sit afar--but surely they will
+hear you." The sweet voice was mocking.  "As for these two,
+they shall pray to the Shining One for forgiveness--and
+surely the Shining One will take them to its bosom!  As for
+you--you have lived long enough, Songar!  Pray to the Silent
+Ones, Songar, and pass out into the nothingness--you!"
+
+She dipped down into her bosom and drew forth some-
+thing that resembled a small cone of tarnished silver.  She
+levelled it, a covering clicked from its base, and out of it
+darted a slender ray of intense green light.
+
+It struck the old dwarf squarely over the heart, and spread
+swift as light itself, covering him with a gleaming, pale film.
+She clenched her hand upon the cone, and the ray disap-
+peared.  She thrust the cone back into her breast and leaned
+forward expectantly; so Lugur and so the other dwarfs.
+From the girl came a low wail of anguish; the boy dropped
+upon his knees, covering his face.
+
+For the moment the white beard stood rigid; then the
+robe that had covered him seemed to melt away, revealing
+all the knotted, monstrous body.  And in that body a vibra-
+tion began, increasing to incredible rapidity.  It wavered be-
+fore us like a reflection in a still pond stirred by a sudden
+wind.  It grew and grew--to a rhythm whose rapidity was
+intolerable to watch and that still chained the eyes.
+
+The figure grew indistinct, misty.  Tiny sparks in infinite
+numbers leaped from it--like, I thought, the radiant shower
+of particles hurled out by radium when seen under the
+microscope.  Mistier still it grew--there trembled before us
+for a moment a faintly luminous shadow which held, here
+and there, tiny sparkling atoms like those that pulsed in the
+light about us!  The glowing shadow vanished, the sparkling
+atoms were still for a moment--and shot away, joining those
+dancing others.
+
+Where the gnomelike form had been but a few seconds
+before--there was nothing!
+
+O'Keefe drew a long breath, and I was sensible of a prick-
+ling along my scalp.
+
+Yolara leaned toward us.
+
+"You have seen," she said.  Her eyes lingered tigerishly
+upon Olaf's pallid face.  "Heed!" she whispered.  She turned
+to the men in green, who were laughing softly among them-
+selves.
+
+"Take these two, and go!" she commanded.
+
+"The justice of Lora," said the red dwarf.  "The justice of
+Lora and the Shining One under Thanaroa!"
+
+Upon the utterance of the last word I saw Marakinoff start
+violently.  The hand at his side made a swift, surreptitious
+gesture, so fleeting that I hardly caught it.  The red dwarf
+stared at the Russian, and there was amazement upon his
+face.
+
+Swiftly as Marakinoff, he returned it.
+
+"Yolara," the red dwarf spoke, "it would please me to
+take this man of wisdom to my own place for a time.  The
+giant I would have, too."
+
+The woman awoke from her brooding; nodded.
+
+"As you will, Lugur," she said.
+
+And as, shaken to the core, we passed out into the garden
+into the full throbbing of the light, I wondered if all the tiny
+sparkling diamond points that shook about us had once been
+men like Songar of the Lower Waters--and felt my very soul
+grow sick!
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+The Angry, Whispering Globe
+
+OUR WAY led along a winding path between banked masses
+of softly radiant blooms, groups of feathery ferns whose
+plumes were starred with fragrant white and blue flowerets,
+slender creepers swinging from the branches of the strangely
+trunked trees, bearing along their threads orchid-like blos-
+soms both delicately frail and gorgeously flamboyant.
+
+The path we trod was an exquisite mosaic--pastel greens
+and pinks upon a soft grey base, garlands of nimbused forms
+like the flaming rose of the Rosicrucians held in the mouths
+of the flying serpents.  A smaller pavilion arose before us,
+single-storied, front wide open.
+
+Upon its threshold Rador paused, bowed deeply, and mo-
+tioned us within.  The chamber we entered was large, closed
+on two sides by screens of grey; at the back gay, concealing
+curtains.  The low table of blue stone, dressed with fine white
+cloths, stretched at one side flanked by the cushioned divans.
+
+At the left was a high tripod bearing one of the rosy globes
+we had seen in the house of Yolara; at the head of the table
+a smaller globe similar to the whispering one.  Rador pressed
+upon its base, and two other screens slid into place across
+the entrance, shutting in the room.
+
+He clapped his hands; the curtains parted, and two girls
+came through them.  Tall and willow lithe, their bluish-black
+hair falling in ringlets just below their white shoulders, their
+clear eyes of forget-me-not blue, and skins of extraordinary
+fineness and purity--they were singularly attractive.  Each
+was clad in an extremely scanty bodice of silken blue, girdled
+above a kirtle that came barely to their very pretty knees.
+
+"Food and drink," ordered Rador.
+
+They dropped back through the curtains.
+
+"Do you like them?" he asked us.
+
+"Some chickens!" said Larry.  "They delight the heart," he
+translated for Rador.
+
+The green dwarf's next remark made me gasp.
+
+"They are yours," he said.
+
+Before I could question him further upon this extraordi-
+nary statement the pair re-entered, bearing a great platter on
+which were small loaves, strange fruits, and three immense
+flagons of rock crystal--two filled with a slightly sparkling
+yellow liquid and the third with a purplish drink.  I became
+acutely sensible that it had been hours since I had either
+eaten or drunk.  The yellow flagons were set before Larry and
+me, the purple at Rador's hand.
+
+The girls, at his signal, again withdrew.  I raised my glass
+to my lips and took a deep draft.  The taste was unfamiliar
+but delightful.
+
+Almost at once my fatigue disappeared.  I realized a clarity
+of mind, an interesting exhilaration and sense of irresponsi-
+bility, of freedom from care, that were oddly enjoyable.
+Larry became immediately his old gay self.
+
+The green dwarf regarded us whimsically, sipping from
+his great flagon of rock crystal.
+
+"Much do I desire to know of that world you came from,"
+he said at last--"through the rocks," he added, slyly.
+
+"And much do we desire to know of this world of yours,
+O Rador," I answered.
+
+Should I ask him of the Dweller; seek from him a clue to
+Throckmartin?  Again, clearly as a spoken command, came
+the warning to forbear, to wait.  And once more I obeyed.
+
+"Let us learn, then, from each other." The dwarf was
+laughing.  "And first--are all above like you--drawn out"--
+he made an expressive gesture--"and are there many of
+you?"
+
+"There are--" I hesitated, and at last spoke the Polynesian
+that means tens upon tens multiplied indefinitely--"there
+are as many as the drops of water in the lake we saw from
+the ledge where you found us," I continued; "many as the
+leaves on the trees without.  And they are all like us--
+varyingly."
+
+He considered skeptically, I could see, my remark upon
+our numbers.
+
+"In Muria," he said at last, "the men are like me or like
+Lugur.  Our women are as you see them--like Yolara or
+those two who served you." He hesitated.  "And there is a
+third; but only one."
+
+Larry leaned forward eagerly.
+
+"Brown-haired with glints of ruddy bronze, golden-eyed,
+and lovely as a dream, with long, slender, beautiful hands?"
+he cried.
+
+"Where saw you HER?" interrupted the dwarf, starting to
+his feet.
+
+"Saw her?" Larry recovered himself.  "Nay, Rador, per-
+haps, I only dreamed that there was such a woman."
+
+"See to it, then, that you tell not your dream to Yolara,"
+said the dwarf grimly.  "For her I meant and her you have
+pictured is Lakla, the hand-maiden to the Silent Ones, and
+neither Yolara nor Lugur, nay, nor the Shining One, love
+her overmuch, stranger."
+
+"Does she dwell here?" Larry's face was alight.
+
+The dwarf hesitated, glanced about him anxiously.
+
+"Nay," he answered, "ask me no more of her." He was
+silent for a space.  "And what do you who are as leaves or
+drops of water do in that world of yours?" he said, plainly
+bent on turning the subject.
+
+"Keep off the golden-eyed girl, Larry," I interjected.  "Wait
+till we find out why she's tabu."
+
+"Love and battle, strive and accomplish and die; or fail and
+die," answered Larry--to Rador--giving me a quick nod of
+acquiescence to my warning in English.
+
+"In that at least your world and mine differ little," said the
+dwarf.
+
+"How great is this world of yours, Rador?" I spoke.
+
+He considered me gravely.
+
+"How great indeed I do not know," he said frankly at last.
+"The land where we dwell with the Shining One stretches
+along the white waters for--" He used a phrase of which I
+could make nothing.  "Beyond this city of the Shining One
+and on the hither shores of the white waters dwell the mayia
+ladala--the common ones." He took a deep draft from his
+flagon.  "There are, first, the fair-haired ones, the children
+of the ancient rulers," he continued.  "There are, second, we
+the soldiers; and last, the mayia ladala, who dig and till and
+weave and toil and give our rulers and us their daughters,
+and dance with the Shining One!" he added.
+
+"Who rules?" I asked.
+
+"The fair-haired, under the Council of Nine, who are
+under Yolara, the Priestess and Lugur, the Voice," he
+answered, "who are in turn beneath the Shining One!" There
+was a ring of bitter satire in the last.
+
+"And those three who were judged?"--this from Larry.
+
+"They were of the mayia ladala," he replied, "like those
+two I gave you.  But they grow restless.  They do not like to
+dance with the Shining One--the blasphemers!" He raised
+his voice in a sudden great shout of mocking laughter.
+
+In his words I caught a fleeting picture of the race--an
+ancient, luxurious, close-bred oligarchy clustered about some
+mysterious deity; a soldier class that supported them; and
+underneath all the toiling, oppressed hordes.
+
+"And is that all?" asked Larry.
+
+"No," he answered.  "There is the Sea of Crimson
+where--"
+
+Without warning the globe beside us sent out a vicious
+note, Rador turned toward it, his face paling.  Its surface
+crawled with whisperings--angry, peremptory!
+
+"I hear!" he croaked, gripping the table.  "I obey!"
+
+He turned to us a face devoid for once of its malice.
+
+"Ask me no more questions, strangers," he said.  "And
+now, if you are done, I will show you where you may sleep
+and bathe."
+
+He arose abruptly.  We followed him through the hang-
+ings, passed through a corridor and into another smaller
+chamber, roofless, the sides walled with screens of dark grey.
+Two cushioned couches were there and a curtained door
+leading into an open, outer enclosure in which a fountain
+played within a wide pool.
+
+"Your bath," said Rador.  He dropped the curtain and
+came back into the room.  He touched a carved flower at one
+side.  There was a tiny sighing from overhead and instantly
+across the top spread a veil of blackness, impenetrable to
+light but certainly not to air, for through it pulsed little
+breaths of the garden fragrances.  The room filled with a cool
+twilight, refreshing, sleep-inducing.  The green dwarf pointed
+to the couches.
+
+"Sleep!" he said.  "Sleep and fear nothing.  My men are on
+guard outside." He came closer to us, the old mocking
+gaiety sparkling in his eyes.
+
+"But I spoke too quickly," he whispered.  "Whether it is
+because the Afyo Maie fears their tongues--or--" he
+laughed at Larry.  "The maids are NOT yours!" Still laughing
+he vanished through the curtains of the room of the foun-
+tain before I could ask him the meaning of his curious gift,
+its withdrawal, and his most enigmatic closing remarks.
+
+"Back in the great old days of Ireland," thus Larry break-
+ing into my thoughts raptly, the brogue thick, "there was
+Cairill mac Cairill--Cairill Swiftspear.  An' Cairill wronged
+Keevan of Emhain Abhlach, of the blood of Angus of the
+great people when he was sleeping in the likeness of a pale
+reed.  Then Keevan put this penance on Cairill--that for a
+year Cairill should wear his body in Emhain Abhlach, which
+is the Land of Faery and for that year Keevan should wear
+the body of Cairill.  And it was done.
+
+"In that year Cairill met Emar of the Birds that are one
+white, one red, and one black--and they loved, and from that
+love sprang Ailill their son.  And when Ailill was born he
+took a reed flute and first he played slumber on Cairill, and
+then he played old age so that Cairill grew white and with-
+ered; then Ailill played again and Cairill became a shadow--
+then a shadow of a shadow--then a breath; and the breath
+went out upon the wind!" He shivered.  "Like the old
+gnome," he whispered, "that they called Songar of the
+Lower Waters!"
+
+He shook his head as though he cast a dream from him.
+Then, all alert--
+
+"But that was in Iceland ages agone.  And there's nothing
+like that here, Doc!" He laughed.  "It doesn't scare me one
+little bit, old boy.  The pretty devil lady's got the wrong  slant.
+When  you've  had  a  pal  standing   beside   you   one   moment--
+full of life, and joy, and power, and potentialities, telling
+what he's going to do to make the world hum when he gets
+through the slaughter, just running over with zip and pep of
+life, Doc--and the next instant, right in the middle of a
+laugh--a piece of damned shell takes off half his head and
+with it joy and power and all the rest of it"--his face
+twitched--"well, old man, in the face of THAT mystery a
+disappearing act such as the devil lady treated us to doesn't
+make much of a dent.  Not on me.  But by the brogans of
+Brian Boru--if we could have had some of that stuff to turn
+on during the war--oh, boy!"
+
+He was silent, evidently contemplating the idea with vast
+pleasure.  And as for me, at that moment my last doubt of
+Larry O'Keefe vanished, I saw that he did believe, really
+believed, in his banshees, his leprechauns and all the old
+dreams of the Gael--but only within the limits of Ireland.
+
+In one drawer of his mind was packed all his superstition,
+his mysticism, and what of weakness it might carry.  But face
+him with any peril or problem and the drawer closed in-
+stantaneously leaving a mind that was utterly fearless, in-
+credulous, and ingenious; swept clean of all cobwebs by as
+fine a skeptic broom as ever brushed a brain.
+
+"Some stuff!" Deepest admiration was in his voice.  "If
+we'd only had it when the war was on--imagine half a dozen
+of us scooting over the enemy batteries and the gunners
+underneath all at once beginning to shake themselves to
+pieces!  Wow!" His tone was rapturous.
+
+"It's easy enough to explain, Larry," I said.  "The effect,
+that is--for what the green ray is made of I don't know, of
+course.  But what it does, clearly, is stimulate atomic vibra-
+tion to such a pitch that the cohesion between the particles of
+matter is broken and the body flies to bits--just as a fly-
+wheel does when its speed gets so great that the particles
+of which IT is made can't hold together."
+
+"Shake themselves to pieces is right, then!" he exclaimed.
+
+"Absolutely right," I nodded.  "Everything in Nature vi-
+brates.  And all matter--whether man or beast or stone or
+metal or vegetable--is made up of vibrating molecules,
+which are made up of vibrating atoms which are made up
+of truly infinitely small particles of electricity called elec-
+trons, and electrons, the base of all matter, are themselves
+perhaps only a vibration of the mysterious ether.
+
+"If a magnifying glass of sufficient size and strength could
+be placed over us we could see ourselves as sieves--our
+space lattice, as it is called.  And all that is necessary to break
+down the lattice, to shake us into nothingness, is some agent
+that will set our atoms vibrating at such a rate that at last
+they escape the unseen cords and fly off.
+
+"The green ray of Yolara is such an agent.  It set up in the
+dwarf that incredibly rapid rhythm that you saw and--
+shook him not to atoms--but to electrons!"
+
+"They had a gun on the West Front--a seventy-five," said
+O'Keefe, "that broke the eardrums of everybody who fired
+it, no matter what protection they used.  It looked like all
+the other seventy-fives--but there was something about its
+sound that did it.  They had to recast it."
+
+"It's practically the same thing," I replied.  "By some freak
+its vibratory qualities had that effect.  The deep whistle of
+the sunken Lusitania would, for instance, make the Singer
+Building shake to its foundations; while the Olympic did not
+affect the Singer at all but made the Woolworth shiver all
+through.  In each case they stimulated the atomic vibration
+of the particular building--"
+
+I paused, aware all at once of an intense drowsiness.
+O'Keefe, yawning, reached down to unfasten his puttees.
+
+"Lord, I'm sleepy!" he exclaimed.  "Can't understand it--
+what you say--most--interesting--Lord!" he yawned again;
+straightened.  "What made Reddy take such a shine to the
+Russian?" he asked.
+
+"Thanaroa," I answered, fighting to keep my eyes open.
+
+"What?"
+
+"When Lugur spoke that name I saw Marakinoff signal
+him.  Thanaroa is, I suspect, the original form of the name
+of Tangaroa, the greatest god of the Polynesians.  There's a
+secret cult to him in the islands.  Marakinoff may belong to
+it--he knows it anyway.  Lugur recognized the signal and
+despite his surprise answered it."
+
+"So he gave him the high sign, eh?" mused Larry.  "How
+could they both know it?"
+
+"The cult is a very ancient one.  Undoubtedly it had its
+origin in the dim beginnings before these people migrated
+here," I replied.  "It's a link--one--of the few links between
+up there and the lost past--"
+
+"Trouble then," mumbled Larry.  "Hell brewing!  I smell it
+--Say, Doc, is this sleepiness natural?  Wonder where my--
+gas mask--is--" he added, half incoherently.
+
+But I myself was struggling desperately against the
+drugged slumber pressing down upon me.
+
+"Lakla!" I heard O'Keefe murmur.  "Lakla of the golden
+eyes--no Eilidh--the Fair!" He made an immense effort,
+half raised himself, grinned faintly.
+
+"Thought this was paradise when I first saw it, Doc," he
+sighed.  "But I know now, if it is, No-Man's Land was the
+greatest place on earth for a honeymoon.  They--they've got
+us, Doc--" He sank back.  "Good luck, old boy, wherever
+you're going." His hand waved feebly.  "Glad--knew--you.
+Hope--see--you--'gain--"
+
+His voice trailed into silence.  Fighting, fighting with every
+fibre of brain and nerve against the sleep, I felt myself being
+steadily overcome.  Yet before oblivion rushed down upon
+me I seemed to see upon the grey-screened wall nearest the
+Irishman an oval of rosy light begin to glow; watched, as my
+falling lids inexorably fell, a flame-tipped shadow waver
+on it; thicken; condense--and there looking down upon
+Larry, her eyes great golden stars in which intensest curios-
+ity and shy tenderness struggled, sweet mouth half smiling,
+was the girl of the Moon Pool's Chamber, the girl whom the
+green dwarf had named--Lakla: the vision Larry had in-
+voked before that sleep which I could no longer deny had
+claimed him--
+
+Closer she came--closer---the eyes were over us.
+
+Then oblivion indeed!
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+Yolara of Muria vs. the O'Keefe
+
+I AWAKENED with all the familiar, homely sensation of a
+shade having been pulled up in a darkened room.  I thrilled
+with a wonderful sense of deep rest and restored resiliency.
+The ebon shadow had vanished from above and down into
+the room was pouring the silvery light.  From the fountain
+pool came a mighty splashing and shouts of laughter.  I
+jumped and drew the curtain.  O'Keefe and Rador were swim-
+ming a wild race; the dwarf like an otter, out-distancing and
+playing around the Irishman at will.
+
+Had that overpowering sleep--and now I confess that my
+struggle against it had been largely inspired by fear that it
+was the abnormal slumber which Throckmartin had de-
+scribed as having heralded the approach of the Dweller be-
+fore it had carried away Thora and Stanton--had that sleep
+been after all nothing but natural reaction of tired nerves
+and brains?
+
+And that last vision of the golden-eyed girl bending over
+Larry?  Had that also been a delusion of an overstressed
+mind?  Well, it might have been, I could not tell.  At any rate,
+I decided, I would speak about it to O'Keefe once we were
+alone again--and then giving myself up to the urge of buoy-
+ant well-being I shouted like a boy, stripped and joined the
+two in the pool.  The water was warm and I felt the unwonted
+tingling of life in every vein increase; something from it
+seemed to pulse through the skin, carrying a clean vigorous
+vitality that toned every fibre.  Tiring at last, we swam to the
+edge and drew ourselves out.  The green dwarf quickly
+clothed himself and Larry rather carefully donned his uni-
+form.
+
+"The Afyo Maie has summoned us, Doc," he said.  "We're
+to--well--I suppose you'd call it breakfast with her.  After
+that, Rador tells me, we're to have a session with the Council
+of Nine.  I suppose Yolara is as curious as any lady of--the
+upper world, as you might put it--and just naturally can't
+wait," he added.
+
+He gave himself a last shake, patted the automatic hidden
+under his left arm, whistled cheerfully,
+
+"After you, my dear Alphonse," he said to Rador, with a
+low bow.  The dwarf laughed, bent in an absurd imitation of
+Larry's mocking courtesy and started ahead of us to the
+house of the priestess.  When he had gone a little way on the
+orchid-walled path I whispered to O'Keefe:
+
+"Larry, when you were falling off to sleep--did you think
+you saw anything?"
+
+"See anything!" he grinned.  "Doc, sleep hit me like a Hun
+shell.  I thought they were pulling the gas on us.  I--I had
+some intention of bidding you tender farewells," he con-
+tinued, half sheepishly.  "I think I did start 'em, didn't I?"
+
+I nodded.
+
+"But wait a minute--" he hesitated.  "I had a queer sort of
+dream--"
+
+'What was it?" I asked eagerly,
+
+"Well," he answered slowly, "I suppose it was because I'd
+been thinking of--Golden Eyes.  Anyway, I thought she
+came through the wall and leaned over me--yes, and put
+one of those long white hands of hers on my head--I
+couldn't raise my lids--but in some queer way I could see
+her.  Then it got real dreamish.  Why do you ask?"
+
+Rador turned back toward us,
+
+"Later," I answered, "Not now.  When we're alone."
+
+But through me went a little glow of reassurance.  What-
+ever the maze through which we were moving; whatever of
+menacing evil lurking there--the Golden Girl was clearly
+watching over us; watching with whatever unknown powers
+she could muster.
+
+We passed the pillared entrance; went through a long
+bowered corridor and stopped before a door that seemed
+to be sliced from a monolith of pale jade--high, narrow,
+set in a wall of opal.
+
+Rador stamped twice and the same supernally sweet, silver
+bell tones of--yesterday, I must call it, although in that place
+of eternal day the term is meaningless--bade us enter.  The
+door slipped aside.  The chamber was small, the opal walls
+screening it on three sides, the black opacity covering it, the
+fourth side opening out into a delicious little walled garden
+--a mass of the fragrant, luminous blooms and delicately
+colored fruit.  Facing it was a small table of reddish wood
+and from the omnipresent cushions heaped around it arose to
+greet us--Yolara.
+
+Larry drew in his breath with an involuntary gasp of
+admiration and bowed low.  My own admiration was as frank
+--and the priestess was well pleased with our homage.
+
+She was swathed in the filmy, half-revelant webs, now of
+palest blue.  The corn-silk hair was caught within a wide-
+meshed golden net in which sparkled tiny brilliants, like
+blended sapphires and diamonds.  Her own azure eyes
+sparkled as brightly as they, and I noted again in their clear
+depths the half-eager approval as they rested upon O'Keefe's
+lithe, well-knit figure and his keen, clean-cut face.  The high-
+arched, slender feet rested upon soft sandals whose gauzy
+withes laced the exquisitely formed leg to just below the
+dimpled knee.
+
+"Some giddy wonder!" exclaimed Larry, looking at me
+and placing a hand over his heart.  "Put her on a New York
+roof and she'd empty Broadway.  Take the cue from me,
+Doc."
+
+He turned to Yolara, whose face was somewhat puzzled.
+
+"I said, O lady whose shining hair is a web for hearts, that
+in our world your beauty would dazzle the sight of men as
+would a little woman sun!" he said, in the florid imagery to
+which the tongue lends itself so well.
+
+A flush stole up through the translucent skin.  The blue
+eyes softened and she waved us toward the cushions.  Black-
+haired maids stole in, placing before us the fruits, the little
+loaves and a steaming drink somewhat the colour and odor
+of chocolate.  I was conscious of outrageous hunger.
+
+"What are you named, strangers?" she asked.
+
+"This man is named Goodwin," said O'Keefe.  "As for me,
+call me Larry."
+
+"Nothing like getting acquainted quick," he said to me--
+but kept his eyes upon Yolara as though he were voicing
+another honeyed phrase.  And so she took it, for: "You must
+teach me your tongue," she murmured.
+
+"Then shall I have two words where now I have one to
+tell you of your loveliness," he answered.
+
+"And also that'll take time," he spoke to me.  "Essential
+occupation out of which we can't be drafted to make these
+fun-loving folk any Roman holiday.  Get me!"
+
+"Larree," mused Yolara.  "I like the sound.  It is sweet--"
+and indeed it was as she spoke it.
+
+"And what is your land named, Larree?" she continued.
+"And Goodwin's?" She caught the sound perfectly.
+
+"My land, O lady of loveliness, is two--Ireland and
+America; his but one--America."
+
+She repeated the two names--slowly, over and over.  We
+seized the opportunity to attack the food; halting half guilt-
+ily as she spoke again.
+
+"Oh, but you are hungry!" she cried.  "Eat then." She
+leaned her chin upon her hands and regarded us, whole
+fountains of questions brimming up in her eyes.
+
+"How is it, Larree, that you have two countries and Good-
+win but one?" she asked, at last unable to keep silent longer.
+
+"I was born in Ireland; he in America.  But I have dwelt
+long in his land and my heart loves each," he said.
+
+She nodded, understandingly.
+
+"Are all the men of Ireland like you, Larree?  As all the
+men here are like Lugur or Rador?  I like to look at you,"
+she went on, with naive frankness.  "I am tired of men like
+Lugur and Rador.  But they are strong," she added, swiftly.
+"Lugur can hold up ten in his two arms and raise six with
+but one hand."
+
+We could not understand her numerals and she raised
+white fingers to illustrate.
+
+"That is little, O lady, to the men of Ireland," replied
+O'Keefe.  "Lo, I have seen one of my race hold up ten times
+ten of our--what call you that swift thing in which Rador
+brought us here?"
+
+"Corial," said she.
+
+"Hold up ten times twenty of our corials with but two
+fingers--and these corials of ours--"
+
+"Coria," said she.
+
+"And these coria of ours are each greater in weight than
+ten of yours.  Yes, and I have seen another with but one blow
+of his hand raise hell!
+
+"And so I have," he murmured to me.  "And both at Forty-
+second and Fifth Avenue, N. Y.--U. S. A."
+
+Yolara considered all this with manifest doubt.
+
+"Hell?" she inquired at last.  "I know not the word."
+
+"Well," answered O'Keefe.  "Say Muria then.  In many
+ways they are, I gather, O heart's delight, one and the same."
+
+Now the doubt in the blue eyes was strong indeed.  She
+shook her head.
+
+"None of our men can do THAT!" she answered, at length.
+"Nor do I think you could, Larree."
+
+"Oh, no," said Larry easily.  "I never tried to be that
+strong.  I fly," he added, casually.
+
+The priestess rose to her feet, gazing at him with startled eyes.
+
+"Fly!" she repeated incredulously.  "Like a _Zitia_?  A bird?"
+
+Larry nodded--and then seeing the dawning command in
+her eyes, went on hastily.
+
+"Not with my own wings, Yolara.  In a--a corial that
+moves through--what's the word for air, Doc--well,
+through this--" He made a wide gesture up toward the
+nebulous haze above us.  He took a pencil and on a white
+cloth made a hasty sketch of an airplane.  "In a--a corial
+like this--" She regarded the sketch gravely, thrust a hand
+down into her girdle and brought forth a keen-bladed
+poniard; cut Larry's markings out and placed the fragment
+carefully aside.
+
+"That I can understand," she said.
+
+"Remarkably intelligent young woman," muttered
+O'Keefe.  "Hope I'm not giving anything away--but she had
+me."
+
+"But what are your women like, Larree?  Are they like
+me?  And how many have loved you?" she whispered.
+
+"In all Ireland and America there is none like you, Yo-
+lara," he answered.  "And take that any way you please," he
+muttered in English.  She took it, it was evident, as it most
+pleased her.
+
+"Do you have goddesses?" she asked.
+
+"Every woman in Ireland and America, is a goddess";
+thus Larry.
+
+"Now that I do not believe." There was both anger and
+mockery in her eyes.  "I know women, Larree--and if that
+were so there would be no peace for men."
+
+"There isn't!" replied he.  The anger died out and she
+laughed, sweetly, understandingly.
+
+"And which goddess do you worship, Larree?"
+
+"You!" said Larry O'Keefe boldly.
+
+"Larry!  Larry!" I whispered.  "Be careful.  It's high explo-
+sive."
+
+But the priestess was laughing--little trills of sweet bell
+notes; and pleasure was in each note.
+
+"You are indeed bold, Larree," she said, "to offer me your
+worship.  Yet am I pleased by your boldness.  Still--Lugur is
+strong; and you are not of those who--what did you say--
+have tried.  And your wings are not here--Larree!"
+
+Again her laughter rang out.  The Irishman flushed; it was
+touche for Yolara!
+
+"Fear not for me with Lugur," he said, grimly.  "Rather
+fear for him!"
+
+The laughter died; she looked at him searchingly; a little
+enigmatic smile about her mouth--so sweet and so cruel.
+
+"Well--we shall see," she murmured.  "You say you battle
+in your world.  With what?"
+
+"Oh, with this and with that," answered Larry, airily.
+"We manage--"
+
+"Have you the Keth--I mean that with which I sent
+Songar into the nothingness?" she asked swiftly.
+
+"See what she's driving at?" O'Keefe spoke to me, swiftly.
+"Well I do!  But here's where the O'Keefe lands.
+
+"I said," he turned to her, "O voice of silver fire, that your
+spirit is high even as your beauty--and searches out men's
+souls as does your loveliness their hearts.  And now listen,
+Yolara, for what I speak is truth"--into his eyes came the
+far-away gaze; into his voice the Irish softness--"Lo, in my
+land of Ireland, this many of your life's length agone--see"
+--he raised his ten fingers, clenched and unclenched them
+times twenty--"the mighty men of my race, the Taitha-da-
+Dainn, could send men out into the nothingness even as do
+you with the Keth.  And this they did by their harpings, and
+by words spoken--words of power, O Yolara, that have their
+power still--and by pipings and by slaying sounds.
+
+"There was Cravetheen who played swift flames from his
+harp, flying flames that ate those they were sent against.  And
+there was Dalua, of Hy Brasil, whose pipes played away
+from man and beast and all living things their shadows--
+and at last played them to shadows too, so that wherever
+Dalua went his shadows that had been men and beast fol-
+lowed like a storm of little rustling leaves; yea, and Bel the
+Harper, who could make women's hearts run like wax and
+men's hearts flame to ashes and whose harpings could shat-
+ter strong cliffs and bow great trees to the sod--"
+
+His eyes were bright, dream-filled; she shrank a little
+from him, faint pallor under the perfect skin.
+
+"I say to you, Yolara, that these things were and are--
+in Ireland." His voice rang strong.  "And I have seen men as
+many as those that are in your great chamber this many
+times over"--he clenched his hands once more, perhaps a
+dozen times--"blasted into nothingness before your Keth
+could even have touched them.  Yea--and rocks as mighty
+as those through which we came lifted up and shattered
+before the lids could fall over your blue eyes.  And this is
+truth, Yolara--all truth!  Stay--have you that little cone of
+the Keth with which you destroyed Songar?"
+
+She nodded, gazing at him, fascinated, fear and puzzle-
+ment contending.
+
+"Then use it." He took a vase of crystal from the table,
+placed it on the threshold that led into the garden.  "Use it
+on this--and I will show you."
+
+"I will use it upon one of the ladala--" she began eagerly.
+
+The exaltation dropped from him; there was a touch of
+horror in the eyes he turned to her; her own dropped be-
+fore it.
+
+"It shall be as you say," she said hurriedly.  She drew the
+shining cone from her breast; levelled it at the vase.  The
+green ray leaped forth, spread over the crystal, but before
+its action could even be begun, a flash of light shot from
+O'Keefe's hand, his automatic spat and the trembling vase
+flew into fragments.  As quickly as he had drawn it, he
+thrust the pistol back into place and stood there empty
+handed, looking at her sternly.  From the anteroom came
+shouting, a rush of feet.
+
+Yolara's face was white, her eyes strained--but her voice
+was unshaken as she called to the clamouring guards:
+
+"It is nothing--go to your places!"
+
+But when the sound of their return had ceased she stared
+tensely at the Irishman--then looked again at the shattered
+vase.
+
+"It is true!" she cried, "but see, the Keth is--alive!"
+
+I followed her pointing finger.  Each broken bit of the
+crystal was vibrating, shaking its particles out into space.
+Broken it the bullet of Larry's had--but not released it from
+the grip of the disintegrating force.  The priestess's face was
+triumphant.
+
+"But what matters it, O shining urn of beauty--what mat-
+ters it to the vase that is broken what happens to its frag-
+ments?" asked Larry, gravely--and pointedly.
+
+The triumph died from her face and for a space she was
+silent; brooding.
+
+"Next," whispered O'Keefe to me.  "Lots of surprises in
+the little box; keep your eye on the opening and see what
+comes out."
+
+We had not long to wait.  There was a sparkle of anger
+about Yolara, something too of injured pride.  She clapped
+her hands; whispered to the maid who answered her sum-
+mons, and then sat back regarding us, maliciously.
+
+"You have answered me as to your strength--but you
+have not proved it; but the Keth you have answered.  Now
+answer this!" she said.
+
+She pointed out into the garden.  I saw a flowering branch
+bend and snap as though a hand had broken it--but no hand
+was there!  Saw then another and another bend and break,
+a little tree sway and fall--and closer and closer to us came
+the trail of snapping boughs while down into the garden
+poured the silvery light revealing--nothing!  Now a great
+ewer beside a pillar rose swiftly in air and hurled itself
+crashing at my feet.  Cushions close to us swirled about as
+though in the vortex of a whirlwind.
+
+And unseen hands held my arms in a mighty clutch fast
+to my sides, another gripped my throat and I felt a needle-
+sharp poniard point pierce my shirt, touch the skin just over
+my heart!
+
+"Larry!" I cried, despairingly.  I twisted my head; saw that
+he too was caught in this grip of the invisible.  But his face
+was calm, even amused.
+
+"Keep cool, Doc!" he said.  "Remember--she wants to
+learn the language!"
+
+Now from Yolara burst chime upon chime of mocking
+laughter.  She gave a command--the hands loosened, the
+poniard withdrew from my heart; suddenly as I had been
+caught I was free--and unpleasantly weak and shaky.
+
+"Have you THAT in Ireland, Larree!" cried the priestess--
+and once more trembled with laughter.
+
+"A good play, Yolara." His voice was as calm as his face.
+"But they did that in Ireland even before Dalua piped away
+his first man's shadow.  And in Goodwin's land they make
+ships--coria that go on water--so you can pass by them and
+see only sea and sky; and those water coria are each of them
+many times greater than this whole palace of yours."
+
+But the priestess laughed on.
+
+"It did get me a little," whispered Larry.  "That wasn't
+quite up to my mark.  But God!  If we could find that trick
+out and take it back with us!"
+
+"Not so, Larree!" Yolara gasped, through her laughter.
+"Not so!  Goodwin's cry betrayed you!"
+
+Her good humour had entirely returned; she was like a
+mischievous child pleased over some successful trick; and
+like a child she cried--"I'll show you!"--signalled again;
+whispered to the maid who, quickly returning, laid before
+her a long metal case.  Yolara took from her girdle something
+that looked like a small pencil, pressed it and shot a thin
+stream of light for all the world like an electric flash, upon
+its hasp.  The lid flew open.  Out of it she drew three flat, oval
+crystals, faint rose in hue.  She handed one to O'Keefe and
+one to me.
+
+"Look!" she commanded, placing the third before her own
+eyes.  I peered through the stone and instantly there leaped
+into sight, out of thin air--six grinning dwarfs!  Each was
+covered from top of head to soles of feet in a web so tenuous
+that through it their bodies were plain.  The gauzy stuff
+seemed to vibrate--its strands to run together like quick-
+silver.  I snatched the crystal from my eyes and--the chamber
+was empty!  Put it back--and there were the grinning six!
+
+Yolara gave another sign and they disappeared, even from
+the crystals.
+
+"It is what they wear, Larree," explained Yolara, gra-
+ciously.  "It is something that came to us from--the Ancient
+Ones.  But we have so few"--she sighed.
+
+"Such treasures must be two-edged swords, Yolara,"
+commented O'Keefe.  "For how know you that one within
+them creeps not to you with hand eager to strike?"
+
+"There is no danger," she said indifferently.  "I am the
+keeper of them."
+
+She mused for a space, then abruptly:
+
+"And now no more.  You two are to appear before the
+Council at a certain time--but fear nothing.  You, Goodwin,
+go with Rador about our city and increase your wisdom.
+But you, Larree, await me here in my garden--" she smiled
+at him, provocatively--maliciously, too.  "For shall not one
+who has resisted a world of goddesses be given all chance to
+worship when at last he finds his own?"
+
+She laughed--whole-heartedly and was gone.  And at that
+moment I liked Yolara better than ever I had before and--
+alas--better than ever I was to in the future.
+
+I noted Rador standing outside the open jade door and
+started to go, but O'Keefe caught me by the arm.
+
+"Wait a minute," he urged.  "About Golden Eyes--you
+were going to tell me something--it's been on my mind all
+through that little sparring match."
+
+I told him of the vision that had passed through my closing
+lids.  He listened gravely and then laughed.
+
+"Hell of a lot of privacy in this place!" he grinned.  "Ladies
+who can walk through walls and others with regular invisi-
+ble cloaks to let 'em flit wherever they please.  Oh, well,
+don't let it get on your nerves, Doc.  Remember--every-
+thing's natural!  That robe stuff is just camouflage of course.
+But Lord, if we could only get a piece of it!"
+
+"The material simply admits all light-vibrations, or per-
+haps curves them, just as the opacities cut them off," I
+answered.  "A man under the X-ray is partly invisible; this
+makes him wholly so.  He doesn't register, as the people of
+the motion-picture profession say."
+
+"Camouflage," repeated Larry.  "And as for the Shining
+One--Say!" he snorted.  "I'd like to set the O'Keefe banshee
+up against it.  I'll bet that old resourceful Irish body would
+give it the first three bites and a strangle hold and wallop
+it before it knew it had 'em.  Oh!  Wow!  Boy Howdy!"
+
+I heard him still chuckling gleefully over this vision as I
+passed along the opal wall with the green dwarf.
+
+A shell was awaiting us.  I paused before entering it to
+examine the polished surface of runway and great road.  It
+was obsidian--volcanic glass of pale emerald, unflawed,
+translucent, with no sign of block or juncture.  I examined
+the shell.
+
+"What makes it go?" I asked Rador.  At a word from him
+the driver touched a concealed spring and an aperture ap-
+peared beneath the control-lever, of which I have spoken
+in a preceding chapter.  Within was a small cube of black
+crystal, through whose sides I saw, dimly, a rapidly revolv-
+ing, glowing ball, not more than two inches in diameter.
+Beneath the cube was a curiously shaped, slender cylinder
+winding down into the lower body of the Nautilus whorl.
+
+"Watch!" said Rador.  He motioned me into the vehicle
+and took a place beside me.  The driver touched the lever; a
+stream of coruscations flew from the ball down into the
+cylinder.  The shell started smoothly, and as the tiny torrent
+of shining particles increased it gathered speed.
+
+"The corial does not touch the road," explained Rador.
+"It is lifted so far"--he held his forefinger and thumb less
+than a sixteenth of an inch apart--"above it."
+
+And perhaps here is the best place to explain the activa-
+tion of the shells or coria.  The force utilized was atomic
+energy.  Passing from the whirling ball the ions darted
+through the cylinder to two bands of a peculiar metal affixed
+to the base of the vehicles somewhat like skids of a sled.
+Impinging upon these they produced a partial negation of
+gravity, lifting the shell slightly, and at the same time creat-
+ing a powerful repulsive force or thrust that could be di-
+rected backward, forward, or sidewise at the will of the
+driver.  The creation of this energy and the mechanism of its
+utilization were, briefly, as follows:
+
+
+[Dr. Goodwin's lucid and exceedingly comprehensive
+description of this extraordinary mechanism has been
+deleted by the Executive Council of the International
+Association of Science as too dangerously suggestive to
+scientists of the Central European Powers with which
+we were so recently at war.  It is allowable, however, to
+state that his observations are in the possession of ex-
+perts in this country, who are, unfortunately, hampered
+in their research not only by the scarcity of the radio-
+active elements that we know, but also by the lack of the
+element or elements unknown to us that entered into the
+formation of the fiery ball within the cube of black
+crystal.  Nevertheless, as the principle is so clear, it is
+believed that these difficulties will ultimately be over-
+come."--J. B. K., President, I. A. of S.]
+
+
+
+The wide, glistening road was gay with the coria.  They
+darted in and out of the gardens; within them the fair-haired,
+extraordinarily beautiful women on their cushions were like
+princesses of Elfland, caught in gorgeous fairy webs, resting
+within the hearts of flowers.  In some shells were flaxen-
+haired dwarfish men of Lugur's type; sometimes black-polled
+brother officers of Rador; often raven-tressed girls, plainly
+hand-maidens of the women; and now and then beauties of
+the lower folk went by with one of the blond dwarfs.
+
+We swept around the turn that made of the jewel-like
+roadway an enormous horseshoe and, speedily, upon our
+right the cliffs through which we had come in our journey
+from the Moon Pool began to march forward beneath their
+mantles of moss.  They formed a gigantic abutment, a titanic
+salient.  It had been from the very front of this salient's in-
+vading angle that we had emerged; on each side of it the
+precipices, faintly glowing, drew back and vanished into
+distance.
+
+The slender, graceful bridges under which we skimmed
+ended at openings in the upflung, far walls of verdure.  Each
+had its little garrison of soldiers.  Through some of the open-
+ings a rivulet of the green obsidian river passed.  These were
+roadways to the farther country, to the land of the ladala,
+Rador told me; adding that none of the lesser folk could
+cross into the pavilioned city unless summoned or with pass.
+
+We turned the bend of the road and flew down that farther
+emerald ribbon we had seen from the great oval.  Before us
+rose the shining cliffs and the lake.  A half-mile, perhaps,
+from these the last of the bridges flung itself.  It was more
+massive and about it hovered a spirit of ancientness lacking
+in the other spans; also its garrison was larger and at its
+base the tangent way was guarded by two massive struc-
+tures, somewhat like blockhouses, between which it ran.
+Something about it aroused in me an intense curiosity.
+
+"Where does that road lead, Rador?" I asked.
+
+"To the one place above all of which I may not tell you,
+Goodwin," he answered.  And again I wondered.
+
+We skimmed slowly out upon the great pier.  Far to the
+left was the prismatic, rainbow curtain between the Cyclo-
+pean pillars.  On the white waters graceful shells--lacustrian
+replicas of the Elf chariots--swam, but none was near that
+distant web of wonder.
+
+"Rador--what is that?" I asked.
+
+"It is the Veil of the Shining One!" he answered slowly.
+
+Was the Shining One that which we named the Dweller?
+
+"What is the Shining One?" I cried, eagerly.  Again he was
+silent.  Nor did he speak until we had turned on our home-
+ward way.
+
+And lively as my interest, my scientific curiosity, were--
+I was conscious suddenly of acute depression.  Beautiful,
+wondrously beautiful this place was--and yet in its wonder
+dwelt a keen edge of menace, of unease--of inexplicable,
+inhuman woe; as though in a secret garden of God a soul
+should sense upon it the gaze of some lurking spirit of evil
+which some way, somehow, had crept into the sanctuary and
+only bided its time to spring.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+The Leprechaun
+
+THE SHELL carried us straight back to the house of Yolara.
+Larry was awaiting me.  We stood again before the tenebrous
+wall where first we had faced the priestess and the Voice.
+And as we stood, again the portal appeared with all its dis-
+concerting, magical abruptness.
+
+But now the scene was changed.  Around the jet table were
+grouped a number of figures--Lugur, Yolara beside him;
+seven others-all of them fair-haired and all men save one
+who sat at the left of the priestess--an old, old woman, how
+old I could not tell, her face bearing traces of beauty that
+must once have been as great as Yolara's own, but now
+ravaged, in some way awesome; through its ruins the fear-
+ful, malicious gaiety shining out like a spirit of joy held
+within a corpse!
+
+Began then our examination, for such it was.  And as it
+progressed I was more and more struck by the change in the
+O'Keefe.  All flippancy was gone, rarely did his sense of
+humour reveal itself in any of his answers.  He was like a
+cautious swordsman, fencing, guarding, studying his op-
+ponent; or rather, like a chess-player who keeps sensing
+some far-reaching purpose in the game: alert, contained,
+watchful.  Always he stressed the power of our surface races,
+their multitudes, their solidarity.
+
+Their questions were myriad.  What were our occupations?
+Our system of government?  How great were the waters?  The
+land?  Intensely interested were they in the World War,
+querying minutely into its causes, its effects.  In our weapons
+their interest was avid.  And they were exceedingly minute in
+their examination of us as to the ruins which had excited
+our curiosity; their position and surroundings--and if others
+than ourselves might be expected to find and pass through
+their entrance!
+
+At this I shot a glance at Lugur.  He did not seem unduly
+interested.  I wondered if the Russian had told him as yet of
+the girl of the rosy wall of the Moon Pool Chamber and the
+real reasons for our search.  Then I answered as briefly as
+possible--omitting all reference to these things.  The red
+dwarf watched me with unmistakable amusement--and I
+knew Marakinoff had told him.  But clearly Lugur had kept
+his information even from Yolara; and as clearly she had
+spoken to none of that episode when O'Keefe's automatic
+had shattered the Keth-smitten vase.  Again I felt that sense
+of deep bewilderment--of helpless search for clue to all the
+tangle.
+
+For two hours we were questioned and then the priestess
+called Rador and let us go.
+
+Larry was sombre as we returned.  He walked about the
+room uneasily.
+
+"Hell's brewing here all right," he said at last, stopping
+before me.  "I can't make out just the particular brand--
+that's all that bothers me.  We're going to have a stiff fight,
+that's sure.  What I want to do quick is to find the Golden
+Girl, Doc.  Haven't seen her on the wall lately, have you?"
+he queried, hopefully fantastic.
+
+"Laugh if you want to," he went on.  "But she's our best
+bet.  It's going to be a race between her and the O'Keefe
+banshee--but I put my money on her.  I had a queer experi-
+ence while I was in that garden, after you'd left." His voice
+grew solemn.  "Did you ever see a leprechaun, Doc?" I shook
+my head again, as solemnly.  "He's a little man in green,"
+said Larry.  "Oh, about as high as your knee.  I saw one once
+--in Carntogher Woods.  And as I sat there, half asleep, in
+Yolara's garden, the living spit of him stepped out from one
+of those bushes, twirling a little shillalah.
+
+"'It's a tight box ye're gettin' in, Larry avick,' said he,
+'but don't ye be downhearted, lad.'
+
+"'I'm carrying on,' said I, 'but you're a long way from
+Ireland,' I said, or thought I did.
+
+"'Ye've a lot o' friends there,' he answered.  'An' where
+the heart rests the feet are swift to follow.  Not that I'm
+sayin' I'd like to live here, Larry,' said he.
+
+"'I know where my heart is now,' I told him.  'It rests on
+a girl with golden eyes and the hair and swan-white breast
+of Eilidh the Fair--but me feet don't seem to get me to her,'
+I said."
+
+The brogue thickened.
+
+"An' the little man in green nodded his head an' whirled
+his shillalah.
+
+"'It's what I came to tell ye,' says he.  'Don't ye fall for
+the Bhean-Nimher, the serpent woman wit' the blue eyes;
+she's a daughter of Ivor, lad--an' don't ye do nothin' to make
+the brown-haired coleen ashamed o' ye, Larry O'Keefe.  I
+knew yer great, great grandfather an' his before him, aroon,'
+says he, 'an' wan o' the O'Keefe failin's is to think their
+hearts big enough to hold all the wimmen o' the world.  A
+heart's built to hold only wan permanently, Larry,' he says,
+'an' I'm warnin' ye a nice girl don't like to move into a place
+all cluttered up wid another's washin' an' mendin' an'
+cookin' an' other things pertainin' to general wife work.  Not
+that I think the blue-eyed wan is keen for mendin' an'
+cookin'!' says he.
+
+"'You don't have to be comin' all this way to tell me
+that,' I answer.
+
+"'Well, I'm just a tellin' you,' he says.  'Ye've got some
+rough knocks comin', Larry.  In fact, ye're in for a devil of a
+time.  But, remember that ye're the O'Keefe,' says he.  'An'
+while the bhoys are all wid ye, avick, ye've got to be on the
+job yourself.'
+
+"'I hope,' I tell him, 'that the O'Keefe banshee can find
+her way here in time--that is, if it's necessary, which I hope
+it won't be.'
+
+"'Don't ye worry about that,' says he.  'Not that she's
+keen on leavin' the ould sod, Larry.  The good ould soul's in
+quite a state o' mind about ye, aroon.  I don't mind tellin' ye,
+lad, that she's mobilizing all the clan an' if she HAS to come
+for ye, avick, they'll be wid her an' they'll sweep this joint
+clean before ye go.  What they'll do to it'll make the Big Wind
+look like a summer breeze on Lough Lene!  An' that's about
+all, Larry.  We thought a voice from the Green Isle would
+cheer ye.  Don't fergit that ye're the O'Keefe an' I say it
+again--all the bhoys are wid ye.  But we want t' kape bein'
+proud o' ye, lad!'
+
+"An' I looked again and there was only a bush waving."
+
+There wasn't a smile in my heart--or if there was it was
+a very tender one.
+
+"I'm going to bed," he said abruptly.  "Keep an eye on the
+wall, Doc!"
+
+Between the seven sleeps that followed, Larry and I saw
+but little of each other.  Yolara sought him more and more.
+Thrice we were called before the Council; once we were at a
+great feast, whose splendours and surprises I can never for-
+get.  Largely I was in the company of Rador.  Together we
+two passed the green barriers into the dwelling--place of the
+ladala.
+
+They seemed provided with everything needful for life.
+But everywhere was an oppressiveness, a gathering together
+of hate, that was spiritual rather than material--as tangible
+as the latter and far, far more menacing!
+
+"They do not like to dance with the Shining One," was
+Rador's constant and only reply to my efforts to find the
+cause.
+
+Once I had concrete evidence of the mood.  Glancing be-
+hind me, I saw a white, vengeful face peer from behind a
+tree-trunk, a hand lift, a shining dart speed from it straight
+toward Rador's back.  Instinctively I thrust him aside.  He
+turned upon me angrily.  I pointed to where the little missile
+lay, still quivering, on the ground.  He gripped my hand.
+
+"That, some day I will repay!" he said.  I looked again at
+the thing.  At its end was a tiny cone covered with a glisten-
+ing, gelatinous substance.
+
+Rador pulled from a tree beside us a fruit somewhat like
+an apple.
+
+"Look!" he said.  He dropped it upon the dart--and at
+once, before my eyes, in less than ten seconds, the fruit had
+rotted away!
+
+"That's what would have happened to Rador but for you,
+friend!" he said.
+
+Come now between this and the prelude to the latter half
+of the drama whose history this narrative is--only scattering
+and necessarily fragmentary observations.
+
+First--the nature of the ebon opacities, blocking out the
+spaces between the pavilion-pillars or covering their tops like
+roofs, These were magnetic fields, light absorbers, negativ-
+ing the vibrations of radiance; literally screens of electric
+force which formed as impervious a barrier to light as would
+have screens of steel.
+
+They instantaneously made night appear in a place where
+no night was.  But they interposed no obstacle to air or to
+sound.  They were extremely simple in their inception--no
+more miraculous than is glass, which, inversely, admits the
+vibrations of light, but shuts out those coarser ones we call
+air--and, partly, those others which produce upon our audi-
+tory nerves the effects we call sound.
+
+Briefly their mechanism was this:
+
+
+[For the same reason that Dr. Goodwin's exposition
+of the mechanism of the atomic engines was deleted,
+his description of the light-destroying screens has been
+deleted by the Executive Council.--J. B. F., President,
+I. A. of S.]
+
+
+
+There were two favoured classes of the ladala--the
+soldiers and the dream-makers.  The dream-makers were the
+most astonishing social phenomena, I think, of all.  Denied
+by their circumscribed environment the wider experiences of
+us of the outer world, the Murians had perfected an amaz-
+ing system of escape through the imagination.
+
+They were, too, intensely musical.  Their favourite instru-
+ments were double flutes; immensely complex pipe-organs;
+harps, great and small.  They had another remarkable in-
+strument made up of a double octave of small drums which
+gave forth percussions remarkably disturbing to the emo-
+tional centres.
+
+It was this love of music that gave rise to one of the few
+truly humorous incidents of our caverned life.  Larry came
+to me--it was just after our fourth sleep, I remember.
+
+"Come on to a concert," he said.
+
+We skimmed off to one of the bridge garrisons.  Rador
+called the two-score guards to attention; and then, to my
+utter stupefaction, the whole company, O'Keefe leading
+them, roared out the anthem, "God Save the King."  They
+sang--in a closer approach to the English than might have
+been expected scores of miles below England's level.  "Send
+him victorious!  Happy and glorious!" they bellowed.
+
+He quivered with suppressed mirth at my paralysis of
+surprise.
+
+"Taught 'em that for Marakinoff's benefit!" he gasped.
+"Wait till that Red hears it.  He'll blow up.
+
+"Just wait until you hear Yolara lisp a pretty little thing I
+taught her," said Larry as we set back for what we now
+called home.  There was an impish twinkle in his eyes.
+
+And I did hear.  For it was not many minutes later that the
+priestess condescended to command me to come to her with
+O'Keefe.
+
+"Show Goodwin how much you have learned of our
+speech, O lady of the lips of honeyed flame!" murmured
+Larry.
+
+She hesitated; smiled at him, and then from that perfect
+mouth, out of the exquisite throat, in the voice that was like
+the chiming of little silver bells, she trilled a melody familiar
+to me indeed:
+
+
+"She's only a bird in a gilded cage,
+  A bee-yu-tiful sight to see--"
+
+
+And so on to the bitter end.
+
+"She thinks it's a love-song," said Larry when we had left.
+"It's only part of a repertoire I'm teaching her.  Honestly,
+Doc, it's the only way I can keep my mind clear when I'm
+with her," he went on earnestly.  "She's a devil-ess from hell
+--but a wonder.  Whenever I find myself going I get her to
+sing that, or Take Back Your Gold!  or some other ancient
+lay, and I'm back again--pronto--with the right perspective!
+POP goes all the mystery!  'Hell!' I say, 'she's only a woman!'"
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+The Amphitheatre of Jet
+
+FOR HOURs the black-haired folk had been streaming across
+the bridges, flowing along the promenade by scores and by
+hundreds, drifting down toward the gigantic seven-terraced
+temple whose interior I had never as yet seen, and from
+whose towering exterior, indeed, I had always been kept far
+enough away--unobtrusively, but none the less decisively
+--to prevent any real observation.  The structure, I had esti-
+mated, nevertheless, could not reach less than a thousand
+feet above its silvery base, and the diameter of its circular
+foundation was about the same.
+
+I wondered what was bringing the _ladala_ into Lora, and
+where they were vanishing.  All of them were flower-crowned
+with the luminous, lovely blooms--old and young, slender,
+mocking-eyed girls, dwarfed youths, mothers with their
+babes, gnomed oldsters--on they poured, silent for the most
+part and sullen--a sullenness that held acid bitterness even
+as their subtle, half-sinister, half-gay malice seemed tem-
+pered into little keen-edged flames, oddly, menacingly de-
+fiant.
+
+There were many of the green-clad soldiers along the way,
+and the garrison of the only bridge span I could see had cer-
+tainly been doubled.
+
+Wondering still, I turned from my point of observation
+and made my way back to our pavilion, hoping that Larry,
+who had been with Yolara for the past two hours, had re-
+turned.  Hardly had I reached it before Rador came hurrying
+up, in his manner a curious exultance mingled with what in
+anyone else I would have called a decided nervousness.
+
+"Come!" he commanded before I could speak.  "The Coun-
+cil has made decision--and _Larree_ is awaiting you."
+
+"What has been decided?" I panted as we sped along the
+mosaic path that led to the house of Yolara.  "And why is
+Larry awaiting me?"
+
+And at his answer I felt my heart pause in its beat and
+through me race a wave of mingled panic and eagerness.
+
+"The Shining One dances!" had answered the green dwarf.
+"And you are to worship!"
+
+What was this dancing of the Shining One, of which so
+often he had spoken?
+
+Whatever my forebodings, Larry evidently had none.
+
+"Great stuff!" he cried, when we had met in the great ante-
+chamber now empty of the dwarfs.  "Hope it will be worth
+seeing--have to be something damned good, though, to
+catch me, after what I've seen of shows at the front," he
+added.
+
+And remembering, with a little shock of apprehension,
+that he had no knowledge of the Dweller beyond my poor
+description of it--for there are no words actually to describe
+what that miracle of interwoven glory and horror was--I
+wondered what Larry O'Keefe would say and do when he
+did behold it!
+
+Rador began to show impatience.
+
+"Come!" he urged.  "There is much to be done--and the
+time grows short!"
+
+He led us to a tiny fountain room in whose miniature pool
+the white waters were concentrated, pearl-like and opales-
+cent in their circling rim.
+
+"Bathe!" he commanded; and set the example by strip-
+ping himself and plunging within.  Only a minute or two did
+the green dwarf allow us, and he checked us as we were
+about to don our clothing.
+
+Then, to my intense embarrassment, without warning, two
+of the black-haired girls entered, bearing robes of a peculiar
+dull-blue hue.  At our manifest discomfort Rador's laughter
+roared out.  He took the garments from the pair, motioned
+them to leave us, and, still laughing, threw one around me.
+Its texture was soft, but decidedly metallic--like some blue
+metal spun to the fineness of a spider's thread.  The garment
+buckled tightly at the throat, was girdled at the waist, and,
+below this cincture, fell to the floor, its folds being held to-
+gether by a half-dozen looped cords; from the shoulders a
+hood resembling a monk's cowl.
+
+Rador cast this over my head; it completely covered my
+face, but was of so transparent a texture that I could see,
+though somewhat mistily, through it.  Finally he handed us
+both a pair of long gloves of the same material and high
+stockings, the feet of which were gloved--five-toed.
+
+And again his laughter rang out at our manifest surprise.
+
+"The priestess of the Shining One does not altogether
+trust the Shining One's Voice," he said at last.  "And these
+are to guard against any sudden--errors.  And fear not,
+Goodwin," he went on kindly.  "Not for the Shining One
+itself would Yolara see harm come to _Larree_ here--nor,
+because of him, to you.  But I would not stake much on the
+great white one.  And for him I am sorry, for him I do like
+well."
+
+"Is he to be with us?" asked Larry eagerly.
+
+"He is to be where we go," replied the dwarf soberly.
+
+Grimly Larry reached down and drew from his uniform his
+automatic.  He popped a fresh clip into the pocket fold of his
+girdle.  The pistol he slung high up beneath his arm-pit.
+
+The green dwarf looked at the weapon curiously.  O'Keefe
+tapped it.
+
+"This," said Larry, "slays quicker than the _Keth_--I take
+it so no harm shall come to the blue-eyed one whose name is
+Olaf.  If I should raise it--be you not in its way, Rador!" he
+added significantly.
+
+The dwarf nodded again, his eyes sparkling.  He thrust a
+hand out to both of us.
+
+"A change comes," he said.  "What it is I know not, nor
+how it will fall.  But this remember--Rador is more friend
+to you than you yet can know.  And now let us go!" he ended
+abruptly.
+
+He led us, not through the entrance, but into a sloping
+passage ending in a blind wall; touched a symbol graven
+there, and it opened, precisely as had the rosy barrier of the
+Moon Pool Chamber.  And, just as there, but far smaller,
+was a passage end, a low curved wall facing a shaft not black
+as had been that abode of living darkness, but faintly lumi-
+nescent.  Rador leaned over the wall.  The mechanism clicked
+and started; the door swung shut; the sides of the car slipped
+into place, and we swept swiftly down the passage; over-
+head the wind whistled.  In a few moments the moving plat-
+form began to slow down.  It stopped in a closed chamber no
+larger than itself.
+
+Rador drew his poniard and struck twice upon the wall
+with its hilt.  Immediately a panel moved away, revealing a
+space filled with faint, misty blue radiance.  And at each side
+of the open portal stood four of the dwarfish men, grey-
+headed, old, clad in flowing garments of white, each point-
+ing toward us a short silver rod.
+
+Rador drew from his girdle a ring and held it out to the
+first dwarf.  He examined it, handed it to the one beside him,
+and not until each had inspected the ring did they lower their
+curious weapons; containers of that terrific energy they
+called the _Keth_, I thought; and later was to know that I had
+been right.
+
+We stepped out; the doors closed behind us.  The place
+was weird enough.  Its pave was a greenish-blue stone re-
+sembling lapis lazuli.  On each side were high pedestals hold-
+ing carved figures of the same material.  There were perhaps
+a score of these, but in the mistiness I could not make out
+their outlines.  A droning, rushing roar beat upon our ears;
+filled the whole cavern.
+
+"I smell the sea," said Larry suddenly.
+
+The roaring became deep-toned, clamorous, and close in
+front of us a rift opened.  Twenty feet in width, it cut the
+cavern floor and vanished into the blue mist on each side.
+The cleft was spanned by one solid slab of rock not more
+than two yards wide.  It had neither railing nor other protec-
+tion.
+
+The four leading priests marched out upon it one by one,
+and we followed.  In the middle of the span they knelt.  Ten
+feet beneath us was a torrent of blue sea-water racing with
+prodigious speed between polished walls.  It gave the impres-
+sion of vast depth.  It roared as it sped by, and far to the right
+was a low arch through which it disappeared.  It was so swift
+that its surface shone like polished blue steel, and from it
+came the blessed, OUR WORLDLY, familiar ocean breath that
+strengthened my soul amazingly and made me realize how
+earth-sick I was.
+
+Whence came the stream, I marvelled, forgetting for the
+moment, as we passed on again, all else.  Were we closer to
+the surface of earth than I had thought, or was this some
+mighty flood falling through an opening in sea floor, Heaven
+alone knew how many miles above us, losing itself in deeper
+abysses beyond these?  How near and how far this was from
+the truth I was to learn--and never did truth come to man
+in more dreadful guise!
+
+The roaring fell away, the blue haze lessened.  In front of
+us stretched a wide flight of steps, huge as those which had
+led us into the courtyard of Nan-Tauach through the ruined
+sea-gate.  We scaled it; it narrowed; from above light poured
+through a still narrower opening.  Side by side Larry and I
+passed out of it.
+
+We had emerged upon an enormous platform of what
+seemed to be glistening ivory.  It stretched before us for a
+hundred yards or more and then shelved gently into the
+white waters.  Opposite--not a mile away--was that prodi-
+gious web of woven rainbows Rador had called the Veil of
+the Shining One.  There it shone in all its unearthly grandeur,
+on each side of the Cyclopean pillars, as though a mountain
+should stretch up arms raising between them a fairy banner
+of auroral glories.  Beneath it was the curved, scimitar sweep
+of the pier with its clustered, gleaming temples.
+
+Before that brief, fascinated glance was done, there
+dropped upon my soul a sensation as of brooding weight in-
+tolerable; a spiritual oppression as though some vastness was
+falling, pressing, stifling me, I turned--and Larry caught me
+as I reeled.
+
+"Steady!  Steady, old man!" he whispered.
+
+At first all that my staggering consciousness could realize
+was an immensity, an immeasurable uprearing that brought
+with it the same throat-gripping vertigo as comes from gaz-
+ing downward from some great height--then a blur of white
+faces--intolerable shinings of hundreds upon thousands of
+eyes.  Huge, incredibly huge, a colossal amphitheatre of jet,
+a stupendous semi-circle, held within its mighty arc the ivory
+platform on which I stood.
+
+It reared itself almost perpendicularly hundreds of feet up
+into the sparkling heavens, and thrust down on each side its
+ebon bulwarks--like monstrous paws.  Now, the giddiness
+from its sheer greatness passing, I saw that it was indeed an
+amphitheatre sloping slightly backward tier after tier, and
+that the white blur of faces against its blackness, the gleam-
+ing of countless eyes were those of myriads of the people who
+sat silent, flower-garlanded, their gaze focused upon the rain-
+bow curtain and sweeping over me like a torrent--tangible,
+appalling!
+
+Five hundred feet beyond, the smooth, high retaining wall
+of the amphitheatre raised itself--above it the first terrace
+of the seats, and above this, dividing the tiers for another half
+a thousand feet upward, set within them like a panel, was a
+dead-black surface in which shone faintly with a bluish radi-
+ance a gigantic disk; above it and around it a cluster of in-
+numerable smaller ones.
+
+On each side of me, bordering the platform, were scores
+of small pillared alcoves, a low wall stretching across their
+fronts; delicate, fretted grills shielding them, save where in
+each lattice an opening stared--it came to me that they were
+like those stalls in ancient Gothic cathedrals wherein for
+centuries had kneeled paladins and people of my own race
+on earth's fair face.  And within these alcoves were gathered,
+score upon score, the elfin beauties, the dwarfish men of the
+fair-haired folk.  At my right, a few feet from the opening
+through which we had come, a passageway led back between
+the fretted stalls.  Half-way between us and the massive base
+of the amphitheatre a dais rose.  Up the platform to it a wide
+ramp ascended; and on ramp and dais and along the centre
+of the gleaming platform down to where it kissed the white
+waters, a broad ribbon of the radiant flowers lay like a fairy
+carpet.
+
+On one side of this dais, meshed in a silken web that hid
+no line or curve of her sweet body, white flesh gleaming
+through its folds, stood Yolara; and opposite her, crowned
+with a circlet of flashing blue stones, his mighty body stark
+bare, was Lugur!
+
+O'Keefe drew a long breath; Rador touched my arm and,
+still dazed, I let myself be drawn into the aisle and through
+a corridor that ran behind the alcoves.  At the back of one of
+these the green dwarf paused, opened a door, and motioned
+us within.
+
+Entering, I found that we were exactly opposite where the
+ramp ran up to the dais--and that Yolara was not more than
+fifty feet away.  She glanced at O'Keefe and smiled.  Her eyes
+were ablaze with little dancing points of light; her body
+seemed to palpitate, the rounded delicate muscles beneath
+the translucent skin to run with joyful little eager waves!
+
+Larry whistled softly.
+
+"There's Marakinoff!" he said.
+
+I looked where he pointed.  Opposite us sat the Russian,
+clothed as we were, leaning forward, his eyes eager behind
+his glasses; but if he saw us he gave no sign.
+
+"And there's Olaf!" said O'Keefe.
+
+Beneath the carved stall in which sat the Russian was an
+aperture and within it was Huldricksson.  Unprotected by
+pillars or by grills, opening clear upon the platform, near him
+stretched the trail of flowers up to the great dais which Lugur
+and Yolara the priestess guarded.  He sat alone, and my heart
+went out to him.
+
+O'Keefe's face softened.
+
+"Bring him here," he said to Rador.
+
+The green dwarf was looking at the Norseman, too, a
+shade of pity upon his mocking face.  He shook his head.
+
+"Wait!" he said.  "You can do nothing now--and it may
+be there will be no need to do anything," he added; but I
+could feel that there was little of conviction in his words.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+The Madness of Olaf
+
+YOLARA threw her white arms high.  From the mountainous
+tiers came a mighty sigh; a rippling ran through them.  And
+upon the moment, before Yolara's arms fell, there issued,
+apparently from the air around us, a peal of sound that
+might have been the shouting of some playful god hurling
+great suns through the net of stars.  It was like the deepest
+notes of all the organs in the world combined in one; sum-
+moning, majestic, cosmic!
+
+It held within it the thunder of the spheres rolling through
+the infinite, the birth-song of suns made manifest in the
+womb of space; echoes of creation's supernal chord!  It shook
+the body like a pulse from the heart of the universe--pulsed
+--and died away.
+
+On its death came a blaring as of all the trumpets of con-
+quering hosts since the first Pharaoh led his swarms--
+triumphal, compelling!  Alexander's clamouring hosts,
+brazen-throated wolf-horns of Caesar's legions, blare of
+trumpets of Genghis Khan and his golden horde, clangor of
+the locust levies of Tamerlane, bugles of Napoleon's armies
+--war-shout of all earth's conquerors!  And it died!
+
+Fast upon it, a throbbing, muffled tumult of harp sounds,
+mellownesses of myriads of wood horns, the subdued sweet
+shrilling of multitudes of flutes, Pandean pipings--inviting,
+carrying with them the calling of waterfalls in the hidden
+places, rushing brooks and murmuring forest winds--call-
+ing, calling, languorous, lulling, dripping into the brain like
+the very honeyed essence of sound.
+
+And after them a silence in which the memory of the
+music seemed to beat, to beat ever more faintly, through
+every quivering nerve.
+
+From me all fear, all apprehension, had fled.  In their
+place was nothing but joyous anticipation, a supernal free-
+dom from even the shadow of the shadow of care or sorrow;
+not now did anything matter--Olaf or his haunted, hate-
+filled eyes; Throckmartin or his fate--nothing of pain, noth-
+ing of agony, nothing of striving nor endeavour nor despair
+in that wide outer world that had turned suddenly to a
+troubled dream.
+
+Once more the first great note pealed out!  Once more it
+died and from the clustered spheres a kaleidoscopic blaze
+shot as though drawn from the majestic sound itself.  The
+many-coloured rays darted across the white waters and
+sought the face of the irised Veil.  As they touched, it spar-
+kled, flamed, wavered, and shook with fountains of prismatic
+colour.
+
+The light increased--and in its intensity the silver air
+darkened.  Faded into shadow that white mosaic of flower-
+crowned faces set in the amphitheatre of jet, and vast shad-
+ows dropped upon the high-flung tiers and shrouded them.
+But on the skirts of the rays the fretted stalls in which we
+sat with the fair-haired ones blazed out, iridescent, like
+jewels.
+
+I was sensible of an acceleration of every pulse; a wild
+stimulation of every nerve.  I felt myself being lifted above
+the world--close to the threshold of the high gods--soon
+their essence and their power would stream out into me!  I
+glanced at Larry.  His eyes were--wild--with life!
+
+I looked at Olaf--and in his face was none of this--only
+hate, and hate, and hate.
+
+The peacock waves streamed out over the waters, cleaving
+the seeming darkness, a rainbow path of glory.  And the Veil
+flashed as though all the rainbows that had ever shone were
+burning within it.  Again the mighty sound pealed.
+
+Into the centre of the Veil the light drew itself, grew into
+an intolerable brightness--and with a storm of tinklings, a
+tempest of crystalline notes, a tumult of tiny chimings,
+through it sped--the Shining One!
+
+Straight down that radiant path, its high-flung plumes of
+feathery flame shimmering, its coruscating spirals whirling,
+its seven globes of seven colours shining above its glowing
+core, it raced toward us.  The hurricane of bells of diamond
+glass were jubilant, joyous.  I felt O'Keefe grip my arm;
+Yolara threw her white arms out in a welcoming gesture; I
+heard from the tier a sigh of rapture--and in it a poignant,
+wailing under-tone of agony!
+
+Over the waters, down the light stream, to the end of the
+ivory pier, flew the Shining One.  Through its crystal _pizzicati_
+drifted inarticulate murmurings--deadly sweet, stilling the
+heart and setting it leaping madly.
+
+For a moment it paused, poised itself, and then came
+whirling down the flower path to its priestess, slowly, ever
+more slowly.  It hovered for a moment between the woman
+and the dwarf, as though contemplating them; turned to her
+with its storm of tinklings softened, its murmurings infinitely
+caressing.  Bent toward it, Yolara seemed to gather within
+herself pulsing waves of power; she was terrifying; glori-
+ously, maddeningly evil; and as gloriously, maddeningly
+heavenly!  Aphrodite and the Virgin!  Tanith of the
+Carthaginians and St. Bride of the Isles!  A queen of hell
+and a princess of heaven--in one!
+
+Only for a moment did that which we had called the
+Dweller and which these named the Shining One, pause.  It
+swept up the ramp to the dais, rested there, slowly turning,
+plumes and spirals lacing and unlacing, throbbing, pulsing.
+Now its nucleus grew plainer, stronger--human in a fashion,
+and all inhuman; neither man nor woman; neither god nor
+devil; subtly partaking of all.  Nor could I doubt that what-
+ever it was, within that shining nucleus was something sen-
+tient; something that had will and energy, and in some aw-
+ful, supernormal fashion--intelligence!
+
+Another trumpeting--a sound of stones opening--a long,
+low wail of utter anguish--something moved shadowy in the
+river of light, and slowly at first, then ever more rapidly,
+shapes swam through it.  There were half a score of them--
+girls and youths, women and men.  The Shining One poised
+itself, regarded them.  They drew closer, and in the eyes of
+each and in their faces was the bud of that awful inter-
+mingling of emotions, of joy and sorrow, ecstasy and terror,
+that I had seen in full blossom on Throckmartin's.
+
+The Thing began again its murmurings--now infinitely
+caressing, coaxing--like the song of a siren from some
+witched star!  And the bell-sounds rang out--compellingly,
+calling--calling--calling--
+
+I saw Olaf lean far out of his place; saw, half-consciously,
+at Lugur's signal, three of the dwarfs creep in and take
+places, unnoticed, behind him.
+
+Now the first of the figures rushed upon the dais--and
+paused.  It was the girl who had been brought before Yolara
+when the gnome named Songar was driven into the nothing-
+ness!  With all the quickness of light a spiral of the Shining
+One stretched out and encircled her.
+
+At its touch there was an infinitely dreadful shrinking
+and, it seemed, a simultaneous hurling of herself into its
+radiance.  As it wrapped its swirls around her, permeated her
+--the crystal chorus burst forth--tumultuously; through and
+through her the radiance pulsed.  Began then that infinitely
+dreadful, but infinitely glorious, rhythm they called the dance
+of the Shining One.  And as the girl swirled within its spar-
+kling mists another and another flew into its embrace, until,
+at last, the dais was an incredible vision; a mad star's
+Witches' Sabbath; an altar of white faces and bodies gleam-
+ing through living flame; transfused with rapture insupport-
+able and horror that was hellish--and ever, radiant plumes
+and spirals expanding, the core of the Shining One waxed--
+growing greater--as it consumed, as it drew into and through
+itself the life-force of these lost ones!
+
+So they spun, interlaced--and there began to pulse from
+them life, vitality, as though the very essence of nature was
+filling us.  Dimly I recognized that what I was beholding was
+vampirism inconceivable!  The banked tiers chanted.  The
+mighty sounds pealed forth!
+
+It was a Saturnalia of demigods!
+
+Then, whirling, bell-notes storming, the Shining One with-
+drew slowly from the dais down the ramp, still embracing,
+still interwoven with those who had thrown themselves into
+its spirals.  They drifted with it as though half-carried in
+dreadful dance; white faces sealed--forever--into that sem-
+blance of those who held within linked God and devil--I
+covered my eyes!
+
+I heard a gasp from O'Keefe; opened my eyes and sought
+his; saw the wildness vanish from them as he strained for-
+ward.  Olaf had leaned far out, and as he did so the dwarfs
+beside him caught him, and whether by design or through his
+own swift, involuntary movement, thrust him half into the
+Dweller's path.  The Dweller paused in its gyrations--seemed
+to watch him.  The Norseman's face was crimson, his eyes
+blazing.  He threw himself back and, with one defiant shout,
+gripped one of the dwarfs about the middle and sent him
+hurtling through the air, straight at the radiant Thing!  A
+whirling mass of legs and arms, the dwarf flew--then in mid-
+flight stopped as though some gigantic invisible hand had
+caught him, and--was dashed down upon the platform not a
+yard from the Shining One!
+
+Like a broken spider he moved--feebly--once, twice.
+From the Dweller shot a shimmering tentacle--touched him
+--recoiled.  Its crystal tinklings changed into an angry chim-
+ing.  From all about--jewelled stalls and jet peak--came a
+sigh of incredulous horror.
+
+Lugur leaped forward.  On the instant Larry was over the
+low barrier between the pillars, rushing to the Norseman's
+side.  And even as they ran there was another wild shout from
+Olaf, and he hurled himself out, straight at the throat of the
+Dweller!
+
+But before he could touch the Shining One, now motion-
+less--and never was the thing more horrible than then, with
+the purely human suggestion of surprise plain in its poise--
+Larry had struck him aside.
+
+I tried to follow--and was held by Rador.  He was trem-
+bling--but not with fear.  In his face was incredulous hope,
+inexplicable eagerness.
+
+"Wait!" he said.  "Wait!"
+
+The Shining One stretched out a slow spiral, and as it did
+so I saw the bravest thing man has ever witnessed.  Instantly
+O'Keefe thrust himself between it and Olaf, pistol out.  The
+tentacle touched him, and the dull blue of his robe flashed
+out into blinding, intense azure light.  From the automatic in
+his gloved hand came three quick bursts of flame straight
+into the Thing.  The Dweller drew back; the bell-sounds
+swelled.
+
+Lugur paused, his hand darted up, and in it was one of
+the silver _Keth_ cones.  But before he could flash it upon the
+Norseman, Larry had unlooped his robe, thrown its fold
+over Olaf, and, holding him with one hand away from the
+Shining One, thrust with the other his pistol into the dwarf's
+stomach.  His lips moved, but I could not hear what he said.
+But Lugur understood, for his hand dropped.
+
+Now Yolara was there--all this had taken barely more
+than five seconds.  She thrust herself between the three men
+and the Dweller.  She spoke to it--and the wild buzzing died
+down; the gay crystal tinklings burst forth again.  The Thing
+murmured to her--began to whirl--faster, faster--passed
+down the ivory pier, out upon the waters, bearing with it,
+meshed in its light, the sacrifices--swept on ever more
+swiftly, triumphantly and turning, turning, with its ghastly
+crew, vanished through the Veil!
+
+Abruptly the polychromatic path snapped out.  The silver
+light poured in upon us.  From all the amphitheatre arose a
+clamour, a shouting.  Marakinoff, his eyes staring, was lean-
+ing out, listening.  Unrestrained now by Rador, I vaulted the
+wall and rushed forward.  But not before I had heard the
+green dwarf murmur:
+
+"There is something stronger than the Shining One!  Two
+things--yea--a strong heart--and hate!"
+
+Olaf, panting, eyes glazed, trembling, shrank beneath my
+hand.
+
+"The devil that took my Helma!" I heard him whisper.
+"The Shining Devil!"
+
+"Both these men," Lugur was raging, "they shall dance
+with the Shining one.  And this one, too." He pointed at me
+malignantly.
+
+"This man is mine," said the priestess, and her voice was
+menacing.  She rested her hand on Larry's shoulder.  "He
+shall not dance.  No--nor his friend.  I have told you I dare
+not for this one!" She pointed to Olaf.
+
+"Neither this man, nor this," said Larry, "shall be harmed.
+This is my word, Yolara!"
+
+"Even so," she answered quietly, "my lord!"
+
+I saw Marakinoff stare at O'Keefe with a new and curi-
+ously speculative interest.  Lugur's eyes grew hellish; he
+raised his arms as though to strike her.  Larry's pistol
+prodded him rudely enough.
+
+"No rough stuff now, kid!" said O'Keefe in English.  The
+red dwarf quivered, turned--caught a robe from a priest
+standing by, and threw it over himself.  The _ladala_, shouting,
+gesticulating, fighting with the soldiers, were jostling down
+from the tiers of jet.
+
+"Come!" commanded Yolara--her eyes rested upon
+Larry.  "Your heart is great, indeed--my lord!" she mur-
+mured; and her voice was very sweet.  "Come!"
+
+"This man comes with us, Yolara," said O'Keefe pointing
+to Olaf.
+
+"Bring him," she said.  "Bring him--only tell him to look
+no more upon me as before!" she added fiercely.
+
+Beside her the three of us passed along the stalls, where
+sat the fair-haired, now silent, at gaze, as though in the grip
+of some great doubt.  Silently Olaf strode beside me.  Rador
+had disappeared.  Down the stairway, through the hall of
+turquoise mist, over the rushing sea-stream we went and
+stood beside the wall through which we had entered.  The
+white-robed ones had gone.
+
+Yolara pressed; the portal opened.  We stepped upon the
+car; she took the lever; we raced through the faintly lumi-
+nous corridor to the house of the priestess.
+
+And one thing now I knew sick at heart and soul the truth
+had come to me--no more need to search for Throckmartin.
+Behind that Veil, in the lair of the Dweller, dead-alive like
+those we had just seen swim in its shining train was he, and
+Edith, Stanton and Thora and Olaf Huldricksson's wife!
+
+The car came to rest; the portal opened; Yolara leaped
+out lightly, beckoned and flitted up the corridor.  She paused
+before an ebon screen.  At a touch it vanished, revealing an
+entrance to a small blue chamber, glowing as though cut
+from the heart of some gigantic sapphire; bare, save that in
+its centre, upon a low pedestal, stood a great globe fashioned
+from milky rock-crystal; upon its surface were faint tracings
+as of seas and continents, but, if so, either of some other
+world or of this world in immemorial past, for in no way
+did they resemble the mapped coastlines of our earth.
+
+Poised upon the globe, rising from it out into space, locked
+in each other's arms, lips to lips, were two figures, a woman
+and a man, so exquisite, so lifelike, that for the moment I
+failed to realize that they, too, were carved of the crystal.
+And before this shrine--for nothing else could it be, I knew
+--three slender cones raised themselves: one of purest white
+flame, one of opalescent water, and the third of--moon-
+light!  There was no mistaking them, the height of a tall man
+each stood--but how water, flame and light were held so
+evenly, so steadily in their spire-shapes, I could not tell.
+
+Yolara bowed lowly--once, twice, thrice.  She turned to
+O'Keefe, nor by slightest look or gesture betrayed she knew
+others were there than he.  The blue eyes wide, searching,
+unfathomable, she drew close; put white hands on his shoul-
+ders, looked down into his very soul.
+
+"My lord," she murmured.  "Now listen well for I, Yolara,
+give you three things--myself, and the Shining One, and the
+power that is the Shining One's--yea, and still a fourth thing
+that is all three--power over all upon that world from
+whence you came!  These, my lord, ye shall have.  I swear it"
+--she turned toward the altar--uplifted her arms--"by Siya
+and by Siyana, and by the flame, by the water, and by the
+light!"1
+
+
+*1 I have no space here even to outline the eschatology of this people,
+nor to catalogue their pantheon.  Siya and Siyana typified worldly love.
+Their ritual was, however, singularly free from those degrading ele-
+ments usually found in love-cults.  Priests and priestesses of all cults
+dwelt in the immense seven-terraced structure, of which the jet amphi-
+theatre was the water side.  The symbol, icon, representation, of Siya
+and Siyana--the globe and the up-striving figures--typified earthly
+love, feet bound to earth, but eyes among the stars.  Hell or heaven I
+never heard formulated, nor their equivalents; unless that existence
+in the Shining One's domain could serve for either.  Over all this was
+Thanaroa, remote; unheeding, but still maker and ruler of all--an
+absentee First Cause personified!  Thanaroa seemed to be the one
+article of belief in the creed of the soldiers--Rador, with his reverence
+for the Ancient Ones, was an exception.  Whatever there was, indeed,
+of high, truly religious impulse among the Murians, this far, High
+God had.  I found this exceedingly interesting, because it had long been
+my theory--to put the matter in the shape of a geometrical formula--
+that the real attractiveness of gods to man increases uniformly accord-
+ing to the square of their distance--W.  T. G.
+
+
+
+Her eyes grew purple dark.
+
+"Let none dare to take you from me!  Nor ye go from me
+unbidden!" she whispered fiercely.
+
+Then swiftly, still ignoring us, she threw her arms about
+O'Keefe, pressed her white body to his breast, lips raised,
+eyes closed, seeking his.  O'Keefe's arms tightened around
+her, his head dropped lips seeking, finding hers--passion-
+ately!  From Olaf came a deep indrawn breath that was al-
+most a groan.  But not in my heart could I find blame for the
+Irishman!
+
+The priestess opened eyes now all misty blue, thrust him
+back, stood regarding him.  O'Keefe, dead-white, raised a
+trembling hand to his face.
+
+"And thus have I sealed my oath, O my lord!" she whis-
+pered.  For the first time she seemed to recognize our pres-
+ence, stared at us a moment, then through us, and turned to
+O'Keefe.
+
+"Go, now!" she said.  "Soon Rador shall come for you.
+Then--well, after that let happen what will!"
+
+
+
+
+
+She smiled once more at him--so sweetly; turned toward
+the figures upon the great globe; sank upon her knees before
+them.  Quietly we crept away; still silent, made our way to
+the little pavilion.  But as we passed we heard a tumult from
+the green roadway; shouts of men, now and then a woman's
+scream.  Through a rift in the garden I glimpsed a jostling
+crowd on one of the bridges: green dwarfs struggling with
+the _ladala_--and all about droned a humming as of a giant
+hive disturbed!
+
+Larry threw himself down upon one of the divans, cov-
+ered his face with his hands, dropped them to catch in Olaf's
+eyes troubled reproach, looked at me.
+
+"_I_ couldn't help it," he said, half defiantly--half-miser-
+ably.  "God, what a woman!  I COULDN'T help it!"
+
+"Larry," I asked.  "Why didn't you tell her you didn't love
+her--then?"
+
+He gazed at me--the old twinkle back in his eye.
+
+"Spoken like a scientist, Doc!" he exclaimed.  "I suppose
+if a burning angel struck you out of nowhere and threw it-
+self about you, you would most dignifiedly tell it you didn't
+want to be burned.  For God's sake, don't talk nonsense,
+Goodwin!" he ended, almost peevishly.
+
+"Evil!  Evil!" The Norseman's voice was deep, nearly a
+chant.  "All here is of evil: Trolldom and Helvede it is, Ja!
+And that she _djaevelsk_ of beauty--what is she but harlot of
+that shining devil they worship.  I, Olaf Huldricksson, know
+what she meant when she held out to you power over all the
+world, _Ja!_--as if the world had not devils enough in it now!"
+
+"What?" The cry came from both O'Keefe and myself at
+once.
+
+Olaf made a gesture of caution, relapsed into sullen
+silence.  There were footsteps on the path, and into sight
+came Rador--but a Rador changed.  Gone was every vestige
+of his mockery; curiously solemn, he saluted O'Keefe and
+Olaf with that salute which, before this, I had seen given
+only to Yolara and to Lugur.  There came a swift quickening
+of the tumult--died away.  He shrugged mighty shoulders.
+
+"The _ladala_ are awake!" he said.  "So much for what two
+brave men can do!" He paused thoughtfully.  "Bones and dust
+jostle not each other for place against the grave wall!" he
+added oddly.  "But if bones and dust have revealed to them
+that they still--live--"
+
+He stopped abruptly, eyes seeking the globe that bore and
+sent forth speech.1
+
+
+*1 I find that I have neglected to explain the working of these inter-
+esting mechanisms that were telephonic, dictaphonic, telegraphic in
+one.  I must assume that my readers are familiar with the receiving
+apparatus of wireless telegraphy, which must be "tuned" by the oper-
+ator until its own vibratory quality is in exact harmony with the
+vibrations--the extremely rapid impacts--of those short electric wave-
+lengths we call Hertzian, and which carry the wireless messages.  I
+must assume also that they are familiar with the elementary fact of
+physics that the vibrations of light and sound are interchangeable.
+The hearing-talking globes utilize both these principles, and with con-
+summate simplicity.  The light with which they shone was produced
+by an atomic "motor" within their base, similar to that which activated
+the merely illuminating globes.  The composition of the phonic spheres
+gave their surfaces an acute sensitivity and resonance.  In conjunction
+with its energizing power, the metal set up what is called a "field of
+force," which linked it with every particle of its kind no matter how
+distant.  When vibrations of speech impinged upon the resonant surface
+its rhythmic light-vibrations were broken, just as a telephone trans-
+mitter breaks an electric current.  Simultaneously these light-vibrations
+were changed into sound--on the surfaces of all spheres tuned to that
+particular instrument.  The "crawling" colours which showed them-
+selves at these times were literally the voice of the speaker in its spec-
+trum equivalent.  While usually the sounds produced required consider-
+able familiarity with the apparatus to be understood quickly, they
+could, on occasion, be made startlingly loud and clear--as I was soon
+to realize--W.  T. G.
+
+
+
+"The _Afyo Maie_ has sent me to watch over you till she
+summons you," he announced clearly.  "There is to be a--
+feast.  You, _Larree_, you Goodwin, are to come.  I remain here
+with--Olaf."
+
+"No harm to him!" broke in O'Keefe sharply.  Rador
+touched his heart, his eyes.
+
+"By the Ancient Ones, and by my love for you, and by
+what you twain did before the Shining One--I swear it!" he
+whispered.
+
+Rador clapped palms; a soldier came round the path, in his
+grip a long flat box of polished wood.  The green dwarf took
+it, dismissed him, threw open the lid.
+
+"Here is your apparel for the feast, _Larree_," he said, point-
+ing to the contents.
+
+O'Keefe stared, reached down and drew out a white, shim-
+mering, softly metallic, long-sleeved tunic, a broad, silvery
+girdle, leg swathings of the same argent material, and san-
+dals that seemed to be cut out from silver.  He made a quick
+gesture of angry dissent.
+
+"Nay, _Larree_!" muttered the dwarf.  "Wear them--I coun-
+sel it--I pray it--ask me not why," he went on swiftly, look-
+ing again at the globe.
+
+O'Keefe, as I, was impressed by his earnestness.  The
+dwarf made a curiously expressive pleading gesture.  O'Keefe
+abruptly took the garments; passed into the room of the foun-
+tain.
+
+"The Shining One dances not again?" I asked.
+
+"No," he said.  "No"--he hesitate--"it is the usual feast
+that follows the sacrament!  Lugur--and Double Tongue,
+who came with you, will be there," he added slowly.
+
+"Lugur--" I gasped in astonishment.  "After what hap-
+pened--he will be there?"
+
+"Perhaps because of what happened, Goodwin, my
+friend," he answered--his eyes again full of malice; "and
+there will be others--friends of Yolara--friends of Lugur--
+and perhaps another"--his voice was almost inaudible--
+"one whom they have not called--" He halted, half-fear-
+fully, glancing at the globe; put finger to lips and spread
+himself out upon one of the couches.
+
+"Strike up the band"--came O'Keefe's voice--"here
+comes the hero!"
+
+He strode into the room.  I am bound to say that the ad-
+miration in Rador's eyes was reflected in my own, and even,
+if involuntarily, in Olaf's.
+
+"A son of Siyana!" whispered Rador.
+
+He knelt, took from his girdle-pouch a silk-wrapped
+something, unwound it--and, still kneeling, drew out a slen-
+der poniard of gleaming white metal, hilted with the blue
+stones; he thrust it into O'Keefe's girdle; then gave him
+again the rare salute.
+
+"Come," he ordered and took us to the head of the path-
+way.
+
+"Now," he said grimly, "let the Silent Ones show their
+power--if they still have it!"
+
+And with this strange benediction, be turned back.
+
+"For God's sake, Larry," I urged as we approached the
+house of the priestess, "you'll be careful!"
+
+He nodded--but I saw with a little deadly pang of ap-
+prehension in my heart a puzzled, lurking doubt within his
+eyes.
+
+As we ascended the serpent steps Marakinoff appeared.
+He gave a signal to our guards--and I wondered what in-
+fluence the Russian had attained, for promptly, without
+question, they drew aside.  At me he smiled amiably.
+
+"Have you found your friends yet?" he went on--and now
+I sensed something deeply sinister in him.  "No!  It is too
+bad!  Well, don't give up hope." He turned to O'Keefe.
+
+"Lieutenant, I would like to speak to you--alone!"
+
+"I've no secrets from Goodwin," answered O'Keefe.
+
+"So?" queried Marakinoff, suavely.  He bent, whispered to
+Larry.
+
+The Irishman started, eyed him with a certain shocked in-
+credulity, then turned to me.
+
+"Just a minute, Doc!" he said, and I caught the suspicion
+of a wink.  They drew aside, out of ear-shot.  The Russian
+talked rapidly.  Larry was all attention.  Marakinoff's earnest-
+ness became intense; O'Keefe interrupted--appeared to
+question.  Marakinoff glanced at me and as his gaze shifted
+from O'Keefe, I saw a flame of rage and horror blaze up in
+the latter's eyes.  At last the Irishman appeared to consider
+gravely; nodded as though he had arrived at some decision,
+and Marakinoff thrust his hand to him.
+
+And only I could have noticed Larry's shrinking, his
+microscopic hesitation before he took it, and his involuntary
+movement, as though to shake off something unclean, when
+the clasp had ended.
+
+Marakinoff, without another look at me, turned and went
+quickly within.  The guards took their places.  I looked at
+Larry inquiringly.
+
+"Don't ask a thing now, Doc!" he said tensely.  "Wait till
+we get home.  But we've got to get damned busy and quick
+--I'll tell you that now--"
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+The Tempting of Larry
+
+WE PAUSED before thick curtains, through which came the
+faint murmur of many voices.  They parted; out came two--
+ushers, I suppose, they were--in cuirasses and kilts that re-
+minded me somewhat of chain-mail--the first armour of
+any kind here that I had seen.  They held open the folds.
+
+The chamber, on whose threshold we stood, was far larger
+than either anteroom or hall of audience.  Not less than three
+hundred feet long and half that in depth, from end to end of
+it ran two huge semi-circular tables, paralleling each other,
+divided by a wide aisle, and heaped with flowers, with fruits,
+with viands unknown to me, and glittering with crystal
+flagons, beakers, goblets of as many hues as the blooms.  On
+the gay-cushioned couches that flanked the tables, lounging
+luxuriously, were scores of the fair-haired ruling class and
+there rose a little buzz of admiration, oddly mixed with a
+half-startled amaze, as their gaze fell upon O'Keefe in all
+his silvery magnificence.  Everywhere the light-giving globes
+sent their roseate radiance.
+
+The cuirassed dwarfs led us through the aisle.  Within the
+arc of the inner half--circle was another glittering board, an
+oval.  But of those seated there, facing us--I had eyes for
+only one--Yolara!  She swayed up to greet O'Keefe--and
+she was like one of those white lily maids, whose beauty
+Hoang-Ku, the sage, says made the Gobi first a paradise,
+and whose lusts later the burned-out desert that it is.  She held
+out hands to Larry, and on her face was passion--una-
+shamed, unhiding.
+
+She was Circe--but Circe conquered.  Webs of filmiest
+white clung to the rose-leaf body.  Twisted through the corn-
+silk hair a threaded circlet of pale sapphires shone; but they
+were pale beside Yolara's eyes.  O'Keefe bent, kissed her
+hands, something more than mere admiration flaming from
+him.  She saw--and, smiling, drew him down beside her.
+
+It came to me that of all, only these two, Yolara and
+O'Keefe, were in white--and I wondered; then with a tight-
+ening of nerves ceased to wonder as there entered--Lugur!
+He was all in scarlet, and as he strode forward a silence fell
+a tense, strained silence.
+
+His gaze turned upon Yolara, rested upon O'Keefe, and
+instantly his face grew--dreadful--there is no other word
+than that for it.  Marakinoff leaned forward from the centre
+of the table, near whose end I sat, touched and whispered to
+him swiftly.  With appalling effort the red dwarf controlled
+himself; he saluted the priestess ironically, I thought; took his
+place at the further end of the oval.  And now I noted that the
+figures between were the seven of that Council of which the
+Shining One's priestess and Voice were the heads.  The ten-
+sion relaxed, but did not pass--as though a storm-cloud
+should turn away, but still lurk, threatening.
+
+My gaze ran back.  This end of the room was draped with
+the exquisitely coloured, graceful curtains looped with gor-
+geous garlands.  Between curtains and table, where sat Larry
+and the nine, a circular platform, perhaps ten yards in diam-
+eter, raised itself a few feet above the floor, its gleaming sur-
+face half-covered with the luminous petals, fragrant, delicate.
+
+On each side below it, were low carven stools.  The cur-
+tains parted and softly entered girls bearing their flutes, their
+harps, the curiously emotion-exciting, octaved drums.  They
+sank into their places.  They touched their instruments; a
+faint, languorous measure throbbed through the rosy air.
+
+The stage was set!  What was to be the play?
+
+Now about the tables passed other dusky-haired maids,
+fair bosoms bare, their scanty kirtles looped high, pouring
+out the wines for the feasters.
+
+My eyes sought O'Keefe.  Whatever it had been that Mara-
+kinoff had said, clearly it now filled his mind--even to the
+exclusion of the wondrous woman beside him.  His eyes were
+stern, cold--and now and then, as be turned them toward
+the Russian, filled with a curious speculation.  Yolara
+watched him, frowned, gave a low order to the Hebe behind
+her.
+
+The girl disappeared, entered again with a ewer that
+seemed cut of amber.  The priestess poured from it into
+Larry's glass a clear liquid that shook with tiny sparkles of
+light.  She raised the glass to her lips, handed it to him.  Half-
+smiling, half-abstractedly, he took it, touched his own lips
+where hers had kissed; drained it.  A nod from Yolara and
+the maid refilled his goblet.
+
+At once there was a swift transformation in the Irishman.
+His abstraction vanished; the sternness fled; his eyes spar-
+kled.  He leaned caressingly toward Yolara; whispered.  Her
+blue eyes flashed triumphantly; her chiming laughter rang.
+She raised her own glass--but within it was not that clear
+drink that filled Larry's!  And again he drained his own; and,
+lifting it, full once more, caught the baleful eyes of Lugur,
+and held it toward him mockingly.  Yolara swayed close--
+alluring, tempting.  He arose, face all reckless gaiety; rollick-
+ing deviltry.
+
+"A toast!" he cried in English, "to the Shining One--and
+may the hell where it belongs soon claim it!"
+
+He had used their own word for their god--all else had
+been in his own tongue, and so, fortunately, they did not
+understand.  But the contempt in his action they did recog-
+nize--and a dead, a fearful silence fell upon them all.  Lu-
+gur's eyes blazed, little sparks of crimson in their green.  The
+priestess reached up, caught at O'Keefe.  He seized the soft
+hand; caressed it; his gaze grew far away, sombre.
+
+"The Shining One." He spoke low.  "An' now again I see
+the faces of those who dance with it.  It is the Fires of Mora
+--come, God alone knows how--from Erin--to this place.
+The Fires of Mora!" He contemplated the hushed folk be-
+fore him; and then from his lips came that weirdest, most
+haunting of the lyric legends of Erin--the Curse of Mora:
+
+
+"The fretted fires of Mora blew o'er him in the night;
+He thrills no more to loving, nor weeps for past delight.
+For when those flames have bitten, both grief and joy take flight--"
+
+
+
+Again Yolara tried to draw him down beside her; and
+once more he gripped her hand.  His eyes grew fixed--he
+crooned:
+
+
+"And through the sleeping silence his feet must track the tune,
+When the world is barred and speckled with silver of the moon--"
+
+
+
+He stood, swaying, for a moment, and then, laughing, let
+the priestess have her way; drained again the glass.
+
+And now my heart was cold, indeed--for what hope
+was there left with Larry mad, wild drunk!
+
+The silence was unbroken--elfin women and dwarfs
+glancing furtively at each other.  But now Yolara arose, face
+set, eyes flashing grey.
+
+"Hear you, the Council, and you, Lugur--and all who are
+here!" she cried.  "Now I, the priestess of the Shining One,
+take, as is my right, my mate.  And this is he!" She pointed
+down upon Larry.  He glanced up at her.
+
+"Can't quite make out what you say, Yolara," he mut-
+tered thickly.  "But say anything--you like--I love your
+voice!"
+
+I turned sick with dread.  Yolara's hand stole softly upon
+the Irishman's curls caressingly.
+
+"You know the law, Yolara." Lugur's voice was flat,
+deadly, "You may not mate with other than your own kind.
+And this man is a stranger--a barbarian--food for the Shin-
+ing One!" Literally, he spat the phrase.
+
+"No, not of our kind--Lugur--higher!" Yolara answered
+serenely.  "Lo, a son of Siya and of Siyana!"
+
+"A lie!" roared the red dwarf.  "A lie!"
+
+"The Shining One revealed it to me!" said Yolara sweetly.
+"And if ye believe not, Lugur--go ask of the Shining One
+if it be not truth!"
+
+There was bitter, nameless menace in those last words--
+and whatever their hidden message to Lugur, it was potent.
+He stood, choking, face hell-shadowed--Marakinoff leaned
+out again, whispered.  The red dwarf bowed, now wholly
+ironically; resumed his place and his silence.  And again I
+wondered, icy-hearted, what was the power the Russian had
+so to sway Lugur.
+
+"What says the Council?" Yolara demanded, turning to
+them.
+
+Only for a moment they consulted among themselves.
+Then the woman, whose face was a ravaged shrine of beauty,
+spoke.
+
+"The will of the priestess is the will of the Council!" she
+answered.
+
+Defiance died from Yolara's face; she looked down at
+Larry tenderly.  He sat swaying, crooning.
+
+"Bid the priests come," she commanded, then turned to
+the silent room.  "By the rites of Siya and Siyana, Yolara
+takes their son for her mate!" And again her hand stole
+down possessingly, serpent soft, to the drunken head of the
+O'Keefe.
+
+The curtains parted widely.  Through them filed, two by
+two, twelve hooded figures clad in flowing robes of the green
+one sees in forest vistas of opening buds of dawning spring.
+Of each pair one bore clasped to breast a globe of that milky
+crystal in the sapphire shrine-room; the other a harp, small,
+shaped somewhat like the ancient clarsach of the Druids.
+
+Two by two they stepped upon the raised platform, placed
+gently upon it each their globe; and two by two crouched
+behind them.  They formed now a star of six points about
+the petalled dais, and, simultaneously, they drew from their
+faces the covering cowls.
+
+I half-rose--youths and maidens these of the fair-haired;
+and youths and maids more beautiful than any of those I had
+yet seen--for upon their faces was little of that disturbing
+mockery to which I have been forced so often, because of the
+deep impression it made upon me, to refer.  The ashen-gold
+of the maiden priestesses' hair was wound about their brows
+in shining coronals.  The pale locks of the youths were clus-
+tered within circlets of translucent, glimmering gems like
+moonstones.  And then, crystal globe alternately before and
+harp alternately held by youth and maid, they began to sing.
+
+What was that song, I do not know--nor ever shall.
+Archaic, ancient beyond thought, it seemed--not with the
+ancientness of things that for uncounted ages have been but
+wind-driven dust.  Rather was it the ancientness of the
+golden youth of the world, love lilts of earth younglings,
+with light of new-born suns drenching them, chorals of
+young stars mating in space; murmurings of April gods and
+goddesses.  A languor stole through me.  The rosy lights upon
+the tripods began to die away, and as they faded the milky
+globes gleamed forth brighter, ever brighter.  Yolara rose,
+stretched a hand to Larry, led him through the sextuple
+groups, and stood face to face with him in the centre of their
+circle.
+
+The rose-light died; all that immense chamber was black,
+save for the circle of the glowing spheres.  Within this their
+milky radiance grew brighter--brighter.  The song whispered
+away.  A throbbing arpeggio dripped from the harps, and as
+the notes pulsed out, up from the globes, as though striving
+to follow, pulsed with them tips of moon-fire cones, such as
+I had seen before Yolara's altar.  Weirdly, caressingly, com-
+pellingly the harp notes throbbed in repeated, re-repeated
+theme, holding within itself the same archaic golden quality
+I had noted in the singing.  And over the moon flame pin-
+nacles rose higher!
+
+Yolara lifted her arms; within her hands were clasped
+O'Keefe's.  She raised them above their two heads and slowly,
+slowly drew him with her into a circling, graceful step, ten-
+drillings delicate as the slow spirallings of twilight mist upon
+some still stream.
+
+As they swayed the rippling arpeggios grew louder, and
+suddenly the slender pinnacles of moon fire bent, dipped,
+flowed to the floor, crept in a shining ring around those two
+--and began to rise, a gleaming, glimmering, enchanted
+barrier--rising, ever rising--hiding them!
+
+With one swift movement Yolara unbound her circlet of
+pale sapphires, shook loose the waves of her silken hair.  It
+fell, a rippling, wondrous cascade, veiling both her and
+O'Keefe to their girdles--and now the shining coils of moon
+fire had crept to their knees--was circling higher--higher.
+
+And ever despair grew deeper in my soul!
+
+What was that!  I started to my feet, and all around me in
+the darkness I heard startled motion.  From without came a
+blaring of trumpets, the sound of running men, loud mur-
+murings.  The tumult drew closer.  I heard cries of "Lakla!
+Lakla!"  Now it was at the very threshold and within it,
+oddly, as though--punctuating--the clamour, a deep-toned,
+almost abysmal, booming sound--thunderously bass and re-
+verberant.
+
+Abruptly the harpings ceased; the moon fires shuddered,
+fell, and began to sweep back into the crystal globes; Yo-
+lara's swaying form grew rigid, every atom of it listening.
+She threw aside the veiling cloud of hair, and in the gleam
+of the last retreating spirals her face glared out like some
+old Greek mask of tragedy.
+
+The sweet lips that even at their sweetest could never lose
+their delicate cruelty, had no sweetness now.  They were
+drawn into a square--inhuman as that of the Medusa; in her
+eyes were the fires of the pit, and her hair seemed to writhe
+like the serpent locks of that Gorgon whose mouth she had
+borrowed; all her beauty was transformed into a nameless
+thing--hideous, inhuman, blasting!  If this was the true soul
+of Yolara springing to her face, then, I thought, God help
+us in very deed!
+
+I wrested my gaze away to O'Keefe.  All drunkenness gone,
+himself again, he was staring down at her, and in his eyes
+were loathing and horror unutterable.  So they stood--and
+the light fled.
+
+Only for a moment did the darkness hold.  With lightning
+swiftness the blackness that was the chamber's other wall
+vanished.  Through a portal open between grey screens, the
+silver sparkling radiance poured.
+
+And through the portal marched, two by two, incredible,
+nightmare figures--frog-men, giants, taller by nearly a yard
+than even tall O'Keefe!  Their enormous saucer eyes were
+irised by wide bands of green-flecked red, in which the
+phosphorescence flickered.  Their long muzzles, lips half-
+open in monstrous grin, held rows of glistening, slender,
+lancet sharp fangs.  Over the glaring eyes arose a horny hel-
+met, a carapace of black and orange scales, studded with
+foot-long lance-headed horns.
+
+They lined themselves like soldiers on each side of the
+wide table aisle, and now I could see that their horny armour
+covered shoulders and backs, ran across the chest in a
+knobbed cuirass, and at wrists and heels jutted out into
+curved, murderous spurs.  The webbed hands and feet ended
+in yellow, spade-shaped claws.
+
+They carried spears, ten feet, at least, in length, the heads
+of which were pointed cones, glistening with that same cov-
+ering, from whose touch of swift decay I had so narrowly
+saved Rador.
+
+They were grotesque, yes--more grotesque than anything
+I had ever seen or dreamed, and they were--terrible!
+
+And then, quietly, through their ranks came--a girl!  Be-
+hind her, enormous pouch at his throat swelling in and out
+menacingly, in one paw a treelike, spike-studded mace, a
+frog-man, huger than any of the others, guarding.  But of
+him I caught but a fleeting, involuntary impression--all my
+gaze was for her.
+
+For it was she who had pointed out to us the way from
+the peril of the Dweller's lair on Nan-Tauach.  And as I
+looked at her, I marvelled that ever could I have thought the
+priestess more beautiful.  Into the eyes of O'Keefe rushed joy
+and an utter abasement of shame.
+
+And from all about came murmurs--edged with anger,
+half-incredulous, tinged with fear:
+
+"Lakla!"
+
+"Lakla!"
+
+"The handmaiden!"
+
+She halted close beside me.  From firm little chin to dainty
+buskined feet she was swathed in the soft robes of dull,
+almost coppery hue.  The left arm was hidden, the right free
+and gloved.  Wound tight about it was one of the vines of the
+sculptured wall and of Lugur's circled signet-ring.  Thick, a
+vivid green, its five tendrils ran between her fingers, stretch-
+ing out five flowered heads that gleamed like blossoms cut
+from gigantic, glowing rubies.
+
+So she stood contemplating Yolara.  Then drawn perhaps
+by my gaze, she dropped her eyes upon me; golden, translu-
+cent, with tiny flecks of amber in their aureate irises, the
+soul that looked through them was as far removed from that
+flaming out of the priestess as zenith is above nadir.
+
+I noted the low, broad brow, the proud little nose, the
+tender mouth, and the soft--sunlight--glow that seemed to
+transfuse the delicate skin.  And suddenly in the eyes dawned
+a smile--sweet, friendly, a touch of roguishness, profoundly
+reassuring in its all humanness.  I felt my heart expand as
+though freed from fetters, a recrudescence of confidence in
+the essential reality of things--as though in nightmare the
+struggling consciousness should glimpse some familiar face
+and know the terrors with which it strove were but dreams.
+And involuntarily I smiled back at her.
+
+She raised her head and looked again at Yolara, contempt
+and a certain curiosity in her gaze; at O'Keefe--and through
+the softened eyes drifted swiftly a shadow of sorrow, and on
+its fleeting wings deepest interest, and hovering over that a
+naive approval as reassuringly human as had been her smile.
+
+She spoke, and her voice, deep-timbred, liquid gold as
+was Yolara's all silver, was subtly the synthesis of all the
+golden glowing beauty of her.
+
+"The Silent Ones have sent me, O Yolara," she said.  "And
+this is their command to you--that you deliver to me to
+bring before them three of the four strangers who have
+found their way here.  For him there who plots with Lugur"
+--she pointed at Marakinoff, and I saw Yolara start--"they
+have no need.  Into his heart the Silent Ones have looked;
+and Lugur and you may keep him, Yolara!"
+
+There was honeyed venom in the last words.
+
+Yolara was herself now; only the edge of shrillness on her
+voice revealed her wrath as she answered.
+
+"And whence have the Silent Ones gained power to com-
+mand, _choya_?"
+
+This last, I knew, was a very vulgar word; I had heard
+Rador use it in a moment of anger to one of the serving
+maids, and it meant, approximately, "kitchen girl," "scul-
+lion." Beneath the insult and the acid disdain, the blood
+rushed up under Lakla's ambered ivory skin.
+
+"Yolara"--her voice was low--"of no use is it to question
+me. I am but the messenger of the Silent Ones.  And one
+thing only am I bidden to ask you--do you deliver to me
+the three strangers?"
+
+Lugur was on his feet; eagerness, sardonic delight, sinister
+anticipation thrilling from him--and my same glance
+showed Marakinoff, crouched, biting his finger-nails, glaring
+at the Golden Girl.
+
+"No!" Yolara spat the word.  "No!  Now by Thanaroa and
+by the Shining One, no!" Her eyes blazed, her nostrils were
+wide, in her fair throat a little pulse beat angrily.  "You,
+Lakla--take you my message to the Silent Ones.  Say to them
+that I keep this man"--she pointed to Larry--"because he
+is mine.  Say to them that I keep the yellow-haired one and
+him"--she pointed to me--"because it pleases me.
+
+"Tell them that upon their mouths I place my foot, so!"
+--she stamped upon the dais viciously--"and that in their
+faces I spit!"--and her action was hideously snakelike.  "And
+say last to them, you handmaiden, that if YOU they dare send
+to Yolara again, she will feed YOU to the Shining One!  Now
+--go!"
+
+The handmaiden's face was white.
+
+"Not unforeseen by the three was this, Yolara," she re-
+plied.  "And did you speak as you have spoken then was I
+bidden to say this to you." Her voice deepened.  "Three _tal_
+have you to take counsel, Yolara.  And at the end of that
+time these things must you have determined--either to do
+or not to do: first, send the strangers to the Silent Ones;
+second, give up, you and Lugur and all of you, that dream
+you have of conquest of the world without; and, third, for-
+swear the Shining One!  And if you do not one and all these
+things, then are you done, your cup of life broken, your
+wine of life spilled.  Yea, Yolara, for you and the Shining
+One, Lugur and the Nine and all those here and their kind
+shall pass!  This say the Silent Ones, 'Surely shall all of ye
+pass and be as though never had ye been!' "
+
+Now a gasp of rage and fear arose from all those around
+me--but the priestess threw back her head and laughed loud
+and long.  Into the silver sweet chiming of her laughter
+clashed that of Lugur--and after a little the nobles took it
+up, till the whole chamber echoed with their mirth.  O'Keefe,
+lips tightening, moved toward the Handmaiden, and almost
+imperceptibly, but peremptorily, she waved him back.
+
+"Those ARE great words--great words indeed, _choya_,"
+shrilled Yolara at last; and again Lakla winced beneath the
+word.  "Lo, for _laya_ upon _laya_, the Shining One has been
+freed from the Three; and for _laya_ upon _laya_ they have sat
+helpless, rotting.  Now I ask you again--whence comes their
+power to lay their will upon me, and whence comes their
+strength to wrestle with the Shining One and the beloved of
+the Shining One?"
+
+And again she laughed--and again Lugur and all the fair-
+haired joined in her laughter.
+
+Into the eyes of Lakla I saw creep a doubt, a wavering; as
+though deep within her the foundations of her own belief
+were none too firm.
+
+She hesitated, turning upon O'Keefe gaze in which rested
+more than suggestion of appeal!  And Yolara saw, too, for
+she flushed with triumph, stretched a finger toward the hand-
+maiden.
+
+"Look!" she cried.  "Look!  Why, even SHE does not believe!"
+Her voice grew silk of silver--merciless, cruel.  "Now am
+I minded to send another answer to the Silent Ones.
+Yea!  But not by YOU, Lakla; by these"--she pointed to the
+frog-men, and, swift as light, her hand darted into her
+bosom, bringing forth the little shining cone of death.
+
+But before she could level it the Golden Girl had released
+that hidden left arm and thrown over her face a fold of the
+metallic swathings.  Swifter than Yolara, she raised the arm
+that held the vine--and now I knew this was no inert blos-
+soming thing.
+
+It was alive!
+
+It writhed down her arm, and its five rubescent flower
+heads thrust out toward the priestess--vibrating, quivering,
+held in leash only by the light touch of the handmaiden at its
+very end.
+
+From the swelling throat pouch of the monster behind her
+came a succession of the reverberant boomings.  The frog-
+men wheeled, raised their lances, levelled them at the
+throng.  Around the reaching ruby flowers a faint red mist
+swiftly grew.
+
+The silver cone dropped from Yolara's rigid fingers; her
+eyes grew stark with horror; all her unearthly loveliness fled
+from her; she stood pale-lipped.  The Handmaiden dropped
+the protecting veil--and now it was she who laughed.
+
+"It would seem, then, Yolara, that there IS a thing of the
+Silent Ones ye fear!" she said.  "Well--the kiss of the _Yekta_
+I promise you in return for the embrace of your Shining
+One."
+
+She looked at Larry, long, searchingly, and suddenly
+again with all that effect of sunlight bursting into dark places,
+her smile shone upon him.  She nodded, half gaily; looked
+down upon me, the little merry light dancing in her eyes;
+waved her hand to me.
+
+She spoke to the giant frog-man.  He wheeled behind her
+as she turned, facing the priestess, club upraised, fangs glis-
+tening.  His troop moved not a jot, spears held high.  Lakla
+began to pass slowly--almost, I thought, tauntingly--and as
+she reached the portal Larry leaped from the dais.
+
+"ALANNA!" he cried.  "You'll not be leavin' me just when
+I've found you!"
+
+In his excitement he spoke in his own tongue, the velvet
+brogue appealing.  Lakla turned, contemplated O'Keefe, hesi-
+tant, unquestionably longingly, irresistibly like a child mak-
+ing up her mind whether she dared or dared not take a
+delectable something offered her.
+
+"I go with you," said O'Keefe, this time in her own
+speech.  "Come on, Doc!" He reached out a hand to me.
+
+But now Yolara spoke.  Life and beauty had flowed back
+into her face, and in the purple eyes all her hosts of devils
+were gathered.
+
+"Do you forget what I promised you before Siya and
+Siyana?  And do you think that you can leave me--me--
+as though I were a _choya_--like HER." She pointed to Lakla.
+Do you--"
+
+"Now, listen, Yolara," Larry interrupted almost plain-
+tively.  "No promise has passed from me to you--and why
+would you hold me?" He passed unconsciously into English.
+"Be a good sport, Yolara," he urged, 'You HAVE got a very
+devil of a temper, you know, and so have I; and we'd be
+really awfully uncomfortable together.  And why don't you
+get rid of that devilish pet of yours, and be good!"
+
+She looked at him, puzzled, Marakinoff leaned over, trans-
+lated to Lugur.  The red dwarf smiled maliciously, drew near
+the priestess; whispered to her what was without doubt as
+near as he could come in the Murian to Larry's own very
+colloquial phrases.
+
+Yolara's lips writhed.
+
+"Hear me, Lakla!" she cried.  "Now would I not let you
+take this man from me were I to dwell ten thousand _laya_
+in the agony of the _Yekta's_ kiss.  This I swear to you--by
+Thanaroa, by my heart, and by my strength--and may my
+strength wither, my heart rot in my breast, and Thanaroa
+forget me if I do!"
+
+"Listen, Yolara"--began O'Keefe again.
+
+"Be silent, you!" It was almost a shriek.  And her hand
+again sought in her breast for the cone of rhythmic death.
+
+Lugur touched her arm, whispered again, The glint of
+guile shone in her eyes; she laughed softly, relaxed.
+
+"The Silent Ones, Lakla, bade you say that they--allowed
+--me three _tal_ to decide," she said suavely.  "Go now in
+peace, Lakla, and say that Yolara has heard, and that for
+the three _tal_ they--allow--her she will take council." The
+handmaiden hesitated.
+
+"The Silent Ones have said it," she answered at last.  "Stay
+you here, strangers"---the long lashes drooped as her eyes
+met O'Keefe's and a hint of blush was in her cheeks--"stay
+you here, strangers, till then.  But, Yolara, see you on that
+heart and strength you have sworn by that they come to no
+harm--else that which you have invoked shall come upon
+you swiftly indeed--and that I promise you," she added.
+
+Their eyes met, clashed, burned into each other--black
+flame from Abaddon and golden flame from Paradise.
+
+"Remember!" said Lakla, and passed through the portal.
+The gigantic frog-man boomed a thunderous note of com-
+mand, his grotesque guards turned and slowly followed their
+mistress; and last of all passed out the monster with the
+mace.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+Larry's Defiance
+
+A CLAMOUR arose from all the chambers; stilled in an in-
+stant by a motion of Yolara's hand.  She stood silent, regard-
+ing O'Keefe with something other now than blind wrath;
+something half regretful, half beseeching.  But the Irishman's
+control was gone.
+
+"Yolara,"--his voice shook with rage, and he threw cau-
+tion to the wind--"now hear ME.  I go where I will and when
+I will.  Here shall we stay until the time she named is come.
+And then we follow her, whether you will or not.  And if
+any should have thought to stop us--tell them of that flame
+that shattered the vase," he added grimly.
+
+The wistfulness died out of her eyes, leaving them cold.
+But no answer made she to him.
+
+"What Lakla has said, the Council must consider, and at
+once." The priestess was facing the nobles.  "Now, friends of
+mine, and friends of Lugur, must all feud, all rancour, be-
+tween us end." She glanced swiftly at Lugur.  "The _ladala_
+are stirring, and the Silent Ones threaten.  Yet fear not--for
+are we not strong under the Shining One?  And now--leave
+us."
+
+Her hand dropped to the table, and she gave, evidently,
+a signal, for in marched a dozen or more of the green dwarfs.
+
+"Take these two to their place," she commanded, point-
+ing to us.
+
+The green dwarfs clustered about us.  Without another
+look at the priestess O'Keefe marched beside me, between
+them, from the chamber.  And it was not until we had reached
+the pillared entrance that Larry spoke.
+
+"I hate to talk like that to a woman, Doc," he said, "and
+a pretty woman, at that.  But first she played me with a
+marked deck, and then not only pinched all the chips, but
+drew a gun on me.  What the hell!she nearly had me--
+MARRIED--to her.  I don't know what the stuff was she gave
+me; but, take it from me, if I had the recipe for that brew
+I could sell it for a thousand dollars a jolt at Forty-second
+and Broadway.
+
+"One jigger of it, and you forget there is a trouble in the
+world; three of them, and you forget there is a world.  No
+excuse for it, Doc; and I don't care what you say or what
+Lakla may say--it wasn't my fault, and I don't hold it up
+against myself for a damn."
+
+"I must admit that I'm a bit uneasy about her threats," I
+said, ignoring all this.  He stopped abruptly.
+
+"What're you afraid of?"
+
+"Mostly," I answered dryly, "I have no desire to dance
+with the Shining One!"
+
+"Listen to me, Goodwin," He took up his walk impa-
+tiently.  "I've all the love and admiration for you in the
+world; but this place has got your nerve.  Hereafter one
+Larry O'Keefe, of Ireland and the little old U. S. A., leads
+this party.  Nix on the tremolo stop, nix on the superstition!
+I'm the works.  Get me?"
+
+"Yes, I get you!" I exclaimed testily enough.  "But to use
+your own phrase, kindly can the repeated references to
+superstition."
+
+"Why should I?" He was almost wrathful.  "You scientific
+people build up whole philosophies on the basis of things
+you never saw, and you scoff at people who believe in other
+things that you think THEY never saw and that don't come
+under what you label scientific.  You talk about paradoxes--
+why, your scientist, who thinks he is the most skeptical, the
+most materialistic aggregation of atoms ever gathered at the
+exact mathematical centre of Missouri, has more blind faith
+than a dervish, and more credulity, more superstition, than
+a cross-eyed smoke beating it past a country graveyard in
+the dark of the moon!"
+
+"Larry!" I cried, dazed.
+
+"Olaf's no better," he said.  "But I can make allowances for
+him.  He's a sailor.  No, sir.  What this expedition needs is a
+man without superstition.  And remember this.  The lepre-
+chaun promised that I'd have full warning before anything
+happened.  And if we do have to go out, we'll see that banshee
+bunch clean up before we do, and pass in a blaze of glory.
+And don't forget it.  Hereafter--I'm--in--charge!"
+
+By this time we were before our pavilion; and neither of
+us in a very amiable mood I'm afraid.  Rador was awaiting us
+with a score of his men.
+
+"Let none pass in here without authority--and let none
+pass out unless I accompany them," he ordered bruskly.
+"Summon one of the swiftest of the _coria_ and have it wait in
+readiness," he added, as though by afterthought.
+
+But when we had entered and the screens were drawn
+together his manner changed; all eagerness he questioned
+us. Briefly we told him of the happenings at the feast, of
+Lakla's dramatic interruption, and of what had followed.
+
+"Three _tal_," he said musingly; "three _tal_ the Silent Ones
+have allowed--and Yolara agreed." He sank back, silent and
+thoughtful.1
+
+
+1 A _tal_ in Muria is the equivalent of thirty hours of earth surface
+time.--W. T. G.
+
+
+
+_"Ja!"  It was Olaf. "_Ja!_  I told you the Shining Devil's mis-
+tress was all evil. _Ja!_  Now I begin again that tale I started
+when he came"--he glanced toward the preoccupied Rador.
+"And tell him not what I say should he ask.  For I trust none
+here in Trolldom, save the _Jomfrau_--the White Virgin!
+
+"After the oldster was _adsprede_"--Olaf once more used
+that expressive Norwegian word for the dissolving of Songar
+--"I knew that it was a time for cunning.  I said to myself,
+'If they think I have no ears to hear, they will speak; and
+it may be I will find a way to save my Helma and Dr. Good-
+win's friends, too.' _Ja_, and they did speak.
+
+"The red _Trolde_ asked the Russian how came it he was a
+worshipper of Thanaroa." I could not resist a swift glance of
+triumph toward O'Keefe.  "And the Russian," rumbled Olaf,
+"said that all his people worshipped Thanaroa and had
+fought against the other nations that denied him.
+
+"And then we had come to Lugur's palace.  They put me
+in rooms, and there came to me men who rubbed and oiled
+me and loosened my muscles.  The next day I wrestled with
+a great dwarf they called Valdor.  He was a mighty man, and
+long we struggled, and at last I broke his back.  And Lugur
+was pleased, so that I sat with him at feast and with the
+Russian, too.  And again, not knowing that I understood
+them, they talked.
+
+"The Russian had gone fast and far.  They talked of Lugur
+as emperor of all Europe, and Marakinoff under him.  They
+spoke of the green light that shook life from the oldster; and
+Lugur said that the secret of it had been the Ancient Ones'
+and that the Council had not too much of it.  But the Russian
+said that among his race were many wise men who could
+make more once they had studied it.
+
+"And the next day I wrestled with a great dwarf named
+Tahola, mightier far than Valdor.  Him I threw after a long,
+long time, and his back also I broke.  Again Lugur was
+pleased.  And again we sat at table, he and the Russian and I.
+This time they spoke of something these _Trolde_ have which
+opens up a _Svaelc_--abysses into which all in its range drops
+up into the sky!"
+
+"What!" I exclaimed.
+
+"I know about them," said Larry.  "Wait!"
+
+"Lugur had drunk much," went on Olaf.  "He was boast-
+ful.  The Russian pressed him to show this thing.  After a
+while the red one went out and came back with a little golden
+box.  He and the Russian went into the garden.  I followed
+them.  There was a _lille Hoj_--a mound--of stones in that
+garden on which grew flowers and trees.
+
+"Lugur pressed upon the box, and a spark no bigger than
+a sand grain leaped out and fell beside the stones.  Lugur
+pressed again, and a blue light shot from the box and lighted
+on the spark.  The spark that had been no bigger than a grain
+of sand grew and grew as the blue struck it.  And then there
+was a sighing, a wind blew--and the stones and the flowers
+and the trees were not.  They were _forsvinde_--vanished!
+
+"Then Lugur, who had been laughing, grew quickly sober;
+for he thrust the Russian back--far back.  And soon down
+into the garden came tumbling the stones and the trees, but
+broken and shattered, and falling as though from a great
+height.  And Lugur said that of THIS something they had
+much, for its making was a secret handed down by their own
+forefathers and not by the Ancient Ones.
+
+"They feared to use it, he said, for a spark thrice as large
+as that he had used would have sent all that garden falling
+upward and might have opened a way to the outside before
+--he said just this--'BEFORE WE ARE READY TO GO OUT INTO IT!'
+
+"The Russian questioned much, but Lugur sent for more
+drink and grew merrier and threatened him, and the Russian
+was silent through fear.  Thereafter I listened when I could,
+and little more I learned, but that little enough. _Ja!_  Lugur
+is hot for conquest; so Yolara and so the Council.  They tire
+of it here and the Silent Ones make their minds not too easy,
+no, even though they jeer at them!  And this they plan--
+to rule our world with their Shining Devil."
+
+The Norseman was silent for a moment; then voice deep,
+trembling--
+
+"Trolldom is awake; Helvede crouches at Earth Gate
+whining to be loosed into a world already devil ridden!  And
+we are but three!"
+
+I felt the blood drive out of my heart.  But Larry's was the
+fighting face of the O'Keefes of a thousand years.  Rador
+glanced at him, arose, stepped through the curtains; returned
+swiftly with the Irishman's uniform.
+
+"Put it on," he said, bruskly; again fell back into his
+silence and whatever O'Keefe had been about to say was sub-
+merged in his wild and joyful whoop.  He ripped from him
+glittering tunic and leg swathings.
+
+"Richard is himself again!" he shouted; and each garment
+as he donned it, fanned his old devil-may-care confidence
+to a higher flame.  The last scrap of it on, he drew himself up
+before us.
+
+"Bow down, ye divils!" he cried.  "Bang your heads on the
+floor and do homage to Larry the First, Emperor of Great
+Britain, Autocrat of all Ireland, Scotland, England, and
+Wales, and adjacent waters and islands!  Kneel, ye scuts,
+kneel."
+
+"Larry," I cried, "are you going crazy?"
+
+"Not a bit of it," he said.  "I'm that and more if Comrade
+Marakinoff is on the level.  Whoop!  Bring forth the royal
+jewels an' put a whole new bunch of golden strings in Tara's
+harp an' down with the Sassenach forever!  Whoop!"
+
+He did a wild jig.
+
+"Lord how good the old togs feel," he grinned.  "The
+touch of 'em has gone to my head.  But it's straight stuff I'm
+telling you about my empire."
+
+He sobered.
+
+"Not that it's not serious enough at that.  A lot that Olaf's
+told us I've surmised from hints dropped by Yolara.  But I got
+the full key to it from the Red himself when he stopped me
+just before--before"--he reddened--"well, just before I ac-
+quired that brand-new brand of souse.
+
+"Maybe he had a hint--maybe he just surmised that I
+knew a lot more than I did.  And he thought Yolara and
+I were going to be loving little turtle doves.  Also he figured
+that Yolara had a lot more influence with the Unholy Fire-
+works than Lugur.  Also that being a woman she could be
+more easily handled.  All this being so, what was the logical
+thing for himself to do?  Sure, you get me, Steve!  Throw
+down Lugur and make an alliance with me!  So HE calmly
+offered to ditch the red dwarf if I would deliver Yolara.
+My reward from Russia was to be said emperorship!
+Can you beat it?  Good Lord!"
+
+He went off into a perfect storm of laughter.  But not to
+me in the light of what Russia has done and has proved her-
+self capable, did this thing seem at all absurd; rather in it I
+sensed the dawn of catastrophe colossal.
+
+"And yet," he was quiet enough now, "I'm a bit scared.
+They've got the _Keth_ ray and those gravity-destroying
+bombs--"
+
+"Gravity-destroying bombs!" I gasped.
+
+"Sure," he said.  "The little fairy that sent the trees and
+stones kiting up from Lugur's garden.  Marakinoff licked his
+lips over them.  They cut off gravity, just about as the shadow
+screens cut off light--and consequently whatever's in their
+range goes shooting just naturally up to the moon--
+
+"They get my goat, why deny it?" went on Larry.  "With
+them and the _Keth_ and gentle invisible soldiers walking
+around assassinating at will--well, the worst Bolsheviki are
+only puling babes, eh, Doc?
+
+"I don't mind the Shining One," said O'Keefe, "one splash
+of a downtown New York high-pressure fire hose would do
+for it!  But the others--are the goods!  Believe me!"
+
+But for once O'Keefe's confidence found no echo within
+me. Not lightly, as he, did I hold that dread mystery, the
+Dweller--and a vision passed before me, a vision of an
+Apocalypse undreamed by the Evangelist.
+
+A vision of the Shining One swirling into our world, a
+monstrous, glorious flaming pillar of incarnate, eternal Evil
+--of peoples passing through its radiant embrace into that
+hideous, unearthly life-in-death which I had seen enfold the
+sacrifices--of armies trembling into dancing atoms of dia-
+mond dust beneath the green ray's rhythmic death--of cities
+rushing out into space upon the wings of that other demoniac
+force which Olaf had watched at work--of a haunted world
+through which the assassins of the Dweller's court stole in-
+visible, carrying with them every passion of hell--of the
+rallying to the Thing of every sinister soul and of the weak
+and the unbalanced, mystics and carnivores of humanity
+alike; for well I knew that, once loosed, not any nation could
+hold this devil-god for long and that swiftly its blight would
+spread!
+
+And then a world that was all colossal reek of cruelty and
+terror; a welter of lusts, of hatreds and of torment; a chaos
+of horror in which the Dweller waxing ever stronger, the
+ghastly hordes of those it had consumed growing ever
+greater, wreaked its inhuman will!
+
+At the last a ruined planet, a cosmic plague, spinning
+through the shuddering heavens; its verdant plains, its mur-
+muring forests, its meadows and its mountains manned only
+by a countless crew of soulless, mindless dead-alive, their
+shells illumined with the Dweller's infernal glory--and flam-
+ing over this vampirized earth like a flare from some hell
+far, infinitely far, beyond the reach of man's farthest flung
+imagining--the Dweller!
+
+Rador jumped to his feet; walked to the whispering globe.
+He bent over its base; did something with its mechanism;
+beckoned to us.  The globe swam rapidly, faster than ever I
+had seen it before.  A low humming arose, changed into a
+murmur, and then from it I heard Lugur's voice clearly.
+
+"It is to be war then?"
+
+There was a chorus of assent--from the Council, I
+thought.
+
+"I will take the tall one named--_Larree_." It was the priest-
+ess's voice.  "After the three _tal_, you may have him, Lugur,
+to do with as you will."
+
+"No!" it was Lugur's voice again, but with a rasp of anger.
+"All must die."
+
+"He shall die," again Yolara.  "But I would that first he
+see Lakla pass--and that she know what is to happen to
+him."
+
+"No!" I started--for this was Marakinoff.  "Now is no
+time, Yolara, for one's own desires.  This is my counsel.  At
+the end of the three _tal_ Lakla will come for our answer.  Your
+men will be in ambush and they will slay her and her escort
+quickly with the _Keth_.  But not till that is done must the
+three be slain--and then quickly.  With Lakla dead we shall
+go forth to the Silent Ones--and I promise you that I will
+find the way to destroy them!"
+
+"It is well!" It was Lugur.
+
+"It IS well, Yolara." It was a woman's voice, and I knew
+it for that old one of ravaged beauty.  "Cast from your mind
+whatever is in it for this stranger--either of love or hatred.
+In this the Council is with Lugur and the man of wisdom."
+
+There was a silence.  Then came the priestess's voice, sul-
+len but--beaten.
+
+"It is well!"
+
+"Let the three be taken now by Rador to the temple and
+given to the High Priest Sator"--thus Lugur--"until what
+we have planned comes to pass."
+
+Rador gripped the base of the globe; abruptly it ceased
+its spinning.  He turned to us as though to speak and even as
+he did so its bell note sounded peremptorily and on it the
+colour films began to creep at their accustomed pace.
+
+"I hear," the green dwarf whispered.  "They shall be taken
+there at once." The globe grew silent.  He stepped toward
+us.
+
+"You have heard," he turned to us.
+
+"Not on your life, Rador," said Larry.  "Nothing doing!"
+And then in the Murian's own tongue.  "We follow Lakla,
+Rador.  And YOU lead the way." He thrust the pistol close
+to the green dwarf's side.
+
+Rador did not move.
+
+"Of what use, _Larree_?" he said, quietly.  "Me you can slay
+--but in the end you will be taken.  Life is not held so dear
+in Muria that my men out there or those others who can
+come quickly will let you by--even though you slay many.
+And in the end they will overpower you."
+
+There was a trace of irresolution in O'Keefe's face.
+
+"And," added Rador, "if I let you go I dance with the
+Shining One--or worse!"
+
+O'Keefe's pistol hand dropped.
+
+"You're a good sport, Rador, and far be it from me to get
+you in bad," he said.  "Take us to the temple--when we get
+there--well, your responsibility ends, doesn't it?"
+
+The green dwarf nodded; on his face a curious expres-
+sion--was it relief?  Or was it emotion higher than this?
+
+He turned curtly.
+
+"Follow," he said.  We passed out of that gay little pavilion
+that had come to be home to us even in this alien place.  The
+guards stood at attention.
+
+"You, Sattoya, stand by the globe," he ordered one of
+them.  "Should the _Afyo Maie_ ask, say that I am on my way
+with the strangers even as she has commanded."
+
+We passed through the lines to the _corial_ standing like a
+great shell at the end of the runway leading into the green
+road.
+
+"Wait you here," he said curtly to the driver.  The green
+dwarf ascended to his seat, sought the lever and we swept
+on--on and out upon the glistening obsidian.
+
+Then Rador faced us and laughed.
+
+"_Larree_," he cried, "I love you for that spirit of yours!
+And did you think that Rador would carry to the temple
+prison a man who would take the chances of torment upon
+his own shoulders to save him?  Or you, Goodwin, who saved
+him from the rotting death?  For what did I take the _corial_
+or lift the veil of silence that I might hear what threatened
+you--"
+
+He swept the _corial_ to the left, away from the temple ap-
+proach.
+
+"I am done with Lugur and with Yolara and the Shining
+One!" cried Rador.  "My hand is for you three and for Lakla
+and those to whom she is handmaiden!"
+
+The shell leaped forward; seemed to fly.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+The Casting of the Shadow
+
+NOW we were racing down toward that last span whose
+ancientness had set it apart from all the other soaring arches.
+The shell's speed slackened; we approached warily.
+
+"We pass there?" asked O'Keefe.
+
+The green dwarf nodded, pointing to the right where the
+bridge ended in a broad platform held high upon two gigantic
+piers, between which ran a spur from the glistening road.
+Platform and bridge were swarming with men-at-arms; they
+crowded the parapets, looking down upon us curiously but
+with no evidence of hostility.  Rador drew a deep breath of
+relief.
+
+"We don't have to break our way through, then?" There
+was disappointment in the Irishman's voice.
+
+"No use, _Larree_!" Smiling, Rador stopped the _corial_ just
+beneath the arch and beside one of the piers.  "Now, listen
+well.  They have had no warning, hence does Yolara still
+think us on the way to the temple.  This is the gateway of the
+Portal--and the gateway is closed by the Shadow.  Once I
+commanded here and I know its laws.  This must I do--
+by craft persuade Serku, the keeper of the gateway, to lift the
+Shadow; or raise it myself.  And that will be hard and it may
+well be that in the struggle life will be stripped of us all.
+Yet is it better to die fighting than to dance with the Shining
+One!"
+
+He swept the shell around the pier.  Opened a wide plaza
+paved with the volcanic glass, but black as that down which
+we had sped from the chamber of the Moon Pool.  It shone
+like a mirrored lakelet of jet; on each side of it arose what
+at first glance seemed towering bulwarks of the same ebon
+obsidian; at second, revealed themselves as structures hewn
+and set in place by men; polished faces pierced by dozens
+of high, narrow windows.
+
+Down each facade a stairway fell, broken by small land-
+ings on which a door opened; they dropped to a broad ledge
+of greyish stone edging the lip of this midnight pool and
+upon it also fell two wide flights from either side of the
+bridge platform.  Along all four stairways the guards were
+ranged; and here and there against the ledge stood the shells
+--in a curiously comforting resemblance to parked motors in
+our own world.
+
+The sombre walls bulked high; curved and ended in two
+obelisked pillars from which, like a tremendous curtain,
+stretched a barrier of that tenebrous gloom which, though
+weightless as shadow itself, I now knew to be as impenetra-
+ble as the veil between life and death.  In this murk, unlike
+all others I had seen, I sensed movement, a quivering, a
+tremor constant and rhythmic; not to be seen, yet caught by
+some subtle sense; as though through it beat a swift pulse of
+--black light.
+
+The green dwarf turned the _corial_ slowly to the edge at
+the right; crept cautiously on toward where, not more than
+a hundred feet from the barrier, a low, wide entrance opened
+in the fort.  Guarding its threshold stood two guards, armed
+with broadswords, double-handed, terminating in a wide
+lunette mouthed with murderous fangs.  These they raised in
+salute and through the portal strode a dwarf huge as Rador,
+dressed as he and carrying only the poniard that was the
+badge of office of Muria's captainry.
+
+The green dwarf swept the shell expertly against the
+ledge; leaped out.
+
+"Greeting, Serku!" he answered.  "I was but looking for
+the _coria_ of Lakla."
+
+"Lakla!" exclaimed Serku.  "Why, the handmaiden passed
+with her _Akka_ nigh a _va_ ago!"
+
+"Passed!" The astonishment of the green dwarf was so real
+that half was I myself deceived.  "You let her PASS?"
+
+"Certainly I let her pass--" But under the green dwarf's
+stern gaze the truculence of the guardian faded.  "Why
+should I not?" he asked, apprehensively.
+
+"Because Yolara commanded otherwise," answered
+Rador, coldly.
+
+"There came no command to me."  Little beads of sweat
+stood out on Serku's forehead.
+
+"Serku," interrupted the green dwarf swiftly, "truly is my
+heart wrung for you.  This is a matter of Yolara and of Lugur
+and the Council; yes, even of the Shining One!  And the
+message was sent--and the fate, mayhap, of all Muria rested
+upon your obedience and the return of Lakla with these
+strangers to the Council.  Now truly is my heart wrung, for
+there are few I would less like to see dance with the Shining
+One than you, Serku," he ended, softly.
+
+Livid now was the gateway's guardian, his great frame
+shaking.
+
+"Come with me and speak to Yolara," he pleaded.  "There
+came no message--tell her--"
+
+"Wait, Serku!" There was a thrill as of inspiration in
+Rador's voice.  "This _corial_ is of the swiftest--Lakla's are of
+the slowest.  With Lakla scarce a _va_ ahead we can reach her
+before she enters the Portal.  Lift you the Shadow--we will
+bring her back, and this will I do for you, Serku."
+
+Doubt tempered Serku's panic.
+
+"Why not go alone, Rador, leaving the strangers here
+with me?" he asked--and I thought not unreasonably.
+
+"Nay, then." The green dwarf was brusk.  "Lakla will not
+return unless I carry to her these men as evidence of our
+good faith.  Come--we will speak to Yolara and she shall
+judge you--" He started away--but Serku caught his arm.
+
+"No, Rador, no!" he whispered, again panic-stricken.  "Go
+you--as you will.  But bring her back!  Speed, Rador!" He
+sprang toward the entrance.  "I lift the Shadow--"
+
+Into the green dwarf's poise crept a curious, almost a
+listening, alertness.  He leaped to Serku's side.
+
+"I go with you," I heard.  "Some little I can tell you--"
+They were gone.
+
+"Fine work!" muttered Larry.  "Nominated for a citizen of
+Ireland when we get out of this, one Rador of--"
+
+The Shadow trembled--shuddered into nothingness; the
+obelisked outposts that had held it framed a ribbon of road-
+way, high banked with verdure, vanishing in green distances.
+
+And then from the portal sped a shriek, a death cry!  It cut
+through the silence of the ebon pit like a whimpering arrow.
+Before it had died, down the stairways came pouring the
+guards.  Those at the threshold raised their swords and peered
+within.  Abruptly Rador was between them.  One dropped his
+hilt and gripped him--the green dwarf's poniard flashed
+and was buried in his throat.  Down upon Rador's head
+swept the second blade.  A flame leaped from O'Keefe's hand
+and the sword seemed to fling itself from its wielder's grasp
+--another flash and the soldier crumpled.  Rador threw him-
+self into the shell, darted to the high seat--and straight be-
+tween the pillars of the Shadow we flew!
+
+There came a crackling, a darkness of vast wings flinging
+down upon us.  The _corial's_ flight was checked as by a giant's
+hand.  The shell swerved sickeningly; there was an oddly
+metallic splintering; it quivered; shot ahead.  Dizzily I picked
+myself up and looked behind.
+
+The Shadow had fallen--but too late, a bare instant too
+late.  And shrinking as we fled from it, still it seemed to
+strain like some fettered Afrit from Eblis, throbbing with
+wrath, seeking with every malign power it possessed to break
+its bonds and pursue.  Not until long after were we to know
+that it had been the dying hand of Serku, groping out of
+oblivion, that had cast it after us as a fowler upon an escap-
+ing bird.
+
+"Snappy work, Rador!" It was Larry speaking.  "But they
+cut the end off your bus all right!"
+
+A full quarter of the hindward whorl was gone, sliced off
+cleanly.  Rador noted it with anxious eyes.
+
+"That is bad," he said, "but not too bad perhaps.  All
+depends upon how closely Lugur and his men can follow
+us."
+
+He raised a hand to O'Keefe in salute.
+
+"But to you, _Larree_, I owe my life--not even the _Keth_
+could have been as swift to save me as that death flame of
+yours--friend!"
+
+The Irishman waved an airy hand.
+
+"Serku"--the green dwarf drew from his girdle the blood-
+stained poniard--"Serku I was forced to slay.  Even as he
+raised the Shadow the globe gave the alarm.  Lugur follows
+with twice ten times ten of his best--" He hesitated.  "Though
+we have escaped the Shadow it has taken toll of our swift-
+ness.  May we reach the Portal before it closes upon Lakla--
+but if we do not--" He paused again.  "Well--I know a way
+--but it is not one I am gay to follow--no!"
+
+He snapped open the aperture that held the ball flaming
+within the dark crystal; peered at it anxiously.  I crept to the
+torn end of the _corial_.  The edges were crumbling, disinte-
+grated.  They powdered in my fingers like dust.  Mystified
+still, I crept back where Larry, sheer happiness pouring from
+him, was whistling softly and polishing up his automatic.
+His gaze fell upon Olaf's grim, sad face and softened.
+
+"Buck up, Olaf!" he said.  "We've got a good fighting
+chance.  Once we link up with Lakla and her crowd I'm
+betting that we get your wife--never doubt it!  The baby--"
+he hesitated awkwardly.  The Norseman's eyes filled; he
+stretched a hand to the O'Keefe.
+
+"The _Yndling_--she is of the _de Dode_," he half whispered,
+"of the blessed dead.  For her I have no fear and for her
+vengeance will be given me. _Ja!_  But my Helma--she is of
+the dead-alive--like those we saw whirling like leaves in the
+light of the Shining Devil--and I would that she too were
+of _de Dode_--and at rest.  I do not know how to fight the
+Shining Devil--no!"
+
+His bitter despair welled up in his voice.
+
+"Olaf," Larry's voice was gentle.  "We'll come out on top
+--I know it.  Remember one thing.  All this stuff that seems so
+strange and--and, well, sort of supernatural, is just a lot of
+tricks we're not hep to as yet.  Why, Olaf, suppose you took
+a Fijian when the war was on and set him suddenly down in
+London with autos rushing past, sirens blowing, Archies
+popping, a dozen enemy planes dropping bombs, and the
+searchlights shooting all over the sky--wouldn't he think he
+was among thirty-third degree devils in some exclusive circle
+of hell?  Sure he would!  And yet everything he saw would
+be natural--just as natural as all this is, once we get the
+answer to it.  Not that we're Fijians, of course, but the prin-
+ciple is the same."
+
+The Norseman considered this; nodded gravely.
+
+"_Ja!_" he answered at last.  "And at least we can fight.  That
+is why I have turned to Thor of the battles, _Ja!_  And ONE
+have I hope in for mine Helma--the white maiden.  Since I
+have turned to the old gods it has been made clear to me that
+I shall slay Lugur and that the _Heks_, the evil witch Yolara,
+shall also die.  But I would talk with the white maiden."
+
+"All right," said Larry, "but just don't be afraid of what
+you don't understand.  There's another thing"--he hesitated,
+nervously--"there's another thing that may startle you a bit
+when we meet up with Lakla--her--er--frogs!"
+
+"Like the frog-woman we saw on the wall?" asked Olaf.
+
+"Yes," went on Larry, rapidly.  "It's this way--I figure that
+the frogs grow rather large where she lives, and they're a bit
+different too.  Well, Lakla's got a lot of 'em trained.  Carry
+spears and clubs and all that junk--just like trained seals or
+monkeys or so on in the circus.  Probably a custom of the
+place.  Nothing queer about that, Olaf.  Why people have all
+kinds of pets--armadillos and snakes and rabbits, kangaroos
+and elephants and tigers."
+
+Remembering how the frog-woman had stuck in Larry's
+mind from the outset, I wondered whether all this was not
+more to convince himself than Olaf.
+
+"Why, I remember a nice girl in Paris who had four pet
+pythons--" he went on.
+
+But I listened no more, for now I was sure of my surmise.
+The road had  begun  to  thrust  itself  through  high-flung,
+sharply pinnacled  masses  and  rounded  outcroppings  of  rock
+on which clung patches of the amber moss.
+
+The trees had utterly vanished, and studding the moss-
+carpeted plains were only clumps of a willowy shrub from
+which hung, like grapes, clusters of white waxen blooms.
+The light too had changed; gone were the dancing, sparkling
+atoms and the silver had faded to a soft, almost ashen grey-
+ness.  Ahead of us marched a rampart of coppery cliffs rising,
+like all these mountainous walls we had seen, into the im-
+mensities of haze.  Something long drifting in my subcon-
+sciousness turned to startled realization.  The speed of the
+shell was slackening!  The aperture containing the ionizing
+mechanism was still open; I glanced within, The whirling ball
+of fire was not dimmed, but its coruscations, instead of pour-
+ing down through the cylinder, swirled and eddied and shot
+back as though trying to re-enter their source.  Rador nodded
+grimly.
+
+"The Shadow takes its toll," he said.
+
+We topped a rise--Larry gripped my arm.
+
+"Look!" he cried, and pointed.  Far, far behind us, so far
+that the road was but a glistening thread, a score of shining
+points came speeding.
+
+"Lugur and his men," said Rador.
+
+"Can't you step on her?" asked Larry.
+
+"Step on her?" repeated the green dwarf, puzzled.
+
+"Give her more speed; push her," explained O'Keefe.
+
+Rador looked about him.  The coppery ramparts were
+close, not more than three or four miles distant; in front of
+us the plain lifted in a long rolling swell, and up this the
+_corial_ essayed to go--with a terrifying lessening of speed.
+Faintly behind us came shootings, and we knew that Lugur
+drew close.  Nor anywhere was there sign of Lakla nor her
+frogmen.
+
+Now we were half-way to the crest; the shell barely
+crawled and from beneath it came a faint hissing; it quiv-
+ered, and I knew that its base was no longer held above the
+glassy surface but rested on it.
+
+"One last chance!" exclaimed Rador.  He pressed upon the
+control lever and wrenched it from its socket.  Instantly the
+sparkling ball expanded, whirling with prodigious rapidity
+and sending a cascade of coruscations into the cylinder.  The
+shell rose; leaped through the air; the dark crystal split
+into fragments; the fiery ball dulled; died--but upon the
+impetus of that last thrust we reached the crest.  Poised there
+for a moment, I caught a glimpse of the road dropping down
+the side of an enormous moss-covered, bowl-shaped valley
+whose sharply curved sides ended abruptly at the base of
+the towering barrier.
+
+Then down the steep, powerless to guide or to check the
+shell, we plunged in a meteor rush straight for the annihilat-
+ing adamantine breasts of the cliffs!
+
+Now the quick thinking of Larry's air training came to our
+aid.  As the rampart reared close he threw himself upon
+Rador; hurled him and himself against the side of the flying
+whorl.  Under the shock the finely balanced machine swerved
+from its course.  It struck the soft, low bank of the road, shot
+high in air, bounded on through the thick carpeting, whirled
+like a dervish and fell upon its side.  Shot from it, we rolled
+for yards, but the moss saved broken bones or serious bruise.
+
+"Quick!" cried the green dwarf.  He seized an arm, dragged
+me to my feet, began running to the cliff base not a hundred
+feet away.  Beside us raced O'Keefe and Olaf.  At our left was
+the black road.  It stopped abruptly--was cut off by a slab
+of polished crimson stone a hundred feet high, and as wide,
+set within the coppery face of the barrier.  On each side of it
+stood pillars, cut from the living rock and immense, almost,
+as those which held the rainbow veil of the Dweller.  Across
+its face weaved unnameable carvings--but I had no time for
+more than a glance.  The green dwarf gripped my arm again.
+
+"Quick!" he cried again.  "The handmaiden has passed!"
+
+At the right of the Portal ran a low wall of shattered rock.
+Over this we raced like rabbits.  Hidden behind it was a
+narrow path.  Crouching, Rador in the lead, we sped along
+it; three hundred, four hundred yards we raced--and the
+path ended in a _cul de sac_!  To our ears was borne a louder
+shouting.
+
+The first of the pursuing shells had swept over the lip of
+the great bowl, poised for a moment as we had and then
+began a cautious descent.  Within it, scanning the slopes, I
+saw Lugur.
+
+"A little closer and I'll get him!" whispered Larry
+viciously.  He raised his pistol.
+
+His hand was caught in a mighty grip; Rador, eyes blaz-
+ing, stood beside him.
+
+"No!" rasped the green dwarf.  He heaved a shoulder
+against one of the boulders that formed the pocket.  It rocked
+aside, revealing a slit.
+
+"In!" ordered he, straining against the weight of the stone.
+O'Keefe slipped through.  Olaf at his back, I following.  With
+a lightning leap the dwarf was beside me, the huge rock
+missing him by a hair breadth as it swung into place!
+
+We were in Cimmerian darkness.  I felt for my pocket-flash
+and recalled with distress that I had left it behind with my
+medicine kit when we fled from the gardens.  But Rador
+seemed to need no light.
+
+"Grip hands!" he ordered.  We crept, single file, holding
+to each other like children, through the black.  At last the
+green dwarf paused.
+
+"Await me here," he whispered.  "Do not move.  And for
+your lives--be silent!"
+
+And he was gone.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+Dragon Worm and Moss Death
+
+FOR a small eternity--to me at least--we waited.  Then as
+silent as ever the green dwarf returned.  "It is well," he
+said, some of the strain gone from his voice.  "Grip hands
+again, and follow."
+
+"Wait a bit, Rador," this was Larry.  "Does Lugur know
+this side entrance?  If he does, why not let Olaf and me go
+back to the opening and pick them off as they come in?  We
+could hold the lot--and in the meantime you and Goodwin
+could go after Lakla for help."
+
+"Lugur knows the secret of the Portal--if he dare use it,"
+answered the captain, with a curious indirection.  "And now
+that they have challenged the Silent Ones I think he WILL
+dare.  Also, he will find our tracks--and it may be that he
+knows this hidden way."
+
+"Well, for God's sake!" O'Keefe's appalled bewilderment
+was almost ludicrous.  "If HE knows all that, and YOU knew
+all that, why didn't you let me click him when I had the chance?"
+
+"_Larree_," the green dwarf was oddly humble.  "It seemed
+good to me, too--at first.  And then I heard a command,
+heard it clearly, to stop you--that Lugur die not now, lest a
+greater vengeance fail!"
+
+"Command?  From whom?" The Irishman's voice distilled
+out of the blackness the very essence of bewilderment.
+
+"I thought," Rador was whispering--"I thought it came
+from the Silent Ones!"
+
+"Superstition!" groaned O'Keefe in utter exasperation.
+"Always superstition!  What can you do against it!
+
+"Never mind, Rador." His sense of humour came to his
+aid.  "It's too late now, anyway.  Where do we go from here,
+old dear?" he laughed.
+
+"We tread the path of one I am not fain to meet," answered
+Rador.  "But if meet we must, point the death tubes at the
+pale shield he bears upon his throat and send the flame into
+the flower of cold fire that is its centre--nor look into his
+eyes!"
+
+Again Larry gasped, and I with him.
+
+"It's getting too deep for me, Doc," he muttered de-
+jectedly.  "Can you make head or tail of it?"
+
+"No," I answered, shortly enough, "but Rador fears some-
+thing and that's his description of it."
+
+"Sure," he replied, "only it's a code I don't understand."
+I could feel his grin.  "All right for the flower of cold fire,
+Rador, and I won't look into his eyes," he went on cheerfully.
+"But hadn't we better be moving?"
+
+"Come!" said the soldier; again hand in hand we went
+blindly on.
+
+O'Keefe was muttering to himself.
+
+"Flower of cold fire!  Don't look into his eyes!  Some joint!
+Damned superstition." Then he chuckled and carolled, softly:
+
+
+"Oh, mama, pin a cold rose on me;
+Two young frog-men are in love with me;
+Shut my eyes so I can't see."
+
+
+
+"Sh!" Rador was warning; he began whispering.  "For half
+a _va_ we go along a way of death.  From its peril we pass into
+another against whose dangers I can guard you.  But in part
+this is in view of the roadway and it may be that Lugur will
+see us.  If so, we must fight as best we can.  If we pass these
+two roads safely, then is the way to the Crimson Sea clear,
+nor need we fear Lugur nor any.  And there is another thing
+--that Lugur does not know--when he opens the Portal the
+Silent Ones will hear and Lakla and the _Akka_ will be swift
+to greet its opener."
+
+"Rador," I asked, "how know YOU all this?"
+
+"The handmaiden is my own sister's child," he answered quietly.
+
+O'Keefe drew a long breath.
+
+"Uncle," he remarked casually in English, "meet the man
+who's going to be your nephew!"
+cept by the avuncular title, which Rador, humorously
+enough, apparently conceived to be one of respectful en-
+dearment.
+
+For me a light broke.  Plain now was the reason for his
+foreknowledge of Lakla's appearance at the feast where
+Larry had so narrowly escaped Yolara's spells; plain the
+determining factor that had cast his lot with ours, and my
+confidence, despite his discourse of mysterious perils, experi-
+enced a remarkable quickening.
+
+Speculation as to the marked differences in pigmentation
+and appearance of niece and uncle was dissipated by my
+consciousness that we were now moving in a dim half-light.
+We were in a fairly wide tunnel.  Not far ahead the gleam
+filtered, pale yellow like sunlight sifting through the leaves
+of autumn poplars.  And as we drove closer to its source I
+saw that it did indeed pass through a leafy screen hanging
+over the passage end.  This Rador drew aside cautiously,
+beckoned us and we stepped through.
+
+It appeared to be a tunnel cut through soft green mould.
+Its base was a flat strip of pathway a yard wide from which
+the walls curved out in perfect cylindrical form, smoothed
+and evened with utmost nicety.  Thirty feet wide they were at
+their widest, then drew toward each other with no break in
+their symmetry; they did not close.  Above was, roughly, a
+ten-foot rift, ragged edged, through which poured light like
+that in the heart of pale amber, a buttercup light shot
+through with curiously evanescent bronze shadows.
+
+"Quick!" commanded Rador, uneasily, and set off at a
+sharp pace.
+
+Now, my eyes accustomed to the strange light, I saw that
+the tunnel's walls were of moss.  In them I could trace fringe
+leaf and curly leaf, pressings of enormous bladder caps
+(Physcomitrium), immense splashes of what seemed to be
+the scarlet-crested Cladonia, traceries of huge moss veils,
+crushings of teeth (peristome) gigantic; spore cases brown
+and white, saffron and ivory, hot vermilions and cerulean
+blues, pressed into an astounding mosaic by some titanic
+force.
+
+"Hurry!" It was Rador calling.  I had lagged behind.
+
+He quickened the pace to a half-run; we were climbing;
+panting.  The amber light grew stronger; the rift above us
+wider.  The tunnel curved; on the left a narrow cleft ap-
+peared.  The green dwarf leaped toward it, thrust us within,
+pushed us ahead of him up a steep rocky fissure--well-nigh,
+indeed, a chimney.  Up and up this we scrambled until my
+lungs were bursting and I thought I could climb no more.
+The crevice ended; we crawled out and sank, even Rador,
+upon a little leaf-carpeted clearing circled by lacy tree ferns.
+
+Gasping, legs aching, we lay prone, relaxed, drawing back
+strength and breath.  Rador was first to rise.  Thrice he bent
+low as in homage, then--
+
+"Give thanks to the Silent Ones--for their power has been
+over us!" he exclaimed.
+
+Dimly I wondered what he meant.  Something about the
+fern leaf at which I had been staring aroused me.  I leaped to
+my feet and ran to its base.  This was no fern, no!  It was fern
+MOSS!  The largest of its species I had ever found in tropic
+jungles had not been more than two inches high, and this
+was--twenty feet!  The scientific fire I had experienced in the
+tunnel returned uncontrollable.  I parted the fronds, gazed out--
+
+My outlook commanded a vista of miles--and that vista!
+A _Fata Morgana_ of plantdom!  A land of flowered sorcery!
+
+Forests of tree-high mosses spangled over with blooms of
+every conceivable shape and colour; cataracts and clusters,
+avalanches and nets of blossoms in pastels, in dulled metal-
+lics, in gorgeous flamboyant hues; some of them phosphor-
+escent and shining like living jewels; some sparkling as
+though with dust of opals, of sapphires, of rubies and topazes
+and emeralds; thickets of convolvuli like the trumpets of the
+seven archangels of Mara, king of illusion, which are shaped
+from the bows of splendours arching his highest heaven!
+
+And moss veils like banners of a marching host of Titans;
+pennons and bannerets of the sunset; gonfalons of the Jinn;
+webs of faery; oriflammes of elfland!
+
+Springing up through that polychromatic flood myriads of
+pedicles--slender and straight as spears, or soaring in spirals,
+or curving with undulations gracile as the white serpents of
+Tanit in ancient Carthaginian groves--and all surmounted
+by a fantasy of spore cases in shapes of minaret and turret,
+domes and spires and cones, caps of Phrygia and bishops'
+mitres, shapes grotesque and unnameable--shapes delicate
+and lovely!
+
+They hung high poised, nodding and swaying--like gob-
+lins hovering over _Titania's_ court; cacophony of Cathay ac-
+centing the _Flower Maiden_ music of "Parsifal"; _bizarrerie_
+of the angled, fantastic beings that people the Javan pan-
+theon watching a bacchanal of houris in Mohammed's para-
+dise!
+
+Down upon it all poured the amber light; dimmed in the
+distances by huge, drifting darkenings lurid as the flying
+mantles of the hurricane.
+
+And through the light, like showers of jewels, myriads of
+birds, darting, dipping, soaring, and still other myriads of
+gigantic, shimmering butterflies.
+
+A sound came to us, reaching out like the first faint susur-
+rus of the incoming tide; sighing, sighing, growing stronger
+--now its mournful whispering quivered all about us, shook
+us--then passing like a Presence, died away in far distances.
+
+"The Portal!" said Rador.  "Lugur has entered!"
+
+He, too, parted the fronds and peered back along our
+path.  Peering with him we saw the barrier through which we
+had come stretching verdure-covered walls for miles three or
+more away.  Like a mole burrow in a garden stretched the
+trail of the tunnel; here and there we could look down
+within the rift at its top; far off in it I thought I saw the glint
+of spears.
+
+"They come!" whispered Rador.  "Quick!  We must not
+meet them here!"
+
+And then--
+
+"Holy St. Brigid!" gasped Larry.
+
+From the rift in the tunnel's continuation, nigh a mile
+beyond the cleft through which we had fled, lifted a crown
+of horns--of tentacles--erect, alert, of mottled gold and
+crimson; lifted higher--and from a monstrous scarlet head
+beneath them blazed two enormous, obloid eyes, their depths
+wells of purplish phosphorescence; higher still--noseless,
+earless, chinless; a livid, worm mouth from which a slender
+scarlet tongue leaped like playing flames!  Slowly it rose--
+its mighty neck cuirassed with gold and scarlet scales from
+whose polished surfaces the amber light glinted like flakes
+of fire; and under this neck shimmered something like a
+palely luminous silvery shield, guarding it.  The head of hor-
+ror mounted--and in the shield's centre, full ten feet across,
+glowing, flickering, shining out--coldly, was a rose of white
+flame, a "flower of cold fire" even as Rador had said.
+
+Now swiftly the Thing upreared, standing like a scaled
+tower a hundred feet above the rift, its eyes scanning that
+movement I had seen along the course of its lair.  There was
+a hissing; the crown of horns fell, whipped and writhed like
+the tentacles of an octopus; the towering length dropped
+back.
+
+"Quick!" gasped Rador and through the fern moss, along
+the path and down the other side of the steep we raced.
+
+Behind us for an instant there was a rushing as of a tor-
+rent; a far-away, faint, agonized screaming--silence!
+
+"No fear NOW from those who followed," whispered the
+green dwarf, pausing.
+
+"Sainted St. Patrick!" O'Keefe gazed ruminatively at his
+automatic.  "An' he expected me to kill THAT with this.  Well,
+as Fergus O'Connor said when they sent him out to slaugh-
+ter a wild bull with a potato knife: 'Ye'll niver rayilize how
+I appreciate the confidence ye show in me!'
+
+"What was it, Doc?" he asked.
+
+"The dragon worm!" Rador said.
+
+"It was Helvede Orm--the hell worm!" groaned Olaf.
+
+"There you go again--" blazed Larry; but the green dwarf
+was hurrying down the path and swiftly we followed, Larry
+muttering, Olaf mumbling, behind me.
+
+The green dwarf was signalling us for caution.  He pointed
+through a break in a grove of fifty-foot cedar mosses--we
+were skirting the glassy road!  Scanning it we found no trace
+of Lugur and wondered whether he too had seen the worm
+and had fled.  Quickly we passed on; drew away from the
+_coria_ path.  The mosses began to thin; less and less they grew,
+giving way to low clumps that barely offered us shelter.
+Unexpectedly another screen of fern moss stretched before
+us. Slowly Rador made his way through it and stood hesitat-
+ing.
+
+The scene in front of us was oddly weird and depressing;
+in some indefinable way--dreadful.  Why, I could not tell,
+but the impression was plain; I shrank from it.  Then, self-
+analyzing, I wondered whether it could be the uncanny re-
+semblance the heaps of curious mossy fungi scattered about
+had to beast and bird--yes, and to man--that was the cause
+of it.  Our path ran between a few of them.  To the left they
+were thick.  They were viridescent, almost metallic hued--
+verd-antique.  Curiously indeed were they like distorted
+images of dog and deerlike forms, of birds--of DWARFS and
+here and there the simulacra of the giant frogs!  Spore cases,
+yellowish green, as large as mitres and much resembling them
+in shape protruded from the heaps.  My repulsion grew into
+a distinct nausea.
+
+Rador turned to us a face whiter far than that with which
+he had looked upon the dragon worm.
+
+"Now for your lives," he whispered, "tread softly here as
+I do--and speak not at all!"
+
+He stepped forward on tiptoe, slowly with utmost caution.
+We crept after him; passed the heaps beside the path--and
+as I passed my skin crept and I shrank and saw the others
+shrink too with that unnameable loathing; nor did the green
+dwarf pause until he had reached the brow of a small hillock
+a hundred yards beyond.  And he was trembling.
+
+"Now what are we up against?" grumbled O'Keefe.
+
+The green dwarf stretched a hand; stiffened; gazed over
+to the left of us beyond a lower hillock upon whose broad
+crest lay a file of the moss shapes.  They fringed it, their
+mitres having a grotesque appearance of watching what lay
+below.  The glistening road lay there--and from it came a
+shout.  A dozen of the _coria_ clustered, filled with Lugur's
+men and in one of them Lugur himself, laughing wickedly!
+
+There was a rush of soldiers and up the low hillock raced
+a score of them toward us.
+
+"Run!" shouted Rador.
+
+"Not much!" grunted Larry--and took swift aim at Lugur.
+The automatic spat: Olaf's echoed.  Both bullets went wild,
+for Lugur, still laughing, threw himself into the protection of
+the body of his shell.  But following the shots, from the file
+of moss heaps on the crest, came a series of muffled explo-
+sions.  Under the pistol's concussions the mitred caps had
+burst and instantly all about the running soldiers grew a
+cloud of tiny, glistening white spores--like a little cloud of
+puff-ball dust many times magnified.  Through this cloud I
+glimpsed their faces, stricken with agony.
+
+Some turned to fly, but before they could take a second
+step stood rigid.
+
+The spore cloud drifted and eddied about them; rained
+down on their heads and half bare breasts, covered their
+garments--and swiftly they began to change!  Their features
+grew indistinct--merged!  The glistening white spores that
+covered them turned to a pale yellow, grew greenish, spread
+and swelled, darkened.  The eyes of one of the soldiers glinted
+for a moment--and then were covered by the swift growth!
+
+Where but a few moments before had been men were only
+grotesque heaps, swiftly melting, swiftly rounding into the
+the semblance of the mounds that lay behind us--and al-
+ready beginning to take on their gleam of ancient virides-
+cence!
+
+The Irishman was gripping my arm fiercely; the pain
+brought me back to my senses.
+
+"Olaf's right," he gasped.  "This IS hell!  I'm sick." And he
+was, frankly and without restraint.  Lugur and his others
+awakened from their nightmare; piled into the _coria_,
+wheeled, raced away.
+
+"On!" said Rador thickly.  Two perils have we passed--
+the Silent Ones watch over us!"
+
+Soon we were again among the familiar and so unfamiliar
+moss giants.  I knew what I had seen and this time Larry
+could not call me--superstitious.  In the jungles of Borneo I
+had examined that other swiftly developing fungus which
+wreaks the vengeance of some of the hill tribes upon those
+who steal their women; gripping with its microscopic hooks
+into the flesh; sending quick, tiny rootlets through the skin
+down into the capillaries, sucking life and thriving and never
+to be torn away until the living thing it clings to has been
+sapped dry.  Here was but another of the species in which
+the development's rate was incredibly accelerated.  Some of
+this I tried to explain to O'Keefe as we sped along, reassur-
+ing him.
+
+"But they turned to moss before our eyes!" he said.
+
+Again I explained, patiently.  But he seemed to derive no
+comfort at all from my assurances that the phenomena were
+entirely natural and, aside from their more terrifying aspect,
+of peculiar interest to the botanist.
+
+"I know," was all he would say.  "But suppose one of those
+things had burst while we were going through--God!"
+
+I was wondering how I could with comparative safety
+study the fungus when Rador stopped; in front of us was
+again the road ribbon.
+
+"Now is all danger passed," he said.  "The way lies open
+and Lugur has fled--"
+
+There was a flash from the road.  It passed me like a little
+lariat of light.  It struck Larry squarely between the eyes,
+spread over his face and drew itself within!
+
+"Down!" cried Rador, and hurled me to the ground.  My
+head struck sharply; I felt myself grow faint; Olaf fell beside
+me; I saw the green dwarf draw down the O'Keefe; he col-
+lapsed limply, face still, eyes staring.  A shout--and from the
+roadway poured a host of Lugur's men; I could hear Lugur
+bellowing.
+
+There came a rush of little feet; soft, fragrant draperies
+brushed my face; dimly I watched Lakla bend over the Irish-
+man.
+
+She straightened--her arms swept out and the writhing
+vine, with its tendrilled heads of ruby bloom, five flames of
+misty incandescence, leaped into the faces of the soldiers
+now close upon us.  It darted at their throats, striking, coil-
+ing, and striking again; coiling and uncoiling with incredible
+rapidity and flying from leverage points of throats, of faces,
+of breasts like a spring endowed with consciousness, volition
+and hatred--and those it struck stood rigid as stone with
+faces masks of inhuman fear and anguish; and those still
+unstricken fled.
+
+Another rush of feet--and down upon Lugur's forces
+poured the frog-men, their booming giant leading, thrusting
+with their lances, tearing and rending with talons and fangs
+and spurs.
+
+Against that onslaught the dwarfs could not stand.  They
+raced for the shells; I heard Lugur shouting, menacingly--
+and then Lakla's voice, pealing like a golden bugle of wrath.
+
+"Go, Lugur!" she cried.  "Go--that you and Yolara and
+your Shining One may die together!  Death for you, Lugur--
+death for you all!  Remember Lugur--death!"
+
+There was a great noise within my head--no matter,
+Lakla was here--Lakla here--but too late--Lugur had out-
+played us; moss death nor dragon worm had frightened him
+away--he had crept back to trap us--Lakla had come too
+late--Larry was dead--Larry!  But I had heard no banshee
+wailing--and Larry had said he could not die without that
+warning--no, Larry was not dead.  So ran the turbulent cur-
+rent of my mind.
+
+A horny arm lifted me; two enormous, oddly gentle saucer
+eyes were staring into mine; my head rolled; I caught a
+glimpse of the Golden Girl kneeling beside the O'Keefe.
+
+The noise in my head grew thunderous--was carrying me
+away on its thunder--swept me into soft, blind darkness.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+The Crimson Sea
+
+I WAS in the heart of a rose pearl, swinging, swinging; no,
+I was in a rosy dawn cloud, pendulous in space.  Conscious-
+ness flooded me, in reality I was in the arms of one of the
+man frogs, carrying me as though I were a babe, and we
+were passing through some place suffused with glow enough
+like heart of pearl or dawn cloud to justify my awakening
+vagaries.
+
+Just ahead walked Lakla in earnest talk with Rador, and
+content enough was I for a time to watch her.  She had
+thrown off the metallic robes; her thick braids of golden
+brown hair with their flame glints of bronze were twined in
+a high coronal meshed in silken net of green; little clustering
+curls escaped from it, clinging to the nape of the proud white
+neck, shyly kissing it.  From her shoulders fell a loose, sleeve-
+less garment of shimmering green belted with a high golden
+girdle; skirt folds dropping barely below the knees.
+
+She had cast aside her buskins, too, and the slender, high-
+arched feet were sandalled.  Between the buckled edges of
+her kirtle I caught gleams of translucent ivory as exquisitely
+moulded, as delectably rounded, as those revealed so naively
+beneath the hem.
+
+Something was knocking at the doors of my consciousness
+--some tragic thing.  What was it?  Larry!  Where was Larry?
+I remembered; raised my head abruptly; saw at my side an-
+other frog-man carrying O'Keefe, and behind him, Olaf, step
+instinct with grief, following like some faithful, wistful dog
+who has lost a loved master.  Upon my movement the
+monster bearing me halted, looked down inquiringly, uttered
+a deep, booming note that held the quality of interrogation.
+
+Lakla turned; the clear, golden eyes were sorrowful, the
+sweet mouth drooping; but her loveliness, her gentleness,
+that undefinable synthesis of all her tender self that seemed
+always to circle her with an atmosphere of lucid normality,
+lulled my panic.
+
+"Drink this," she commanded, holding a small vial to my
+lips.
+
+Its contents were aromatic, unfamiliar but astonishingly
+effective, for as soon as they passed my lips I felt a surge of
+strength; consciousness was restored.
+
+"Larry!" I cried.  "Is he dead?"
+
+Lakla shook her head; her eyes were troubled.
+
+"No," she said; "but he is like one dead--and yet
+unlike--"
+
+"Put me down," I demanded of my bearer.
+
+He tightened his hold; round eyes upon the Golden Girl.
+She spoke--in sonorous, reverberating monosyllables--and
+I was set upon my feet; I leaped to the side of the Irishman.
+He lay limp, with a disquieting, abnormal sequacity, as
+though every muscle were utterly flaccid; the antithesis of
+the _rigor mortis_, thank God, but terrifyingly toward the other
+end of its arc; a syncope I had never known.  The flesh was
+stone cold; the pulse barely perceptible, long intervalled;
+the respiration undiscoverable; the pupils of the eyes were
+enormously dilated; it was as though life had been drawn
+from every nerve.
+
+"A light flashed from the road.  It struck his face and
+seemed to sink in," I said.
+
+"I saw," answered Rador; "but what it was I know not;
+and I thought I knew all the weapons of our rulers." He
+glanced at me curiously.  "Some talk there has been that the
+stranger who came with you, Double Tongue, was making
+new death tools for Lugur," he ended.
+
+Marakinoff!  The Russian at work already in this store-
+house of devastating energies, fashioning the weapons for
+his plots!  The Apocalyptic vision swept back upon me--
+
+"He is not dead." Lakla's voice was poignant.  "He is not
+dead; and the Three have wondrous healing.  They can re-
+store him if they will--and they will, they WILL!" For a
+moment she was silent.  "Now their gods help Lugur and
+Yolara," she whispered; "for come what may, whether the
+Silent Ones be strong or weak, if he dies, surely shall I fall
+upon them and I will slay those two--yea, though I, too
+perish!"
+
+"Yolara and Lugur shall both die." Olaf's eyes were burn-
+ing.  "But Lugur is mine to slay."
+
+That pity I had seen before in Lakla's eyes when she
+looked upon the Norseman banished the white wrath from
+them.  She turned, half hurriedly, as though to escape his
+gaze.
+
+"Walk with us," she said to me, "unless you are still
+weak."
+
+I shook my head, gave a last look at O'Keefe; there was
+nothing I could do; I stepped beside her.  She thrust a white
+arm into mine protectingly, the wonderfully moulded hand
+with its long, tapering fingers catching about my wrist; my
+heart glowed toward her.
+
+"Your medicine is potent, handmaiden," I answered.  "And
+the touch of your hand would give me strength enough, even
+had I not drunk it," I added in Larry's best manner.
+
+Her eyes danced, trouble flying.
+
+"Now, that was well spoken for such a man of wisdom
+as Rador tells me you are," she laughed; and a little pang
+shot through me.  Could not a lover of science present a com-
+pliment without it always seeming to be as unusual as pluck-
+ing a damask rose from a cabinet of fossils?
+
+Mustering my philosophy, I smiled back at her.  Again I
+noted that broad, classic brow, with the little tendrils of
+shining bronze caressing it, the tilted, delicate, nut-brown
+brows that gave a curious touch of innocent _diablerie_ to
+the lovely face--flowerlike, pure, high-bred, a touch of ro-
+guishness, subtly alluring, sparkling over the maiden Madon-
+naness that lay ever like a delicate, luminous suggestion
+beneath it; the long, black, curling lashes--the tender,
+rounded, bare left breast--
+
+"I have always liked you," she murmured naively, "since
+first I saw you in that place where the Shining One goes
+forth into your world.  And I am glad you like my medicine
+as well as that you carry in the black box that you left be-
+hind," she added swiftly.
+
+"How know you of that, Lakla?" I gasped.
+
+"Oft and oft I came to him there, and to you, while you
+lay sleeping.  How call you HIM?" She paused.
+
+"Larry!" I said.
+
+"Larry!" she repeated it excellently.  "And you?"
+
+"Goodwin," said Rador.
+
+I bowed quite as though I were being introduced to some
+charming young lady met in that old life now seemingly
+aeons removed.
+
+"Yes--Goodwin." she said.  "Oft and oft I came.  Some-
+times I thought you saw me.  And HE--did he not dream of
+me sometime--?" she asked wistfully.
+
+"He did." I said, "and watched for you." Then amaze-
+ment grew vocal.  "But how came you?" I asked.
+
+"By a strange road," she whispered, "to see that all was
+well with HIM--and to look into his heart; for I feared Yolara
+and her beauty.  But I saw that she was not in his heart." A
+blush burned over her, turning even the little bare breast
+rosy.  "It is a strange road," she went on hurriedly.  "Many
+times have I followed it and watched the Shining One bear
+back its prey to the blue pool; seen the woman HE seeks"--
+she made a quick gesture toward Olaf--"and a babe cast
+from her arms in the last pang of her mother love; seen
+another woman throw herself into the Shining One's em-
+brace to save a man she loved; and I could not help!" Her
+voice grew deep, thrilled.  "The friend, it comes to me, who
+drew you here, Goodwin!"
+
+She was silent, walking as one who sees visions and listens
+to voices unheard by others, Rador made a warning gesture;
+I crowded back my questions, glanced about me.  We were
+passing over a smooth strand, hard packed as some beach of
+long-thrust-back ocean.  It was like crushed garnets, each
+grain stained deep red, faintly sparkling.  On each side were
+distances, the floor stretching away into them bare of vege-
+tation--stretching on and on into infinitudes of rosy mist,
+even as did the space above.
+
+Flanking and behind us marched the giant batrachians,
+fivescore of them at least, black scale and crimson scale lus-
+trous and gleaming in the rosaceous radiance; saucer eyes
+shining circles of phosphorescence green, purple, red; spurs
+clicking as they crouched along with a gait at once gro-
+tesque and formidable.
+
+Ahead the mist deepened into a ruddier glow; through it
+a long, dark line began to appear--the mouth I thought of
+the caverned space through which we were going; it was
+just before us; over us--we stood bathed in a flood of rubes-
+cence!
+
+A sea stretched before us--a crimson sea, gleaming like
+that lost lacquer of royal coral and the Flame Dragon's
+blood which Fu S'cze set upon the bower he built for his
+stolen sun maiden--that going toward it she might think it
+the sun itself rising over the summer seas.  Unmoved by wave
+or ripple, it was placid as some deep woodland pool when
+night rushes up over the world.
+
+It seemed molten--or as though some hand great enough
+to rock earth had distilled here from conflagrations of au-
+tumn sunsets their flaming essences.
+
+A fish broke through, large as a shark, blunt-headed, flash-
+ing bronze, ridged and mailed as though with serrate plates
+of armour.  It leaped high, shaking from it a sparkling spray
+of rubies; dropped and shot up a geyser of fiery gems.
+
+Across my line of vision, moving stately over the sea,
+floated a half globe, luminous, diaphanous, its iridescence
+melting into turquoise, thence to amethyst, to orange, to
+scarlet shot with rose, to vermilion, a translucent green,
+thence back into the iridescence; behind it four others, and
+the least of them ten feet in diameter, and the largest no less
+than thirty.  They drifted past like bubbles blown from froth
+of rainbows by pipes in mouths of Titans' young.  Then from
+the base of one arose a tangle of shimmering strands, long,
+slender whiplashes that played about and sank slowly again
+beneath the crimson surface.
+
+I gasped--for the fish had been a _ganoid_--that ancient,
+armoured form that was perhaps the most intelligent of all
+life on our planet during the Devonian era, but which for
+age upon age had vanished, save for its fossils held in the
+embrace of the stone that once was their soft bottom beds;
+and the half-globes were _Medusae_, jelly-fish--but of a size,
+luminosity, and colour unheard of.
+
+Now Lakla cupped her mouth with pink palms and sent a
+clarion note ringing out.  The ledge on which we stood con-
+tinued a few hundred feet before us, falling abruptly, though
+from no great height to the Crimson Sea; at right and left
+it extended in a long semicircle.  Turning to the right whence
+she had sent her call, I saw rising a mile or more away,
+veiled lightly by the haze, a rainbow, a gigantic prismatic
+arch, flattened, I thought, by some quality of the strange
+atmosphere.  It sprang from the ruddy strand, leaped the
+crimson tide, and dropped three miles away upon a precip-
+itous, jagged upthrust of rock frowning black from the lac-
+quered depths.
+
+And surmounting a higher ledge beyond this upthrust a
+huge dome of dull gold, Cyclopean, striking eyes and mind
+with something unhumanly alien, baffling; sending the mind
+groping, as though across the deserts of space, from some
+far-flung star, should fall upon us linked sounds, coherent
+certainly, meaningful surely, vaguely familiar--yet never
+to be translated into any symbol or thought of our own
+particular planet.
+
+The sea of crimson lacquer, with its floating moons of
+luminous colour--this bow of prismed stone leaping to the
+weird isle crowned by the anomalous, aureate excrescence
+--the half human batrachians-the elfland through which
+we had passed, with all its hidden wonders and terrors--
+I felt the foundations of my cherished knowledge shaking.
+Was this all a dream?  Was this body of mine lying some-
+where, fighting a fevered death, and all these but images
+floating through the breaking chambers of my brain?  My
+knees shook; involuntarily I groaned.
+
+Lakla turned, looked at me anxiously, slipped a soft arm
+behind me, held me till the vertigo passed.
+
+"Patience," she said.  "The bearers come.  Soon you shall
+rest."
+
+I looked; down toward us from the bow's end were leap-
+ing swiftly another score of the frog-men.  Some bore lit-
+ters, high, handled, not unlike palanquins--
+
+"Asgard!" Olaf stood beside me, eyes burning, pointing
+to the arch.  "Bifrost Bridge, sharp as sword edge, over which
+souls go to Valhalla.  And SHE--she is a Valkyr--a sword
+maiden, _Ja!_"
+
+I gripped the Norseman's hand.  It was hot, and a pang of
+remorse shot through me.  If this place had so shaken me,
+how must it have shaken Olaf?  It was with relief that I
+watched him, at Lakla's gentle command, drop into one of
+the litters and lie back, eyes closed, as two of the monsters
+raised its yoke to their scaled shoulders.  Nor was it without
+further relief that I myself lay back on the soft velvety
+cushions of another.
+
+The cavalcade began to move.  Lakla had ordered O'Keefe
+placed beside her, and she sat, knees crossed Orient fashion,
+leaning over the pale head on her lap, the white, tapering
+fingers straying fondly through his hair.
+
+Presently I saw her reach up, slowly unwind the coronal
+of her tresses, shake them loose, and let them fall like a veil
+over her and him.
+
+Her head bent low; I heard a soft sobbing--I turned away
+my gaze, lorn enough in my own heart, God knew!
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+The Three Silent Ones
+
+THE ARCH was closer--and in my awe I forgot for the
+moment Larry and aught else.  For this was no rainbow,
+no thing born of light and mist, no Bifrost Bridge of myth
+--no!  It was a flying arch of stone, stained with flares of
+Tyrian purples, of royal scarlets, of blues dark as the Gulf
+Stream's ribbon, sapphires soft as midday May skies,
+splashes of chromes and greens--a palette of giantry, a
+bridge of wizardry; a hundred, nay, a thousand, times
+greater than that of Utah which the Navaho call Non-
+negozche and worship, as well they may, as a god, and
+which is itself a rainbow in eternal rock.
+
+It sprang from the ledge and winged its prodigious length
+in one low arc over the sea's crimson breast, as though in
+some ancient paroxysm of earth it had been hurled molten,
+crystallizing into that stupendous span and still flaming with
+the fires that had moulded it.
+
+Closer we came and closer, while I watched spellbound;
+now we were at its head, and the litter-bearers swept upon
+it. All of five hundred feet wide it was, surface smooth as a
+city road, sides low walled, curving inward as though in the
+jetting-out of its making the edges of the plastic rock had
+curled.
+
+On and on we sped; the high thrusting precipices upon
+which the bridge's far end rested, frowned close; the enig-
+matic, dully shining dome loomed ever greater.  Now we had
+reached that end; were passing over a smooth plaza whose
+level floor was enclosed, save for a rift in front of us, by
+the fanged tops of the black cliff's.
+
+From this rift stretched another span, half a mile long,
+perhaps, widening at its centre into a broad platform, con-
+tinuing straight to two massive gates set within the face of
+the second cliff wall like panels, and of the same dull gold
+as the dome rising high beyond.  And this smaller arch leaped
+a pit, an abyss, of which the outer precipices were the rim
+holding back from the pit the red flood.
+
+We were rapidly approaching; now upon the platform; my
+bearers were striding closely along the side; I leaned far out
+--a giddiness seized me!  I gazed down into depth upon ver-
+tiginous depth; an abyss indeed--an abyss dropping to
+world's base like that in which the Babylonians believed
+writhed Talaat, the serpent mother of Chaos; a pit that
+struck down into earth's heart itself,
+
+Now, what was that--distance upon unfathomable dis-
+tance below?  A stupendous glowing like the green fire of life
+itself.  What was it like?  I had it!  It was like the corona of the
+sun in eclipse--that burgeoning that makes of our luminary
+when moon veils it an incredible blossoming of splendours
+in the black heavens.
+
+And strangely, strangely, it was like the Dweller's beauty
+when with its dazzling spirallings and writhings it raced
+amid its storm of crystal bell sounds!
+
+The abyss was behind us; we had paused at the golden
+portals; they swung inward.  A wide corridor filled with soft
+light was before us, and on its threshold stood--bizarre,
+yellow gems gleaming, huge muzzle wide in what was evi-
+dently meant for a smile of welcome--the woman frog of
+the Moon Pool wall.
+
+Lakla raised her head; swept back the silken tent of her
+hair and gazed at me with eyes misty from weeping.  The
+frog-woman crept to her side; gazed down upon Larry; spoke
+--SPOKE--to the Golden Girl in a swift stream of the sono-
+rous, reverberant monosyllables; and Lakla answered her in
+kind.  The webbed digits swept over O'Keefe's face, felt at
+his heart; she shook her head and moved ahead of us up the
+passage.
+
+Still borne in the litters we went on, winding, ascending
+until at last they were set down in a great hall carpeted
+with soft fragrant rushes and into which from high narrow
+slits streamed the crimson light from without.
+
+I jumped over to Larry, there had been no change in his
+condition; still the terrifying limpness, the slow, infrequent
+pulsation.  Rador and Olaf--and the fever now seemed to be
+gone from him--came and stood beside me, silent.
+
+"I go to the Three," said Lakla.  "Wait you here."  She
+passed through a curtaining; then as swiftly as she had gone
+she returned through the hangings, tresses braided, a swath-
+ing of golden gauze about her.
+
+"Rador," she said, "bear you Larry--for into your heart
+the Silent Ones would look.  And fear nothing," she added at
+the green dwarfs disconcerted, almost fearful start.
+
+Rador bowed, was thrust aside by Olaf.
+
+"No," said the Norseman; "I will carry him."
+
+He lifted Larry like a child against his broad breast.  The
+dwarf glanced quickly at Lakla; she nodded.
+
+"Come!" she commanded, and held aside the folds.
+
+Of that journey I have few memories.  I only know that
+we went through corridor upon corridor; successions of vast
+halls and chambers, some carpeted with the rushes, others
+with rugs into which the feet sank as into deep, soft mead-
+ows; spaces illumined by the rubrous light, and spaces in
+which softer lights held sway.
+
+We paused before a slab of the same crimson stone as that
+the green dwarf had called the portal, and upon its polished
+surface weaved the same unnameable symbols.  The Golden
+Girl pressed upon its side; it slipped softly back; a torrent of
+opalescence gushed out of the opening--and as one in a
+dream I entered.
+
+We were, I knew, just under the dome; but for the mo-
+ment, caught in the flood of radiance, I could see nothing.  It
+was like being held within a fire opal--so brilliant, so flash-
+ing, was it.  I closed my eyes, opened them; the lambency
+cascaded from the vast curves of the globular walls; in front
+of me was a long, narrow opening in them, through which,
+far away, I could see the end of the wizards' bridge and the
+ledged mouth of the cavern through which we had come;
+against the light from within beat the crimson light from
+without--and was checked as though by a barrier.
+
+I felt Lakla's touch; turned.
+
+A hundred paces away was a dais, its rim raised a yard
+above the floor.  From the edge of this rim streamed upward
+a steady, coruscating mist of the opalescence, veined even as
+was that of the Dweller's shining core and shot with milky
+shadows like curdled moonlight; up it stretched like a wall.
+
+Over it, from it, down upon me, gazed three faces--two
+clearly male, one a woman's.  At the first I thought them
+statues, and then the eyes of them gave the lie to me; for
+the eyes were alive, terribly, and if I could admit the word
+--SUPERNATURALLY--alive.
+
+They were thrice the size of the human eye and triangular,
+the apex of the angle upward; black as jet, pupilless, filled
+with tiny, leaping red flames,
+
+Over them were foreheads, not as ours--high and broad
+and visored; their sides drawn forward into a vertical ridge,
+a prominence, an upright wedge, somewhat like the visored
+heads of a few of the great lizards--and the heads, long,
+narrowing at the back, were fully twice the size of man-
+kind's!
+
+Upon the brows were caps--and with a fearful certainty
+I knew that they were NOT caps--long, thick strands of
+gleaming yellow, feathered scales thin as sequins!  Sharp,
+curving noses like the beaks of the giant condors; mouths
+thin, austere; long, powerful, pointed chins; the--FLESH--
+of the faces white as the whitest marble; and wreathing up to
+them, covering all their bodies, the shimmering, curdled,
+misty fires of opalescence!
+
+Olaf stood rigid; my own heart leaped wildly.  What--
+what were these beings?
+
+I forced myself to look again--and from their gaze
+streamed a current of reassurance, of good will--nay, of
+intense spiritual strength.  I saw that they were not fierce,
+not ruthless, not inhuman, despite their strangeness; no,
+they were kindly; in some unmistakable way, benign and
+sorrowful--so sorrowful!  I straightened, gazed back at them
+fearlessly.  Olaf drew a deep breath, gazed steadily too, the
+hardness, the despair wiped from his face.
+
+Now Lakla drew closer to the dais; the three pairs of eyes
+searched hers, the woman's with an ineffable tenderness;
+some message seemed to pass between the Three and the
+Golden Girl.  She bowed low, turned to the Norseman.
+
+"Place Larry there," she said softly--"there at the feet of
+the Silent Ones."
+
+She pointed into the radiant mist; Olaf started, hesitated,
+stared from Lakla to the Three, searched for a moment their
+eyes--and something like a smile drifted through them.  He
+stepped forward, lifted O'Keefe, set him squarely within the
+covering light.  It wavered, rolled upward, swirled about the
+body, steadied again--and within it there was no sign of
+Larry!
+
+Again the mist wavered, shook, and seemed to climb
+higher, hiding the chins, the beaked noses, the brows of that
+incredible Trinity--but before it ceased to climb, I thought
+the yellow feathered heads bent; sensed a movement as
+though they lifted something.
+
+The mist fell; the eyes gleamed out again, inscrutable.
+
+And groping out of the radiance, pausing at the verge of
+the dais, leaping down from it, came Larry, laughing, filled
+with life, blinking as one who draws from darkness into sun-
+shine.  He saw Lakla, sprang to her, gripped her in his arms.
+
+"Lakla!" he cried. "Mavourneen!"  She slipped from his
+embrace, blushing, glancing at the Three shyly, half-fear-
+fully.  And again I saw the tenderness creep into the inky,
+flame-shot orbs of the woman being; and a tenderness in the
+others too--as though they regarded some well-beloved
+child.
+
+"You lay in the arms of Death, Larry," she said.  "And the
+Silent Ones drew you from him.  Do homage to the Silent
+Ones, Larry, for they are good and they are mighty!"
+
+She turned his head with one of the long, white hands--
+and he looked into the faces of the Three; looked long, was
+shaken even as had been Olaf and myself; was swept by that
+same wave of power and of--of--what can I call it?--HOLINESS
+that streamed from them.
+
+Then for the first time I saw real awe mount into his face.
+Another moment he stared--and dropped upon one knee
+and bowed his head before them as would a worshipper be-
+fore the shrine of his saint.  And--I am not ashamed to tell it
+--I joined him; and with us knelt Lakla and Olaf and Rador.
+
+The mist of fiery opal swirled up about the Three; hid
+them.
+
+And with a long, deep, joyous sigh Lakla took Larry's
+hand, drew him to his feet, and silently we followed them
+out of that hall of wonder.
+
+But why, in going, did the thought come to me that from
+where the Three sat throned they ever watched the cavern
+mouth that was the door into their abode; and looked down
+ever into the unfathomable depth in which glowed and
+pulsed that mystic flower, colossal, awesome, of green flame
+that had seemed to me fire of life itself?
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+The Wooing of Lakla
+
+I HAD SLEPT soundly and dreamlessly; I wakened quietly in
+the great chamber into which Rador had ushered O'Keefe
+and myself after that culminating experience of crowded,
+nerve-racking hours--the facing of the Three.
+
+Now, lying gazing upward at the high-vaulted ceiling, I
+heard Larry's voice:
+
+"They look like birds." Evidently he was thinking of the
+Three; a silence--then: "Yes, they look like BIRDS--and they
+look, and it's meaning no disrespect to them I am at all, they
+look like LIZARDS"--and another silence--"they look like
+some sort of gods, and, by the good sword-arm of Brian
+Boru, they look human, too!  And it's NONE of them they are
+either, so what--what the--what the sainted St. Bridget are
+they?" Another short silence, and then in a tone of awed
+and absolute conviction: "That's it, sure!  That's what they
+are--it all hangs in--they couldn't be anything else--"
+
+He gave a whoop; a pillow shot over and caught me across
+the head.
+
+"Wake up!" shouted Larry.  "Wake up, ye seething caldron
+of fossilized superstitions!  Wake up, ye bogy-haunted man
+of scientific unwisdom!"
+
+Under pillow and insults I bounced to my feet, filled for a
+moment with quite real wrath; he lay back, roaring with
+laughter, and my anger was swept away.
+
+"Doc," he said, very seriously, after this, "I know who the
+Three are!"
+
+"Yes?" I queried, with studied sarcasm.
+
+"Yes?" he mimicked.  "Yes!  Ye--ye" He paused under
+the menace of my look, grinned.  "Yes, I know," he con-
+tinued.  "They're of the Tuatha De, the old ones, the great
+people of Ireland, THAT'S who they are!"
+
+I knew, of course, of the Tuatha De Danann, the tribes of
+the god Danu, the half-legendary, half-historical clan who
+found their home in Erin some four thousand years before
+the Christian era, and who have left so deep an impress upon
+the Celtic mind and its myths.
+
+"Yes," said Larry again, "the Tuatha De--the Ancient
+Ones who had spells that could compel Mananan, who is the
+spirit of all the seas, an' Keithor, who is the god of all green
+living things, an' even Hesus, the unseen god, whose pulse is
+the pulse of all the firmament; yes, an' Orchil too, who sits
+within the earth an' weaves with the shuttle of mystery and
+her three looms of birth an' life an' death--even Orchil
+would weave as they commanded!"
+
+He was silent--then:
+
+"They are of them--the mighty ones--why else would I
+have bent my knee to them as I would have to the spirit of
+my dead mother?  Why else would Lakla, whose gold-brown
+hair is the hair of Eilidh the Fair, whose mouth is the sweet
+mouth of Deirdre, an' whose soul walked with mine ages
+agone among the fragrant green myrtle of Erin, serve them?"
+he whispered, eyes full of dream.
+
+"Have you any idea how they got here?" I asked, not
+unreasonably.
+
+"I haven't thought about that," he replied somewhat test-
+ily.  "But at once, me excellent man o' wisdom, a number
+occur to me.  One of them is that this little party of three
+might have stopped here on their way to Ireland, an' for good
+reasons of their own decided to stay a while; an' another is
+that they might have come here afterward, havin' got wind
+of what those rats out there were contemplatin', and have
+stayed on the job till the time was ripe to save Ireland from
+'em; the rest of the world, too, of course," he added mag-
+nanimously, "but Ireland in particular.  And do any of those
+reasons appeal to ye?"
+
+I shook my head.
+
+"Well, what do you think?" he asked wearily.
+
+"I think," I said cautiously, "that we face an evolution of
+highly intelligent beings from ancestral sources radically re-
+moved from those through which mankind ascended.  These
+half-human, highly developed batrachians they call the _Akka_
+prove that evolution in these caverned spaces has certainly
+pursued one different path than on earth.  The Englishman,
+Wells, wrote an imaginative and very entertaining book con-
+cerning an invasion of earth by Martians, and he made his
+Martians enormously specialized cuttlefish.  There was noth-
+ing inherently improbable in Wells' choice.  Man is the ruling
+animal of earth today solely by reason of a series of acci-
+dents; under another series spiders or ants, or even ele-
+phants, could have become the dominant race.
+
+"I think," I said, even more cautiously, "that the race to
+which the Three belong never appeared on earth's surface;
+that their development took place here, unhindered through
+aeons.  And if this be true, the structure of their brains, and
+therefore all their reactions, must be different from ours.
+Hence their knowledge and command of energies unfamiliar
+to us--and hence also the question whether they may not
+have an entirely different sense of values, of justice--and
+that is rather terrifying," I concluded.
+
+Larry shook his head.
+
+"That last sort of knocks your argument, Doc," he said.
+"They had sense of justice enough to help ME out--and cer-
+tainly they know love--for I saw the way they looked at
+Lakla; and sorrow--for there was no mistaking that in their
+faces.
+
+"No," he went on.  "I hold to my own idea.  They're of the
+Old People.  The little leprechaun knew his way here, an'
+I'll bet it was they who sent the word.  An' if the O'Keefe ban-
+shee comes here--which save the mark!--I'll bet she'll drop
+in on the Silent Ones for a social visit before she an' her clan
+get busy.  Well, it'll make her feel more at home, the good old
+body.  No, Doc, no," he concluded, "I'm right; it all fits in too
+well to be wrong."
+
+I made a last despairing attempt.
+
+"Is there anything anywhere in Ireland that would indicate
+that the Tuatha De ever looked like the Three?" I asked--
+and again I had spoken most unfortunately.
+
+"Is there?" he shouted.  "Is there?  By the kilt of Cormack
+MacCormack, I'm glad ye reminded me.  It was worryin' me
+a little meself.  There was Daghda, who could put on the
+head of a great boar an' the body of a giant fish and cleave
+the waves an' tear to pieces the birlins of any who came
+against Erin; an' there was Rinn--"
+
+How many more of the metamorphoses of the Old People
+I might have heard, I do not know, for the curtains parted
+and in walked Rador.
+
+"You have rested well," he smiled, "I can see.  The hand-
+maiden bade me call you.  You are to eat with her in her
+garden."
+
+Down long corridors we trod and out upon a gardened
+terrace as beautiful as any of those of Yolara's city; bow-
+ered, blossoming, fragrant, set high upon the cliffs beside the
+domed castle.  A table, as of milky jade, was spread at one
+corner, but the Golden Girl was not there.  A little path ran
+on and up, hemmed in by the mass of verdure.  I looked at
+it longingly; Rador saw the glance, interpreted it, and led me
+up the stepped sharp slope into a rock embrasure.
+
+Here I was above the foliage, and everywhere the view
+was clear.  Below me stretched the incredible bridge, with the
+frog people hurrying back and forth upon it.  A pinnacle at
+my side hid the abyss.  My eyes followed the cavern ledge.
+Above it the rock rose bare, but at the ends of the semi-
+circular strand a luxuriant vegetation began, stretching from
+the crimson shores back into far distances.  Of browns and
+reds and yellows, like an autumn forest, was the foliage,
+with here and there patches of dark-green, as of conifers.
+Five miles or more, on each side, the forests swept, and then
+were lost to sight in the haze.
+
+I turned and faced an immensity of crimson waters, un-
+broken, a true sea, if ever there was one.  A breeze blew--
+the first real wind I had encountered in the hidden places;
+under it the surface, that had been as molten lacquer, rippled
+and dimpled.  Little waves broke with a spray of rose-pearls
+and rubies.  The giant Medusae drifted--stately, luminous
+kaleidoscopic elfin moons.
+
+Far down, peeping around a jutting tower of the cliff, I saw
+dipping with the motion of the waves a floating garden.  The
+flowers, too, were luminous--indeed sparkling--gleaming
+brilliants of scarlet and vermilions lighter than the flood on
+which they lay, mauves and odd shades of reddish-blue.
+They gleamed and shone like a little lake of jewels.
+
+Rador broke in upon my musings.
+
+"Lakla comes!  Let us go down."
+
+It was a shy Lakla who came slowly around the end of the
+path and, blushing furiously, held her hands out to Larry.
+And the Irishman took them, placed them over his heart,
+kissed them with a tenderness that had been lacking in the
+half-mocking, half-fierce caresses he had given the priestess.
+She blushed deeper, holding out the tapering fingers--then
+pressed them to her own heart.
+
+"I like the touch of your lips, Larry," she whispered.
+"They warm me here"--she pressed her heart again--"and
+they send little sparkles of light through me." Her brows
+tilted perplexedly, accenting the nuance of diablerie, deli-
+cate and fascinating, that they cast upon the flower face.
+
+"Do you?" whispered the O'Keefe fervently.  "Do you,
+Lakla?" He bent toward her.  She caught the amused glance
+of Rador; drew herself aside half-haughtily.
+
+"Rador," she said, "is it not time that you and the strong
+one, Olaf, were setting forth?"
+
+"Truly it is, handmaiden," he answered respectfully
+enough--yet with a current of laughter under his words.
+"But as you know the strong one, Olaf, wished to see his
+friends here before we were gone--and he comes even now,"
+he added, glancing down the pathway, along which came
+striding the Norseman.
+
+As he faced us I saw that a transformation had been
+wrought in him.  Gone was the pitiful seeking, and gone too
+the just as pitiful hope.  The set face softened as he looked at
+the Golden Girl and bowed low to her.  He thrust a hand to
+O'Keefe and to me.
+
+"There is to be battle," he said.  "I go with Rador to call
+the armies of these frog people.  As for me--Lakla has
+spoken.  There is no hope for--for mine Helma in life, but
+there is hope that we destroy the Shining Devil and give
+_mine_ Helma peace.  And with that I am well content, _ja!_ Well
+content!" He gripped our hands again.  "We will fight!" he
+muttered.  "_Ja!_ And I will have vengeance!" The sternness
+returned; and with a salute Rador and he were gone.
+
+Two great tears rolled from the golden eyes of Lakla.
+
+"Not even the Silent Ones can heal those the Shining One
+has taken," she said.  "He asked me--and it was better that
+I tell him.  It is part of the Three's--PUNISHMENT--but of that
+you will soon learn," she went on hurriedly.  "Ask me no
+questions now of the Silent Ones.  I thought it better for Olaf
+to go with Rador, to busy himself, to give his mind other
+than sorrow upon which to feed."
+
+Up the path came five of the frog-women, bearing plat-
+ters and ewers.  Their bracelets and anklets of jewels were
+tinkling; their middles covered with short kirtles of woven
+cloth studded with the sparkling ornaments.
+
+And here let me say that if I have given the impression
+that the _Akka_ are simply magnified frogs, I regret it.  Frog-
+like they are, and hence my phrase for them--but as unlike
+the frog, as we know it, as man is unlike the chimpanzee.
+Springing, I hazard, from the stegocephalia, the ancestor of
+the frogs, these batrachians followed a different line of evo-
+lution and acquired the upright position just as man did his
+from the four-footed folk.
+
+The great staring eyes, the shape of the muzzle were frog-
+like, but the highly developed brain had set upon the head
+and shape of it vital differences.  The forehead, for instance,
+was not low, flat, and retreating--its frontal arch was well
+defined.  The head was, in a sense, shapely, and with the
+females the great horny carapace that stood over it like a
+fantastic helmet was much modified, as were the spurs that
+were so formidable in the male; colouration was different
+also.  The torso was upright; the legs a little bent, giving them
+their crouching gait--but I wander from my subject.1
+
+
+*1 The _Akka_ are viviparous.  The female produces progeny at five-
+year intervals, never more than two at a time.  They are monogamous,
+like certain of our own _Ranidae_.  Pending my monograph upon what
+little I had time to learn of their interesting habits and customs, the
+curious will find instruction and entertainment in Brandes and Schven-
+ichen's _Brutpfleige der Schwanzlosen Bat rachier_, p. 395; and Lilian V.
+Sampson's _Unusual Modes of Breeding among Anura_, Amer. Nat.
+xxxiv., 1900.--W. T. G.
+
+
+
+They set their burdens down.  Larry looked at them with
+interest.
+
+"You surely have those things well trained, Lakla," he
+said.
+
+"Things!"  The handmaiden arose, eyes flashing with indig-
+nation.  "You call my _Akka_ things!"
+
+"Well," said Larry, a bit taken aback, "what do you call them?"
+
+"My _Akka are a PEOPLE," she retorted.  "As much a people
+as your race or mine.  They are good and loyal, and they have
+speech and arts, and they slay not, save for food or to pro-
+tect themselves.  And I think them beautiful, Larry, BEAUTIFUL!"
+She stamped her foot.  "And you call them--THINGS!"
+
+Beautiful!  These?  Yet, after all, they were, in their gro-
+tesque fashion.  And to Lakla, surrounded by them, from
+babyhood, they were not strange, at all.  Why shouldn't she
+think them beautiful?  The same thought must have struck
+O'Keefe, for he flushed guiltily.
+
+"I think them beautiful, too, Lakla," he said remorsefully.
+"It's my not knowing your tongue too well that traps me.
+TRULY, I think them beautiful--I'd tell them so, if I knew
+their talk."
+
+Lakla dimpled, laughed--spoke to the attendants in that
+strange speech that was unquestionably a language; they
+bridled, looked at O'Keefe with fantastic coquetry, cracked
+and boomed softly among themselves.
+
+"They say they like YOU better than the men of Muria,"
+laughed Lakla.
+
+"Did I ever think I'd be swapping compliments with lady
+frogs!" he murmured to me.  "Buck up, Larry--keep your
+eyes on the captive Irish princess!" he muttered to himself.
+
+"Rador goes to meet one of the _ladala_ who is slipping
+through with news," said the Golden Girl as we addressed
+ourselves to the food.  "Then, with Nak, he and Olaf go to
+muster the _Akka_--for there will be battle, and we must pre-
+pare.  Nak," she added, "is he who went before me when you
+were dancing with Yolara, Larry." She stole a swift, mis-
+chievous glance at him.  "He is headman of all the _Akka_."
+
+"Just what forces can we muster against them when they
+come, darlin'?" said Larry.
+
+"Darlin'?"--the Golden Girl had caught the caress of the
+word--"what's that?"
+
+"It's a little word that means Lakla," he answered.  "It
+does--that is, when I say it; when you say it, then it means
+Larry."
+
+"I like that word," mused Lakla.
+
+"You can even say Larry darlin'!" suggested O'Keefe.
+
+"Larry darlin'!" said Lakla.  "When they come we shall
+have first of all my _Akka_--"
+
+"Can they fight, _mavourneen_?" interrupted Larry.
+
+"Can they fight!  My _Akka_!" Again her eyes flashed.  "They
+will fight to the last of them--with the spears that give the
+swift rotting, covered, as they are, with the jelly of those
+_Saddu_ there--" She pointed through a rift in the foliage
+across which, on the surface of the sea, was floating one of
+the moon globes--and now I know why Rador had warned
+Larry against a plunge there.  "With spears and clubs and
+with teeth and nails and spurs--they are a strong and brave
+people, Larry--darlin', and though they hurl the _Keth_ at
+them, it is slow to work upon them, and they slay even while
+they are passing into the nothingness!"
+
+"And have we none of the _Keth_?" he asked.
+
+"No"--she shook her head--"none of their weapons have
+we here, although it was--it was the Ancient Ones who
+shaped them."
+
+"But the Three are of the Ancient Ones?" I cried.  "Surely
+they can tell--"
+
+"No," she said slowly.  "No--there is something you must
+know--and soon; and then the Silent Ones say you will un-
+derstand.  You, especially, Goodwin, who worship wisdom."
+
+"Then," said Larry, "we have the _Akka_; and we have the
+four men of us, and among us three guns and about a hun-
+dred cartridges--an'--an' the power of the Three--but what
+about the Shining One, Fireworks--"
+
+"I do not know." Again the indecision that had been in
+her eyes when Yolara had launched her defiance crept back.
+"The Shining One is strong--and he has his--slaves!"
+
+"Well, we'd better get busy good and quick!" the O'Keefe's
+voice rang.  But Lakla, for some reason of her own, would
+pursue the matter no further.  The trouble fled from her eyes
+--they danced.
+
+"Larry darlin'?" she murmured.  "I like the touch of your
+lips--"
+
+"You do?" he whispered, all thought flying of anything
+but the beautiful, provocative face so close to his.  "Then,
+_acushla_, you're goin' to get acquainted with 'em!  Turn your
+head, Doc!" he said.
+
+And I turned it.  There was quite a long silence, broken by
+an interested, soft outburst of gentle boomings from the
+serving frog-maids.  I stole a glance behind me.  Lakla's head
+lay on the Irishman's shoulder, the golden eyes misty sun-
+pools of love and adoration; and the O'Keefe, a new look of
+power and strength upon his clear-cut features, was gazing
+down into them with that look which rises only from the
+heart touched for the first time with that true, all-powerful
+love, which is the pulse of the universe itself, the real music
+of the spheres of which Plato dreamed, the love that is
+stronger than death itself, immortal as the high gods and the
+true soul of all that mystery we call life.
+
+Then Lakla raised her hands, pressed down Larry's head,
+kissed him between the eyes, drew herself with a trembling
+little laugh from his embrace.
+
+"The future Mrs. Larry O'Keefe, Goodwin," said Larry to
+me a little unsteadily.
+
+I took their hands--and Lakla kissed me!
+
+She turned to the booming--smiling--frog-maids; gave
+them some command, for they filed away down the path.
+Suddenly I felt, well, a little superfluous.
+
+"If you don't mind," I said, "I think I'll go up the path
+there again and look about."
+
+But they were so engrossed with each other that they did
+not even hear me--so I walked away, up to the embrasure
+where Rador had taken me.  The movement of the batra-
+chians over the bridge had ceased.  Dimly at the far end I
+could see the cluster of the garrison.  My thoughts flew back
+to Lakla and to Larry.
+
+What was to be the end?
+
+If we won, if we were able to pass from this place, could
+she live in our world?  A product of these caverns with their
+atmosphere and light that seemed in some subtle way to be
+both food and drink--how would she react to the unfamiliar
+foods and air and light of outer earth?  Further, here so far
+as I was able to discover, there were no malignant bacilli--
+what immunity could Lakla have then to those microscopic
+evils without, which only long ages of sickness and death
+have bought for us a modicum of protection?  I began to be
+oppressed.  Surely they bad been long enough by themselves.
+I went down the path.
+
+I heard Larry.
+
+"It's a green land, _mavourneen_.  And the sea rocks and
+dimples around it--blue as the heavens, green as the isle
+itself, and foam horses toss their white manes, and the great
+clean winds blow over it, and the sun shines down on it like
+your eyes, _acushla_--"
+
+"And are you a king of Ireland, Larry darlin'?" Thus
+Lakla--
+
+But enough!
+
+At last we turned to go--and around the corner of the path
+I caught another glimpse of what I have called the lake of
+jewels.  I pointed to it.
+
+"Those are lovely flowers, Lakla," I said.  "I have never
+seen anything like them in the place from whence we come."
+
+She followed my pointing finger--laughed.
+
+"Come," she said, "let me show you them."
+
+She ran down an intersecting way, we following; came out
+of it upon a little ledge close to the brink, three feet or more
+I suppose about it.  The Golden Girl's voice rang out in a
+high-pitched, tremulous, throbbing call.
+
+The lake of jewels stirred as though a breeze had passed
+over it; stirred, shook, and then began to move swiftly, a
+shimmering torrent of shining flowers down upon us!  She
+called again, the movement became more rapid; the gem
+blooms streamed closer--closer, wavering, shifting, winding
+--at our very feet.  Above them hovered a little radiant mist.
+The Golden Girl leaned over; called softly, and up from the
+sparkling mass shot a green vine whose heads were five
+flowers of flaming ruby--shot up, flew into her hand and
+coiled about the white arm, its quintette of lambent blos-
+soms--regarding us!
+
+It was the thing Lakla had called the _Yekta_; that with
+which she had threatened the priestess; the thing that carried
+the dreadful death--and the Golden Girl was handling it
+like a rose!
+
+Larry swore--I looked at the thing more closely.  It was a
+hydroid, a development of that strange animal-vegetable
+that, sometimes almost microscopic, waves in the sea depths
+like a cluster of flowers paralyzing its prey with the mysteri-
+ous force that dwells in its blossom heads!1
+
+
+*1 The _Yekta_ of the Crimson Sea, are as extraordinary developments
+of hydroid forms as the giant _Medusae_, of which, of course, they are
+not too remote cousins.  The closest resemblances to them in outer
+water forms are among the _Gymnoblastic Hydroids_, notably _Clavetella
+prolifera_, a most interesting ambulatory form of six tentacles.  Almost
+every bather in Southern waters, Northern too, knows the pain that
+contact with certain "jelly fish" produces.  The _Yekta's_ development
+was prodigious and, to us, monstrous.  It secretes in its five heads an
+almost incredibly swiftly acting poison which I suspect, for I had no
+chance to verify the theory, destroys the entire nervous system to the
+accompaniment of truly infernal agony; carrying at the same time the
+illusion that the torment stretches through infinities of time.  Both ether
+and nitrous oxide gas produce in the majority this sensation of time
+extension, without of course the pain symptom.  What Lakla called
+the _Yekta_ kiss is I imagine about as close to the orthodox idea of Hell
+as can be conceived.  The secret of her control over them I had no
+opportunity of learning in the rush of events that followed.  Knowledge
+of the appalling effects of their touch came, she told me, from those
+few "who had been kissed so lightly" that they recovered.  Certainly
+nothing, not even the Shining One, was dreaded by the Murians as
+these were--W. T. G.
+
+
+
+"Put it down, Lakla," the distress in O'Keefe's voice was
+deep.  Lakla laughed mischievously, caught the real fear for
+her in his eyes; opened her hand, gave another faint call--
+and back it flew to its fellows.
+
+"Why, it wouldn't hurt me, Larry!" she expostulated.
+"They know me!"
+
+"Put it down!" he repeated hoarsely.
+
+She sighed, gave another sweet, prolonged call.  The lake
+of gems--rubies and amethysts, mauves and scarlet-tinged
+blues--wavered and shook even as it had before--and swept
+swiftly back to that place whence she had drawn them!
+
+Then, with Larry and Lakla walking ahead, white arm
+about his brown neck; the O'Keefe still expostulating, the
+handmaiden laughing merrily, we passed through her bower
+to the domed castle.
+
+Glancing through a cleft I caught sight again of the far end
+of the bridge; noted among the clustered figures of its gar-
+rison of the frog-men a movement, a flashing of green fire
+like marshlights on spear tips; wondered idly what it was,
+and then, other thoughts crowding in, followed along, head
+bent, behind the pair who had found in what was Olaf's hell,
+their true paradise.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+The Coming of Yolara
+
+"NEVER was there such a girl!" Thus Larry, dreamily, lean-
+ing head in hand on one of the wide divans of the chamber
+where Lakla had left us, pleading service to the Silent Ones.
+
+"An', by the faith and the honour of the O'Keefes, an' by
+my dead mother's soul may God do with me as I do by her!"
+he whispered fervently.
+
+He relapsed into open-eyed dreaming.
+
+I walked about the room, examining it--the first oppor-
+tunity I had gained to inspect carefully any of the rooms in
+the abode of the Three.  It was octagonal, carpeted with the
+thick rugs that seemed almost as though woven of soft min-
+eral wool, faintly shimmering, palest blue.  I paced its diag-
+onal; it was fifty yards; the ceiling was arched, and either of
+pale rose metal or metallic covering; it collected the light
+from the high, slitted windows, and shed it, diffused, through
+the room.
+
+Around the octagon ran a low gallery not two feet from
+the floor, balustraded with slender pillars, close set; broken
+at opposite curtained entrances over which hung thick, dull-
+gold curtainings giving the same suggestion of metallic or
+mineral substance as the rugs.  Set within each of the eight
+sides, above the balcony, were colossal slabs of lapis lazuli,
+inset with graceful but unplaceable designs in scarlet and
+sapphire blue.
+
+There was the great divan on which mused Larry; two
+smaller ones, half a dozen low seats and chairs carved appar-
+ently of ivory and of dull soft gold.
+
+Most curious were tripods, strong, pikelike legs of golden
+metal four feet high, holding small circles of the lapis with
+intaglios of one curious symbol somewhat resembling the
+ideographs of the Chinese.
+
+There was no dust--nowhere in these caverned spaces had
+I found this constant companion of ours in the world over-
+head.  My eyes caught a sparkle from a corner.  Pursuing it I
+found upon one of the low seats a flat, clear crystal oval,
+remarkably like a lens.  I took it and stepped up on the
+balcony.  Standing on tiptoe I found I commanded from the
+bottom of a window slit a view of the bridge approach.
+Scanning it I could see no trace of the garrison there, nor of
+the green spear flashes.  I placed the crystal to my eyes--and
+with a disconcerting abruptness the cavern mouth leaped
+before me, apparently not a hundred feet away; decidedly
+the crystal was a very excellent lens--but where were the
+guards?
+
+I peered closely.  Nothing!  But now against the aperture I
+saw a score or more of tiny, dancing sparks.  An optical illu-
+sion, I thought, and turned the crystal in another direction.
+There were no sparklings there.  I turned it back again--
+and there they were.  And what were they like?  Realization
+came to me--they were like the little, dancing, radiant atoms
+that had played for a time about the emptiness where had
+stood Sorgar of the Lower Waters before he bad been shaken
+into the nothingness!  And that green light I had noticed--
+the _Keth_!
+
+A cry on my lips, I turned to Larry--and the cry died as
+the heavy curtainings at the entrance on my right undulated,
+parted as though a body had slipped through, shook and
+parted again and again--with the dreadful passing of unseen
+things!
+
+"Larry!" I cried.  "Here!  Quick!"
+
+He leaped to his feet, gazed about wildly--and disap-
+peared!  Yes--vanished from my sight like the snuffed flame
+of a candle or as though something moving with the speed of
+light itself had snatched him away!
+
+Then from the divan came the sounds of struggle, the
+hissing of straining breaths, the noise of Larry cursing.  I
+leaped over the balustrade, drawing my own pistol--was
+caught in a pair of mighty arms, my elbows crushed to my
+sides, drawn down until my face pressed close to a broad,
+hairy breast--and through that obstacle--formless, shadow-
+less, transparent as air itself--I could still see the battle on
+the divan!
+
+Now there were two sharp reports; the struggle abruptly
+ceased.  From a point not a foot over the great couch, as
+though oozing from the air itself, blood began to drop, faster
+and ever faster, pouring out of nothingness.
+
+And out of that same air, now a dozen feet away, leaped
+the face of Larry--bodyless, poised six feet above the floor,
+blazing with rage--floating weirdly, uncannily to a hideous
+degree, in vacancy.
+
+His hands flashed out--armless; they wavered, appearing,
+disappearing--swiftly tearing something from him.  Then
+there, feet hidden, stiff on legs that vanished at the ankles,
+striking out into vision with all the dizzy abruptness with
+which he had been stricken from sight was the O'Keefe, a
+smoking pistol in hand.
+
+And ever that red stream trickled out of vacancy and
+spread over the couch, dripping to the floor.
+
+I made a mighty movement to escape; was held more
+firmly--and then close to the face of Larry, flashing out with
+that terrifying instantaneousness even as had his, was the
+head of Yolara, as devilishly mocking as I had ever seen it,
+the cruelty shining through it like delicate white flames from
+hell--and beautiful!
+
+"Stir not!  Strike not--until I command!" She flung the
+words beyond her, addressed to the invisible ones who had
+accompanied her; whose presences I sensed filling the cham-
+ber.  The floating, beautiful head, crowned high with corn-silk
+hair, darted toward the Irishman.  He took a swift step back-
+ward.  The eyes of the priestess deepened toward purple;
+sparkled with malice.
+
+"So," she said.  "So, _Larree_--you thought you could go
+from me so easily!" She laughed softly.  "In my hidden hand
+I hold the _Keth_ cone," she murmured.  "Before you can raise
+the death tube I can smite you--and will.  And consider,
+_Larree_, if the handmaiden, the _choya_ comes, I can vanish--
+so"--the mocking head disappeared, burst forth again--
+"and slay her with the _Keth_--or bid my people seize her
+and bear her to the Shining One!"
+
+Tiny beads of sweat stood out on O'Keefe's forehead, and
+I knew he was thinking not of himself, but of Lakla.
+
+"What do you want with me, Yolara?" he asked hoarsely.
+
+"Nay," came the mocking voice.  "Not Yolara to you,
+_Larree_--call me by those sweet names you taught me--
+Honey of the Wild Bee-e-s, Net of Hearts--" Again her
+laughter tinkled.
+
+"What do you want with me?" his voice was strained, the
+lips rigid.
+
+"Ah, you are afraid, _Larree_." There was diabolic jubila-
+tion in the words.  "What should I want but that you return
+with me?  Why else did I creep through the lair of the dragon
+worm and pass the path of perils but to ask you that?  And
+the _choya_ guards you not well." Again she laughed.  "We
+came to the cavern's end and, there were her _Akka_.  And the
+_Akka_ can see us--as shadows.  But it was my desire to sur-
+prise you with my coming, Larree," the voice was silken.
+"And I feared that they would hasten to be first to bring you
+that message to delight in your joy.  And so, _Larree_, I loosed
+the _Keth_ upon them--and gave them peace and rest within
+the nothingness.  And the portal below was open--almost in
+welcome!"
+
+Once more the malignant, silver pealing of her laughter.
+
+"What do you want with me?" There was wrath in his
+eyes, and plainly he strove for control.
+
+"Want!" the silver voice hissed, grew calm.  "Do not Siya
+and Siyana grieve that the rite I pledged them is but half
+done--and do they not desire it finished?  And am I not
+beautiful?  More beautiful than your _choya_?"
+
+The fiendishness died from the eyes; they grew blue,
+wondrous; the veil of invisibility slipped down from the
+neck, the shoulders, half revealing the gleaming breasts.  And
+weird, weird beyond all telling was that exquisite head and
+bust floating there in air--and beautiful, sinisterly beautiful
+beyond all telling, too.  So even might Lilith, the serpent
+woman, have shown herself tempting Adam!
+
+"And perhaps," she said, "perhaps I want you because I
+hate you; perhaps because I love you--or perhaps for Lugur
+or perhaps for the Shining One."
+
+"And if I go with you?" He said it quietly.
+
+"Then shall I spare the handmaiden--and--who knows?
+--take back my armies that even now gather at the portal
+and let the Silent Ones rot in peace in their abode--from
+which they had no power to keep me," she added venom-
+ously.
+
+"You will swear that, Yolara; swear to go without harming
+the handmaiden?" he asked eagerly.  The little devils danced
+in her eyes.  I wrenched my face from the smothering con-
+tact.
+
+"Don't trust her, Larry!" I cried--and again the grip
+choked me.
+
+"Is that devil in front of you or behind you, old man?"
+he asked quietly, eyes never leaving the priestess.  "If he's in
+front I'll take a chance and wing him--and then you scoot
+and warn Lakla."
+
+But I could not answer; nor, remembering Yolara's threat,
+would I, had I been able.
+
+"Decide quickly!" There was cold threat in her voice.
+
+The curtains toward which O'Keefe had slowly, step by
+step, drawn close, opened.  They framed the handmaiden!
+The face of Yolara changed to that gorgon mask that had
+transformed it once before at sight of the Golden Girl.  In
+her blind rage she forgot to cast the occulting veil.  Her hand
+darted like a snake out of the folds; poising itself with the
+little silver cone aimed at Lakla.
+
+But before it was wholly poised, before the priestess could
+loose its force, the handmaiden was upon her.  Swift as the
+lithe white wolf hound she leaped, and one slender hand
+gripped Yolara's throat, the other the wrist that lifted the
+quivering death; white limbs wrapped about the hidden ones,
+I saw the golden head bend, the hand that held the _Keth_
+swept up with a vicious jerk; saw Lakla's teeth sink into the
+wrist--the blood spurt forth and heard the priestess shriek.
+The cone fell, bounded toward me; with all my strength I
+wrenched free the hand that held my pistol, thrust it against
+the pressing breast and fired,
+
+The clasp upon me relaxed; a red rain stained me; at my
+feet a little pillar of blood jetted; a hand thrust itself from
+nothingness, clawed--and was still.
+
+Now Yolara was down, Lakla meshed in her writhings and
+fighting like some wild mother whose babes are serpent
+menaced.  Over the two of them, astride, stood the O'Keefe, a
+pike from one of the high tripods in his hand--thrusting,
+parrying, beating on every side as with a broadsword against
+poniard-clutching hands that thrust themselves out of va-
+cancy striving to strike him; stepping here and there, always
+covering, protecting Lakla with his own body even as a cave-
+man of old who does battle with his mate for their lives.
+
+The sword-club struck--and on the floor lay the half body
+of a dwarf, writhing with vanishments and reappearings of
+legs and arms.  Beside him was the shattered tripod from
+which Larry had wrenched his weapon.  I flung myself upon
+it, dashed it down to break loose one of the remaining sup-
+ports, struck in midfall one of the unseen even as his dagger
+darted toward me!  The seat splintered, leaving in my clutch
+a golden bar.  I jumped to Larry's side, guarding his back,
+whirling it like a staff; felt it crunch once--twice--through
+unseen bone and muscle.
+
+At the door was a booming.  Into the chamber rushed a
+dozen of the frog-men.  While some guarded the entrances,
+others leaped straight to us, and forming a circle about us
+began to strike with talons and spurs at unseen things that
+screamed and sought to escape.  Now here and there about
+the blue rugs great stains of blood appeared; heads of dwarfs,
+torn arms and gashed bodies, half occulted, half revealed.
+And at last the priestess lay silent, vanquished, white body
+gleaming with that uncanny--fragmentariness--from her
+torn robes.  Then O'Keefe reached down, drew Lakla from
+her.  Shakily, Yolara rose to her feet.  The handmaiden, face
+still blazing with wrath, stepped before her; with difficulty
+she steadied her voice.
+
+"Yolara," she said, "you have defied the Silent Ones, you
+have desecrated their abode, you came to slay these men who
+are the guests of the Silent Ones and me, who am their hand-
+maiden--why did you do these things?"
+
+"I came for him!" gasped the priestess; she pointed to
+O'Keefe.
+
+"Why?" asked Lakla.
+
+"Because he is pledged to me," replied Yolara, all the
+devils that were hers in her face.  "Because he wooed me!
+Because he is mine!"
+
+"That is a lie!" The handmaiden's voice shook with rage.
+"It is a lie!  But here and now he shall choose, Yolara.  And
+if you he choose, you and he shall go forth from here un-
+molested--for Yolara, it is his happiness that I most desire,
+and if you are that happiness--you shall go together.  And
+now, Larry, choose!"
+
+Swiftly she stepped beside the priestess; swiftly wrenched
+the last shreds of the hiding robes from her.
+
+There they stood--Yolara with but the filmiest net of
+gauze about her wonderful body; gleaming flesh shining
+through it; serpent woman---and wonderful, too, beyond the
+dreams even of Phidias--and hell-fire glowing from the pur-
+ple eyes.
+
+And Lakla, like a girl of the Vikings, like one of those
+warrior maids who stood and fought for dun and babes at the
+side of those old heroes of Larry's own green isle; trans-
+lucent ivory lambent through the rents of her torn draperies,
+and in the wide, golden eyes flaming wrath, indeed--not the
+diabolic flames of the priestess but the righteous wrath of
+some soul that looking out of paradise sees vile wrong in the
+doing.
+
+"Lakla," the O'Keefe's voice was subdued, hurt, "there IS
+no choice.  I love you and only you--and have from the moment
+I saw you.  It's not easy--this.  God, Goodwin, I feel
+like an utter cad," he flashed at me.  "There is no choice,
+Lakla," he ended, eyes steady upon hers.
+
+The priestess's face grew deadlier still.
+
+"What will you do with me?" she asked.
+
+"Keep you," I said, "as hostage."
+
+O'Keefe was silent; the Golden Girl shook her head.
+
+"Well would I like to," her face grew dreaming; "but the
+Silent Ones say--NO; they bid me let you go, Yolara--"
+
+"The Silent Ones," the priestess laughed. "YOU, Lakla!
+You fear, perhaps, to let me tarry here too close!"
+
+Storm gathered again in the handmaiden's eyes; she forced
+it back.
+
+"No," she answered, the Silent Ones so command--and
+for their own purposes.  Yet do I think, Yolara, that you will
+have little time to feed your wickedness--tell that to Lugur
+--and to your Shining One!" she added slowly.
+
+Mockery and disbelief rode high in the priestess's pose.
+"Am I to return alone--like this?" she asked.
+
+"Nay, Yolara, nay; you shall be accompanied," said Lakla;
+"and by those who will guard--and WATCH--you well.  They are
+here even now."
+
+The hangings parted, and into the chamber came Olaf
+and Rador.
+
+The priestess met the fierce hatred and contempt in the
+eyes of the Norseman--and for the first time lost her bravado.
+
+"Let not HIM go with me," she gasped--her eyes searched
+the floor frantically.
+
+"He goes with you," said Lakla, and threw about Yolara
+a swathing that covered the exquisite, alluring body.  "And
+you shall pass through the Portal, not skulk along the path
+of the worm!"
+
+She bent to Rador, whispered to him; he nodded; she had
+told him, I supposed, the secret of its opening.
+
+"Come," he said, and with the ice-eyed giant behind her,
+Yolara, head bent, passed out of those hangings through
+which, but a little before, unseen, triumph in her grasp,
+she had slipped.
+
+Then Lakla came to the unhappy O'Keefe, rested her
+hands on his shoulders, looked deep into his eyes.
+
+"DID you woo her, even as she said?" she asked.
+
+The Irishman flushed miserably.
+
+"I did not," he said.  "I was pleasant to her, of course,
+because I thought it would bring me quicker to you, darlin'."
+
+She looked at him doubtfully; then--
+
+"I think you must have been VERY--pleasant!" was all she
+said--and leaning, kissed him forgivingly straight on the lips.
+An extremely direct maiden was Lakla, with a truly sov-
+ereign contempt for anything she might consider non-essen-
+tials; and at this moment I decided she was wiser even than
+I had thought her.
+
+He stumbled, feet vanishing; reached down and picked up
+something that in the grasping turned his hand to air.
+
+"One of the invisible cloaks," he said to me.  "There must
+be quite a lot of them about--I guess Yolara brought her
+full staff of murderers.  They're a bit shopworn, probably--
+but we're considerably better off with 'em in our hands than
+in hers.  And they may come in handy--who knows?"
+
+There was a choking rattle at my feet; half the head of a
+dwarf raised out of vacancy; beat twice upon the floor in
+death throes; fell back.  Lakla shivered; gave a command.
+The frog-men moved about; peering here and there; lifting
+unseen folds revealing in stark rigidity torn form after form
+of the priestess's men.
+
+Lakla had been right--her _Akka_ were thorough fighters!
+
+She called, and to her came the frog-woman who was her
+attendant.  To her the handmaiden spoke, pointing to the
+batrachians who stood, paws and forearms melted beneath
+the robes they had gathered.  She took them and passed out
+--more grotesque than ever, shattering into streaks of vacan-
+cies, reappearing with flickers of shining scale and yellow
+gems as the tattered pennants of invisibility fluttered about
+her.
+
+The frog-men reached down, swung each a dead dwarf in
+his arms, and filed, booming triumphantly away
+
+And then I remembered the cone of the _Keth_ which had
+slipped from Yolara's hand; knew it had been that for which
+her wild eyes searched.  But look as closely as we might,
+search in every nook and corner as we did, we could not find
+it. Had the dying hand of one of her men clutched it and had
+it been borne away with them?  With the thought Larry and
+I raced after the scaled warriors, searched every body they
+carried.  It was not there.  Perhaps the priestess had found it,
+retrieved it swiftly without our seeing.
+
+Whatever was true--the cone was gone.  And what a
+weapon that one little holder of the shaking death would
+have been for us!
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+In the Lair of the Dweller
+
+IT IS WITH marked hesitation that I begin this chapter, be-
+cause in it I must deal with an experience so contrary to
+every known law of physics as to seem impossible.  Until
+this time, barring, of course, the mystery of the Dweller, I
+had encountered nothing that was not susceptible of natural-
+istic explanation; nothing, in a word, outside the domain of
+science itself; nothing that I would have felt hesitancy in
+reciting to my colleagues of the International Association of
+Science.  Amazing, unfamiliar--ADVANCED--as many of the
+phenomena were, still they lay well within the limits of what
+we have mapped as the possible; in regions, it is true, still
+virgin to the mind of man, but toward which that mind is
+steadily advancing.
+
+But this--well, I confess that I have a theory that is nat-
+uralistic; but so abstruse, so difficult to make clear within the
+short confines of the space I have to give it, so dependent
+upon conceptions that even the highest-trained scientific
+brains find difficult to grasp, that I despair.
+
+I can only say that the thing occurred; that it took place
+in precisely the manner I am about to narrate, and that I
+experienced it.
+
+Yet, in justice to myself, I must open up some paths of
+preliminary approach toward the heart of the perplexity.
+And the first path is the realization that our world WHATEVER
+it is, is certainly NOT the world as we see it!  Regarding this I
+shall refer to a discourse upon "Gravitation and the Principle
+of Relativity," by the distinguished English physicist, Dr. A.
+S. Eddington, which I had the pleasure of hearing him de-
+liver before the Royal Institution.1
+
+
+*1 Reprinted in full in _Nature_, in which those sufficiently interested
+may peruse it.--W. T. G.
+
+
+
+I realize, of course, that it is not true logic to argue--
+"The world is not as we think it is--therefore everything we
+think impossible is possible in it." Even if it BE different, it
+is governed by LAW.  The truly impossible is that which is out-
+side law, and as nothing CAN be outside law, the impossible
+CANNOT exist.
+
+The crux of the matter then becomes our determination
+whether what we think is impossible may or may not be
+possible under laws still beyond our knowledge.
+
+I hope that you will pardon me for this somewhat aca-
+demic digression, but I felt it was necessary, and it has, at
+least, put me more at ease.  And now to resume.
+
+We had watched, Larry and I, the frog-men throw the
+bodies of Yolara's assassins into the crimson waters.  As vul-
+tures swoop down upon the dying, there came sailing swiftly
+to where the dead men floated, dozens of the luminous
+globes.  Their slender, varicoloured tentacles whipped out;
+the giant iridescent bubbles CLIMBED over the cadavers.  And
+as they touched them there was the swift dissolution, the
+melting away into putrescence of flesh and bone that I had
+witnessed when the dart touched fruit that time I had saved
+Rador--and upon this the Medusae gorged; pulsing lam-
+bently; their wondrous colours shifting, changing, glowing
+stronger; elfin moons now indeed, but satellites whose glim-
+mering beauty was fed by death; alembics of enchantment
+whose glorious hues were sucked from horror.
+
+Sick, I turned away--O'Keefe as pale as I; passed back
+into the corridor that had opened on the ledge from which
+we had watched; met Lakla hurrying toward us.  Before she
+could speak there throbbed faintly about us a vast sighing.
+It grew into a murmur, a whispering, shook us--then pass-
+ing like a presence, died away in far distance.
+
+"The Portal has opened," said the handmaiden.  A fainter
+sighing, like an echo of the other, mourned about us.  "Yolara
+is gone," she said, "the Portal is closed.  Now must we hasten
+--for the Three have commanded that you, Goodwin, and
+Larry and I tread that strange road of which I have spoken,
+and which Olaf may not take lest his heart break--and we
+must return ere he and Rador cross the bridge."
+
+Her hand sought Larry's.
+
+"Come!" said Lakla, and we walked on; down and down
+through hall after hall, flight upon flight of stairways.  Deep,
+deep indeed, we must be beneath the domed castle--Lakla
+paused before a curved, smooth breast of the crimson stone
+rounding gently into the passage.  She pressed its side; it
+revolved; we entered; it closed behind us.
+
+The room, the--hollow--in which we stood was faceted
+like a diamond; and like a cut brilliant its sides glistened--
+though dully.  Its shape was a deep oval, and our path
+dropped down to a circular polished base, roughly two yards
+in diameter.  Glancing behind me I saw that in the closing of
+the entrance there had been left no trace of it save the steps
+that led from where that entrance had been--and as I looked
+these steps TURNED, leaving us isolated upon the circle, only
+the faceted walls about us--and in each of the gleaming
+faces the three of us reflected--dimly.  It was as though we
+were within a diamond egg whose graven angles bad been
+turned INWARD.
+
+But the oval was not perfect; at my right a screen cut it--
+a screen that gleamed with fugitive, fleeting luminescences
+--stretching from the side of our standing place up to the
+tip of the chamber; slightly convex and crisscrossed by mil-
+lions of fine lines like those upon a spectroscopic plate, but
+with this difference--that within each line I sensed the pres-
+ence of multitudes of finer lines, dwindling into infinitude,
+ultramicroscopic, traced by some instrument compared to
+whose delicacy our finest tool would be as a crowbar to the
+needle of a micrometer.
+
+A foot or two from it stood something like the standee of a
+compass, bearing, like it a cradled dial under whose crystal
+ran concentric rings of prisoned, lambent vapours, faintly
+blue.  From the edge of the dial jutted a little shelf of crystal,
+a keyboard, in which were cut eight small cups.
+
+Within these cups the handmaiden placed her tapering
+fingers.  She gazed down upon the disk; pressed a digit--and
+the screen behind us slipped noiselessly into another angle.
+
+"Put your arm around my waist, Larry, darlin', and stand
+close," she murmured.  "You, Goodwin, place your arm over
+my shoulder."
+
+Wondering, I did as she bade; she pressed other fingers
+upon the shelf's indentations--three of the rings of vapour
+spun into intense light, raced around each other; from the
+screen behind us grew a radiance that held within itself all
+spectrums--not only those seen, but those UNSEEN by man's
+eyes.  It waxed brilliant and ever more brilliant, all suffusing,
+passing through me as day streams through a window pane!
+
+The enclosing facets burst into a blaze of coruscations, and
+in each sparkling panel I saw our images, shaken and torn
+like pennants in a whirlwind.  I turned to look--was stopped
+by the handmaiden's swift command: "Turn not--on your
+life!"
+
+The radiance behind me grew; was a rushing tempest of
+light in which I was but the shadow of a shadow.  I heard, but
+not with my ears--nay with MIND itself--a vast roaring; an
+ORDERED tumult of sound that came hurling from the outposts
+of space; approaching--rushing--hurricane out of the heart
+of the cosmos--closer, closer.  It wrapped itself about us with
+unearthly mighty arms.
+
+And brilliant, ever more brilliant, streamed the radiance
+through us.
+
+The faceted walls dimmed; in front of me they melted,
+diaphanously, like a gelatinous wall in a blast of flame;
+through their vanishing, under the torrent of driving light,
+the unthinkable, impalpable tornado, I began to move, slowly
+--then ever more swiftly!
+
+Still the roaring grew; the radiance streamed--ever faster
+we went.  Cutting down through the length, the EXTENSION
+of me, dropped a wall of rock, foreshortened, clenched close;
+I caught a glimpse of the elfin gardens; they whirled, con-
+tracted, into a thin--slice--of colour that was a part of me;
+another wall of rock shrinking into a thin wedge through
+which I flew, and that at once took its place within me like a
+card slipped beside those others!
+
+Flashing around me, and from Lakla and O'Keefe, were
+nimbuses of flickering scarlet flames.  And always the steady
+hurling forward--appallingly mechanical.
+
+Another barrier of rock--a gleam of white waters incor-
+porating themselves into my--DRAWING OUT--even as were
+the flowered moss lands, the slicing, rocky walls--still
+another rampart of cliff, dwindling instantly into the vertical
+plane of those others.  Our flight checked; we seemed to hover
+within, then to sway onward--slowly, cautiously.
+
+A mist danced ahead of me--a mist that grew steadily
+thinner.  We stopped, wavered--the mist cleared.
+
+I looked out into translucent, green distances; shot with
+swift prismatic gleamings; waves and pulsings of luminosity
+like midday sun glow through green, tropic waters: dancing,
+scintillating veils of sparkling atoms that flew, hither and
+yon, through depths of nebulous splendour!
+
+And Lakla and Larry and I were, I saw, like shadow
+shapes upon a smooth breast of stone twenty feet or more
+above the surface of this place--a surface spangled with tiny
+white blossoms gleaming wanly through creeping veils of
+phosphorescence like smoke of moon fire.  We were shadows
+--and yet we had substance; we were incorporated with, a
+part of, the rock--and yet we were living flesh and blood; we
+stretched--nor will I qualify this--we STRETCHED through
+mile upon mile of space that weirdly enough gave at one
+and the same time an absolute certainty of immense horizon-
+tal lengths and a vertical concentration that contained noth-
+ing of length, nothing of space whatever; we stood THERE
+upon the face of the stone--and still we were HERE within
+the faceted oval before the screen of radiance!
+
+"Steady!" It was Lakla's voice--and not beside me THERE,
+but at my ear close before the screen.  "Steady, Goodwin!
+And--see!"
+
+The sparkling haze cleared.  Enormous reaches stretched
+before me.  Shimmering up through them, and as though
+growing in some medium thicker than air, was mass upon
+mass of verdure--fruiting trees and trees laden with pale
+blossoms, arbours and bowers of pallid blooms, like that sea
+fruit of oblivion--grapes of Lethe--that cling to the tide-
+swept walls of the caverns of the Hebrides.
+
+Through them, beyond them, around and about them,
+drifted and eddied a horde--great as that with which Tamer-
+lane swept down upon Rome, vast as the myriads which
+Genghis Khan rolled upon the califs--men and women and
+children--clothed in tatters, half nude and wholly naked;
+slant-eyed Chinese, sloe-eyed Malays, islanders black and
+brown and yellow, fierce-faced warriors of the Solomons
+with grizzled locks fantastically bedizened; Papuans, feline
+Javans, Dyaks of hill and shore; hook-nosed Phoenicians,
+Romans, straight-browed Greeks, and Vikings centuries BEYOND
+their lives: scores of the black-haired Murians; white
+faces of our own Westerners--men and women and children
+--drifting, eddying--each stamped with that mingled horror
+and rapture, eyes filled with ecstasy and terror entwined,
+marked by God and devil in embrace--the seal of the Shin-
+ing One--the dead-alive; the lost ones!
+
+The loot of the Dweller!
+
+Soul-sick, I gazed.  They lifted to us visages of dread; they
+swept down toward us, glaring upward--a bank against
+which other and still other waves of faces rolled, were
+checked, paused; until as far as I could see, like billows
+piled upon an ever-growing barrier, they stretched beneath
+us--staring--staring!
+
+Now there was a movement--far, far away; a concentrat-
+ing of the lambency; the dead-alive swayed, oscillated, sep-
+arated--forming a long lane against whose outskirts they
+crowded with avid, hungry insistence.
+
+First only a luminous cloud, then a whirling pillar of
+splendours through the lane came--the Shining One.  As it
+passed, the dead-alive swirled in its wake like leaves behind
+a whirlwind, eddying, twisting; and as the Dweller raced by
+them, brushing them with its spirallings and tentacles, they
+shone forth with unearthly, awesome gleamings--like ves-
+sels of alabaster in which wicks flare suddenly.  And when it
+had passed they closed behind it, staring up at us once more.
+
+The Dweller paused beneath us.
+
+Out of the drifting ruck swam the body of Throckmartin!
+Throckmartin, my friend, to find whom I had gone to the
+pallid moon door; my friend whose call I had so laggardly
+followed.  On his face was the Dweller's dreadful stamp; the
+lips were bloodless; the eyes were wide, lucent, something
+like pale, phosphorescence gleaming within them--and soul-
+less.
+
+He stared straight up at me, unwinking, unrecognizing.
+Pressing against his side was a woman, young and gentle,
+and lovely--lovely even through the mask that lay upon
+her face.  And her wide eyes, like Throckmartin's, glowed
+with the lurking, unholy fires.  She pressed against him
+closely; though the hordes kept up the faint churning, these
+two kept ever together, as though bound by unseen fetters.
+
+And I knew the girl for Edith, his wife, who in vain effort
+to save him had cast herself into the Dweller's embrace!
+
+"Throckmartin!" I cried.  "Throckmartin!  I'm here!"
+
+Did he hear?  I know now, of course, he could not.
+
+But then I waited--hope striving to break through the
+nightmare hands that gripped my heart.
+
+Their wide eyes never left me.  There was another move-
+ment about them, others pushed past them; they drifted
+back, swaying, eddying--and still staring were lost in the
+awful throng.
+
+Vainly I strained my gaze to find them again, to force
+some sign of recognition, some awakening of the clean life
+we know.  But they were gone.  Try as I would I could not see
+them--nor Stanton and the northern woman named Thora
+who had been the first of that tragic party to be taken by
+the Dweller.
+
+"Throckmartin!" I cried again, despairingly.  My tears
+blinded me.
+
+I felt Lakla's light touch.
+
+"Steady," she commanded, pitifully.  "Steady, Goodwin.
+You cannot help them--now!  Steady and--watch!"
+
+Below us the Shining One had paused--spiralling, swirl-
+ing, vibrant with all its transcendent, devilish beauty; had
+paused and was contemplating us.  Now I could see clearly
+that nucleus, that core shot through with flashing veins of
+radiance, that ever-shifting shape of glory through the
+shroudings of shimmering, misty plumes, throbbing lacy
+opalescences, vaporous spirallings of prismatic phantom
+fires.  Steady over it hung the seven little moons of amethyst,
+of saffron, of emerald and azure and silver, of rose of life
+and moon white.  They poised themselves like a diadem--
+calm, serene, immobile--and down from them into the Dwel-
+ler, piercing plumes and swirls and spirals, ran countless
+tiny strands, radiations, finer than the finest spun thread of
+spider's web, gleaming filaments through which seemed to
+run--POWER--from the seven globes; like--yes, that was it
+--miniatures of the seven torrents of moon flame that poured
+through the septichromatic, high crystals in the Moon Pool's
+chamber roof.
+
+Swam out of the coruscating haze the--face!
+
+Both of man and of woman it was--like some ancient,
+androgynous deity of Etruscan fanes long dust, and yet
+neither woman nor man; human and unhuman, seraphic and
+sinister, benign and malefic--and still no more of these four
+than is flame, which is beautiful whether it warms or devours,
+or wind whether it feathers the trees or shatters them, or
+the wave which is wondrous whether it caresses or kills.
+
+Subtly, undefinably it was of our world and of one not
+ours.  Its lineaments flowed from another sphere, took fleet-
+ing familiar form--and as swiftly withdrew whence they had
+come; something amorphous, unearthly--as of unknown un-
+heeding, unseen gods rushing through the depths of star-
+hung space; and still of our own earth, with the very soul of
+earth peering out from it, caught within it--and in some--
+unholy--way debased.
+
+It had eyes--eyes that were now only shadows darkening
+within its luminosity like veils falling, and falling, OPENING
+windows into the unknowable; deepening into softly glowing
+blue pools, blue as the Moon Pool itself; then flashing
+out, and this only when the--face--bore its most human
+resemblance, into twin stars large almost as the crown of lit-
+tle moons; and with that same baffling suggestion of peep-
+holes into a world untrodden, alien, perilous to man!
+
+"Steady!" came Lakla's voice, her body leaned against
+mine.
+
+I gripped myself, my brain steadied, I looked again.  And
+I saw that of body, at least body as we know it, the Shining
+One had none--nothing but the throbbing, pulsing core
+streaked with lightning veins of rainbows; and around this,
+never still, sheathing it, the swirling, glorious veilings of its
+hell and heaven born radiance.
+
+So the Dweller stood--and gazed.
+
+Then up toward us swept a reaching, questing spiral!
+
+Under my hand Lakla's shoulder quivered; Dead-Alive
+and their master vanished--I danced, flickered, WITHIN the
+rock; felt a swift sense of shrinking, of withdrawal; slice
+upon slice the carded walls of stone, of silvery waters, of
+elfin gardens slipped from me as cards are withdrawn from
+a pack, one by one--slipped, wheeled, flattened, and length-
+ened out as I passed through them and they passed from me.
+
+Gasping, shaken, weak, I stood within the faceted oval
+chamber; arm still about the handmaiden's white shoulder;
+Larry's hand still clutching her girdle.
+
+The roaring, impalpable gale from the cosmos was retreat-
+ing to the outposts of space--was still; the intense, streaming,
+flooding radiance lessened--died.
+
+"Now have you beheld," said Lakla, "and well you trod
+the road.  And now shall you hear, even as the Silent Ones
+have commanded, what the Shining One is--and how it
+came to be."
+
+The steps flashed back; the doorway into the chamber
+opened.
+
+Larry as silent as I--we followed her through it.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+The Shaping of the Shining One
+
+WE REACHED what I knew to be Lakla's own boudoir, if I
+may so call it.  Smaller than any of the other chambers of the
+domed castle in which we had been, its intimacy was re-
+vealed not only by its faint fragrance but by its high mir-
+rors of polished silver and various oddly wrought articles
+of the feminine toilet that lay here and there; things I after-
+ward knew to be the work of the artisans of the _Akka_--
+and no mean metal workers were they.  One of the window
+slits dropped almost to the floor, and at its base was a wide,
+comfortably cushioned seat commanding a view of the
+bridge and of the cavern ledge.  To this the handmaiden
+beckoned us; sank upon it, drew Larry down beside her and
+motioned me to sit close to him.
+
+"Now this," she said, "is what the Silent Ones have com-
+manded me to tell you two: To you Larry, that knowing you
+may weigh all things in your mind and answer as your spirit
+bids you a question that the Three will ask--and what that
+is I know not," she murmured, "and I, they say, must answer,
+too--and it--frightens me!"
+
+The great golden eyes widened; darkened with dread; she
+sighed, shook her head impatiently.
+
+"Not like us, and never like us," she spoke low, wonder-
+ingly, "the Silent Ones say were they.  Nor were those from
+which they sprang like those from which we have come.
+Ancient, ancient beyond thought are the _Taithu_, the race of
+the Silent Ones.  Far, far below this place where now we sit,
+close to earth heart itself were they born; and there they
+dwelt for time upon time, _laya_ upon _laya_ upon _laya_--with
+others, not like them, some of which have vanished time
+upon time agone, others that still dwell--below--in their--
+cradle.
+
+"It is hard"--she hesitated--"hard to tell this--that slips
+through my mind--because I know so little that even as the
+Three told it to me it passed from me for lack of place to
+stand upon," she went on, quaintly.  "Something there was
+of time when earth and sun were but cold mists in the--
+the heavens--something of these mists drawing together,
+whirling, whirling, faster and faster--drawing as they
+whirled more and more of the mists--growing larger, grow-
+ing warm--forming at last into the globes they are, with
+others spinning around the sun--something of regions within
+this globe where vast fire was prisoned and bursting forth
+tore and rent the young orb--of one such bursting forth that
+sent what you call moon flying out to company us and left
+behind those spaces whence we now dwell--and of--of life
+particles that here and there below grew into the race of
+the Silent Ones, and those others--but not the _Akka_ which,
+like you, they say came from above--and all this I do not
+understand--do you, Goodwin?" she appealed to me.
+
+I nodded--for what she had related so fragmentarily was
+in reality an excellent approach to the Chamberlain-Moulton
+theory of a coalescing nebula contracting into the sun and
+its planets.
+
+Astonishing was the recognition of this theory.  Even more
+so was the reference to the life particles, the idea of Arrhen-
+ius, the great Swede, of life starting on earth through the
+dropping of minute, life SPORES, propelled through space by
+the driving power of light and, encountering favourable
+environment here, developing through the vast ages into
+man and every other living thing we know.1
+
+
+*1 Professor Svante August Arrhenius, in his _Worlds in the Making_--
+the conception that life is universally diffused, constantly emitted from
+all habitable worlds in the form of spores which traverse space for
+years and ages, the majority being ultimately destroyed by the heat of
+some blazing star, but some few finding a resting-place on globes
+which have reached the habitable stage.--W. T. G.
+
+
+
+Nor was it incredible that in the ancient nebula that was
+the matrix of our solar system similar, or rather DISSIMILAR,
+particles in all but the subtle essence we call life, might have
+become entangled and, resisting every cataclysm as they had
+resisted the absolute zero of outer space, found in these
+caverned spaces their proper environment to develop into the
+race of the Silent Ones and--only THEY could tell what else!
+
+"They say," the handmaiden's voice was surer, "they say
+that in their--cradle--near earth's heart they grew; grew
+untroubled by the turmoil and disorder which flayed the
+surface of this globe.  And they say it was a place of light
+and that strength came to them from earth heart--strength
+greater than you and those from which you sprang ever de-
+rived from sun.
+
+"At last, ancient, ancient beyond all thought, they say
+again, was this time--they began to know, to--to--realize--
+themselves.  And wisdom came ever more swiftly.  Up from
+their cradle, because they did not wish to dwell longer with
+those--others--they came and found this place.
+
+"When all the face of earth was covered with waters in
+which lived only tiny, hungry things that knew naught save
+hunger and its satisfaction, THEY had attained wisdom that
+enabled them to make paths such as we have just travelled
+and to look out upon those waters!  And _laya_ upon _laya_
+thereafter, time upon time, they went upon the paths and
+watched the flood recede; saw great bare flats of steaming
+ooze appear on which crawled and splashed larger things
+which had grown from the tiny hungry ones; watched the
+flats rise higher and higher and green life begin to clothe
+them; saw mountains uplift and vanish.
+
+"Ever the green life waxed and the things which crept
+and crawled grew greater and took ever different forms;
+until at last came a time when the steaming mists lightened
+and the things which had begun as little more than tiny
+hungry mouths were huge and monstrous, so huge that the
+tallest of my _Akka_ would not have reached the knee of the
+smallest of them.
+
+"But in none of these, in NONE, was there--realization--
+of themselves, say the Three; naught but hunger driving, al-
+ways driving them to still its crying.
+
+"So for time upon time the race of the Silent Ones took
+the paths no more, placing aside the half-thought that they
+had of making their way to earth face even as they had made
+their way from beside earth heart.  They turned wholly to the
+seeking of wisdom--and after other time on time they at-
+tained that which killed even the faintest shadow of the
+half-thought.  For they crept far within the mysteries of life
+and death, they mastered the illusion of space, they lifted
+the veils of creation and of its twin destruction, and they
+stripped the covering from the flaming jewel of truth--but
+when they had crept within those mysteries they bid me tell
+YOU, Goodwin, they found ever other mysteries veiling the
+way; and after they had uncovered the jewel of truth they
+found it to be a gem of infinite facets and therefore not
+wholly to be read before eternity's unthinkable end!
+
+"And for this they were glad--because now throughout
+eternity might they and theirs pursue knowledge over ways
+illimitable.
+
+"They conquered light--light that sprang at their bidding
+from the nothingness that gives birth to all things and in
+which lie all things that are, have been and shall be; light
+that streamed through their bodies cleansing them of all
+dross; light that was food and drink; light that carried their
+vision afar or bore to them images out of space opening
+many windows through which they gazed down upon life
+on thousands upon thousands of the rushing worlds; light
+that was the flame of life itself and in which they bathed,
+ever renewing their own.  They set radiant lamps within the
+stones, and of black light they wove the sheltering shadows
+and the shadows that slay.
+
+"Arose from this people those Three--the Silent Ones.
+They led them all in wisdom so that in the Three grew--
+pride.  And the Three built them this place in which we sit
+and set the Portal in its place and withdrew from their kind
+to go alone into the mysteries and to map alone the facets of
+Truth Jewel.
+
+"Then there came the ancestors of the--_Akka_; not as they
+are now, and glowing but faintly within them the spark of
+--self-realization.  And the _Taithu_ seeing this spark did not
+slay them.  But they took the ancient, long untrodden paths
+and looked forth once more upon earth face.  Now on the
+land were vast forests and a chaos of green life.  On the
+shores things scaled and fanged, fought and devoured each
+other, and in the green life moved bodies great and small
+that slew and ran from those that would slay.
+
+"They searched for the passage through which the _Akka_
+had come and closed it.  Then the Three took them and
+brought them here; and taught them and blew upon the
+spark until it burned ever stronger and in time they became
+much as they are now--my _Akka_.
+
+"The Three took counsel after this and said--'We have
+strengthened life in these until it has become articulate; shall
+we not CREATE life?'" Again she hesitated, her eyes rapt,
+dreaming.  "The Three are speaking," she murmured.  "They
+have my tongue--"
+
+And certainly, with an ease and rapidity as though she
+were but a voice through which minds far more facile, more
+powerful poured their thoughts, she spoke.
+
+"Yea," the golden voice was vibrant.  "We said that what
+we would create should be of the spirit of life itself, speak-
+ing to us with the tongues of the far-flung stars, of the winds,
+of the waters, and of all upon and within these.  Upon that
+universal matrix of matter, that mother of all things that
+you name the ether, we laboured.  Think not that her won-
+drous fertility is limited by what ye see on earth or what has
+been on earth from its beginning.  Infinite, infinite are the
+forms the mother bears and countless are the energies that
+are part of her.
+
+"By our wisdom we had fashioned many windows out of
+our abode and through them we stared into the faces of
+myriads of worlds, and upon them all were the children of
+ether even as the worlds themselves were her children.
+
+"Watching we learned, and learning we formed that ye
+term the Dweller, which those without name--the Shining
+One.  Within the Universal Mother we shaped it, to be a voice
+to tell us her secrets, a lamp to go before us lighting the
+mysteries.  Out of the ether we fashioned it, giving it the
+soul of light that still ye know not nor perhaps ever may
+know, and with the essence of life that ye saw blossoming
+deep in the abyss and that is the pulse of earth heart we
+filled it.  And we wrought with pain and with love, with
+yearning and with scorching pride and from our travail came
+the Shining One--our child!
+
+"There is an energy beyond and above ether, a purpose-
+ful, sentient force that laps like an ocean the furthest-flung
+star, that transfuses all that ether bears, that sees and speaks
+and feels in us and in you, that is incorporate in beast and
+bird and reptile, in tree and grass and all living things, that
+sleeps in rock and stone, that finds sparkling tongue in jewel
+and star and in all dwellers within the firmament.  And this
+ye call consciousness!
+
+"We crowned the Shining One with the seven orbs of light
+which are the channels between it and the sentience we
+sought to make articulate, the portals through which flow
+its currents and so flowing, become choate, vocal, self-
+realizant within our child.
+
+"But as we shaped, there passed some of the essence of
+our pride; in giving will we had given power, perforce, to
+exercise that will for good or for evil, to speak or to be si-
+lent, to tell us what we wished of that which poured into it
+through the seven orbs or to withhold that knowledge itself;
+and in forging it from the immortal energies we had en-
+dowed it with their indifference; open to all consciousness it
+held within it the pole of utter joy and the pole of utter woe
+with all the arc that lies between; all the ecstasies of the
+countless worlds and suns and all their sorrows; all that ye
+symbolize as gods and all ye symbolize as devils--not nega-
+tiving each other, for there is no such thing as negation, but
+holding them together, balancing them, encompassing them,
+pole upon pole!"
+
+So THIS was the explanation of the entwined emotions of
+joy and terror that had changed so appallingly Throckmar-
+tin's face and the faces of all the Dweller's slaves!
+
+The handmaiden's eyes grew bright, alert, again; the
+brooding passed from her face; the golden voice that had
+been so deep found its own familiar pitch.
+
+"I listened while the Three spoke to you," she said.  "Now
+the shaping of the Shining One had been a long, long travail
+and time had flown over the outer world _laya_ upon _laya_.  For
+a space the Shining One was content to dwell here; to be
+fed with the foods of light: to open the eyes of the Three
+to mystery upon mystery and to read for them facet after
+facet of the gem of truth.  Yet as the tides of consciousness
+flowed through it they left behind shadowings and echoes of
+their burdens; and the Shining One grew stronger, always
+stronger of ITSELF WITHIN ITSELF.  Its will strengthened and now
+not always was it the will of the Three; and the pride that
+was woven in the making of it waxed, while the love for them
+that its creators had set within it waned.
+
+"Not ignorant were the _Taithu_ of the work of the Three.
+First there were a few, then more and more who coveted the
+Shining One and who would have had the Three share with
+them the knowledge it drew in for them.  But the Silent Ones
+in their pride, would not.
+
+"There came a time when its will was now ALL its own, and
+it rebelled, turning its gaze to the wider spaces beyond the
+Portal, offering itself to the many there who would serve it;
+tiring of the Three, their control and their abode.
+
+"Now the Shining One has its limitations, even as we.  Over
+water it can pass, through air and through fire; but pass it
+cannot, through rock or metal.  So it sent a message--how I
+know not--to the _Taithu_ who desired it, whispering to them
+the secret of the Portal.  And when the time was ripe they
+opened the Portal and the Shining One passed through it to
+them; nor would it return to the Three though they com-
+manded, and when they would have forced it they found
+that it had hived and hidden a knowledge that they could not
+overcome.
+
+"Yet by their arts the Three could have shattered the
+seven shining orbs; but they would not because--they loved,
+it!
+
+"Those to whom it had gone built for it that place I have
+shown you, and they bowed to it and drew wisdom from it.
+And ever they turned more and more from the ways in which
+the _Taithu_ had walked--for it seemed that which came to
+the Shining One through the seven orbs had less and less of
+good and more and more of the power you call evil.  Knowl-
+edge it gave and understanding, yes; but not that which, clear
+and serene, lights the paths of right wisdom; rather were
+they flares pointing the dark roads that lead to--to the
+ultimate evil!
+
+"Not all of the race of the Three followed the counsel of
+the Shining One.  There were many, many, who would have
+none of it nor of its power.  So were the _Taithu_ split; and to
+this place where there had been none, came hatred, fear and
+suspicion.  Those who pursued the ancient ways went to the
+Three and pleaded with them to destroy their work--and
+they would not, for still they loved it.
+
+"Stronger grew the Dweller and less and less did it lay
+before its worshippers--for now so they had become--the
+fruits of its knowledge; and it grew--restless--turning its
+gaze upon earth face even as it had turned it from the Three.
+It whispered to the _Taithu_ to take again the paths and look
+out upon the world.  Lo!  above them was a great fertile land
+on which dwelt an unfamiliar race, skilled in arts, seeking
+and finding wisdom--mankind!  Mighty builders were they;
+vast were their cities and huge their temples of stone.
+
+"They called their lands Muria and they worshipped a
+god Thanaroa whom they imagined to be the maker of all
+things, dwelling far away.  They worshipped as closer gods,
+not indifferent but to be prayed to and to be propitiated, the
+moon and the sun.  Two kings they had, each with his coun-
+cil and his court.  One was high priest to the moon and the
+other high priest to the sun.
+
+"The mass of this people were black-haired, but the sun
+king and his nobles were ruddy with hair like mine; and
+the moon king and his followers were like Yolara--or
+Lugur.  And this, the Three say, Goodwin, came about be-
+cause for time upon time the law had been that whenever a
+ruddy-haired or ashen-tressed child was born of the black-
+haired it became dedicated at once to either sun god or moon
+god, later wedding and bearing children only to their own
+kind.  Until at last from the black-haired came no more of the
+light-locked ones, but the ruddy ones, being stronger, still
+arose from them."
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+The Building of the Moon Pool
+
+SHE PAUSED, running her long fingers through her own
+bronze-flecked ringlets.  Selective breeding this, with a ven-
+geance, I thought; an ancient experiment in heredity which
+of course would in time result in the stamping out of the
+tendency to depart from type that lies in all organisms; re-
+sulting, obviously, at last, in three fixed forms of black-haired,
+ruddy-haired, and silver-haired--but this, with a shock of
+realization it came to me, was also an accurate description
+of the dark-polled _ladala_, their fair-haired rulers and of the
+golden-brown tressed Lakla!
+
+How--questions began to stream through my mind; si-
+lenced by the handmaiden's voice.
+
+"Above, far, far above the abode of the Shining One,"
+she said, "was their greatest temple, holding the shrines both
+of sun and moon.  All about it were other temples hidden
+behind mighty walls, each enclosing its own space and
+squared and ruled and standing within a shallow lake; the
+sacred city, the city of the gods of this land--"
+
+"It is the Nan-Matal that she is describing," I thought.
+
+"Out upon all this looked the _Taithu_ who were now but
+the servants of the Shining One as it had been the messenger
+of the Three," she went on.  "When they returned the Shin-
+ing One spoke to them, promising them dominion over all
+that they had seen, yea, UNDER IT dominion of all earth itself
+and later perhaps of other earths!
+
+"In the Shining One had grown craft, cunning; knowledge
+to gain that which it desired.  Therefore it told its _Taithu_--
+and mayhap told them truth--that not yet was it time for
+THEM to go forth; that slowly must they pass into that outer
+world, for they had sprung from heart of earth and even it
+lacked power to swirl unaided into and through the above.
+Then it counselled them, instructing them what to do.  They
+hollowed the chamber wherein first I saw you, cutting their
+way to it that path down which from it you sped.
+
+"It revealed to them that the force that is within moon
+flame is kin to the force that is within it, for the chamber of
+its birth was the chamber too of moon birth and into it went
+the subtle essence and powers that flow in that earth child:
+and it taught them how to make that which fills what you call
+the Moon Pool whose opening is close behind its Veil hang-
+ing upon the gleaming cliffs.
+
+"When this was done it taught them how to make and how
+to place the seven lights through which moon flame streams
+into Moon Pool--the seven lights that are kin to its own
+seven orbs even as its fires are kin to moon fires--and which
+would open for it a path that it could tread.  And all this the
+_Taithu_ did, working so secretly that neither those of their
+race whose faces were set against the Shining One nor the
+busy men above know aught of it.
+
+"When it was done they moved up the path, clustering
+within the Moon Pool Chamber.  Moon flame streamed
+through the seven globes, poured down upon the pool; they
+saw mists arise, embrace, and become one with the moon
+flame--and then up through Moon Pool, shaping itself within
+the mists of light, whirling, radiant--the Shining One!
+
+"Almost free, almost loosed upon the world it coveted!
+
+"Again it counselled them, and they pierced the passage
+whose portal you found first; set the fires within its stones,
+and revealing themselves to the moon king and his priests
+spake to them even as the Shining One had instructed.
+
+"Now was the moon king filled with fear when he looked
+upon the _Taithu_, shrouded with protecting mists of light in
+Moon Pool Chamber, and heard their words.  Yet, being
+crafty, he thought of the power that would be his if he
+heeded and how quickly the strength of the sun king would
+dwindle.  So he and his made a pact with the Shining One's
+messengers.
+
+"When next the moon was round and poured its flames
+down upon Moon Pool, the _Taithu_ gathered there again,
+watched the child of the Three take shape within the pillars,
+speed away--and out!  They heard a mighty shouting, a
+tumult of terror, of awe and of worship; a silence; a vast
+sighing--and they waited, wrapped in their mists of light,
+for they feared to follow nor were they near the paths that
+would have enabled them to look without.
+
+"Another tumult--and back came the Shining One, mur-
+muring with joy, pulsing, triumphant, and clasped within its
+vapours a man and woman, ruddy-haired, golden-eyed, in
+whose faces rapture and horror lay side by side--gloriously,
+hideously.  And still holding them it danced above the Moon
+Pool and--sank!
+
+"Now must I be brief. _Lat_ after _lat_ the Shining One went
+forth, returning with its sacrifices.  And stronger after each
+it grew--and gayer and more cruel.  Ever when it passed
+with its prey toward the pool, the _Taithu_ who watched felt
+a swift, strong intoxication, a drunkenness of spirit, stream-
+ing from it to them.  And the Shining One forgot what it had
+promised them of dominion--and in this new evil delight
+they too forgot.
+
+"The outer land was torn with hatred and open strife.
+The moon king and his kind, through the guidance of the
+evil _Taithu_ and the favour of the Shining One, had become
+powerful and the sun king and his were darkened.  And the
+moon priests preached that the child of the Three was the
+moon god itself come to dwell with them.
+
+"Now vast tides arose and when they withdrew they took
+with them great portions of this country.  And the land itself
+began to sink.  Then said the moon king that the moon had
+called to ocean to destroy because wroth that another than
+he was worshipped.  The people believed and there was
+slaughter.  When it was over there was no more a sun king
+nor any of the ruddy-haired folk; slain were they, slain down
+to the babe at breast.
+
+"But still the tides swept higher; still dwindled the land!
+
+"As it shrank multitudes of the fleeing people were led
+through Moon Pool Chamber and carried here.  They were
+what now are called the _ladala_, and they were given place
+and set to work; and they thrived.  Came many of the fair-
+haired; and they were given dwellings.  They sat beside the
+evil _Taithu_; they became drunk even as they with the dan-
+cing of the Shining One; they learned--not all; only a little
+part but little enough--of their arts.  And ever the Shining
+One danced more gaily out there within the black amphi-
+theatre; grew ever stronger--and ever the hordes of its
+slaves behind the Veil increased.
+
+"Nor did the _Taithu_ who clung to the old ways check this
+--they could not.  By the sinking of the land above, their
+own spaces were imperilled.  All of their strength and all of
+their wisdom it took to keep this land from perishing; nor
+had they help from those others mad for the poison of the
+Shining One; and they had no time to deal with them nor
+the earth race with whom they had foregathered.
+
+"At last came a slow, vast flood.  It rolled even to the
+bases of the walled islets of the city of the gods--and within
+these now were all that were left of my people on earth face.
+
+"I am of those people," she paused, looking at me proudly,
+"one of the daughters of the sun king whose seed is still alive
+in the _ladala_!"
+
+As Larry opened his mouth to speak she waved a silencing hand.
+
+"This tide did not recede," she went on.  "And after a time
+the remnant, the moon king leading them, joined those who
+had already fled below.  The rocks became still, the quakings
+ceased, and now those Ancient Ones who had been labouring
+could take breath.  And anger grew within them as they
+looked upon the work of their evil kin.  Again they sought
+the Three--and the Three now knew what they had done and
+their pride was humbled.  They would not slay the Shining
+One themselves, for still they loved it; but they instructed
+these others how to undo their work; how also they might
+destroy the evil _Taithu_ were it necessary.
+
+"Armed with the wisdom of the Three they went forth--
+but now the Shining One was strong indeed.  They could not
+slay it!
+
+"Nay, it knew and was prepared; they could not even pass
+beyond its Veil nor seal its abode.  Ah, strong, strong, mighty
+of will, full of craft and cunning had the Shining One be-
+come.  So they turned upon their kind who had gone astray
+and made them perish, to the last.  The Shining One came
+not to the aid of its servants--though they called; for within
+its will was the thought that they were of no further use to it;
+that it would rest awhile and dance with them--who had so
+little of the power and wisdom of its _Taithu_ and therefore
+no reins upon it.  And while this was happening black-haired
+and fair-haired ran and hid and were but shaking vessels of
+terror.
+
+"The Ancient Ones took counsel.  This was their decision;
+that they would go from the gardens before the Silver Waters
+--leaving, since they could not kill it, the Shining One with
+its worshippers.  They sealed the mouth of the passage that
+leads to the Moon Pool Chamber and they changed the face
+of the cliff so that none might tell where it had been.  But
+the passage itself they left open--having foreknowledge I
+think, of a thing that was to come to pass in the far future--
+perhaps it was your journey here, my Larry and Goodwin
+--verily I think so.  And they destroyed all the ways save that
+which we three trod to the Dweller's abode.
+
+"For the last time they went to the Three--to pass sen-
+tence upon them.  This was the doom--that here they should
+remain, alone, among the _Akka_, served by them, until that
+time dawned when they would have will to destroy the evil
+they had created--and even now--loved; nor might they
+seek death, nor follow their judges until this had come to
+pass.  This was the doom they put upon the Three for the
+wickedness that had sprung from their pride, and they
+strengthened it with their arts that it might not be broken.
+
+"Then they passed--to a far land they had chosen where
+the Shining One could not go, beyond the Black Precipices
+of Doul, a green land--"
+
+"Ireland!" interrupted Larry, with conviction, "I knew it."
+
+"Since then time upon time had passed," she went on,
+unheeding.  "The people called this place Muria after their
+sunken land and soon they forgot where had been the
+passage the _Taithu_ had sealed.  The moon king became the
+Voice of the Dweller and always with the Voice is a woman
+of the moon king's kin who is its priestess.
+
+"And many have been the journeys upward of the Shining
+One, through the Moon Pool--returning with still others in
+its coils.
+
+"And now again has it grown restless, longing for the
+wider spaces.  It has spoken to Yolara and to Lugur even as
+it did to the dead _Taithu_, promising them dominion.  And it
+has grown stronger, drawing to itself power to go far on the
+moon stream where it will.  Thus was it able to seize your
+friend, Goodwin, and Olaf's wife and babe--and many
+more.  Yolara and Lugur plan to open way to earth face; to
+depart with their court and under the Shining One grasp the
+world!
+
+"And this is the tale the Silent Ones bade me tell you--
+and it is done."
+
+Breathlessly I had listened to the stupendous epic of a
+long-lost world.  Now I found speech to voice the question
+ever with me, the thing that lay as close to my heart as did
+the welfare of Larry, indeed the whole object of my quest--
+the fate of Throckmartin and those who had passed with
+him into the Dweller's lair; yes, and of Olaf's wife, too.
+
+"Lakla," I said, "the friend who drew me here and those
+he loved who went before him--can we not save them?"
+
+"The Three say no, Goodwin." There was again in her
+eyes the pity with which she had looked upon Olaf.  "The
+Shining One--FEEDS--upon the flame of life itself, setting in
+its place its own fires and its own will.  Its slaves are only
+shells through which it gleams.  Death, say the Three, is the
+best that can come to them; yet will that be a boon great in-
+deed."
+
+"But they have souls, _mavourneen_," Larry said to her.
+"And they're alive still--in a way.  Anyhow, their souls have
+not gone from them."
+
+I caught a hope from his words--sceptic though I am--
+holding that the existence of soul has never been proved by
+dependable laboratory methods--for they recalled to me that
+when I had seen Throckmartin, Edith had been close beside
+him.
+
+"It was days after his wife was taken, that the Dweller
+seized Throckmartin," I cried.  "How, if their wills, their life,
+were indeed gone, how did they find each other mid all that
+horde?  How did they come together in the Dweller's lair?"
+
+"I do not know," she answered, slowly.  "You say they
+loved--and it is true that love is stronger even than death!"
+
+"One thing I DON'T understand"--this was Larry again--
+"is why a girl like you keeps coming out of the black-haired
+crowd; so frequently and one might say, so regularly, Lakla.
+Aren't there ever any red-headed boys--and if they are what
+becomes of them?"
+
+"That, Larry, I cannot answer," she said, very frankly.
+"There was a pact of some kind; how made or by whom I
+know not.  But for long the Murians feared the return of the
+_Taithu_ and greatly they feared the Three.  Even the Shining
+One feared those who had created it--for a time; and not
+even now is it eager to face them--THAT I know.  Nor are
+Yolara and Lugur so SURE.  It may be that the Three com-
+manded it: but how or why I know not.  I only know that it
+is true--for here am I and from where else would I have
+come?"
+
+"From Ireland," said Larry O'Keefe, promptly.  "And
+that's where you're going.  For 'tis no place for a girl like you
+to have been brought up--Lakla; what with people like
+frogs, and a half-god three quarters devil, and red oceans,
+an' the only Irish things yourself and the Silent Ones up
+there, bless their hearts.  It's no place for ye, and by the soul
+of St. Patrick, it's out of it soon ye'll be gettin'!"
+
+Larry!  Larry!  If it had but been true--and I could see
+Lakla and you beside me now!
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+Larry and the Frog-Men
+
+LONG had been her tale in the telling, and too long, perhaps,
+have I been in the repeating--but not every day are the
+mists rolled away to reveal undreamed secrets of earth-
+youth.  And I have set it down here, adding nothing, taking
+nothing from it; translating liberally, it is true, but constantly
+striving, while putting it into idea-forms and phraseology
+to be readily understood by my readers, to keep accurately to
+the spirit.  And this, I must repeat, I have done throughout
+my narrative, wherever it has been necessary to record con-
+versation with the Murians.
+
+Rising, I found I was painfully stiff--as muscle-bound as
+though I had actually trudged many miles.  Larry, imitating
+me, gave an involuntary groan.
+
+"Faith, _mavourneen_," he said to Lakla, relapsing uncon-
+sciously into English, "your roads would never wear out
+shoe-leather, but they've got their kick, just the same!"
+
+She understood our plight, if not his words; gave a soft
+little cry of mingled pity and self-reproach; forced us back
+upon the cushions.
+
+"Oh, but I'm sorry!" mourned Lakla, leaning over us.  "I
+had forgotten--for those new to it the way is a weary one,
+indeed--"
+
+She ran to the doorway, whistled a clear high note down
+the passage.  Through the hangings came two of the frog-men.
+She spoke to them rapidly.  They crouched toward us, what
+certainly was meant for an amiable grin wrinkling the gro-
+tesque muzzles, baring the glistening rows of needle-teeth.
+And while I watched them with the fascination that they
+never lost for me, the monsters calmly swung one arm
+around our knees, lifted us up like babies--and as calmly
+started to walk away with us!
+
+"Put me down!  Put me down, I say!" The O'Keefe's voice
+was both outraged and angry; squinting around I saw him
+struggling violently to get to his feet.  The _Akka_ only held
+him tighter, booming comfortingly, peering down into his
+flushed face inquiringly.
+
+"But, Larry--darlin'!" --Lakla's tones were--well, mater-
+nally surprised--"you're stiff and sore, and Kra can carry
+you quite easily."
+
+"I WON'T be carried!" sputtered the O'Keefe.  "Damn it,
+Goodwin, there are such things as the unities even here, an'
+for a lieutenant of the Royal Air Force to be picked up an'
+carted around like a--like a bundle of rags--it's not disci-
+pline!  Put me down, ye _omadhaun_, or I'll poke ye in the
+snout!" he shouted to his bearer--who only boomed gently,
+and stared at the handmaiden, plainly for further instructions.
+
+"But, Larry--dear!"--Lakla was plainly distressed--"it
+will HURT you to walk; and I don't WANT you to hurt, Larry--
+darlin'!"
+
+"Holy shade of St. Patrick!" moaned Larry; again he made
+a mighty effort to tear himself from the frog-man's grip;
+gave up with a groan.  "Listen, _alanna_!" he said plaintively.
+"When we get to Ireland, you and I, we won't have anybody
+to pick us up and carry us about every time we get a bit tired.
+And it's getting me in bad habits you are!"
+
+"Oh, YES, we will, Larry!" cried the handmaiden,
+"because many, oh, many, of my _Akka_ will go with us!"
+
+"Will you tell this--BOOB!--to put me down!" gritted the
+now thoroughly aroused O'Keefe.  I couldn't help laughing;
+he glared at me.
+
+"Bo-oo-ob?" exclaimed Lakla.
+
+"Yes, boo-oo-ob!" said O'Keefe, "an' I have no desire to
+explain the word in my present position, light of my soul!"
+
+The handmaiden sighed, plainly dejected.  But she spoke
+again to the _Akka_, who gently lowered the O'Keefe to the
+floor.
+
+"I don't understand," she said hopelessly, "if you want to
+walk, why, of course, you shall, Larry." She turned to me.
+
+"Do you?" she asked.
+
+"I do not," I said firmly.
+
+"Well, then," murmured Lakla, "go you, Larry and Good-
+win, with Kra and Gulk, and let them minister to you.  After,
+sleep a little--for not soon will Rador and Olaf return.  And
+let me feel your lips before you go, Larry--darlin'!" She
+covered his eyes caressingly with her soft little palms; pushed
+him away.
+
+"Now go," said Lakla, "and rest!"
+
+Unashamed I lay back against the horny chest of Gulk;
+and with a smile noticed that Larry, even if he had rebelled
+at being carried, did not disdain the support of Kra's shin-
+ing, black-scaled arm which, slipping around his waist, half-
+lifted him along.
+
+They parted a hanging and dropped us softly down beside
+a little pool, sparkling with the clear water that had hereto-
+fore been brought us in the wide basins.  Then they began
+to undress us.  And at this point the O'Keefe gave up.
+
+"Whatever they're going to do we can't stop 'em, Doc!"
+he moaned.  "Anyway, I feel as though I've been pulled
+through a knot-hole, and I don't care--I don't care--as the
+song says."
+
+When we were stripped we were lowered gently into the
+water.  But not long did the _Akka_ let us splash about the
+shallow basin.  They lifted us out, and from jars began deftly
+to anoint and rub us with aromatic unguents.
+
+I think that in all the medley of grotesque, of tragic, of
+baffling, strange and perilous experiences in that under-
+ground world none was more bizarre than this--valeting.
+I began to laugh, Larry joined me, and then Kra and Gulk
+joined in our merriment with deep batrachian cachinnations
+and gruntings.  Then, having finished apparelling us and still
+chuckling, the two touched our arms and led us out, into a
+room whose circular sides were ringed with soft divans.  Still
+smiling, I sank at once into sleep.
+
+How long I slumbered I do not know.  A low and thunder-
+ous booming coming through the deep window slit, reverbe-
+rated through the room and awakened me.  Larry yawned;
+arose briskly.
+
+"Sounds as though the bass drums of every jazz band in
+New York were serenading us!" he observed.  Simultaneously
+we sprang to the window; peered through.
+
+We were a little above the level of the bridge, and its full
+length was plain before us.  Thousands upon thousands of
+the _Akka_ were crowding upon it, and far away other hordes
+filled like a glittering thicket both sides of the cavern ledge's
+crescent strand.  On black scale and orange scale the crimson
+light fell, picking them off in little flickering points.
+
+Upon the platform from which sprang the smaller span
+over the abyss were Lakla, Olaf, and Rador; the handmaiden
+clearly acting as interpreter between them and the giant she
+had called Nak, the Frog King.
+
+"Come on!" shouted Larry.
+
+Out of the open portal we ran; over the World Heart
+Bridge--and straight into the group.
+
+"Oh!" cried Lakla, "I didn't want you to wake up so soon,
+Larry--darlin'!"
+
+"See here, _mavourneen_!" Indignation thrilled in the Irish-
+man's voice.  "I'm not going to be done up with baby-rib-
+bons and laid away in a cradle for safe-keeping while a fight
+is on; don't think it.  Why didn't you call me?"
+
+"You needed rest!" There was indomitable determination
+in the handmaiden's tones, the eternal maternal shining de-
+fiant from her eyes.  "You were tired and you hurt!  You
+shouldn't have got up!"
+
+"Needed the rest!" groaned Larry.  "Look here, Lakla,
+what do you think I am?"
+
+"You're all I have," said that maiden firmly, "and I'm go-
+ing to take care of you, Larry--darlin'!  Don't you ever think
+anything else."
+
+"Well, pulse of my heart, considering my delicate health
+and general fragility, would it hurt me, do you think, to be
+told what's going on?" he asked.
+
+"Not at all, Larry!" answered the handmaiden serenely.
+"Yolara went through the Portal.  She was very, VERY angry--"
+
+"She was all the devil's woman that she is!" rumbled Olaf.
+
+"Rador met the messenger," went on the Golden Girl
+calmly.  "The _ladala_ are ready to rise when Lugur and Yo-
+lara lead their hosts against us.  They will strike at those left
+behind.  And in the meantime we shall have disposed my
+_Akka_ to meet Yolara's men.  And on that disposal we must
+all take counsel, you, Larry, and Rador, Olaf and Goodwin
+and Nak, the ruler of the _Akka_."
+
+"Did the messenger give any idea when Yolara expects
+to make her little call?" asked Larry.
+
+"Yes," she answered.  "They prepare, and we may expect
+them in--" She gave the equivalent of about thirty-six hours
+of our time.
+
+"But, Lakla," I said, the doubt that I had long been hold-
+ing finding voice, "should the Shining One come--with its
+slaves--are the Three strong enough to cope with it?"
+
+There was troubled doubt in her own eyes.
+
+"I do not know," she said at last, frankly.  "You have
+heard their story.  What they promise is that they will help.
+I do not know--any more than do you, Goodwin!"
+
+I looked up at the dome beneath which I knew the dread
+Trinity stared forth; even down upon us.  And despite the
+awe, the assurance, I had felt when I stood before them I,
+too, doubted.
+
+"Well," said Larry, "you and I, uncle," he turned to
+Rador, "and Olaf here had better decide just what part of the
+battle we'll lead--"
+
+"Lead!" the handmaiden was appalled. "YOU lead, Larry?
+Why you are to stay with Goodwin and with me--up there,
+there we can watch."
+
+"Heart's beloved," O'Keefe was stern indeed.  "A thousand
+times I've looked Death straight in the face, peered into his
+eyes.  Yes, and with ten thousand feet of space under me an'
+bursting shells tickling the ribs of the boat I was in.  An'
+d'ye think I'll sit now on the grandstand an' watch while a
+game like this is being pulled?  Ye don't know your future
+husband, soul of my delight!"
+
+And so we started toward the golden opening, squads of
+the frog-men following us soldierly and disappearing about
+the huge structure.  Nor did we stop until we came to the
+handmaiden's boudoir.  There we seated ourselves.
+
+"Now," said Larry, "two things I want to know.  First--
+how many can Yolara muster against us; second, how many
+of these _Akka_ have we to meet them?"
+
+Rador gave our equivalent for eighty thousand men as the
+force Yolara could muster without stripping her city.  Against
+this force, it appeared, we could count, roughly, upon two
+hundred thousand of the _Akka_.
+
+"And they're some fighters!" exclaimed Larry.  "Hell, with
+odds like that what're you worrying about?  It's over before
+it's begun."
+
+"But, _Larree_," objected Rador to this, "you forget that the
+nobles will have the _Keth_--and other things; also that the
+soldiers have fought against the _Akka_ before and will be
+shielded very well from their spears and clubs--and that
+their blades and javelins can bite through the scales of Nak's
+warriors.  They have many things--"
+
+"Uncle," interjected O'Keefe, "one thing they have is your
+nerve.  Why, we're more than two to one.  And take it from
+me--"
+
+Without warning dropped the tragedy!
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+"Your Love; Your Lives; Your Souls!"
+
+LAKLA had taken no part in the talk since we had reached
+her bower.  She had seated herself close to the O'Keefe.
+Glancing at her I had seen steal over her face that brood-
+ing, listening look that was hers whenever in that mysterious
+communion with the Three.  It vanished; swiftly she arose;
+interrupted the Irishman without ceremony.
+
+"Larry darlin'," said the handmaiden.  "The Silent Ones
+summon us!"
+
+"When do we go?" I asked; Larry's face grew bright with
+interest.
+
+"The time is now," she said--and hesitated.  "Larry dear,
+put your arms about me," she faltered, "for there is some-
+thing cold that catches at my heart--and I am afraid."
+
+At his exclamation she gathered herself together; gave a
+shaky little laugh.
+
+"It's because I love you so that fear has power to plague
+me," she told him.
+
+Without another word he bent and kissed her; in silence
+we passed on, his arm still about her girdled waist, golden
+head and black close together.  Soon we stood before the
+crimson slab that was the door to the sanctuary of the Silent
+Ones.  She poised uncertainly before it; then with a defiant
+arching of the proud little head that sent all the bronze-
+flecked curls flying, she pressed.  It slipped aside and once
+more the opalescence gushed out, flooding all about us.
+
+Dazzled as before, I followed through the lambent cas-
+cades pouring from the high, carved walls; paused, and my
+eyes clearing, looked up--straight into the faces of the
+Three.  The angled orbs centred upon the handmaiden; soft-
+ened as I had seen them do when first we had faced them.
+She smiled up; seemed to listen.
+
+"Come closer," she commanded, "close to the feet of the
+Silent Ones."
+
+We moved, pausing at the very base of the dais.  The
+sparkling mists thinned; the great heads bent slightly over us;
+through the veils I caught a glimpse of huge columnar necks,
+enormous shoulders covered with draperies as of pale-blue
+fire.
+
+I came back to attention with a start, for Lakla was
+answering a question only heard by her, and, answering it
+aloud, I perceived for our benefit; for whatever was the mode
+of communication between those whose handmaiden she
+was, and her, it was clearly independent of speech.
+
+"He has been told," she said, "even as you commanded."
+
+Did I see a shadow of pain flit across the flickering eyes?
+Wondering, I glanced at Lakla's face and there was a dawn
+of foreboding and bewilderment.  For a little she held her
+listening attitude; then the gaze of the Three left her;
+focused upon the O'Keefe.
+
+"Thus speak the Silent Ones--through Lakla, their hand-
+maiden," the golden voice was like low trumpet notes.  "At
+the threshold of doom is that world of yours above.  Yea,
+even the doom, Goodwin, that ye dreamed and the shadow
+of which, looking into your mind they see, say the Three.
+For not upon earth and never upon earth can man find means
+to destroy the Shining One."
+
+She listened again--and the foreboding deepened to an
+amazed fear.
+
+"They say, the Silent Ones," she went on, "that they know
+not whether even they have power to destroy.  Energies we
+know nothing of entered into its shaping and are part of it;
+and still other energies it has gathered to itself"--she
+paused; a shadow of puzzlement crept into her voice "and
+other energies still, forces that ye DO know and symbolize
+by certain names--hatred and pride and lust and many
+others which are forces real as that hidden in the _Keth_; and
+among them--fear, which weakens all those others--" Again
+she paused.
+
+"But within it is nothing of that greatest of all, that which
+can make powerless all the evil others, that which we call--
+love," she ended softly.
+
+"I'd like to be the one to put a little more FEAR in the
+beast," whispered Larry to me, grimly in our own English.
+The three weird heads bent, ever so slightly--and I gasped,
+and Larry grew a little white as Lakla nodded--
+
+"They say, Larry," she said, "that there you touch one
+side of the heart of the matter--for it is through the way of
+fear the Silent Ones hope to strike at the very life of the
+Shining One!"
+
+The visage Larry turned to me was eloquent of wonder;
+and mine reflected it--for what REALLY were this Three to
+whom our minds were but open pages, so easily read?  Not
+long could we conjecture; Lakla broke the little silence.
+
+"This, they say, is what is to happen.  First will come upon
+us Lugur and Yolara with all their host.  Because of fear the
+Shining One will lurk behind within its lair; for despite all,
+the Dweller DOES dread the Three, and only them.  With this
+host the Voice and the priestess will strive to conquer.  And
+if they do, then will they be strong enough, too, to destroy
+us all.  For if they take the abode they banish from the
+Dweller all fear and sound the end of the Three.
+
+"Then will the Shining One be all free indeed; free to go
+out into the world, free to do there as it wills!
+
+"But if they do not conquer--and the Shining One comes
+not to their aid, abandoning them even as it abandoned its
+own _Taithu_--then will the Three be loosed from a part of
+their doom, and they will go through the Portal, seek the
+Shining One beyond the Veil, and, piercing it through fear's
+opening, destroy it."
+
+"That's quite clear," murmured the O'Keefe in my ear.
+"Weaken the morale--then smash.  I've seen it happen a
+dozen times in Europe.  While they've got their nerve there's
+not a thing you can do; get their nerve--and not a thing can
+they do.  And yet in both cases they're the same men."
+
+Lakla had been listening again.  She turned, thrust out
+hands to Larry, a wild hope in her eyes--and yet a hope half
+shamed.
+
+"They say," she cried, "that they give us choice.  Remem-
+bering that your world doom hangs in the balance, we have
+choice--choice to stay and help fight Yolara's armies--and
+they say they look not lightly on that help.  Or choice to go--
+and if so be you choose the latter, then will they show an-
+other way that leads into your world!"
+
+A flush had crept over the O'Keefe's face as she was
+speaking.  He took her hands and looked long into the golden
+eyes; glancing up I saw the Trinity were watching them in-
+tently--imperturbably.
+
+"What do you say, _mavourneen_?" asked Larry gently.  The
+handmaiden hung her head; trembled.
+
+"Your words shall be mine, O one I love," she whispered.
+"So going or staying, I am beside you."
+
+"And you, Goodwin?" he turned to me.  I shrugged my
+shoulders--after all I had no one to care.
+
+"lt's up to you, Larry," I remarked, deliberately choosing
+his own phraseology.
+
+The O'Keefe straightened, squared his shoulders, gazed
+straight into the flame-flickering eyes.
+
+"We stick!" he said briefly.
+
+Shamefacedly I recall now that at the time I thought this
+colloquialism not only irreverent, but in somewhat bad taste.
+I am glad to say I was alone in that bit of weakness.  The face
+that Lakla turned to Larry was radiant with love, and al-
+though the shamed hope had vanished from the sweet eyes,
+they were shining with adoring pride.  And the marble vis-
+ages of the Three softened, and the little flames died down.
+
+"Wait," said Lakla, "there is one other thing they say we
+must answer before they will hold us to that promise--
+wait--"
+
+She listened, and then her face grew white--white as those
+of the Three themselves; the glorious eyes widened, stark
+terror filling them; the whole lithe body of her shook like a
+reed in the wind.
+
+"Not that!" she cried out to the Three.  "Oh, not that!  Not
+Larry--let me go even as you will--but not him!" She threw
+up frantic hands to the woman-being of the Trinity.  "Let
+ME bear it alone," she wailed.  "Alone--mother!  Mother!"
+
+The Three bent their heads toward her, their faces pitiful,
+and from the eyes of the woman One rolled--tears!  Larry
+leaped to Lakla's side.
+
+_"Mavourneen!"_ he cried.  "Sweetheart, what have they
+said to you?"
+
+He glared up at the Silent Ones, his hand twitching to-
+ward the high-hung pistol holster.
+
+The handmaiden swung to him; threw white arms around
+his neck; held her head upon his heart until her sobbing
+ceased.
+
+"This they--say--the Silent Ones," she gasped and then all
+the courage of her came back.  "O heart of mine!" she whis-
+pered to Larry, gazing deep into his eyes, his anxious face
+cupped between her white palms.  "This they say--that
+should the Shining One come to succour Yolara and Lugur,
+should it conquer its fear--and--do this--then is there but
+one way left to destroy it--and to save your world."
+
+She swayed; he gripped her tightly.
+
+"But one way--you and I must go--together--into its
+embrace!  Yea, we must pass within it--loving each other,
+loving the world, realizing to the full all that we sacrifice and
+sacrificing all, our love, our lives, perhaps even that you call
+soul, O loved one; must give ourselves ALL to the Shining One
+--gladly, freely, our love for each other flaming high within
+us--that this curse shall pass away!  For if we do this, pledge
+the Three, then shall that power of love we carry into it
+weaken for a time all that evil which the Shining One has
+become--and in that time the Three can strike and slay!"
+
+The blood rushed from my heart; scientist that I am, es-
+sentially, my reason rejected any such solution as this of
+the activities of the Dweller.  Was it not, the thought flashed,
+a propitiation by the Three out of their own weakness--
+and as it flashed I looked up to see their eyes, full of sorrow,
+on mine--and knew they read the thought.  Then into the
+whirling vortex of my mind came steadying reflections--of
+history changed by the power of hate, of passion, of am-
+bition, and most of all, by love.  Was there not actual dy-
+namic energy in these things--was there not a Son of Man
+who hung upon a cross on Calvary?
+
+"Dear love o' mine," said the O'Keefe quietly, "is it in your
+heart to say YES to this?"
+
+"Larry," she spoke low, "what is in your heart is in mine;
+but I did so want to go with you, to live with you--to--to
+bear you children, Larry--and to see the sun."
+
+My eyes were wet; dimly through them I saw his gaze
+on me.
+
+"If the world IS at stake," he whispered, "why of course
+there's only one thing to do.  God knows I never was afraid
+when I was fighting up there--and many a better man than
+me has gone West with shell and bullet for the same idea;
+but these things aren't shell and bullet--but I hadn't Lakla
+then--and it's the damned DOUBT I have behind it all."
+
+He turned to the Three--and did I in their poise sense a
+rigidity, an anxiety that sat upon them as alienly as would
+divinity upon men?
+
+"Tell me this, Silent Ones," he cried.  "If we do this, Lakla
+and I, is it SURE you are that you can slay the--Thing, and
+save my world?  Is it SURE you are?"
+
+For the first and the last time, I heard the voice of the
+Silent Ones.  It was the man-being at the right who spoke.
+
+"We are sure," the tones rolled out like deepest organ
+notes, shaking, vibrating, assailing the ears as strangely as
+their appearance struck the eyes.  Another moment the
+O'Keefe stared at them.  Once more he squared his should-
+ers; lifted Lakla's chin and smiled into her eyes.
+
+"We stick!" he said again, nodding to the Three.
+
+Over the visages of the Trinity fell benignity that was--
+awesome; the tiny flames in the jet orbs vanished, leaving
+them wells in which brimmed serenity, hope--an extraor-
+dinary joyfulness.  The woman sat upright, tender gaze fixed
+upon the man and girl.  Her great shoulders raised as though
+she had lifted her arms and had drawn to her those others.
+The three faces pressed together for a fleeting moment;
+raised again.  The woman bent forward--and as she did so,
+Lakla and Larry, as though drawn by some outer force, were
+swept upon the dais.
+
+Out from the sparkling mist stretched two hands, enor-
+mously long, six-fingered, thumbless, a faint tracery of
+golden scales upon their white backs, utterly unhuman and
+still in some strange way beautiful, radiating power and--
+all womanly!
+
+They stretched forth; they touched the bent heads of Lakla
+and the O'Keefe; caressed them, drew them together, softly
+stroked them--lovingly, with more than a touch of bene-
+diction.  And withdrew!
+
+The sparkling mists rolled up once more, hiding the Silent
+Ones.  As silently as once before we had gone we passed out
+of the place of light, beyond the crimson stone, back to the
+handmaiden's chamber.
+
+Only once on our way did Larry speak.
+
+"Cheer up, darlin'," he said to her, "it's a long way yet
+before the finish.  An' are you thinking that Lugur and Yo-
+lara are going to pull this thing off?  Are you?"
+
+The handmaiden only looked at him, eyes love and sorrow
+filled.
+
+"They are!" said Larry.  "They are!  Like HELL they are!"
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+The Meeting of Titans
+
+IT IS NOT my intention, nor is it possible no matter how in-
+teresting to me, to set down _ad seriatim_ the happenings of
+the next twelve hours.  But a few will not be denied recital.
+
+O'Keefe regained cheerfulness.
+
+"After all, Doc," be said to me, "it's a beautiful scrap
+we're going to have.  At the worst the worst is no more than
+the leprechaun warned about.  I would have told the Taitha
+De about the banshee raid he promised me; but I was a bit
+taken off my feet at the time.  The old girl an' all the clan'll
+be along, said the little green man, an' I bet the Three will
+be damned glad of it, take it from me."
+
+Lakla, shining-eyed and half fearful too:
+
+"I have other tidings that I am afraid will please you little,
+Larry--darlin'.  The Silent Ones say that you must not go
+into battle yourself.  You must stay here with me, and with
+Goodwin--for if--if--the Shining One does come, then
+must we be here to meet it.  And you might not be, you know,
+Larry, if you fight," she said, looking shyly up at him from
+under the long lashes.
+
+The O'Keefe's jaw dropped.
+
+"That's about the hardest yet," he answered slowly.  "Still
+--I see their point; the lamb corralled for the altar has no
+right to stray out among the lions," he added grimly.  "Don't
+worry, sweet," he told her.  "As long as I've sat in the game
+I'll stick to the rules."
+
+Olaf took fierce joy in the coming fray.
+"The Norns spin close to the end of this web," he rum-
+bled. "_Ja!_  And the threads of Lugur and the Heks woman
+are between their fingers for the breaking!  Thor will be with
+me, and I have fashioned me a hammer in glory of Thor." In
+his hand was an enormous mace of black metal, fully five
+feet long, crowned with a massive head.
+
+I pass to the twelve hours' closing.
+
+At the end of the _coria_ road where the giant fernland met
+the edge of the cavern's ruby floor, hundreds of the _Akka_
+were stationed in ambush, armed with their spears tipped
+with the rotting death and their nail-studded, metal-headed
+clubs.  These were to attack when the Murians debauched
+from the _corials_.  We had little hope of doing more here than
+effect some attrition of Yolara's hosts, for at this place the
+captains of the Shining One could wield the _Keth_ and their
+other uncanny weapons freely.  We had learned, too, that
+every forge and artisan had been put to work to make an
+armour Marakinoff had devised to withstand the natural
+battle equipment of the frog-people--and both Larry and I
+had a disquieting faith in the Russian's ingenuity.
+
+At any rate the numbers against us would be lessened.
+
+Next, under the direction of the frog-king, levies com-
+manded by subsidiary chieftains had completed rows of
+rough walls along the probable route of the Murians through
+the cavern.  These afforded the _Akka_ a fair protection behind
+which they could hurl their darts and spears--curiously
+enough they had never developed the bow as a weapon.
+
+At the opening of the cavern a strong barricade stretched
+almost to the two ends of the crescent strand; almost, I say,
+because there had not been time to build it entirely across
+the mouth.
+
+And from edge to edge of the titanic bridge, from where
+it sprang outward at the shore of the Crimson Sea to a
+hundred feet away from the golden door of the abode, bar-
+rier after barrier was piled.
+
+Behind the wall defending the mouth of the cavern, waited
+other thousands of the _Akka_.  At each end of the unfinished
+barricade they were mustered thickly, and at right and left
+of the crescent where their forest began, more legions were
+assembled to make way up to the ledge as opportunity of-
+fered.
+
+Rank upon rank they manned the bridge barriers; they
+swarmed over the pinnacles and in the hollows of the
+island's ragged outer lip; the domed castle was a hive of
+them, if I may mix my metaphors--and the rocks and
+gardens that surrounded the abode glittered with them.
+
+"Now," said the handmaiden, "there's nothing else we can
+do--save wait."
+
+She led us out through her bower and up the little path
+that ran to the embrasure.
+
+Through the quiet came a sound, a sighing, a half-mourn-
+ful whispering that beat about us and fled away.
+
+"They come!" cried Lakla, the light of battle in her eyes.
+Larry drew her to him, raised her in his arms, kissed her.
+
+"A woman!" acclaimed the O'Keefe.  "A real woman--
+and mine!"
+
+With the cry of the Portal there was movement among
+the _Akka_, the glint of moving spears, flash of metal-tipped
+clubs, rattle of horny spurs, rumblings of battle-cries.
+
+And we waited--waited it seemed interminably, gaze fas-
+tened upon the low wall across the cavern mouth.  Suddenly
+I remembered the crystal through which I had peered when
+the hidden assassins had crept upon us.  Mentioning it to
+Lakla, she gave a little cry of vexation, a command to her
+attendant; and not long that faithful if unusual lady had
+returned with a tray of the glasses.  Raising mine, I saw the
+lines furthest away leap into sudden activity.  Spurred war-
+rior after warrior leaped upon the barricade and over it.
+Flashes of intense, green light, mingled with gleams like
+lightning strokes of concentrated moon rays, sprang from
+behind the wall--sprang and struck and burned upon the
+scales of the batrachians.
+
+"They come!" whispered Lakla.
+
+At the far ends of the crescent a terrific milling had begun.
+Here it was plain the _Akka_ were holding.  Faintly, for the
+distance was great, I could see fresh force upon force rush up
+and take the places of those who had fallen.
+
+Over each of these ends, and along the whole line of the
+barricade a mist of dancing, diamonded atoms began to rise;
+sparking, coruscating points of diamond dust that darted
+and danced.
+
+What had once been Lakla's guardians--dancing now in
+the nothingness!
+
+"God, but it's hard to stay here like this!" groaned the
+O'Keefe; Olaf's teeth were bared, the lips drawn back in
+such a fighting grin as his ancestors berserk on their raven
+ships must have borne; Rador was livid with rage; the hand-
+maiden's nostrils flaring wide, all her wrathful soul in her
+eyes.
+
+Suddenly, while we looked, the rocky wall which the _Akka_
+had built at the cavern mouth--was not!  It vanished, as
+though an unseen, unbelievably gigantic hand had with the
+lightning's speed swept it away.  And with it vanished, too,
+long lines of the great amphibians close behind it.
+
+Then down upon the ledge, dropping into the Crimson
+Sea, sending up geysers of ruby spray, dashing on the bridge,
+crushing the frog-men, fell a shower of stone, mingled with
+distorted shapes and fragments whose scales still flashed
+meteoric as they hurled from above.
+
+"That which makes things fall upward," hissed Olaf.
+"That which I saw in the garden of Lugur!"
+
+The fiendish agency of destruction which Marakinoff had
+revealed to Larry; the force that cut off gravitation and sent
+all things within its range racing outward into space!
+
+And now over the debris upon the ledge, striking with long
+sword and daggers, here and there a captain flashing the
+green ray, moving on in ordered squares, came the soldiers
+of the Shining One.  Nearer and nearer the verge of the ledge
+they pushed Nak's warriors.  Leaping upon the dwarfs, smit-
+ing them with spear and club, with teeth and spur, the _Akka_
+fought like devils.  Quivering under the ray, they leaped and
+dragged down and slew.
+
+Now there was but one long line of the frog-men at the
+very edge of the cliff.
+
+And ever the clouds of dancing, diamonded atoms grew
+thicker over them all!
+
+That last thin line of the _Akka_ was going; yet they fought
+to the last, and none toppled over the lip without at least
+one of the armoured Murians in his arms.
+
+My gaze dropped to the foot of the cliffs.  Stretched along
+their length was a wide ribbon of beauty--a shimmering
+multitude of gleaming, pulsing, prismatic moons; glowing,
+glowing ever brighter, ever more wondrous--the gigantic
+Medusae globes feasting on dwarf and frog-man alike!
+
+Across the waters, faintly, came a triumphant shouting
+from Lugur's and Yolara's men!
+
+Was the ruddy light of the place lessening, growing paler,
+changing to a faint rose?  There was an exclamation from
+Larry; something like hope relaxed the drawn muscles of
+his face.  He pointed to the aureate dome wherein sat the
+Three--and then I saw!
+
+Out of it, through the long transverse slit through which
+the Silent Ones kept their watch on cavern, bridge, and
+abyss, a torrent of the opalescent light was pouring.  It cas-
+caded like a waterfall, and as it flowed it spread whirling
+out, in columns and eddies, clouds and wisps of misty,
+curdled coruscations.  It hung like a veil over all the islands,
+filtering everywhere, driving back the crimson light as though
+possessed of impenetrable substance--and still it cast not the
+faintest shadowing upon our vision.
+
+"Good God!" breathed Larry.  "Look!"
+
+The radiance was marching--MARCHING--down the colossal bridge.
+It moved swiftly, in some unthinkable way INTELLIGENTLY.
+It swathed the _Akka_, and closer, ever closer it
+swept toward the approach upon which Yolara's men had
+now gained foothold.
+
+From their ranks came flash after flash of the green ray
+--aimed at the abode!  But as the light sped and struck the
+opalescence it was blotted out!  The shimmering mists seemed
+to enfold, to dissipate it.
+
+Lakla drew a deep breath.
+
+"The Silent Ones forgive me for doubting them," she
+whispered; and again hope blossomed on her face even as it
+did on Larry's.
+
+The frog-men were gaining.  Clothed in the armour of that
+mist, they pressed back from the bridge-head the invaders.
+There was another prodigious movement at the ends of the
+crescent, and racing up, pressing against the dwarfs, came
+other legions of Nak's warriors.  And re-enforcing those out
+on the prodigious arch, the frog-men stationed in the gard-
+ens below us poured back to the castle and out through the
+open Portal.
+
+"They're licked!" shouted Larry.  "They're--"
+
+So quickly I could not follow the movement his automatic
+leaped to his hand--spoke, once and again and again.  Rador
+leaped to the head of the little path, sword in hand; Olaf,
+shouting and whirling his mace, followed.  I strove to get my
+own gun quickly.
+
+For up that path were running twoscore of Lugur's men,
+while from below Lugur's own voice roared.
+
+"Quick!  Slay not the handmaiden or her lover!  Carry them
+down.  Quick!  But slay the others!"
+
+The handmaiden raced toward Larry, stopped, whistled
+shrilly--again and again.  Larry's pistol was empty, but as
+the dwarfs rushed upon him I dropped two of them with
+mine.  It jammed--I could not use it; I sprang to his side.
+Rador was down, struggling in a heap of Lugur's men.  Olaf,
+a Viking of old, was whirling his great hammer, and strik-
+ing, striking through armour, flesh, and bone.
+
+Larry was down, Lakla flew to him.  But the Norseman,
+now streaming blood from a dozen wounds, caught a glimpse
+of her coming, turned, thrust out a mighty hand, sent her
+reeling back, and then with his hammer cracked the skulls
+of those trying to drag the O'Keefe down the path.
+
+A cry from Lakla--the dwarfs had seized her, had lifted
+her despite her struggles, were carrying her away.  One I
+dropped with the butt of my useless pistol, and then went
+down myself under the rush of another.
+
+Through the clamour I heard a booming of the _Akka_,
+closer, closer; then through it the bellow of Lugur.  I made
+a mighty effort, swung a hand up, and sunk my fingers in
+the throat of the soldier striving to kill me.  Writhing over
+him, my fingers touched a poniard; I thrust it deep, stag-
+gered to my feet.
+
+The O'Keefe, shielding Lakla, was battling with a long
+sword against a half dozen of the soldiers.  I started toward
+him, was struck, and under the impact hurled to the ground.
+Dizzily I raised myself--and leaning upon my elbow, stared
+and moved no more.  For the dwarfs lay dead, and Larry,
+holding Lakla tightly, was staring even as I, and ranged at
+the head of the path were the _Akka_, whose booming advance
+in obedience to the handmaiden's call I had heard.
+
+And at what we all stared was Olaf, crimson with his
+wounds, and Lugur, in blood-red armour, locked in each
+other's grip, struggling, smiting, tearing, kicking, and sway-
+ing about the little space before the embrasure.  I crawled
+over toward the O'Keefe.  He raised his pistol, dropped it.
+
+"Can't hit him without hitting Olaf," he whispered.  Lakla
+signalled the frog-men; they advanced toward the two--but
+Olaf saw them, broke the red dwarf's hold, sent Lugur reel-
+ing a dozen feet away.
+
+"No!" shouted the Norseman, the ice of his pale-blue eyes
+glinting like frozen flames, blood streaming down his face
+and dripping from his hands.  "No!  Lugur is mine!  None but
+me slays him!  Ho, you Lugur--" and cursed him and Yo-
+lara and the Dweller hideously--I cannot set those curses
+down here.
+
+They spurred Lugur.  Mad now as the Norseman, the red
+dwarf sprang.  Olaf struck a blow that would have killed an
+ordinary man, but Lugur only grunted, swept in, and seized
+him about the waist; one mighty arm began to creep up
+toward Huldricksson's throat.
+
+ "'Ware, Olaf!" cried O'Keefe; but Olaf did not answer.
+He waited until the red dwarf's hand was close to his
+shoulder; and then, with an incredibly rapid movement--
+once before had I seen something like it in a wrestling match
+between Papuans--he had twisted Lugur around; twisted
+him so that Olaf's right arm lay across the tremendous breast,
+the left behind the neck, and Olaf's left leg held the Voice's
+armoured thighs viselike against his right knee while over
+that knee lay the small of the red dwarf's back.
+
+For a second or two the Norseman looked down upon his
+enemy, motionless in that paralyzing grip.  And then--slowly
+--he began to break him!
+
+Lakla gave a little cry; made a motion toward the two.
+But Larry drew her head down against his breast, hiding her
+eyes; then fastened his own upon the pair, white-faced, stern.
+
+Slowly, ever so slowly, proceeded Olaf.  Twice Lugur
+moaned.  At the end he screamed--horribly.  There was a
+cracking sound, as of a stout stick snapped.
+
+Huldricksson stooped, silently.  He picked up the limp
+body of the Voice, not yet dead, for the eyes rolled, the lips
+strove to speak; lifted it, walked to the parapet, swung it
+twice over his head, and cast it down to the red waters!
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+
+The Coming of the Shining One
+
+THE NORSEMAN turned toward us.  There was now no mad-
+ness in his eyes; only a great weariness.  And there was
+peace on the once tortured face.
+
+"Helma," he whispered, "I go a little before!  Soon you
+will come to me--to me and the Yndling who will await you
+--Helma, _mine liebe!_"
+
+Blood gushed from his mouth; he swayed, fell.  And thus
+died Olaf Huldricksson.
+
+We looked down upon him; nor did Lakla, nor Larry, nor
+I try to hide our tears.  And as we stood the _Akka_ brought
+to us that other mighty fighter, Rador; but in him there was
+life, and we attended to him there as best we could.
+
+Then Lakla spoke.
+
+"We will bear him into the castle where we may give him
+greater care," she said.  "For, lo!  the hosts of Yolara have
+been beaten back; and on the bridge comes Nak with tid-
+ings."
+
+We looked over the parapet.  It was even as she had said.
+Neither on ledge nor bridge was there trace of living men of
+Muria--only heaps of slain that lay everywhere--and thick
+against the cavern mouth still danced the flashing atoms of
+those the green ray had destroyed.
+
+"Over!" exclaimed Larry incredulously.  "We live then--
+heart of mine!"
+
+"The Silent Ones recall their veils," she said, pointing to
+the dome.  Back through the slitted opening the radiance was
+streaming; withdrawing from sea and island; marching back
+over the bridge with that same ordered, intelligent motion.
+Behind it the red light pressed, like skirmishers on the heels
+of a retreating army.
+
+"And yet--" faltered the handmaiden as we passed into
+her chamber, and doubtful were the eyes she turned upon the
+O'Keefe.
+
+"I don't believe," he said, "there's a kick left in them--"
+
+What was that sound beating into the chamber faintly, so
+faintly?  My heart gave a great throb and seemed to stop for
+an eternity.  What was it--coming nearer, ever nearer?  Now
+Lakla and O'Keefe heard it, life ebbing from lips and cheeks.
+
+Nearer, nearer--a music as of myriads of tiny crystal bells,
+tinkling, tinkling--a storm of pizzicati upon violins of glass!
+Nearer, nearer--not sweetly now, nor luring; no--raging,
+wrathful, sinister beyond words; sweeping on; nearer--
+
+The Dweller!  The Shining One!
+
+We leaped to the narrow window; peered out, aghast.  The
+bell notes swept through and about us, a hurricane.  The
+crescent strand was once more a ferment.  Back, back were
+the _Akka_ being swept, as though by brooms, tottering on the
+edge of the ledge, falling into the waters.  Swiftly they were
+finished; and where they had fought was an eddying throng
+clothed in tatters or naked, swaying, drifting, arms tossing
+--like marionettes of Satan.
+
+The dead-alive!  The slaves of the Dweller!
+
+They swayed and tossed, and then, like water racing
+through an opened dam, they swept upon the bridge-head.
+On and on they pushed, like the bore of a mighty tide.  The
+frog-men strove against them, clubbing, spearing, tearing
+them.  But even those worst smitten seemed not to fall.  On
+they pushed, driving forward, irresistible--a battering ram
+of flesh and bone.  They clove the masses of the _Akka_, press-
+ing them to the sides of the bridge and over.  Through the
+open gates they forced them--for there was no room for the
+frog-men to stand against that implacable tide.
+
+Then those of the _Akka_ who were left turned their backs
+and ran.  We heard the clang of the golden wings of the por-
+tal, and none too soon to keep out the first of the Dweller's
+dreadful hordes.
+
+Now upon the cavern ]edge and over the whole length
+of the bridge there were none but the dead-alive, men and
+women, black-polled _ladala_, sloe-eyed Malays, slant-eyed
+Chinese, men of every race that sailed the seas--milling,
+turning, swaying, like leaves caught in a sluggish current.
+
+The bell notes became sharper, more insistent.  At the cav-
+ern mouth a radiance began to grow--a gleaming from
+which the atoms of diamond dust seemed to try to flee.  As
+the radiance grew and the crystal notes rang nearer, every
+head of that hideous multitude turned stiffly, slowly toward
+the right, looking toward the far bridge end; their eyes fixed
+and glaring; every face an inhuman mask of rapture and of
+horror!
+
+A movement shook them.  Those in the centre began to
+stream back, faster and ever faster, leaving motionless deep
+ranks on each side.  Back they flowed until from golden
+doors to cavern mouth a wide lane stretched, walled on each
+side by the dead-alive.
+
+The far radiance became brighter; it gathered itself at the
+end of the dreadful lane; it was shot with sparklings and with
+pulsings of polychromatic light.  The crystal storm was in-
+tolerable, piercing the ears with countless tiny lances;
+brighter still the radiance
+
+From the cavern swirled the Shining One!
+
+The Dweller paused, seemed to scan the island of the
+Silent Ones half doubtfully; then slowly, stately, it drifted
+out upon the bridge.  Closer it drew; behind it glided Yolara
+at the head of a company of her dwarfs, and at her side was
+the hag of the Council whose face was the withered, shat-
+tered echo of her own.
+
+Slower grew the Dweller's pace as it drew nearer.  Did I
+sense in it a doubt, an uncertainty?  The crystal-tongued,
+unseen choristers that accompanied it subtly seemed to re-
+flect the doubt; their notes were not sure, no longer insistent;
+rather was there in them an undertone of hesitancy, of warn-
+ing!  Yet on came the Shining One until it stood plain be-
+neath us, searching with those eyes that thrust from and
+withdrew into unknown spheres, the golden gateway, the
+cliff face, the castle's rounded bulk--and more intently than
+any of these, the dome wherein sat the Three.
+
+Behind it each face of the dead-alive turned toward it, and
+those beside it throbbed and gleamed with its luminescence.
+
+Yolara crept close, just beyond the reach of its spirals.
+She murmured--and the Dweller bent toward her, its seven
+globes steady in their shining mists, as though listening.  It
+drew erect once more, resumed its doubtful scrutiny.  Yo-
+lara's face darkened; she turned abruptly, spoke to a captain
+of her guards.  A dwarf raced back between the palisades of
+dead-alive.
+
+Now the priestess cried out, her voice ringing like a silver
+clarion.
+
+"Ye are done, ye Three!  The Shining One stands at your
+door, demanding entrance.  Your beasts are slain and your
+power is gone.  Who are ye, says the Shining One, to deny
+it entrance to the place of its birth?"
+
+"Ye do not answer," she cried again, "yet know we that
+ye hear!  The Shining One offers these terms: Send forth your
+handmaiden and that lying stranger she stole; send them
+forth to us--and perhaps ye may live.  But if ye send them
+not forth, then shall ye too die--and soon!"
+
+We waited, silent, even as did Yolara--and again there
+was no answer from the Three.
+
+The priestess laughed; the blue eyes flashed.
+
+"It is ended!" she cried.  "If you will not open, needs must
+we open for you!"
+
+Over the bridge was marching a long double file of the
+dwarfs.  They bore a smoothed and handled tree-trunk whose
+head was knobbed with a huge hall of metal.  Past the priest-
+ess, past the Shining One, they carried it; fifty of them to
+each side of the ram; and behind them stepped--Marakin-
+off!
+
+Larry awoke to life.
+
+"Now, thank God," he rasped, "I can get that devil, any-
+way!"
+
+He drew his pistol, took careful aim.  Even as he pressed
+the trigger there rang through the abode a tremendous
+clanging.  The ram was battering at the gates.  O'Keefe's bul-
+let went wild.  The Russian must have heard the shot; per-
+haps the missile was closer than we knew.  He made a swift
+leap behind the guards; was lost to sight.
+
+Once more the thunderous clanging rang through the
+castle.
+
+Lakla drew herself erect; down upon her dropped the
+listening aloofness.  Gravely she bowed her head.
+
+"It is time, O love of mine." She turned to O'Keefe.  "The
+Silent Ones say that the way of fear is closed, but the way
+of love is open.  They call upon us to redeem our promise!"
+
+For a hundred heart-beats they clung to each other, breast
+to breast and lip to lip.  Below, the clangour was increasing,
+the great trunk swinging harder and faster upon the metal
+gates.  Now Lakla gently loosed the arms of the O'Keefe, and
+for another instant those two looked into each other's souls.
+The handmaiden smiled tremulously.
+
+"I would it might have been otherwise, Larry darlin',"
+she whispered.  "But at least--we pass together, dearest of
+mine!"
+
+She leaped to the window.
+
+"Yolara!" the golden voice rang out sweetly.  The clang-
+ing ceased.  "Draw back your men.  We open the Portal and
+come forth to you and the Shining One--Larry and I."
+
+The priestess's silver chimes of laughter rang out, cruel,
+mocking.
+
+"Come, then, quickly," she jeered.  "For surely both the
+Shining One and I yearn for you!" Her malice-laden laughter
+chimed high once more.  "Keep us not lonely long!" the
+priestess mocked.
+
+Larry drew a deep breath, stretched both hands out to me.
+
+"It's good-by, I guess, Doc." His voice was strained.
+"Good-by and good luck, old boy.  If you get out, and you
+WILL, let the old _Dolphin_ know I'm gone.  And carry on, pal
+--and always remember the O'Keefe loved you like a
+brother."
+
+I squeezed his hands desperately.  Then out of my balance-
+shaking woe a strange comfort was born.
+
+"Maybe it's not good-by, Larry!" I cried.  "The banshee has
+not cried!"
+
+A flash of hope passed over his face; the old reckless grin
+shone forth.
+
+"It's so!" he said.  "By the Lord, it's so!"
+
+Then Lakla bent toward me, and for the second time--
+kissed me.
+
+"Come!" she said to Larry.  Hand in hand they moved
+away, into the corridor that led to the door outside of which
+waited the Shining One and its priestess.
+
+And unseen by them, wrapped as they were within their
+love and sacrifice, I crept softly behind.  For I had deter-
+mined that if enter the Dweller's embrace they must, they
+should not go alone.
+
+They paused before the Golden Portals; the handmaiden
+pressed its opening lever; the massive leaves rolled back.
+
+Heads high, proudly, serenely, they passed through and
+out upon the hither span.  I followed.
+
+On each side of us stood the Dweller's slaves, faces turned
+rigidly toward their master.  A hundred feet away the Shin-
+ing One pulsed and spiralled in its evilly glorious lambency
+of sparkling plumes.
+
+Unhesitating, always with that same high serenity, Lakla
+and the O'Keefe, hands clasped like little children, drew
+closer to that wondrous shape.  I could not see their faces,
+but I saw awe fall upon those of the watching dwarfs, and
+into the burning eyes of Yolara crept a doubt.  Closer they
+drew to the Dweller, and closer, I following them step by
+step.  The Shining One's whirling lessened; its tinklings were
+faint, almost stilled.  It seemed to watch them apprehensively.
+A silence fell upon us all, a thick silence, brooding, ominous,
+palpable.  Now the pair were face to face with the child of
+the Three--so near that with one of its misty tentacles it
+could have enfolded them.
+
+And the Shining One drew back!
+
+Yes, drew back--and back with it stepped Yolara, the
+doubt in her eyes deepening.  Onward paced the handmaiden
+and the O'Keefe--and step by step, as they advanced, the
+Dweller withdrew; its bell notes chiming out, puzzled ques-
+tioning--half fearful!
+
+And back it drew, and back until it had reached the very
+centre of that platform over the abyss in whose depths pulsed
+the green fires of earth heart.  And there Yolara gripped her-
+self; the hell that seethed within her soul leaped out of her
+eyes, a cry, a shriek of rage, tore from her lips.
+
+As at a signal, the Shining One flamed high; its spirals and
+eddying mists swirled madly, the pulsing core of it blazed
+radiance.  A score of coruscating tentacles swept straight
+upon the pair who stood intrepid, unresisting, awaiting its
+embrace.  And upon me, lurking behind them.
+
+Through me swept a mighty exaltation.  It was the end
+then--and I was to meet it with them.
+
+Something drew us back, back with an incredible swift-
+ness, and yet as gently as a summer breeze sweeps a bit of
+thistle-down!  Drew us back from those darting misty arms
+even as they were a hair-breadth from us!  I heard the Dwel-
+ler's bell notes burst out ragingly!  I heard Yolara scream.
+
+What was that?
+
+Between the three of us and them was a ring of curdled
+moon flames, swirling about the Shining One and its priest-
+ess, pressing in upon them, enfolding them!
+
+And within it I glimpsed the faces of the Three--implac-
+able, sorrowful, filled with a supernal power!
+
+Sparks and flashes of white flame darted from the ring,
+penetrating the radiant swathings of the Dweller, striking
+through its pulsing nucleus, piercing its seven crowning orbs.
+
+Now the Shining One's radiance began to dim, the seven
+orbs to dull; the tiny sparkling filaments that ran from them
+down into the Dweller's body snapped, vanished!  Through
+the battling nebulosities Yolara's face swam forth--horror-
+filled, distorted, inhuman!
+
+The ranks of the dead-alive quivered, moved, writhed, as
+though each felt the torment of the Thing that had enslaved
+them.  The radiance that the Three wielded grew more in-
+tense, thicker, seemed to expand.  Within it, suddenly, were
+scores of flaming triangles--scores of eyes like those of the
+Silent Ones!
+
+And the Shining One's seven little moons of amber, of
+silver, of blue and amethyst and green, of rose and white,
+split, shattered, were gone!  Abruptly the tortured crystal
+chimings ceased.
+
+Dulled, all its soul-shaking beauty dead, blotched and
+shadowed squalidly, its gleaming plumes tarnished, its dan-
+cing spirals stripped from it, that which had been the Shin-
+ing One wrapped itself about Yolara--wrapped and drew
+her into itself; writhed, swayed, and hurled itself over the
+edge of the bridge--down, down into the green fires of the
+unfathomable abyss--with its priestess still enfolded in its
+coils!
+
+From the dwarfs who had watched that terror came
+screams of panic fear.  They turned and ran, racing franti-
+cally over the bridge toward the cavern mouth.
+
+The serried ranks of the dead-alive trembled, shook.  Then
+from their faces tied the horror of wedded ecstasy and an-
+guish.  Peace, utter peace, followed in its wake.
+
+And as fields of wheat are bent and fall beneath the wind,
+they fell.  No longer dead-alive, now all of the blessed dead,
+freed from their dreadful slavery!
+
+Abruptly from the sparkling mists the cloud of eyes was
+gone.  Faintly revealed in them were only the heads of the
+Silent Ones.  And they drew before us; were before us!  No
+flames now in their ebon eyes--for the flickering fires were
+quenched in great tears, streaming down the marble white
+faces.  They bent toward us, over us; their radiance enfolded
+us. My eyes darkened.  I could not see.  I felt a tender hand
+upon my head--and panic and frozen dread and nightmare
+web that held me fled.
+
+Then they, too, were gone.
+
+Upon Larry's breast the handmaiden was sobbing--sob-
+bing out her heart--but this time with the joy of one who is
+swept up from the very threshold of hell into paradise.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV
+
+"Larry--Farewell!"
+
+"MY HEART, Larry--" It was the handmaiden's murmur.
+"My heart feels like a bird that is flying from a nest of
+sorrow."
+
+We were pacing down the length of the bridge, guards of
+the _Akka_ beside us, others following with those companies of
+_ladala_ that had rushed to aid us; in front of us the bandaged
+Rador swung gently within a litter; beside him, in another,
+lay Nak, the frog-king--much less of him than there had
+been before the battle began, but living.
+
+Hours had passed since the terror I have just related.  My
+
+first task had been to search for Throckmartin and his wife
+among the fallen multitudes strewn thick as autumn leaves
+along the flying arch of stone, over the cavern ledge, and
+back, back as far as the eye could reach.
+
+At last, Lakla and Larry helping, we found them.  They
+lay close to the bridge-end, not parted--locked tight in each
+other's arms, pallid face to face, her hair streaming over his
+breast!  As though when that unearthly life the Dweller had
+set within them passed away, their own had come back for
+one fleeting instant--and they had known each other, and
+clasped before kindly death had taken them.
+
+"Love is stronger than all things." The handmaiden was
+weeping softly.  "Love never left them.  Love was stronger
+than the Shining One.  And when its evil fled, love went with
+them--wherever souls go."
+
+Of Stanton and Thora there was no trace; nor, after our
+discovery of those other two, did I care to look more.  They
+were dead--and they were free.
+
+We buried Throckmartin and Edith beside Olaf in Lakla's
+bower.  But before the body of my old friend was placed
+within the grave I gave it a careful and sorrowful examina-
+tion.  The skin was firm and smooth, but cold; not the cold of
+death, but with a chill that set my touching fingers tingling
+unpleasantly.  The body was bloodless; the course of veins
+and arteries marked by faintly indented white furrows, as
+though their walls had long collapsed.  Lips, mouth, even the
+tongue, was paper white.  There was no sign of dissolution as
+we know it; no shadow or stain upon the marble surface.
+Whatever the force that, streaming from the Dweller or im-
+pregnating its lair, had energized the dead-alive, it was bar-
+rier against putrescence of any kind; that at least was certain.
+
+But it was not barrier against the poison of the Medusae,
+for, our sad task done, and looking down upon the waters, I
+saw the pale forms of the Dweller's hordes dissolving, van-
+ishing into the shifting glories of the gigantic moons sailing
+down upon them from every quarter of the Sea of Crimson.
+
+While the frog-men, those late levies from the farthest for-
+ests, were clearing bridge and ledge of cavern of the litter of
+the dead, we listened to a leader of the _ladala_.  They had risen,
+even as the messenger had promised Rador.  Fierce had been
+the struggle in the gardened city by the silver waters with
+those Lugur and Yolara bad left behind to garrison it.  Deadly
+had been the slaughter of the fair-haired, reaping the har-
+vest of hatred they had been sowing so long.  Not without
+a pang of regret did I think of the beautiful, gaily malicious
+elfin women destroyed--evil though they may have been.
+
+The ancient city of Lara was a charnel.  Of all the rulers
+not twoscore had escaped, and these into regions of peril
+which to describe as sanctuary would be mockery.  Nor had
+the _ladala_ fared so well.  Of all the men and women, for
+women as well as men had taken their part in the swift war,
+not more than a tenth remained alive.
+
+And the dancing motes of light in the silver air were
+thick, thick--they whispered.
+
+They told us of the Shining One rushing through the Veil,
+cometlike, its hosts streaming behind it, raging with it, in
+ranks that seemed interminable!
+
+Of the massacre of the priests and priestesses in the Cyclo-
+pean temple; of the flashing forth of the summoning lights by
+unseen hands--followed by the tearing of the rainbow cur-
+tain, by colossal shatterings of the radiant cliffs; the vanish-
+ing behind their debris of all trace of entrance to the haunted
+place wherein the hordes of the Shining One had slaved--
+the sealing of the lair!
+
+Then, when the tempest of hate had ended in seething
+Lara, how, thrilled with victory, armed with the weapons of
+those they had slain, they had lifted the Shadow, passed
+through the Portal, met and slaughtered the fleeing remnants
+of Yolara's men--only to find the tempest stilled here, too.
+
+But of Marakinoff they had seen nothing!  Had the Russian
+escaped, I wondered, or was he lying out there among the
+dead?
+
+But now the _ladala_ were calling upon Lakla to come with
+them, to govern them.
+
+"I don't want to, Larry darlin'," she told him.  "I want to
+go out with you to Ireland.  But for a time--I think the Three
+would have us remain and set that place in order."
+
+The O'Keefe was bothered about something else than the
+government of Muria.
+
+"If they've killed off all the priests, who's to marry us,
+heart of mine?" he worried.  "None of those Siya and Siyana
+rites, no matter what," he added hastily.
+
+"Marry!" cried the handmaiden incredulously.  "Marry us?
+Why, Larry dear, we ARE married!"
+
+The O'Keefe's astonishment was complete; his jaw
+dropped; collapse seemed imminent.
+
+"We are?" he gasped.  "When?" he stammered fatuously.
+
+"Why, when the Mother drew us together before her;
+when she put her hands on our heads after we had made the
+promise!  Didn't you understand that?" asked the hand-
+maiden wonderingly.
+
+He looked at her, into the purity of the clear golden eyes,
+into the purity of the soul that gazed out of them; all his
+own great love transfiguring his keen face.
+
+"An' is that enough for you, _mavourneen_?" he whispered
+humbly.
+
+"Enough?" The handmaiden's puzzlement was complete,
+profound.  "Enough?  Larry darlin', what MORE could we ask?"
+
+He drew a deep breath, clasped her close.
+
+"Kiss the bride, Doc!" cried the O'Keefe.  And for the
+third and, soul's sorrow!  the last time, Lakla dimpling and
+blushing, I thrilled to the touch of her soft, sweet lips.
+
+Quickly were our preparations for departure made.  Rador,
+conscious, his immense vitality conquering fast his wounds,
+was to be borne ahead of us.  And when all was done, Lakla,
+Larry, and I made our way up to the scarlet stone that was
+the doorway to the chamber of the Three.  We knew, of
+course, that they had gone, following, no doubt, those whose
+eyes I had seen in the curdled mists, and who, coming to the
+aid of the Three at last from whatever mysterious place that
+was their home, had thrown their strength with them against
+the Shining One.  Nor were we wrong.  When the great slab
+rolled away, no torrents of opalescence came rushing out
+upon us.  The vast dome was dim, tenantless; its curved walls
+that had cascaded Light shone now but faintly; the dais was
+empty; its wall of moon-flame radiance gone.
+
+A little time we stood, heads bent, reverent, our hearts
+filled with gratitude and love--yes, and with pity for that
+strange trinity so alien to us and yet so near; children even
+as we, though so unlike us, of our same Mother Earth.
+
+And what I wondered had been the secret of that promise
+they had wrung from their handmaiden and from Larry.  And
+whence, if what the Three had said had been all true--
+whence had come their power to avert the sacrifice at the
+very verge of its consummation?
+
+"Love is stronger than all things!" had said Lakla.
+
+Was it that they had needed, must have, the force which
+dwells within love, within willing sacrifice, to strengthen
+their own power and to enable them to destroy the evil,
+glorious Thing so long shielded by their own love?  Did the
+thought of sacrifice, the will toward abnegation, have to be
+as strong as the eternals, unshaken by faintest thrill of hope,
+before the Three could make of it their key to unlock the
+Dweller's guard and strike through at its life?
+
+Here was a mystery--a mystery indeed!  Lakla softly
+closed the crimson stone.  The mystery of the red dwarf's
+appearance was explained when we discovered a half-dozen
+of the  water _coria_ moored in a small cove not far from
+where the _Sekta_ flashed their heads of living bloom.  The
+dwarfs had borne the shallops with them, and from some-
+where beyond the cavern ledge had launched them unper-
+ceived; stealing up to the farther side of the island and risk-
+ing all in one bold stroke.  Well, Lugur, no matter what he
+held of wickedness, held also high courage.
+
+The cavern was paved with the dead-alive, the _Akka_ car-
+rying them out by the hundreds, casting them into the waters.
+Through the lane down which the Dweller had passed we
+went as quickly as we could, coming at last to the space
+where the _coria_ waited.  And not long after we swung past
+where the shadow had hung and hovered over the shining
+depths of the Midnight Pool.
+
+Upon Lakla's insistence we passed on to the palace of
+Lugur, not to Yolara's--I do not know why, but go there
+then she would not.  And within one of its columned rooms,
+maidens of the black-haired folks, the wistfulness, the fear,
+all gone from their sparkling eyes, served us.
+
+There came to me a huge desire to see the destruction
+they had told us of the Dweller's lair; to observe for myself
+whether it was not possible to make a way of entrance and
+to study its mysteries.
+
+I spoke of this, and to my surprise both the handmaiden
+and the O'Keefe showed an almost embarrassed haste to
+acquiesce in my hesitant suggestion.
+
+"Sure," cried Larry, "there's lots of time before night!"
+
+He caught himself sheepishly; cast a glance at Lakla.
+
+"I keep forgettin' there's no night here," he mumbled.
+
+"What did you say, Larry?" asked she.
+
+"I said I wish we were sitting in our home in Ireland,
+watching the sun go down," he whispered to her.  Vaguely I
+wondered why she blushed.
+
+But now I must hasten.  We went to the temple, and here
+at least the ghastly litter of the dead had been cleaned away.
+We passed through the blue-caverned space, crossed the
+narrow arch that spanned the rushing sea stream, and, as-
+cending, stood again upon the ivoried pave at the foot of the
+frowning, towering amphitheatre of jet.
+
+Across the Silver Waters there was sign of neither Web of
+Rainbows nor colossal pillars nor the templed lips that I had
+seen curving out beneath the Veil when the Shining One
+had swirled out to greet its priestess and its voice and to
+dance with the sacrifices.  There was but a broken and rent
+mass of the radiant cliffs against whose base the lake lapped.
+
+Long I looked--and turned away saddened.  Knowing even
+as I did what the irised curtain had hidden, still it was as
+though some thing of supernal beauty and wonder had been
+swept away, never to be replaced; a glamour gone for ever;
+a work of the high gods destroyed.
+
+"Let's go back," said Larry abruptly.
+
+I dropped a little behind them to examine a bit of carving
+--and, after all, they did not want me.  I watched them pacing
+slowly ahead, his arm around her, black hair close to bronze-
+gold ringlets.  Then I followed.  Half were they over the
+bridge when through the roar of the imprisoned stream I
+heard my name called softly.
+
+"Goodwin!  Dr. Goodwin!"
+
+Amazed, I turned.  From behind the pedestal of a carved
+group slunk--Marakinoff!  My premonition had been right.
+Some way he had escaped, slipped through to here.  He held
+his hands high, came forward cautiously.
+
+"I am finished," he whispered--"Done!  I don't care what
+THEY'LL do to me." He nodded toward the handmaiden and
+Larry, now at the end of the bridge and passing on, oblivious
+of all save each other.  He drew closer.  His eyes were sunken,
+burning, mad; his face etched with deep lines, as though a
+graver's tool had cut down through it.  I took a step back-
+ward.
+
+A grin, like the grimace of a fiend, blasted the Russian's
+visage.  He threw himself upon me, his hands clenching at
+my throat!
+
+"Larry!" I yelled--and as I spun around under the shock
+of his onslaught, saw the two turn, stand paralyzed, then race
+toward me.
+
+"But YOU'LL carry nothing out of here!" shrieked Marakinoff.  "No!"
+
+My foot, darting out behind me, touched vacancy.  The
+roaring of the racing stream deafened me.  I felt its mists
+about me; threw myself forward.
+
+I was falling--falling--with the Russian's hand strangling
+me. I struck water, sank; the hands that gripped my throat
+relaxed for a moment their clutch.  I strove to writhe loose;
+felt that I was being hurled with dreadful speed on--full
+realization came--on the breast of that racing torrent drop-
+ping from some far ocean cleft and rushing--where?  A little
+time, a few breathless instants, I struggled with the devil who
+clutched me--inflexibly, indomitably.
+
+Then a shrieking as of all the pent winds of the universe
+in my ears--blackness!
+
+Consciousness returned slowly, agonizedly.
+
+"Larry!" I groaned.  "Lakla!"
+
+A brilliant light was glowing through my closed lids.  It
+hurt.  I opened my eyes, closed them with swords and needles
+of dazzling pain shooting through them.  Again I opened
+them cautiously.  It was the sun!
+
+I staggered to my feet.  Behind me was a shattered wall of
+basalt monoliths, hewn and squared.  Before me was the Pa-
+cific, smooth and blue and smiling.
+
+And not far away, cast up on the strand even as I had
+been, was--Marakinoff!
+
+He lay there, broken and dead indeed.  Yet all the waters
+through which we had passed--not even the waters of death
+themselves--could wash from his face the grin of triumph.
+With the last of my strength I dragged the body from the
+strand and pushed it out into the waves.  A little billow ran
+up, coiled about it, and carried it away, ducking and bend-
+ing.  Another seized it, and another, playing with it.  It floated
+from my sight--that which had been Marakinoff, with all his
+schemes to turn our fair world into an undreamed-of-hell.
+
+My strength began to come back to me.  I found a thicket
+and slept; slept it must have been for many hours, for when
+I again awakened the dawn was rosing the east.  I will not tell
+my sufferings.  Suffice it to say that I found a spring and some
+fruit, and just before dusk had recovered enough to writhe
+up to the top of the wall and discover where I was.
+
+The place was one of the farther islets of the Nan-Matal.
+To the north I caught the shadows of the ruins of Nan-
+Tauach, where was the moon door, black against the sky.
+Where was the moon door--which, someway, somehow, I
+must reach, and quickly.
+
+At dawn of the next day I got together driftwood and
+bound it together in shape of a rough raft with fallen creep-
+ers.  Then, with a makeshift paddle, I set forth for Nan-
+Tauach.  Slowly, painfully, I crept up to it.  It was late after-
+noon before I grounded my shaky craft on the little beach
+between the ruined sea-gates and, creeping up the giant steps,
+made my way to the inner enclosure.
+
+And at its opening I stopped, and the tears ran streaming
+down my cheeks while I wept aloud with sorrow and with
+disappointment and with weariness.
+
+For the great wall in which had been set the pale slab
+whose threshold we had crossed to the land of the Shining
+One lay shattered and broken.  The monoliths were heaped
+about; the wall had fallen, and about them shone a film of
+water, half covering them.
+
+There was no moon door!
+
+Dazed and weeping, I drew closer, climbed upon their out-
+lying fragments.  I looked out only upon the sea.  There had
+been a great subsidence, an earth shock, perhaps, tilting
+downward all that side--the echo, little doubt, of that cata-
+clysm which had blasted the Dweller's lair!
+
+The little squared islet called Tau, in which were hidden
+the seven globes, had entirely disappeared.  Upon the waters
+there was no trace of it.
+
+The moon door was gone; the passage to the Moon Pool
+was closed to me--its chamber covered by the sea!
+
+There was no road to Larry--nor to Lakla!
+
+And there, for me, the world ended.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg etext of A. Merritt's The Moon Pool
+
+
+
+
+
+I have made the following changes to the text:
+PAGE  LINE  ORIGINAL         CHANGED TO
+   3    14  sinster          sinister
+  17    11  Nam-Tauach       Nan-Tauach
+  22    20  on on            on
+  69    39  'Didn't          "Didn't
+  75    21  'But             "But
+  90    36  "Trolde!"        _"Trolde!"_
+  91    35  'We              "We
+  96    11  shown            shone
+  96    14  smiled           smiled.
+ 105    11  drank            drunk
+ 106    24  acomplish        accomplish
+ 109    23  'Shake           "Shake
+ 111    18  overtstressed    overstressed
+ 116    11  increduously     incredulously
+ 120    30  Yolar            Yolara
+ 128    12  spirtual         spiritual
+ 150    13  cushoned         cushioned
+ 172    29  semed            seemed
+ 204    34  there?"'         there?"
+ 208    25  "Its             "It's
+ 231     8  meal             metal
+ 239     6  suling           sulting
+ 248    28  finshed          finished
+ 280    29  much             must
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg etext of A. Merritt's The Moon Pool
+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Moon Pool, by A. Merritt
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+Title: The Moon Pool
+
+Author: A. Merritt
+
+Release Date: December, 1996 [EBook #765]
+[This file was last updated on January 28, 2005]
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+Edition: 11
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+Language: English
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+Character set encoding: ASCII
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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MOON POOL ***
+
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+This etext was created by Judith Boss, Omaha, Nebraska.
+
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+
+
+
+The Moon Pool
+
+A. MERRITT
+
+
+
+
+Foreword
+
+
+The publication of the following narrative of Dr. Walter T. Goodwin
+has been authorized by the Executive Council of the International
+Association of Science.
+
+First:
+
+To end officially what is beginning to be called the Throckmartin
+Mystery and to kill the innuendo and scandalous suspicions which have
+threatened to stain the reputations of Dr. David Throckmartin, his
+youthful wife, and equally youthful associate Dr. Charles Stanton ever
+since a tardy despatch from Melbourne, Australia, reported the
+disappearance of the first from a ship sailing to that port, and the
+subsequent reports of the disappearance of his wife and associate from
+the camp of their expedition in the Caroline Islands.
+
+Second:
+
+Because the Executive Council have concluded that Dr. Goodwin's
+experiences in his wholly heroic effort to save the three, and the
+lessons and warnings within those experiences, are too important
+to humanity as a whole to be hidden away in scientific papers
+understandable only to the technically educated; or to be presented
+through the newspaper press in the abridged and fragmentary form
+which the space limitations of that vehicle make necessary.
+
+For these reasons the Executive Council commissioned Mr. A. Merritt
+to transcribe into form to be readily understood by the layman the
+stenographic notes of Dr. Goodwin's own report to the Council,
+supplemented by further oral reminiscences and comments by Dr.
+Goodwin; this transcription, edited and censored by the Executive
+Council of the Association, forms the contents of this book.
+
+Himself a member of the Council, Dr. Walter T. Goodwin, Ph.D.,
+F.R.G.S. etc., is without cavil the foremost of American botanists, an
+observer of international reputation and the author of several epochal
+treaties upon his chosen branch of science. His story, amazing in the
+best sense of that word as it may be, is fully supported by proofs
+brought forward by him and accepted by the organization of which I
+have the honor to be president. What matter has been elided from
+this popular presentation--because of the excessively menacing
+potentialities it contains, which unrestricted dissemination might
+develop--will be dealt with in purely scientific pamphlets of
+carefully guarded circulation.
+
+THE INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF SCIENCE
+Per J. B. K., President
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+The Thing on the Moon Path
+
+
+For two months I had been on the d'Entrecasteaux Islands gathering
+data for the concluding chapters of my book upon the flora of the
+volcanic islands of the South Pacific. The day before I had reached
+Port Moresby and had seen my specimens safely stored on board the
+Southern Queen. As I sat on the upper deck I thought, with homesick
+mind, of the long leagues between me and Melbourne, and the longer
+ones between Melbourne and New York.
+
+It was one of Papua's yellow mornings when she shows herself in her
+sombrest, most baleful mood. The sky was smouldering ochre. Over the
+island brooded a spirit sullen, alien, implacable, filled with the
+threat of latent, malefic forces waiting to be unleashed. It seemed an
+emanation out of the untamed, sinister heart of Papua herself--sinister
+even when she smiles. And now and then, on the wind, came a breath from
+virgin jungles, laden with unfamiliar odours, mysterious and menacing.
+
+It is on such mornings that Papua whispers to you of her immemorial
+ancientness and of her power. And, as every white man must, I fought
+against her spell. While I struggled I saw a tall figure striding down
+the pier; a Kapa-Kapa boy followed swinging a new valise. There was
+something familiar about the tall man. As he reached the gangplank he
+looked up straight into my eyes, stared for a moment, then waved his
+hand.
+
+And now I knew him.  It was Dr. David Throckmartin--"Throck" he was to
+me always, one of my oldest friends and, as well, a mind of the first
+water whose power and achievements were for me a constant inspiration
+as they were, I know, for scores other.
+
+Coincidentally with my recognition came a shock of surprise,
+definitely--unpleasant. It was Throckmartin--but about him was
+something disturbingly unlike the man I had known long so well and to
+whom and to whose little party I had bidden farewell less than a month
+before I myself had sailed for these seas. He had married only a few
+weeks before, Edith, the daughter of Professor William Frazier,
+younger by at least a decade than he but at one with him in his ideals
+and as much in love, if it were possible, as Throckmartin. By virtue
+of her father's training a wonderful assistant, by virtue of her own
+sweet, sound heart a--I use the word in its olden sense--lover. With
+his equally youthful associate Dr. Charles Stanton and a Swedish
+woman, Thora Halversen, who had been Edith Throckmartin's nurse from
+babyhood, they had set forth for the Nan-Matal, that extraordinary
+group of island ruins clustered along the eastern shore of Ponape in
+the Carolines.
+
+I knew that he had planned to spend at least a year among these ruins,
+not only of Ponape but of Lele--twin centres of a colossal riddle of
+humanity, a weird flower of civilization that blossomed ages before
+the seeds of Egypt were sown; of whose arts we know little enough and
+of whose science nothing. He had carried with him unusually complete
+equipment for the work he had expected to do and which, he hoped,
+would be his monument.
+
+What then had brought Throckmartin to Port Moresby, and what was that
+change I had sensed in him?
+
+Hurrying down to the lower deck I found him with the purser.  As I
+spoke he turned, thrust out to me an eager hand--and then I saw what
+was that difference that had so moved me. He knew, of course by my
+silence and involuntary shrinking the shock my closer look had given
+me. His eyes filled; he turned brusquely from the purser, hesitated
+--then hurried off to his stateroom.
+
+"'E looks rather queer--eh?" said the purser.  "Know 'im well, sir?
+Seems to 'ave given you quite a start."
+
+I made some reply and went slowly up to my chair.  There I sat,
+composed my mind and tried to define what it was that had shaken me
+so. Now it came to me. The old Throckmartin was on the eve of his
+venture just turned forty, lithe, erect, muscular; his controlling
+expression one of enthusiasm, of intellectual keenness, of--what shall
+I say--expectant search. His always questioning brain had stamped its
+vigor upon his face.
+
+But the Throckmartin I had seen below was one who had borne some
+scaring shock of mingled rapture and horror; some soul cataclysm that
+in its climax had remoulded, deep from within, his face, setting on it
+seal of wedded ecstasy and despair; as though indeed these two had
+come to him hand in hand, taken possession of him and departing left
+behind, ineradicably, their linked shadows!
+
+Yes--it was that which appalled.  For how could rapture and horror,
+Heaven and Hell mix, clasp hands--kiss?
+
+Yet these were what in closest embrace lay on Throckmartin's face!
+
+Deep in thought, subconsciously with relief, I watched the shore line
+sink behind; welcomed the touch of the wind of the free seas. I had
+hoped, and within the hope was an inexplicable shrinking that I would
+meet Throckmartin at lunch. He did not come down, and I was sensible
+of deliverance within my disappointment. All that afternoon I lounged
+about uneasily but still he kept to his cabin--and within me was no
+strength to summon him. Nor did he appear at dinner.
+
+Dusk and night fell swiftly.  I was warm and went back to my
+deck-chair. The Southern Queen was rolling to a disquieting swell and
+I had the place to myself.
+
+Over the heavens was a canopy of cloud, glowing faintly and testifying
+to the moon riding behind it. There was much phosphorescence. Fitfully
+before the ship and at her sides arose those stranger little swirls of
+mist that swirl up from the Southern Ocean like breath of sea
+monsters, whirl for an instant and disappear.
+
+Suddenly the deck door opened and through it came Throckmartin.  He
+paused uncertainly, looked up at the sky with a curiously eager,
+intent gaze, hesitated, then closed the door behind him.
+
+"Throck," I called.  "Come!  It's Goodwin."
+
+He made his way to me.
+
+"Throck," I said, wasting no time in preliminaries. "What's wrong?
+Can I help you?"
+
+I felt his body grow tense.
+
+"I'm going to Melbourne, Goodwin," he answered.  "I need a few
+things--need them urgently. And more men--white men--"
+
+He stopped abruptly; rose from his chair, gazed intently toward the
+north. I followed his gaze. Far, far away the moon had broken through
+the clouds. Almost on the horizon, you could see the faint
+luminescence of it upon the smooth sea. The distant patch of light
+quivered and shook. The clouds thickened again and it was gone. The
+ship raced on southward, swiftly.
+
+Throckmartin dropped into his chair.  He lighted a cigarette with a
+hand that trembled; then turned to me with abrupt resolution.
+
+"Goodwin," he said.  "I do need help.  If ever man needed it, I do.
+Goodwin--can you imagine yourself in another world, alien, unfamiliar,
+a world of terror, whose unknown joy is its greatest terror of all;
+you all alone there, a stranger! As such a man would need help, so I
+need--"
+
+He paused abruptly and arose; the cigarette dropped from his fingers.
+The moon had again broken through the clouds, and this time much
+nearer. Not a mile away was the patch of light that it threw upon the
+waves. Back of it, to the rim of the sea was a lane of moonlight; a
+gigantic gleaming serpent racing over the edge of the world straight
+and surely toward the ship.
+
+Throckmartin stiffened to it as a pointer does to a hidden covey.  To
+me from him pulsed a thrill of horror--but horror tinged with an
+unfamiliar, an infernal joy. It came to me and passed away--leaving me
+trembling with its shock of bitter sweet.
+
+He bent forward, all his soul in his eyes.  The moon path swept
+closer, closer still. It was now less than half a mile away. From it
+the ship fled--almost as though pursued. Down upon it, swift and
+straight, a radiant torrent cleaving the waves, raced the moon stream.
+
+"Good God!" breathed Throckmartin, and if ever the words were a prayer
+and an invocation they were.
+
+And then, for the first time--I saw--_it_!
+
+The moon path stretched to the horizon and was bordered by darkness.
+It was as though the clouds above had been parted to form a lane-drawn
+aside like curtains or as the waters of the Red Sea were held back to
+let the hosts of Israel through. On each side of the stream was the
+black shadow cast by the folds of the high canopies And straight as a
+road between the opaque walls gleamed, shimmered, and danced the
+shining, racing, rapids of the moonlight.
+
+Far, it seemed immeasurably far, along this stream of silver fire I
+sensed, rather than saw, something coming. It drew first into sight as
+a deeper glow within the light. On and on it swept toward us--an
+opalescent mistiness that sped with the suggestion of some winged
+creature in arrowed flight. Dimly there crept into my mind memory of
+the Dyak legend of the winged messenger of Buddha--the Akla bird
+whose feathers are woven of the moon rays, whose heart is a living
+opal, whose wings in flight echo the crystal clear music of the white
+stars--but whose beak is of frozen flame and shreds the souls of
+unbelievers.
+
+Closer it drew and now there came to me sweet, insistent
+tinklings--like pizzicati on violins of glass; crystal clear; diamonds
+melting into sounds!
+
+Now the Thing was close to the end of the white path; close up to the
+barrier of darkness still between the ship and the sparkling head of
+the moon stream. Now it beat up against that barrier as a bird against
+the bars of its cage. It whirled with shimmering plumes, with swirls
+of lacy light, with spirals of living vapour. It held within it odd,
+unfamiliar gleams as of shifting mother-of-pearl. Coruscations and
+glittering atoms drifted through it as though it drew them from the
+rays that bathed it.
+
+Nearer and nearer it came, borne on the sparkling waves, and ever
+thinner shrank the protecting wall of shadow between it and us. Within
+the mistiness was a core, a nucleus of intenser light--veined,
+opaline, effulgent, intensely alive. And above it, tangled in the
+plumes and spirals that throbbed and whirled were seven glowing
+lights.
+
+Through all the incessant but strangely ordered movement of
+the--_thing_--these lights held firm and steady. They were seven--like
+seven little moons. One was of a pearly pink, one of a delicate
+nacreous blue, one of lambent saffron, one of the emerald you see in
+the shallow waters of tropic isles; a deathly white; a ghostly
+amethyst; and one of the silver that is seen only when the flying fish
+leap beneath the moon.
+
+The tinkling music was louder still.  It pierced the ears with a
+shower of tiny lances; it made the heart beat jubilantly--and checked
+it dolorously. It closed the throat with a throb of rapture and
+gripped it tight with the hand of infinite sorrow!
+
+Came to me now a murmuring cry, stilling the crystal notes.  It was
+articulate--but as though from something utterly foreign to this
+world. The ear took the cry and translated with conscious labour into
+the sounds of earth. And even as it compassed, the brain shrank from
+it irresistibly, and simultaneously it seemed reached toward it with
+irresistible eagerness.
+
+Throckmartin strode toward the front of the deck, straight toward the
+vision, now but a few yards away from the stern. His face had lost all
+human semblance. Utter agony and utter ecstasy--there they were side
+by side, not resisting each other; unholy inhuman companions blending
+into a look that none of God's creatures should wear--and deep, deep
+as his soul! A devil and a God dwelling harmoniously side by side! So
+must Satan, newly fallen, still divine, seeing heaven and
+contemplating hell, have appeared.
+
+And then--swiftly the moon path faded!  The clouds swept over the sky
+as though a hand had drawn them together. Up from the south came a
+roaring squall. As the moon vanished what I had seen vanished with
+it--blotted out as an image on a magic lantern; the tinkling ceased
+abruptly--leaving a silence like that which follows an abrupt thunder
+clap. There was nothing about us but silence and blackness!
+
+Through me passed a trembling as one who has stood on the very verge
+of the gulf wherein the men of the Louisades says lurks the fisher of
+the souls of men, and has been plucked back by sheerest chance.
+
+Throckmartin passed an arm around me.
+
+"It is as I thought," he said.  In his voice was a new note; the calm
+certainty that has swept aside a waiting terror of the unknown. "Now I
+know! Come with me to my cabin, old friend. For now that you too have
+seen I can tell you"--he hesitated--"what it was you saw," he ended.
+
+As we passed through the door we met the ship's first officer.
+Throckmartin composed his face into at least a semblance of normality.
+
+"Going to have much of a storm?" he asked.
+
+"Yes," said the mate.  "Probably all the way to Melbourne."
+
+Throckmartin straightened as though with a new thought. He gripped the
+officer's sleeve eagerly.
+
+"You mean at least cloudy weather--for"--he hesitated--"for the next
+three nights, say?"
+
+"And for three more," replied the mate.
+
+"Thank God!" cried Throckmartin, and I think I never heard such relief
+and hope as was in his voice.
+
+The sailor stood amazed.  "Thank God?" he repeated. "Thank--what d'ye
+mean?"
+
+But Throckmartin was moving onward to his cabin.  I started to follow.
+The first officer stopped me.
+
+"Your friend," he said, "is he ill?"
+
+"The sea!" I answered hurriedly.  "He's not used to it.  I am going to
+look after him."
+
+Doubt and disbelief were plain in the seaman's eyes but I hurried on.
+For I knew now that Throckmartin was ill indeed--but with a sickness
+the ship's doctor nor any other could heal.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+"Dead!  All Dead!"
+
+
+He was sitting, face in hands, on the side of his berth as I entered.
+He had taken off his coat.
+
+"Throck," I cried.  "What was it?  What are you flying from, man?
+Where is your wife--and Stanton?"
+
+"Dead!" he replied monotonously.  "Dead!  All dead!" Then as I
+recoiled from him--"All dead. Edith, Stanton, Thora--dead--or worse.
+And Edith in the Moon Pool--with them--drawn by what you saw on the
+moon path--that has put its brand upon me--and follows me!"
+
+He ripped open his shirt.
+
+"Look at this," he said.  Around his chest, above his heart, the skin
+was white as pearl. This whiteness was sharply defined against the
+healthy tint of the body. It circled him with an even cincture about
+two inches wide.
+
+"Burn it!" he said, and offered me his cigarette.  I drew back.  He
+gestured--peremptorily. I pressed the glowing end of the cigarette
+into the ribbon of white flesh. He did not flinch nor was there odour
+of burning nor, as I drew the little cylinder away, any mark upon the
+whiteness.
+
+"Feel it!" he commanded again.  I placed my fingers upon the band.  It
+was cold--like frozen marble.
+
+He drew his shirt around him.
+
+"Two things you have seen," he said.  "_It_--and its mark. Seeing,
+you must believe my story. Goodwin, I tell you again that my wife is
+dead--or worse--I do not know; the prey of--what you saw; so, too, is
+Stanton; so Thora. How--"
+
+Tears rolled down the seared face.
+
+"Why did God let it conquer us?  Why did He let it take my Edith?" he
+cried in utter bitterness. "Are there things stronger than God, do you
+think, Walter?"
+
+I hesitated.
+
+"Are there?  Are there?" His wild eyes searched me.
+
+"I do not know just how you define God," I managed at last through my
+astonishment to make answer. "If you mean the will to know, working
+through science--"
+
+He waved me aside impatiently.
+
+"Science," he said.  "What is our science against--that? Or against
+the science of whatever devils that made it--or made the way for it to
+enter this world of ours?"
+
+With an effort he regained control.
+
+"Goodwin," he said, "do you know at all of the ruins on the Carolines;
+the cyclopean, megalithic cities and harbours of Ponape and Lele, of
+Kusaie, of Ruk and Hogolu, and a score of other islets there?
+Particularly, do you know of the Nan-Matal and the Metalanim?"
+
+"Of the Metalanim I have heard and seen photographs," I said.  "They
+call it, don't they, the Lost Venice of the Pacific?"
+
+"Look at this map," said Throckmartin.  "That," he went on, "is
+Christian's chart of Metalanim harbour and the Nan-Matal. Do you see
+the rectangles marked Nan-Tauach?"
+
+"Yes," I said.
+
+"There," he said, "under those walls is the Moon Pool and the seven
+gleaming lights that raise the Dweller in the Pool, and the altar and
+shrine of the Dweller. And there in the Moon Pool with it lie Edith
+and Stanton and Thora."
+
+"The Dweller in the Moon Pool?" I repeated half-incredulously.
+
+"The Thing you saw," said Throckmartin solemnly.
+
+A solid sheet of rain swept the ports, and the Southern Queen began to
+roll on the rising swells. Throckmartin drew another deep breath of
+relief, and drawing aside a curtain peered out into the night. Its
+blackness seemed to reassure him. At any rate, when he sat again he
+was entirely calm.
+
+"There are no more wonderful ruins in the world," he began almost
+casually. "They take in some fifty islets and cover with their
+intersecting canals and lagoons about twelve square miles. Who built
+them? None knows. When were they built? Ages before the memory of
+present man, that is sure. Ten thousand, twenty thousand, a hundred
+thousand years ago--the last more likely.
+
+"All these islets, Walter, are squared, and their shores are frowning
+seawalls of gigantic basalt blocks hewn and put in place by the hands
+of ancient man. Each inner water-front is faced with a terrace of
+those basalt blocks which stand out six feet above the shallow canals
+that meander between them. On the islets behind these walls are
+time-shattered fortresses, palaces, terraces, pyramids; immense
+courtyards strewn with ruins--and all so old that they seem to wither
+the eyes of those who look on them.
+
+"There has been a great subsidence.  You can stand out of Metalanim
+harbour for three miles and look down upon the tops of similar
+monolithic structures and walls twenty feet below you in the water.
+
+"And all about, strung on their canals, are the bulwarked islets with
+their enigmatic walls peering through the dense growths of
+mangroves--dead, deserted for incalculable ages; shunned by those who
+live near.
+
+"You as a botanist are familiar with the evidence that a vast shadowy
+continent existed in the Pacific--a continent that was not rent
+asunder by volcanic forces as was that legendary one of Atlantis in
+the Eastern Ocean.*1 My work in Java, in Papua, and in the Ladrones
+had set my mind upon this Pacific lost land. Just as the Azores are
+believed to be the last high peaks of Atlantis, so hints came to me
+steadily that Ponape and Lele and their basalt bulwarked islets were
+the last points of the slowly sunken western land clinging still to
+the sunlight, and had been the last refuge and sacred places of the
+rulers of that race which had lost their immemorial home under the
+rising waters of the Pacific.
+
+
+*1 For more detailed observations on these points refer to G. Volkens,
+Uber die Karolinen Insel Yap, in Verhandlungen Gesellschaft Erdkunde
+Berlin, xxvii (1901); J. S. Kubary, Ethnographische Beitrage zur
+Kentniss des Karolinen Archipel (Leiden, 1889-1892); De Abrade
+Historia del Conflicto de las Carolinas, etc. (Madrid, 1886).--W. T. G.
+
+
+
+"I believed that under these ruins I might find the evidence
+that I sought.
+
+"My--my wife and I had talked before we were married of making this
+our great work. After the honeymoon we prepared for the expedition.
+Stanton was as enthusiastic as ourselves. We sailed, as you know, last
+May for fulfilment of my dreams.
+
+"At Ponape we selected, not without difficulty, workmen to help
+us--diggers. I had to make extraordinary inducements before I could
+get together my force. Their beliefs are gloomy, these Ponapeans. They
+people their swamps, their forests, their mountains, and shores, with
+malignant spirits--ani they call them. And they are afraid--bitterly
+afraid of the isles of ruins and what they think the ruins hide. I do
+not wonder--now!
+
+"When they were told where they were to go, and how long we expected
+to stay, they murmured. Those who, at last, were tempted made what I
+thought then merely a superstitious proviso that they were to be
+allowed to go away on the three nights of the full moon. Would to God
+we had heeded them and gone too!"
+
+"We passed into Metalanim harbour.  Off to our left--a mile away arose
+a massive quadrangle. Its walls were all of forty feet high and
+hundreds of feet on each side. As we drew by, our natives grew very
+silent; watched it furtively, fearfully. I knew it for the ruins that
+are called Nan-Tauach, the 'place of frowning walls.' And at the
+silence of my men I recalled what Christian had written of this place;
+of how he had come upon its 'ancient platforms and tetragonal
+enclosures of stonework; its wonder of tortuous alleyways and
+labyrinth of shallow canals; grim masses of stonework peering out from
+behind verdant screens; cyclopean barricades,' and of how, when he had
+turned 'into its ghostly shadows, straight-way the merriment of guides
+was hushed and conversation died down to whispers.'"
+
+He was silent for a little time.
+
+"Of course I wanted to pitch our camp there," he went on again
+quietly, "but I soon gave up that idea. The natives were
+panic-stricken--threatened to turn back. 'No,' they said, 'too great
+ani there. We go to any other place--but not there.'
+
+"We finally picked for our base the islet called Uschen-Tau.  It was
+close to the isle of desire, but far enough away from it to satisfy
+our men. There was an excellent camping-place and a spring of fresh
+water. We pitched our tents, and in a couple of days the work was in
+full swing."
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+The Moon Rock
+
+
+"I do not intend to tell you now," Throckmartin continued, "the
+results of the next two weeks, nor of what we found. Later--if I am
+allowed, I will lay all that before you. It is sufficient to say that
+at the end of those two weeks I had found confirmation for many of my
+theories.
+
+"The place, for all its decay and desolation, had not infected us with
+any touch of morbidity--that is not Edith, Stanton, or myself. But
+Thora was very unhappy. She was a Swede, as you know, and in her blood
+ran the beliefs and superstitions of the Northland--some of them so
+strangely akin to those of this far southern land; beliefs of spirits
+of mountain and forest and water werewolves and beings malign. From
+the first she showed a curious sensitivity to what, I suppose, may be
+called the 'influences' of the place. She said it 'smelled' of ghosts
+and warlocks.
+
+"I laughed at her then--
+
+"Two weeks slipped by, and at their end the spokesman for our natives
+came to us. The next night was the full of the moon, he said. He
+reminded me of my promise. They would go back to their village in the
+morning; they would return after the third night, when the moon had
+begun to wane. They left us sundry charms for our 'protection,' and
+solemnly cautioned us to keep as far away as possible from Nan-Tauach
+during their absence. Half-exasperated, half-amused I watched them go.
+
+"No work could be done without them, of course, so we decided to spend
+the days of their absence junketing about the southern islets of the
+group. We marked down several spots for subsequent exploration, and on
+the morning of the third day set forth along the east face of the
+breakwater for our camp on Uschen-Tau, planning to have everything in
+readiness for the return of our men the next day.
+
+"We landed just before dusk, tired and ready for our cots.
+It was only a little after ten o'clock that Edith awakened me.
+
+"'Listen!' she said.  'Lean over with your ear close to the ground!'
+
+"I did so, and seemed to hear, far, far below, as though coming up
+from great distances, a faint chanting. It gathered strength, died
+down, ended; began, gathered volume, faded away into silence.
+
+"'It's the waves rolling on rocks somewhere,' I said.  'We're probably
+over some ledge of rock that carries the sound.'
+
+"'It's the first time I've heard it,' replied my wife doubtfully.  We
+listened again. Then through the dim rhythms, deep beneath us, another
+sound came. It drifted across the lagoon that lay between us and
+Nan-Tauach in little tinkling waves. It was music--of a sort; I won't
+describe the strange effect it had upon me. You've felt it--"
+
+"You mean on the deck?" I asked.  Throckmartin nodded.
+
+"I went to the flap of the tent," he continued, "and peered out.
+As I did so Stanton lifted his flap and walked out into the moonlight,
+looking over to the other islet and listening. I called to him.
+
+"'That's the queerest sound!' he said.  He listened again.
+'Crystalline! Like little notes of translucent glass. Like the bells
+of crystal on the sistrums of Isis at Dendarah Temple,' he added
+half-dreamily. We gazed intently at the island. Suddenly, on the
+sea-wall, moving slowly, rhythmically, we saw a little group of
+lights. Stanton laughed.
+
+"'The beggars!' he exclaimed.  'That's why they wanted to get away, is
+it? Don't you see, Dave, it's some sort of a festival--rites of some
+kind that they hold during the full moon! That's why they were so
+eager to have us _keep_ away, too.'
+
+"The explanation seemed good.  I felt a curious sense of relief,
+although I had not been sensible of any oppression.
+
+"'Let's slip over,' suggested Stanton--but I would not.
+
+"'They're a difficult lot as it is,' I said.  'If we break into one of
+their religious ceremonies they'll probably never forgive us. Let's
+keep out of any family party where we haven't been invited.'
+
+"'That's so,' agreed Stanton.
+
+"The strange tinkling rose and fell, rose and fell--
+
+"'There's something--something very unsettling about it,' said Edith
+at last soberly. 'I wonder what they make those sounds with. They
+frighten me half to death, and, at the same time, they make me feel as
+though some enormous rapture were just around the corner.'
+
+"'It's devilish uncanny!' broke in Stanton.
+
+"And as he spoke the flap of Thora's tent was raised and out into the
+moonlight strode the old Swede. She was the great Norse type--tall,
+deep-breasted, moulded on the old Viking lines. Her sixty years had
+slipped from her. She looked like some ancient priestess of Odin.
+
+"She stood there, her eyes wide, brilliant, staring.  She thrust her
+head forward toward Nan-Tauach, regarding the moving lights; she
+listened. Suddenly she raised her arms and made a curious gesture to
+the moon. It was--an archaic--movement; she seemed to drag it from
+remote antiquity--yet in it was a strange suggestion of power, Twice
+she repeated this gesture and--the tinklings died away! She turned to
+us.
+
+"'Go!' she said, and her voice seemed to come from far distances.  'Go
+from here--and quickly! Go while you may. It has called--' She pointed
+to the islet. 'It knows you are here. It waits!' she wailed. 'It
+beckons--the--the--"
+
+"She fell at Edith's feet, and over the lagoon came again the
+tinklings, now with a quicker note of jubilance--almost of triumph.
+
+"We watched beside her throughout the night.  The sounds from
+Nan-Tauach continued until about an hour before moon-set. In the
+morning Thora awoke, none the worse, apparently. She had had bad
+dreams, she said. She could not remember what they were--except that
+they had warned her of danger. She was oddly sullen, and throughout
+the morning her gaze returned again and again half-fascinatedly,
+half-wonderingly to the neighbouring isle.
+
+"That afternoon the natives returned.  And that night on Nan-Tauach
+the silence was unbroken nor were there lights nor sign of life.
+
+"You will understand, Goodwin, how the occurrences I have related
+would excite the scientific curiosity. We rejected immediately, of
+course, any explanation admitting the supernatural.
+
+"Our--symptoms let me call them--could all very easily be accounted
+for. It is unquestionable that the vibrations created by certain
+musical instruments have definite and sometimes extraordinary effect
+upon the nervous system. We accepted this as the explanation of the
+reactions we had experienced, hearing the unfamiliar sounds. Thora's
+nervousness, her superstitious apprehensions, had wrought her up to a
+condition of semi-somnambulistic hysteria. Science could readily
+explain her part in the night's scene.
+
+"We came to the conclusion that there must be a passage-way between
+Ponape and Nan-Tauach known to the natives--and used by them during
+their rites. We decided that on the next departure of our labourers we
+would set forth immediately to Nan-Tauach. We would investigate during
+the day, and at evening my wife and Thora would go back to camp,
+leaving Stanton and me to spend the night on the island, observing
+from some safe hiding-place what might occur.
+
+"The moon waned; appeared crescent in the west; waxed slowly toward
+the full. Before the men left us they literally prayed us to accompany
+them. Their importunities only made us more eager to see what it was
+that, we were now convinced, they wanted to conceal from us. At least
+that was true of Stanton and myself. It was not true of Edith. She was
+thoughtful, abstracted--reluctant.
+
+"When the men were out of sight around the turn of the harbour, we
+took our boat and made straight for Nan-Tauach. Soon its mighty
+sea-wall towered above us. We passed through the water-gate with its
+gigantic hewn prisms of basalt and landed beside a half-submerged
+pier. In front of us stretched a series of giant steps leading into a
+vast court strewn with fragments of fallen pillars. In the centre of
+the court, beyond the shattered pillars, rose another terrace of
+basalt blocks, concealing, I knew, still another enclosure.
+
+"And now, Walter, for the better understanding of what
+follows--and--and--" he hesitated. "Should you decide later to return
+with me or, if I am taken, to--to--follow us--listen carefully to my
+description of this place: Nan-Tauach is literally three rectangles.
+The first rectangle is the sea-wall, built up of monoliths--hewn and
+squared, twenty feet wide at the top. To get to the gateway in the
+sea-wall you pass along the canal marked on the map between Nan-Tauach
+and the islet named Tau. The entrance to the canal is bidden by dense
+thickets of mangroves; once through these the way is clear. The steps
+lead up from the landing of the sea-gate through the entrance to the
+courtyard.
+
+"This courtyard is surrounded by another basalt wall, rectangular,
+following with mathematical exactness the march of the outer
+barricades. The sea-wall is from thirty to forty feet high--originally
+it must have been much higher, but there has been subsidence in parts.
+The wall of the first enclosure is fifteen feet across the top and its
+height varies from twenty to fifty feet--here, too, the gradual
+sinking of the land has caused portions of it to fall.
+
+"Within this courtyard is the second enclosure.  Its terrace, of the
+same basalt as the outer walls, is about twenty feet high. Entrance is
+gained to it by many breaches which time has made in its stonework.
+This is the inner court, the heart of Nan-Tauach! There lies the great
+central vault with which is associated the one name of living being
+that has come to us out of the mists of the past. The natives say it
+was the treasure-house of Chau-te-leur, a mighty king who reigned long
+'before their fathers.' As Chan is the ancient Ponapean word both for
+sun and king, the name means, without doubt, 'place of the sun king.'
+It is a memory of a dynastic name of the race that ruled the Pacific
+continent, now vanished--just as the rulers of ancient Crete took the
+name of Minos and the rulers of Egypt the name of Pharaoh.
+
+"And opposite this place of the sun king is the moon rock that hides
+the Moon Pool.
+
+"It was Stanton who discovered the moon rock.  We had been inspecting
+the inner courtyard; Edith and Thora were getting together our lunch.
+I came out of the vault of Chau-te-leur to find Stanton before a part
+of the terrace studying it wonderingly.
+
+"'What do you make of this?' he asked me as I came up. He pointed to
+the wall. I followed his finger and saw a slab of stone about fifteen
+feet high and ten wide. At first all I noticed was the exquisite
+nicety with which its edges joined the blocks about it. Then I
+realized that its colour was subtly different--tinged with grey and of
+a smooth, peculiar--deadness.
+
+"'Looks more like calcite than basalt,' I said.  I touched it and
+withdrew my hand quickly for at the contact every nerve in my arm
+tingled as though a shock of frozen electricity had passed through it.
+It was not cold as we know cold. It was a chill force--the phrase I
+have used--frozen electricity--describes it better than anything else.
+Stanton looked at me oddly.
+
+"'So you felt it too,' he said.  'I was wondering whether I was
+developing hallucinations like Thora. Notice, by the way, that the
+blocks beside it are quite warm beneath the sun.'
+
+"We examined the slab eagerly.  Its edges were cut as though by an
+engraver of jewels. They fitted against the neighbouring blocks in
+almost a hair-line. Its base was slightly curved, and fitted as
+closely as top and sides upon the huge stones on which it rested. And
+then we noted that these stones had been hollowed to follow the line
+of the grey stone's foot. There was a semicircular depression running
+from one side of the slab to the other. It was as though the grey rock
+stood in the centre of a shallow cup--revealing half, covering half.
+Something about this hollow attracted me. I reached down and felt it.
+Goodwin, although the balance of the stones that formed it, like all
+the stones of the courtyard, were rough and age-worn--this was as
+smooth, as even surfaced as though it had just left the hands of the
+polisher.
+
+"'It's a door!' exclaimed Stanton.  'It swings around in that little
+cup. That's what makes the hollow so smooth.'
+
+"'Maybe you're right,' I replied.  'But how the devil can we open it?'
+
+"We went over the slab again--pressing upon its edges, thrusting
+against its sides. During one of those efforts I happened to look
+up--and cried out. A foot above and on each side of the corner of the
+grey rock's lintel was a slight convexity, visible only from the angle
+at which my gaze struck it.
+
+"We carried with us a small scaling-ladder and up this I went.  The
+bosses were apparently nothing more than chiseled curvatures in the
+stone. I laid my hand on the one I was examining, and drew it back
+sharply. In my palm, at the base of my thumb, I had felt the same
+shock that I had in touching the slab below. I put my hand back. The
+impression came from a spot not more than an inch wide. I went
+carefully over the entire convexity, and six times more the chill ran
+through my arm. There were seven circles an inch wide in the curved
+place, each of which communicated the precise sensation I have
+described. The convexity on the opposite side of the slab gave exactly
+the same results. But no amount of touching or of pressing these spots
+singly or in any combination gave the slightest promise of motion to
+the slab itself.
+
+"'And yet--they're what open it,' said Stanton positively.
+
+"'Why do you say that?' I asked.
+
+"'I--don't know,' he answered hesitatingly.  'But something tells me
+so. Throck,' he went on half earnestly, half laughingly, 'the purely
+scientific part of me is fighting the purely human part of me. The
+scientific part is urging me to find some way to get that slab either
+down or open. The human part is just as strongly urging me to do
+nothing of the sort and get away while I can!'
+
+"He laughed again--shamefacedly.
+
+"'Which shall it be?' he asked--and I thought that in his tone the
+human side of him was ascendant.
+
+"'It will probably stay as it is--unless we blow it to bits,' I said.
+
+"'I thought of that,' he answered, 'and I wouldn't dare,' he added
+soberly enough. And even as I had spoken there came to me the same
+feeling that he had expressed. It was as though something passed out
+of the grey rock that struck my heart as a hand strikes an impious
+lip. We turned away--uneasily, and faced Thora coming through a breach
+on the terrace.
+
+"'Miss Edith wants you quick,' she began--and stopped. Her eyes went
+past me to the grey rock. Her body grew rigid; she took a few stiff
+steps forward and then ran straight to it. She cast herself upon its
+breast, hands and face pressed against it; we heard her scream as
+though her very soul were being drawn from her--and watched her fall
+at its foot. As we picked her up I saw steal from her face the look I
+had observed when first we heard the crystal music of Nan-Tauach
+--that unhuman mingling of opposites!"
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+The First Vanishings
+
+
+"We carried Thora back, down to where Edith was waiting. We told her
+what had happened and what we had found. She listened gravely, and as
+we finished Thora sighed and opened her eyes.
+
+"'I would like to see the stone,' she said.  'Charles, you stay here
+with Thora.' We passed through the outer court silently--and stood
+before the rock. She touched it, drew back her hand as I had; thrust
+it forward again resolutely and held it there. She seemed to be
+listening. Then she turned to me.
+
+"'David,' said my wife, and the wistfulness in her voice hurt
+me--'David, would you be very, very disappointed if we went from
+here--without trying to find out any more about it--would you?'
+
+"Walter, I never wanted anything so much in my life as I wanted to
+learn what that rock concealed. Nevertheless, I tried to master my
+desire, and I answered--'Edith, not a bit if you want us to do it.'
+
+"She read my struggle in my eyes.  She turned back toward the grey
+rock. I saw a shiver pass through her. I felt a tinge of remorse and
+pity!
+
+"'Edith,' I exclaimed, 'we'll go!'
+
+"She looked at me again.  'Science is a jealous mistress,' she quoted.
+'No, after all it may be just fancy. At any rate, you can't run away.
+No! But, Dave, I'm going to stay too!'
+
+"And there was no changing her decision.  As we neared the others she
+laid a hand on my arm.
+
+"'Dave,' she said, 'if there should be something--well--inexplicable
+tonight--something that seems--too dangerous--will you promise to go
+back to our own islet tomorrow, if we can--and wait until the natives
+return?'
+
+"I promised eagerly--the desire to stay and see what came with the
+night was like a fire within me.
+
+"We picked a place about five hundred feet away from the steps leading
+into the outer court.
+
+"The spot we had selected was well hidden.  We could not be seen, and
+yet we had a clear view of the stairs and the gateway. We settled down
+just before dusk to wait for whatever might come. I was nearest the
+giant steps; next me Edith; then Thora, and last Stanton.
+
+"Night fell.  After a time the eastern sky began to lighten, and we
+knew that the moon was rising; grew lighter still, and the orb peeped
+over the sea; swam into full sight. I glanced at Edith and then at
+Thora. My wife was intently listening. Thora sat, as she had since we
+had placed ourselves, elbows on knees, her hands covering her face.
+
+"And then from the moonlight flooding us there dripped down on me a
+great drowsiness. Sleep seemed to seep from the rays and fall upon my
+eyes, closing them--closing them inexorably. Edith's hand in mine
+relaxed. Stanton's head fell upon his breast and his body swayed
+drunkenly. I tried to rise--to fight against the profound desire for
+slumber that pressed on me.
+
+"And as I fought, Thora raised her head as though listening; and
+turned toward the gateway. There was infinite despair in her face--and
+expectancy. I tried again to rise--and a surge of sleep rushed over
+me. Dimly, as I sank within it, I heard a crystalline chiming; raised
+my lids once more with a supreme effort.
+
+"Thora, bathed in light, was standing at the top of the stairs.
+
+"Sleep took me for its very own--swept me into the heart of oblivion!
+
+"Dawn was breaking when I wakened.  Recollection rushed back; I thrust
+a panic-stricken hand out toward Edith; touched her and my heart gave
+a great leap of thankfulness. She stirred, sat up, rubbing dazed eyes.
+Stanton lay on his side, back toward us, head in arms.
+
+"Edith looked at me laughingly.  'Heavens!  What sleep!' she said.
+Memory came to her.
+
+"'What happened?' she whispered.  'What made us sleep like that?'
+
+"Stanton awoke.
+
+"'What's the matter!' he exclaimed.  'You look as though you've been
+seeing ghosts.'
+
+"Edith caught my hands.
+
+"'Where's Thora?' she cried.  Before I could answer she had run out
+into the open, calling.
+
+"'Thora was taken,' was all I could say to Stanton, 'together we went
+to my wife, now standing beside the great stone steps, looking up
+fearfully at the gateway into the terraces. There I told them what I
+had seen before sleep had drowned me. And together then we ran up the
+stairs, through the court and to the grey rock.
+
+"The slab was closed as it had been the day before, nor was there
+trace of its having opened. No trace? Even as I thought this Edith
+dropped to her knees before it and reached toward something lying at
+its foot. It was a little piece of gay silk. I knew it for part of the
+kerchief Thora wore about her hair. She lifted the fragment. It had
+been cut from the kerchief as though by a razor-edge; a few threads
+ran from it--down toward the base of the slab; ran on to the base of
+the grey rock and--under it!
+
+"The grey rock was a door!  And it had opened and Thora had passed
+through it!
+
+"I think that for the next few minutes we all were a little insane.
+We beat upon that portal with our hands, with stones and sticks. At
+last reason came back to us.
+
+"Goodwin, during the next two hours we tried every way in our power to
+force entrance through the slab. The rock resisted our drills. We
+tried explosions at the base with charges covered by rock. They made
+not the slightest impression on the surface, expending their force, of
+course, upon the slighter resistance of their coverings.
+
+"Afternoon found us hopeless.  Night was coming on and we would have
+to decide our course of action. I wanted to go to Ponape for help. But
+Edith objected that this would take hours and after we had reached
+there it would be impossible to persuade our men to return with us
+that night, if at all. What then was left? Clearly only one of two
+choices: to go back to our camp, wait for our men, and on their return
+try to persuade them to go with us to Nan-Tauach. But this would mean
+the abandonment of Thora for at least two days. We could not do it; it
+would have been too cowardly.
+
+"The other choice was to wait where we were for night to come; to wait
+for the rock to open as it had the night before, and to make a sortie
+through it for Thora before it could close again.
+
+"Our path lay clear before us.  We had to spend that night on
+Nan-Tauach!
+
+"We had, of course, discussed the sleep phenomena very fully.  If our
+theory that lights, sounds, and Thora's disappearance were linked with
+secret religious rites of the natives, the logical inference was that
+the slumber had been produced by them, perhaps by vapours--you know as
+well as I, what extraordinary knowledge these Pacific peoples have of
+such things. Or the sleep might have been simply a coincidence and
+produced by emanations either gaseous or from plants, natural causes
+which had happened to coincide in their effects with the other
+manifestations. We made some rough and ready but effective
+respirators.
+
+"As dusk fell we looked over our weapons.  Edith was an excellent shot
+with both rifle and pistol. We had decided that my wife was to remain
+in the hiding-place. Stanton would take up a station on the far side
+of the stairway and I would place myself opposite him on the side near
+Edith. The place I picked out was less than two hundred feet from her,
+and I could reassure myself now and then as to her safety as it looked
+down upon the hollow wherein she crouched. From our respective
+stations Stanton and I could command the gateway entrance. His
+position gave him also a glimpse of the outer courtyard.
+
+"A faint glow in the sky heralded the moon.  Stanton and I took our
+places. The moon dawn increased rapidly; the disk swam up, and in a
+moment it was shining in full radiance upon ruins and sea.
+
+"As it rose there came a curious little sighing sound from the inner
+terrace. Stanton straightened up and stared intently through the
+gateway, rifle ready.
+
+"'Stanton, what do you see?' I called cautiously.  He waved a
+silencing hand. I turned my head to look at Edith. A shock ran through
+me. She lay upon her side. Her face, grotesque with its nose and mouth
+covered by the respirator, was turned full toward the moon. She was
+again in deepest sleep!
+
+"As I turned again to call to Stanton, my eyes swept the head of the
+steps and stopped, fascinated. For the moonlight had thickened. It
+seemed to be--curdled--there; and through it ran little gleams and
+veins of shimmering white fire. A languor passed through me. It was
+not the ineffable drowsiness of the preceding night. It was a sapping
+of all will to move. I tried to cry out to Stanton. I had not even the
+will to move my lips. Goodwin--I could not even move my eyes!
+
+"Stanton was in the range of my fixed vision.  I watched him leap up
+the steps and move toward the gateway. The curdled radiance seemed to
+await him. He stepped into it--and was lost to my sight.
+
+"For a dozen heart beats there was silence.  Then a rain of tinklings
+that set the pulses racing with joy and at once checked them with tiny
+fingers of ice--and ringing through them Stanton's voice from the
+courtyard--a great cry--a scream--filled with ecstasy insupportable
+and horror unimaginable! And once more there was silence. I strove to
+burst the bonds that held me. I could not. Even my eyelids were fixed.
+Within them my eyes, dry and aching, burned.
+
+"Then Goodwin--I first saw the--inexplicable!  The crystalline music
+swelled. Where I sat I could take in the gateway and its basalt
+portals, rough and broken, rising to the top of the wall forty feet
+above, shattered, ruined portals--unclimbable. From this gateway an
+intenser light began to flow. It grew, it gushed, and out of it walked
+Stanton.
+
+"Stanton!  But--God!  What a vision!"
+
+A deep tremor shook him.  I waited--waited.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+Into the Moon Pool
+
+
+"Goodwin," Throckmartin went on at last, "I can describe him only as a
+thing of living light. He radiated light; was filled with light;
+overflowed with it. A shining cloud whirled through and around him in
+radiant swirls, shimmering tentacles, luminescent, coruscating
+spirals.
+
+"His face shone with a rapture too great to be borne by living man,
+and was shadowed with insuperable misery. It was as though it had been
+remoulded by the hand of God and the hand of Satan, working together
+and in harmony. You have seen that seal upon my own. But you have
+never seen it in the degree that Stanton bore it. The eyes were wide
+open and fixed, as though upon some inward vision of hell and heaven!
+
+"The light that filled and surrounded him had a nucleus, a
+core--something shiftingly human shaped--that dissolved and changed,
+gathered itself, whirled through and beyond him and back again. And as
+its shining nucleus passed through him Stanton's whole body pulsed
+radiance. As the luminescence moved, there moved above it, still and
+serene always, seven tiny globes of seven colors, like seven little
+moons.
+
+"Then swiftly Stanton was lifted--levitated--up the unscalable wall
+and to its top. The glow faded from the moonlight, the tinkling music
+grew fainter. I tried again to move. The tears were running down now
+from my rigid lids and they brought relief to my tortured eyes.
+
+"I have said my gaze was fixed.  It was.  But from the side,
+peripherally, it took in a part of the far wall of the outer
+enclosure. Ages seemed to pass and a radiance stole along it. Soon
+drifted into sight the figure that was Stanton. Far away he was--on
+the gigantic wall. But still I could see the shining spirals whirling
+jubilantly around and through him; felt rather than saw his tranced
+face beneath the seven moons. A swirl of crystal notes, and he had
+passed. And all the time, as though from some opened well of light,
+the courtyard gleamed and sent out silver fires that dimmed the
+moonrays, yet seemed strangely to be a part of them.
+
+"At last the moon neared the horizon.  There came a louder burst of
+sound; the second, and last, cry of Stanton, like an echo of his
+first! Again the soft sighing from the inner terrace. Then--utter
+silence!
+
+"The light faded; the moon was setting and with a rush life and power
+to move returned to me. I made a leap for the steps, rushed up them,
+through the gateway and straight to the grey rock. It was closed--as I
+knew it would be. But did I dream it or did I hear, echoing through it
+as though from vast distances a triumphant shouting?
+
+"I ran back to Edith.  At my touch she wakened; looked at me
+wanderingly; raised herself on a hand.
+
+"'Dave!' she said, 'I slept--after all.' She saw the despair on my
+face and leaped to her feet. 'Dave!' she cried. 'What is it? Where's
+Charles?'
+
+"I lighted a fire before I spoke.  Then I told her.  And for the
+balance of that night we sat before the flames, arms around each
+other--like two frightened children."
+
+Abruptly Throckmartin held his hands out to me appealingly.
+
+"Walter, old friend!" he cried.  "Don't look at me as though I were
+mad. It's truth, absolute truth. Wait--" I comforted him as well as I
+could. After a little time he took up his story.
+
+"Never," he said, "did man welcome the sun as we did that morning.  A
+soon as it had risen we went back to the courtyard. The walls whereon
+I had seen Stanton were black and silent. The terraces were as they
+had been. The grey slab was in its place. In the shallow hollow at its
+base was--nothing. Nothing--nothing was there anywhere on the islet
+of Stanton--not a trace.
+
+"What were we to do?  Precisely the same arguments that had kept us
+there the night before held good now--and doubly good. We could not
+abandon these two; could not go as long as there was the faintest hope
+of finding them--and yet for love of each other how could we remain? I
+loved my wife,--how much I never knew until that day; and she loved me
+as deeply.
+
+"'It takes only one each night,' she pleaded.  'Beloved, let it take
+me.'
+
+"I wept, Walter.  We both wept.
+
+"'We will meet it together,' she said.  And it was thus at last that
+we arranged it."
+
+"That took great courage indeed, Throckmartin," I interrupted.  He
+looked at me eagerly.
+
+"You do believe then?" he exclaimed.
+
+"I believe," I said.  He pressed my hand with a grip that nearly
+crushed it.
+
+"Now," he told me.  "I do not fear.  If I--fail, you will follow with
+help?"
+
+I promised.
+
+"We talked it over carefully," he went on, "bringing to bear all our
+power of analysis and habit of calm, scientific thought. We considered
+minutely the time element in the phenomena. Although the deep chanting
+began at the very moment of moonrise, fully five minutes had passed
+between its full lifting and the strange sighing sound from the inner
+terrace. I went back in memory over the happenings of the night
+before. At least ten minutes had intervened between the first
+heralding sigh and the intensification of the moonlight in the
+courtyard. And this glow grew for at least ten minutes more before the
+first burst of the crystal notes. Indeed, more than half an hour must
+have elapsed, I calculated, between the moment the moon showed above
+the horizon and the first delicate onslaught of the tinklings.
+
+"'Edith!' I cried.  'I think I have it!  The grey rock opens five
+minutes after upon the moonrise. But whoever or whatever it is that
+comes through it must wait until the moon has risen higher, or else it
+must come from a distance. The thing to do is not to wait for it, but
+to surprise it before it passes out the door. We will go into the
+inner court early. You will take your rifle and pistol and hide
+yourself where you can command the opening--if the slab does open. The
+instant it opens I will enter. It's our best chance, Edith. I think
+it's our only one.'
+
+"My wife demurred strongly.  She wanted to go with me. But I convinced
+her that it was better for her to stand guard without, prepared to
+help me if I were forced again into the open by what lay behind the
+rock.
+
+"At the half-hour before moonrise we went into the inner court.  I
+took my place at the side of the grey rock. Edith crouched behind a
+broken pillar twenty feet away; slipped her rifle-barrel over it so
+that it would cover the opening.
+
+"The minutes crept by.  The darkness lessened and through the breaches
+of the terrace I watched the far sky softly lighten. With the first
+pale flush the silence of the place intensified. It deepened; became
+unbearably--expectant. The moon rose, showed the quarter, the half,
+then swam up into full sight like a great bubble.
+
+"Its rays fell upon the wall before me and suddenly upon the
+convexities I have described seven little circles of light sprang out.
+They gleamed, glimmered, grew brighter--shone. The gigantic slab
+before me glowed with them, silver wavelets of phosphorescence pulsed
+over its surface and then--it turned as though on a pivot, sighing
+softly as it moved!
+
+"With a word to Edith I flung myself through the opening. A tunnel
+stretched before me. It glowed with the same faint silvery radiance.
+Down it I raced. The passage turned abruptly, passed parallel to the
+walls of the outer courtyard and then once more led downward.
+
+"The passage ended.  Before me was a high vaulted arch. It seemed to
+open into space; a space filled with lambent, coruscating,
+many-coloured mist whose brightness grew even as I watched. I passed
+through the arch and stopped in sheer awe!
+
+"In front of me was a pool.  It was circular, perhaps twenty feet
+wide. Around it ran a low, softly curved lip of glimmering silvery
+stone. Its water was palest blue. The pool with its silvery rim was
+like a great blue eye staring upward.
+
+"Upon it streamed seven shafts of radiance.  They poured down upon the
+blue eye like cylindrical torrents; they were like shining pillars of
+light rising from a sapphire floor.
+
+"One was the tender pink of the pearl; one of the aurora's green; a
+third a deathly white; the fourth the blue in mother-of-pearl; a
+shimmering column of pale amber; a beam of amethyst; a shaft of molten
+silver. Such are the colours of the seven lights that stream upon the
+Moon Pool. I drew closer, awestricken. The shafts did not illumine the
+depths. They played upon the surface and seemed there to diffuse, to
+melt into it. The Pool drank them?
+
+"Through the water tiny gleams of phosphorescence began to dart,
+sparkles and coruscations of pale incandescence. And far, far below I
+sensed a movement, a shifting glow as of a radiant body slowly rising.
+
+"I looked upward, following the radiant pillars to their source.  Far
+above were seven shining globes, and it was from these that the rays
+poured. Even as I watched their brightness grew. They were like seven
+moons set high in some caverned heaven. Slowly their splendour
+increased, and with it the splendour of the seven beams streaming from
+them.
+
+"I tore my gaze away and stared at the Pool.  It had grown milky,
+opalescent. The rays gushing into it seemed to be filling it; it was
+alive with sparklings, scintillations, glimmerings. And the
+luminescence I had seen rising from its depths was larger, nearer!
+
+"A swirl of mist floated up from its surface.  It drifted within the
+embrace of the rosy beam and hung there for a moment. The beam seemed
+to embrace it, sending through it little shining corpuscles, tiny rosy
+spiralings. The mist absorbed the rays, was strengthened by them,
+gained substance. Another swirl sprang into the amber shaft, clung and
+fed there, moved swiftly toward the first and mingled with it. And now
+other swirls arose, here and there, too fast to be counted; hung
+poised in the embrace of the light streams; flashed and pulsed into
+each other.
+
+"Thicker and thicker still they arose until over the surface of the
+Pool was a pulsating pillar of opalescent mist steadily growing
+stronger; drawing within it life from the seven beams falling upon it;
+drawing to it from below the darting, incandescent atoms of the Pool.
+Into its centre was passing the luminescence rising from the far
+depths. And the pillar glowed, throbbed--began to send out questing
+swirls and tendrils--
+
+"There forming before me was That which had walked with Stanton, which
+had taken Thora--the thing I had come to find!
+
+"My brain sprang into action.  My hand threw up the pistol and I fired
+shot after shot into the shining core.
+
+"As I fired, it swayed and shook; gathered again.  I slipped a second
+clip into the automatic and another idea coming to me took careful aim
+at one of the globes in the roof. From thence I knew came the force
+that shaped this Dweller in the Pool--from the pouring rays came its
+strength. If I could destroy them I could check its forming. I fired
+again and again. If I hit the globes I did no damage. The little motes
+in their beams danced with the motes in the mist, troubled. That was
+all.
+
+"But up from the Pool like little bells, like tiny bursting bubbles of
+glass, swarmed the tinkling sounds--their pitch higher, all their
+sweetness lost, angry.
+
+"And out from the Inexplicable swept a shining spiral.
+
+"It caught me above the heart; wrapped itself around me. There rushed
+through me a mingled ecstasy and horror. Every atom of me quivered
+with delight and shrank with despair. There was nothing loathsome in
+it. But it was as though the icy soul of evil and the fiery soul of
+good had stepped together within me. The pistol dropped from my hand.
+
+"So I stood while the Pool gleamed and sparkled; the streams of light
+grew more intense and the radiant Thing that held me gleamed and
+strengthened. Its shining core had shape--but a shape that my eyes and
+brain could not define. It was as though a being of another sphere
+should assume what it might of human semblance, but was not able to
+conceal that what human eyes saw was but a part of it. It was neither
+man nor woman; it was unearthly and androgynous. Even as I found its
+human semblance it changed. And still the mingled rapture and terror
+held me. Only in a little corner of my brain dwelt something
+untouched; something that held itself apart and watched. Was it the
+soul? I have never believed--and yet--
+
+"Over the head of the misty body there sprang suddenly out seven
+little lights. Each was the colour of the beam beneath which it
+rested. I knew now that the Dweller was--complete!
+
+"I heard a scream.  It was Edith's voice.  It came to me that she had
+heard the shots and followed me. I felt every faculty concentrate into
+a mighty effort. I wrenched myself free from the gripping tentacle and
+it swept back. I turned to catch Edith, and as I did so slipped--fell.
+
+"The radiant shape above the Pool leaped swiftly--and straight into it
+raced Edith, arms outstretched to shield me from it! God!
+
+"She threw herself squarely within its splendour," he whispered.  "It
+wrapped its shining self around her. The crystal tinklings burst forth
+jubilantly. The light filled her, ran through and around her as it had
+with Stanton; and dropped down upon her face--the look!
+
+"But her rush had taken her to the very verge of the Moon Pool.  She
+tottered; she fell--with the radiance still holding her, still
+swirling and winding around and through her--into the Moon Pool! She
+sank, and with her went--the Dweller!
+
+"I dragged myself to the brink.  Far down was a shining, many-coloured
+nebulous cloud descending; out of it peered Edith's face,
+disappearing; her eyes stared up at me--and she vanished!
+
+"'Edith!' I cried again.  'Edith, come back to me!'
+
+"And then a darkness fell upon me.  I remember running back through
+the shimmering corridors and out into the courtyard. Reason had left
+me. When it returned I was far out at sea in our boat wholly estranged
+from civilization. A day later I was picked up by the schooner in
+which I came to Port Moresby.
+
+"I have formed a plan; you must hear it, Goodwin--" He fell upon his
+berth. I bent over him. Exhaustion and the relief of telling his story
+had been too much for him. He slept like the dead.
+
+All that night I watched over him.  When dawn broke I went to my room
+to get a little sleep myself. But my slumber was haunted.
+
+The next day the storm was unabated.  Throckmartin came to me at
+lunch. He had regained much of his old alertness.
+
+"Come to my cabin," he said.  There, he stripped his shirt from him.
+"Something is happening," he said. "The mark is smaller." It was as he
+said.
+
+"I'm escaping," he whispered jubilantly, "Just let me get to Melbourne
+safely, and then we'll see who'll win! For, Walter, I'm not at all
+sure that Edith is dead--as we know death--nor that the others are.
+There is something outside experience there--some great mystery."
+
+And all that day he talked to me of his plans.
+
+"There's a natural explanation, of course," he said.  "My theory is
+that the moon rock is of some composition sensitive to the action of
+moon rays; somewhat as the metal selenium is to sun rays. The little
+circles over the top are, without doubt, its operating agency. When
+the light strikes them they release the mechanism that opens the slab,
+just as you can open doors with sun or electric light by an ingenious
+arrangement of selenium-cells. Apparently it takes the strength of the
+full moon both to do this and to summon the Dweller in the Pool. We
+will first try a concentration of the rays of the waning moon upon
+these circles to see whether that will open the rock. If it does we
+will be able to investigate the Pool without interruption
+from--from--what emanates.
+
+"Look, here on the chart are their locations.  I have made this in
+duplicate for you in the event--of something happening--to me. And if
+I lose--you'll come after us, Goodwin, with help--won't you?"
+
+And again I promised.
+
+A little later he complained of increasing sleepiness.
+
+"But it's just weariness," he said.  "Not at all like that other
+drowsiness. It's an hour till moonrise still," he yawned at last.
+"Wake me up a good fifteen minutes before."
+
+He lay upon the berth.  I sat thinking.  I came to myself with a
+guilty start. I had completely lost myself in my deep preoccupation.
+What time was it? I looked at my watch and jumped to the port-hole. It
+was full moonlight; the orb had been up for fully half an hour. I
+strode over to Throckmartin and shook him by the shoulder.
+
+"Up, quick, man!" I cried.  He rose sleepily.  His shirt fell open at
+the neck and I looked, in amazement, at the white band around his
+chest. Even under the electric light it shone softly, as though little
+flecks of light were in it.
+
+Throckmartin seemed only half-awake.  He looked down at his breast,
+saw the glowing cincture, and smiled.
+
+"Yes," he said drowsily, "it's coming--to take me back to Edith!
+Well, I'm glad."
+
+"Throckmartin!" I cried.  "Wake up!  Fight!"
+
+"Fight!" he said.  "No use; come after us!"
+
+He went to the port and sleepily drew aside the curtain. The moon
+traced a broad path of light straight to the ship. Under its rays the
+band around his chest gleamed brighter and brighter; shot forth little
+rays; seemed to writhe.
+
+The lights went out in the cabin; evidently also throughout the ship,
+for I heard shoutings above.
+
+Throckmartin still stood at the open port.  Over his shoulder I saw a
+gleaming pillar racing along the moon path toward us. Through the
+window cascaded a blinding radiance. It gathered Throckmartin to it,
+clothed him in a robe of living opalescence. Light pulsed through and
+from him. The cabin filled with murmurings--
+
+A wave of weakness swept over me, buried me in blackness.  When
+consciousness came back, the lights were again burning brightly.
+
+But of Throckmartin there was no trace!
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+"The Shining Devil Took Them!"
+
+
+My colleagues of the Association, and you others who may read this my
+narrative, for what I did and did not when full realization returned I
+must offer here, briefly as I can, an explanation; a defense--if you
+will.
+
+My first act was to spring to the open port.  The coma had lasted
+hours, for the moon was now low in the west! I ran to the door to
+sound the alarm. It resisted under my frantic hands; would not open.
+Something fell tinkling to the floor. It was the key and I remembered
+then that Throckmartin had turned it before we began our vigil. With
+memory a hope died that I had not known was in me, the hope that he
+had escaped from the cabin, found refuge elsewhere on the ship.
+
+And as I stooped, fumbling with shaking fingers for the key, a thought
+came to me that drove again the blood from my heart, held me rigid. I
+could sound no alarm on the Southern Queen for Throckmartin!
+
+Conviction of my appalling helplessness was complete. The ensemble of
+the vessel from captain to cabin boy was, to put it conservatively,
+average. None, I knew, save Throckmartin and myself had seen the first
+apparition of the Dweller. Had they witnessed the second? I did not
+know, nor could I risk speaking, not knowing. And not seeing, how
+could they believe? They would have thought me insane--or worse;
+even, it might be, his murderer.
+
+I snapped off the electrics; waited and listened; opened the door with
+infinite caution and slipped, unseen, into my own stateroom. The hours
+until the dawn were eternities of waking nightmare. Reason, resuming
+sway at last, steadied me. Even had I spoken and been believed where
+in these wastes after all the hours could we search for Throckmartin?
+Certainly the captain would not turn back to Port Moresby. And even if
+he did, of what use for me to set forth for the Nan-Matal without the
+equipment which Throckmartin himself had decided was necessary if one
+hoped to cope with the mystery that lurked there?
+
+There was but one thing to do--follow his instructions; get the
+paraphernalia in Melbourne or Sydney if it were possible; if not sail
+to America as swiftly as might be, secure it there and as swiftly
+return to Ponape. And this I determined to do.
+
+Calmness came back to me after I had made this decision. And when I
+went up on deck I knew that I had been right. They had not seen the
+Dweller. They were still discussing the darkening of the ship, talking
+of dynamos burned out, wires short circuited, a half dozen
+explanations of the extinguishment. Not until noon was Throckmartin's
+absence discovered. I told the captain that I had left him early in
+the evening; that, indeed, I knew him but slightly, after all. It
+occurred to none to doubt me, or to question me minutely. Why should
+it have? His strangeness had been noted, commented upon; all who had
+met him had thought him half mad. I did little to discourage the
+impression. And so it came naturally that on the log it was entered
+that he had fallen or leaped from the vessel some time during the
+night.
+
+A report to this effect was made when we entered Melbourne.  I slipped
+quietly ashore and in the press of the war news Throckmartin's
+supposed fate won only a few lines in the newspapers; my own presence
+on the ship and in the city passed unnoticed.
+
+I was fortunate in securing at Melbourne everything I needed except a
+set of Becquerel ray condensers--but these were the very keystone of
+my equipment. Pursuing my search to Sydney I was doubly fortunate in
+finding a firm who were expecting these very articles in a consignment
+due them from the States within a fortnight. I settled down in
+strictest seclusion to await their arrival.
+
+And now it will occur to you to ask why I did not cable, during this
+period of waiting, to the Association; demand aid from it. Or why I
+did not call upon members of the University staffs of either Melbourne
+or Sydney for assistance. At the least, why I did not gather, as
+Throckmartin had hoped to do, a little force of strong men to go with
+me to the Nan-Matal.
+
+To the first two questions I answer frankly--I did not dare. And this
+reluctance, this inhibition, every man jealous of his scientific
+reputation will understand. The story of Throckmartin, the happenings
+I had myself witnessed, were incredible, abnormal, outside the facts
+of all known science. I shrank from the inevitable disbelief, perhaps
+ridicule--nay, perhaps even the graver suspicion that had caused me to
+seal my lips while on the ship. Why I myself could only half believe!
+How then could I hope to convince others?
+
+And as for the third question--I could not take men into the range of
+such a peril without first warning them of what they might encounter;
+and if I did warn them--
+
+It was checkmate!  If it also was cowardice--well, I have atoned for
+it. But I do not hold it so; my conscience is clear.
+
+That fortnight and the greater part of another passed before the ship
+I awaited steamed into port. By that time, between my straining
+anxiety to be after Throckmartin, the despairing thought that every
+moment of delay might be vital to him and his, and my intensely eager
+desire to know whether that shining, glorious horror on the moon path
+did exist or had been hallucination, I was worn almost to the edge of
+madness.
+
+At last the condensers were in my hands.  It was more than a week
+later, however, before I could secure passage back to Port Moresby and
+it was another week still before I started north on the Suwarna, a
+swift little sloop with a fifty-horsepower auxiliary, heading straight
+for Ponape and the Nan-Matal.
+
+We sighted the Brunhilda some five hundred miles south of the
+Carolines. The wind had fallen soon after Papua had dropped astern.
+The Suwarna's ability to make her twelve knots an hour without it had
+made me very fully forgive her for not being as fragrant as the Javan
+flower for which she was named. Da Costa, her captain, was a
+garrulous Portuguese; his mate was a Canton man with all the marks of
+long and able service on some pirate junk; his engineer was a
+half-breed China-Malay who had picked up his knowledge of power
+plants, Heaven alone knew where, and, I had reason to believe, had
+transferred all his religious impulses to the American built deity of
+mechanism he so faithfully served. The crew was made up of six huge,
+chattering Tonga boys.
+
+The Suwarna had cut through Finschafen Huon Gulf to the protection of
+the Bismarcks. She had threaded the maze of the archipelago
+tranquilly, and we were then rolling over the thousand-mile stretch of
+open ocean with New Hanover far behind us and our boat's bow pointed
+straight toward Nukuor of the Monte Verdes. After we had rounded
+Nukuor we should, barring accident, reach Ponape in not more than
+sixty hours.
+
+It was late afternoon, and on the demure little breeze that marched
+behind us came far-flung sighs of spice-trees and nutmeg flowers. The
+slow prodigious swells of the Pacific lifted us in gentle, giant hands
+and sent us as gently down the long, blue wave slopes to the next
+broad, upward slope. There was a spell of peace over the ocean,
+stilling even the Portuguese captain who stood dreamily at the wheel,
+slowly swaying to the rhythmic lift and fall of the sloop.
+
+There came a whining hail from the Tonga boy lookout draped lazily
+over the bow.
+
+"Sail he b'long port side!"
+
+Da Costa straightened and gazed while I raised my glass. The vessel
+was a scant mile away, and must have been visible long before the
+sleepy watcher had seen her. She was a sloop about the size of the
+Suwarna, without power. All sails set, even to a spinnaker she
+carried, she was making the best of the little breeze. I tried to read
+her name, but the vessel jibed sharply as though the hands of the man
+at the wheel had suddenly dropped the helm--and then with equal
+abruptness swung back to her course. The stern came in sight, and on
+it I read Brunhilda.
+
+I shifted my glasses to the man at wheel.  He was crouching down over
+the spokes in a helpless, huddled sort of way, and even as I looked
+the vessel veered again, abruptly as before. I saw the helmsman
+straighten up and bring the wheel about with a vicious jerk.
+
+He stood so for a moment, looking straight ahead, entirely oblivious
+of us, and then seemed again to sink down within himself. It came to
+me that his was the action of a man striving vainly against a
+weariness unutterable. I swept the deck with my glasses. There was no
+other sign of life. I turned to find the Portuguese staring intently
+and with puzzled air at the sloop, now separated from us by a scant
+half mile.
+
+"Something veree wrong I think there, sair," he said in his curious
+English. "The man on deck I know. He is captain and owner of the
+Br-rwun'ild. His name Olaf Huldricksson, what you say--Norwegian. He
+is eithair veree sick or veree tired--but I do not undweerstand where
+is the crew and the starb'd boat is gone--"
+
+He shouted an order to the engineer and as he did so the faint breeze
+failed and the sails of the Brunhilda flapped down inert. We were now
+nearly abreast and a scant hundred yards away. The engine of the
+Suwarna died and the Tonga boys leaped to one of the boats.
+
+"You Olaf Huldricksson!" shouted Da Costa.  "What's a matter wit'
+you?"
+
+The man at the wheel turned toward us.  He was a giant; his shoulders
+enormous, thick chested, strength in every line of him, he towered
+like a viking of old at the rudder bar of his shark ship.
+
+I raised the glass again; his face sprang into the lens and never have
+I seen a visage lined and marked as though by ages of unsleeping
+misery as was that of Olaf Huldricksson!
+
+The Tonga boys had the boat alongside and were waiting at the oars.
+The little captain was dropping into it.
+
+"Wait!" I cried.  I ran into my cabin, grasped my emergency medical
+kit and climbed down the rope ladder. The Tonga boys bent to the oars.
+We reached the side and Da Costa and I each seized a lanyard dangling
+from the stays and swung ourselves on board. Da Costa approached
+Huldricksson softly.
+
+"What's the matter, Olaf?" he began--and then was silent, looking down
+at the wheel. The hands of Huldricksson were lashed fast to the spokes
+by thongs of thin, strong cord; they were swollen and black and the
+thongs had bitten into the sinewy wrists till they were hidden in the
+outraged flesh, cutting so deeply that blood fell, slow drop by drop,
+at his feet! We sprang toward him, reaching out hands to his fetters
+to loose them. Even as we touched them, Huldricksson aimed a vicious
+kick at me and then another at Da Costa which sent the Portuguese
+tumbling into the scuppers.
+
+"Let be!" croaked Huldricksson; his voice was thick and lifeless as
+though forced from a dead throat; his lips were cracked and dry and
+his parched tongue was black. "Let be! Go! Let be!"
+
+The Portuguese had picked himself up, whimpering with rage and knife
+in hand, but as Huldricksson's voice reached him he stopped.
+Amazement crept into his eyes and as he thrust the blade back into
+his belt they softened with pity.
+
+"Something veree wrong wit' Olaf," he murmured to me. "I think he
+crazee!" And then Olaf Huldricksson began to curse us. He did not
+speak--he howled from that hideously dry mouth his imprecations. And
+all the time his red eyes roamed the seas and his hands, clenched and
+rigid on the wheel, dropped blood.
+
+"I go below," said Da Costa nervously.  "His wife, his daughter--" he
+darted down the companionway and was gone.
+
+Huldricksson, silent once more, had slumped down over the wheel.
+
+Da Costa's head appeared at the top of the companion steps.
+
+"There is nobody, nobody," he paused--then--"nobody--nowhere!" His
+hands flew out in a gesture of hopeless incomprehension. "I do not
+understan'."
+
+Then Olaf Huldricksson opened his dry lips and as he spoke a chill ran
+through me, checking my heart.
+
+"The sparkling devil took them!" croaked Olaf Huldricksson, "the
+sparkling devil took them! Took my Helma and my little Freda! The
+sparkling devil came down from the moon and took them!"
+
+He swayed; tears dripped down his cheeks.  Da Costa moved toward him
+again and again Huldricksson watched him, alertly, wickedly, from his
+bloodshot eyes.
+
+I took a hypodermic from my case and filled it with morphine.  I drew
+Da Costa to me.
+
+"Get to the side of him," I whispered, "talk to him." He moved over
+toward the wheel.
+
+"Where is your Helma and Freda, Olaf?" he said.
+
+Huldricksson turned his head toward him.  "The shining devil took
+them," he croaked. "The moon devil that spark--"
+
+A yell broke from him.  I had thrust the needle into his arm just
+above one swollen wrist and had quickly shot the drug through. He
+struggled to release himself and then began to rock drunkenly. The
+morphine, taking him in his weakness, worked quickly. Soon over his
+face a peace dropped. The pupils of the staring eyes contracted. Once,
+twice, he swayed and then, his bleeding, prisoned hands held high and
+still gripping the wheel, he crumpled to the deck.
+
+With utmost difficulty we loosed the thongs, but at last it was done.
+We rigged a little swing and the Tonga boys slung the great inert body
+over the side into the dory. Soon we had Huldricksson in my bunk. Da
+Costa sent half his crew over to the sloop in charge of the Cantonese.
+They took in all sail, stripping Huldricksson's boat to the masts and
+then with the Brunhilda nosing quietly along after us at the end of a
+long hawser, one of the Tonga boys at her wheel, we resumed the way so
+enigmatically interrupted.
+
+I cleansed and bandaged the Norseman's lacerated wrists and sponged
+the blackened, parched mouth with warm water and a mild antiseptic.
+
+Suddenly I was aware of Da Costa's presence and turned. His unease was
+manifest and held, it seemed to me, a queer, furtive anxiety.
+
+"What you think of Olaf, sair?" he asked.  I shrugged my shoulders.
+"You think he killed his woman and his babee?" He went on. "You think
+he crazee and killed all?"
+
+"Nonsense, Da Costa," I answered.  "You saw the boat was gone.  Most
+probably his crew mutinied and to torture him tied him up the way you
+saw. They did the same thing with Hilton of the Coral Lady; you'll
+remember."
+
+"No," he said.  "No.  The crew did not.  Nobody there on board when
+Olaf was tied."
+
+"What!" I cried, startled.  "What do you mean?"
+
+"I mean," he said slowly, "that Olaf tie himself!"
+
+"Wait!" he went on at my incredulous gesture of dissent. "Wait, I show
+you." He had been standing with hands behind his back and now I saw
+that he held in them the cut thongs that had bound Huldricksson. They
+were blood-stained and each ended in a broad leather tip skilfully
+spliced into the cord. "Look," he said, pointing to these leather
+ends. I looked and saw in them deep indentations of teeth. I snatched
+one of the thongs and opened the mouth of the unconscious man on the
+bunk. Carefully I placed the leather within it and gently forced the
+jaws shut on it. It was true. Those marks were where Olaf
+Huldricksson's jaws had gripped.
+
+"Wait!" Da Costa repeated, "I show you." He took other cords and
+rested his hands on the supports of a chair back. Rapidly he twisted
+one of the thongs around his left hand, drew a loose knot, shifted the
+cord up toward his elbow. This left wrist and hand still free and with
+them he twisted the other cord around the right wrist; drew a similar
+knot. His hands were now in the exact position that Huldricksson's had
+been on the Brunhilda but with cords and knots hanging loose. Then Da
+Costa reached down his head, took a leather end in his teeth and with
+a jerk drew the thong that noosed his left hand tight; similarly he
+drew tight the second.
+
+He strained at his fetters.  There before my eyes he had pinioned
+himself so that without aid he could not release himself. And he was
+exactly as Huldricksson had been!
+
+"You will have to cut me loose, sair," he said.  "I cannot move them.
+It is an old trick on these seas. Sometimes it is necessary that a man
+stand at the wheel many hours without help, and he does this so that
+if he sleep the wheel wake him, yes, sair."
+
+I looked from him to the man on the bed.
+
+"But why, sair," said Da Costa slowly, "did Olaf have to tie his
+hands?"
+
+I looked at him, uneasily.
+
+"I don't know," I answered.  "Do you?"
+
+He fidgeted, avoided my eyes, and then rapidly, almost surreptitiously
+crossed himself.
+
+"No," he replied.  "I know nothing.  Some things I have heard--but
+they tell many tales on these seas."
+
+He started for the door.  Before he reached it he turned. "But this I
+do know," he half whispered, "I am damned glad there is no full moon
+tonight." And passed out, leaving me staring after him in amazement.
+What did the Portuguese know?
+
+I bent over the sleeper.  On his face was no trace of that unholy
+mingling of opposites the Dweller stamped upon its victims.
+
+And yet--what was it the Norseman had said?
+
+"The sparkling devil took them!"  Nay, he had been even more
+explicit--"The sparkling devil that came down from the moon!"
+
+Could it be that the Dweller had swept upon the Brunhilda, drawing
+down the moon path Olaf Huldricksson's wife and babe even as it had
+drawn Throckmartin?
+
+As I sat thinking the cabin grew suddenly dark and from above came a
+shouting and patter of feet. Down upon us swept one of the abrupt,
+violent squalls that are met with in those latitudes. I lashed
+Huldricksson fast in the berth and ran up on deck.
+
+The long, peaceful swells had changed into angry, choppy waves from
+the tops of which the spindrift streamed in long stinging lashes.
+
+A half-hour passed; the squall died as quickly as it had arisen.  The
+sea quieted. Over in the west, from beneath the tattered, flying edge
+of the storm, dropped the red globe of the setting sun; dropped slowly
+until it touched the sea rim.
+
+I watched it--and rubbed my eyes and stared again.  For over its
+flaming portal something huge and black moved, like a gigantic
+beckoning finger!
+
+Da Costa had seen it, too, and he turned the Suwarna straight toward
+the descending orb and its strange shadow. As we approached we saw it
+was a little mass of wreckage and that the beckoning finger was a wing
+of canvas, sticking up and swaying with the motion of the waves. On
+the highest point of the wreckage sat a tall figure calmly smoking a
+cigarette.
+
+We brought the Suwarna to, dropped a boat, and with myself as coxswain
+pulled toward a wrecked hydroairplane. Its occupant took a long puff
+at his cigarette, waved a cheerful hand, shouted a greeting. And just
+as he did so a great wave raised itself up behind him, took the
+wreckage, tossed it high in a swelter of foam, and passed on. When we
+had steadied our boat, where wreck and man had been was--nothing.
+
+There came a tug at the side--, two muscular brown hands gripped it
+close to my left, and a sleek, black, wet head showed its top between
+them. Two bright, blue eyes that held deep within them a laughing
+deviltry looked into mine, and a long, lithe body drew itself gently
+over the thwart and seated its dripping self at my feet.
+
+"Much obliged," said this man from the sea.  "I knew somebody was sure
+to come along when the O'Keefe banshee didn't show up."
+
+"The what?" I asked in amazement.
+
+"The O'Keefe banshee--I'm Larry O'Keefe.  It's a far way from Ireland,
+but not too far for the O'Keefe banshee to travel if the O'Keefe was
+going to click in."
+
+I looked again at my astonishing rescue.  He seemed perfectly serious.
+
+"Have you a cigarette?  Mine went out," he said with a grin, as he
+reached a moist hand out for the little cylinder, took it, lighted it.
+
+I saw a lean, intelligent face whose fighting jaw was softened by the
+wistfulness of the clean-cut lips and the honesty that lay side by
+side with the deviltry in the laughing blue eyes; nose of a
+thoroughbred with the suspicion of a tilt; long, well-knit, slender
+figure that I knew must have all the strength of fine steel; the
+uniform of a lieutenant in the Royal Flying Corps of Britain's navy.
+
+He laughed, stretched out a firm hand, and gripped mine.
+
+"Thank you really ever so much, old man," he said.
+
+I liked Larry O'Keefe from the beginning--but I did not dream as the
+Tonga boys pulled us back to the Suwarna bow that liking was to be
+forged into man's strong love for man by fires which souls such as his
+and mine--and yours who read this--could never dream.
+
+Larry!  Larry O'Keefe, where are you now with your leprechauns and
+banshee, your heart of a child, your laughing blue eyes, and your
+fearless soul? Shall I ever see you again, Larry O'Keefe, dear to me
+as some best beloved younger brother? Larry!
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+Larry O'Keefe
+
+
+Pressing back the questions I longed to ask, I introduced myself.
+Oddly enough, I found that he knew me, or rather my work. He had
+bought, it appeared, my volume upon the peculiar vegetation whose
+habitat is disintegrating lava rock and volcanic ash, that I had
+entitled, somewhat loosely, I could now perceive, Flora of the
+Craters. For he explained naively that he had picked it up, thinking
+it an entirely different sort of a book, a novel in fact--something
+like Meredith's Diana of the Crossways, which he liked greatly.
+
+He had hardly finished this explanation when we touched the side of
+the Suwarna, and I was forced to curb my curiosity until we reached
+the deck.
+
+"That thing you saw me sitting on," he said, after he had thanked the
+bowing little skipper for his rescue, "was all that was left of one of
+his Majesty's best little hydroairplanes after that cyclone threw it
+off as excess baggage. And by the way, about where are we?"
+
+Da Costa gave him our approximate position from the noon reckoning.
+
+O'Keefe whistled.  "A good three hundred miles from where I left the
+H.M.S. Dolphin about four hours ago," he said. "That squall I rode in
+on was some whizzer!
+
+"The Dolphin," he went on, calmly divesting himself of his soaked
+uniform, "was on her way to Melbourne. I'd been yearning for a joy
+ride and went up for an alleged scouting trip. Then that blow shot out
+of nowhere, picked me up, and insisted that I go with it.
+
+"About an hour ago I thought I saw a chance to zoom up and out of it,
+I turned, and _blick_ went my right wing, and down I dropped."
+
+"I don't know how we can notify your ship, Lieutenant O'Keefe," I
+said. "We have no wireless."
+
+"Doctair Goodwin," said Da Costa, "we could change our course,
+sair--perhaps--"
+
+"Thanks--but not a bit of it," broke in O'Keefe.  "Lord alone knows
+where the Dolphin is now. Fancy she'll be nosing around looking for
+me. Anyway, she's just as apt to run into you as you into her. Maybe
+we'll strike something with a wireless, and I'll trouble you to put me
+aboard." He hesitated. "Where are you bound, by the way?" he asked.
+
+"For Ponape," I answered.
+
+"No wireless there," mused O'Keefe.  "Beastly hole. Stopped a week ago
+for fruit. Natives seemed scared to death at us--or something. What
+are you going there for?"
+
+Da Costa darted a furtive glance at me.  It troubled me.
+
+O'Keefe noted my hesitation.
+
+"Oh, I beg your pardon," he said.  "Maybe I oughn't to have asked
+that?"
+
+"It's no secret, Lieutenant," I replied.  "I'm about to undertake some
+exploration work--a little digging among the ruins on the Nan-Matal."
+
+I looked at the Portuguese sharply as I named the place. A pallor
+crept beneath his skin and again he made swiftly the sign of the
+cross, glancing as he did so fearfully to the north. I made up my mind
+then to question him when opportunity came. He turned from his quick
+scrutiny of the sea and addressed O'Keefe.
+
+"There's nothing on board to fit you, Lieutenant."
+
+"Oh, just give me a sheet to throw around me, Captain," said O'Keefe
+and followed him. Darkness had fallen, and as the two disappeared into
+Da Costa's cabin I softly opened the door of my own and listened.
+Huldricksson was breathing deeply and regularly.
+
+I drew my electric-flash, and shielding its rays from my face, looked
+at him. His sleep was changing from the heavy stupor of the drug into
+one that was at least on the borderland of the normal. The tongue had
+lost its arid blackness and the mouth secretions had resumed action.
+Satisfied as to his condition I returned to deck.
+
+O'Keefe was there, looking like a spectre in the cotton sheet he had
+wrapped about him. A deck table had been cleated down and one of the
+Tonga boys was setting it for our dinner. Soon the very creditable
+larder of the Suwarna dressed the board, and O'Keefe, Da Costa, and I
+attacked it. The night had grown close and oppressive. Behind us the
+forward light of the Brunhilda glided and the binnacle lamp threw up a
+faint glow in which her black helmsman's face stood out mistily.
+O'Keefe had looked curiously a number of times at our tow, but had
+asked no questions.
+
+"You're not the only passenger we picked up today," I told him.  "We
+found the captain of that sloop, lashed to his wheel, nearly dead with
+exhaustion, and his boat deserted by everyone except himself."
+
+"What was the matter?" asked O'Keefe in astonishment.
+
+"We don't know," I answered.  "He fought us, and I had to drug him
+before we could get him loose from his lashings. He's sleeping down in
+my berth now. His wife and little girl ought to have been on board,
+the captain here says, but--they weren't."
+
+"Wife and child gone!" exclaimed O'Keefe.
+
+"From the condition of his mouth he must have been alone at the wheel
+and without water at least two days and nights before we found him," I
+replied. "And as for looking for anyone on these waters after such a
+time--it's hopeless."
+
+"That's true," said O'Keefe.  "But his wife and baby!  Poor, poor
+devil!"
+
+He was silent for a time, and then, at my solicitation, began to tell
+us more of himself. He had been little more than twenty when he had
+won his wings and entered the war. He had been seriously wounded at
+Ypres during the third year of the struggle, and when he recovered the
+war was over. Shortly after that his mother had died. Lonely and
+restless, he had re-entered the Air Service, and had remained in it
+ever since.
+
+"And though the war's long over, I get homesick for the lark's land
+with the German planes playing tunes on their machine guns and their
+Archies tickling the soles of my feet," he sighed. "If you're in love,
+love to the limit; and if you hate, why hate like the devil and if
+it's a fight you're in, get where it's hottest and fight like hell--if
+you don't life's not worth the living," sighed he.
+
+I watched him as he talked, feeling my liking for him steadily
+increasing. If I could but have a man like this beside me on the path
+of unknown peril upon which I had set my feet I thought, wistfully. We
+sat and smoked a bit, sipping the strong coffee the Portuguese made so
+well.
+
+Da Costa at last relieved the Cantonese at the wheel. O'Keefe and I
+drew chairs up to the rail. The brighter stars shone out dimly through
+a hazy sky; gleams of phosphorescence tipped the crests of the waves
+and sparkled with an almost angry brilliance as the bow of the Suwarna
+tossed them aside. O'Keefe pulled contentedly at a cigarette. The
+glowing spark lighted the keen, boyish face and the blue eyes, now
+black and brooding under the spell of the tropic night.
+
+"Are you American or Irish, O'Keefe?" I asked suddenly.
+
+"Why?" he laughed.
+
+"Because," I answered, "from your name and your service I would
+suppose you Irish--but your command of pure Americanese makes me
+doubtful."
+
+He grinned amiably.
+
+"I'll tell you how that is," he said.  "My mother was an American--a
+Grace, of Virginia. My father was the O'Keefe, of Coleraine. And these
+two loved each other so well that the heart they gave me is half Irish
+and half American. My father died when I was sixteen. I used to go to
+the States with my mother every other year for a month or two. But
+after my father died we used to go to Ireland every other year. And
+there you are--I'm as much American as I am Irish.
+
+"When I'm in love, or excited, or dreaming, or mad I have the brogue.
+But for the everyday purpose of life I like the United States talk,
+and I know Broadway as well as I do Binevenagh Lane, and the Sound as
+well as St. Patrick's Channel; educated a bit at Eton, a bit at
+Harvard; always too much money to have to make any; in love lots of
+times, and never a heartache after that wasn't a pleasant one, and
+never a real purpose in life until I took the king's shilling and
+earned my wings; something over thirty--and that's me--Larry
+O'Keefe."
+
+"But it was the Irish O'Keefe who sat out there waiting for the
+banshee," I laughed.
+
+"It was that," he said somberly, and I heard the brogue creep over his
+voice like velvet and his eyes grew brooding again. "There's never an
+O'Keefe for these thousand years that has passed without his warning.
+An' twice have I heard the banshee calling--once it was when my
+younger brother died an' once when my father lay waiting to be carried
+out on the ebb tide."
+
+He mused a moment, then went on: "An' once I saw an Annir Choille, a
+girl of the green people, flit like a shade of green fire through
+Carntogher woods, an' once at Dunchraig I slept where the ashes of the
+Dun of Cormac MacConcobar are mixed with those of Cormac an' Eilidh
+the Fair, all burned in the nine flames that sprang from the harping
+of Cravetheen, an' I heard the echo of his dead harpings--"
+
+He paused again and then, softly, with that curiously sweet, high
+voice that only the Irish seem to have, he sang:
+
+    Woman of the white breasts, Eilidh;
+    Woman of the gold-brown hair, and lips of the red, red rowan,
+    Where is the swan that is whiter, with breast more soft,
+    Or the wave on the sea that moves as thou movest, Eilidh.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+Olaf's Story
+
+
+There was a little silence.  I looked upon him with wonder. Clearly he
+was in deepest earnest. I know the psychology of the Gael is a curious
+one and that deep in all their hearts their ancient traditions and
+beliefs have strong and living roots. And I was both amused and
+touched.
+
+Here was this soldier, who had faced war and its ugly realities
+open-eyed and fearless, picking, indeed, the most dangerous branch of
+service for his own, a modern if ever there was one, appreciative of
+most unmystical Broadway, and yet soberly and earnestly attesting to
+his belief in banshee, in shadowy people of the woods, and phantom
+harpers! I wondered what he would think if he could see the Dweller
+and then, with a pang, that perhaps his superstitions might make him
+an easy prey.
+
+He shook his head half impatiently and ran a hand over his eyes;
+turned to me and grinned:
+
+"Don't think I'm cracked, Professor," he said.  "I'm not. But it takes
+me that way now and then. It's the Irish in me. And, believe it or
+not, I'm telling you the truth."
+
+I looked eastward where the moon, now nearly a week past the full, was
+mounting.
+
+"You can't make me see what you've seen, Lieutenant," I laughed.  "But
+you can make me hear. I've always wondered what kind of a noise a
+disembodied spirit could make without any vocal cords or breath or any
+other earthly sound-producing mechanism. How does the banshee sound?"
+
+O'Keefe looked at me seriously.
+
+"All right," he said.  "I'll show you." From deep down in his throat
+came first a low, weird sobbing that mounted steadily into a keening
+whose mournfulness made my skin creep. And then his hand shot out and
+gripped my shoulder, and I stiffened like stone in my chair--for from
+behind us, like an echo, and then taking up the cry, swelled a wail
+that seemed to hold within it a sublimation of the sorrows of
+centuries! It gathered itself into one heartbroken, sobbing note and
+died away! O'Keefe's grip loosened, and he rose swiftly to his feet.
+
+"It's all right, Professor," he said.  "It's for me.  It found me--all
+this way from Ireland."
+
+Again the silence was rent by the cry.  But now I had located it.  It
+came from my room, and it could mean only one thing--Huldricksson had
+wakened.
+
+"Forget your banshee!" I gasped, and made a jump for the cabin.
+
+Out of the corner of my eye I noted a look of half-sheepish relief
+flit over O'Keefe's face, and then he was beside me. Da Costa shouted
+an order from the wheel, the Cantonese ran up and took it from his
+hands and the little Portuguese pattered down toward us. My hand on
+the door, ready to throw it open, I stopped. What if the Dweller were
+within--what if we had been wrong and it was not dependent for its
+power upon that full flood of moon ray which Throckmartin had thought
+essential to draw it from the blue pool!
+
+From within, the sobbing wail began once more to rise. O'Keefe pushed
+me aside, threw open the door and crouched low within it. I saw an
+automatic flash dully in his hand; saw it cover the cabin from side to
+side, following the swift sweep of his eyes around it. Then he
+straightened and his face, turned toward the berth, was filled with
+wondering pity.
+
+Through the window streamed a shaft of the moonlight. It fell upon
+Huldricksson's staring eyes; in them great tears slowly gathered and
+rolled down his cheeks; from his opened mouth came the woe-laden
+wailing. I ran to the port and drew the curtains. Da Costa snapped the
+lights.
+
+The Norseman's dolorous crying stopped as abruptly as though cut.  His
+gaze rolled toward us. And at one bound he broke through the leashes I
+had buckled round him and faced us, his eyes glaring, his yellow hair
+almost erect with the force of the rage visibly surging through him.
+Da Costa shrunk behind me. O'Keefe, coolly watchful, took a quick step
+that brought him in front of me.
+
+"Where do you take me?" said Huldricksson, and his voice was like the
+growl of a beast. "Where is my boat?"
+
+I touched O'Keefe gently and stood before the giant.
+
+"Listen, Olaf Huldricksson," I said.  "We take you to where the
+sparkling devil took your Helma and your Freda. We follow the
+sparkling devil that came down from the moon. Do you hear me?" I spoke
+slowly, distinctly, striving to pierce the mists that I knew swirled
+around the strained brain. And the words did pierce.
+
+He thrust out a shaking hand.
+
+"You say you follow?" he asked falteringly.  "You know where to
+follow? Where it took my Helma and my little Freda?"
+
+"Just that, Olaf Huldricksson," I answered.  "Just that!  I pledge you
+my life that I know."
+
+Da Costa stepped forward.  "He speaks true, Olaf.  You go faster on
+the Suwarna than on the Br-rw-un'ilda, Olaf, yes."
+
+The giant Norseman, still gripping my hand, looked at him.  "I know
+you, Da Costa," he muttered. "You are all right. Ja! You are a fair
+man. Where is the Brunhilda?"
+
+"She follow be'ind on a big rope, Olaf," soothed the Portuguese.
+"Soon you see her. But now lie down an' tell us, if you can, why you
+tie yourself to your wheel an' what it is that happen, Olaf."
+
+"If you'll tell us how the sparkling devil came it will help us all
+when we get to where it is, Huldricksson," I said.
+
+On O'Keefe's face there was an expression of well-nigh ludicrous doubt
+and amazement. He glanced from one to the other. The giant shifted his
+own tense look from me to the Irishman. A gleam of approval lighted in
+his eyes. He loosed me, and gripped O'Keefe's arm. "Staerk!" he said.
+"Ja--strong, and with a strong heart. A man--ja! He comes too--we
+shall need him--ja!"
+
+"I tell," he muttered, and seated himself on the side of the bunk.
+"It was four nights ago. My Freda"--his voice shook--"Mine Yndling!
+She loved the moonlight. I was at the wheel and my Freda and my Helma
+they were behind me. The moon was behind us and the Brunhilda was like
+a swanboat sailing down with the moonlight sending her, ja.
+
+"I heard my Freda say: 'I see a nisse coming down the track of the
+moon.' And I hear her mother laugh, low, like a mother does when her
+Yndling dreams. I was happy--that night--with my Helma and my Freda,
+and the Brunhilda sailing like a swan-boat, ja. I heard the child say,
+'The nisse comes fast!' And then I heard a scream from my Helma, a
+great scream--like a mare when her foal is torn from her. I spun
+around fast, ja! I dropped the wheel and spun fast! I saw--" He
+covered his eyes with his hands.
+
+The Portuguese had crept close to me, and I heard him panting like a
+frightened dog.
+
+"I saw a white fire spring over the rail," whispered Olaf
+Huldricksson. "It whirled round and round, and it shone like--like
+stars in a whirlwind mist. There was a noise in my ears. It sounded
+like bells--little bells, ja! Like the music you make when you run
+your finger round goblets. It made me sick and dizzy--the hell noise.
+
+"My Helma was--indeholde--what you say--in the middle of the white
+fire. She turned her face to me and she turned it on the child, and my
+Helma's face burned into my heart. Because it was full of fear, and it
+was full of happiness--of glaede. I tell you that the fear in my
+Helma's face made me ice here"--he beat his breast with clenched
+hand--"but the happiness in it burned on me like fire. And I could
+not move--I could not move.
+
+"I said in here"--he touched his head--"I said, 'It is Loki come out
+of Helvede. But he cannot take my Helma, for Christ lives and Loki has
+no power to hurt my Helma or my Freda! Christ lives! Christ lives!' I
+said. But the sparkling devil did not let my Helma go. It drew her to
+the rail; half over it. I saw her eyes upon the child and a little she
+broke away and reached to it. And my Freda jumped into her arms. And
+the fire wrapped them both and they were gone! A little I saw them
+whirling on the moon track behind the Brunhilda--and they were gone!
+
+"The sparkling devil took them!  Loki was loosed, and he had power.  I
+turned the Brunhilda, and I followed where my Helma and mine Yndling
+had gone. My boys crept up and asked me to turn again. But I would
+not. They dropped a boat and left me. I steered straight on the path.
+I lashed my hands to the wheel that sleep might not loose them. I
+steered on and on and on--
+
+"Where was the God I prayed when my wife and child were taken?" cried
+Olaf Huldricksson--and it was as though I heard Throckmartin asking
+that same bitter question. "I have left Him as He left me, ja! I pray
+now to Thor and to Odin, who can fetter Loki." He sank back, covering
+again his eyes.
+
+"Olaf," I said, "what you have called the sparkling devil has taken
+ones dear to me. I, too, was following it when we found you. You shall
+go with me to its home, and there we will try to take from it your
+wife and your child and my friends as well. But now that you may be
+strong for what is before us, you must sleep again."
+
+Olaf Huldricksson looked upon me and in his eyes was that something
+which souls must see in the eyes of Him the old Egyptians called the
+Searcher of Hearts in the Judgment Hall of Osiris.
+
+"You speak truth!" he said at last slowly.  "I will do what you say!"
+
+He stretched out an arm at my bidding.  I gave him a second injection.
+He lay back and soon he was sleeping. I turned toward Da Costa. His
+face was livid and sweating, and he was trembling pitiably. O'Keefe
+stirred.
+
+"You did that mighty well, Dr. Goodwin," he said.  "So well that I
+almost believed you myself."
+
+"What did you think of his story, Mr. O'Keefe?" I asked.
+
+His answer was almost painfully brief and colloquial.
+
+"Nuts!" he said. I was a little shocked, I admit. "I think he's crazy,
+Dr. Goodwin," he corrected himself, quickly. "What else could I
+think?"
+
+I turned to the little Portuguese without answering.
+
+"There's no need for any anxiety tonight, Captain," I said. "Take my
+word for it. You need some rest yourself. Shall I give you a sleeping
+draft?"
+
+"I do wish you would, Dr. Goodwin, sair," he answered gratefully.
+"Tomorrow, when I feel bettair--I would have a talk with you."
+
+I nodded.  He did know something then!  I mixed him an opiate of
+considerable strength. He took it and went to his own cabin.
+
+I locked the door behind him and then, sitting beside the sleeping
+Norseman, I told O'Keefe my story from end to end. He asked few
+questions as I spoke. But after I had finished he cross-examined me
+rather minutely upon my recollections of the radiant phases upon each
+appearance, checking these with Throckmartin's observations of the
+same phenomena in the Chamber of the Moon Pool.
+
+"And now what do you think of it all?" I asked.
+
+He sat silent for a while, looking at Huldricksson.
+
+"Not what you seem to think, Dr. Goodwin," he answered at last,
+gravely. "Let me sleep over it. One thing of course is certain--you
+and your friend Throckmartin and this man here saw--something. But--"
+he was silent again and then continued with a kindness that I found
+vaguely irritating--"but I've noticed that when a scientist gets
+superstitious it--er--takes very hard!
+
+"Here's a few things I can tell you now though," he went on while I
+struggled to speak--"I pray in my heart that we'll meet neither the
+Dolphin nor anything with wireless on board going up. Because, Dr.
+Goodwin, I'd dearly love to take a crack at your Dweller.
+
+"And another thing," said O'Keefe.  "After this--cut out the
+trimmings, Doc, and call me plain Larry, for whether I think you're
+crazy or whether I don't, you're there with the nerve, Professor, and
+I'm for _you_.
+
+"Good night!" said Larry and took himself out to the deck hammock he
+had insisted upon having slung for him, refusing the captain's
+importunities to use his own cabin.
+
+And it was with extremely mixed emotions as to his compliment that I
+watched him go. Superstitious. I, whose pride was my scientific
+devotion to fact and fact alone! Superstitious--and this from a man
+who believed in banshees and ghostly harpers and Irish wood nymphs and
+no doubt in leprechauns and all their tribe!
+
+Half laughing, half irritated, and wholly happy in even the part
+promise of Larry O'Keefe's comradeship on my venture, I arranged a
+couple of pillows, stretched myself out on two chairs and took up my
+vigil beside Olaf Huldricksson.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+A Lost Page of Earth
+
+
+When I awakened the sun was streaming through the cabin porthole.
+Outside a fresh voice lilted. I lay on my two chairs and listened. The
+song was one with the wholesome sunshine and the breeze blowing
+stiffly and whipping the curtains. It was Larry O'Keefe at his matins:
+
+   The little red lark is shaking his wings,
+   Straight from the breast of his love he springs
+
+Larry's voice soared.
+
+    His wings and his feathers are sunrise red,
+    He hails the sun and his golden head,
+    Good morning, Doc, you are long abed.
+
+This last was a most irreverent interpolation, I well knew. I opened
+my door. O'Keefe stood outside laughing. The Suwarna, her engines
+silent, was making fine headway under all sail, the Brunhilda skipping
+in her wake cheerfully with half her canvas up.
+
+The sea was crisping and dimpling under the wind.  Blue and white was
+the world as far as the eye could reach. Schools of little silvery
+green flying fish broke through the water rushing on each side of us;
+flashed for an instant and were gone. Behind us gulls hovered and
+dipped. The shadow of mystery had retreated far over the rim of this
+wide awake and beautiful world and if, subconsciously, I knew that
+somewhere it was brooding and waiting, for a little while at least I
+was consciously free of its oppression.
+
+"How's the patient?" asked O'Keefe.
+
+He was answered by Huldricksson himself, who must have risen just as I
+left the cabin. The Norseman had slipped on a pair of pajamas and,
+giant torso naked under the sun, he strode out upon us. We all of us
+looked at him a trifle anxiously. But Olaf's madness had left him. In
+his eyes was much sorrow, but the berserk rage was gone.
+
+He spoke straight to me: "You said last night we follow?"
+
+I nodded.
+
+"It is where?" he asked again.
+
+"We go first to Ponape and from there to Metalanim Harbour--to the
+Nan-Matal. You know the place?"
+
+Huldricksson bowed--a white gleam as of ice showing in his blue eyes.
+
+"It is there?" he asked.
+
+"It is there that we must first search," I answered.
+
+"Good!" said Olaf Huldricksson.  "It is good!"
+
+He looked at Da Costa inquiringly and the little Portuguese, following
+his thought, answered his unspoken question.
+
+"We should be at Ponape tomorrow morning early, Olaf."
+
+"Good!" repeated the Norseman.  He looked away, his eyes tear-filled.
+
+A restraint fell upon us; the embarrassment all men experience when
+they feel a great sympathy and a great pity, to neither of which they
+quite know how to give expression. By silent consent we discussed at
+breakfast only the most casual topics.
+
+When the meal was over Huldricksson expressed a desire to go aboard
+the Brunhilda.
+
+The Suwarna hove to and Da Costa and he dropped into the small boat.
+When they reached the Brunhilda's deck I saw Olaf take the wheel and
+the two fall into earnest talk. I beckoned to O'Keefe and we stretched
+ourselves out on the bow hatch under cover of the foresail. He lighted
+a cigarette, took a couple of leisurely puffs, and looked at me
+expectantly.
+
+"Well?" I asked.
+
+"Well," said O'Keefe, "suppose you tell me what you think--and then
+I'll proceed to point out your scientific errors." His eyes twinkled
+mischievously.
+
+"Larry," I replied, somewhat severely, "you may not know that I have a
+scientific reputation which, putting aside all modesty, I may say is
+an enviable one. You used a word last night to which I must interpose
+serious objection. You more than hinted that I hid--superstitions. Let
+me inform you, Larry O'Keefe, that I am solely a seeker, observer,
+analyst, and synthesist of facts. I am not"--and I tried to make my
+tone as pointed as my words--"I am not a believer in phantoms or
+spooks, leprechauns, banshees, or ghostly harpers."
+
+O'Keefe leaned back and shouted with laughter.
+
+"Forgive me, Goodwin," he gasped.  "But if you could have seen
+yourself solemnly disclaiming the banshee"--another twinkle showed in
+his eyes--"and then with all this sunshine and this wide-open
+world"--he shrugged his shoulders--"it's hard to visualize anything
+such as you and Huldricksson have described."
+
+"I know how hard it is, Larry," I answered.  "And don't think I have
+any idea that the phenomenon is supernatural in the sense
+spiritualists and table turners have given that word. I do think it is
+supernormal; energized by a force unknown to modern science--but that
+doesn't mean I think it outside the radius of science."
+
+"Tell me your theory, Goodwin," he said.  I hesitated--for not yet
+had I been able to put into form to satisfy myself any explanation of
+the Dweller.
+
+"I think," I hazarded finally, "it is possible that some members of
+that race peopling the ancient continent which we know existed here in
+the Pacific, have survived. We know that many of these islands are
+honeycombed with caverns and vast subterranean spaces, literally
+underground lands running in some cases far out beneath the ocean
+floor. It is possible that for some reason survivors of this race
+sought refuge in the abysmal spaces, one of whose entrances is on the
+islet where Throckmartin's party met its end.
+
+"As for their persistence in these caverns--we know they possessed a
+high science. They may have gone far in the mastery of certain
+universal forms of energy--especially that we call light. They may
+have developed a civilization and a science far more advanced than
+ours. What I call the Dweller may be one of the results of this
+science. Larry--it may well be that this lost race is planning to
+emerge again upon earth's surface!"
+
+"And is sending out your Dweller as a messenger, a scientific dove
+from their Ark?" I chose to overlook the banter in his question.
+
+"Did you ever hear of the Chamats?" I asked him.  He shook his head.
+
+"In Papua," I explained, "there is a wide-spread and immeasurably old
+tradition that 'imprisoned under the hills' is a race of giants who
+once ruled this region 'when it stretched from sun to sun before the
+moon god drew the waters over it'--I quote from the legend. Not only
+in Papua but throughout Malaysia you find this story. And, so the
+tradition runs, these people--the Chamats--will one day break through
+the hills and rule the world; 'make over the world' is the literal
+translation of the constant phrase in the tale. It was Herbert Spencer
+who pointed out that there is a basis of fact in every myth and legend
+of man. It is possible that these survivors I am discussing form
+Spencer's fact basis for the Malaysian legend. *1
+
+
+*1 William Beebe, the famous American naturalist and ornithologist,
+recently fighting in France with America's air force, called attention
+to this remarkable belief in an article printed not long ago in the
+Atlantic Monthly. Still more significant was it that he noted a
+persistent rumour that the breaking out of the buried race was
+close.--W.J. B., Pres. I. A. of S.
+
+
+
+"This much is sure--the moon door, which is clearly operated by the
+action of moon rays upon some unknown element or combination and the
+crystals through which the moon rays pour down upon the pool their
+prismatic columns, are humanly made mechanisms. So long as they are
+humanly made, and so long as it _is_ this flood of moonlight from which
+the Dweller draws its power of materialization, the Dweller itself, if
+not the product of the human mind, is at least dependent upon the
+product of the human mind for its appearance."
+
+"Wait a minute, Goodwin," interrupted O'Keefe.  "Do you mean to say
+you think that this thing is made of--well--of moonshine?"
+
+"Moonlight," I replied, "is, of course, reflected sunlight. But the
+rays which pass back to earth after their impact on the moon's surface
+are profoundly changed. The spectroscope shows that they lose
+practically all the slower vibrations we call red and infra-red, while
+the extremely rapid vibrations we call the violet and ultra-violet are
+accelerated and altered. Many scientists hold that there is an unknown
+element in the moon--perhaps that which makes the gigantic luminous
+trails that radiate in all directions from the lunar crater
+Tycho--whose energies are absorbed by and carried on the moon rays.
+
+"At any rate, whether by the loss of the vibrations of the red or by
+the addition of this mysterious force, the light of the moon becomes
+something entirely different from mere modified sunlight--just as the
+addition or subtraction of one other chemical in a compound of several
+makes the product a substance with entirely different energies and
+potentialities.
+
+"Now these rays, Larry, are given perhaps still another mysterious
+activity by the globes through which Throckmartin said they passed in
+the Chamber of the Moon Pool. The result is the necessary factor in
+the formation of the Dweller. There would be nothing scientifically
+improbable in such a process. Kubalski, the great Russian physicist,
+produced crystalline forms exhibiting every faculty that we call vital
+by subjecting certain combinations of chemicals to the action of
+highly concentrated rays of various colours. Something in light and
+nothing else produced their pseudo-vitality. We do not begin to know
+how to harness the potentialities of that magnetic vibration of the
+ether we call light."
+
+"Listen, Doc," said Larry earnestly, "I'll take everything you say
+about this lost continent, the people who used to live on it, and
+their caverns, for granted. But by the sword of Brian Boru, you'll
+never get me to fall for the idea that a bunch of moonshine can handle
+a big woman such as you say Throckmartin's Thora was, nor a two-fisted
+man such as you say Throckmartin was, nor Huldricksson's wife--and
+I'll bet she was one of those strapping big northern women too--you'll
+never get me to believe that any bunch of concentrated moonshine could
+handle them and take them waltzing off along a moonbeam back to
+wherever it goes. No, Doc, not on your life, even Tennessee moonshine
+couldn't do that--nix!"
+
+"All right, O'Keefe," I answered, now very much irritated indeed.
+"What's your theory?" And I could not resist adding: "Fairies?"
+
+"Professor," he grinned, "if that Thing's a fairy it's Irish and when
+it sees me it'll be so glad there'll be nothing to it. 'I was lost,
+strayed, or stolen, Larry avick,' it'll say, 'an' I was so homesick
+for the old sod I was desp'rit,' it'll say, an' 'take me back quick
+before I do any more har-rm!' it'll tell me--an' that's the truth.
+
+"Now don't get me wrong.  I believe you all saw something all right.
+But what I think you saw was some kind of gas. All this region is
+volcanic and islands and things are constantly poking up from the sea.
+It's probably gas; a volcanic emanation; something new to us and that
+drives you crazy--lots of kinds of gas do that. It hit the
+Throckmartin party on that island and they probably were all more or
+less delirious all the time; thought they saw things; talked it over
+and--collective hallucination--just like the Angels of Mons and other
+miracles of the war. Somebody sees something that looks like something
+else. He points it out to the man next him. 'Do you see it?' asks he.
+'Sure I see it,' says the other. And there you are--collective
+hallucination.
+
+"When your friends got it bad they most likely jumped overboard one by
+one. Huldricksson sails into a place where it is and it hits his wife.
+She grabs the child and jumps over. Maybe the moon rays make it
+luminous! I've seen gas on the front under the moon that looked like a
+thousand whirling dervish devils. Yes, and you could see the devil's
+faces in it. And if it got into your lungs nothing could ever make you
+think you hadn't seen real devils."
+
+For a time I was silent.
+
+"Larry," I said at last, "whether you are right or I am right, I must
+go to the Nan-Matal. Will you go with me, Larry?"
+
+"Goodwin," he replied, "I surely will.  I'm as interested as you are.
+If we don't run across the Dolphin I'll stick. I'll leave word at
+Ponape, to tell them where I am should they come along. If they report
+me dead for a while there's nobody to care. So that's all right. Only
+old man, be reasonable. You've thought over this so long, you're going
+bug, honestly you are."
+
+And again, the gladness that I might have Larry O'Keefe with me, was
+so great that I forgot to be angry.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+The Moon Pool
+
+
+Da Costa, who had come aboard unnoticed by either of us, now tapped me
+on the arm.
+
+"Doctair Goodwin," he said, "can I see you in my cabin, sair?"
+
+At last, then, he was going to speak.  I followed him.
+
+"Doctair," he said, when we had entered, "this is a veree strange
+thing that has happened to Olaf. Veree strange. An' the natives of
+Ponape, they have been very much excite' lately.
+
+"Of what they fear I know nothing, nothing!" Again that quick, furtive
+crossing of himself. "But this I have to tell you. There came to me
+from Ranaloa last month a man, a Russian, a doctair, like you. His
+name it was Marakinoff. I take him to Ponape an' the natives there
+they will not take him to the Nan-Matal where he wish to go--no! So I
+take him. We leave in a boat, wit' much instrument carefully tied up.
+I leave him there wit' the boat an' the food. He tell me to tell no
+one an' pay me not to. But you are a friend an' Olaf he depend much
+upon you an' so I tell you, sair."
+
+"You know nothing more than this, Da Costa?" I asked. "Nothing of
+another expedition?"
+
+"No," he shook his head vehemently.  "Nothing more."
+
+"Hear the name Throckmartin while you were there?" I persisted.
+
+"No," his eyes were steady as he answered but the pallor had crept
+again into his face.
+
+I was not so sure.  But if he knew more than he had told me why was he
+afraid to speak? My anxiety deepened and later I sought relief from it
+by repeating the conversation to O'Keefe.
+
+"A Russian, eh," he said.  "Well, they can be damned nice, or
+damned--otherwise. Considering what you did for me, I hope I can look
+him over before the Dolphin shows up."
+
+Next morning we raised Ponape, without further incident, and before
+noon the Suwarna and the Brunhilda had dropped anchor in the harbour.
+Upon the excitement and manifest dread of the natives, when we sought
+among them for carriers and workmen to accompany us, I will not dwell.
+It is enough to say that no payment we offered could induce a single
+one of them to go to the Nan-Matal. Nor would they say why.
+
+Finally it was agreed that the Brunhilda should be left in charge of a
+half-breed Chinaman, whom both Da Costa and Huldricksson knew and
+trusted. We piled her long-boat up with my instruments and food and
+camping equipment. The Suwarna took us around to Metalanim Harbour,
+and there, with the tops of ancient sea walls deep in the blue water
+beneath us, and the ruins looming up out of the mangroves, a scant
+mile from us, left us.
+
+Then with Huldricksson manipulating our small sail, and Larry at the
+rudder, we rounded the titanic wall that swept down into the depths,
+and turned at last into the canal that Throckmartin, on his map, had
+marked as that which, running between frowning Nan-Tauach and its
+satellite islet, Tau, led straight to the gate of the place of ancient
+mysteries.
+
+And as we entered that channel we were enveloped by a silence; a
+silence so intense, so--weighted that it seemed to have substance; an
+alien silence that clung and stifled and still stood aloof from
+us--the living. It was a stillness, such as might follow the long
+tramping of millions into the grave; it was--paradoxical as it may
+be--filled with the withdrawal of life.
+
+Standing down in the chambered depths of the Great Pyramid I had known
+something of such silence--but never such intensity as this. Larry
+felt it and I saw him look at me askance. If Olaf, sitting in the bow,
+felt it, too, he gave no sign; his blue eyes, with again the glint of
+ice within them, watched the channel before us.
+
+As we passed, there arose upon our left sheer walls of black basalt
+blocks, cyclopean, towering fifty feet or more, broken here and there
+by the sinking of their deep foundations.
+
+In front of us the mangroves widened out and filled the canal.  On
+our right the lesser walls of Tau, sombre blocks smoothed and squared
+and set with a cold, mathematical nicety that filled me with vague
+awe, slipped by. Through breaks I caught glimpses of dark ruins and of
+great fallen stones that seemed to crouch and menace us, as we passed.
+Somewhere there, hidden, were the seven globes that poured the moon
+fire down upon the Moon Pool.
+
+Now we were among the mangroves and, sail down, the three of us pushed
+and pulled the boat through their tangled roots and branches. The
+noise of our passing split the silence like a profanation, and from
+the ancient bastions came murmurs--forbidding, strangely sinister. And
+now we were through, floating on a little open space of shadow-filled
+water. Before us lifted the gateway of Nan-Tauach, gigantic, broken,
+incredibly old; shattered portals through which had passed men and
+women of earth's dawn; old with a weight of years that pressed
+leadenly upon the eyes that looked upon it, and yet was in some
+curious indefinable way--menacingly defiant.
+
+Beyond the gate, back from the portals, stretched a flight of enormous
+basalt slabs, a giant's stairway indeed; and from each side of it
+marched the high walls that were the Dweller's pathway. None of us
+spoke as we grounded the boat and dragged it upon a half-submerged
+pier. And when we did speak it was in whispers.
+
+"What next?" asked Larry.
+
+"I think we ought to take a look around," I replied in the same low
+tones. "We'll climb the wall here and take a flash about. The whole
+place ought to be plain as day from that height."
+
+Huldricksson, his blue eyes alert, nodded.  With the greatest
+difficulty we clambered up the broken blocks.
+
+To the east and south of us, set like children's blocks in the midst
+of the sapphire sea, lay dozens of islets, none of them covering more
+than two square miles of surface; each of them a perfect square or
+oblong within its protecting walls.
+
+On none was there sign of life, save for a few great birds that
+hovered here and there, and gulls dipping in the blue waves beyond.
+
+We turned our gaze down upon the island on which we stood.  It was, I
+estimated, about three-quarters of a mile square. The sea wall
+enclosed it. It was really an enormous basalt-sided open cube, and
+within it two other open cubes. The enclosure between the first and
+second wall was stone paved, with here and there a broken pillar and
+long stone benches. The hibiscus, the aloe tree, and a number of small
+shrubs had found place, but seemed only to intensify its stark
+loneliness.
+
+"Wonder where the Russian can be?" asked Larry.
+
+I shook my head.  There was no sign of life here.  Had Marakinoff
+gone--or had the Dweller taken him, too? Whatever had happened, there
+was no trace of him below us or on any of the islets within our range
+of vision. We scrambled down the side of the gateway. Olaf looked at
+me wistfully.
+
+"We start the search now, Olaf," I said.  "And first, O'Keefe, let us
+see whether the grey stone is really here. After that we will set up
+camp, and while I unpack, you and Olaf search the island. It won't
+take long."
+
+Larry gave a look at his service automatic and grinned. "Lead on,
+Macduff," he said. We made our way up the steps, through the outer
+enclosures and into the central square, I confess to a fire of
+scientific curiosity and eagerness tinged with a dread that O'Keefe's
+analysis might be true. Would we find the moving slab and, if so,
+would it be as Throckmartin had described? If so, then even Larry
+would have to admit that here was something that theories of gases and
+luminous emanations would not explain; and the first test of the whole
+amazing story would be passed. But if not--And there before us, the
+faintest tinge of grey setting it apart from its neighbouring blocks
+of basalt, was the moon door!
+
+There was no mistaking it.  This was, in very deed, the portal through
+which Throckmartin had seen pass that gloriously dreadful apparition
+he called the Dweller. At its base was the curious, seemingly polished
+cup-like depression within which, my lost friend had told me, the
+opening door swung.
+
+What was that portal--more enigmatic than was ever sphinx?  And what
+lay beyond it? What did that smooth stone, whose wan deadness
+whispered of ages-old corridors of time opening out into alien,
+unimaginable vistas, hide? It had cost the world of science
+Throckmartin's great brain--as it had cost Throckmartin those he
+loved. It had drawn me to it in search of Throckmartin--and its shadow
+had fallen upon the soul of Olaf the Norseman; and upon what thousands
+upon thousands more I wondered, since the brains that had conceived it
+had vanished with their secret knowledge?
+
+What lay beyond it?
+
+I stretched out a shaking hand and touched the surface of the slab.  A
+faint thrill passed through my hand and arm, oddly unfamiliar and as
+oddly unpleasant; as of electric contact holding the very essence of
+cold. O'Keefe, watching, imitated my action. As his fingers rested on
+the stone his face filled with astonishment.
+
+"It's the door?" he asked.  I nodded.  There was a low whistle from
+him and he pointed up toward the top of the grey stone. I followed the
+gesture and saw, above the moon door and on each side of it, two
+gently curving bosses of rock, perhaps a foot in diameter.
+
+"The moon door's keys," I said.
+
+"It begins to look so," answered Larry.  "If we can find them," he
+added.
+
+"There's nothing we can do till moonrise," I replied.  "And we've none
+too much time to prepare as it is. Come!"
+
+A little later we were beside our boat.  We lightered it, set up the
+tent, and as it was now but a short hour to sundown I bade them leave
+me and make their search. They went off together, and I busied myself
+with opening some of the paraphernalia I had brought with me.
+
+First of all I took out the two Becquerel ray-condensers that I had
+bought in Sydney. Their lenses would collect and intensify to the
+fullest extent any light directed upon them. I had found them most
+useful in making spectroscopic analysis of luminous vapours, and I
+knew that at Yerkes Observatory splendid results had been obtained
+from them in collecting the diffused radiance of the nebulae for the
+same purpose.
+
+If my theory of the grey slab's mechanism were correct, it was
+practically certain that with the satellite only a few nights past the
+full we could concentrate enough light on the bosses to open the rock.
+And as the ray streams through the seven globes described by
+Throckmartin would be too weak to energize the Pool, we could enter
+the chamber free from any fear of encountering its tenant, make our
+preliminary observations and go forth before the moon had dropped so
+far that the concentration in the condensers would fall below that
+necessary to keep the portal from closing.
+
+I took out also a small spectroscope, and a few other instruments for
+the analysis of certain light manifestations and the testing of metal
+and liquid. Finally, I put aside my emergency medical kit.
+
+I had hardly finished examining and adjusting these before O'Keefe and
+Huldricksson returned. They reported signs of a camp at least ten days
+old beside the northern wall of the outer court, but beyond that no
+evidence of others beyond ourselves on Nan-Tauach.
+
+We prepared supper, ate and talked a little, but for the most part
+were silent. Even Larry's high spirits were not in evidence; half a
+dozen times I saw him take out his automatic and look it over. He was
+more thoughtful than I had ever seen him. Once he went into the tent,
+rummaged about a bit and brought out another revolver which, he said,
+he had got from Da Costa, and a half-dozen clips of cartridges. He
+passed the gun over to Olaf.
+
+At last a glow in the southeast heralded the rising moon. I picked up
+my instruments and the medical kit; Larry and Olaf shouldered each a
+short ladder that was part of my equipment, and, with our electric
+flashes pointing the way, walked up the great stairs, through the
+enclosures, and straight to the grey stone.
+
+By this time the moon had risen and its clipped light shone full upon
+the slab. I saw faint gleams pass over it as of fleeting
+phosphorescence--but so faint were they that I could not be sure of
+the truth of my observation.
+
+We set the ladders in place.  Olaf I assigned to stand before the door
+and watch for the first signs of its opening--if open it should. The
+Becquerels were set within three-inch tripods, whose feet I had
+equipped with vacuum rings to enable them to hold fast to the rock.
+
+I scaled one ladder and fastened a condenser over the boss; descended;
+sent Larry up to watch it, and, ascending the second ladder, rapidly
+fixed the other in its place. Then, with O'Keefe watchful on his
+perch, I on mine, and Olaf's eyes fixed upon the moon door, we began
+our vigil. Suddenly there was an exclamation from Larry.
+
+"Seven little lights are beginning to glow on this stone!" he cried.
+
+But I had already seen those beneath my lens begin to gleam out with a
+silvery lustre. Swiftly the rays within the condenser began to thicken
+and increase, and as they did so the seven small circles waxed like
+stars growing out of the dusk, and with a queer--curdled is the best
+word I can find to define it--radiance entirely strange to me.
+
+Beneath me I heard a faint, sighing murmur and then the voice of
+Huldricksson:
+
+"It opens--the stone turns--"
+
+I began to climb down the ladder.  Again came Olaf's voice:
+
+"The stone--it is open--" And then a shriek, a wail of blended anguish
+and pity, of rage and despair--and the sound of swift footsteps racing
+through the wall beneath me!
+
+I dropped to the ground.  The moon door was wide open, and through it
+I caught a glimpse of a corridor filled with a faint, pearly vaporous
+light like earliest misty dawn. But of Olaf I could see--nothing! And
+even as I stood, gaping, from behind me came the sharp crack of a
+rifle; the glass of the condenser at Larry's side flew into fragments;
+he dropped swiftly to the ground, the automatic in his hand flashed
+once, twice, into the darkness.
+
+And the moon door began to pivot slowly, slowly back into its place!
+
+I rushed toward the turning stone with the wild idea of holding it
+open. As I thrust my hands against it there came at my back a snarl
+and an oath and Larry staggered under the impact of a body that had
+flung itself straight at his throat. He reeled at the lip of the
+shallow cup at the base of the slab, slipped upon its polished curve,
+fell and rolled with that which had attacked him, kicking and
+writhing, straight through the narrowing portal into the passage!
+
+Forgetting all else, I sprang to his aid.  As I leaped I felt the
+closing edge of the moon door graze my side. Then, as Larry raised a
+fist, brought it down upon the temple of the man who had grappled with
+him and rose from the twitching body unsteadily to his feet, I heard
+shuddering past me a mournful whisper; spun about as though some
+giant's hand had whirled me--
+
+The end of the corridor no longer opened out into the moonlit square
+of ruined Nan-Tauach. It was barred by a solid mass of glimmering
+stone. The moon door had closed!
+
+O'Keefe took a stumbling step toward the barrier behind us. There was
+no mark of juncture with the shining walls; the slab fitted into the
+sides as closely as a mosaic.
+
+"It's shut all right," said Larry.  "But if there's a way in, there's
+a way out. Anyway, Doc, we're right in the pew we've been heading
+for--so why worry?" He grinned at me cheerfully. The man on the floor
+groaned, and he dropped to his knees beside him.
+
+"Marakinoff!" he cried.
+
+At my exclamation he moved aside, turning the face so I could see it.
+It was clearly Russian, and just as clearly its possessor was one of
+unusual force and intellect.
+
+The strong, massive brow with orbital ridge unusually developed, the
+dominant, high-bridged nose, the straight lips with their more than
+suggestion of latent cruelty, and the strong lines of the jaw beneath
+a black, pointed beard all gave evidence that here was a personality
+beyond the ordinary.
+
+"Couldn't be anybody else," said Larry, breaking in on my thoughts.
+"He must have been watching us over there from Chau-ta-leur's vault
+all the time."
+
+Swiftly he ran practised hands over his body; then stood erect,
+holding out to me two wicked-looking magazine pistols and a knife. "He
+got one of my bullets through his right forearm, too," he said. "Just
+a flesh wound, but it made him drop his rifle. Some arsenal, our
+little Russian scientist, what?"
+
+I opened my medical kit.  The wound was a slight one, and Larry stood
+looking on as I bandaged it.
+
+"Got another one of those condensers?" he asked, suddenly.  "And do
+you suppose Olaf will know enough to use it?"
+
+"Larry," I answered, "Olaf's not outside!  He's in here somewhere!"
+
+His jaw dropped.
+
+"The hell you say!" he whispered.
+
+"Didn't you hear him shriek when the stone opened?" I asked.
+
+"I heard him yell, yes," he said.  "But I didn't know what was the
+matter. And then this wildcat jumped me--" He paused and his eyes
+widened. "Which way did he go?" he asked swiftly. I pointed down the
+faintly glowing passage.
+
+"There's only one way," I said.
+
+"Watch that bird close," hissed O'Keefe, pointing to Marakinoff--and
+pistol in hand stretched his long legs and raced away. I looked down
+at the Russian. His eyes were open, and he reached out a hand to me. I
+lifted him to his feet.
+
+"I have heard," he said.  "We follow, quick.  If you will take my arm,
+please, I am shaken yet, yes--" I gripped his shoulder without a word,
+and the two of us set off down the corridor after O'Keefe. Marakinoff
+was gasping, and his weight pressed upon me heavily, but he moved with
+all the will and strength that were in him.
+
+As we ran I took hasty note of the tunnel.  Its sides were smooth and
+polished, and the light seemed to come not from their surfaces, but
+from far within them--giving to the walls an illusive aspect of
+distance and depth; rendering them in a peculiarly weird
+way--spacious. The passage turned, twisted, ran down, turned again. It
+came to me that the light that illumined the tunnel was given out by
+tiny points deep within the stone, sprang from the points ripplingly
+and spread upon their polished faces.
+
+There was a cry from Larry far ahead.
+
+"Olaf!"
+
+I gripped Marakinoff's arm closer and we sped on.  Now we were coming
+fast to the end of the passage. Before us was a high arch, and through
+it I glimpsed a dim, shifting luminosity as of mist filled with
+rainbows. We reached the portal and I looked into a chamber that might
+have been transported from that enchanted palace of the Jinn King that
+rises beyond the magic mountains of Kaf.
+
+Before me stood O'Keefe and a dozen feet in front of him,
+Huldricksson, with something clasped tightly in his arms. The
+Norseman's feet were at the verge of a shining, silvery lip of stone
+within whose oval lay a blue pool. And down upon this pool staring
+upward like a gigantic eye, fell seven pillars of phantom light--one
+of them amethyst, one of rose, another of white, a fourth of blue, and
+three of emerald, of silver, and of amber. They fell each upon the
+azure surface, and I knew that these were the seven streams of
+radiance, within which the Dweller took shape--now but pale ghosts of
+their brilliancy when the full energy of the moon stream raced through
+them.
+
+Huldricksson bent and placed on the shining silver lip of the Pool
+that which he held--and I saw that it was the body of a child! He set
+it there so gently, bent over the side and thrust a hand down into the
+water. And as he did so he moaned and lurched against the little body
+that lay before him. Instantly the form moved--and slipped over the
+verge into the blue. Huldricksson threw his body over the stone, hands
+clutching, arms thrust deep down--and from his lips issued a
+long-drawn, heart-shrivelling wail of pain and of anguish that held in
+it nothing human!
+
+Close on its wake came a cry from Marakinoff.
+
+"Catch him!" shouted the Russian.  "Drag him back! Quick!"
+
+He leaped forward, but before he could half clear the distance,
+O'Keefe had leaped too, had caught the Norseman by the shoulders and
+toppled him backward, where he lay whimpering and sobbing. And as I
+rushed behind Marakinoff I saw Larry lean over the lip of the Pool and
+cover his eyes with a shaking hand; saw the Russian peer into it with
+real pity in his cold eyes.
+
+Then I stared down myself into the Moon Pool, and there, sinking, was
+a little maid whose dead face and fixed, terror-filled eyes looked
+straight into mine; and ever sinking slowly, slowly--vanished! And I
+knew that this was Olaf's Freda, his beloved yndling!
+
+But where was the mother, and where had Olaf found his babe?
+
+The Russian was first to speak.
+
+"You have nitroglycerin there, yes?" he asked, pointing toward my
+medical kit that I had gripped unconsciously and carried with me
+during the mad rush down the passage. I nodded and drew it out.
+
+"Hypodermic," he ordered next, curtly; took the syringe, filled it
+accurately with its one one-hundredth of a grain dosage, and leaned
+over Huldricksson. He rolled up the sailor's sleeves half-way to the
+shoulder. The arms were white with somewhat of that weird
+semitranslucence that I had seen on Throckmartin's breast where a
+tendril of the Dweller had touched him; and his hands were of the same
+whiteness--like a baroque pearl. Above the line of white, Marakinoff
+thrust the needle.
+
+"He will need all his heart can do," he said to me.
+
+Then he reached down into a belt about his waist and drew from it a
+small, flat flask of what seemed to be lead. He opened it and let a
+few drops of its contents fall on each arm of the Norwegian. The
+liquid sparkled and instantly began to spread over the skin much as
+oil or gasoline dropped on water does--only far more rapidly. And as
+it spread it drew a sparkling film over the marbled flesh and little
+wisps of vapour rose from it. The Norseman's mighty chest heaved with
+agony. His hands clenched. The Russian gave a grunt of satisfaction at
+this, dropped a little more of the liquid, and then, watching closely,
+grunted again and leaned back. Huldricksson's laboured breathing
+ceased, his head dropped upon Larry's knee, and from his arms and
+hands the whiteness swiftly withdrew.
+
+Marakinoff arose and contemplated us--almost benevolently.
+
+"He will all right be in five minutes," he said.  "I know.  I do it to
+pay for that shot of mine, and also because we will need him. Yes." He
+turned to Larry. "You have a poonch like a mule kick, my young
+friend," he said. "Some time you pay me for that, too, eh?" He smiled;
+and the quality of the grimace was not exactly reassuring. Larry
+looked him over quizzically.
+
+"You're Marakinoff, of course," he said.  The Russian nodded,
+betraying no surprise at the recognition.
+
+"And you?" he asked.
+
+"Lieutenant O'Keefe of the Royal Flying Corps," replied Larry,
+saluting. "And this gentleman is Dr. Walter T. Goodwin."
+
+Marakinoff's face brightened.
+
+"The American botanist?" he queried.  I nodded.
+
+"Ah," cried Marakinoff eagerly, "but this is fortunate. Long I have
+desired to meet you. Your work, for an American, is most excellent;
+surprising. But you are wrong in your theory of the development of the
+Angiospermae from Cycadeoidea dacotensis. Da--all wrong--"
+
+I was interrupting him with considerable heat, for my conclusions from
+the fossil Cycadeoidea I knew to be my greatest triumph, when Larry
+broke in upon me rudely.
+
+"Say," he spluttered, "am I crazy or are you?  What in damnation kind
+of a place and time is this to start an argument like that?
+
+"Angiospermae, is it?" exclaimed Larry.  "HELL!"
+
+Marakinoff again regarded him with that irritating air of benevolence.
+
+"You have not the scientific mind, young friend," he said. "The
+poonch, yes! But so has the mule. You must learn that only the fact is
+important--not you, not me, not this"--he pointed to Huldricksson--"or
+its sorrows. Only the fact, whatever it is, is real, yes. But"--he
+turned to me--"another time--"
+
+Huldricksson interrupted him.  The big seaman had risen stiffly to his
+feet and stood with Larry's arm supporting him. He stretched out his
+hands to me.
+
+"I saw her," he whispered.  "I saw mine Freda when the stone swung.
+She lay there--just at my feet. I picked her up and I saw that mine
+Freda was dead. But I hoped--and I thought maybe mine Helma was
+somewhere here, too, So I ran with mine yndling--here--" His voice
+broke. "I thought maybe she was _not_ dead," he went on. "And I saw
+that"--he pointed to the Moon Pool--"and I thought I would bathe her
+face and she might live again. And when I dipped my hands within--the
+life left them, and cold, deadly cold, ran up through them into my
+heart. And mine Freda--she fell--" he covered his eyes, and dropping
+his head on O'Keefe's shoulder, stood, racked by sobs that seemed to
+tear at his very soul.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+The Flame-Tipped Shadows
+
+
+Marakinoff nodded his head solemnly as Olaf finished.
+
+"Da!" he said.  "That which comes from here took them both--the woman
+and the child. Da! They came clasped within it and the stone shut upon
+them. But why it left the child behind I do not understand."
+
+"How do you know that?" I cried in amazement.
+
+"Because I saw it," answered Marakinoff simply.  "Not only did I see
+it, but hardly had I time to make escape through the entrance before
+it passed whirling and murmuring and its bell sounds all joyous. Da!
+It was what you call the squeak close, that."
+
+"Wait a moment," I said--stilling Larry with a gesture. "Do I
+understand you to say that you were within this place?"
+
+Marakinoff actually beamed upon me.
+
+"Da, Dr. Goodwin," he said, "I went in when that which comes from it
+went out!"
+
+I gaped at him, stricken dumb; into Larry's bellicose attitude crept a
+suggestion of grudging respect; Olaf, trembling, watched silently.
+
+"Dr.  Goodwin and my impetuous young friend, you," went on Marakinoff
+after a moment's silence and I wondered vaguely why he did not include
+Huldricksson in his address--"it is time that we have an
+understanding. I have a proposal to make to you also. It is this; we
+are what you call a bad boat, and all of us are in it. Da! We need all
+hands, is it not so? Let us put together our knowledge and our brains
+and resources--and even a poonch of a mule is a resource," he looked
+wickedly at O'Keefe, "and pull our boat into quiet waters again. After
+that--"
+
+"All very well, Marakinoff," interjected Larry, "but I don't feel very
+safe in any boat with somebody capable of shooting me through the
+back."
+
+Marakinoff waved a deprecatory hand.
+
+"It was natural that," he said, "logical, da!  Here is a very great
+secret, perhaps many secrets to my country invaluable--" He paused,
+shaken by some overpowering emotion; the veins in his forehead grew
+congested, the cold eyes blazed and the guttural voice harshened.
+
+"I do not apologize and I do not explain," rasped Marakinoff.  "But I
+will tell you, da! Here is my country sweating blood in an experiment
+to liberate the world. And here are the other nations ringing us like
+wolves and waiting to spring at our throats at the least sign of
+weakness. And here are you, Lieutenant O'Keefe of the English wolves,
+and you Dr. Goodwin of the Yankee pack--and here in this place may be
+that will enable my country to win its war for the worker. What are
+the lives of you two and this sailor to that? Less than the flies I
+crush with my hand, less than midges in the sunbeam!"
+
+He suddenly gripped himself.
+
+"But that is not now the important thing," he resumed, almost coldly.
+"Not that nor my shooting. Let us squarely the situation face. My
+proposal is so: that we join interests, and what you call see it
+through together; find our way through this place and those secrets
+learn of which I have spoken, if we can. And when that is done we will
+go our ways, to his own land each, to make use of them for our lands
+as each of us may. On my part, I offer my knowledge--and it is very
+valuable, Dr. Goodwin--and my training. You and Lieutenant O'Keefe do
+the same, and this man Olaf, what he can of his strength, for I do not
+think his usefulness lies in his brains, no."
+
+"In effect, Goodwin," broke in Larry as I hesitated, "the professor's
+proposition is this: he wants to know what's going on here but he
+begins to realize it's no one man's job and besides we have the drop
+on him. We're three to his one, and we have all his hardware and
+cutlery. But also we can do better with him than without him--just as
+he can do better with us than without us. It's an even break--for a
+while. But once he gets that information he's looking for, then look
+out. You and Olaf and I are the wolves and the flies and the midges
+again--and the strafing will be about due. Nevertheless, with three to
+one against him, if he can get away with it he deserves to. I'm for
+taking him up, if you are."
+
+There was almost a twinkle in Marakinoff's eyes.
+
+"It is not just as I would have put it, perhaps," he said, "but in its
+skeleton he has right. Nor will I turn my hand against you while we
+are still in danger here. I pledge you my honor on this."
+
+Larry laughed.
+
+"All right, Professor," he grinned.  "I believe you mean every word
+you say. Nevertheless, I'll just keep the guns."
+
+Marakinoff bowed, imperturbably.
+
+"And now," he said, "I will tell you what I know.  I found the secret
+of the door mechanism even as you did, Dr. Goodwin. But by
+carelessness, my condensers were broken. I was forced to wait while I
+sent for others--and the waiting might be for months. I took certain
+precautions, and on the first night of this full moon I hid myself
+within the vault of Chau-ta-leur."
+
+An involuntary thrill of admiration for the man went through me at the
+manifest heroism of this leap in the dark. I could see it reflected in
+Larry's face.
+
+"I hid in the vault," continued Marakinoff, "and I saw that which
+comes from here come out. I waited--long hours. At last, when the moon
+was low, it returned--ecstatically--with a man, a native, in embrace
+enfolded. It passed through the door, and soon then the moon became
+low and the door closed.
+
+"The next night more confidence was mine, yes.  And after that which
+comes had gone, I looked through its open door. I said, 'It will not
+return for three hours. While it is away, why shall I not into its
+home go through the door it has left open?' So I went--even to here. I
+looked at the pillars of light and I tested the liquid of the Pool on
+which they fell. That liquid, Dr. Goodwin, is not water, and it is not
+any fluid known on earth." He handed me a small vial, its neck held in
+a long thong.
+
+"Take this," he said, "and see."
+
+Wonderingly, I took the bottle; dipped it down into the Pool.  The
+liquid was extraordinarily light; seemed, in fact, to give the vial
+buoyancy. I held it to the light. It was striated, streaked, as though
+little living, pulsing veins ran through it. And its blueness, even in
+the vial, held an intensity of luminousness.
+
+"Radioactive," said Marakinoff.  "Some liquid that is intensely
+radioactive; but what it is I know not at all. Upon the living skin it
+acts like radium raised to the nth power and with an element most
+mysterious added. The solution with which I treated him," he pointed
+to Huldricksson, "I had prepared before I came here, from certain
+information I had. It is largely salts of radium and its base is
+Loeb's formula for the neutralization of radium and X-ray burns.
+Taking this man at once, before the degeneration had become really
+active, I could negative it. But after two hours I could have done
+nothing."
+
+He paused a moment.
+
+"Next I studied the nature of these luminous walls.  I concluded that
+whoever had made them, knew the secret of the Almighty's manufacture
+of light from the ether itself! Colossal! Da! But the substance of
+these blocks confines an atomic--how would you say--atomic
+manipulation, a conscious arrangement of electrons, light-emitting and
+perhaps indefinitely so. These blocks are lamps in which oil and wick
+are electrons drawing light waves from ether itself! A Prometheus,
+indeed, this discoverer! I looked at my watch and that little guardian
+warned me that it was time to go. I went. That which comes forth
+returned--this time empty-handed.
+
+"And the next night I did the same thing.  Engrossed in research, I
+let the moments go by to the danger point, and scarcely was I replaced
+within the vault when the shining thing raced over the walls, and in
+its grip the woman and child.
+
+"Then you came--and that is all.  And now--what is it you know?"
+
+Very briefly I went over my story.  His eyes gleamed now and then, but
+he did not interrupt me.
+
+"A great secret!  A colossal secret!" he muttered, when I had ended.
+"We cannot leave it hidden."
+
+"The first thing to do is to try the door," said Larry, matter of
+fact.
+
+"There is no use, my young friend," assured Marakinoff mildly.
+
+"Nevertheless we'll try," said Larry.  We retraced our way through the
+winding tunnel to the end, but soon even O'Keefe saw that any idea of
+moving the slab from within was hopeless. We returned to the Chamber
+of the Pool. The pillars of light were fainter, and we knew that the
+moon was sinking. On the world outside before long dawn would be
+breaking. I began to feel thirst--and the blue semblance of water
+within the silvery rim seemed to glint mockingly as my eyes rested on
+it.
+
+"Da!" it was Marakinoff, reading my thoughts uncannily. "Da!  We will
+be thirsty. And it will be very bad for him of us who loses control
+and drinks of that, my friend. Da!"
+
+Larry threw back his shoulders as though shaking a burden from them.
+
+"This place would give an angel of joy the willies," he said.  "I
+suggest that we look around and find something that will take us
+somewhere. You can bet the people that built it had more ways of
+getting in than that once-a-month family entrance. Doc, you and Olaf
+take the left wall; the professor and I will take the right."
+
+He loosened one of his automatics with a suggestive movement.
+
+"After you, Professor," he bowed, politely, to the Russian. We parted
+and set forth.
+
+The chamber widened out from the portal in what seemed to be the arc
+of an immense circle. The shining walls held a perceptible curve, and
+from this curvature I estimated that the roof was fully three hundred
+feet above us.
+
+The floor was of smooth, mosaic-fitted blocks of a faintly yellow
+tinge. They were not light-emitting like the blocks that formed the
+walls. The radiance from these latter, I noted, had the peculiar
+quality of _thickening_ a few yards from its source, and it was this
+that produced the effect of misty, veiled distances. As we walked, the
+seven columns of rays streaming down from the crystalline globes high
+above us waned steadily; the glow within the chamber lost its
+prismatic shimmer and became an even grey tone somewhat like moonlight
+in a thin cloud.
+
+Now before us, out from the wall, jutted a low terrace.  It was all of
+a pearly rose-coloured stone, slender, graceful pillars of the same
+hue. The face of the terrace was about ten feet high, and all over it
+ran a bas-relief of what looked like short-trailing vines, surmounted
+by five stalks, on the tip of each of which was a flower.
+
+We passed along the terrace.  It turned in an abrupt curve. I heard a
+hail, and there, fifty feet away, at the curving end of a wall
+identical with that where we stood, were Larry and Marakinoff.
+Obviously the left side of the chamber was a duplicate of that we had
+explored. We joined. In front of us the columned barriers ran back a
+hundred feet, forming an alcove. The end of this alcove was another
+wall of the same rose stone, but upon it the design of vines was much
+heavier.
+
+We took a step forward--there was a gasp of awe from the Norseman, a
+guttural exclamation from Marakinoff. For on, or rather within, the
+wall before us, a great oval began to glow, waxed almost to a flame
+and then shone steadily out as though from behind it a light was
+streaming through the stone itself!
+
+And within the roseate oval two flame-tipped shadows appeared, stood
+for a moment, and then seemed to float out upon its surface. The
+shadows wavered; the tips of flame that nimbused them with flickering
+points of vermilion pulsed outward, drew back, darted forth again, and
+once more withdrew themselves--and as they did so the shadows
+thickened--and suddenly there before us stood two figures!
+
+One was a girl--a girl whose great eyes were golden as the fabled
+lilies of Kwan-Yung that were born of the kiss of the sun upon the
+amber goddess the demons of Lao-Tz'e carved for him; whose softly
+curved lips were red as the royal coral, and whose golden-brown hair
+reached to her knees!
+
+And the second was a gigantic frog--A _woman_ frog, head helmeted with
+carapace of shell around which a fillet of brilliant yellow jewels
+shone; enormous round eyes of blue circled with a broad iris of green;
+monstrous body of banded orange and white girdled with strand upon
+strand of the flashing yellow gems; six feet high if an inch, and with
+one webbed paw of its short, powerfully muscled forelegs resting upon
+the white shoulder of the golden-eyed girl!
+
+Moments must have passed as we stood in stark amazement, gazing at
+that incredible apparition. The two figures, although as real as any
+of those who stood beside me, unphantomlike as it is possible to be,
+had a distinct suggestion of--projection.
+
+They were there before us--golden-eyed girl and grotesque
+frog-woman--complete in every line and curve; and still it was as
+though their bodies passed back through distances; as though, to try
+to express the wellnigh inexpressible, the two shapes we were looking
+upon were the end of an infinite number stretching in fine linked
+chain far away, of which the eyes saw only the nearest, while in the
+brain some faculty higher than sight recognized and registered the
+unseen others.
+
+The gigantic eyes of the frog-woman took us all in--unwinkingly.
+Little glints of phosphorescence shone out within the metallic green
+of the outer iris ring. She stood upright, her great legs bowed; the
+monstrous slit of a mouth slightly open, revealing a row of white
+teeth sharp and pointed as lancets; the paw resting on the girl's
+shoulder, half covering its silken surface, and from its five webbed
+digits long yellow claws of polished horn glistened against the
+delicate texture of the flesh.
+
+But if the frog-woman regarded us all, not so did the maiden of the
+rosy wall. Her eyes were fastened upon Larry, drinking him in with
+extraordinary intentness. She was tall, far over the average of women,
+almost as tall, indeed, as O'Keefe himself; not more than twenty years
+old, if that, I thought. Abruptly she leaned forward, the golden eyes
+softened and grew tender; the red lips moved as though she were
+speaking.
+
+Larry took a quick step, and his face was that of one who after
+countless births comes at last upon the twin soul lost to him for
+ages. The frog-woman turned her eyes upon the girl; her huge lips
+moved, and I knew that she was talking! The girl held out a warning
+hand to O'Keefe, and then raised it, resting each finger upon one of
+the five flowers of the carved vine close beside her. Once, twice,
+three times, she pressed upon the flower centres, and I noted that her
+hand was curiously long and slender, the digits like those wonderful
+tapering ones the painters we call the primitive gave to their
+Virgins.
+
+Three times she pressed the flowers, and then looked intently at Larry
+once more. A slow, sweet smile curved the crimson lips. She stretched
+both hands out toward him again eagerly; a burning blush rose swiftly
+over white breasts and flowerlike face.
+
+Like the clicking out of a cinematograph, the pulsing oval faded and
+golden-eyed girl and frog-woman were gone!
+
+And thus it was that Lakla, the handmaiden of the Silent Ones, and
+Larry O'Keefe first looked into each other's hearts!
+
+Larry stood rapt, gazing at the stone.
+
+"Eilidh," I heard him whisper; "Eilidh of the lips like the red, red
+rowan and the golden-brown hair!"
+
+"Clearly of the Ranadae," said Marakinoff, "a development of the
+fossil Labyrinthodonts: you saw her teeth, da?"
+
+"Ranadae, yes," I answered.  "But from the Stegocephalia; of the order
+Ecaudata--"
+
+Never such a complete indignation as was in O'Keefe's voice as he
+interrupted.
+
+"What do you mean--fossils and Stego whatever it is?" he asked.  "She
+was a girl, a wonder girl--a real girl, and Irish, or I'm not an
+O'Keefe!"
+
+"We were talking about the frog-woman, Larry," I said, conciliatingly.
+
+His eyes were wild as he regarded us.
+
+"Say," he said, "if you two had been in the Garden of Eden when Eve
+took the apple, you wouldn't have had time to give her a look for
+counting the scales on the snake!"
+
+He strode swiftly over to the wall.  We followed.  Larry paused,
+stretched his hand up to the flowers on which the tapering fingers of
+the golden-eyed girl had rested.
+
+"It was here she put up her hand," he murmured.  He pressed
+caressingly the carved calyxes, once, twice, a third time even as she
+had--and silently and softly the wall began to split; on each side a
+great stone pivoted slowly, and before us a portal stood, opening into
+a narrow corridor glowing with the same rosy lustre that had gleamed
+around the flame-tipped shadows!
+
+"Have your gun ready, Olaf!" said Larry.  "We follow Golden Eyes," he
+said to me.
+
+"Follow?" I echoed stupidly.
+
+"Follow!" he said.  "She came to show us the way!  Follow? I'd follow
+her through a thousand hells!"
+
+And with Olaf at one end, O'Keefe at the other, both of them with
+automatics in hand, and Marakinoff and I between them, we stepped over
+the threshold.
+
+At our right, a few feet away, the passage ended abruptly in a square
+of polished stone, from which came faint rose radiance. The roof of
+the place was less than two feet over O'Keefe's head.
+
+A yard at left of us lifted a four-foot high, gently curved barricade,
+stretching from wall to wall--and beyond it was blackness; an utter
+and appalling blackness that seemed to gather itself from infinite
+depths. The rose-glow in which we stood was cut off by the blackness
+as though it had substance; it shimmered out to meet it, and was
+checked as though by a blow; indeed, so strong was the suggestion of
+sinister, straining force within the rayless opacity that I shrank
+back, and Marakinoff with me. Not so O'Keefe. Olaf beside him, he
+strode to the wall and peered over. He beckoned us.
+
+"Flash your pocket-light down there," he said to me, pointing into the
+thick darkness below us. The little electric circle quivered down as
+though afraid, and came to rest upon a surface that resembled nothing
+so much as clear, black ice. I ran the light across--here and there.
+The floor of the corridor was of a substance so smooth, so polished,
+that no man could have walked upon it; it sloped downward at a slowly
+increasing angle.
+
+"We'd have to have non-skid chains and brakes on our feet to tackle
+that," mused Larry. Abstractedly be ran his hands over the edge on
+which he was leaning. Suddenly they hesitated and then gripped
+tightly.
+
+"That's a queer one!" he exclaimed.  His right palm was resting upon a
+rounded protuberance, on the side of which were three small circular
+indentations.
+
+"A queer one--" he repeated--and pressed his fingers upon the circles.
+
+There was a sharp click; the slabs that had opened to let us through
+swung swiftly together; a curiously rapid vibration thrilled through
+us, a wind arose and passed over our heads--a wind that grew and grew
+until it became a whistling shriek, then a roar and then a mighty
+humming, to which every atom in our bodies pulsed in rhythm painful
+almost to disintegration!
+
+The rosy wall dwindled in a flash to a point of light and disappeared!
+
+Wrapped in the clinging, impenetrable blackness we were racing,
+dropping, hurling at a frightful speed--where?
+
+And ever that awful humming of the rushing wind and the lightning
+cleaving of the tangible dark--so, it came to me oddly, must the newly
+released soul race through the sheer blackness of outer space up to
+that Throne of Justice, where God sits high above all suns!
+
+I felt Marakinoff creep close to me; gripped my nerve and flashed my
+pocket-light; saw Larry standing, peering, peering ahead, and
+Huldricksson, one strong arm around his shoulders, bracing him. And
+then the speed began to slacken.
+
+Millions of miles, it seemed, below the sound of the unearthly
+hurricane I heard Larry's voice, thin and ghostlike, beneath its
+clamour.
+
+"Got it!" shrilled the voice.  "Got it!  Don't worry!"
+
+The wind died down to the roar, passed back into the whistling shriek
+and diminished to a steady whisper. In the comparative quiet O'Keefe's
+tones now came in normal volume.
+
+"Some little shoot-the-chutes, what?" he shouted.  "Say--if they had
+this at Coney Island or the Crystal Palace! Press all the way in these
+holes and she goes top-high. Diminish pressure--diminish speed. The
+curve of this--dashboard--here sends the wind shooting up over our
+heads--like a windshield. What's behind you?"
+
+I flashed the light back.  The mechanism on which we were ended in
+another wall exactly similar to that over which O'Keefe crouched.
+
+"Well, we can't fall out, anyway," he laughed.  "Wish to hell I knew
+where the brakes were! Look out!"
+
+We dropped dizzily down an abrupt, seemingly endless slope; fell--fell
+as into an abyss--then shot abruptly out of the blackness into a
+throbbing green radiance. O'Keefe's fingers must have pressed down
+upon the controls, for we leaped forward almost with the speed of
+light. I caught a glimpse of luminous immensities on the verge of
+which we flew; of depths inconceivable, and flitting through the
+incredible spaces--gigantic shadows as of the wings of Israfel, which
+are so wide, say the Arabs, the world can cower under them like a
+nestling--and then--again the living blackness!
+
+"What was that?" This from Larry, with the nearest approach to awe
+that he had yet shown.
+
+"Trolldom!" croaked the voice of Olaf.
+
+"Chert!"  This from Marakinoff.  "What a space!"
+
+"Have you considered, Dr. Goodwin," he went on after a pause, "a
+curious thing? We know, or, at least, is it not that nine out of ten
+astronomers believe, that the moon was hurled out of this same region
+we now call the Pacific when the earth was yet like molasses; almost
+molten, I should say. And is it not curious that that which comes from
+the Moon Chamber needs the moon-rays to bring it forth; is it not? And
+is it not significant again that the stone depends upon the moon for
+operating? Da! And last--such a space in mother earth as we just
+glimpsed, how else could it have been torn but by some gigantic
+birth--like that of the moon? Da! I do not put forward these as
+statements of fact--no! But as suggestions--"
+
+I started; there was so much that this might explain--an unknown
+element that responded to the moon-rays in opening the moon door; the
+blue Pool with its weird radioactivity, and the force within it that
+reacted to the same light stream--
+
+It was not inconceivable that a film had drawn over the world wound, a
+film of earth-flesh which drew itself over that colossal abyss after
+our planet had borne its satellite--that world womb did not close
+when her shining child sprang forth--it was possible; and all that we
+know of earth depth is four miles of her eight thousand.
+
+What is there at the heart of earth?  What of that radiant unknown
+element upon the moon mount Tycho? What of that element unknown to us
+as part of earth which is seen only in the corona of the sun at
+eclipse that we call coronium? Yet the earth is child of the sun as
+the moon is earth's daughter. And what of that other unknown element
+we find glowing green in the far-flung nebulae--green as that we had
+just passed through--and that we call nebulium? Yet the sun is child
+of the nebulae as the earth is child of the sun and the moon is child
+of the earth.
+
+And what miracles are there in coronium and nebulium which, as the
+child of nebula and sun, we inherit? Yes--and in Tycho's enigma which
+came from earth heart?
+
+We were flashing down to earth heart!  And what miracles were hidden
+there?
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+The End of the Journey
+
+
+"Say Doc!" It was Larry's voice flung back at me.  "I was thinking
+about that frog. I think it was her pet. Damn me if I see any
+difference between a frog and a snake, and one of the nicest women I
+ever knew had two pet pythons that followed her around like kittens.
+Not such a devilish lot of choice between a frog and a snake--except
+on the side of the frog? What? Anyway, any pet that girl wants is
+hers, I don't care if it's a leaping twelve-toed lobster or a
+whale-bodied scorpion. Get me?"
+
+By which I knew that our remarks upon the frog woman were still
+bothering O'Keefe.
+
+"He thinks of foolish nothings like the foolish sailor!" grunted
+Marakinoff, acid contempt in his words. "What are their women
+to--this?" He swept out a hand and as though at a signal the car
+poised itself for an instant, then dipped, literally dipped down into
+sheer space; skimmed forward in what was clearly curved flight, rose
+as upon a sweeping upgrade and then began swiftly to slacken its
+fearful speed.
+
+Far ahead a point of light showed; grew steadily; we were within
+it--and softly all movement ceased. How acute had been the strain of
+our journey I did not realize until I tried to stand--and sank back,
+leg-muscles too shaky to bear my weight. The car rested in a slit in
+the centre of a smooth walled chamber perhaps twenty feet square. The
+wall facing us was pierced by a low doorway through which we could see
+a flight of steps leading downward.
+
+The light streamed through a small opening, the base of which was
+twice a tall man's height from the floor. A curving flight of broad,
+low steps led up to it. And now it came to my steadying brain that
+there was something puzzling, peculiar, strangely unfamiliar about
+this light. It was silvery, shaded faintly with a delicate blue and
+flushed lightly with a nacreous rose; but a rose that differed from
+that of the terraces of the Pool Chamber as the rose within the opal
+differs from that within the pearl. In it were tiny, gleaming points
+like the motes in a sunbeam, but sparkling white like the dust of
+diamonds, and with a quality of vibrant vitality; they were as though
+they were alive. The light cast no shadows!
+
+A little breeze came through the oval and played about us. It was
+laden with what seemed the mingled breath of spice flowers and pines.
+It was curiously vivifying, and in it the diamonded atoms of light
+shook and danced.
+
+I stepped out of the car, the Russian following, and began to ascend
+the curved steps toward the opening, at the top of which O'Keefe and
+Olaf already stood. As they looked out I saw both their faces
+change--Olaf's with awe, O'Keefe's with incredulous amaze. I hurried
+to their side.
+
+At first all that I could see was space--a space filled with the same
+coruscating effulgence that pulsed about me. I glanced upward, obeying
+that instinctive impulse of earth folk that bids them seek within the
+sky for sources of light. There was no sky--at least no sky such as we
+know--all was a sparkling nebulosity rising into infinite distances as
+the azure above the day-world seems to fill all the heavens--through
+it ran pulsing waves and flashing javelin rays that were like shining
+shadows of the aurora; echoes, octaves lower, of those brilliant
+arpeggios and chords that play about the poles. My eyes fell beneath
+its splendour; I stared outward.
+
+Miles away, gigantic luminous cliffs sprang sheer from the limits of a
+lake whose waters were of milky opalescence. It was from these cliffs
+that the spangled radiance came, shimmering out from all their
+lustrous surfaces. To left and to right, as far as the eye could see,
+they stretched--and they vanished in the auroral nebulosity on high!
+
+"Look at that!" exclaimed Larry.  I followed his pointing finger.  On
+the face of the shining wall, stretched between two colossal columns,
+hung an incredible veil; prismatic, gleaming with all the colours of
+the spectrum. It was like a web of rainbows woven by the fingers of
+the daughters of the Jinn. In front of it and a little at each side
+was a semi-circular pier, or, better, a plaza of what appeared to be
+glistening, pale-yellow ivory. At each end of its half-circle
+clustered a few low-walled, rose-stone structures, each of them
+surmounted by a number of high, slender pinnacles.
+
+We looked at each other, I think, a bit helplessly--and back again
+through the opening. We were standing, as I have said, at its base.
+The wall in which it was set was at least ten feet thick, and so, of
+course, all that we could see of that which was without were the
+distances that revealed themselves above the outer ledge of the oval.
+
+"Let's take a look at what's under us," said Larry.
+
+He crept out upon the ledge and peered down, the rest of us following.
+A hundred yards beneath us stretched gardens that must have been like
+those of many-columned Iram, which the ancient Addite King had built
+for his pleasure ages before the deluge, and which Allah, so the Arab
+legend tells, took and hid from man, within the Sahara, beyond all
+hope of finding--jealous because they were more beautiful than his in
+paradise. Within them flowers and groves of laced, fernlike trees,
+pillared pavilions nestled.
+
+The trunks of the trees were of emerald, of vermilion, and of
+azure-blue, and the blossoms, whose fragrance was borne to us, shone
+like jewels. The graceful pillars were tinted delicately. I noted that
+the pavilions were double--in a way, two-storied--and that they were
+oddly splotched with circles, with squares, and with oblongs
+of--opacity; noted too that over many this opacity stretched like a
+roof; yet it did not seem material; rather was it--impenetrable
+shadow!
+
+Down through this city of gardens ran a broad shining green
+thoroughfare, glistening like glass and spanned at regular intervals
+with graceful, arched bridges. The road flashed to a wide square,
+where rose, from a base of that same silvery stone that formed the lip
+of the Moon Pool, a titanic structure of seven terraces; and along it
+flitted objects that bore a curious resemblance to the shell of the
+Nautilus. Within them were--human figures! And upon tree-bordered
+promenades on each side walked others!
+
+Far to the right we caught the glint of another emerald-paved road.
+
+And between the two the gardens grew sweetly down to the hither side
+of that opalescent water across which were the radiant cliffs and the
+curtain of mystery.
+
+Thus it was that we first saw the city of the Dweller; blessed and
+accursed as no place on earth, or under or above earth has ever
+been--or, that force willing which some call God, ever again shall be!
+
+"Chert!" whispered Marakinoff.  "Incredible!"
+
+"Trolldom!" gasped Olaf Huldricksson.  "It is Trolldom!"
+
+"Listen, Olaf!" said Larry.  "Cut out that Trolldom stuff! There's no
+Trolldom, or fairies, outside Ireland. Get that! And this isn't
+Ireland. And, buck up, Professor!" This to Marakinoff. "What you see
+down there are people--_just plain people_. And wherever there's people
+is where I live. Get me?
+
+"There's no way in but in--and no way out but out," said O'Keefe.
+"And there's the stairway. Eggs are eggs no matter how they're
+cooked--and people are just people, fellow travellers, no matter what
+dish they are in," he concluded. "Come on!"
+
+With the three of us close behind him, he marched toward the entrance.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+Yolara, Priestess of the Shining One
+
+
+"You'd better have this handy, Doc." O'Keefe paused at the head of the
+stairway and handed me one of the automatics he had taken from
+Marakinoff.
+
+"Shall I not have one also?" rather anxiously asked the latter.
+
+"When you need it you'll get it," answered O'Keefe.  "I'll tell you
+frankly, though, Professor, that you'll have to show me before I trust
+you with a gun. You shoot too straight--from cover."
+
+The flash of anger in the Russian's eyes turned to a cold
+consideration.
+
+"You say always just what is in your mind, Lieutenant O'Keefe," he
+mused. "Da--that I shall remember!" Later I was to recall this odd
+observation--and Marakinoff was to remember indeed.
+
+In single file, O'Keefe at the head and Olaf bringing up the rear, we
+passed through the portal. Before us dropped a circular shaft, into
+which the light from the chamber of the oval streamed liquidly; set in
+its sides the steps spiralled, and down them we went, cautiously. The
+stairway ended in a circular well; silent--with no trace of exit! The
+rounded stones joined each other evenly--hermetically. Carved on one
+of the slabs was one of the five flowered vines. I pressed my fingers
+upon the calyxes, even as Larry had within the Moon Chamber.
+
+A crack--horizontal, four feet wide--appeared on the wall; widened,
+and as the sinking slab that made it dropped to the level of our eyes,
+we looked through a hundred-feet-long rift in the living rock! The
+stone fell steadily--and we saw that it was a Cyclopean wedge set
+within the slit of the passageway. It reached the level of our feet
+and stopped. At the far end of this tunnel, whose floor was the
+polished rock that had, a moment before, fitted hermetically into its
+roof, was a low, narrow triangular opening through which light
+streamed.
+
+"Nowhere to go but out!" grinned Larry.  "And I'll bet Golden Eyes is
+waiting for us with a taxi!" He stepped forward. We followed,
+slipping, sliding along the glassy surface; and I, for one, had a
+lively apprehension of what our fate would be should that enormous
+mass rise before we had emerged! We reached the end; crept out of the
+narrow triangle that was its exit.
+
+We stood upon a wide ledge carpeted with a thick yellow moss.  I
+looked behind--and clutched O'Keefe's arm. The door through which we
+had come had vanished! There was only a precipice of pale rock, on
+whose surfaces great patches of the amber moss hung; around whose base
+our ledge ran, and whose summits, if summits it had, were hidden, like
+the luminous cliffs, in the radiance above us.
+
+"Nowhere to go but ahead--and Golden Eyes hasn't kept her date!"
+laughed O'Keefe--but somewhat grimly.
+
+We walked a few yards along the ledge and, rounding a corner, faced
+the end of one of the slender bridges. From this vantage point the
+oddly shaped vehicles were plain, and we could see they were, indeed,
+like the shell of the Nautilus and elfinly beautiful. Their drivers
+sat high upon the forward whorl. Their bodies were piled high with
+cushions, upon which lay women half-swathed in gay silken webs. From
+the pavilioned gardens smaller channels of glistening green ran into
+the broad way, much as automobile runways do on earth; and in and out
+of them flashed the fairy shells.
+
+There came a shout from one.  Its occupants had glimpsed us. They
+pointed; others stopped and stared; one shell turned and sped up a
+runway--and quickly over the other side of the bridge came a score of
+men. They were dwarfed--none of them more than five feet high,
+prodigiously broad of shoulder, clearly enormously powerful.
+
+"Trolde!" muttered Olaf, stepping beside O'Keefe, pistol swinging free
+in his hand.
+
+But at the middle of the bridge the leader stopped, waved back his
+men, and came toward us alone, palms outstretched in the immemorial,
+universal gesture of truce. He paused, scanning us with manifest
+wonder; we returned the scrutiny with interest. The dwarf's face was
+as white as Olaf's--far whiter than those of the other three of us;
+the features clean-cut and noble, almost classical; the wide set eyes
+of a curious greenish grey and the black hair curling over his head
+like that on some old Greek statue.
+
+Dwarfed though he was, there was no suggestion of deformity about him.
+The gigantic shoulders were covered with a loose green tunic that
+looked like fine linen. It was caught in at the waist by a broad
+girdle studded with what seemed to be amazonites. In it was thrust a
+long curved poniard resembling the Malaysian kris. His legs were
+swathed in the same green cloth as the upper garment. His feet were
+sandalled.
+
+My gaze returned to his face, and in it I found something subtly
+disturbing; an expression of half-malicious gaiety that underlay the
+wholly prepossessing features like a vague threat; a mocking deviltry
+that hinted at entire callousness to suffering or sorrow; something of
+the spirit that was vaguely alien and disquieting.
+
+He spoke--and, to my surprise, enough of the words were familiar to
+enable me clearly to catch the meaning of the whole. They were
+Polynesian, the Polynesian of the Samoans which is its most ancient
+form, but in some indefinable way--archaic. Later I was to know that
+the tongue bore the same relation to the Polynesian of today as does
+_not_ that of Chaucer, but of the Venerable Bede, to modern English.
+Nor was this to be so astonishing, when with the knowledge came the
+certainty that it was from it the language we call Polynesian sprang.
+
+"From whence do you come, strangers--and how found you your way here?"
+said the green dwarf.
+
+I waved my hand toward the cliff behind us.  His eyes narrowed
+incredulously; he glanced at its drop, upon which even a mountain goat
+could not have made its way, and laughed.
+
+"We came through the rock," I answered his thought. "And we come in
+peace," I added.
+
+"And may peace walk with you," he said half-derisively--"if the
+Shining One wills it!"
+
+He considered us again.
+
+"Show me, strangers, where you came through the rock," he commanded.
+We led the way to where we had emerged from the well of the stairway.
+
+"It was here," I said, tapping the cliff.
+
+"But I see no opening," he said suavely.
+
+"It closed behind us," I answered; and then, for the first time,
+realized how incredible the explanation sounded. The derisive gleam
+passed through his eyes again. But he drew his poniard and gravely
+sounded the rock.
+
+"You give a strange turn to our speech," he said.  "It sounds
+strangely, indeed--as strange as your answers." He looked at us
+quizzically. "I wonder where you learned it! Well, all that you can
+explain to the Afyo Maie." His head bowed and his arms swept out in a
+wide salaam. "Be pleased to come with me!" he ended abruptly.
+
+"In peace?" I asked.
+
+"In peace," he replied--then slowly--"with me at least."
+
+"Oh, come on, Doc!" cried Larry.  "As long as we're here let's see the
+sights. Allons mon vieux!" he called gaily to the green dwarf. The
+latter, understanding the spirit, if not the words, looked at O'Keefe
+with a twinkle of approval; turned then to the great Norseman and
+scanned him with admiration; reached out and squeezed one of the
+immense biceps.
+
+"Lugur will welcome you, at least," he murmured as though to himself.
+He stood aside and waved a hand courteously, inviting us to pass. We
+crossed. At the base of the span one of the elfin shells was waiting.
+
+Beyond, scores had gathered, their occupants evidently discussing us
+in much excitement. The green dwarf waved us to the piles of cushions
+and then threw himself beside us. The vehicle started off smoothly,
+the now silent throng making way, and swept down the green roadway at
+a terrific pace and wholly without vibration, toward the
+seven-terraced tower.
+
+As we flew along I tried to discover the source of the power, but I
+could not--then. There was no sign of mechanism, but that the shell
+responded to some form of energy was certain--the driver grasping a
+small lever which seemed to control not only our speed, but our
+direction.
+
+We turned abruptly and swept up a runway through one of the gardens,
+and stopped softly before a pillared pavilion. I saw now that these
+were much larger than I had thought. The structure to which we had
+been carried covered, I estimated, fully an acre. Oblong, with its
+slender, vari-coloured columns spaced regularly, its walls were like
+the sliding screens of the Japanese--shoji.
+
+The green dwarf hurried us up a flight of broad steps flanked by great
+carved serpents, winged and scaled. He stamped twice upon mosaicked
+stones between two of the pillars, and a screen rolled aside,
+revealing an immense hall scattered about with low divans on which
+lolled a dozen or more of the dwarfish men, dressed identically as he.
+
+They sauntered up to us leisurely; the surprised interest in their
+faces tempered by the same inhumanly gay malice that seemed to be
+characteristic of all these people we had as yet seen.
+
+"The Afyo Maie awaits them, Rador," said one.
+
+The green dwarf nodded, beckoned us, and led the way through the great
+hall and into a smaller chamber whose far side was covered with the
+opacity I had noted from the aerie of the cliff. I examined
+the--blackness--with lively interest.
+
+It had neither substance nor texture; it was not matter--and yet it
+suggested solidity; an entire cessation, a complete absorption of
+light; an ebon veil at once immaterial and palpable. I stretched,
+involuntarily, my hand out toward it, and felt it quickly drawn back.
+
+"Do you seek your end so soon?" whispered Rador.  "But I forget--you
+do not know," he added. "On your life touch not the blackness, ever.
+It--"
+
+He stopped, for abruptly in the density a portal appeared; swinging
+out of the shadow like a picture thrown by a lantern upon a screen.
+Through it was revealed a chamber filled with a soft rosy glow. Rising
+from cushioned couches, a woman and a man regarded us, half leaning
+over a long, low table of what seemed polished jet, laden with flowers
+and unfamiliar fruits.
+
+About the room--that part of it, at least, that I could see--were a
+few oddly shaped chairs of the same substance. On high, silvery
+tripods three immense globes stood, and it was from them that the rose
+glow emanated. At the side of the woman was a smaller globe whose
+roseate gleam was tempered by quivering waves of blue.
+
+"Enter Rador with the strangers!" a clear, sweet voice called.
+
+Rador bowed deeply and stood aside, motioning us to pass.  We entered,
+the green dwarf behind us, and out of the corner of my eye I saw the
+doorway fade as abruptly as it had appeared and again the dense shadow
+fill its place.
+
+"Come closer, strangers.  Be not afraid!" commanded the bell-toned
+voice.
+
+We approached.
+
+The woman, sober scientist that I am, made the breath catch in my
+throat. Never had I seen a woman so beautiful as was Yolara of the
+Dweller's city--and none of so perilous a beauty. Her hair was of the
+colour of the young tassels of the corn and coiled in a regal crown
+above her broad, white brows; her wide eyes were of grey that could
+change to a cornflower blue and in anger deepen to purple; grey or
+blue, they had little laughing devils within them, but when the storm
+of anger darkened them--they were not laughing, no! The silken webs
+that half covered, half revealed her did not hide the ivory whiteness
+of her flesh nor the sweet curve of shoulders and breasts. But for all
+her amazing beauty, she was--sinister! There was cruelty about the
+curving mouth, and in the music of her voice--not conscious cruelty,
+but the more terrifying, careless cruelty of nature itself.
+
+The girl of the rose wall had been beautiful, yes!  But her beauty was
+human, understandable. You could imagine her with a babe in her
+arms--but you could not so imagine this woman. About her loveliness
+hovered something unearthly. A sweet feminine echo of the Dweller was
+Yolara, the Dweller's priestess--and as gloriously, terrifyingly evil!
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+The Justice of Lora
+
+
+As I looked at her the man arose and made his way round the table
+toward us. For the first time my eyes took in Lugur. A few inches
+taller than the green dwarf, he was far broader, more filled with the
+suggestion of appalling strength.
+
+The tremendous shoulders were four feet wide if an inch, tapering down
+to mighty thewed thighs. The muscles of his chest stood out beneath
+his tunic of red. Around his forehead shone a chaplet of bright-blue
+stones, sparkling among the thick curls of his silver-ash hair.
+
+Upon his face pride and ambition were written large--and power still
+larger. All the mockery, the malice, the hint of callous indifference
+that I had noted in the other dwarfish men were there, too--but
+intensified, touched with the satanic.
+
+The woman spoke again.
+
+"Who are you strangers, and how came you here?"  She turned to Rador.
+"Or is it that they do not understand our tongue?"
+
+"One understands and speaks it--but very badly, O Yolara," answered
+the green dwarf.
+
+"Speak, then, that one of you," she commanded.
+
+But it was Marakinoff who found his voice first, and I marvelled at
+the fluency, so much greater than mine, with which he spoke.
+
+"We came for different purposes.  I to seek knowledge of a kind;
+he"--pointing to me "of another. This man"--he looked at Olaf--"to
+find a wife and child."
+
+The grey-blue eyes had been regarding O'Keefe steadily and with
+plainly increasing interest.
+
+"And why did _you_ come?" she asked him.  "Nay--I would have him speak
+for himself, if he can," she stilled Marakinoff peremptorily.
+
+When Larry spoke it was haltingly, in the tongue that was strange to
+him, searching for the proper words.
+
+"I came to help these men--and because something I could not then
+understand called me, O lady, whose eyes are like forest pools at
+dawn," he answered; and even in the unfamiliar words there was a touch
+of the Irish brogue, and little merry lights danced in the eyes Larry
+had so apostrophized.
+
+"I could find fault with your speech, but none with its burden," she
+said. "What forest pools are I know not, and the dawn has not shone
+upon the people of Lora these many sais of laya. *1 But I sense what you
+mean!"
+
+
+*1 Later I was to find that Murian reckoning rested upon the
+extraordinary increased luminosity of the cliffs at the time of full
+moon on earth--this action, to my mind, being linked either with the
+effect of the light streaming globes upon the Moon Pool, whose source
+was in the shining cliffs, or else upon some mysterious affinity of
+their radiant element with the flood of moonlight on earth--the
+latter, most probably, because even when the moon must have been
+clouded above, it made no difference in the phenomenon. Thirteen of
+these shinings forth constituted a laya, one of them a lat. Ten was
+sa; ten times ten times ten a said, or thousand; ten times a thousand
+was a sais. A sais of laya was then literally ten thousand years. What
+we would call an hour was by them called a va. The whole time system
+was, of course, a mingling of time as it had been known to their
+remote, surface-dwelling ancestors, and the peculiar determining
+factors in the vast cavern.
+
+
+
+The eyes deepened to blue as she regarded him.  She smiled.
+
+"Are there many like you in the world from which you come?" she asked
+softly. "Well, we soon shall--"
+
+Lugur interrupted her almost rudely and glowering.
+
+"Best we should know how they came hence," he growled.
+
+She darted a quick look at him, and again the little devils danced in
+her wondrous eyes.
+
+
+
+Unquestionably there is a subtle difference between time as we know it
+and time in this subterranean land--its progress there being slower.
+This, however, is only in accord with the well-known doctrine of
+relativity, which predicates both space and time as necessary
+inventions of the human mind to orient itself to the conditions under
+which it finds itself. I tried often to measure this difference, but
+could never do so to my entire satisfaction. The closest I can come to
+it is to say that an hour of our time is the equivalent of an hour and
+five-eighths in Muria. For further information upon this matter of
+relativity the reader may consult any of the numerous books upon the
+subject.--W. T. G.
+
+"Yes, that is true," she said.  "How came you here?"
+
+Again it was Marakinoff who answered--slowly, considering every word.
+
+"In the world above," he said, "there are ruins of cities not built by
+any of those who now dwell there. To us these places called, and we
+sought for knowledge of the wise ones who made them. We found a
+passageway. The way led us downward to a door in yonder cliff, and
+through it we came here."
+
+"Then have you found what you sought?" spoke she.  "For we are of
+those who built the cities. But this gateway in the rock--where is
+it?"
+
+"After we passed, it closed upon us; nor could we after find trace of
+it," answered Marakinoff.
+
+The incredulity that had shown upon the face of the green dwarf fell
+upon theirs; on Lugur's it was clouded with furious anger.
+
+He turned to Rador.
+
+"I could find no opening, lord," said the green dwarf quickly.
+
+And there was so fierce a fire in the eyes of Lugur as he swung back
+upon us that O'Keefe's hand slipped stealthily down toward his pistol.
+
+"Best it is to speak truth to Yolara, priestess of the Shining One,
+and to Lugur, the Voice," he cried menacingly.
+
+"It is the truth," I interposed.  "We came down the passage.  At its
+end was a carved vine, a vine of five flowers"--the fire died from the
+red dwarf's eyes, and I could have sworn to a swift pallor. "I rested
+a hand upon these flowers, and a door opened. But when we had gone
+through it and turned, behind us was nothing but unbroken cliff. The
+door had vanished."
+
+I had taken my cue from Marakinoff.  If he had eliminated the episode
+of car and Moon Pool, he had good reason, I had no doubt; and I would
+be as cautious. And deep within me something cautioned me to say
+nothing of my quest; to stifle all thought of Throckmartin--something
+that warned, peremptorily, finally, as though it were a message from
+Throckmartin himself!
+
+"A vine with five flowers!" exclaimed the red dwarf.  "Was it like
+this, say?"
+
+He thrust forward a long arm.  Upon the thumb of the hand was an
+immense ring, set with a dull-blue stone. Graven on the face of the
+jewel was the symbol of the rosy walls of the Moon Chamber that had
+opened to us their two portals. But cut over the vine were seven
+circles, one about each of the flowers and two larger ones covering,
+intersecting them.
+
+"This is the same," I said; "but these were not there"--I indicated
+the circles.
+
+The woman drew a deep breath and looked deep into Lugur's eyes.
+
+"The sign of the Silent Ones!" he half whispered.
+
+It was the woman who first recovered herself.
+
+"The strangers are weary, Lugur," she said.  "When they are rested
+they shall show where the rocks opened."
+
+I sensed a subtle change in their attitude toward us; a new
+intentness; a doubt plainly tinged with apprehension. What was it they
+feared? Why had the symbol of the vine wrought the change? And who or
+what were the Silent Ones?
+
+Yolara's eyes turned to Olaf, hardened, and grew cold grey.
+Subconsciously I had noticed that from the first the Norseman had been
+absorbed in his regard of the pair; had, indeed, never taken his gaze
+from them; had noticed, too, the priestess dart swift glances toward
+him.
+
+He returned her scrutiny fearlessly, a touch of contempt in the clear
+eyes--like a child watching a snake which he did not dread, but whose
+danger be well knew.
+
+Under that look Yolara stirred impatiently, sensing, I know, its
+meaning.
+
+"Why do you look at me so?" she cried.
+
+An expression of bewilderment passed over Olaf's face.
+
+"I do not understand," he said in English.
+
+I caught a quickly repressed gleam in O'Keefe's eyes.  He knew, as I
+knew, that Olaf must have understood. But did Marakinoff?
+
+Apparently he did not.  But why was Olaf feigning ignorance?
+
+"This man is a sailor from what we call the North," thus Larry
+haltingly. "He is crazed, I think. He tells a strange tale of a
+something of cold fire that took his wife and babe. We found him
+wandering where we were. And because he is strong we brought him with
+us. That is all, O lady, whose voice is sweeter than the honey of the
+wild bees!"
+
+"A shape of cold fire?" she repeated.
+
+"A shape of cold fire that whirled beneath the moon, with the sound of
+little bells," answered Larry, watching her intently.
+
+She looked at Lugur and laughed.
+
+"Then he, too, is fortunate," she said.  "For he has come to the place
+of his something of cold fire--and tell him that he shall join his
+wife and child, in time; that I promise him."
+
+Upon the Norseman's face there was no hint of comprehension, and at
+that moment I formed an entirely new opinion of Olaf's intelligence;
+for certainly it must have been a prodigious effort of the will,
+indeed, that enabled him, understanding, to control himself.
+
+"What does she say?" he asked.
+
+Larry repeated.
+
+"Good!" said Olaf.  "Good!"
+
+He looked at Yolara with well-assumed gratitude.  Lugur, who had been
+scanning his bulk, drew close. He felt the giant muscles which
+Huldricksson accommodatingly flexed for him.
+
+"But he shall meet Valdor and Tahola before he sees those kin of his,"
+he laughed mockingly. "And if he bests them--for reward--his wife and
+babe!"
+
+A shudder, quickly repressed, shook the seaman's frame. The woman bent
+her supremely beautiful head.
+
+"These two," she said, pointing to the Russian and to me, "seem to be
+men of learning. They may be useful. As for this man,"--she smiled at
+Larry--"I would have him explain to me some things." She hesitated.
+"What 'hon-ey of 'e wild bees-s' is." Larry had spoken the words in
+English, and she was trying to repeat them. "As for this man, the
+sailor, do as you please with him, Lugur; always remembering that I
+have given my word that he shall join that wife and babe of his!" She
+laughed sweetly, sinisterly. "And now--take them, Rador--give them
+food and drink and let them rest till we shall call them again."
+
+She stretched out a hand toward O'Keefe.  The Irishman bowed low over
+it, raised it softly to his lips. There was a vicious hiss from Lugur;
+but Yolara regarded Larry with eyes now all tender blue.
+
+"You please me," she whispered.
+
+And the face of Lugur grew darker.
+
+We turned to go.  The rosy, azure-shot globe at her side suddenly
+dulled. From it came a faint bell sound as of chimes far away. She
+bent over it. It vibrated, and then its surface ran with little waves
+of dull colour; from it came a whispering so low that I could not
+distinguish the words--if words they were.
+
+She spoke to the red dwarf.
+
+"They have brought the three who blasphemed the Shining One," she said
+slowly. "Now it is in my mind to show these strangers the justice of
+Lora. What say you, Lugur?"
+
+The red dwarf nodded, his eyes sparkling with a malicious
+anticipation.
+
+The woman spoke again to the globe.  "Bring them here!"
+
+And again it ran swiftly with its film of colours, darkened, and shone
+rosy once more. From without there came a rustle of many feet upon the
+rugs. Yolara pressed a slender hand upon the base of the pedestal of
+the globe beside her. Abruptly the light faded from all, and on the
+same instant the four walls of blackness vanished, revealing on two
+sides the lovely, unfamiliar garden through the guarding rows of
+pillars; at our backs soft draperies hid what lay beyond; before us,
+flanked by flowered screens, was the corridor through which we had
+entered, crowded now by the green dwarfs of the great hall.
+
+The dwarfs advanced.  Each, I now noted, had the same clustering black
+hair of Rador. They separated, and from them stepped three figures--a
+youth of not more than twenty, short, but with the great shoulders of
+all the males we had seen of this race; a girl of seventeen, I judged,
+white-faced, a head taller than the boy, her long, black hair
+dishevelled; and behind these two a stunted, gnarled shape whose head
+was sunk deep between the enormous shoulders, whose white beard fell
+like that of some ancient gnome down to his waist, and whose eyes were
+a white flame of hate. The girl cast herself weeping at the feet of
+the priestess; the youth regarded her curiously.
+
+"You are Songar of the Lower Waters?" murmured Yolara almost
+caressingly. "And this is your daughter and her lover?"
+
+The gnome nodded, the flame in his eyes leaping higher.
+
+"It has come to me that you three have dared blaspheme the Shining
+One, its priestess, and its Voice," went on Yolara smoothly. "Also
+that you have called out to the three Silent Ones. Is it true?"
+
+"Your spies have spoken--and have you not already judged us?" The
+voice of the old dwarf was bitter.
+
+A flicker shot through the eyes of Yolara, again cold grey. The girl
+reached a trembling hand out to the hem of the priestess's veils.
+
+"Tell us why you did these things, Songar," she said.  "Why you did
+them, knowing full well what your--reward--would be."
+
+The dwarf stiffened; he raised his withered arms, and his eyes blazed.
+
+"Because evil are your thoughts and evil are your deeds," he cried.
+"Yours and your lover's, there"--he levelled a finger at Lugur.
+"Because of the Shining One you have made evil, too, and the greater
+wickedness you contemplate--you and he with the Shining One. But I
+tell you that your measure of iniquity is full; the tale of your sin
+near ended! Yea--the Silent Ones have been patient, but soon they will
+speak." He pointed at us. "A sign are _they_--a warning--harlot!" He
+spat the word.
+
+In Yolara's eyes, grown black, the devils leaped unrestrained.
+
+"Is it even so, Songar?" her voice caressed.  "Now ask the Silent Ones
+to help you! They sit afar--but surely they will hear you." The sweet
+voice was mocking. "As for these two, they shall pray to the Shining
+One for forgiveness--and surely the Shining One will take them to its
+bosom! As for you--you have lived long enough, Songar! Pray to the
+Silent Ones, Songar, and pass out into the nothingness--you!"
+
+She dipped down into her bosom and drew forth something that resembled
+a small cone of tarnished silver. She levelled it, a covering clicked
+from its base, and out of it darted a slender ray of intense green
+light.
+
+It struck the old dwarf squarely over the heart, and spread swift as
+light itself, covering him with a gleaming, pale film. She clenched
+her hand upon the cone, and the ray disappeared. She thrust the cone
+back into her breast and leaned forward expectantly; so Lugur and so
+the other dwarfs. From the girl came a low wail of anguish; the boy
+dropped upon his knees, covering his face.
+
+For the moment the white beard stood rigid; then the robe that had
+covered him seemed to melt away, revealing all the knotted, monstrous
+body. And in that body a vibration began, increasing to incredible
+rapidity. It wavered before us like a reflection in a still pond
+stirred by a sudden wind. It grew and grew--to a rhythm whose rapidity
+was intolerable to watch and that still chained the eyes.
+
+The figure grew indistinct, misty.  Tiny sparks in infinite numbers
+leaped from it--like, I thought, the radiant shower of particles
+hurled out by radium when seen under the microscope. Mistier still it
+grew--there trembled before us for a moment a faintly luminous shadow
+which held, here and there, tiny sparkling atoms like those that
+pulsed in the light about us! The glowing shadow vanished, the
+sparkling atoms were still for a moment--and shot away, joining those
+dancing others.
+
+Where the gnomelike form had been but a few seconds before--there was
+nothing!
+
+O'Keefe drew a long breath, and I was sensible of a prickling along my
+scalp.
+
+Yolara leaned toward us.
+
+"You have seen," she said.  Her eyes lingered tigerishly upon Olaf's
+pallid face. "Heed!" she whispered. She turned to the men in green,
+who were laughing softly among themselves.
+
+"Take these two, and go!" she commanded.
+
+"The justice of Lora," said the red dwarf.  "The justice of Lora and
+the Shining One under Thanaroa!"
+
+Upon the utterance of the last word I saw Marakinoff start violently.
+The hand at his side made a swift, surreptitious gesture, so fleeting
+that I hardly caught it. The red dwarf stared at the Russian, and
+there was amazement upon his face.
+
+Swiftly as Marakinoff, he returned it.
+
+"Yolara," the red dwarf spoke, "it would please me to take this man of
+wisdom to my own place for a time. The giant I would have, too."
+
+The woman awoke from her brooding; nodded.
+
+"As you will, Lugur," she said.
+
+And as, shaken to the core, we passed out into the garden into the
+full throbbing of the light, I wondered if all the tiny sparkling
+diamond points that shook about us had once been men like Songar of
+the Lower Waters--and felt my very soul grow sick!
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+The Angry, Whispering Globe
+
+
+Our way led along a winding path between banked masses of softly
+radiant blooms, groups of feathery ferns whose plumes were starred
+with fragrant white and blue flowerets, slender creepers swinging from
+the branches of the strangely trunked trees, bearing along their
+threads orchid-like blossoms both delicately frail and gorgeously
+flamboyant.
+
+The path we trod was an exquisite mosaic--pastel greens and pinks upon
+a soft grey base, garlands of nimbused forms like the flaming rose of
+the Rosicrucians held in the mouths of the flying serpents. A smaller
+pavilion arose before us, single-storied, front wide open.
+
+Upon its threshold Rador paused, bowed deeply, and motioned us within.
+The chamber we entered was large, closed on two sides by screens of
+grey; at the back gay, concealing curtains. The low table of blue
+stone, dressed with fine white cloths, stretched at one side flanked
+by the cushioned divans.
+
+At the left was a high tripod bearing one of the rosy globes we had
+seen in the house of Yolara; at the head of the table a smaller globe
+similar to the whispering one. Rador pressed upon its base, and two
+other screens slid into place across the entrance, shutting in the
+room.
+
+He clapped his hands; the curtains parted, and two girls came through
+them. Tall and willow lithe, their bluish-black hair falling in
+ringlets just below their white shoulders, their clear eyes of
+forget-me-not blue, and skins of extraordinary fineness and
+purity--they were singularly attractive. Each was clad in an extremely
+scanty bodice of silken blue, girdled above a kirtle that came barely
+to their very pretty knees.
+
+"Food and drink," ordered Rador.
+
+They dropped back through the curtains.
+
+"Do you like them?" he asked us.
+
+"Some chickens!" said Larry.  "They delight the heart," he translated
+for Rador.
+
+The green dwarf's next remark made me gasp.
+
+"They are yours," he said.
+
+Before I could question him further upon this extraordinary statement
+the pair re-entered, bearing a great platter on which were small
+loaves, strange fruits, and three immense flagons of rock crystal--two
+filled with a slightly sparkling yellow liquid and the third with a
+purplish drink. I became acutely sensible that it had been hours since
+I had either eaten or drunk. The yellow flagons were set before Larry
+and me, the purple at Rador's hand.
+
+The girls, at his signal, again withdrew.  I raised my glass to my
+lips and took a deep draft. The taste was unfamiliar but delightful.
+
+Almost at once my fatigue disappeared.  I realized a clarity of mind,
+an interesting exhilaration and sense of irresponsibility, of freedom
+from care, that were oddly enjoyable. Larry became immediately his old
+gay self.
+
+The green dwarf regarded us whimsically, sipping from his great flagon
+of rock crystal.
+
+"Much do I desire to know of that world you came from," he said at
+last--"through the rocks," he added, slyly.
+
+"And much do we desire to know of this world of yours, O Rador," I
+answered.
+
+Should I ask him of the Dweller; seek from him a clue to Throckmartin?
+Again, clearly as a spoken command, came the warning to forbear, to
+wait. And once more I obeyed.
+
+"Let us learn, then, from each other." The dwarf was laughing.  "And
+first--are all above like you--drawn out"--he made an expressive
+gesture--"and are there many of you?"
+
+"There are--" I hesitated, and at last spoke the Polynesian that means
+tens upon tens multiplied indefinitely--"there are as many as the
+drops of water in the lake we saw from the ledge where you found us,"
+I continued; "many as the leaves on the trees without. And they are
+all like us--varyingly."
+
+He considered skeptically, I could see, my remark upon our numbers.
+
+"In Muria," he said at last, "the men are like me or like Lugur.  Our
+women are as you see them--like Yolara or those two who served you."
+He hesitated. "And there is a third; but only one."
+
+Larry leaned forward eagerly.
+
+"Brown-haired with glints of ruddy bronze, golden-eyed, and lovely as
+a dream, with long, slender, beautiful hands?" he cried.
+
+"Where saw you _her_?" interrupted the dwarf, starting to his feet.
+
+"Saw her?" Larry recovered himself.  "Nay, Rador, perhaps, I only
+dreamed that there was such a woman."
+
+"See to it, then, that you tell not your dream to Yolara," said the
+dwarf grimly. "For her I meant and her you have pictured is Lakla, the
+hand-maiden to the Silent Ones, and neither Yolara nor Lugur, nay, nor
+the Shining One, love her overmuch, stranger."
+
+"Does she dwell here?" Larry's face was alight.
+
+The dwarf hesitated, glanced about him anxiously.
+
+"Nay," he answered, "ask me no more of her." He was silent for a
+space. "And what do you who are as leaves or drops of water do in that
+world of yours?" he said, plainly bent on turning the subject.
+
+"Keep off the golden-eyed girl, Larry," I interjected.  "Wait till we
+find out why she's tabu."
+
+"Love and battle, strive and accomplish and die; or fail and die,"
+answered Larry--to Rador--giving me a quick nod of acquiescence to my
+warning in English.
+
+"In that at least your world and mine differ little," said the dwarf.
+
+"How great is this world of yours, Rador?" I spoke.
+
+He considered me gravely.
+
+"How great indeed I do not know," he said frankly at last. "The land
+where we dwell with the Shining One stretches along the white waters
+for--" He used a phrase of which I could make nothing. "Beyond this
+city of the Shining One and on the hither shores of the white waters
+dwell the mayia ladala--the common ones." He took a deep draft from
+his flagon. "There are, first, the fair-haired ones, the children of
+the ancient rulers," he continued. "There are, second, we the
+soldiers; and last, the mayia ladala, who dig and till and weave and
+toil and give our rulers and us their daughters, and dance with the
+Shining One!" he added.
+
+"Who rules?" I asked.
+
+"The fair-haired, under the Council of Nine, who are under Yolara, the
+Priestess and Lugur, the Voice," he answered, "who are in turn beneath
+the Shining One!" There was a ring of bitter satire in the last.
+
+"And those three who were judged?"--this from Larry.
+
+"They were of the mayia ladala," he replied, "like those two I gave
+you. But they grow restless. They do not like to dance with the
+Shining One--the blasphemers!" He raised his voice in a sudden great
+shout of mocking laughter.
+
+In his words I caught a fleeting picture of the race--an ancient,
+luxurious, close-bred oligarchy clustered about some mysterious deity;
+a soldier class that supported them; and underneath all the toiling,
+oppressed hordes.
+
+"And is that all?" asked Larry.
+
+"No," he answered.  "There is the Sea of Crimson where--"
+
+Without warning the globe beside us sent out a vicious note, Rador
+turned toward it, his face paling. Its surface crawled with
+whisperings--angry, peremptory!
+
+"I hear!" he croaked, gripping the table.  "I obey!"
+
+He turned to us a face devoid for once of its malice.
+
+"Ask me no more questions, strangers," he said.  "And now, if you are
+done, I will show you where you may sleep and bathe."
+
+He arose abruptly.  We followed him through the hangings, passed
+through a corridor and into another smaller chamber, roofless, the
+sides walled with screens of dark grey. Two cushioned couches were
+there and a curtained door leading into an open, outer enclosure in
+which a fountain played within a wide pool.
+
+"Your bath," said Rador.  He dropped the curtain and came back into
+the room. He touched a carved flower at one side. There was a tiny
+sighing from overhead and instantly across the top spread a veil of
+blackness, impenetrable to light but certainly not to air, for through
+it pulsed little breaths of the garden fragrances. The room filled
+with a cool twilight, refreshing, sleep-inducing. The green dwarf
+pointed to the couches.
+
+"Sleep!" he said.  "Sleep and fear nothing.  My men are on guard
+outside." He came closer to us, the old mocking gaiety sparkling in
+his eyes.
+
+"But I spoke too quickly," he whispered.  "Whether it is because the
+Afyo Maie fears their tongues--or--" he laughed at Larry. "The maids
+are _not_ yours!" Still laughing he vanished through the curtains of the
+room of the fountain before I could ask him the meaning of his curious
+gift, its withdrawal, and his most enigmatic closing remarks.
+
+"Back in the great old days of Ireland," thus Larry breaking into my
+thoughts raptly, the brogue thick, "there was Cairill mac
+Cairill--Cairill Swiftspear. An' Cairill wronged Keevan of Emhain
+Abhlach, of the blood of Angus of the great people when he was
+sleeping in the likeness of a pale reed. Then Keevan put this penance
+on Cairill--that for a year Cairill should wear his body in Emhain
+Abhlach, which is the Land of Faery and for that year Keevan should
+wear the body of Cairill. And it was done.
+
+"In that year Cairill met Emar of the Birds that are one white, one
+red, and one black--and they loved, and from that love sprang Ailill
+their son. And when Ailill was born he took a reed flute and first he
+played slumber on Cairill, and then he played old age so that Cairill
+grew white and withered; then Ailill played again and Cairill became a
+shadow--then a shadow of a shadow--then a breath; and the breath went
+out upon the wind!" He shivered. "Like the old gnome," he whispered,
+"that they called Songar of the Lower Waters!"
+
+He shook his head as though he cast a dream from him. Then, all
+alert--
+
+"But that was in Iceland ages agone.  And there's nothing like that
+here, Doc!" He laughed. "It doesn't scare me one little bit, old boy.
+The pretty devil lady's got the wrong slant. When you've had a pal
+standing beside you one moment--full of life, and joy, and power, and
+potentialities, telling what he's going to do to make the world hum
+when he gets through the slaughter, just running over with zip and pep
+of life, Doc--and the next instant, right in the middle of a laugh--a
+piece of damned shell takes off half his head and with it joy and
+power and all the rest of it"--his face twitched--"well, old man, in
+the face of _that_ mystery a disappearing act such as the devil lady
+treated us to doesn't make much of a dent. Not on me. But by the
+brogans of Brian Boru--if we could have had some of that stuff to turn
+on during the war--oh, boy!"
+
+He was silent, evidently contemplating the idea with vast pleasure.
+And as for me, at that moment my last doubt of Larry O'Keefe vanished,
+I saw that he did believe, really believed, in his banshees, his
+leprechauns and all the old dreams of the Gael--but only within the
+limits of Ireland.
+
+In one drawer of his mind was packed all his superstition, his
+mysticism, and what of weakness it might carry. But face him with any
+peril or problem and the drawer closed instantaneously leaving a mind
+that was utterly fearless, incredulous, and ingenious; swept clean of
+all cobwebs by as fine a skeptic broom as ever brushed a brain.
+
+"Some stuff!" Deepest admiration was in his voice.  "If we'd only had
+it when the war was on--imagine half a dozen of us scooting over the
+enemy batteries and the gunners underneath all at once beginning to
+shake themselves to pieces! Wow!" His tone was rapturous.
+
+"It's easy enough to explain, Larry," I said.  "The effect, that
+is--for what the green ray is made of I don't know, of course. But
+what it does, clearly, is stimulate atomic vibration to such a pitch
+that the cohesion between the particles of matter is broken and the
+body flies to bits--just as a fly-wheel does when its speed gets so
+great that the particles of which _it_ is made can't hold together."
+
+"Shake themselves to pieces is right, then!" he exclaimed.
+
+"Absolutely right," I nodded.  "Everything in Nature vibrates.  And
+all matter--whether man or beast or stone or metal or vegetable--is
+made up of vibrating molecules, which are made up of vibrating atoms
+which are made up of truly infinitely small particles of electricity
+called electrons, and electrons, the base of all matter, are
+themselves perhaps only a vibration of the mysterious ether.
+
+"If a magnifying glass of sufficient size and strength could be placed
+over us we could see ourselves as sieves--our space lattice, as it is
+called. And all that is necessary to break down the lattice, to shake
+us into nothingness, is some agent that will set our atoms vibrating
+at such a rate that at last they escape the unseen cords and fly off.
+
+"The green ray of Yolara is such an agent.  It set up in the dwarf
+that incredibly rapid rhythm that you saw and--shook him not to
+atoms--but to electrons!"
+
+"They had a gun on the West Front--a seventy-five," said O'Keefe,
+"that broke the eardrums of everybody who fired it, no matter what
+protection they used. It looked like all the other seventy-fives--but
+there was something about its sound that did it. They had to recast
+it."
+
+"It's practically the same thing," I replied.  "By some freak its
+vibratory qualities had that effect. The deep whistle of the sunken
+Lusitania would, for instance, make the Singer Building shake to its
+foundations; while the Olympic did not affect the Singer at all but
+made the Woolworth shiver all through. In each case they stimulated
+the atomic vibration of the particular building--"
+
+I paused, aware all at once of an intense drowsiness. O'Keefe,
+yawning, reached down to unfasten his puttees.
+
+"Lord, I'm sleepy!" he exclaimed.  "Can't understand it--what you
+say--most--interesting--Lord!" he yawned again; straightened. "What
+made Reddy take such a shine to the Russian?" he asked.
+
+"Thanaroa," I answered, fighting to keep my eyes open.
+
+"What?"
+
+"When Lugur spoke that name I saw Marakinoff signal him.  Thanaroa is,
+I suspect, the original form of the name of Tangaroa, the greatest god
+of the Polynesians. There's a secret cult to him in the islands.
+Marakinoff may belong to it--he knows it anyway. Lugur recognized the
+signal and despite his surprise answered it."
+
+"So he gave him the high sign, eh?" mused Larry.  "How could they both
+know it?"
+
+"The cult is a very ancient one.  Undoubtedly it had its origin in the
+dim beginnings before these people migrated here," I replied. "It's a
+link--one--of the few links between up there and the lost past--"
+
+"Trouble then," mumbled Larry.  "Hell brewing!  I smell it--Say, Doc,
+is this sleepiness natural? Wonder where my--gas mask--is--" he
+added, half incoherently.
+
+But I myself was struggling desperately against the drugged slumber
+pressing down upon me.
+
+"Lakla!" I heard O'Keefe murmur.  "Lakla of the golden eyes--no
+Eilidh--the Fair!" He made an immense effort, half raised himself,
+grinned faintly.
+
+"Thought this was paradise when I first saw it, Doc," he sighed.  "But
+I know now, if it is, No-Man's Land was the greatest place on earth
+for a honeymoon. They--they've got us, Doc--" He sank back. "Good
+luck, old boy, wherever you're going." His hand waved feebly.
+"Glad--knew--you. Hope--see--you--'gain--"
+
+His voice trailed into silence.  Fighting, fighting with every fibre
+of brain and nerve against the sleep, I felt myself being steadily
+overcome. Yet before oblivion rushed down upon me I seemed to see upon
+the grey-screened wall nearest the Irishman an oval of rosy light
+begin to glow; watched, as my falling lids inexorably fell, a
+flame-tipped shadow waver on it; thicken; condense--and there looking
+down upon Larry, her eyes great golden stars in which intensest
+curiosity and shy tenderness struggled, sweet mouth half smiling, was
+the girl of the Moon Pool's Chamber, the girl whom the green dwarf had
+named--Lakla: the vision Larry had invoked before that sleep which I
+could no longer deny had claimed him--
+
+Closer she came--closer---the eyes were over us.
+
+Then oblivion indeed!
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+Yolara of Muria vs. the O'Keefe
+
+
+I awakened with all the familiar, homely sensation of a shade having
+been pulled up in a darkened room. I thrilled with a wonderful sense
+of deep rest and restored resiliency. The ebon shadow had vanished
+from above and down into the room was pouring the silvery light. From
+the fountain pool came a mighty splashing and shouts of laughter. I
+jumped and drew the curtain. O'Keefe and Rador were swimming a wild
+race; the dwarf like an otter, out-distancing and playing around the
+Irishman at will.
+
+Had that overpowering sleep--and now I confess that my struggle
+against it had been largely inspired by fear that it was the abnormal
+slumber which Throckmartin had described as having heralded the
+approach of the Dweller before it had carried away Thora and
+Stanton--had that sleep been after all nothing but natural reaction of
+tired nerves and brains?
+
+And that last vision of the golden-eyed girl bending over Larry?  Had
+that also been a delusion of an overstressed mind? Well, it might have
+been, I could not tell. At any rate, I decided, I would speak about it
+to O'Keefe once we were alone again--and then giving myself up to the
+urge of buoyant well-being I shouted like a boy, stripped and joined
+the two in the pool. The water was warm and I felt the unwonted
+tingling of life in every vein increase; something from it seemed to
+pulse through the skin, carrying a clean vigorous vitality that toned
+every fibre. Tiring at last, we swam to the edge and drew ourselves
+out. The green dwarf quickly clothed himself and Larry rather
+carefully donned his uniform.
+
+"The Afyo Maie has summoned us, Doc," he said.  "We're to--well--I
+suppose you'd call it breakfast with her. After that, Rador tells me,
+we're to have a session with the Council of Nine. I suppose Yolara is
+as curious as any lady of--the upper world, as you might put it--and
+just naturally can't wait," he added.
+
+He gave himself a last shake, patted the automatic hidden under his
+left arm, whistled cheerfully,
+
+"After you, my dear Alphonse," he said to Rador, with a low bow.  The
+dwarf laughed, bent in an absurd imitation of Larry's mocking courtesy
+and started ahead of us to the house of the priestess. When he had
+gone a little way on the orchid-walled path I whispered to O'Keefe:
+
+"Larry, when you were falling off to sleep--did you think you saw
+anything?"
+
+"See anything!" he grinned.  "Doc, sleep hit me like a Hun shell.  I
+thought they were pulling the gas on us. I--I had some intention of
+bidding you tender farewells," he continued, half sheepishly. "I think
+I did start 'em, didn't I?"
+
+I nodded.
+
+"But wait a minute--" he hesitated.  "I had a queer sort of dream--"
+
+"'What was it?" I asked eagerly,
+
+"Well," he answered slowly, "I suppose it was because I'd been
+thinking of--Golden Eyes. Anyway, I thought she came through the wall
+and leaned over me--yes, and put one of those long white hands of hers
+on my head--I couldn't raise my lids--but in some queer way I could
+see her. Then it got real dreamish. Why do you ask?"
+
+Rador turned back toward us,
+
+"Later," I answered, "Not now.  When we're alone."
+
+But through me went a little glow of reassurance.  Whatever the maze
+through which we were moving; whatever of menacing evil lurking
+there--the Golden Girl was clearly watching over us; watching with
+whatever unknown powers she could muster.
+
+We passed the pillared entrance; went through a long bowered corridor
+and stopped before a door that seemed to be sliced from a monolith of
+pale jade--high, narrow, set in a wall of opal.
+
+Rador stamped twice and the same supernally sweet, silver bell tones
+of--yesterday, I must call it, although in that place of eternal day
+the term is meaningless--bade us enter. The door slipped aside. The
+chamber was small, the opal walls screening it on three sides, the
+black opacity covering it, the fourth side opening out into a
+delicious little walled garden--a mass of the fragrant, luminous
+blooms and delicately colored fruit. Facing it was a small table of
+reddish wood and from the omnipresent cushions heaped around it arose
+to greet us--Yolara.
+
+Larry drew in his breath with an involuntary gasp of admiration and
+bowed low. My own admiration was as frank--and the priestess was well
+pleased with our homage.
+
+She was swathed in the filmy, half-revelant webs, now of palest blue.
+The corn-silk hair was caught within a wide-meshed golden net in which
+sparkled tiny brilliants, like blended sapphires and diamonds. Her own
+azure eyes sparkled as brightly as they, and I noted again in their
+clear depths the half-eager approval as they rested upon O'Keefe's
+lithe, well-knit figure and his keen, clean-cut face. The high-arched,
+slender feet rested upon soft sandals whose gauzy withes laced the
+exquisitely formed leg to just below the dimpled knee.
+
+"Some giddy wonder!" exclaimed Larry, looking at me and placing a hand
+over his heart. "Put her on a New York roof and she'd empty Broadway.
+Take the cue from me, Doc."
+
+He turned to Yolara, whose face was somewhat puzzled.
+
+"I said, O lady whose shining hair is a web for hearts, that in our
+world your beauty would dazzle the sight of men as would a little
+woman sun!" he said, in the florid imagery to which the tongue lends
+itself so well.
+
+A flush stole up through the translucent skin.  The blue eyes softened
+and she waved us toward the cushions. Black-haired maids stole in,
+placing before us the fruits, the little loaves and a steaming drink
+somewhat the colour and odor of chocolate. I was conscious of
+outrageous hunger.
+
+"What are you named, strangers?" she asked.
+
+"This man is named Goodwin," said O'Keefe.  "As for me, call me
+Larry."
+
+"Nothing like getting acquainted quick," he said to me--but kept his
+eyes upon Yolara as though he were voicing another honeyed phrase. And
+so she took it, for: "You must teach me your tongue," she murmured.
+
+"Then shall I have two words where now I have one to tell you of your
+loveliness," he answered.
+
+"And also that'll take time," he spoke to me.  "Essential occupation
+out of which we can't be drafted to make these fun-loving folk any
+Roman holiday. Get me!"
+
+"Larree," mused Yolara.  "I like the sound.  It is sweet--" and indeed
+it was as she spoke it.
+
+"And what is your land named, Larree?" she continued. "And Goodwin's?"
+She caught the sound perfectly.
+
+"My land, O lady of loveliness, is two--Ireland and America; his but
+one--America."
+
+She repeated the two names--slowly, over and over.  We seized the
+opportunity to attack the food; halting half guiltily as she spoke
+again.
+
+"Oh, but you are hungry!" she cried.  "Eat then." She leaned her chin
+upon her hands and regarded us, whole fountains of questions brimming
+up in her eyes.
+
+"How is it, Larree, that you have two countries and Goodwin but one?"
+she asked, at last unable to keep silent longer.
+
+"I was born in Ireland; he in America.  But I have dwelt long in his
+land and my heart loves each," he said.
+
+She nodded, understandingly.
+
+"Are all the men of Ireland like you, Larree?  As all the men here are
+like Lugur or Rador? I like to look at you," she went on, with naive
+frankness. "I am tired of men like Lugur and Rador. But they are
+strong," she added, swiftly. "Lugur can hold up ten in his two arms
+and raise six with but one hand."
+
+We could not understand her numerals and she raised white fingers to
+illustrate.
+
+"That is little, O lady, to the men of Ireland," replied O'Keefe.
+"Lo, I have seen one of my race hold up ten times ten of our--what
+call you that swift thing in which Rador brought us here?"
+
+"Corial," said she.
+
+"Hold up ten times twenty of our corials with but two fingers--and
+these corials of ours--"
+
+"Coria," said she.
+
+"And these coria of ours are each greater in weight than ten of yours.
+Yes, and I have seen another with but one blow of his hand raise hell!
+
+"And so I have," he murmured to me.  "And both at Forty-second and
+Fifth Avenue, N. Y.--U. S. A."
+
+Yolara considered all this with manifest doubt.
+
+"Hell?" she inquired at last.  "I know not the word."
+
+"Well," answered O'Keefe.  "Say Muria then.  In many ways they are, I
+gather, O heart's delight, one and the same."
+
+Now the doubt in the blue eyes was strong indeed.  She shook her head.
+
+"None of our men can do _that_!" she answered, at length. "Nor do I
+think you could, Larree."
+
+"Oh, no," said Larry easily.  "I never tried to be that strong.  I
+fly," he added, casually.
+
+The priestess rose to her feet, gazing at him with startled eyes.
+
+"Fly!" she repeated incredulously.  "Like a _Zitia_?  A bird?"
+
+Larry nodded--and then seeing the dawning command in her eyes, went on
+hastily.
+
+"Not with my own wings, Yolara.  In a--a corial that moves
+through--what's the word for air, Doc--well, through this--" He made a
+wide gesture up toward the nebulous haze above us. He took a pencil
+and on a white cloth made a hasty sketch of an airplane. "In a--a
+corial like this--" She regarded the sketch gravely, thrust a hand
+down into her girdle and brought forth a keen-bladed poniard; cut
+Larry's markings out and placed the fragment carefully aside.
+
+"That I can understand," she said.
+
+"Remarkably intelligent young woman," muttered O'Keefe.  "Hope I'm not
+giving anything away--but she had me."
+
+"But what are your women like, Larree?  Are they like me?  And how
+many have loved you?" she whispered.
+
+"In all Ireland and America there is none like you, Yolara," he
+answered. "And take that any way you please," he muttered in English.
+She took it, it was evident, as it most pleased her.
+
+"Do you have goddesses?" she asked.
+
+"Every woman in Ireland and America, is a goddess"; thus Larry.
+
+"Now that I do not believe." There was both anger and mockery in her
+eyes. "I know women, Larree--and if that were so there would be no
+peace for men."
+
+"There isn't!" replied he.  The anger died out and she laughed,
+sweetly, understandingly.
+
+"And which goddess do you worship, Larree?"
+
+"You!" said Larry O'Keefe boldly.
+
+"Larry!  Larry!" I whispered.  "Be careful.  It's high explosive."
+
+But the priestess was laughing--little trills of sweet bell notes; and
+pleasure was in each note.
+
+"You are indeed bold, Larree," she said, "to offer me your worship.
+Yet am I pleased by your boldness. Still--Lugur is strong; and you are
+not of those who--what did you say--have tried. And your wings are
+not here--Larree!"
+
+Again her laughter rang out.  The Irishman flushed; it was _touché_
+for Yolara!
+
+"Fear not for me with Lugur," he said, grimly.  "Rather fear for him!"
+
+The laughter died; she looked at him searchingly; a little enigmatic
+smile about her mouth--so sweet and so cruel.
+
+"Well--we shall see," she murmured.  "You say you battle in your
+world. With what?"
+
+"Oh, with this and with that," answered Larry, airily. "We manage--"
+
+"Have you the Keth--I mean that with which I sent Songar into the
+nothingness?" she asked swiftly.
+
+"See what she's driving at?" O'Keefe spoke to me, swiftly. "Well I do!
+But here's where the O'Keefe lands.
+
+"I said," he turned to her, "O voice of silver fire, that your spirit
+is high even as your beauty--and searches out men's souls as does your
+loveliness their hearts. And now listen, Yolara, for what I speak is
+truth"--into his eyes came the far-away gaze; into his voice the Irish
+softness--"Lo, in my land of Ireland, this many of your life's length
+agone--see"--he raised his ten fingers, clenched and unclenched them
+times twenty--"the mighty men of my race, the Taitha-da-Dainn, could
+send men out into the nothingness even as do you with the Keth. And
+this they did by their harpings, and by words spoken--words of power,
+O Yolara, that have their power still--and by pipings and by slaying
+sounds.
+
+"There was Cravetheen who played swift flames from his harp, flying
+flames that ate those they were sent against. And there was Dalua, of
+Hy Brasil, whose pipes played away from man and beast and all living
+things their shadows--and at last played them to shadows too, so that
+wherever Dalua went his shadows that had been men and beast followed
+like a storm of little rustling leaves; yea, and Bel the Harper, who
+could make women's hearts run like wax and men's hearts flame to ashes
+and whose harpings could shatter strong cliffs and bow great trees to
+the sod--"
+
+His eyes were bright, dream-filled; she shrank a little from him,
+faint pallor under the perfect skin.
+
+"I say to you, Yolara, that these things were and are--in Ireland."
+His voice rang strong. "And I have seen men as many as those that are
+in your great chamber this many times over"--he clenched his hands
+once more, perhaps a dozen times--"blasted into nothingness before
+your Keth could even have touched them. Yea--and rocks as mighty as
+those through which we came lifted up and shattered before the lids
+could fall over your blue eyes. And this is truth, Yolara--all truth!
+Stay--have you that little cone of the Keth with which you destroyed
+Songar?"
+
+She nodded, gazing at him, fascinated, fear and puzzlement contending.
+
+"Then use it." He took a vase of crystal from the table, placed it on
+the threshold that led into the garden. "Use it on this--and I will
+show you."
+
+"I will use it upon one of the ladala--" she began eagerly.
+
+The exaltation dropped from him; there was a touch of horror in the
+eyes he turned to her; her own dropped before it.
+
+"It shall be as you say," she said hurriedly.  She drew the shining
+cone from her breast; levelled it at the vase. The green ray leaped
+forth, spread over the crystal, but before its action could even be
+begun, a flash of light shot from O'Keefe's hand, his automatic spat
+and the trembling vase flew into fragments. As quickly as he had drawn
+it, he thrust the pistol back into place and stood there empty handed,
+looking at her sternly. From the anteroom came shouting, a rush of
+feet.
+
+Yolara's face was white, her eyes strained--but her voice was unshaken
+as she called to the clamouring guards:
+
+"It is nothing--go to your places!"
+
+But when the sound of their return had ceased she stared tensely at
+the Irishman--then looked again at the shattered vase.
+
+"It is true!" she cried, "but see, the Keth is--alive!"
+
+I followed her pointing finger.  Each broken bit of the crystal was
+vibrating, shaking its particles out into space. Broken it the bullet
+of Larry's had--but not released it from the grip of the
+disintegrating force. The priestess's face was triumphant.
+
+"But what matters it, O shining urn of beauty--what matters it to the
+vase that is broken what happens to its fragments?" asked Larry,
+gravely--and pointedly.
+
+The triumph died from her face and for a space she was silent;
+brooding.
+
+"Next," whispered O'Keefe to me.  "Lots of surprises in the little
+box; keep your eye on the opening and see what comes out."
+
+We had not long to wait.  There was a sparkle of anger about Yolara,
+something too of injured pride. She clapped her hands; whispered to
+the maid who answered her summons, and then sat back regarding us,
+maliciously.
+
+"You have answered me as to your strength--but you have not proved it;
+but the Keth you have answered. Now answer this!" she said.
+
+She pointed out into the garden.  I saw a flowering branch bend and
+snap as though a hand had broken it--but no hand was there! Saw then
+another and another bend and break, a little tree sway and fall--and
+closer and closer to us came the trail of snapping boughs while down
+into the garden poured the silvery light revealing--nothing! Now a
+great ewer beside a pillar rose swiftly in air and hurled itself
+crashing at my feet. Cushions close to us swirled about as though in
+the vortex of a whirlwind.
+
+And unseen hands held my arms in a mighty clutch fast to my sides,
+another gripped my throat and I felt a needle-sharp poniard point
+pierce my shirt, touch the skin just over my heart!
+
+"Larry!" I cried, despairingly.  I twisted my head; saw that he too
+was caught in this grip of the invisible. But his face was calm, even
+amused.
+
+"Keep cool, Doc!" he said.  "Remember--she wants to learn the
+language!"
+
+Now from Yolara burst chime upon chime of mocking laughter.  She gave
+a command--the hands loosened, the poniard withdrew from my heart;
+suddenly as I had been caught I was free--and unpleasantly weak and
+shaky.
+
+"Have you _that_ in Ireland, Larree!" cried the priestess--and once
+more trembled with laughter.
+
+"A good play, Yolara." His voice was as calm as his face. "But they
+did that in Ireland even before Dalua piped away his first man's
+shadow. And in Goodwin's land they make ships--coria that go on
+water--so you can pass by them and see only sea and sky; and those
+water coria are each of them many times greater than this whole palace
+of yours."
+
+But the priestess laughed on.
+
+"It did get me a little," whispered Larry.  "That wasn't quite up to
+my mark. But God! If we could find that trick out and take it back
+with us!"
+
+"Not so, Larree!" Yolara gasped, through her laughter. "Not so!
+Goodwin's cry betrayed you!"
+
+Her good humour had entirely returned; she was like a mischievous
+child pleased over some successful trick; and like a child she
+cried--"I'll show you!"--signalled again; whispered to the maid who,
+quickly returning, laid before her a long metal case. Yolara took from
+her girdle something that looked like a small pencil, pressed it and
+shot a thin stream of light for all the world like an electric flash,
+upon its hasp. The lid flew open. Out of it she drew three flat, oval
+crystals, faint rose in hue. She handed one to O'Keefe and one to me.
+
+"Look!" she commanded, placing the third before her own eyes.  I
+peered through the stone and instantly there leaped into sight, out of
+thin air--six grinning dwarfs! Each was covered from top of head to
+soles of feet in a web so tenuous that through it their bodies were
+plain. The gauzy stuff seemed to vibrate--its strands to run together
+like quick-silver. I snatched the crystal from my eyes and--the
+chamber was empty! Put it back--and there were the grinning six!
+
+Yolara gave another sign and they disappeared, even from the crystals.
+
+"It is what they wear, Larree," explained Yolara, graciously.  "It is
+something that came to us from--the Ancient Ones. But we have so
+few"--she sighed.
+
+"Such treasures must be two-edged swords, Yolara," commented O'Keefe.
+"For how know you that one within them creeps not to you with hand
+eager to strike?"
+
+"There is no danger," she said indifferently.  "I am the keeper of
+them."
+
+She mused for a space, then abruptly:
+
+"And now no more.  You two are to appear before the Council at a
+certain time--but fear nothing. You, Goodwin, go with Rador about our
+city and increase your wisdom. But you, Larree, await me here in my
+garden--" she smiled at him, provocatively--maliciously, too. "For
+shall not one who has resisted a world of goddesses be given all
+chance to worship when at last he finds his own?"
+
+She laughed--whole-heartedly and was gone.  And at that moment I liked
+Yolara better than ever I had before and--alas--better than ever I
+was to in the future.
+
+I noted Rador standing outside the open jade door and started to go,
+but O'Keefe caught me by the arm.
+
+"Wait a minute," he urged.  "About Golden Eyes--you were going to tell
+me something--it's been on my mind all through that little sparring
+match."
+
+I told him of the vision that had passed through my closing lids.  He
+listened gravely and then laughed.
+
+"Hell of a lot of privacy in this place!" he grinned.  "Ladies who can
+walk through walls and others with regular invisible cloaks to let 'em
+flit wherever they please. Oh, well, don't let it get on your nerves,
+Doc. Remember--everything's natural! That robe stuff is just
+camouflage of course. But Lord, if we could only get a piece of it!"
+
+"The material simply admits all light-vibrations, or perhaps curves
+them, just as the opacities cut them off," I answered. "A man under
+the X-ray is partly invisible; this makes him wholly so. He doesn't
+register, as the people of the motion-picture profession say."
+
+"Camouflage," repeated Larry.  "And as for the Shining One--Say!" he
+snorted. "I'd like to set the O'Keefe banshee up against it. I'll bet
+that old resourceful Irish body would give it the first three bites
+and a strangle hold and wallop it before it knew it had 'em. Oh! Wow!
+Boy Howdy!"
+
+I heard him still chuckling gleefully over this vision as I passed
+along the opal wall with the green dwarf.
+
+A shell was awaiting us.  I paused before entering it to examine the
+polished surface of runway and great road. It was obsidian--volcanic
+glass of pale emerald, unflawed, translucent, with no sign of block or
+juncture. I examined the shell.
+
+"What makes it go?" I asked Rador.  At a word from him the driver
+touched a concealed spring and an aperture appeared beneath the
+control-lever, of which I have spoken in a preceding chapter. Within
+was a small cube of black crystal, through whose sides I saw, dimly, a
+rapidly revolving, glowing ball, not more than two inches in diameter.
+Beneath the cube was a curiously shaped, slender cylinder winding down
+into the lower body of the Nautilus whorl.
+
+"Watch!" said Rador.  He motioned me into the vehicle and took a place
+beside me. The driver touched the lever; a stream of coruscations flew
+from the ball down into the cylinder. The shell started smoothly, and
+as the tiny torrent of shining particles increased it gathered speed.
+
+"The corial does not touch the road," explained Rador. "It is lifted
+so far"--he held his forefinger and thumb less than a sixteenth of an
+inch apart--"above it."
+
+And perhaps here is the best place to explain the activation of the
+shells or coria. The force utilized was atomic energy. Passing from
+the whirling ball the ions darted through the cylinder to two bands of
+a peculiar metal affixed to the base of the vehicles somewhat like
+skids of a sled. Impinging upon these they produced a partial negation
+of gravity, lifting the shell slightly, and at the same time creating
+a powerful repulsive force or thrust that could be directed backward,
+forward, or sidewise at the will of the driver. The creation of this
+energy and the mechanism of its utilization were, briefly, as follows:
+
+
+[Dr. Goodwin's lucid and exceedingly comprehensive description of this
+extraordinary mechanism has been deleted by the Executive Council of
+the International Association of Science as too dangerously suggestive
+to scientists of the Central European Powers with which we were so
+recently at war. It is allowable, however, to state that his
+observations are in the possession of experts in this country, who
+are, unfortunately, hampered in their research not only by the
+scarcity of the radioactive elements that we know, but also by the
+lack of the element or elements unknown to us that entered into the
+formation of the fiery ball within the cube of black crystal.
+Nevertheless, as the principle is so clear, it is believed that these
+difficulties will ultimately be overcome.--J. B. K., President, I. A.
+of S.]
+
+
+
+The wide, glistening road was gay with the coria.  They darted in and
+out of the gardens; within them the fair-haired, extraordinarily
+beautiful women on their cushions were like princesses of Elfland,
+caught in gorgeous fairy webs, resting within the hearts of flowers.
+In some shells were flaxen-haired dwarfish men of Lugur's type;
+sometimes black-polled brother officers of Rador; often raven-tressed
+girls, plainly hand-maidens of the women; and now and then beauties of
+the lower folk went by with one of the blond dwarfs.
+
+We swept around the turn that made of the jewel-like roadway an
+enormous horseshoe and, speedily, upon our right the cliffs through
+which we had come in our journey from the Moon Pool began to march
+forward beneath their mantles of moss. They formed a gigantic
+abutment, a titanic salient. It had been from the very front of this
+salient's invading angle that we had emerged; on each side of it the
+precipices, faintly glowing, drew back and vanished into distance.
+
+The slender, graceful bridges under which we skimmed ended at openings
+in the upflung, far walls of verdure. Each had its little garrison of
+soldiers. Through some of the openings a rivulet of the green obsidian
+river passed. These were roadways to the farther country, to the land
+of the ladala, Rador told me; adding that none of the lesser folk
+could cross into the pavilioned city unless summoned or with pass.
+
+We turned the bend of the road and flew down that farther emerald
+ribbon we had seen from the great oval. Before us rose the shining
+cliffs and the lake. A half-mile, perhaps, from these the last of the
+bridges flung itself. It was more massive and about it hovered a
+spirit of ancientness lacking in the other spans; also its garrison
+was larger and at its base the tangent way was guarded by two massive
+structures, somewhat like blockhouses, between which it ran. Something
+about it aroused in me an intense curiosity.
+
+"Where does that road lead, Rador?" I asked.
+
+"To the one place above all of which I may not tell you, Goodwin," he
+answered. And again I wondered.
+
+We skimmed slowly out upon the great pier.  Far to the left was the
+prismatic, rainbow curtain between the Cyclopean pillars. On the white
+waters graceful shells--lacustrian replicas of the Elf chariots--swam,
+but none was near that distant web of wonder.
+
+"Rador--what is that?" I asked.
+
+"It is the Veil of the Shining One!" he answered slowly.
+
+Was the Shining One that which we named the Dweller?
+
+"What is the Shining One?" I cried, eagerly.  Again he was silent.
+Nor did he speak until we had turned on our homeward way.
+
+And lively as my interest, my scientific curiosity, were--I was
+conscious suddenly of acute depression. Beautiful, wondrously
+beautiful this place was--and yet in its wonder dwelt a keen edge of
+menace, of unease--of inexplicable, inhuman woe; as though in a secret
+garden of God a soul should sense upon it the gaze of some lurking
+spirit of evil which some way, somehow, had crept into the sanctuary
+and only bided its time to spring.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+The Leprechaun
+
+
+The shell carried us straight back to the house of Yolara. Larry was
+awaiting me. We stood again before the tenebrous wall where first we
+had faced the priestess and the Voice. And as we stood, again the
+portal appeared with all its disconcerting, magical abruptness.
+
+But now the scene was changed.  Around the jet table were grouped a
+number of figures--Lugur, Yolara beside him; seven others--all of them
+fair-haired and all men save one who sat at the left of the
+priestess--an old, old woman, how old I could not tell, her face
+bearing traces of beauty that must once have been as great as Yolara's
+own, but now ravaged, in some way awesome; through its ruins the
+fearful, malicious gaiety shining out like a spirit of joy held within
+a corpse!
+
+Began then our examination, for such it was.  And as it progressed I
+was more and more struck by the change in the O'Keefe. All flippancy
+was gone, rarely did his sense of humour reveal itself in any of his
+answers. He was like a cautious swordsman, fencing, guarding, studying
+his opponent; or rather, like a chess-player who keeps sensing some
+far-reaching purpose in the game: alert, contained, watchful. Always
+he stressed the power of our surface races, their multitudes, their
+solidarity.
+
+Their questions were myriad.  What were our occupations? Our system of
+government? How great were the waters? The land? Intensely interested
+were they in the World War, querying minutely into its causes, its
+effects. In our weapons their interest was avid. And they were
+exceedingly minute in their examination of us as to the ruins which
+had excited our curiosity; their position and surroundings--and if
+others than ourselves might be expected to find and pass through their
+entrance!
+
+At this I shot a glance at Lugur.  He did not seem unduly interested.
+I wondered if the Russian had told him as yet of the girl of the rosy
+wall of the Moon Pool Chamber and the real reasons for our search.
+Then I answered as briefly as possible--omitting all reference to
+these things. The red dwarf watched me with unmistakable
+amusement--and I knew Marakinoff had told him. But clearly Lugur had
+kept his information even from Yolara; and as clearly she had spoken
+to none of that episode when O'Keefe's automatic had shattered the
+Keth-smitten vase. Again I felt that sense of deep bewilderment--of
+helpless search for clue to all the tangle.
+
+For two hours we were questioned and then the priestess called Rador
+and let us go.
+
+Larry was sombre as we returned.  He walked about the room uneasily.
+
+"Hell's brewing here all right," he said at last, stopping before me.
+"I can't make out just the particular brand--that's all that bothers
+me. We're going to have a stiff fight, that's sure. What I want to do
+quick is to find the Golden Girl, Doc. Haven't seen her on the wall
+lately, have you?" he queried, hopefully fantastic.
+
+"Laugh if you want to," he went on.  "But she's our best bet.  It's
+going to be a race between her and the O'Keefe banshee--but I put my
+money on her. I had a queer experience while I was in that garden,
+after you'd left." His voice grew solemn. "Did you ever see a
+leprechaun, Doc?" I shook my head again, as solemnly. "He's a little
+man in green," said Larry. "Oh, about as high as your knee. I saw one
+once--in Carntogher Woods. And as I sat there, half asleep, in
+Yolara's garden, the living spit of him stepped out from one of those
+bushes, twirling a little shillalah.
+
+"'It's a tight box ye're gettin' in, Larry avick,' said he, 'but don't
+ye be downhearted, lad.'
+
+"'I'm carrying on,' said I, 'but you're a long way from Ireland,' I
+said, or thought I did.
+
+"'Ye've a lot o' friends there,' he answered.  'An' where the heart
+rests the feet are swift to follow. Not that I'm sayin' I'd like to
+live here, Larry,' said he.
+
+"'I know where my heart is now,' I told him.  'It rests on a girl with
+golden eyes and the hair and swan-white breast of Eilidh the Fair--but
+me feet don't seem to get me to her,' I said."
+
+The brogue thickened.
+
+"An' the little man in green nodded his head an' whirled his
+shillalah.
+
+"'It's what I came to tell ye,' says he.  'Don't ye fall for the
+Bhean-Nimher, the serpent woman wit' the blue eyes; she's a daughter
+of Ivor, lad--an' don't ye do nothin' to make the brown-haired coleen
+ashamed o' ye, Larry O'Keefe. I knew yer great, great grandfather an'
+his before him, aroon,' says he, 'an' wan o' the O'Keefe failin's is
+to think their hearts big enough to hold all the wimmen o' the world.
+A heart's built to hold only wan permanently, Larry,' he says, 'an'
+I'm warnin' ye a nice girl don't like to move into a place all
+cluttered up wid another's washin' an' mendin' an' cookin' an' other
+things pertainin' to general wife work. Not that I think the blue-eyed
+wan is keen for mendin' an' cookin'!' says he.
+
+"'You don't have to be comin' all this way to tell me that,' I answer.
+
+"'Well, I'm just a tellin' you,' he says.  'Ye've got some rough
+knocks comin', Larry. In fact, ye're in for a devil of a time. But,
+remember that ye're the O'Keefe,' says he. 'An' while the bhoys are
+all wid ye, avick, ye've got to be on the job yourself.'
+
+"'I hope,' I tell him, 'that the O'Keefe banshee can find her way here
+in time--that is, if it's necessary, which I hope it won't be.'
+
+"'Don't ye worry about that,' says he.  'Not that she's keen on
+leavin' the ould sod, Larry. The good ould soul's in quite a state o'
+mind about ye, aroon. I don't mind tellin' ye, lad, that she's
+mobilizing all the clan an' if she _has_ to come for ye, avick, they'll
+be wid her an' they'll sweep this joint clean before ye go. What
+they'll do to it'll make the Big Wind look like a summer breeze on
+Lough Lene! An' that's about all, Larry. We thought a voice from the
+Green Isle would cheer ye. Don't fergit that ye're the O'Keefe an' I
+say it again--all the bhoys are wid ye. But we want t' kape bein'
+proud o' ye, lad!'
+
+"An' I looked again and there was only a bush waving."
+
+There wasn't a smile in my heart--or if there was it was a very tender
+one.
+
+"I'm going to bed," he said abruptly.  "Keep an eye on the wall, Doc!"
+
+Between the seven sleeps that followed, Larry and I saw but little of
+each other. Yolara sought him more and more. Thrice we were called
+before the Council; once we were at a great feast, whose splendours
+and surprises I can never forget. Largely I was in the company of
+Rador. Together we two passed the green barriers into the
+dwelling-place of the ladala.
+
+They seemed provided with everything needful for life. But everywhere
+was an oppressiveness, a gathering together of hate, that was
+spiritual rather than material--as tangible as the latter and far, far
+more menacing!
+
+"They do not like to dance with the Shining One," was Rador's constant
+and only reply to my efforts to find the cause.
+
+Once I had concrete evidence of the mood.  Glancing behind me, I saw a
+white, vengeful face peer from behind a tree-trunk, a hand lift, a
+shining dart speed from it straight toward Rador's back. Instinctively
+I thrust him aside. He turned upon me angrily. I pointed to where the
+little missile lay, still quivering, on the ground. He gripped my
+hand.
+
+"That, some day I will repay!" he said.  I looked again at the thing.
+At its end was a tiny cone covered with a glistening, gelatinous
+substance.
+
+Rador pulled from a tree beside us a fruit somewhat like an apple.
+
+"Look!" he said.  He dropped it upon the dart--and at once, before my
+eyes, in less than ten seconds, the fruit had rotted away!
+
+"That's what would have happened to Rador but for you, friend!" he
+said.
+
+Come now between this and the prelude to the latter half of the drama
+whose history this narrative is--only scattering and necessarily
+fragmentary observations.
+
+First--the nature of the ebon opacities, blocking out the spaces
+between the pavilion-pillars or covering their tops like roofs, These
+were magnetic fields, light absorbers, negativing the vibrations of
+radiance; literally screens of electric force which formed as
+impervious a barrier to light as would have screens of steel.
+
+They instantaneously made night appear in a place where no night was.
+But they interposed no obstacle to air or to sound. They were
+extremely simple in their inception--no more miraculous than is glass,
+which, inversely, admits the vibrations of light, but shuts out those
+coarser ones we call air--and, partly, those others which produce upon
+our auditory nerves the effects we call sound.
+
+Briefly their mechanism was this:
+
+
+[For the same reason that Dr. Goodwin's exposition of the mechanism
+of the atomic engines was deleted, his description of the
+light-destroying screens has been deleted by the Executive
+Council.--J. B. F., President, I. A. of S.]
+
+
+
+There were two favoured classes of the ladala--the soldiers and the
+dream-makers. The dream-makers were the most astonishing social
+phenomena, I think, of all. Denied by their circumscribed environment
+the wider experiences of us of the outer world, the Murians had
+perfected an amazing system of escape through the imagination.
+
+They were, too, intensely musical.  Their favourite instruments were
+double flutes; immensely complex pipe-organs; harps, great and small.
+They had another remarkable instrument made up of a double octave of
+small drums which gave forth percussions remarkably disturbing to the
+emotional centres.
+
+It was this love of music that gave rise to one of the few truly
+humorous incidents of our caverned life. Larry came to me--it was just
+after our fourth sleep, I remember.
+
+"Come on to a concert," he said.
+
+We skimmed off to one of the bridge garrisons.  Rador called the
+two-score guards to attention; and then, to my utter stupefaction, the
+whole company, O'Keefe leading them, roared out the anthem, "God Save
+the King." They sang--in a closer approach to the English than might
+have been expected scores of miles below England's level. "Send him
+victorious! Happy and glorious!" they bellowed.
+
+He quivered with suppressed mirth at my paralysis of surprise.
+
+"Taught 'em that for Marakinoff's benefit!" he gasped. "Wait till that
+Red hears it. He'll blow up.
+
+"Just wait until you hear Yolara lisp a pretty little thing I taught
+her," said Larry as we set back for what we now called home. There was
+an impish twinkle in his eyes.
+
+And I did hear.  For it was not many minutes later that the priestess
+condescended to command me to come to her with O'Keefe.
+
+"Show Goodwin how much you have learned of our speech, O lady of the
+lips of honeyed flame!" murmured Larry.
+
+She hesitated; smiled at him, and then from that perfect mouth, out of
+the exquisite throat, in the voice that was like the chiming of little
+silver bells, she trilled a melody familiar to me indeed:
+
+    "She's only a bird in a gilded cage,
+      A bee-yu-tiful sight to see--"
+
+And so on to the bitter end.
+
+"She thinks it's a love-song," said Larry when we had left. "It's only
+part of a repertoire I'm teaching her. Honestly, Doc, it's the only
+way I can keep my mind clear when I'm with her," he went on earnestly.
+"She's a devil-ess from hell--but a wonder. Whenever I find myself
+going I get her to sing that, or Take Back Your Gold! or some other
+ancient lay, and I'm back again--pronto--with the right perspective!
+POP goes all the mystery! 'Hell!' I say, 'she's only a woman!'"
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+The Amphitheatre of Jet
+
+
+For hours the black-haired folk had been streaming across the bridges,
+flowing along the promenade by scores and by hundreds, drifting down
+toward the gigantic seven-terraced temple whose interior I had never
+as yet seen, and from whose towering exterior, indeed, I had always
+been kept far enough away--unobtrusively, but none the less decisively
+--to prevent any real observation. The structure, I had estimated,
+nevertheless, could not reach less than a thousand feet above its
+silvery base, and the diameter of its circular foundation was about
+the same.
+
+I wondered what was bringing the _ladala_ into Lora, and where they
+were vanishing. All of them were flower-crowned with the luminous,
+lovely blooms--old and young, slender, mocking-eyed girls, dwarfed
+youths, mothers with their babes, gnomed oldsters--on they poured,
+silent for the most part and sullen--a sullenness that held acid
+bitterness even as their subtle, half-sinister, half-gay malice seemed
+tempered into little keen-edged flames, oddly, menacingly defiant.
+
+There were many of the green-clad soldiers along the way, and the
+garrison of the only bridge span I could see had certainly been
+doubled.
+
+Wondering still, I turned from my point of observation and made my way
+back to our pavilion, hoping that Larry, who had been with Yolara for
+the past two hours, had returned. Hardly had I reached it before Rador
+came hurrying up, in his manner a curious exultance mingled with what
+in anyone else I would have called a decided nervousness.
+
+"Come!" he commanded before I could speak.  "The Council has made
+decision--and _Larree_ is awaiting you."
+
+"What has been decided?" I panted as we sped along the mosaic path
+that led to the house of Yolara. "And why is Larry awaiting me?"
+
+And at his answer I felt my heart pause in its beat and through me
+race a wave of mingled panic and eagerness.
+
+"The Shining One dances!" had answered the green dwarf. "And you are
+to worship!"
+
+What was this dancing of the Shining One, of which so often he had
+spoken?
+
+Whatever my forebodings, Larry evidently had none.
+
+"Great stuff!" he cried, when we had met in the great antechamber now
+empty of the dwarfs. "Hope it will be worth seeing--have to be
+something damned good, though, to catch me, after what I've seen of
+shows at the front," he added.
+
+And remembering, with a little shock of apprehension, that he had no
+knowledge of the Dweller beyond my poor description of it--for there
+are no words actually to describe what that miracle of interwoven
+glory and horror was--I wondered what Larry O'Keefe would say and do
+when he did behold it!
+
+Rador began to show impatience.
+
+"Come!" he urged.  "There is much to be done--and the time grows
+short!"
+
+He led us to a tiny fountain room in whose miniature pool the white
+waters were concentrated, pearl-like and opalescent in their circling
+rim.
+
+"Bathe!" he commanded; and set the example by stripping himself and
+plunging within. Only a minute or two did the green dwarf allow us,
+and he checked us as we were about to don our clothing.
+
+Then, to my intense embarrassment, without warning, two of the
+black-haired girls entered, bearing robes of a peculiar dull-blue hue.
+At our manifest discomfort Rador's laughter roared out. He took the
+garments from the pair, motioned them to leave us, and, still
+laughing, threw one around me. Its texture was soft, but decidedly
+metallic--like some blue metal spun to the fineness of a spider's
+thread. The garment buckled tightly at the throat, was girdled at the
+waist, and, below this cincture, fell to the floor, its folds being
+held together by a half-dozen looped cords; from the shoulders a hood
+resembling a monk's cowl.
+
+Rador cast this over my head; it completely covered my face, but was
+of so transparent a texture that I could see, though somewhat mistily,
+through it. Finally he handed us both a pair of long gloves of the
+same material and high stockings, the feet of which were
+gloved--five-toed.
+
+And again his laughter rang out at our manifest surprise.
+
+"The priestess of the Shining One does not altogether trust the
+Shining One's Voice," he said at last. "And these are to guard against
+any sudden--errors. And fear not, Goodwin," he went on kindly. "Not
+for the Shining One itself would Yolara see harm come to _Larree_
+here--nor, because of him, to you. But I would not stake much on the
+great white one. And for him I am sorry, for him I do like well."
+
+"Is he to be with us?" asked Larry eagerly.
+
+"He is to be where we go," replied the dwarf soberly.
+
+Grimly Larry reached down and drew from his uniform his automatic.  He
+popped a fresh clip into the pocket fold of his girdle. The pistol he
+slung high up beneath his arm-pit.
+
+The green dwarf looked at the weapon curiously.  O'Keefe tapped it.
+
+"This," said Larry, "slays quicker than the _Keth_--I take it so no
+harm shall come to the blue-eyed one whose name is Olaf. If I should
+raise it--be you not in its way, Rador!" he added significantly.
+
+The dwarf nodded again, his eyes sparkling.  He thrust a hand out to
+both of us.
+
+"A change comes," he said.  "What it is I know not, nor how it will
+fall. But this remember--Rador is more friend to you than you yet can
+know. And now let us go!" he ended abruptly.
+
+He led us, not through the entrance, but into a sloping passage ending
+in a blind wall; touched a symbol graven there, and it opened,
+precisely as had the rosy barrier of the Moon Pool Chamber. And, just
+as there, but far smaller, was a passage end, a low curved wall facing
+a shaft not black as had been that abode of living darkness, but
+faintly luminescent. Rador leaned over the wall. The mechanism clicked
+and started; the door swung shut; the sides of the car slipped into
+place, and we swept swiftly down the passage; overhead the wind
+whistled. In a few moments the moving platform began to slow down. It
+stopped in a closed chamber no larger than itself.
+
+Rador drew his poniard and struck twice upon the wall with its hilt.
+Immediately a panel moved away, revealing a space filled with faint,
+misty blue radiance. And at each side of the open portal stood four of
+the dwarfish men, grey-headed, old, clad in flowing garments of white,
+each pointing toward us a short silver rod.
+
+Rador drew from his girdle a ring and held it out to the first dwarf.
+He examined it, handed it to the one beside him, and not until each
+had inspected the ring did they lower their curious weapons;
+containers of that terrific energy they called the _Keth_, I thought;
+and later was to know that I had been right.
+
+We stepped out; the doors closed behind us.  The place was weird
+enough. Its pave was a greenish-blue stone resembling lapis lazuli. On
+each side were high pedestals holding carved figures of the same
+material. There were perhaps a score of these, but in the mistiness I
+could not make out their outlines. A droning, rushing roar beat upon
+our ears; filled the whole cavern.
+
+"I smell the sea," said Larry suddenly.
+
+The roaring became deep-toned, clamorous, and close in front of us a
+rift opened. Twenty feet in width, it cut the cavern floor and
+vanished into the blue mist on each side. The cleft was spanned by one
+solid slab of rock not more than two yards wide. It had neither
+railing nor other protection.
+
+The four leading priests marched out upon it one by one, and we
+followed. In the middle of the span they knelt. Ten feet beneath us
+was a torrent of blue sea-water racing with prodigious speed between
+polished walls. It gave the impression of vast depth. It roared as it
+sped by, and far to the right was a low arch through which it
+disappeared. It was so swift that its surface shone like polished blue
+steel, and from it came the blessed, _our worldly_, familiar ocean
+breath that strengthened my soul amazingly and made me realize how
+earth-sick I was.
+
+Whence came the stream, I marvelled, forgetting for the moment, as we
+passed on again, all else. Were we closer to the surface of earth than
+I had thought, or was this some mighty flood falling through an
+opening in sea floor, Heaven alone knew how many miles above us,
+losing itself in deeper abysses beyond these? How near and how far
+this was from the truth I was to learn--and never did truth come to
+man in more dreadful guise!
+
+The roaring fell away, the blue haze lessened.  In front of us
+stretched a wide flight of steps, huge as those which had led us into
+the courtyard of Nan-Tauach through the ruined sea-gate. We scaled it;
+it narrowed; from above light poured through a still narrower opening.
+Side by side Larry and I passed out of it.
+
+We had emerged upon an enormous platform of what seemed to be
+glistening ivory. It stretched before us for a hundred yards or more
+and then shelved gently into the white waters. Opposite--not a mile
+away--was that prodigious web of woven rainbows Rador had called the
+Veil of the Shining One. There it shone in all its unearthly grandeur,
+on each side of the Cyclopean pillars, as though a mountain should
+stretch up arms raising between them a fairy banner of auroral
+glories. Beneath it was the curved, scimitar sweep of the pier with
+its clustered, gleaming temples.
+
+Before that brief, fascinated glance was done, there dropped upon my
+soul a sensation as of brooding weight intolerable; a spiritual
+oppression as though some vastness was falling, pressing, stifling me,
+I turned--and Larry caught me as I reeled.
+
+"Steady!  Steady, old man!" he whispered.
+
+At first all that my staggering consciousness could realize was an
+immensity, an immeasurable uprearing that brought with it the same
+throat-gripping vertigo as comes from gazing downward from some great
+height--then a blur of white faces--intolerable shinings of hundreds
+upon thousands of eyes. Huge, incredibly huge, a colossal amphitheatre
+of jet, a stupendous semi-circle, held within its mighty arc the ivory
+platform on which I stood.
+
+It reared itself almost perpendicularly hundreds of feet up into the
+sparkling heavens, and thrust down on each side its ebon
+bulwarks--like monstrous paws. Now, the giddiness from its sheer
+greatness passing, I saw that it was indeed an amphitheatre sloping
+slightly backward tier after tier, and that the white blur of faces
+against its blackness, the gleaming of countless eyes were those of
+myriads of the people who sat silent, flower-garlanded, their gaze
+focused upon the rainbow curtain and sweeping over me like a
+torrent--tangible, appalling!
+
+Five hundred feet beyond, the smooth, high retaining wall of the
+amphitheatre raised itself--above it the first terrace of the seats,
+and above this, dividing the tiers for another half a thousand feet
+upward, set within them like a panel, was a dead-black surface in
+which shone faintly with a bluish radiance a gigantic disk; above it
+and around it a cluster of innumerable smaller ones.
+
+On each side of me, bordering the platform, were scores of small
+pillared alcoves, a low wall stretching across their fronts; delicate,
+fretted grills shielding them, save where in each lattice an opening
+stared--it came to me that they were like those stalls in ancient
+Gothic cathedrals wherein for centuries had kneeled paladins and
+people of my own race on earth's fair face. And within these alcoves
+were gathered, score upon score, the elfin beauties, the dwarfish men
+of the fair-haired folk. At my right, a few feet from the opening
+through which we had come, a passageway led back between the fretted
+stalls. Half-way between us and the massive base of the amphitheatre a
+dais rose. Up the platform to it a wide ramp ascended; and on ramp and
+dais and along the centre of the gleaming platform down to where it
+kissed the white waters, a broad ribbon of the radiant flowers lay
+like a fairy carpet.
+
+On one side of this dais, meshed in a silken web that hid no line or
+curve of her sweet body, white flesh gleaming through its folds, stood
+Yolara; and opposite her, crowned with a circlet of flashing blue
+stones, his mighty body stark bare, was Lugur!
+
+O'Keefe drew a long breath; Rador touched my arm and, still dazed, I
+let myself be drawn into the aisle and through a corridor that ran
+behind the alcoves. At the back of one of these the green dwarf
+paused, opened a door, and motioned us within.
+
+Entering, I found that we were exactly opposite where the ramp ran up
+to the dais--and that Yolara was not more than fifty feet away. She
+glanced at O'Keefe and smiled. Her eyes were ablaze with little
+dancing points of light; her body seemed to palpitate, the rounded
+delicate muscles beneath the translucent skin to run with joyful
+little eager waves!
+
+Larry whistled softly.
+
+"There's Marakinoff!" he said.
+
+I looked where he pointed.  Opposite us sat the Russian, clothed as we
+were, leaning forward, his eyes eager behind his glasses; but if he
+saw us he gave no sign.
+
+"And there's Olaf!" said O'Keefe.
+
+Beneath the carved stall in which sat the Russian was an aperture and
+within it was Huldricksson. Unprotected by pillars or by grills,
+opening clear upon the platform, near him stretched the trail of
+flowers up to the great dais which Lugur and Yolara the priestess
+guarded. He sat alone, and my heart went out to him.
+
+O'Keefe's face softened.
+
+"Bring him here," he said to Rador.
+
+The green dwarf was looking at the Norseman, too, a shade of pity upon
+his mocking face. He shook his head.
+
+"Wait!" he said.  "You can do nothing now--and it may be there will be
+no need to do anything," he added; but I could feel that there was
+little of conviction in his words.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+The Madness of Olaf
+
+
+Yolara threw her white arms high.  From the mountainous tiers came a
+mighty sigh; a rippling ran through them. And upon the moment, before
+Yolara's arms fell, there issued, apparently from the air around us, a
+peal of sound that might have been the shouting of some playful god
+hurling great suns through the net of stars. It was like the deepest
+notes of all the organs in the world combined in one; summoning,
+majestic, cosmic!
+
+It held within it the thunder of the spheres rolling through the
+infinite, the birth-song of suns made manifest in the womb of space;
+echoes of creation's supernal chord! It shook the body like a pulse
+from the heart of the universe--pulsed--and died away.
+
+On its death came a blaring as of all the trumpets of conquering hosts
+since the first Pharaoh led his swarms--triumphal, compelling!
+Alexander's clamouring hosts, brazen-throated wolf-horns of Caesar's
+legions, blare of trumpets of Genghis Khan and his golden horde,
+clangor of the locust levies of Tamerlane, bugles of Napoleon's armies
+--war-shout of all earth's conquerors! And it died!
+
+Fast upon it, a throbbing, muffled tumult of harp sounds, mellownesses
+of myriads of wood horns, the subdued sweet shrilling of multitudes of
+flutes, Pandean pipings--inviting, carrying with them the calling of
+waterfalls in the hidden places, rushing brooks and murmuring forest
+winds--calling, calling, languorous, lulling, dripping into the brain
+like the very honeyed essence of sound.
+
+And after them a silence in which the memory of the music seemed to
+beat, to beat ever more faintly, through every quivering nerve.
+
+From me all fear, all apprehension, had fled.  In their place was
+nothing but joyous anticipation, a supernal freedom from even the
+shadow of the shadow of care or sorrow; not now did anything
+matter--Olaf or his haunted, hate-filled eyes; Throckmartin or his
+fate--nothing of pain, nothing of agony, nothing of striving nor
+endeavour nor despair in that wide outer world that had turned
+suddenly to a troubled dream.
+
+Once more the first great note pealed out!  Once more it died and from
+the clustered spheres a kaleidoscopic blaze shot as though drawn from
+the majestic sound itself. The many-coloured rays darted across the
+white waters and sought the face of the irised Veil. As they touched,
+it sparkled, flamed, wavered, and shook with fountains of prismatic
+colour.
+
+The light increased--and in its intensity the silver air darkened.
+Faded into shadow that white mosaic of flower-crowned faces set in the
+amphitheatre of jet, and vast shadows dropped upon the high-flung
+tiers and shrouded them. But on the skirts of the rays the fretted
+stalls in which we sat with the fair-haired ones blazed out,
+iridescent, like jewels.
+
+I was sensible of an acceleration of every pulse; a wild stimulation
+of every nerve. I felt myself being lifted above the world--close to
+the threshold of the high gods--soon their essence and their power
+would stream out into me! I glanced at Larry. His eyes were--wild--
+with life!
+
+I looked at Olaf--and in his face was none of this--only hate, and
+hate, and hate.
+
+The peacock waves streamed out over the waters, cleaving the seeming
+darkness, a rainbow path of glory. And the Veil flashed as though all
+the rainbows that had ever shone were burning within it. Again the
+mighty sound pealed.
+
+Into the centre of the Veil the light drew itself, grew into an
+intolerable brightness--and with a storm of tinklings, a tempest of
+crystalline notes, a tumult of tiny chimings, through it sped--the
+Shining One!
+
+Straight down that radiant path, its high-flung plumes of feathery
+flame shimmering, its coruscating spirals whirling, its seven globes
+of seven colours shining above its glowing core, it raced toward us.
+The hurricane of bells of diamond glass were jubilant, joyous. I felt
+O'Keefe grip my arm; Yolara threw her white arms out in a welcoming
+gesture; I heard from the tier a sigh of rapture--and in it a
+poignant, wailing under-tone of agony!
+
+Over the waters, down the light stream, to the end of the ivory pier,
+flew the Shining One. Through its crystal _pizzicati_ drifted
+inarticulate murmurings--deadly sweet, stilling the heart and setting
+it leaping madly.
+
+For a moment it paused, poised itself, and then came whirling down the
+flower path to its priestess, slowly, ever more slowly. It hovered for
+a moment between the woman and the dwarf, as though contemplating
+them; turned to her with its storm of tinklings softened, its
+murmurings infinitely caressing. Bent toward it, Yolara seemed to
+gather within herself pulsing waves of power; she was terrifying;
+gloriously, maddeningly evil; and as gloriously, maddeningly heavenly!
+Aphrodite and the Virgin! Tanith of the Carthaginians and St. Bride of
+the Isles! A queen of hell and a princess of heaven--in one!
+
+Only for a moment did that which we had called the Dweller and which
+these named the Shining One, pause. It swept up the ramp to the dais,
+rested there, slowly turning, plumes and spirals lacing and unlacing,
+throbbing, pulsing. Now its nucleus grew plainer, stronger--human in a
+fashion, and all inhuman; neither man nor woman; neither god nor
+devil; subtly partaking of all. Nor could I doubt that whatever it
+was, within that shining nucleus was something sentient; something
+that had will and energy, and in some awful, supernormal
+fashion--intelligence!
+
+Another trumpeting--a sound of stones opening--a long, low wail of
+utter anguish--something moved shadowy in the river of light, and
+slowly at first, then ever more rapidly, shapes swam through it. There
+were half a score of them--girls and youths, women and men. The
+Shining One poised itself, regarded them. They drew closer, and in the
+eyes of each and in their faces was the bud of that awful
+intermingling of emotions, of joy and sorrow, ecstasy and terror, that
+I had seen in full blossom on Throckmartin's.
+
+The Thing began again its murmurings--now infinitely caressing,
+coaxing--like the song of a siren from some witched star! And the
+bell-sounds rang out--compellingly, calling--calling--calling--
+
+I saw Olaf lean far out of his place; saw, half-consciously, at
+Lugur's signal, three of the dwarfs creep in and take places,
+unnoticed, behind him.
+
+Now the first of the figures rushed upon the dais--and paused.  It was
+the girl who had been brought before Yolara when the gnome named
+Songar was driven into the nothingness! With all the quickness of
+light a spiral of the Shining One stretched out and encircled her.
+
+At its touch there was an infinitely dreadful shrinking and, it
+seemed, a simultaneous hurling of herself into its radiance. As it
+wrapped its swirls around her, permeated her--the crystal chorus
+burst forth--tumultuously; through and through her the radiance
+pulsed. Began then that infinitely dreadful, but infinitely glorious,
+rhythm they called the dance of the Shining One. And as the girl
+swirled within its sparkling mists another and another flew into its
+embrace, until, at last, the dais was an incredible vision; a mad
+star's Witches' Sabbath; an altar of white faces and bodies gleaming
+through living flame; transfused with rapture insupportable and horror
+that was hellish--and ever, radiant plumes and spirals expanding, the
+core of the Shining One waxed--growing greater--as it consumed, as it
+drew into and through itself the life-force of these lost ones!
+
+So they spun, interlaced--and there began to pulse from them life,
+vitality, as though the very essence of nature was filling us. Dimly I
+recognized that what I was beholding was vampirism inconceivable! The
+banked tiers chanted. The mighty sounds pealed forth!
+
+It was a Saturnalia of demigods!
+
+Then, whirling, bell-notes storming, the Shining One withdrew slowly
+from the dais down the ramp, still embracing, still interwoven with
+those who had thrown themselves into its spirals. They drifted with it
+as though half-carried in dreadful dance; white faces sealed--forever--
+into that semblance of those who held within linked God and devil--I
+covered my eyes!
+
+I heard a gasp from O'Keefe; opened my eyes and sought his; saw the
+wildness vanish from them as he strained forward. Olaf had leaned far
+out, and as he did so the dwarfs beside him caught him, and whether by
+design or through his own swift, involuntary movement, thrust him half
+into the Dweller's path. The Dweller paused in its gyrations--seemed
+to watch him. The Norseman's face was crimson, his eyes blazing. He
+threw himself back and, with one defiant shout, gripped one of the
+dwarfs about the middle and sent him hurtling through the air,
+straight at the radiant Thing! A whirling mass of legs and arms, the
+dwarf flew--then in midflight stopped as though some gigantic
+invisible hand had caught him, and--was dashed down upon the platform
+not a yard from the Shining One!
+
+Like a broken spider he moved--feebly--once, twice. From the Dweller
+shot a shimmering tentacle--touched him--recoiled. Its crystal
+tinklings changed into an angry chiming. From all about--jewelled
+stalls and jet peak--came a sigh of incredulous horror.
+
+Lugur leaped forward.  On the instant Larry was over the low barrier
+between the pillars, rushing to the Norseman's side. And even as they
+ran there was another wild shout from Olaf, and he hurled himself out,
+straight at the throat of the Dweller!
+
+But before he could touch the Shining One, now motionless--and never
+was the thing more horrible than then, with the purely human
+suggestion of surprise plain in its poise--Larry had struck him
+aside.
+
+I tried to follow--and was held by Rador.  He was trembling--but not
+with fear. In his face was incredulous hope, inexplicable eagerness.
+
+"Wait!" he said.  "Wait!"
+
+The Shining One stretched out a slow spiral, and as it did so I saw
+the bravest thing man has ever witnessed. Instantly O'Keefe thrust
+himself between it and Olaf, pistol out. The tentacle touched him, and
+the dull blue of his robe flashed out into blinding, intense azure
+light. From the automatic in his gloved hand came three quick bursts
+of flame straight into the Thing. The Dweller drew back; the
+bell-sounds swelled.
+
+Lugur paused, his hand darted up, and in it was one of the silver
+_Keth_ cones. But before he could flash it upon the Norseman, Larry
+had unlooped his robe, thrown its fold over Olaf, and, holding him
+with one hand away from the Shining One, thrust with the other his
+pistol into the dwarf's stomach. His lips moved, but I could not hear
+what he said. But Lugur understood, for his hand dropped.
+
+Now Yolara was there--all this had taken barely more than five
+seconds. She thrust herself between the three men and the Dweller. She
+spoke to it--and the wild buzzing died down; the gay crystal tinklings
+burst forth again. The Thing murmured to her--began to whirl--faster,
+faster--passed down the ivory pier, out upon the waters, bearing with
+it, meshed in its light, the sacrifices--swept on ever more swiftly,
+triumphantly and turning, turning, with its ghastly crew, vanished
+through the Veil!
+
+Abruptly the polychromatic path snapped out.  The silver light poured
+in upon us. From all the amphitheatre arose a clamour, a shouting.
+Marakinoff, his eyes staring, was leaning out, listening. Unrestrained
+now by Rador, I vaulted the wall and rushed forward. But not before I
+had heard the green dwarf murmur:
+
+"There is something stronger than the Shining One!  Two things--yea--a
+strong heart--and hate!"
+
+Olaf, panting, eyes glazed, trembling, shrank beneath my hand.
+
+"The devil that took my Helma!" I heard him whisper. "The Shining
+Devil!"
+
+"Both these men," Lugur was raging, "they shall dance with the Shining
+one. And this one, too." He pointed at me malignantly.
+
+"This man is mine," said the priestess, and her voice was menacing.
+She rested her hand on Larry's shoulder. "He shall not dance. No--nor
+his friend. I have told you I dare not for this one!" She pointed to
+Olaf.
+
+"Neither this man, nor this," said Larry, "shall be harmed. This is my
+word, Yolara!"
+
+"Even so," she answered quietly, "my lord!"
+
+I saw Marakinoff stare at O'Keefe with a new and curiously speculative
+interest. Lugur's eyes grew hellish; he raised his arms as though to
+strike her. Larry's pistol prodded him rudely enough.
+
+"No rough stuff now, kid!" said O'Keefe in English.  The red dwarf
+quivered, turned--caught a robe from a priest standing by, and threw
+it over himself. The _ladala_, shouting, gesticulating, fighting with
+the soldiers, were jostling down from the tiers of jet.
+
+"Come!" commanded Yolara--her eyes rested upon Larry.  "Your heart is
+great, indeed--my lord!" she murmured; and her voice was very sweet.
+"Come!"
+
+"This man comes with us, Yolara," said O'Keefe pointing to Olaf.
+
+"Bring him," she said.  "Bring him--only tell him to look no more upon
+me as before!" she added fiercely.
+
+Beside her the three of us passed along the stalls, where sat the
+fair-haired, now silent, at gaze, as though in the grip of some great
+doubt. Silently Olaf strode beside me. Rador had disappeared. Down the
+stairway, through the hall of turquoise mist, over the rushing
+sea-stream we went and stood beside the wall through which we had
+entered. The white-robed ones had gone.
+
+Yolara pressed; the portal opened.  We stepped upon the car; she took
+the lever; we raced through the faintly luminous corridor to the house
+of the priestess.
+
+And one thing now I knew sick at heart and soul the truth had come to
+me--no more need to search for Throckmartin. Behind that Veil, in the
+lair of the Dweller, dead-alive like those we had just seen swim in
+its shining train was he, and Edith, Stanton and Thora and Olaf
+Huldricksson's wife!
+
+The car came to rest; the portal opened; Yolara leaped out lightly,
+beckoned and flitted up the corridor. She paused before an ebon
+screen. At a touch it vanished, revealing an entrance to a small blue
+chamber, glowing as though cut from the heart of some gigantic
+sapphire; bare, save that in its centre, upon a low pedestal, stood a
+great globe fashioned from milky rock-crystal; upon its surface were
+faint tracings as of seas and continents, but, if so, either of some
+other world or of this world in immemorial past, for in no way did
+they resemble the mapped coastlines of our earth.
+
+Poised upon the globe, rising from it out into space, locked in each
+other's arms, lips to lips, were two figures, a woman and a man, so
+exquisite, so lifelike, that for the moment I failed to realize that
+they, too, were carved of the crystal. And before this shrine--for
+nothing else could it be, I knew--three slender cones raised
+themselves: one of purest white flame, one of opalescent water, and
+the third of--moonlight! There was no mistaking them, the height of a
+tall man each stood--but how water, flame and light were held so
+evenly, so steadily in their spire-shapes, I could not tell.
+
+Yolara bowed lowly--once, twice, thrice.  She turned to O'Keefe, nor
+by slightest look or gesture betrayed she knew others were there than
+he. The blue eyes wide, searching, unfathomable, she drew close; put
+white hands on his shoulders, looked down into his very soul.
+
+"My lord," she murmured.  "Now listen well for I, Yolara, give you
+three things--myself, and the Shining One, and the power that is the
+Shining One's--yea, and still a fourth thing that is all three--power
+over all upon that world from whence you came! These, my lord, ye
+shall have. I swear it"--she turned toward the altar--uplifted her
+arms--"by Siya and by Siyana, and by the flame, by the water, and by
+the light!" *1
+
+
+*1 I have no space here even to outline the eschatology of this
+people, nor to catalogue their pantheon. Siya and Siyana typified
+worldly love. Their ritual was, however, singularly free from those
+degrading elements usually found in love-cults. Priests and
+priestesses of all cults dwelt in the immense seven-terraced
+structure, of which the jet amphitheatre was the water side. The
+symbol, icon, representation, of Siya and Siyana--the globe and the
+up-striving figures--typified earthly love, feet bound to earth, but
+eyes among the stars. Hell or heaven I never heard formulated, nor
+their equivalents; unless that existence in the Shining One's domain
+could serve for either. Over all this was Thanaroa, remote; unheeding,
+but still maker and ruler of all--an absentee First Cause personified!
+Thanaroa seemed to be the one article of belief in the creed of the
+soldiers--Rador, with his reverence for the Ancient Ones, was an
+exception. Whatever there was, indeed, of high, truly religious
+impulse among the Murians, this far, High God had. I found this
+exceedingly interesting, because it had long been my theory--to put
+the matter in the shape of a geometrical formula--that the real
+attractiveness of gods to man increases uniformly according to the
+square of their distance--W. T. G.
+
+
+
+Her eyes grew purple dark.
+
+"Let none dare to take you from me!  Nor ye go from me unbidden!" she
+whispered fiercely.
+
+Then swiftly, still ignoring us, she threw her arms about O'Keefe,
+pressed her white body to his breast, lips raised, eyes closed,
+seeking his. O'Keefe's arms tightened around her, his head dropped
+lips seeking, finding hers--passionately! From Olaf came a deep
+indrawn breath that was almost a groan. But not in my heart could I
+find blame for the Irishman!
+
+The priestess opened eyes now all misty blue, thrust him back, stood
+regarding him. O'Keefe, dead-white, raised a trembling hand to his
+face.
+
+"And thus have I sealed my oath, O my lord!" she whispered.  For the
+first time she seemed to recognize our presence, stared at us a
+moment, then through us, and turned to O'Keefe.
+
+"Go, now!" she said.  "Soon Rador shall come for you. Then--well,
+after that let happen what will!"
+
+
+
+
+
+She smiled once more at him--so sweetly; turned toward the figures
+upon the great globe; sank upon her knees before them. Quietly we
+crept away; still silent, made our way to the little pavilion. But as
+we passed we heard a tumult from the green roadway; shouts of men, now
+and then a woman's scream. Through a rift in the garden I glimpsed a
+jostling crowd on one of the bridges: green dwarfs struggling with the
+_ladala_--and all about droned a humming as of a giant hive disturbed!
+
+Larry threw himself down upon one of the divans, covered his face with
+his hands, dropped them to catch in Olaf's eyes troubled reproach,
+looked at me.
+
+"_I_ couldn't help it," he said, half defiantly--half-miserably.
+"God, what a woman! I _couldn't_ help it!"
+
+"Larry," I asked.  "Why didn't you tell her you didn't love
+her--then?"
+
+He gazed at me--the old twinkle back in his eye.
+
+"Spoken like a scientist, Doc!" he exclaimed.  "I suppose if a burning
+angel struck you out of nowhere and threw itself about you, you would
+most dignifiedly tell it you didn't want to be burned. For God's sake,
+don't talk nonsense, Goodwin!" he ended, almost peevishly.
+
+"Evil!  Evil!" The Norseman's voice was deep, nearly a chant.  "All
+here is of evil: Trolldom and Helvede it is, Ja! And that she
+_djaevelsk_ of beauty--what is she but harlot of that shining devil
+they worship. I, Olaf Huldricksson, know what she meant when she held
+out to you power over all the world, _Ja!_--as if the world had not
+devils enough in it now!"
+
+"What?" The cry came from both O'Keefe and myself at once.
+
+Olaf made a gesture of caution, relapsed into sullen silence.  There
+were footsteps on the path, and into sight came Rador--but a Rador
+changed. Gone was every vestige of his mockery; curiously solemn, he
+saluted O'Keefe and Olaf with that salute which, before this, I had
+seen given only to Yolara and to Lugur. There came a swift quickening
+of the tumult--died away. He shrugged mighty shoulders.
+
+"The _ladala_ are awake!" he said.  "So much for what two brave men
+can do!" He paused thoughtfully. "Bones and dust jostle not each other
+for place against the grave wall!" he added oddly. "But if bones and
+dust have revealed to them that they still--live--"
+
+He stopped abruptly, eyes seeking the globe that bore and sent forth
+speech. *1
+
+
+*1 I find that I have neglected to explain the working of these
+interesting mechanisms that were telephonic, dictaphonic, telegraphic
+in one. I must assume that my readers are familiar with the receiving
+apparatus of wireless telegraphy, which must be "tuned" by the
+operator until its own vibratory quality is in exact harmony with the
+vibrations--the extremely rapid impacts--of those short electric
+wavelengths we call Hertzian, and which carry the wireless messages. I
+must assume also that they are familiar with the elementary fact of
+physics that the vibrations of light and sound are interchangeable.
+The hearing-talking globes utilize both these principles, and with
+consummate simplicity. The light with which they shone was produced by
+an atomic "motor" within their base, similar to that which activated
+the merely illuminating globes. The composition of the phonic spheres
+gave their surfaces an acute sensitivity and resonance. In conjunction
+with its energizing power, the metal set up what is called a "field of
+force," which linked it with every particle of its kind no matter how
+distant. When vibrations of speech impinged upon the resonant surface
+its rhythmic light-vibrations were broken, just as a telephone
+transmitter breaks an electric current. Simultaneously these
+light-vibrations were changed into sound--on the surfaces of all
+spheres tuned to that particular instrument. The "crawling" colours
+which showed themselves at these times were literally the voice of the
+speaker in its spectrum equivalent. While usually the sounds produced
+required considerable familiarity with the apparatus to be understood
+quickly, they could, on occasion, be made startlingly loud and
+clear--as I was soon to realize--W. T. G.
+
+
+
+"The _Afyo Maie_ has sent me to watch over you till she summons you,"
+he announced clearly. "There is to be a--feast. You, _Larree_, you
+Goodwin, are to come. I remain here with--Olaf."
+
+"No harm to him!" broke in O'Keefe sharply.  Rador touched his heart,
+his eyes.
+
+"By the Ancient Ones, and by my love for you, and by what you twain
+did before the Shining One--I swear it!" he whispered.
+
+Rador clapped palms; a soldier came round the path, in his grip a long
+flat box of polished wood. The green dwarf took it, dismissed him,
+threw open the lid.
+
+"Here is your apparel for the feast, _Larree_," he said, pointing to
+the contents.
+
+O'Keefe stared, reached down and drew out a white, shimmering, softly
+metallic, long-sleeved tunic, a broad, silvery girdle, leg swathings
+of the same argent material, and sandals that seemed to be cut out
+from silver. He made a quick gesture of angry dissent.
+
+"Nay, _Larree_!" muttered the dwarf.  "Wear them--I counsel it--I pray
+it--ask me not why," he went on swiftly, looking again at the globe.
+
+O'Keefe, as I, was impressed by his earnestness.  The dwarf made a
+curiously expressive pleading gesture. O'Keefe abruptly took the
+garments; passed into the room of the fountain.
+
+"The Shining One dances not again?" I asked.
+
+"No," he said.  "No"--he hesitate--"it is the usual feast that follows
+the sacrament! Lugur--and Double Tongue, who came with you, will be
+there," he added slowly.
+
+"Lugur--" I gasped in astonishment.  "After what happened--he will be
+there?"
+
+"Perhaps because of what happened, Goodwin, my friend," he
+answered--his eyes again full of malice; "and there will be
+others--friends of Yolara--friends of Lugur--and perhaps
+another"--his voice was almost inaudible--"one whom they have not
+called--" He halted, half-fearfully, glancing at the globe; put finger
+to lips and spread himself out upon one of the couches.
+
+"Strike up the band"--came O'Keefe's voice--"here comes the hero!"
+
+He strode into the room.  I am bound to say that the admiration in
+Rador's eyes was reflected in my own, and even, if involuntarily, in
+Olaf's.
+
+"A son of Siyana!" whispered Rador.
+
+He knelt, took from his girdle-pouch a silk-wrapped something, unwound
+it--and, still kneeling, drew out a slender poniard of gleaming white
+metal, hilted with the blue stones; he thrust it into O'Keefe's
+girdle; then gave him again the rare salute.
+
+"Come," he ordered and took us to the head of the pathway.
+
+"Now," he said grimly, "let the Silent Ones show their power--if they
+still have it!"
+
+And with this strange benediction, he turned back.
+
+"For God's sake, Larry," I urged as we approached the house of the
+priestess, "you'll be careful!"
+
+He nodded--but I saw with a little deadly pang of apprehension in my
+heart a puzzled, lurking doubt within his eyes.
+
+As we ascended the serpent steps Marakinoff appeared. He gave a signal
+to our guards--and I wondered what influence the Russian had attained,
+for promptly, without question, they drew aside. At me he smiled
+amiably.
+
+"Have you found your friends yet?" he went on--and now I sensed
+something deeply sinister in him. "No! It is too bad! Well, don't give
+up hope." He turned to O'Keefe.
+
+"Lieutenant, I would like to speak to you--alone!"
+
+"I've no secrets from Goodwin," answered O'Keefe.
+
+"So?" queried Marakinoff, suavely.  He bent, whispered to Larry.
+
+The Irishman started, eyed him with a certain shocked incredulity,
+then turned to me.
+
+"Just a minute, Doc!" he said, and I caught the suspicion of a wink.
+They drew aside, out of ear-shot. The Russian talked rapidly. Larry
+was all attention. Marakinoff's earnestness became intense; O'Keefe
+interrupted--appeared to question. Marakinoff glanced at me and as his
+gaze shifted from O'Keefe, I saw a flame of rage and horror blaze up
+in the latter's eyes. At last the Irishman appeared to consider
+gravely; nodded as though he had arrived at some decision, and
+Marakinoff thrust his hand to him.
+
+And only I could have noticed Larry's shrinking, his microscopic
+hesitation before he took it, and his involuntary movement, as though
+to shake off something unclean, when the clasp had ended.
+
+Marakinoff, without another look at me, turned and went quickly
+within. The guards took their places. I looked at Larry inquiringly.
+
+"Don't ask a thing now, Doc!" he said tensely.  "Wait till we get
+home. But we've got to get damned busy and quick--I'll tell you that
+now--"
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+The Tempting of Larry
+
+
+We paused before thick curtains, through which came the faint murmur
+of many voices. They parted; out came two--ushers, I suppose, they
+were--in cuirasses and kilts that reminded me somewhat of
+chain-mail--the first armour of any kind here that I had seen. They
+held open the folds.
+
+The chamber, on whose threshold we stood, was far larger than either
+anteroom or hall of audience. Not less than three hundred feet long
+and half that in depth, from end to end of it ran two huge
+semi-circular tables, paralleling each other, divided by a wide aisle,
+and heaped with flowers, with fruits, with viands unknown to me, and
+glittering with crystal flagons, beakers, goblets of as many hues as
+the blooms. On the gay-cushioned couches that flanked the tables,
+lounging luxuriously, were scores of the fair-haired ruling class and
+there rose a little buzz of admiration, oddly mixed with a
+half-startled amaze, as their gaze fell upon O'Keefe in all his
+silvery magnificence. Everywhere the light-giving globes sent their
+roseate radiance.
+
+The cuirassed dwarfs led us through the aisle.  Within the arc of the
+inner half--circle was another glittering board, an oval. But of those
+seated there, facing us--I had eyes for only one--Yolara! She swayed
+up to greet O'Keefe--and she was like one of those white lily maids,
+whose beauty Hoang-Ku, the sage, says made the Gobi first a paradise,
+and whose lusts later the burned-out desert that it is. She held out
+hands to Larry, and on her face was passion--unashamed, unhiding.
+
+She was Circe--but Circe conquered.  Webs of filmiest white clung to
+the rose-leaf body. Twisted through the corn-silk hair a threaded
+circlet of pale sapphires shone; but they were pale beside Yolara's
+eyes. O'Keefe bent, kissed her hands, something more than mere
+admiration flaming from him. She saw--and, smiling, drew him down
+beside her.
+
+It came to me that of all, only these two, Yolara and O'Keefe, were in
+white--and I wondered; then with a tightening of nerves ceased to
+wonder as there entered--Lugur! He was all in scarlet, and as he
+strode forward a silence fell a tense, strained silence.
+
+His gaze turned upon Yolara, rested upon O'Keefe, and instantly his
+face grew--dreadful--there is no other word than that for it.
+Marakinoff leaned forward from the centre of the table, near whose end
+I sat, touched and whispered to him swiftly. With appalling effort the
+red dwarf controlled himself; he saluted the priestess ironically, I
+thought; took his place at the further end of the oval. And now I
+noted that the figures between were the seven of that Council of which
+the Shining One's priestess and Voice were the heads. The tension
+relaxed, but did not pass--as though a storm-cloud should turn away,
+but still lurk, threatening.
+
+My gaze ran back.  This end of the room was draped with the
+exquisitely coloured, graceful curtains looped with gorgeous garlands.
+Between curtains and table, where sat Larry and the nine, a circular
+platform, perhaps ten yards in diameter, raised itself a few feet
+above the floor, its gleaming surface half-covered with the luminous
+petals, fragrant, delicate.
+
+On each side below it, were low carven stools.  The curtains parted
+and softly entered girls bearing their flutes, their harps, the
+curiously emotion-exciting, octaved drums. They sank into their
+places. They touched their instruments; a faint, languorous measure
+throbbed through the rosy air.
+
+The stage was set!  What was to be the play?
+
+Now about the tables passed other dusky-haired maids, fair bosoms
+bare, their scanty kirtles looped high, pouring out the wines for the
+feasters.
+
+My eyes sought O'Keefe.  Whatever it had been that Marakinoff had
+said, clearly it now filled his mind--even to the exclusion of the
+wondrous woman beside him. His eyes were stern, cold--and now and
+then, as he turned them toward the Russian, filled with a curious
+speculation. Yolara watched him, frowned, gave a low order to the Hebe
+behind her.
+
+The girl disappeared, entered again with a ewer that seemed cut of
+amber. The priestess poured from it into Larry's glass a clear liquid
+that shook with tiny sparkles of light. She raised the glass to her
+lips, handed it to him. Half-smiling, half-abstractedly, he took it,
+touched his own lips where hers had kissed; drained it. A nod from
+Yolara and the maid refilled his goblet.
+
+At once there was a swift transformation in the Irishman. His
+abstraction vanished; the sternness fled; his eyes sparkled. He leaned
+caressingly toward Yolara; whispered. Her blue eyes flashed
+triumphantly; her chiming laughter rang. She raised her own glass--but
+within it was not that clear drink that filled Larry's! And again he
+drained his own; and, lifting it, full once more, caught the baleful
+eyes of Lugur, and held it toward him mockingly. Yolara swayed close--
+alluring, tempting. He arose, face all reckless gaiety; rollicking
+deviltry.
+
+"A toast!" he cried in English, "to the Shining One--and may the hell
+where it belongs soon claim it!"
+
+He had used their own word for their god--all else had been in his own
+tongue, and so, fortunately, they did not understand. But the contempt
+in his action they did recognize--and a dead, a fearful silence fell
+upon them all. Lugur's eyes blazed, little sparks of crimson in their
+green. The priestess reached up, caught at O'Keefe. He seized the soft
+hand; caressed it; his gaze grew far away, sombre.
+
+"The Shining One." He spoke low.  "An' now again I see the faces of
+those who dance with it. It is the Fires of Mora--come, God alone
+knows how--from Erin--to this place. The Fires of Mora!" He
+contemplated the hushed folk before him; and then from his lips came
+that weirdest, most haunting of the lyric legends of Erin--the Curse
+of Mora:
+
+    "The fretted fires of Mora blew o'er him in the night;
+    He thrills no more to loving, nor weeps for past delight.
+    For when those flames have bitten, both grief and joy take flight--"
+
+Again Yolara tried to draw him down beside her; and once more he
+gripped her hand. His eyes grew fixed--he crooned:
+
+
+    "And through the sleeping silence his feet must track the tune,
+    When the world is barred and speckled with silver of the moon--"
+
+He stood, swaying, for a moment, and then, laughing, let the priestess
+have her way; drained again the glass.
+
+And now my heart was cold, indeed--for what hope was there left with
+Larry mad, wild drunk!
+
+The silence was unbroken--elfin women and dwarfs glancing furtively at
+each other. But now Yolara arose, face set, eyes flashing grey.
+
+"Hear you, the Council, and you, Lugur--and all who are here!" she
+cried. "Now I, the priestess of the Shining One, take, as is my right,
+my mate. And this is he!" She pointed down upon Larry. He glanced up
+at her.
+
+"Can't quite make out what you say, Yolara," he muttered thickly.
+"But say anything--you like--I love your voice!"
+
+I turned sick with dread.  Yolara's hand stole softly upon the
+Irishman's curls caressingly.
+
+"You know the law, Yolara." Lugur's voice was flat, deadly, "You may
+not mate with other than your own kind. And this man is a stranger--a
+barbarian--food for the Shining One!" Literally, he spat the phrase.
+
+"No, not of our kind--Lugur--higher!" Yolara answered serenely.  "Lo,
+a son of Siya and of Siyana!"
+
+"A lie!" roared the red dwarf.  "A lie!"
+
+"The Shining One revealed it to me!" said Yolara sweetly. "And if ye
+believe not, Lugur--go ask of the Shining One if it be not truth!"
+
+There was bitter, nameless menace in those last words--and whatever
+their hidden message to Lugur, it was potent. He stood, choking, face
+hell-shadowed--Marakinoff leaned out again, whispered. The red dwarf
+bowed, now wholly ironically; resumed his place and his silence. And
+again I wondered, icy-hearted, what was the power the Russian had so
+to sway Lugur.
+
+"What says the Council?" Yolara demanded, turning to them.
+
+Only for a moment they consulted among themselves. Then the woman,
+whose face was a ravaged shrine of beauty, spoke.
+
+"The will of the priestess is the will of the Council!" she answered.
+
+Defiance died from Yolara's face; she looked down at Larry tenderly.
+He sat swaying, crooning.
+
+"Bid the priests come," she commanded, then turned to the silent room.
+"By the rites of Siya and Siyana, Yolara takes their son for her
+mate!" And again her hand stole down possessingly, serpent soft, to
+the drunken head of the O'Keefe.
+
+The curtains parted widely.  Through them filed, two by two, twelve
+hooded figures clad in flowing robes of the green one sees in forest
+vistas of opening buds of dawning spring. Of each pair one bore
+clasped to breast a globe of that milky crystal in the sapphire
+shrine-room; the other a harp, small, shaped somewhat like the ancient
+clarsach of the Druids.
+
+Two by two they stepped upon the raised platform, placed gently upon
+it each their globe; and two by two crouched behind them. They formed
+now a star of six points about the petalled dais, and, simultaneously,
+they drew from their faces the covering cowls.
+
+I half-rose--youths and maidens these of the fair-haired; and youths
+and maids more beautiful than any of those I had yet seen--for upon
+their faces was little of that disturbing mockery to which I have been
+forced so often, because of the deep impression it made upon me, to
+refer. The ashen-gold of the maiden priestesses' hair was wound about
+their brows in shining coronals. The pale locks of the youths were
+clustered within circlets of translucent, glimmering gems like
+moonstones. And then, crystal globe alternately before and harp
+alternately held by youth and maid, they began to sing.
+
+What was that song, I do not know--nor ever shall. Archaic, ancient
+beyond thought, it seemed--not with the ancientness of things that for
+uncounted ages have been but wind-driven dust. Rather was it the
+ancientness of the golden youth of the world, love lilts of earth
+younglings, with light of new-born suns drenching them, chorals of
+young stars mating in space; murmurings of April gods and goddesses. A
+languor stole through me. The rosy lights upon the tripods began to
+die away, and as they faded the milky globes gleamed forth brighter,
+ever brighter. Yolara rose, stretched a hand to Larry, led him through
+the sextuple groups, and stood face to face with him in the centre of
+their circle.
+
+The rose-light died; all that immense chamber was black, save for the
+circle of the glowing spheres. Within this their milky radiance grew
+brighter--brighter. The song whispered away. A throbbing arpeggio
+dripped from the harps, and as the notes pulsed out, up from the
+globes, as though striving to follow, pulsed with them tips of
+moon-fire cones, such as I had seen before Yolara's altar. Weirdly,
+caressingly, compellingly the harp notes throbbed in repeated,
+re-repeated theme, holding within itself the same archaic golden
+quality I had noted in the singing. And over the moon flame pinnacles
+rose higher!
+
+Yolara lifted her arms; within her hands were clasped O'Keefe's.  She
+raised them above their two heads and slowly, slowly drew him with her
+into a circling, graceful step, tendrillings delicate as the slow
+spirallings of twilight mist upon some still stream.
+
+As they swayed the rippling arpeggios grew louder, and suddenly the
+slender pinnacles of moon fire bent, dipped, flowed to the floor,
+crept in a shining ring around those two--and began to rise, a
+gleaming, glimmering, enchanted barrier--rising, ever rising--hiding
+them!
+
+With one swift movement Yolara unbound her circlet of pale sapphires,
+shook loose the waves of her silken hair. It fell, a rippling,
+wondrous cascade, veiling both her and O'Keefe to their girdles--and
+now the shining coils of moon fire had crept to their knees--was
+circling higher--higher.
+
+And ever despair grew deeper in my soul!
+
+What was that!  I started to my feet, and all around me in the
+darkness I heard startled motion. From without came a blaring of
+trumpets, the sound of running men, loud murmurings. The tumult drew
+closer. I heard cries of "Lakla! Lakla!" Now it was at the very
+threshold and within it, oddly, as though--punctuating--the clamour, a
+deep-toned, almost abysmal, booming sound--thunderously bass and
+reverberant.
+
+Abruptly the harpings ceased; the moon fires shuddered, fell, and
+began to sweep back into the crystal globes; Yolara's swaying form
+grew rigid, every atom of it listening. She threw aside the veiling
+cloud of hair, and in the gleam of the last retreating spirals her
+face glared out like some old Greek mask of tragedy.
+
+The sweet lips that even at their sweetest could never lose their
+delicate cruelty, had no sweetness now. They were drawn into a
+square--inhuman as that of the Medusa; in her eyes were the fires of
+the pit, and her hair seemed to writhe like the serpent locks of that
+Gorgon whose mouth she had borrowed; all her beauty was transformed
+into a nameless thing--hideous, inhuman, blasting! If this was the
+true soul of Yolara springing to her face, then, I thought, God help
+us in very deed!
+
+I wrested my gaze away to O'Keefe.  All drunkenness gone, himself
+again, he was staring down at her, and in his eyes were loathing and
+horror unutterable. So they stood--and the light fled.
+
+Only for a moment did the darkness hold.  With lightning swiftness the
+blackness that was the chamber's other wall vanished. Through a portal
+open between grey screens, the silver sparkling radiance poured.
+
+And through the portal marched, two by two, incredible, nightmare
+figures--frog-men, giants, taller by nearly a yard than even tall
+O'Keefe! Their enormous saucer eyes were irised by wide bands of
+green-flecked red, in which the phosphorescence flickered. Their long
+muzzles, lips half-open in monstrous grin, held rows of glistening,
+slender, lancet sharp fangs. Over the glaring eyes arose a horny
+helmet, a carapace of black and orange scales, studded with foot-long
+lance-headed horns.
+
+They lined themselves like soldiers on each side of the wide table
+aisle, and now I could see that their horny armour covered shoulders
+and backs, ran across the chest in a knobbed cuirass, and at wrists
+and heels jutted out into curved, murderous spurs. The webbed hands
+and feet ended in yellow, spade-shaped claws.
+
+They carried spears, ten feet, at least, in length, the heads of which
+were pointed cones, glistening with that same covering, from whose
+touch of swift decay I had so narrowly saved Rador.
+
+They were grotesque, yes--more grotesque than anything I had ever seen
+or dreamed, and they were--terrible!
+
+And then, quietly, through their ranks came--a girl!  Behind her,
+enormous pouch at his throat swelling in and out menacingly, in one
+paw a treelike, spike-studded mace, a frog-man, huger than any of the
+others, guarding. But of him I caught but a fleeting, involuntary
+impression--all my gaze was for her.
+
+For it was she who had pointed out to us the way from the peril of the
+Dweller's lair on Nan-Tauach. And as I looked at her, I marvelled that
+ever could I have thought the priestess more beautiful. Into the eyes
+of O'Keefe rushed joy and an utter abasement of shame.
+
+And from all about came murmurs--edged with anger, half-incredulous,
+tinged with fear:
+
+"Lakla!"
+
+"Lakla!"
+
+"The handmaiden!"
+
+She halted close beside me.  From firm little chin to dainty buskined
+feet she was swathed in the soft robes of dull, almost coppery hue.
+The left arm was hidden, the right free and gloved. Wound tight about
+it was one of the vines of the sculptured wall and of Lugur's circled
+signet-ring. Thick, a vivid green, its five tendrils ran between her
+fingers, stretching out five flowered heads that gleamed like blossoms
+cut from gigantic, glowing rubies.
+
+So she stood contemplating Yolara.  Then drawn perhaps by my gaze, she
+dropped her eyes upon me; golden, translucent, with tiny flecks of
+amber in their aureate irises, the soul that looked through them was
+as far removed from that flaming out of the priestess as zenith is
+above nadir.
+
+I noted the low, broad brow, the proud little nose, the tender mouth,
+and the soft--sunlight--glow that seemed to transfuse the delicate
+skin. And suddenly in the eyes dawned a smile--sweet, friendly, a
+touch of roguishness, profoundly reassuring in its all humanness. I
+felt my heart expand as though freed from fetters, a recrudescence of
+confidence in the essential reality of things--as though in nightmare
+the struggling consciousness should glimpse some familiar face and
+know the terrors with which it strove were but dreams. And
+involuntarily I smiled back at her.
+
+She raised her head and looked again at Yolara, contempt and a certain
+curiosity in her gaze; at O'Keefe--and through the softened eyes
+drifted swiftly a shadow of sorrow, and on its fleeting wings deepest
+interest, and hovering over that a naive approval as reassuringly
+human as had been her smile.
+
+She spoke, and her voice, deep-timbred, liquid gold as was Yolara's
+all silver, was subtly the synthesis of all the golden glowing beauty
+of her.
+
+"The Silent Ones have sent me, O Yolara," she said.  "And this is
+their command to you--that you deliver to me to bring before them
+three of the four strangers who have found their way here. For him
+there who plots with Lugur"--she pointed at Marakinoff, and I saw
+Yolara start--"they have no need. Into his heart the Silent Ones have
+looked; and Lugur and you may keep him, Yolara!"
+
+There was honeyed venom in the last words.
+
+Yolara was herself now; only the edge of shrillness on her voice
+revealed her wrath as she answered.
+
+"And whence have the Silent Ones gained power to command, _choya_?"
+
+This last, I knew, was a very vulgar word; I had heard Rador use it in
+a moment of anger to one of the serving maids, and it meant,
+approximately, "kitchen girl," "scullion." Beneath the insult and the
+acid disdain, the blood rushed up under Lakla's ambered ivory skin.
+
+"Yolara"--her voice was low--"of no use is it to question me. I am but
+the messenger of the Silent Ones. And one thing only am I bidden to
+ask you--do you deliver to me the three strangers?"
+
+Lugur was on his feet; eagerness, sardonic delight, sinister
+anticipation thrilling from him--and my same glance showed Marakinoff,
+crouched, biting his finger-nails, glaring at the Golden Girl.
+
+"No!" Yolara spat the word.  "No!  Now by Thanaroa and by the Shining
+One, no!" Her eyes blazed, her nostrils were wide, in her fair throat
+a little pulse beat angrily. "You, Lakla--take you my message to the
+Silent Ones. Say to them that I keep this man"--she pointed to
+Larry--"because he is mine. Say to them that I keep the yellow-haired
+one and him"--she pointed to me--"because it pleases me.
+
+"Tell them that upon their mouths I place my foot, so!"--she stamped
+upon the dais viciously--"and that in their faces I spit!"--and her
+action was hideously snakelike. "And say last to them, you handmaiden,
+that if _you_ they dare send to Yolara again, she will feed _you_ to
+the Shining One! Now--go!"
+
+The handmaiden's face was white.
+
+"Not unforeseen by the three was this, Yolara," she replied.  "And did
+you speak as you have spoken then was I bidden to say this to you."
+Her voice deepened. "Three _tal_ have you to take counsel, Yolara. And
+at the end of that time these things must you have determined--either
+to do or not to do: first, send the strangers to the Silent Ones;
+second, give up, you and Lugur and all of you, that dream you have of
+conquest of the world without; and, third, forswear the Shining One!
+And if you do not one and all these things, then are you done, your
+cup of life broken, your wine of life spilled. Yea, Yolara, for you
+and the Shining One, Lugur and the Nine and all those here and their
+kind shall pass! This say the Silent Ones, 'Surely shall all of ye
+pass and be as though never had ye been!'"
+
+Now a gasp of rage and fear arose from all those around me--but the
+priestess threw back her head and laughed loud and long. Into the
+silver sweet chiming of her laughter clashed that of Lugur--and after
+a little the nobles took it up, till the whole chamber echoed with
+their mirth. O'Keefe, lips tightening, moved toward the Handmaiden,
+and almost imperceptibly, but peremptorily, she waved him back.
+
+"Those _are_ great words--great words indeed, _choya_," shrilled Yolara
+at last; and again Lakla winced beneath the word. "Lo, for _laya_ upon
+_laya_, the Shining One has been freed from the Three; and for _laya_
+upon _laya_ they have sat helpless, rotting. Now I ask you
+again--whence comes their power to lay their will upon me, and whence
+comes their strength to wrestle with the Shining One and the beloved
+of the Shining One?"
+
+And again she laughed--and again Lugur and all the fairhaired joined
+in her laughter.
+
+Into the eyes of Lakla I saw creep a doubt, a wavering; as though deep
+within her the foundations of her own belief were none too firm.
+
+She hesitated, turning upon O'Keefe gaze in which rested more than
+suggestion of appeal! And Yolara saw, too, for she flushed with
+triumph, stretched a finger toward the handmaiden.
+
+"Look!" she cried.  "Look!  Why, even _she_ does not believe!" Her
+voice grew silk of silver--merciless, cruel. "Now am I minded to send
+another answer to the Silent Ones. Yea! But not by _you_, Lakla; by
+these"--she pointed to the frog-men, and, swift as light, her hand
+darted into her bosom, bringing forth the little shining cone of
+death.
+
+But before she could level it the Golden Girl had released that hidden
+left arm and thrown over her face a fold of the metallic swathings.
+Swifter than Yolara, she raised the arm that held the vine--and now I
+knew this was no inert blossoming thing.
+
+It was alive!
+
+It writhed down her arm, and its five rubescent flower heads thrust
+out toward the priestess--vibrating, quivering, held in leash only by
+the light touch of the handmaiden at its very end.
+
+From the swelling throat pouch of the monster behind her came a
+succession of the reverberant boomings. The frogmen wheeled, raised
+their lances, levelled them at the throng. Around the reaching ruby
+flowers a faint red mist swiftly grew.
+
+The silver cone dropped from Yolara's rigid fingers; her eyes grew
+stark with horror; all her unearthly loveliness fled from her; she
+stood pale-lipped. The Handmaiden dropped the protecting veil--and now
+it was she who laughed.
+
+"It would seem, then, Yolara, that there _is_ a thing of the Silent Ones
+ye fear!" she said. "Well--the kiss of the _Yekta_ I promise you in
+return for the embrace of your Shining One."
+
+She looked at Larry, long, searchingly, and suddenly again with all
+that effect of sunlight bursting into dark places, her smile shone
+upon him. She nodded, half gaily; looked down upon me, the little
+merry light dancing in her eyes; waved her hand to me.
+
+She spoke to the giant frog-man.  He wheeled behind her as she turned,
+facing the priestess, club upraised, fangs glistening. His troop moved
+not a jot, spears held high. Lakla began to pass slowly--almost, I
+thought, tauntingly--and as she reached the portal Larry leaped from
+the dais.
+
+"_Alanna_!" he cried.  "You'll not be leavin' me just when I've found
+you!"
+
+In his excitement he spoke in his own tongue, the velvet brogue
+appealing. Lakla turned, contemplated O'Keefe, hesitant,
+unquestionably longingly, irresistibly like a child making up her mind
+whether she dared or dared not take a delectable something offered
+her.
+
+"I go with you," said O'Keefe, this time in her own speech.  "Come on,
+Doc!" He reached out a hand to me.
+
+But now Yolara spoke.  Life and beauty had flowed back into her face,
+and in the purple eyes all her hosts of devils were gathered.
+
+"Do you forget what I promised you before Siya and Siyana?  And do you
+think that you can leave me--me--as though I were a _choya_--like
+_her_." She pointed to Lakla. Do you--"
+
+"Now, listen, Yolara," Larry interrupted almost plaintively.  "No
+promise has passed from me to you--and why would you hold me?" He
+passed unconsciously into English. "Be a good sport, Yolara," he
+urged, "You _have_ got a very devil of a temper, you know, and so have
+I; and we'd be really awfully uncomfortable together. And why don't
+you get rid of that devilish pet of yours, and be good!"
+
+She looked at him, puzzled, Marakinoff leaned over, translated to
+Lugur. The red dwarf smiled maliciously, drew near the priestess;
+whispered to her what was without doubt as near as he could come in
+the Murian to Larry's own very colloquial phrases.
+
+Yolara's lips writhed.
+
+"Hear me, Lakla!" she cried.  "Now would I not let you take this man
+from me were I to dwell ten thousand _laya_ in the agony of the
+_Yekta's_ kiss. This I swear to you--by Thanaroa, by my heart, and by
+my strength--and may my strength wither, my heart rot in my breast,
+and Thanaroa forget me if I do!"
+
+"Listen, Yolara"--began O'Keefe again.
+
+"Be silent, you!" It was almost a shriek.  And her hand again sought
+in her breast for the cone of rhythmic death.
+
+Lugur touched her arm, whispered again, The glint of guile shone in
+her eyes; she laughed softly, relaxed.
+
+"The Silent Ones, Lakla, bade you say that they--allowed--me three
+_tal_ to decide," she said suavely. "Go now in peace, Lakla, and say
+that Yolara has heard, and that for the three _tal_ they--allow--her
+she will take council." The handmaiden hesitated.
+
+"The Silent Ones have said it," she answered at last.  "Stay you here,
+strangers"---the long lashes drooped as her eyes met O'Keefe's and a
+hint of blush was in her cheeks--"stay you here, strangers, till then.
+But, Yolara, see you on that heart and strength you have sworn by that
+they come to no harm--else that which you have invoked shall come upon
+you swiftly indeed--and that I promise you," she added.
+
+Their eyes met, clashed, burned into each other--black flame from
+Abaddon and golden flame from Paradise.
+
+"Remember!" said Lakla, and passed through the portal. The gigantic
+frog-man boomed a thunderous note of command, his grotesque guards
+turned and slowly followed their mistress; and last of all passed out
+the monster with the mace.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+Larry's Defiance
+
+
+A clamour arose from all the chambers; stilled in an instant by a
+motion of Yolara's hand. She stood silent, regarding O'Keefe with
+something other now than blind wrath; something half regretful, half
+beseeching. But the Irishman's control was gone.
+
+"Yolara,"--his voice shook with rage, and he threw caution to the
+wind--"now hear _me_. I go where I will and when I will. Here shall we
+stay until the time she named is come. And then we follow her, whether
+you will or not. And if any should have thought to stop us--tell them
+of that flame that shattered the vase," he added grimly.
+
+The wistfulness died out of her eyes, leaving them cold. But no answer
+made she to him.
+
+"What Lakla has said, the Council must consider, and at once." The
+priestess was facing the nobles. "Now, friends of mine, and friends of
+Lugur, must all feud, all rancour, between us end." She glanced
+swiftly at Lugur. "The _ladala_ are stirring, and the Silent Ones
+threaten. Yet fear not--for are we not strong under the Shining One?
+And now--leave us."
+
+Her hand dropped to the table, and she gave, evidently, a signal, for
+in marched a dozen or more of the green dwarfs.
+
+"Take these two to their place," she commanded, pointing to us.
+
+The green dwarfs clustered about us.  Without another look at the
+priestess O'Keefe marched beside me, between them, from the chamber.
+And it was not until we had reached the pillared entrance that Larry
+spoke.
+
+"I hate to talk like that to a woman, Doc," he said, "and a pretty
+woman, at that. But first she played me with a marked deck, and then
+not only pinched all the chips, but drew a gun on me. What the
+hell! she nearly had me--_married_--to her. I don't know what the stuff
+was she gave me; but, take it from me, if I had the recipe for that
+brew I could sell it for a thousand dollars a jolt at Forty-second and
+Broadway.
+
+"One jigger of it, and you forget there is a trouble in the world;
+three of them, and you forget there is a world. No excuse for it, Doc;
+and I don't care what you say or what Lakla may say--it wasn't my
+fault, and I don't hold it up against myself for a damn."
+
+"I must admit that I'm a bit uneasy about her threats," I said,
+ignoring all this. He stopped abruptly.
+
+"What're you afraid of?"
+
+"Mostly," I answered dryly, "I have no desire to dance with the
+Shining One!"
+
+"Listen to me, Goodwin," He took up his walk impatiently.  "I've all
+the love and admiration for you in the world; but this place has got
+your nerve. Hereafter one Larry O'Keefe, of Ireland and the little old
+U. S. A., leads this party. Nix on the tremolo stop, nix on the
+superstition! I'm the works. Get me?"
+
+"Yes, I get you!" I exclaimed testily enough.  "But to use your own
+phrase, kindly can the repeated references to superstition."
+
+"Why should I?" He was almost wrathful.  "You scientific people build
+up whole philosophies on the basis of things you never saw, and you
+scoff at people who believe in other things that you think _they_ never
+saw and that don't come under what you label scientific. You talk
+about paradoxes--why, your scientist, who thinks he is the most
+skeptical, the most materialistic aggregation of atoms ever gathered
+at the exact mathematical centre of Missouri, has more blind faith
+than a dervish, and more credulity, more superstition, than a
+cross-eyed smoke beating it past a country graveyard in the dark of
+the moon!"
+
+"Larry!" I cried, dazed.
+
+"Olaf's no better," he said.  "But I can make allowances for him.
+He's a sailor. No, sir. What this expedition needs is a man without
+superstition. And remember this. The leprechaun promised that I'd have
+full warning before anything happened. And if we do have to go out,
+we'll see that banshee bunch clean up before we do, and pass in a
+blaze of glory. And don't forget it. Hereafter--I'm--in--charge!"
+
+By this time we were before our pavilion; and neither of us in a very
+amiable mood I'm afraid. Rador was awaiting us with a score of his
+men.
+
+"Let none pass in here without authority--and let none pass out unless
+I accompany them," he ordered bruskly. "Summon one of the swiftest of
+the _coria_ and have it wait in readiness," he added, as though by
+afterthought.
+
+But when we had entered and the screens were drawn together his manner
+changed; all eagerness he questioned us. Briefly we told him of the
+happenings at the feast, of Lakla's dramatic interruption, and of what
+had followed.
+
+"Three _tal_," he said musingly; "three _tal_ the Silent Ones have
+allowed--and Yolara agreed." He sank back, silent and thoughtful. *1
+
+
+*1 A _tal_ in Muria is the equivalent of thirty hours of earth surface
+time.--W. T. G.
+
+
+
+"_Ja!_"  It was Olaf. "_Ja!_  I told you the Shining Devil's mistress
+was all evil. _Ja!_ Now I begin again that tale I started when he
+came"--he glanced toward the preoccupied Rador. "And tell him not what
+I say should he ask. For I trust none here in Trolldom, save the
+_Jomfrau_--the White Virgin!
+
+"After the oldster was _adsprede_"--Olaf once more used that
+expressive Norwegian word for the dissolving of Songar--"I knew that
+it was a time for cunning. I said to myself, 'If they think I have no
+ears to hear, they will speak; and it may be I will find a way to save
+my Helma and Dr. Goodwin's friends, too.' _Ja_, and they did speak.
+
+"The red _Trolde_ asked the Russian how came it he was a worshipper of
+Thanaroa." I could not resist a swift glance of triumph toward
+O'Keefe. "And the Russian," rumbled Olaf, "said that all his people
+worshipped Thanaroa and had fought against the other nations that
+denied him.
+
+"And then we had come to Lugur's palace.  They put me in rooms, and
+there came to me men who rubbed and oiled me and loosened my muscles.
+The next day I wrestled with a great dwarf they called Valdor. He was
+a mighty man, and long we struggled, and at last I broke his back. And
+Lugur was pleased, so that I sat with him at feast and with the
+Russian, too. And again, not knowing that I understood them, they
+talked.
+
+"The Russian had gone fast and far.  They talked of Lugur as emperor
+of all Europe, and Marakinoff under him. They spoke of the green light
+that shook life from the oldster; and Lugur said that the secret of it
+had been the Ancient Ones' and that the Council had not too much of
+it. But the Russian said that among his race were many wise men who
+could make more once they had studied it.
+
+"And the next day I wrestled with a great dwarf named Tahola, mightier
+far than Valdor. Him I threw after a long, long time, and his back
+also I broke. Again Lugur was pleased. And again we sat at table, he
+and the Russian and I. This time they spoke of something these
+_Trolde_ have which opens up a _Svaelc_--abysses into which all in its
+range drops up into the sky!"
+
+"What!" I exclaimed.
+
+"I know about them," said Larry.  "Wait!"
+
+"Lugur had drunk much," went on Olaf.  "He was boastful.  The Russian
+pressed him to show this thing. After a while the red one went out and
+came back with a little golden box. He and the Russian went into the
+garden. I followed them. There was a _lille Hoj_--a mound--of stones
+in that garden on which grew flowers and trees.
+
+"Lugur pressed upon the box, and a spark no bigger than a sand grain
+leaped out and fell beside the stones. Lugur pressed again, and a blue
+light shot from the box and lighted on the spark. The spark that had
+been no bigger than a grain of sand grew and grew as the blue struck
+it. And then there was a sighing, a wind blew--and the stones and the
+flowers and the trees were not. They were _forsvinde_--vanished!
+
+"Then Lugur, who had been laughing, grew quickly sober; for he thrust
+the Russian back--far back. And soon down into the garden came
+tumbling the stones and the trees, but broken and shattered, and
+falling as though from a great height. And Lugur said that of _this_
+something they had much, for its making was a secret handed down by
+their own forefathers and not by the Ancient Ones.
+
+"They feared to use it, he said, for a spark thrice as large as that
+he had used would have sent all that garden falling upward and might
+have opened a way to the outside before--he said just this--'_before
+we are ready to go out into it!_'
+
+"The Russian questioned much, but Lugur sent for more drink and grew
+merrier and threatened him, and the Russian was silent through fear.
+Thereafter I listened when I could, and little more I learned, but
+that little enough. _Ja!_ Lugur is hot for conquest; so Yolara and so
+the Council. They tire of it here and the Silent Ones make their minds
+not too easy, no, even though they jeer at them! And this they plan--
+to rule our world with their Shining Devil."
+
+The Norseman was silent for a moment; then voice deep, trembling--
+
+"Trolldom is awake; Helvede crouches at Earth Gate whining to be
+loosed into a world already devil ridden! And we are but three!"
+
+I felt the blood drive out of my heart.  But Larry's was the fighting
+face of the O'Keefes of a thousand years. Rador glanced at him, arose,
+stepped through the curtains; returned swiftly with the Irishman's
+uniform.
+
+"Put it on," he said, bruskly; again fell back into his silence and
+whatever O'Keefe had been about to say was submerged in his wild and
+joyful whoop. He ripped from him glittering tunic and leg swathings.
+
+"Richard is himself again!" he shouted; and each garment as he donned
+it, fanned his old devil-may-care confidence to a higher flame. The
+last scrap of it on, he drew himself up before us.
+
+"Bow down, ye divils!" he cried.  "Bang your heads on the floor and do
+homage to Larry the First, Emperor of Great Britain, Autocrat of all
+Ireland, Scotland, England, and Wales, and adjacent waters and
+islands! Kneel, ye scuts, kneel."
+
+"Larry," I cried, "are you going crazy?"
+
+"Not a bit of it," he said.  "I'm that and more if Comrade Marakinoff
+is on the level. Whoop! Bring forth the royal jewels an' put a whole
+new bunch of golden strings in Tara's harp an' down with the Sassenach
+forever! Whoop!"
+
+He did a wild jig.
+
+"Lord how good the old togs feel," he grinned.  "The touch of 'em has
+gone to my head. But it's straight stuff I'm telling you about my
+empire."
+
+He sobered.
+
+"Not that it's not serious enough at that.  A lot that Olaf's told us
+I've surmised from hints dropped by Yolara. But I got the full key to
+it from the Red himself when he stopped me just before--before"--he
+reddened--"well, just before I acquired that brand-new brand of souse.
+
+"Maybe he had a hint--maybe he just surmised that I knew a lot more
+than I did. And he thought Yolara and I were going to be loving little
+turtle doves. Also he figured that Yolara had a lot more influence
+with the Unholy Fireworks than Lugur. Also that being a woman she
+could be more easily handled. All this being so, what was the logical
+thing for himself to do? Sure, you get me, Steve! Throw down Lugur and
+make an alliance with me! So _he_ calmly offered to ditch the red dwarf
+if I would deliver Yolara. My reward from Russia was to be said
+emperorship! Can you beat it? Good Lord!"
+
+He went off into a perfect storm of laughter.  But not to me in the
+light of what Russia has done and has proved herself capable, did this
+thing seem at all absurd; rather in it I sensed the dawn of
+catastrophe colossal.
+
+"And yet," he was quiet enough now, "I'm a bit scared. They've got the
+_Keth_ ray and those gravity-destroying bombs--"
+
+"Gravity-destroying bombs!" I gasped.
+
+"Sure," he said.  "The little fairy that sent the trees and stones
+kiting up from Lugur's garden. Marakinoff licked his lips over them.
+They cut off gravity, just about as the shadow screens cut off
+light--and consequently whatever's in their range goes shooting just
+naturally up to the moon--
+
+"They get my goat, why deny it?" went on Larry.  "With them and the
+_Keth_ and gentle invisible soldiers walking around assassinating at
+will--well, the worst Bolsheviki are only puling babes, eh, Doc?
+
+"I don't mind the Shining One," said O'Keefe, "one splash of a
+downtown New York high-pressure fire hose would do for it! But the
+others--are the goods! Believe me!"
+
+But for once O'Keefe's confidence found no echo within me. Not
+lightly, as he, did I hold that dread mystery, the Dweller--and a
+vision passed before me, a vision of an Apocalypse undreamed by the
+Evangelist.
+
+A vision of the Shining One swirling into our world, a monstrous,
+glorious flaming pillar of incarnate, eternal Evil--of peoples
+passing through its radiant embrace into that hideous, unearthly
+life-in-death which I had seen enfold the sacrifices--of armies
+trembling into dancing atoms of diamond dust beneath the green ray's
+rhythmic death--of cities rushing out into space upon the wings of
+that other demoniac force which Olaf had watched at work--of a haunted
+world through which the assassins of the Dweller's court stole
+invisible, carrying with them every passion of hell--of the rallying
+to the Thing of every sinister soul and of the weak and the
+unbalanced, mystics and carnivores of humanity alike; for well I knew
+that, once loosed, not any nation could hold this devil-god for long
+and that swiftly its blight would spread!
+
+And then a world that was all colossal reek of cruelty and terror; a
+welter of lusts, of hatreds and of torment; a chaos of horror in which
+the Dweller waxing ever stronger, the ghastly hordes of those it had
+consumed growing ever greater, wreaked its inhuman will!
+
+At the last a ruined planet, a cosmic plague, spinning through the
+shuddering heavens; its verdant plains, its murmuring forests, its
+meadows and its mountains manned only by a countless crew of soulless,
+mindless dead-alive, their shells illumined with the Dweller's
+infernal glory--and flaming over this vampirized earth like a flare
+from some hell far, infinitely far, beyond the reach of man's farthest
+flung imagining--the Dweller!
+
+Rador jumped to his feet; walked to the whispering globe. He bent over
+its base; did something with its mechanism; beckoned to us. The globe
+swam rapidly, faster than ever I had seen it before. A low humming
+arose, changed into a murmur, and then from it I heard Lugur's voice
+clearly.
+
+"It is to be war then?"
+
+There was a chorus of assent--from the Council, I thought.
+
+"I will take the tall one named--_Larree_." It was the priestess's
+voice. "After the three _tal_, you may have him, Lugur, to do with as
+you will."
+
+"No!" it was Lugur's voice again, but with a rasp of anger. "All must
+die."
+
+"He shall die," again Yolara.  "But I would that first he see Lakla
+pass--and that she know what is to happen to him."
+
+"No!" I started--for this was Marakinoff.  "Now is no time, Yolara,
+for one's own desires. This is my counsel. At the end of the three
+_tal_ Lakla will come for our answer. Your men will be in ambush and
+they will slay her and her escort quickly with the _Keth_. But not
+till that is done must the three be slain--and then quickly. With
+Lakla dead we shall go forth to the Silent Ones--and I promise you
+that I will find the way to destroy them!"
+
+"It is well!" It was Lugur.
+
+"It _is_ well, Yolara." It was a woman's voice, and I knew it for that
+old one of ravaged beauty. "Cast from your mind whatever is in it for
+this stranger--either of love or hatred. In this the Council is with
+Lugur and the man of wisdom."
+
+There was a silence.  Then came the priestess's voice, sullen
+but--beaten.
+
+"It is well!"
+
+"Let the three be taken now by Rador to the temple and given to the
+High Priest Sator"--thus Lugur--"until what we have planned comes to
+pass."
+
+Rador gripped the base of the globe; abruptly it ceased its spinning.
+He turned to us as though to speak and even as he did so its bell note
+sounded peremptorily and on it the colour films began to creep at
+their accustomed pace.
+
+"I hear," the green dwarf whispered.  "They shall be taken there at
+once." The globe grew silent. He stepped toward us.
+
+"You have heard," he turned to us.
+
+"Not on your life, Rador," said Larry.  "Nothing doing!" And then in
+the Murian's own tongue. "We follow Lakla, Rador. And _you_ lead the
+way." He thrust the pistol close to the green dwarf's side.
+
+Rador did not move.
+
+"Of what use, _Larree_?" he said, quietly.  "Me you can slay--but in
+the end you will be taken. Life is not held so dear in Muria that my
+men out there or those others who can come quickly will let you
+by--even though you slay many. And in the end they will overpower
+you."
+
+There was a trace of irresolution in O'Keefe's face.
+
+"And," added Rador, "if I let you go I dance with the Shining One--or
+worse!"
+
+O'Keefe's pistol hand dropped.
+
+"You're a good sport, Rador, and far be it from me to get you in bad,"
+he said. "Take us to the temple--when we get there--well, your
+responsibility ends, doesn't it?"
+
+The green dwarf nodded; on his face a curious expression--was it
+relief? Or was it emotion higher than this?
+
+He turned curtly.
+
+"Follow," he said.  We passed out of that gay little pavilion that had
+come to be home to us even in this alien place. The guards stood at
+attention.
+
+"You, Sattoya, stand by the globe," he ordered one of them.  "Should
+the _Afyo Maie_ ask, say that I am on my way with the strangers even
+as she has commanded."
+
+We passed through the lines to the _corial_ standing like a great
+shell at the end of the runway leading into the green road.
+
+"Wait you here," he said curtly to the driver.  The green dwarf
+ascended to his seat, sought the lever and we swept on--on and out
+upon the glistening obsidian.
+
+Then Rador faced us and laughed.
+
+"_Larree_," he cried, "I love you for that spirit of yours! And did
+you think that Rador would carry to the temple prison a man who would
+take the chances of torment upon his own shoulders to save him? Or
+you, Goodwin, who saved him from the rotting death? For what did I
+take the _corial_ or lift the veil of silence that I might hear what
+threatened you--"
+
+He swept the _corial_ to the left, away from the temple approach.
+
+"I am done with Lugur and with Yolara and the Shining One!" cried
+Rador. "My hand is for you three and for Lakla and those to whom she
+is handmaiden!"
+
+The shell leaped forward; seemed to fly.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+The Casting of the Shadow
+
+
+Now we were racing down toward that last span whose ancientness had
+set it apart from all the other soaring arches. The shell's speed
+slackened; we approached warily.
+
+"We pass there?" asked O'Keefe.
+
+The green dwarf nodded, pointing to the right where the bridge ended
+in a broad platform held high upon two gigantic piers, between which
+ran a spur from the glistening road. Platform and bridge were swarming
+with men-at-arms; they crowded the parapets, looking down upon us
+curiously but with no evidence of hostility. Rador drew a deep breath
+of relief.
+
+"We don't have to break our way through, then?" There was
+disappointment in the Irishman's voice.
+
+"No use, _Larree_!" Smiling, Rador stopped the _corial_ just beneath
+the arch and beside one of the piers. "Now, listen well. They have had
+no warning, hence does Yolara still think us on the way to the temple.
+This is the gateway of the Portal--and the gateway is closed by the
+Shadow. Once I commanded here and I know its laws. This must I do--by
+craft persuade Serku, the keeper of the gateway, to lift the Shadow;
+or raise it myself. And that will be hard and it may well be that in
+the struggle life will be stripped of us all. Yet is it better to die
+fighting than to dance with the Shining One!"
+
+He swept the shell around the pier.  Opened a wide plaza paved with
+the volcanic glass, but black as that down which we had sped from the
+chamber of the Moon Pool. It shone like a mirrored lakelet of jet; on
+each side of it arose what at first glance seemed towering bulwarks of
+the same ebon obsidian; at second, revealed themselves as structures
+hewn and set in place by men; polished faces pierced by dozens of
+high, narrow windows.
+
+Down each facade a stairway fell, broken by small landings on which a
+door opened; they dropped to a broad ledge of greyish stone edging the
+lip of this midnight pool and upon it also fell two wide flights from
+either side of the bridge platform. Along all four stairways the
+guards were ranged; and here and there against the ledge stood the
+shells--in a curiously comforting resemblance to parked motors in our
+own world.
+
+The sombre walls bulked high; curved and ended in two obelisked
+pillars from which, like a tremendous curtain, stretched a barrier of
+that tenebrous gloom which, though weightless as shadow itself, I now
+knew to be as impenetrable as the veil between life and death. In this
+murk, unlike all others I had seen, I sensed movement, a quivering, a
+tremor constant and rhythmic; not to be seen, yet caught by some
+subtle sense; as though through it beat a swift pulse of--black
+light.
+
+The green dwarf turned the _corial_ slowly to the edge at the right;
+crept cautiously on toward where, not more than a hundred feet from
+the barrier, a low, wide entrance opened in the fort. Guarding its
+threshold stood two guards, armed with broadswords, double-handed,
+terminating in a wide lunette mouthed with murderous fangs. These they
+raised in salute and through the portal strode a dwarf huge as Rador,
+dressed as he and carrying only the poniard that was the badge of
+office of Muria's captainry.
+
+The green dwarf swept the shell expertly against the ledge; leaped
+out.
+
+"Greeting, Serku!" he answered.  "I was but looking for the _coria_ of
+Lakla."
+
+"Lakla!" exclaimed Serku.  "Why, the handmaiden passed with her _Akka_
+nigh a _va_ ago!"
+
+"Passed!" The astonishment of the green dwarf was so real that half
+was I myself deceived. "You let her _pass_?"
+
+"Certainly I let her pass--" But under the green dwarf's stern gaze
+the truculence of the guardian faded. "Why should I not?" he asked,
+apprehensively.
+
+"Because Yolara commanded otherwise," answered Rador, coldly.
+
+"There came no command to me."  Little beads of sweat stood out on
+Serku's forehead.
+
+"Serku," interrupted the green dwarf swiftly, "truly is my heart wrung
+for you. This is a matter of Yolara and of Lugur and the Council; yes,
+even of the Shining One! And the message was sent--and the fate,
+mayhap, of all Muria rested upon your obedience and the return of
+Lakla with these strangers to the Council. Now truly is my heart
+wrung, for there are few I would less like to see dance with the
+Shining One than you, Serku," he ended, softly.
+
+Livid now was the gateway's guardian, his great frame shaking.
+
+"Come with me and speak to Yolara," he pleaded.  "There came no
+message--tell her--"
+
+"Wait, Serku!" There was a thrill as of inspiration in Rador's voice.
+"This _corial_ is of the swiftest--Lakla's are of the slowest. With
+Lakla scarce a _va_ ahead we can reach her before she enters the
+Portal. Lift you the Shadow--we will bring her back, and this will I
+do for you, Serku."
+
+Doubt tempered Serku's panic.
+
+"Why not go alone, Rador, leaving the strangers here with me?" he
+asked--and I thought not unreasonably.
+
+"Nay, then." The green dwarf was brusk.  "Lakla will not return unless
+I carry to her these men as evidence of our good faith. Come--we will
+speak to Yolara and she shall judge you--" He started away--but Serku
+caught his arm.
+
+"No, Rador, no!" he whispered, again panic-stricken.  "Go you--as you
+will. But bring her back! Speed, Rador!" He sprang toward the
+entrance. "I lift the Shadow--"
+
+Into the green dwarf's poise crept a curious, almost a listening,
+alertness. He leaped to Serku's side.
+
+"I go with you," I heard.  "Some little I can tell you--" They were
+gone.
+
+"Fine work!" muttered Larry.  "Nominated for a citizen of Ireland when
+we get out of this, one Rador of--"
+
+The Shadow trembled--shuddered into nothingness; the obelisked
+outposts that had held it framed a ribbon of roadway, high banked with
+verdure, vanishing in green distances.
+
+And then from the portal sped a shriek, a death cry!  It cut through
+the silence of the ebon pit like a whimpering arrow. Before it had
+died, down the stairways came pouring the guards. Those at the
+threshold raised their swords and peered within. Abruptly Rador was
+between them. One dropped his hilt and gripped him--the green dwarf's
+poniard flashed and was buried in his throat. Down upon Rador's head
+swept the second blade. A flame leaped from O'Keefe's hand and the
+sword seemed to fling itself from its wielder's grasp--another flash
+and the soldier crumpled. Rador threw himself into the shell, darted
+to the high seat--and straight between the pillars of the Shadow we
+flew!
+
+There came a crackling, a darkness of vast wings flinging down upon
+us. The _corial's_ flight was checked as by a giant's hand. The shell
+swerved sickeningly; there was an oddly metallic splintering; it
+quivered; shot ahead. Dizzily I picked myself up and looked behind.
+
+The Shadow had fallen--but too late, a bare instant too late.  And
+shrinking as we fled from it, still it seemed to strain like some
+fettered Afrit from Eblis, throbbing with wrath, seeking with every
+malign power it possessed to break its bonds and pursue. Not until
+long after were we to know that it had been the dying hand of Serku,
+groping out of oblivion, that had cast it after us as a fowler upon an
+escaping bird.
+
+"Snappy work, Rador!" It was Larry speaking.  "But they cut the end
+off your bus all right!"
+
+A full quarter of the hindward whorl was gone, sliced off cleanly.
+Rador noted it with anxious eyes.
+
+"That is bad," he said, "but not too bad perhaps.  All depends upon
+how closely Lugur and his men can follow us."
+
+He raised a hand to O'Keefe in salute.
+
+"But to you, _Larree_, I owe my life--not even the _Keth_ could have
+been as swift to save me as that death flame of yours--friend!"
+
+The Irishman waved an airy hand.
+
+"Serku"--the green dwarf drew from his girdle the bloodstained
+poniard--"Serku I was forced to slay. Even as he raised the Shadow the
+globe gave the alarm. Lugur follows with twice ten times ten of his
+best--" He hesitated. "Though we have escaped the Shadow it has taken
+toll of our swiftness. May we reach the Portal before it closes upon
+Lakla--but if we do not--" He paused again. "Well--I know a way--but
+it is not one I am gay to follow--no!"
+
+He snapped open the aperture that held the ball flaming within the
+dark crystal; peered at it anxiously. I crept to the torn end of the
+_corial_. The edges were crumbling, disintegrated. They powdered in my
+fingers like dust. Mystified still, I crept back where Larry, sheer
+happiness pouring from him, was whistling softly and polishing up his
+automatic. His gaze fell upon Olaf's grim, sad face and softened.
+
+"Buck up, Olaf!" he said.  "We've got a good fighting chance.  Once we
+link up with Lakla and her crowd I'm betting that we get your
+wife--never doubt it! The baby--" he hesitated awkwardly. The
+Norseman's eyes filled; he stretched a hand to the O'Keefe.
+
+"The _Yndling_--she is of the _de Dode_," he half whispered, "of the
+blessed dead. For her I have no fear and for her vengeance will be
+given me. _Ja!_ But my Helma--she is of the dead-alive--like those we
+saw whirling like leaves in the light of the Shining Devil--and I
+would that she too were of _de Dode_--and at rest. I do not know how
+to fight the Shining Devil--no!"
+
+His bitter despair welled up in his voice.
+
+"Olaf," Larry's voice was gentle.  "We'll come out on top--I know it.
+Remember one thing. All this stuff that seems so strange and--and,
+well, sort of supernatural, is just a lot of tricks we're not hep to
+as yet. Why, Olaf, suppose you took a Fijian when the war was on and
+set him suddenly down in London with autos rushing past, sirens
+blowing, Archies popping, a dozen enemy planes dropping bombs, and the
+searchlights shooting all over the sky--wouldn't he think he was among
+thirty-third degree devils in some exclusive circle of hell? Sure he
+would! And yet everything he saw would be natural--just as natural as
+all this is, once we get the answer to it. Not that we're Fijians, of
+course, but the principle is the same."
+
+The Norseman considered this; nodded gravely.
+
+"_Ja!_" he answered at last.  "And at least we can fight.  That is why
+I have turned to Thor of the battles, _Ja!_ And _one_ have I hope in for
+mine Helma--the white maiden. Since I have turned to the old gods it
+has been made clear to me that I shall slay Lugur and that the _Heks_,
+the evil witch Yolara, shall also die. But I would talk with the white
+maiden."
+
+"All right," said Larry, "but just don't be afraid of what you don't
+understand. There's another thing"--he hesitated, nervously--"there's
+another thing that may startle you a bit when we meet up with
+Lakla--her--er--frogs!"
+
+"Like the frog-woman we saw on the wall?" asked Olaf.
+
+"Yes," went on Larry, rapidly.  "It's this way--I figure that the
+frogs grow rather large where she lives, and they're a bit different
+too. Well, Lakla's got a lot of 'em trained. Carry spears and clubs
+and all that junk--just like trained seals or monkeys or so on in the
+circus. Probably a custom of the place. Nothing queer about that,
+Olaf. Why people have all kinds of pets--armadillos and snakes and
+rabbits, kangaroos and elephants and tigers."
+
+Remembering how the frog-woman had stuck in Larry's mind from the
+outset, I wondered whether all this was not more to convince himself
+than Olaf.
+
+"Why, I remember a nice girl in Paris who had four pet pythons--" he
+went on.
+
+But I listened no more, for now I was sure of my surmise. The road had
+begun to thrust itself through high-flung, sharply pinnacled masses
+and rounded outcroppings of rock on which clung patches of the amber
+moss.
+
+The trees had utterly vanished, and studding the moss-carpeted plains
+were only clumps of a willowy shrub from which hung, like grapes,
+clusters of white waxen blooms. The light too had changed; gone were
+the dancing, sparkling atoms and the silver had faded to a soft,
+almost ashen greyness. Ahead of us marched a rampart of coppery cliffs
+rising, like all these mountainous walls we had seen, into the
+immensities of haze. Something long drifting in my subconsciousness
+turned to startled realization. The speed of the shell was slackening!
+The aperture containing the ionizing mechanism was still open; I
+glanced within, The whirling ball of fire was not dimmed, but its
+coruscations, instead of pouring down through the cylinder, swirled
+and eddied and shot back as though trying to re-enter their source.
+Rador nodded grimly.
+
+"The Shadow takes its toll," he said.
+
+We topped a rise--Larry gripped my arm.
+
+"Look!" he cried, and pointed.  Far, far behind us, so far that the
+road was but a glistening thread, a score of shining points came
+speeding.
+
+"Lugur and his men," said Rador.
+
+"Can't you step on her?" asked Larry.
+
+"Step on her?" repeated the green dwarf, puzzled.
+
+"Give her more speed; push her," explained O'Keefe.
+
+Rador looked about him.  The coppery ramparts were close, not more
+than three or four miles distant; in front of us the plain lifted in a
+long rolling swell, and up this the _corial_ essayed to go--with a
+terrifying lessening of speed. Faintly behind us came shootings, and
+we knew that Lugur drew close. Nor anywhere was there sign of Lakla
+nor her frogmen.
+
+Now we were half-way to the crest; the shell barely crawled and from
+beneath it came a faint hissing; it quivered, and I knew that its base
+was no longer held above the glassy surface but rested on it.
+
+"One last chance!" exclaimed Rador.  He pressed upon the control lever
+and wrenched it from its socket. Instantly the sparkling ball
+expanded, whirling with prodigious rapidity and sending a cascade of
+coruscations into the cylinder. The shell rose; leaped through the
+air; the dark crystal split into fragments; the fiery ball dulled;
+died--but upon the impetus of that last thrust we reached the crest.
+Poised there for a moment, I caught a glimpse of the road dropping
+down the side of an enormous moss-covered, bowl-shaped valley whose
+sharply curved sides ended abruptly at the base of the towering
+barrier.
+
+Then down the steep, powerless to guide or to check the shell, we
+plunged in a meteor rush straight for the annihilating adamantine
+breasts of the cliffs!
+
+Now the quick thinking of Larry's air training came to our aid.  As
+the rampart reared close he threw himself upon Rador; hurled him and
+himself against the side of the flying whorl. Under the shock the
+finely balanced machine swerved from its course. It struck the soft,
+low bank of the road, shot high in air, bounded on through the thick
+carpeting, whirled like a dervish and fell upon its side. Shot from
+it, we rolled for yards, but the moss saved broken bones or serious
+bruise.
+
+"Quick!" cried the green dwarf.  He seized an arm, dragged me to my
+feet, began running to the cliff base not a hundred feet away. Beside
+us raced O'Keefe and Olaf. At our left was the black road. It stopped
+abruptly--was cut off by a slab of polished crimson stone a hundred
+feet high, and as wide, set within the coppery face of the barrier. On
+each side of it stood pillars, cut from the living rock and immense,
+almost, as those which held the rainbow veil of the Dweller. Across
+its face weaved unnameable carvings--but I had no time for more than a
+glance. The green dwarf gripped my arm again.
+
+"Quick!" he cried again.  "The handmaiden has passed!"
+
+At the right of the Portal ran a low wall of shattered rock. Over this
+we raced like rabbits. Hidden behind it was a narrow path. Crouching,
+Rador in the lead, we sped along it; three hundred, four hundred yards
+we raced--and the path ended in a _cul de sac_! To our ears was borne
+a louder shouting.
+
+The first of the pursuing shells had swept over the lip of the great
+bowl, poised for a moment as we had and then began a cautious descent.
+Within it, scanning the slopes, I saw Lugur.
+
+"A little closer and I'll get him!" whispered Larry viciously.  He
+raised his pistol.
+
+His hand was caught in a mighty grip; Rador, eyes blazing, stood
+beside him.
+
+"No!" rasped the green dwarf.  He heaved a shoulder against one of the
+boulders that formed the pocket. It rocked aside, revealing a slit.
+
+"In!" ordered he, straining against the weight of the stone. O'Keefe
+slipped through. Olaf at his back, I following. With a lightning leap
+the dwarf was beside me, the huge rock missing him by a hair breadth
+as it swung into place!
+
+We were in Cimmerian darkness.  I felt for my pocket-flash and
+recalled with distress that I had left it behind with my medicine kit
+when we fled from the gardens. But Rador seemed to need no light.
+
+"Grip hands!" he ordered.  We crept, single file, holding to each
+other like children, through the black. At last the green dwarf
+paused.
+
+"Await me here," he whispered.  "Do not move.  And for your lives--be
+silent!"
+
+And he was gone.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+Dragon Worm and Moss Death
+
+
+For a small eternity--to me at least--we waited.  Then as silent as
+ever the green dwarf returned. "It is well," he said, some of the
+strain gone from his voice. "Grip hands again, and follow."
+
+"Wait a bit, Rador," this was Larry.  "Does Lugur know this side
+entrance? If he does, why not let Olaf and me go back to the opening
+and pick them off as they come in? We could hold the lot--and in the
+meantime you and Goodwin could go after Lakla for help."
+
+"Lugur knows the secret of the Portal--if he dare use it," answered
+the captain, with a curious indirection. "And now that they have
+challenged the Silent Ones I think he _will_ dare. Also, he will find
+our tracks--and it may be that he knows this hidden way."
+
+"Well, for God's sake!" O'Keefe's appalled bewilderment was almost
+ludicrous. "If _he_ knows all that, and _you_ knew all that, why
+didn't you let me click him when I had the chance?"
+
+"_Larree_," the green dwarf was oddly humble.  "It seemed good to me,
+too--at first. And then I heard a command, heard it clearly, to stop
+you--that Lugur die not now, lest a greater vengeance fail!"
+
+"Command?  From whom?" The Irishman's voice distilled out of the
+blackness the very essence of bewilderment.
+
+"I thought," Rador was whispering--"I thought it came from the Silent
+Ones!"
+
+"Superstition!" groaned O'Keefe in utter exasperation. "Always
+superstition! What can you do against it!
+
+"Never mind, Rador." His sense of humour came to his aid.  "It's too
+late now, anyway. Where do we go from here, old dear?" he laughed.
+
+"We tread the path of one I am not fain to meet," answered Rador.
+"But if meet we must, point the death tubes at the pale shield he
+bears upon his throat and send the flame into the flower of cold fire
+that is its centre--nor look into his eyes!"
+
+Again Larry gasped, and I with him.
+
+"It's getting too deep for me, Doc," he muttered dejectedly.  "Can you
+make head or tail of it?"
+
+"No," I answered, shortly enough, "but Rador fears something and
+that's his description of it."
+
+"Sure," he replied, "only it's a code I don't understand." I could
+feel his grin. "All right for the flower of cold fire, Rador, and I
+won't look into his eyes," he went on cheerfully. "But hadn't we
+better be moving?"
+
+"Come!" said the soldier; again hand in hand we went blindly on.
+
+O'Keefe was muttering to himself.
+
+"Flower of cold fire!  Don't look into his eyes!  Some joint!
+Damned superstition." Then he chuckled and carolled, softly:
+
+    "Oh, mama, pin a cold rose on me;
+    Two young frog-men are in love with me;
+    Shut my eyes so I can't see."
+
+"Sh!" Rador was warning; he began whispering.  "For half a _va_ we go
+along a way of death. From its peril we pass into another against
+whose dangers I can guard you. But in part this is in view of the
+roadway and it may be that Lugur will see us. If so, we must fight as
+best we can. If we pass these two roads safely, then is the way to the
+Crimson Sea clear, nor need we fear Lugur nor any. And there is
+another thing--that Lugur does not know--when he opens the Portal the
+Silent Ones will hear and Lakla and the _Akka_ will be swift to greet
+its opener."
+
+"Rador," I asked, "how know _you_ all this?"
+
+"The handmaiden is my own sister's child," he answered quietly.
+
+O'Keefe drew a long breath.
+
+"Uncle," he remarked casually in English, "meet the man who's going to
+be your nephew!"
+
+And thereafter he never addressed the green dwarf except by the
+avuncular title, which Rador, humorously enough, apparently conceived
+to be one of respectful endearment.
+
+For me a light broke.  Plain now was the reason for his foreknowledge
+of Lakla's appearance at the feast where Larry had so narrowly escaped
+Yolara's spells; plain the determining factor that had cast his lot
+with ours, and my confidence, despite his discourse of mysterious
+perils, experienced a remarkable quickening.
+
+Speculation as to the marked differences in pigmentation and
+appearance of niece and uncle was dissipated by my consciousness that
+we were now moving in a dim half-light. We were in a fairly wide
+tunnel. Not far ahead the gleam filtered, pale yellow like sunlight
+sifting through the leaves of autumn poplars. And as we drove closer
+to its source I saw that it did indeed pass through a leafy screen
+hanging over the passage end. This Rador drew aside cautiously,
+beckoned us and we stepped through.
+
+It appeared to be a tunnel cut through soft green mould. Its base was
+a flat strip of pathway a yard wide from which the walls curved out in
+perfect cylindrical form, smoothed and evened with utmost nicety.
+Thirty feet wide they were at their widest, then drew toward each
+other with no break in their symmetry; they did not close. Above was,
+roughly, a ten-foot rift, ragged edged, through which poured light
+like that in the heart of pale amber, a buttercup light shot through
+with curiously evanescent bronze shadows.
+
+"Quick!" commanded Rador, uneasily, and set off at a sharp pace.
+
+Now, my eyes accustomed to the strange light, I saw that the tunnel's
+walls were of moss. In them I could trace fringe leaf and curly leaf,
+pressings of enormous bladder caps (Physcomitrium), immense splashes
+of what seemed to be the scarlet-crested Cladonia, traceries of huge
+moss veils, crushings of teeth (peristome) gigantic; spore cases brown
+and white, saffron and ivory, hot vermilions and cerulean blues,
+pressed into an astounding mosaic by some titanic force.
+
+"Hurry!" It was Rador calling.  I had lagged behind.
+
+He quickened the pace to a half-run; we were climbing; panting.  The
+amber light grew stronger; the rift above us wider. The tunnel curved;
+on the left a narrow cleft appeared. The green dwarf leaped toward it,
+thrust us within, pushed us ahead of him up a steep rocky
+fissure--well-nigh, indeed, a chimney. Up and up this we scrambled
+until my lungs were bursting and I thought I could climb no more. The
+crevice ended; we crawled out and sank, even Rador, upon a little
+leaf-carpeted clearing circled by lacy tree ferns.
+
+Gasping, legs aching, we lay prone, relaxed, drawing back strength and
+breath. Rador was first to rise. Thrice he bent low as in homage,
+then--
+
+"Give thanks to the Silent Ones--for their power has been over us!" he
+exclaimed.
+
+Dimly I wondered what he meant.  Something about the fern leaf at
+which I had been staring aroused me. I leaped to my feet and ran to
+its base. This was no fern, no! It was fern _moss_! The largest of its
+species I had ever found in tropic jungles had not been more than two
+inches high, and this was--twenty feet! The scientific fire I had
+experienced in the tunnel returned uncontrollable. I parted the
+fronds, gazed out--
+
+My outlook commanded a vista of miles--and that vista! A _Fata
+Morgana_ of plantdom! A land of flowered sorcery!
+
+Forests of tree-high mosses spangled over with blooms of every
+conceivable shape and colour; cataracts and clusters, avalanches and
+nets of blossoms in pastels, in dulled metallics, in gorgeous
+flamboyant hues; some of them phosphorescent and shining like living
+jewels; some sparkling as though with dust of opals, of sapphires, of
+rubies and topazes and emeralds; thickets of convolvuli like the
+trumpets of the seven archangels of Mara, king of illusion, which are
+shaped from the bows of splendours arching his highest heaven!
+
+And moss veils like banners of a marching host of Titans; pennons and
+bannerets of the sunset; gonfalons of the Jinn; webs of faery;
+oriflammes of elfland!
+
+Springing up through that polychromatic flood myriads of
+pedicles--slender and straight as spears, or soaring in spirals, or
+curving with undulations gracile as the white serpents of Tanit in
+ancient Carthaginian groves--and all surmounted by a fantasy of spore
+cases in shapes of minaret and turret, domes and spires and cones,
+caps of Phrygia and bishops' mitres, shapes grotesque and
+unnameable--shapes delicate and lovely!
+
+They hung high poised, nodding and swaying--like goblins hovering over
+_Titania's_ court; cacophony of Cathay accenting the _Flower Maiden_
+music of "Parsifal"; _bizarrerie_ of the angled, fantastic beings that
+people the Javan pantheon watching a bacchanal of houris in Mohammed's
+paradise!
+
+Down upon it all poured the amber light; dimmed in the distances by
+huge, drifting darkenings lurid as the flying mantles of the
+hurricane.
+
+And through the light, like showers of jewels, myriads of birds,
+darting, dipping, soaring, and still other myriads of gigantic,
+shimmering butterflies.
+
+A sound came to us, reaching out like the first faint susurrus of the
+incoming tide; sighing, sighing, growing stronger--now its mournful
+whispering quivered all about us, shook us--then passing like a
+Presence, died away in far distances.
+
+"The Portal!" said Rador.  "Lugur has entered!"
+
+He, too, parted the fronds and peered back along our path.  Peering
+with him we saw the barrier through which we had come stretching
+verdure-covered walls for miles three or more away. Like a mole burrow
+in a garden stretched the trail of the tunnel; here and there we could
+look down within the rift at its top; far off in it I thought I saw
+the glint of spears.
+
+"They come!" whispered Rador.  "Quick!  We must not meet them here!"
+
+And then--
+
+"Holy St. Brigid!" gasped Larry.
+
+From the rift in the tunnel's continuation, nigh a mile beyond the
+cleft through which we had fled, lifted a crown of horns--of
+tentacles--erect, alert, of mottled gold and crimson; lifted
+higher--and from a monstrous scarlet head beneath them blazed two
+enormous, obloid eyes, their depths wells of purplish phosphorescence;
+higher still--noseless, earless, chinless; a livid, worm mouth from
+which a slender scarlet tongue leaped like playing flames! Slowly it
+rose--its mighty neck cuirassed with gold and scarlet scales from
+whose polished surfaces the amber light glinted like flakes of fire;
+and under this neck shimmered something like a palely luminous silvery
+shield, guarding it. The head of horror mounted--and in the shield's
+centre, full ten feet across, glowing, flickering, shining
+out--coldly, was a rose of white flame, a "flower of cold fire" even
+as Rador had said.
+
+Now swiftly the Thing upreared, standing like a scaled tower a hundred
+feet above the rift, its eyes scanning that movement I had seen along
+the course of its lair. There was a hissing; the crown of horns fell,
+whipped and writhed like the tentacles of an octopus; the towering
+length dropped back.
+
+"Quick!" gasped Rador and through the fern moss, along the path and
+down the other side of the steep we raced.
+
+Behind us for an instant there was a rushing as of a torrent; a
+far-away, faint, agonized screaming--silence!
+
+"No fear _now_ from those who followed," whispered the green dwarf,
+pausing.
+
+"Sainted St. Patrick!" O'Keefe gazed ruminatively at his automatic.
+"An' he expected me to kill _that_ with this. Well, as Fergus O'Connor
+said when they sent him out to slaughter a wild bull with a potato
+knife: 'Ye'll niver rayilize how I appreciate the confidence ye show
+in me!'
+
+"What was it, Doc?" he asked.
+
+"The dragon worm!" Rador said.
+
+"It was Helvede Orm--the hell worm!" groaned Olaf.
+
+"There you go again--" blazed Larry; but the green dwarf was hurrying
+down the path and swiftly we followed, Larry muttering, Olaf mumbling,
+behind me.
+
+The green dwarf was signalling us for caution.  He pointed through a
+break in a grove of fifty-foot cedar mosses--we were skirting the
+glassy road! Scanning it we found no trace of Lugur and wondered
+whether he too had seen the worm and had fled. Quickly we passed on;
+drew away from the _coria_ path. The mosses began to thin; less and
+less they grew, giving way to low clumps that barely offered us
+shelter. Unexpectedly another screen of fern moss stretched before us.
+Slowly Rador made his way through it and stood hesitating.
+
+The scene in front of us was oddly weird and depressing; in some
+indefinable way--dreadful. Why, I could not tell, but the impression
+was plain; I shrank from it. Then, self-analyzing, I wondered whether
+it could be the uncanny resemblance the heaps of curious mossy fungi
+scattered about had to beast and bird--yes, and to man--that was the
+cause of it. Our path ran between a few of them. To the left they were
+thick. They were viridescent, almost metallic hued--verd-antique.
+Curiously indeed were they like distorted images of dog and deerlike
+forms, of birds--of _dwarfs_ and here and there the simulacra of the
+giant frogs! Spore cases, yellowish green, as large as mitres and much
+resembling them in shape protruded from the heaps. My repulsion grew
+into a distinct nausea.
+
+Rador turned to us a face whiter far than that with which he had
+looked upon the dragon worm.
+
+"Now for your lives," he whispered, "tread softly here as I do--and
+speak not at all!"
+
+He stepped forward on tiptoe, slowly with utmost caution. We crept
+after him; passed the heaps beside the path--and as I passed my skin
+crept and I shrank and saw the others shrink too with that unnameable
+loathing; nor did the green dwarf pause until he had reached the brow
+of a small hillock a hundred yards beyond. And he was trembling.
+
+"Now what are we up against?" grumbled O'Keefe.
+
+The green dwarf stretched a hand; stiffened; gazed over to the left of
+us beyond a lower hillock upon whose broad crest lay a file of the
+moss shapes. They fringed it, their mitres having a grotesque
+appearance of watching what lay below. The glistening road lay
+there--and from it came a shout. A dozen of the _coria_ clustered,
+filled with Lugur's men and in one of them Lugur himself, laughing
+wickedly!
+
+There was a rush of soldiers and up the low hillock raced a score of
+them toward us.
+
+"Run!" shouted Rador.
+
+"Not much!" grunted Larry--and took swift aim at Lugur. The automatic
+spat: Olaf's echoed. Both bullets went wild, for Lugur, still
+laughing, threw himself into the protection of the body of his shell.
+But following the shots, from the file of moss heaps on the crest,
+came a series of muffled explosions. Under the pistol's concussions
+the mitred caps had burst and instantly all about the running soldiers
+grew a cloud of tiny, glistening white spores--like a little cloud of
+puff-ball dust many times magnified. Through this cloud I glimpsed
+their faces, stricken with agony.
+
+Some turned to fly, but before they could take a second step stood
+rigid.
+
+The spore cloud drifted and eddied about them; rained down on their
+heads and half bare breasts, covered their garments--and swiftly they
+began to change! Their features grew indistinct--merged! The
+glistening white spores that covered them turned to a pale yellow,
+grew greenish, spread and swelled, darkened. The eyes of one of the
+soldiers glinted for a moment--and then were covered by the swift
+growth!
+
+Where but a few moments before had been men were only grotesque heaps,
+swiftly melting, swiftly rounding into the semblance of the mounds
+that lay behind us--and already beginning to take on their gleam of
+ancient viridescence!
+
+The Irishman was gripping my arm fiercely; the pain brought me back to
+my senses.
+
+"Olaf's right," he gasped.  "This _is_ hell!  I'm sick." And he was,
+frankly and without restraint. Lugur and his others awakened from
+their nightmare; piled into the _coria_, wheeled, raced away.
+
+"On!" said Rador thickly. "Two perils have we passed--the Silent Ones
+watch over us!"
+
+Soon we were again among the familiar and so unfamiliar moss giants.
+I knew what I had seen and this time Larry could not call
+me--superstitious. In the jungles of Borneo I had examined that other
+swiftly developing fungus which wreaks the vengeance of some of the
+hill tribes upon those who steal their women; gripping with its
+microscopic hooks into the flesh; sending quick, tiny rootlets through
+the skin down into the capillaries, sucking life and thriving and
+never to be torn away until the living thing it clings to has been
+sapped dry. Here was but another of the species in which the
+development's rate was incredibly accelerated. Some of this I tried to
+explain to O'Keefe as we sped along, reassuring him.
+
+"But they turned to moss before our eyes!" he said.
+
+Again I explained, patiently.  But he seemed to derive no comfort at
+all from my assurances that the phenomena were entirely natural and,
+aside from their more terrifying aspect, of peculiar interest to the
+botanist.
+
+"I know," was all he would say.  "But suppose one of those things had
+burst while we were going through--God!"
+
+I was wondering how I could with comparative safety study the fungus
+when Rador stopped; in front of us was again the road ribbon.
+
+"Now is all danger passed," he said.  "The way lies open and Lugur has
+fled--"
+
+There was a flash from the road.  It passed me like a little lariat of
+light. It struck Larry squarely between the eyes, spread over his face
+and drew itself within!
+
+"Down!" cried Rador, and hurled me to the ground.  My head struck
+sharply; I felt myself grow faint; Olaf fell beside me; I saw the
+green dwarf draw down the O'Keefe; he collapsed limply, face still,
+eyes staring. A shout--and from the roadway poured a host of Lugur's
+men; I could hear Lugur bellowing.
+
+There came a rush of little feet; soft, fragrant draperies brushed my
+face; dimly I watched Lakla bend over the Irishman.
+
+She straightened--her arms swept out and the writhing vine, with its
+tendrilled heads of ruby bloom, five flames of misty incandescence,
+leaped into the faces of the soldiers now close upon us. It darted at
+their throats, striking, coiling, and striking again; coiling and
+uncoiling with incredible rapidity and flying from leverage points of
+throats, of faces, of breasts like a spring endowed with
+consciousness, volition and hatred--and those it struck stood rigid as
+stone with faces masks of inhuman fear and anguish; and those still
+unstricken fled.
+
+Another rush of feet--and down upon Lugur's forces poured the
+frog-men, their booming giant leading, thrusting with their lances,
+tearing and rending with talons and fangs and spurs.
+
+Against that onslaught the dwarfs could not stand.  They raced for the
+shells; I heard Lugur shouting, menacingly--and then Lakla's voice,
+pealing like a golden bugle of wrath.
+
+"Go, Lugur!" she cried.  "Go--that you and Yolara and your Shining One
+may die together! Death for you, Lugur--death for you all! Remember
+Lugur--death!"
+
+There was a great noise within my head--no matter, Lakla was
+here--Lakla here--but too late--Lugur had outplayed us; moss death nor
+dragon worm had frightened him away--he had crept back to trap
+us--Lakla had come too late--Larry was dead--Larry! But I had heard no
+banshee wailing--and Larry had said he could not die without that
+warning--no, Larry was not dead. So ran the turbulent current of my
+mind.
+
+A horny arm lifted me; two enormous, oddly gentle saucer eyes were
+staring into mine; my head rolled; I caught a glimpse of the Golden
+Girl kneeling beside the O'Keefe.
+
+The noise in my head grew thunderous--was carrying me away on its
+thunder--swept me into soft, blind darkness.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+The Crimson Sea
+
+
+I was in the heart of a rose pearl, swinging, swinging; no, I was in a
+rosy dawn cloud, pendulous in space. Consciousness flooded me, in
+reality I was in the arms of one of the man frogs, carrying me as
+though I were a babe, and we were passing through some place suffused
+with glow enough like heart of pearl or dawn cloud to justify my
+awakening vagaries.
+
+Just ahead walked Lakla in earnest talk with Rador, and content enough
+was I for a time to watch her. She had thrown off the metallic robes;
+her thick braids of golden brown hair with their flame glints of
+bronze were twined in a high coronal meshed in silken net of green;
+little clustering curls escaped from it, clinging to the nape of the
+proud white neck, shyly kissing it. From her shoulders fell a loose,
+sleeveless garment of shimmering green belted with a high golden
+girdle; skirt folds dropping barely below the knees.
+
+She had cast aside her buskins, too, and the slender, high-arched feet
+were sandalled. Between the buckled edges of her kirtle I caught
+gleams of translucent ivory as exquisitely moulded, as delectably
+rounded, as those revealed so naively beneath the hem.
+
+Something was knocking at the doors of my consciousness--some tragic
+thing. What was it? Larry! Where was Larry? I remembered; raised my
+head abruptly; saw at my side another frog-man carrying O'Keefe, and
+behind him, Olaf, step instinct with grief, following like some
+faithful, wistful dog who has lost a loved master. Upon my movement
+the monster bearing me halted, looked down inquiringly, uttered a
+deep, booming note that held the quality of interrogation.
+
+Lakla turned; the clear, golden eyes were sorrowful, the sweet mouth
+drooping; but her loveliness, her gentleness, that undefinable
+synthesis of all her tender self that seemed always to circle her with
+an atmosphere of lucid normality, lulled my panic.
+
+"Drink this," she commanded, holding a small vial to my lips.
+
+Its contents were aromatic, unfamiliar but astonishingly effective,
+for as soon as they passed my lips I felt a surge of strength;
+consciousness was restored.
+
+"Larry!" I cried.  "Is he dead?"
+
+Lakla shook her head; her eyes were troubled.
+
+"No," she said; "but he is like one dead--and yet unlike--"
+
+"Put me down," I demanded of my bearer.
+
+He tightened his hold; round eyes upon the Golden Girl. She spoke--in
+sonorous, reverberating monosyllables--and I was set upon my feet; I
+leaped to the side of the Irishman. He lay limp, with a disquieting,
+abnormal sequacity, as though every muscle were utterly flaccid; the
+antithesis of the _rigor mortis_, thank God, but terrifyingly toward
+the other end of its arc; a syncope I had never known. The flesh was
+stone cold; the pulse barely perceptible, long intervalled; the
+respiration undiscoverable; the pupils of the eyes were enormously
+dilated; it was as though life had been drawn from every nerve.
+
+"A light flashed from the road.  It struck his face and seemed to sink
+in," I said.
+
+"I saw," answered Rador; "but what it was I know not; and I thought I
+knew all the weapons of our rulers." He glanced at me curiously. "Some
+talk there has been that the stranger who came with you, Double
+Tongue, was making new death tools for Lugur," he ended.
+
+Marakinoff!  The Russian at work already in this storehouse of
+devastating energies, fashioning the weapons for his plots! The
+Apocalyptic vision swept back upon me--
+
+"He is not dead." Lakla's voice was poignant.  "He is not dead; and
+the Three have wondrous healing. They can restore him if they
+will--and they will, they _will_!" For a moment she was silent. "Now
+their gods help Lugur and Yolara," she whispered; "for come what may,
+whether the Silent Ones be strong or weak, if he dies, surely shall I
+fall upon them and I will slay those two--yea, though I, too perish!"
+
+"Yolara and Lugur shall both die." Olaf's eyes were burning.  "But
+Lugur is mine to slay."
+
+That pity I had seen before in Lakla's eyes when she looked upon the
+Norseman banished the white wrath from them. She turned, half
+hurriedly, as though to escape his gaze.
+
+"Walk with us," she said to me, "unless you are still weak."
+
+I shook my head, gave a last look at O'Keefe; there was nothing I
+could do; I stepped beside her. She thrust a white arm into mine
+protectingly, the wonderfully moulded hand with its long, tapering
+fingers catching about my wrist; my heart glowed toward her.
+
+"Your medicine is potent, handmaiden," I answered.  "And the touch of
+your hand would give me strength enough, even had I not drunk it," I
+added in Larry's best manner.
+
+Her eyes danced, trouble flying.
+
+"Now, that was well spoken for such a man of wisdom as Rador tells me
+you are," she laughed; and a little pang shot through me. Could not a
+lover of science present a compliment without it always seeming to be
+as unusual as plucking a damask rose from a cabinet of fossils?
+
+Mustering my philosophy, I smiled back at her.  Again I noted that
+broad, classic brow, with the little tendrils of shining bronze
+caressing it, the tilted, delicate, nut-brown brows that gave a
+curious touch of innocent _diablerie_ to the lovely face--flowerlike,
+pure, high-bred, a touch of roguishness, subtly alluring, sparkling
+over the maiden Madonnaness that lay ever like a delicate, luminous
+suggestion beneath it; the long, black, curling lashes--the tender,
+rounded, bare left breast--
+
+"I have always liked you," she murmured naively, "since first I saw
+you in that place where the Shining One goes forth into your world.
+And I am glad you like my medicine as well as that you carry in the
+black box that you left behind," she added swiftly.
+
+"How know you of that, Lakla?" I gasped.
+
+"Oft and oft I came to him there, and to you, while you lay sleeping.
+How call you _him_?" She paused.
+
+"Larry!" I said.
+
+"Larry!" she repeated it excellently.  "And you?"
+
+"Goodwin," said Rador.
+
+I bowed quite as though I were being introduced to some charming young
+lady met in that old life now seemingly aeons removed.
+
+"Yes--Goodwin." she said.  "Oft and oft I came.  Sometimes I thought
+you saw me. And _he_--did he not dream of me sometime--?" she asked
+wistfully.
+
+"He did." I said, "and watched for you." Then amazement grew vocal.
+"But how came you?" I asked.
+
+"By a strange road," she whispered, "to see that all was well with
+_him_--and to look into his heart; for I feared Yolara and her beauty.
+But I saw that she was not in his heart." A blush burned over her,
+turning even the little bare breast rosy. "It is a strange road," she
+went on hurriedly. "Many times have I followed it and watched the
+Shining One bear back its prey to the blue pool; seen the woman _he_
+seeks"--she made a quick gesture toward Olaf--"and a babe cast from
+her arms in the last pang of her mother love; seen another woman throw
+herself into the Shining One's embrace to save a man she loved; and I
+could not help!" Her voice grew deep, thrilled. "The friend, it comes
+to me, who drew you here, Goodwin!"
+
+She was silent, walking as one who sees visions and listens to voices
+unheard by others, Rador made a warning gesture; I crowded back my
+questions, glanced about me. We were passing over a smooth strand,
+hard packed as some beach of long-thrust-back ocean. It was like
+crushed garnets, each grain stained deep red, faintly sparkling. On
+each side were distances, the floor stretching away into them bare of
+vegetation--stretching on and on into infinitudes of rosy mist, even
+as did the space above.
+
+Flanking and behind us marched the giant batrachians, fivescore of
+them at least, black scale and crimson scale lustrous and gleaming in
+the rosaceous radiance; saucer eyes shining circles of phosphorescence
+green, purple, red; spurs clicking as they crouched along with a gait
+at once grotesque and formidable.
+
+Ahead the mist deepened into a ruddier glow; through it a long, dark
+line began to appear--the mouth I thought of the caverned space
+through which we were going; it was just before us; over us--we stood
+bathed in a flood of rubescence!
+
+A sea stretched before us--a crimson sea, gleaming like that lost
+lacquer of royal coral and the Flame Dragon's blood which Fu S'cze set
+upon the bower he built for his stolen sun maiden--that going toward
+it she might think it the sun itself rising over the summer seas.
+Unmoved by wave or ripple, it was placid as some deep woodland pool
+when night rushes up over the world.
+
+It seemed molten--or as though some hand great enough to rock earth
+had distilled here from conflagrations of autumn sunsets their flaming
+essences.
+
+A fish broke through, large as a shark, blunt-headed, flashing bronze,
+ridged and mailed as though with serrate plates of armour. It leaped
+high, shaking from it a sparkling spray of rubies; dropped and shot up
+a geyser of fiery gems.
+
+Across my line of vision, moving stately over the sea, floated a half
+globe, luminous, diaphanous, its iridescence melting into turquoise,
+thence to amethyst, to orange, to scarlet shot with rose, to
+vermilion, a translucent green, thence back into the iridescence;
+behind it four others, and the least of them ten feet in diameter, and
+the largest no less than thirty. They drifted past like bubbles blown
+from froth of rainbows by pipes in mouths of Titans' young. Then from
+the base of one arose a tangle of shimmering strands, long, slender
+whiplashes that played about and sank slowly again beneath the crimson
+surface.
+
+I gasped--for the fish had been a _ganoid_--that ancient, armoured
+form that was perhaps the most intelligent of all life on our planet
+during the Devonian era, but which for age upon age had vanished, save
+for its fossils held in the embrace of the stone that once was their
+soft bottom beds; and the half-globes were _Medusae_, jelly-fish--but
+of a size, luminosity, and colour unheard of.
+
+Now Lakla cupped her mouth with pink palms and sent a clarion note
+ringing out. The ledge on which we stood continued a few hundred feet
+before us, falling abruptly, though from no great height to the
+Crimson Sea; at right and left it extended in a long semicircle.
+Turning to the right whence she had sent her call, I saw rising a mile
+or more away, veiled lightly by the haze, a rainbow, a gigantic
+prismatic arch, flattened, I thought, by some quality of the strange
+atmosphere. It sprang from the ruddy strand, leaped the crimson tide,
+and dropped three miles away upon a precipitous, jagged upthrust of
+rock frowning black from the lacquered depths.
+
+And surmounting a higher ledge beyond this upthrust a huge dome of
+dull gold, Cyclopean, striking eyes and mind with something unhumanly
+alien, baffling; sending the mind groping, as though across the
+deserts of space, from some far-flung star, should fall upon us linked
+sounds, coherent certainly, meaningful surely, vaguely familiar--yet
+never to be translated into any symbol or thought of our own
+particular planet.
+
+The sea of crimson lacquer, with its floating moons of luminous
+colour--this bow of prismed stone leaping to the weird isle crowned by
+the anomalous, aureate excrescence--the half human batrachians-the
+elfland through which we had passed, with all its hidden wonders and
+terrors--I felt the foundations of my cherished knowledge shaking.
+Was this all a dream? Was this body of mine lying somewhere, fighting
+a fevered death, and all these but images floating through the
+breaking chambers of my brain? My knees shook; involuntarily I
+groaned.
+
+Lakla turned, looked at me anxiously, slipped a soft arm behind me,
+held me till the vertigo passed.
+
+"Patience," she said.  "The bearers come.  Soon you shall rest."
+
+I looked; down toward us from the bow's end were leaping swiftly
+another score of the frog-men. Some bore litters, high, handled, not
+unlike palanquins--
+
+"Asgard!" Olaf stood beside me, eyes burning, pointing to the arch.
+"Bifrost Bridge, sharp as sword edge, over which souls go to Valhalla.
+And _she_--she is a Valkyr--a sword maiden, _Ja!_"
+
+I gripped the Norseman's hand.  It was hot, and a pang of remorse shot
+through me. If this place had so shaken me, how must it have shaken
+Olaf? It was with relief that I watched him, at Lakla's gentle
+command, drop into one of the litters and lie back, eyes closed, as
+two of the monsters raised its yoke to their scaled shoulders. Nor was
+it without further relief that I myself lay back on the soft velvety
+cushions of another.
+
+The cavalcade began to move.  Lakla had ordered O'Keefe placed beside
+her, and she sat, knees crossed Orient fashion, leaning over the pale
+head on her lap, the white, tapering fingers straying fondly through
+his hair.
+
+Presently I saw her reach up, slowly unwind the coronal of her
+tresses, shake them loose, and let them fall like a veil over her and
+him.
+
+Her head bent low; I heard a soft sobbing--I turned away my gaze, lorn
+enough in my own heart, God knew!
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+The Three Silent Ones
+
+
+The arch was closer--and in my awe I forgot for the moment Larry and
+aught else. For this was no rainbow, no thing born of light and mist,
+no Bifrost Bridge of myth--no! It was a flying arch of stone, stained
+with flares of Tyrian purples, of royal scarlets, of blues dark as the
+Gulf Stream's ribbon, sapphires soft as midday May skies, splashes of
+chromes and greens--a palette of giantry, a bridge of wizardry; a
+hundred, nay, a thousand, times greater than that of Utah which the
+Navaho call Nonnegozche and worship, as well they may, as a god, and
+which is itself a rainbow in eternal rock.
+
+It sprang from the ledge and winged its prodigious length in one low
+arc over the sea's crimson breast, as though in some ancient paroxysm
+of earth it had been hurled molten, crystallizing into that stupendous
+span and still flaming with the fires that had moulded it.
+
+Closer we came and closer, while I watched spellbound; now we were at
+its head, and the litter-bearers swept upon it. All of five hundred
+feet wide it was, surface smooth as a city road, sides low walled,
+curving inward as though in the jetting-out of its making the edges of
+the plastic rock had curled.
+
+On and on we sped; the high thrusting precipices upon which the
+bridge's far end rested, frowned close; the enigmatic, dully shining
+dome loomed ever greater. Now we had reached that end; were passing
+over a smooth plaza whose level floor was enclosed, save for a rift in
+front of us, by the fanged tops of the black cliffs.
+
+From this rift stretched another span, half a mile long, perhaps,
+widening at its centre into a broad platform, continuing straight to
+two massive gates set within the face of the second cliff wall like
+panels, and of the same dull gold as the dome rising high beyond. And
+this smaller arch leaped a pit, an abyss, of which the outer
+precipices were the rim holding back from the pit the red flood.
+
+We were rapidly approaching; now upon the platform; my bearers were
+striding closely along the side; I leaned far out--a giddiness seized
+me! I gazed down into depth upon vertiginous depth; an abyss
+indeed--an abyss dropping to world's base like that in which the
+Babylonians believed writhed Talaat, the serpent mother of Chaos; a
+pit that struck down into earth's heart itself,
+
+Now, what was that--distance upon unfathomable distance below?  A
+stupendous glowing like the green fire of life itself. What was it
+like? I had it! It was like the corona of the sun in eclipse--that
+burgeoning that makes of our luminary when moon veils it an incredible
+blossoming of splendours in the black heavens.
+
+And strangely, strangely, it was like the Dweller's beauty when with
+its dazzling spirallings and writhings it raced amid its storm of
+crystal bell sounds!
+
+The abyss was behind us; we had paused at the golden portals; they
+swung inward. A wide corridor filled with soft light was before us,
+and on its threshold stood--bizarre, yellow gems gleaming, huge muzzle
+wide in what was evidently meant for a smile of welcome--the woman
+frog of the Moon Pool wall.
+
+Lakla raised her head; swept back the silken tent of her hair and
+gazed at me with eyes misty from weeping. The frog-woman crept to her
+side; gazed down upon Larry; spoke--_spoke_--to the Golden Girl in a
+swift stream of the sonorous, reverberant monosyllables; and Lakla
+answered her in kind. The webbed digits swept over O'Keefe's face,
+felt at his heart; she shook her head and moved ahead of us up the
+passage.
+
+Still borne in the litters we went on, winding, ascending until at
+last they were set down in a great hall carpeted with soft fragrant
+rushes and into which from high narrow slits streamed the crimson
+light from without.
+
+I jumped over to Larry, there had been no change in his condition;
+still the terrifying limpness, the slow, infrequent pulsation. Rador
+and Olaf--and the fever now seemed to be gone from him--came and stood
+beside me, silent.
+
+"I go to the Three," said Lakla.  "Wait you here."  She passed through
+a curtaining; then as swiftly as she had gone she returned through the
+hangings, tresses braided, a swathing of golden gauze about her.
+
+"Rador," she said, "bear you Larry--for into your heart the Silent
+Ones would look. And fear nothing," she added at the green dwarf's
+disconcerted, almost fearful start.
+
+Rador bowed, was thrust aside by Olaf.
+
+"No," said the Norseman; "I will carry him."
+
+He lifted Larry like a child against his broad breast.  The dwarf
+glanced quickly at Lakla; she nodded.
+
+"Come!" she commanded, and held aside the folds.
+
+Of that journey I have few memories.  I only know that we went through
+corridor upon corridor; successions of vast halls and chambers, some
+carpeted with the rushes, others with rugs into which the feet sank as
+into deep, soft meadows; spaces illumined by the rubrous light, and
+spaces in which softer lights held sway.
+
+We paused before a slab of the same crimson stone as that the green
+dwarf had called the portal, and upon its polished surface weaved the
+same unnameable symbols. The Golden Girl pressed upon its side; it
+slipped softly back; a torrent of opalescence gushed out of the
+opening--and as one in a dream I entered.
+
+We were, I knew, just under the dome; but for the moment, caught in
+the flood of radiance, I could see nothing. It was like being held
+within a fire opal--so brilliant, so flashing, was it. I closed my
+eyes, opened them; the lambency cascaded from the vast curves of the
+globular walls; in front of me was a long, narrow opening in them,
+through which, far away, I could see the end of the wizards' bridge
+and the ledged mouth of the cavern through which we had come; against
+the light from within beat the crimson light from without--and was
+checked as though by a barrier.
+
+I felt Lakla's touch; turned.
+
+A hundred paces away was a dais, its rim raised a yard above the
+floor. From the edge of this rim streamed upward a steady, coruscating
+mist of the opalescence, veined even as was that of the Dweller's
+shining core and shot with milky shadows like curdled moonlight; up it
+stretched like a wall.
+
+Over it, from it, down upon me, gazed three faces--two clearly male,
+one a woman's. At the first I thought them statues, and then the eyes
+of them gave the lie to me; for the eyes were alive, terribly, and if
+I could admit the word--_supernaturally_--alive.
+
+They were thrice the size of the human eye and triangular, the apex of
+the angle upward; black as jet, pupilless, filled with tiny, leaping
+red flames.
+
+Over them were foreheads, not as ours--high and broad and visored;
+their sides drawn forward into a vertical ridge, a prominence, an
+upright wedge, somewhat like the visored heads of a few of the great
+lizards--and the heads, long, narrowing at the back, were fully twice
+the size of mankind's!
+
+Upon the brows were caps--and with a fearful certainty I knew that
+they were _not_ caps--long, thick strands of gleaming yellow, feathered
+scales thin as sequins! Sharp, curving noses like the beaks of the
+giant condors; mouths thin, austere; long, powerful, pointed chins;
+the--_flesh_--of the faces white as the whitest marble; and wreathing
+up to them, covering all their bodies, the shimmering, curdled, misty
+fires of opalescence!
+
+Olaf stood rigid; my own heart leaped wildly.  What--what were these
+beings?
+
+I forced myself to look again--and from their gaze streamed a current
+of reassurance, of good will--nay, of intense spiritual strength. I
+saw that they were not fierce, not ruthless, not inhuman, despite
+their strangeness; no, they were kindly; in some unmistakable way,
+benign and sorrowful--so sorrowful! I straightened, gazed back at them
+fearlessly. Olaf drew a deep breath, gazed steadily too, the hardness,
+the despair wiped from his face.
+
+Now Lakla drew closer to the dais; the three pairs of eyes searched
+hers, the woman's with an ineffable tenderness; some message seemed to
+pass between the Three and the Golden Girl. She bowed low, turned to
+the Norseman.
+
+"Place Larry there," she said softly--"there at the feet of the Silent
+Ones."
+
+She pointed into the radiant mist; Olaf started, hesitated, stared
+from Lakla to the Three, searched for a moment their eyes--and
+something like a smile drifted through them. He stepped forward,
+lifted O'Keefe, set him squarely within the covering light. It
+wavered, rolled upward, swirled about the body, steadied again--and
+within it there was no sign of Larry!
+
+Again the mist wavered, shook, and seemed to climb higher, hiding the
+chins, the beaked noses, the brows of that incredible Trinity--but
+before it ceased to climb, I thought the yellow feathered heads bent;
+sensed a movement as though they lifted something.
+
+The mist fell; the eyes gleamed out again, inscrutable.
+
+And groping out of the radiance, pausing at the verge of the dais,
+leaping down from it, came Larry, laughing, filled with life, blinking
+as one who draws from darkness into sunshine. He saw Lakla, sprang to
+her, gripped her in his arms.
+
+"Lakla!" he cried. "Mavourneen!"  She slipped from his embrace,
+blushing, glancing at the Three shyly, half-fearfully. And again I saw
+the tenderness creep into the inky, flame-shot orbs of the woman
+being; and a tenderness in the others too--as though they regarded
+some well-beloved child.
+
+"You lay in the arms of Death, Larry," she said.  "And the Silent Ones
+drew you from him. Do homage to the Silent Ones, Larry, for they are
+good and they are mighty!"
+
+She turned his head with one of the long, white hands--and he looked
+into the faces of the Three; looked long, was shaken even as had been
+Olaf and myself; was swept by that same wave of power and of--of--what
+can I call it?--_holiness_ that streamed from them.
+
+Then for the first time I saw real awe mount into his face. Another
+moment he stared--and dropped upon one knee and bowed his head before
+them as would a worshipper before the shrine of his saint. And--I am
+not ashamed to tell it--I joined him; and with us knelt Lakla and
+Olaf and Rador.
+
+The mist of fiery opal swirled up about the Three; hid them.
+
+And with a long, deep, joyous sigh Lakla took Larry's hand, drew him
+to his feet, and silently we followed them out of that hall of wonder.
+
+But why, in going, did the thought come to me that from where the
+Three sat throned they ever watched the cavern mouth that was the door
+into their abode; and looked down ever into the unfathomable depth in
+which glowed and pulsed that mystic flower, colossal, awesome, of
+green flame that had seemed to me fire of life itself?
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+The Wooing of Lakla
+
+
+I had slept soundly and dreamlessly; I wakened quietly in the great
+chamber into which Rador had ushered O'Keefe and myself after that
+culminating experience of crowded, nerve-racking hours--the facing of
+the Three.
+
+Now, lying gazing upward at the high-vaulted ceiling, I heard Larry's
+voice:
+
+"They look like birds." Evidently he was thinking of the Three; a
+silence--then: "Yes, they look like _birds_--and they look, and it's
+meaning no disrespect to them I am at all, they look like
+_lizards_"--and another silence--"they look like some sort of gods, and,
+by the good sword-arm of Brian Boru, they look human, too! And it's
+_none_ of them they are either, so what--what the--what the sainted St.
+Bridget are they?" Another short silence, and then in a tone of awed
+and absolute conviction: "That's it, sure! That's what they are--it
+all hangs in--they couldn't be anything else--"
+
+He gave a whoop; a pillow shot over and caught me across the head.
+
+"Wake up!" shouted Larry.  "Wake up, ye seething caldron of fossilized
+superstitions! Wake up, ye bogy-haunted man of scientific unwisdom!"
+
+Under pillow and insults I bounced to my feet, filled for a moment
+with quite real wrath; he lay back, roaring with laughter, and my
+anger was swept away.
+
+"Doc," he said, very seriously, after this, "I know who the Three
+are!"
+
+"Yes?" I queried, with studied sarcasm.
+
+"Yes?" he mimicked.  "Yes!  Ye--ye" He paused under the menace of my
+look, grinned. "Yes, I know," he continued. "They're of the Tuatha De,
+the old ones, the great people of Ireland, _that's_ who they are!"
+
+I knew, of course, of the Tuatha De Danann, the tribes of the god
+Danu, the half-legendary, half-historical clan who found their home in
+Erin some four thousand years before the Christian era, and who have
+left so deep an impress upon the Celtic mind and its myths.
+
+"Yes," said Larry again, "the Tuatha De--the Ancient Ones who had
+spells that could compel Mananan, who is the spirit of all the seas,
+an' Keithor, who is the god of all green living things, an' even
+Hesus, the unseen god, whose pulse is the pulse of all the firmament;
+yes, an' Orchil too, who sits within the earth an' weaves with the
+shuttle of mystery and her three looms of birth an' life an'
+death--even Orchil would weave as they commanded!"
+
+He was silent--then:
+
+"They are of them--the mighty ones--why else would I have bent my knee
+to them as I would have to the spirit of my dead mother? Why else
+would Lakla, whose gold-brown hair is the hair of Eilidh the Fair,
+whose mouth is the sweet mouth of Deirdre, an' whose soul walked with
+mine ages agone among the fragrant green myrtle of Erin, serve them?"
+he whispered, eyes full of dream.
+
+"Have you any idea how they got here?" I asked, not unreasonably.
+
+"I haven't thought about that," he replied somewhat testily.  "But at
+once, me excellent man o' wisdom, a number occur to me. One of them is
+that this little party of three might have stopped here on their way
+to Ireland, an' for good reasons of their own decided to stay a while;
+an' another is that they might have come here afterward, havin' got
+wind of what those rats out there were contemplatin', and have stayed
+on the job till the time was ripe to save Ireland from 'em; the rest
+of the world, too, of course," he added magnanimously, "but Ireland in
+particular. And do any of those reasons appeal to ye?"
+
+I shook my head.
+
+"Well, what do you think?" he asked wearily.
+
+"I think," I said cautiously, "that we face an evolution of highly
+intelligent beings from ancestral sources radically removed from those
+through which mankind ascended. These half-human, highly developed
+batrachians they call the _Akka_ prove that evolution in these
+caverned spaces has certainly pursued one different path than on
+earth. The Englishman, Wells, wrote an imaginative and very
+entertaining book concerning an invasion of earth by Martians, and he
+made his Martians enormously specialized cuttlefish. There was nothing
+inherently improbable in Wells' choice. Man is the ruling animal of
+earth today solely by reason of a series of accidents; under another
+series spiders or ants, or even elephants, could have become the
+dominant race.
+
+"I think," I said, even more cautiously, "that the race to which the
+Three belong never appeared on earth's surface; that their development
+took place here, unhindered through aeons. And if this be true, the
+structure of their brains, and therefore all their reactions, must be
+different from ours. Hence their knowledge and command of energies
+unfamiliar to us--and hence also the question whether they may not
+have an entirely different sense of values, of justice--and that is
+rather terrifying," I concluded.
+
+Larry shook his head.
+
+"That last sort of knocks your argument, Doc," he said. "They had
+sense of justice enough to help _me_ out--and certainly they know
+love--for I saw the way they looked at Lakla; and sorrow--for there
+was no mistaking that in their faces.
+
+"No," he went on.  "I hold to my own idea.  They're of the Old People.
+The little leprechaun knew his way here, an' I'll bet it was they who
+sent the word. An' if the O'Keefe banshee comes here--which save the
+mark!--I'll bet she'll drop in on the Silent Ones for a social visit
+before she an' her clan get busy. Well, it'll make her feel more at
+home, the good old body. No, Doc, no," he concluded, "I'm right; it
+all fits in too well to be wrong."
+
+I made a last despairing attempt.
+
+"Is there anything anywhere in Ireland that would indicate that the
+Tuatha De ever looked like the Three?" I asked--and again I had
+spoken most unfortunately.
+
+"Is there?" he shouted.  "Is there?  By the kilt of Cormack
+MacCormack, I'm glad ye reminded me. It was worryin' me a little
+meself. There was Daghda, who could put on the head of a great boar
+an' the body of a giant fish and cleave the waves an' tear to pieces
+the birlins of any who came against Erin; an' there was Rinn--"
+
+How many more of the metamorphoses of the Old People I might have
+heard, I do not know, for the curtains parted and in walked Rador.
+
+"You have rested well," he smiled, "I can see.  The handmaiden bade me
+call you. You are to eat with her in her garden."
+
+Down long corridors we trod and out upon a gardened terrace as
+beautiful as any of those of Yolara's city; bowered, blossoming,
+fragrant, set high upon the cliffs beside the domed castle. A table,
+as of milky jade, was spread at one corner, but the Golden Girl was
+not there. A little path ran on and up, hemmed in by the mass of
+verdure. I looked at it longingly; Rador saw the glance, interpreted
+it, and led me up the stepped sharp slope into a rock embrasure.
+
+Here I was above the foliage, and everywhere the view was clear.
+Below me stretched the incredible bridge, with the frog people
+hurrying back and forth upon it. A pinnacle at my side hid the abyss.
+My eyes followed the cavern ledge. Above it the rock rose bare, but at
+the ends of the semicircular strand a luxuriant vegetation began,
+stretching from the crimson shores back into far distances. Of browns
+and reds and yellows, like an autumn forest, was the foliage, with
+here and there patches of dark-green, as of conifers. Five miles or
+more, on each side, the forests swept, and then were lost to sight in
+the haze.
+
+I turned and faced an immensity of crimson waters, unbroken, a true
+sea, if ever there was one. A breeze blew--the first real wind I had
+encountered in the hidden places; under it the surface, that had been
+as molten lacquer, rippled and dimpled. Little waves broke with a
+spray of rose-pearls and rubies. The giant Medusae drifted--stately,
+luminous kaleidoscopic elfin moons.
+
+Far down, peeping around a jutting tower of the cliff, I saw dipping
+with the motion of the waves a floating garden. The flowers, too, were
+luminous--indeed sparkling--gleaming brilliants of scarlet and
+vermilions lighter than the flood on which they lay, mauves and odd
+shades of reddish-blue. They gleamed and shone like a little lake of
+jewels.
+
+Rador broke in upon my musings.
+
+"Lakla comes!  Let us go down."
+
+It was a shy Lakla who came slowly around the end of the path and,
+blushing furiously, held her hands out to Larry. And the Irishman took
+them, placed them over his heart, kissed them with a tenderness that
+had been lacking in the half-mocking, half-fierce caresses he had
+given the priestess. She blushed deeper, holding out the tapering
+fingers--then pressed them to her own heart.
+
+"I like the touch of your lips, Larry," she whispered. "They warm me
+here"--she pressed her heart again--"and they send little sparkles of
+light through me." Her brows tilted perplexedly, accenting the nuance
+of diablerie, delicate and fascinating, that they cast upon the flower
+face.
+
+"Do you?" whispered the O'Keefe fervently.  "Do you, Lakla?" He bent
+toward her. She caught the amused glance of Rador; drew herself aside
+half-haughtily.
+
+"Rador," she said, "is it not time that you and the strong one, Olaf,
+were setting forth?"
+
+"Truly it is, handmaiden," he answered respectfully enough--yet with a
+current of laughter under his words. "But as you know the strong one,
+Olaf, wished to see his friends here before we were gone--and he comes
+even now," he added, glancing down the pathway, along which came
+striding the Norseman.
+
+As he faced us I saw that a transformation had been wrought in him.
+Gone was the pitiful seeking, and gone too the just as pitiful hope.
+The set face softened as he looked at the Golden Girl and bowed low to
+her. He thrust a hand to O'Keefe and to me.
+
+"There is to be battle," he said.  "I go with Rador to call the armies
+of these frog people. As for me--Lakla has spoken. There is no hope
+for--for mine Helma in life, but there is hope that we destroy the
+Shining Devil and give _mine_ Helma peace. And with that I am well
+content, _ja!_ Well content!" He gripped our hands again. "We will
+fight!" he muttered. "_Ja!_ And I will have vengeance!" The sternness
+returned; and with a salute Rador and he were gone.
+
+Two great tears rolled from the golden eyes of Lakla.
+
+"Not even the Silent Ones can heal those the Shining One has taken,"
+she said. "He asked me--and it was better that I tell him. It is part
+of the Three's--_punishment_--but of that you will soon learn," she went
+on hurriedly. "Ask me no questions now of the Silent Ones. I thought
+it better for Olaf to go with Rador, to busy himself, to give his mind
+other than sorrow upon which to feed."
+
+Up the path came five of the frog-women, bearing platters and ewers.
+Their bracelets and anklets of jewels were tinkling; their middles
+covered with short kirtles of woven cloth studded with the sparkling
+ornaments.
+
+And here let me say that if I have given the impression that the
+_Akka_ are simply magnified frogs, I regret it. Frog-like they are,
+and hence my phrase for them--but as unlike the frog, as we know it,
+as man is unlike the chimpanzee. Springing, I hazard, from the
+stegocephalia, the ancestor of the frogs, these batrachians followed a
+different line of evolution and acquired the upright position just as
+man did his from the four-footed folk.
+
+The great staring eyes, the shape of the muzzle were frog-like, but
+the highly developed brain had set upon the head and shape of it vital
+differences. The forehead, for instance, was not low, flat, and
+retreating--its frontal arch was well defined. The head was, in a
+sense, shapely, and with the females the great horny carapace that
+stood over it like a fantastic helmet was much modified, as were the
+spurs that were so formidable in the male; colouration was different
+also. The torso was upright; the legs a little bent, giving them their
+crouching gait--but I wander from my subject. *1
+
+
+*1 The _Akka_ are viviparous.  The female produces progeny at
+five-year intervals, never more than two at a time. They are
+monogamous, like certain of our own _Ranidae_. Pending my monograph
+upon what little I had time to learn of their interesting habits and
+customs, the curious will find instruction and entertainment in
+Brandes and Schvenichen's _Brutpfleige der Schwanzlosen Bat rachier_,
+p. 395; and Lilian V. Sampson's _Unusual Modes of Breeding among
+Anura_, Amer. Nat. xxxiv., 1900.--W. T. G.
+
+
+
+They set their burdens down.  Larry looked at them with interest.
+
+"You surely have those things well trained, Lakla," he said.
+
+"Things!"  The handmaiden arose, eyes flashing with indignation.  "You
+call my _Akka_ things!"
+
+"Well," said Larry, a bit taken aback, "what do you call them?"
+
+"My _Akka_ are a _people_," she retorted.  "As much a people as your race
+or mine. They are good and loyal, and they have speech and arts, and
+they slay not, save for food or to protect themselves. And I think
+them beautiful, Larry, _beautiful_!" She stamped her foot. "And you call
+them--_things_!"
+
+Beautiful!  These?  Yet, after all, they were, in their grotesque
+fashion. And to Lakla, surrounded by them, from babyhood, they were
+not strange, at all. Why shouldn't she think them beautiful? The same
+thought must have struck O'Keefe, for he flushed guiltily.
+
+"I think them beautiful, too, Lakla," he said remorsefully. "It's my
+not knowing your tongue too well that traps me. _Truly_, I think them
+beautiful--I'd tell them so, if I knew their talk."
+
+Lakla dimpled, laughed--spoke to the attendants in that strange speech
+that was unquestionably a language; they bridled, looked at O'Keefe
+with fantastic coquetry, cracked and boomed softly among themselves.
+
+"They say they like _you_ better than the men of Muria," laughed Lakla.
+
+"Did I ever think I'd be swapping compliments with lady frogs!" he
+murmured to me. "Buck up, Larry--keep your eyes on the captive Irish
+princess!" he muttered to himself.
+
+"Rador goes to meet one of the _ladala_ who is slipping through with
+news," said the Golden Girl as we addressed ourselves to the food.
+"Then, with Nak, he and Olaf go to muster the _Akka_--for there will
+be battle, and we must prepare. Nak," she added, "is he who went
+before me when you were dancing with Yolara, Larry." She stole a
+swift, mischievous glance at him. "He is headman of all the _Akka_."
+
+"Just what forces can we muster against them when they come, darlin'?"
+said Larry.
+
+"Darlin'?"--the Golden Girl had caught the caress of the word--"what's
+that?"
+
+"It's a little word that means Lakla," he answered.  "It does--that
+is, when I say it; when you say it, then it means Larry."
+
+"I like that word," mused Lakla.
+
+"You can even say Larry darlin'!" suggested O'Keefe.
+
+"Larry darlin'!" said Lakla.  "When they come we shall have first of
+all my _Akka_--"
+
+"Can they fight, _mavourneen_?" interrupted Larry.
+
+"Can they fight!  My _Akka_!" Again her eyes flashed.  "They will
+fight to the last of them--with the spears that give the swift
+rotting, covered, as they are, with the jelly of those _Saddu_
+there--" She pointed through a rift in the foliage across which, on
+the surface of the sea, was floating one of the moon globes--and now I
+know why Rador had warned Larry against a plunge there. "With spears
+and clubs and with teeth and nails and spurs--they are a strong and
+brave people, Larry--darlin', and though they hurl the _Keth_ at them,
+it is slow to work upon them, and they slay even while they are
+passing into the nothingness!"
+
+"And have we none of the _Keth_?" he asked.
+
+"No"--she shook her head--"none of their weapons have we here,
+although it was--it was the Ancient Ones who shaped them."
+
+"But the Three are of the Ancient Ones?" I cried.  "Surely they can
+tell--"
+
+"No," she said slowly.  "No--there is something you must know--and
+soon; and then the Silent Ones say you will understand. You,
+especially, Goodwin, who worship wisdom."
+
+"Then," said Larry, "we have the _Akka_; and we have the four men of
+us, and among us three guns and about a hundred cartridges--an'--an'
+the power of the Three--but what about the Shining One, Fireworks--"
+
+"I do not know." Again the indecision that had been in her eyes when
+Yolara had launched her defiance crept back. "The Shining One is
+strong--and he has his--slaves!"
+
+"Well, we'd better get busy good and quick!" the O'Keefe's voice rang.
+But Lakla, for some reason of her own, would pursue the matter no
+further. The trouble fled from her eyes--they danced.
+
+"Larry darlin'?" she murmured.  "I like the touch of your lips--"
+
+"You do?" he whispered, all thought flying of anything but the
+beautiful, provocative face so close to his. "Then, _acushla_, you're
+goin' to get acquainted with 'em! Turn your head, Doc!" he said.
+
+And I turned it.  There was quite a long silence, broken by an
+interested, soft outburst of gentle boomings from the serving
+frog-maids. I stole a glance behind me. Lakla's head lay on the
+Irishman's shoulder, the golden eyes misty sunpools of love and
+adoration; and the O'Keefe, a new look of power and strength upon his
+clear-cut features, was gazing down into them with that look which
+rises only from the heart touched for the first time with that true,
+all-powerful love, which is the pulse of the universe itself, the real
+music of the spheres of which Plato dreamed, the love that is stronger
+than death itself, immortal as the high gods and the true soul of all
+that mystery we call life.
+
+Then Lakla raised her hands, pressed down Larry's head, kissed him
+between the eyes, drew herself with a trembling little laugh from his
+embrace.
+
+"The future Mrs. Larry O'Keefe, Goodwin," said Larry to me a little
+unsteadily.
+
+I took their hands--and Lakla kissed me!
+
+She turned to the booming--smiling--frog-maids; gave them some
+command, for they filed away down the path. Suddenly I felt, well, a
+little superfluous.
+
+"If you don't mind," I said, "I think I'll go up the path there again
+and look about."
+
+But they were so engrossed with each other that they did not even hear
+me--so I walked away, up to the embrasure where Rador had taken me.
+The movement of the batrachians over the bridge had ceased. Dimly at
+the far end I could see the cluster of the garrison. My thoughts flew
+back to Lakla and to Larry.
+
+What was to be the end?
+
+If we won, if we were able to pass from this place, could she live in
+our world? A product of these caverns with their atmosphere and light
+that seemed in some subtle way to be both food and drink--how would
+she react to the unfamiliar foods and air and light of outer earth?
+Further, here so far as I was able to discover, there were no
+malignant bacilli--what immunity could Lakla have then to those
+microscopic evils without, which only long ages of sickness and death
+have bought for us a modicum of protection? I began to be oppressed.
+Surely they had been long enough by themselves. I went down the path.
+
+I heard Larry.
+
+"It's a green land, _mavourneen_.  And the sea rocks and dimples
+around it--blue as the heavens, green as the isle itself, and foam
+horses toss their white manes, and the great clean winds blow over it,
+and the sun shines down on it like your eyes, _acushla_--"
+
+"And are you a king of Ireland, Larry darlin'?" Thus Lakla--
+
+But enough!
+
+At last we turned to go--and around the corner of the path I caught
+another glimpse of what I have called the lake of jewels. I pointed to
+it.
+
+"Those are lovely flowers, Lakla," I said.  "I have never seen
+anything like them in the place from whence we come."
+
+She followed my pointing finger--laughed.
+
+"Come," she said, "let me show you them."
+
+She ran down an intersecting way, we following; came out of it upon a
+little ledge close to the brink, three feet or more I suppose about
+it. The Golden Girl's voice rang out in a high-pitched, tremulous,
+throbbing call.
+
+The lake of jewels stirred as though a breeze had passed over it;
+stirred, shook, and then began to move swiftly, a shimmering torrent
+of shining flowers down upon us! She called again, the movement became
+more rapid; the gem blooms streamed closer--closer, wavering,
+shifting, winding--at our very feet. Above them hovered a little
+radiant mist. The Golden Girl leaned over; called softly, and up from
+the sparkling mass shot a green vine whose heads were five flowers of
+flaming ruby--shot up, flew into her hand and coiled about the white
+arm, its quintette of lambent blossoms--regarding us!
+
+It was the thing Lakla had called the _Yekta_; that with which she had
+threatened the priestess; the thing that carried the dreadful
+death--and the Golden Girl was handling it like a rose!
+
+Larry swore--I looked at the thing more closely.  It was a hydroid, a
+development of that strange animal-vegetable that, sometimes almost
+microscopic, waves in the sea depths like a cluster of flowers
+paralyzing its prey with the mysterious force that dwells in its
+blossom heads!1
+
+
+*1 The _Yekta_ of the Crimson Sea, are as extraordinary developments
+of hydroid forms as the giant _Medusae_, of which, of course, they are
+not too remote cousins. The closest resemblances to them in outer
+water forms are among the _Gymnoblastic Hydroids_, notably _Clavetella
+prolifera_, a most interesting ambulatory form of six tentacles.
+Almost every bather in Southern waters, Northern too, knows the pain
+that contact with certain "jelly fish" produces. The _Yekta's_
+development was prodigious and, to us, monstrous. It secretes in its
+five heads an almost incredibly swiftly acting poison which I suspect,
+for I had no chance to verify the theory, destroys the entire nervous
+system to the accompaniment of truly infernal agony; carrying at the
+same time the illusion that the torment stretches through infinities
+of time. Both ether and nitrous oxide gas produce in the majority this
+sensation of time extension, without of course the pain symptom. What
+Lakla called the _Yekta_ kiss is I imagine about as close to the
+orthodox idea of Hell as can be conceived. The secret of her control
+over them I had no opportunity of learning in the rush of events that
+followed. Knowledge of the appalling effects of their touch came, she
+told me, from those few "who had been kissed so lightly" that they
+recovered. Certainly nothing, not even the Shining One, was dreaded by
+the Murians as these were--W. T. G.
+
+
+
+"Put it down, Lakla," the distress in O'Keefe's voice was deep.  Lakla
+laughed mischievously, caught the real fear for her in his eyes;
+opened her hand, gave another faint call--and back it flew to its
+fellows.
+
+"Why, it wouldn't hurt me, Larry!" she expostulated. "They know me!"
+
+"Put it down!" he repeated hoarsely.
+
+She sighed, gave another sweet, prolonged call.  The lake of
+gems--rubies and amethysts, mauves and scarlet-tinged blues--wavered
+and shook even as it had before--and swept swiftly back to that place
+whence she had drawn them!
+
+Then, with Larry and Lakla walking ahead, white arm about his brown
+neck; the O'Keefe still expostulating, the handmaiden laughing
+merrily, we passed through her bower to the domed castle.
+
+Glancing through a cleft I caught sight again of the far end of the
+bridge; noted among the clustered figures of its garrison of the
+frog-men a movement, a flashing of green fire like marshlights on
+spear tips; wondered idly what it was, and then, other thoughts
+crowding in, followed along, head bent, behind the pair who had found
+in what was Olaf's hell, their true paradise.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+The Coming of Yolara
+
+
+"Never was there such a girl!" Thus Larry, dreamily, leaning head in
+hand on one of the wide divans of the chamber where Lakla had left us,
+pleading service to the Silent Ones.
+
+"An', by the faith and the honour of the O'Keefes, an' by my dead
+mother's soul may God do with me as I do by her!" he whispered
+fervently.
+
+He relapsed into open-eyed dreaming.
+
+I walked about the room, examining it--the first opportunity I had
+gained to inspect carefully any of the rooms in the abode of the
+Three. It was octagonal, carpeted with the thick rugs that seemed
+almost as though woven of soft mineral wool, faintly shimmering,
+palest blue. I paced its diagonal; it was fifty yards; the ceiling was
+arched, and either of pale rose metal or metallic covering; it
+collected the light from the high, slitted windows, and shed it,
+diffused, through the room.
+
+Around the octagon ran a low gallery not two feet from the floor,
+balustraded with slender pillars, close set; broken at opposite
+curtained entrances over which hung thick, dull-gold curtainings
+giving the same suggestion of metallic or mineral substance as the
+rugs. Set within each of the eight sides, above the balcony, were
+colossal slabs of lapis lazuli, inset with graceful but unplaceable
+designs in scarlet and sapphire blue.
+
+There was the great divan on which mused Larry; two smaller ones, half
+a dozen low seats and chairs carved apparently of ivory and of dull
+soft gold.
+
+Most curious were tripods, strong, pikelike legs of golden metal four
+feet high, holding small circles of the lapis with intaglios of one
+curious symbol somewhat resembling the ideographs of the Chinese.
+
+There was no dust--nowhere in these caverned spaces had I found this
+constant companion of ours in the world overhead. My eyes caught a
+sparkle from a corner. Pursuing it I found upon one of the low seats a
+flat, clear crystal oval, remarkably like a lens. I took it and
+stepped up on the balcony. Standing on tiptoe I found I commanded from
+the bottom of a window slit a view of the bridge approach. Scanning it
+I could see no trace of the garrison there, nor of the green spear
+flashes. I placed the crystal to my eyes--and with a disconcerting
+abruptness the cavern mouth leaped before me, apparently not a hundred
+feet away; decidedly the crystal was a very excellent lens--but where
+were the guards?
+
+I peered closely.  Nothing!  But now against the aperture I saw a
+score or more of tiny, dancing sparks. An optical illusion, I thought,
+and turned the crystal in another direction. There were no sparklings
+there. I turned it back again--and there they were. And what were
+they like? Realization came to me--they were like the little, dancing,
+radiant atoms that had played for a time about the emptiness where had
+stood Sorgar of the Lower Waters before he had been shaken into the
+nothingness! And that green light I had noticed--the _Keth_!
+
+A cry on my lips, I turned to Larry--and the cry died as the heavy
+curtainings at the entrance on my right undulated, parted as though a
+body had slipped through, shook and parted again and again--with the
+dreadful passing of unseen things!
+
+"Larry!" I cried.  "Here!  Quick!"
+
+He leaped to his feet, gazed about wildly--and disappeared!
+Yes--vanished from my sight like the snuffed flame of a candle or as
+though something moving with the speed of light itself had snatched
+him away!
+
+Then from the divan came the sounds of struggle, the hissing of
+straining breaths, the noise of Larry cursing. I leaped over the
+balustrade, drawing my own pistol--was caught in a pair of mighty
+arms, my elbows crushed to my sides, drawn down until my face pressed
+close to a broad, hairy breast--and through that obstacle--formless,
+shadowless, transparent as air itself--I could still see the battle on
+the divan!
+
+Now there were two sharp reports; the struggle abruptly ceased.  From
+a point not a foot over the great couch, as though oozing from the air
+itself, blood began to drop, faster and ever faster, pouring out of
+nothingness.
+
+And out of that same air, now a dozen feet away, leaped the face of
+Larry--bodyless, poised six feet above the floor, blazing with
+rage--floating weirdly, uncannily to a hideous degree, in vacancy.
+
+His hands flashed out--armless; they wavered, appearing,
+disappearing--swiftly tearing something from him. Then there, feet
+hidden, stiff on legs that vanished at the ankles, striking out into
+vision with all the dizzy abruptness with which he had been stricken
+from sight was the O'Keefe, a smoking pistol in hand.
+
+And ever that red stream trickled out of vacancy and spread over the
+couch, dripping to the floor.
+
+I made a mighty movement to escape; was held more firmly--and then
+close to the face of Larry, flashing out with that terrifying
+instantaneousness even as had his, was the head of Yolara, as
+devilishly mocking as I had ever seen it, the cruelty shining through
+it like delicate white flames from hell--and beautiful!
+
+"Stir not!  Strike not--until I command!" She flung the words beyond
+her, addressed to the invisible ones who had accompanied her; whose
+presences I sensed filling the chamber. The floating, beautiful head,
+crowned high with corn-silk hair, darted toward the Irishman. He took
+a swift step backward. The eyes of the priestess deepened toward
+purple; sparkled with malice.
+
+"So," she said.  "So, _Larree_--you thought you could go from me so
+easily!" She laughed softly. "In my hidden hand I hold the _Keth_
+cone," she murmured. "Before you can raise the death tube I can smite
+you--and will. And consider, _Larree_, if the handmaiden, the _choya_
+comes, I can vanish--so"--the mocking head disappeared, burst forth
+again--"and slay her with the _Keth_--or bid my people seize her and
+bear her to the Shining One!"
+
+Tiny beads of sweat stood out on O'Keefe's forehead, and I knew he was
+thinking not of himself, but of Lakla.
+
+"What do you want with me, Yolara?" he asked hoarsely.
+
+"Nay," came the mocking voice.  "Not Yolara to you, _Larree_--call me
+by those sweet names you taught me--Honey of the Wild Bee-e-s, Net of
+Hearts--" Again her laughter tinkled.
+
+"What do you want with me?" his voice was strained, the lips rigid.
+
+"Ah, you are afraid, _Larree_." There was diabolic jubilation in the
+words. "What should I want but that you return with me? Why else did I
+creep through the lair of the dragon worm and pass the path of perils
+but to ask you that? And the _choya_ guards you not well." Again she
+laughed. "We came to the cavern's end and, there were her _Akka_. And
+the _Akka_ can see us--as shadows. But it was my desire to surprise
+you with my coming, Larree," the voice was silken. "And I feared that
+they would hasten to be first to bring you that message to delight in
+your joy. And so, _Larree_, I loosed the _Keth_ upon them--and gave
+them peace and rest within the nothingness. And the portal below was
+open--almost in welcome!"
+
+Once more the malignant, silver pealing of her laughter.
+
+"What do you want with me?" There was wrath in his eyes, and plainly
+he strove for control.
+
+"Want!" the silver voice hissed, grew calm.  "Do not Siya and Siyana
+grieve that the rite I pledged them is but half done--and do they not
+desire it finished? And am I not beautiful? More beautiful than your
+_choya_?"
+
+The fiendishness died from the eyes; they grew blue, wondrous; the
+veil of invisibility slipped down from the neck, the shoulders, half
+revealing the gleaming breasts. And weird, weird beyond all telling
+was that exquisite head and bust floating there in air--and beautiful,
+sinisterly beautiful beyond all telling, too. So even might Lilith,
+the serpent woman, have shown herself tempting Adam!
+
+"And perhaps," she said, "perhaps I want you because I hate you;
+perhaps because I love you--or perhaps for Lugur or perhaps for the
+Shining One."
+
+"And if I go with you?" He said it quietly.
+
+"Then shall I spare the handmaiden--and--who knows?--take back my
+armies that even now gather at the portal and let the Silent Ones rot
+in peace in their abode--from which they had no power to keep me," she
+added venomously.
+
+"You will swear that, Yolara; swear to go without harming the
+handmaiden?" he asked eagerly. The little devils danced in her eyes. I
+wrenched my face from the smothering contact.
+
+"Don't trust her, Larry!" I cried--and again the grip choked me.
+
+"Is that devil in front of you or behind you, old man?" he asked
+quietly, eyes never leaving the priestess. "If he's in front I'll take
+a chance and wing him--and then you scoot and warn Lakla."
+
+But I could not answer; nor, remembering Yolara's threat, would I, had
+I been able.
+
+"Decide quickly!" There was cold threat in her voice.
+
+The curtains toward which O'Keefe had slowly, step by step, drawn
+close, opened. They framed the handmaiden! The face of Yolara changed
+to that gorgon mask that had transformed it once before at sight of
+the Golden Girl. In her blind rage she forgot to cast the occulting
+veil. Her hand darted like a snake out of the folds; poising itself
+with the little silver cone aimed at Lakla.
+
+But before it was wholly poised, before the priestess could loose its
+force, the handmaiden was upon her. Swift as the lithe white wolf
+hound she leaped, and one slender hand gripped Yolara's throat, the
+other the wrist that lifted the quivering death; white limbs wrapped
+about the hidden ones, I saw the golden head bend, the hand that held
+the _Keth_ swept up with a vicious jerk; saw Lakla's teeth sink into
+the wrist--the blood spurt forth and heard the priestess shriek. The
+cone fell, bounded toward me; with all my strength I wrenched free the
+hand that held my pistol, thrust it against the pressing breast and
+fired.
+
+The clasp upon me relaxed; a red rain stained me; at my feet a little
+pillar of blood jetted; a hand thrust itself from nothingness,
+clawed--and was still.
+
+Now Yolara was down, Lakla meshed in her writhings and fighting like
+some wild mother whose babes are serpent menaced. Over the two of
+them, astride, stood the O'Keefe, a pike from one of the high tripods
+in his hand--thrusting, parrying, beating on every side as with a
+broadsword against poniard-clutching hands that thrust themselves out
+of vacancy striving to strike him; stepping here and there, always
+covering, protecting Lakla with his own body even as a caveman of old
+who does battle with his mate for their lives.
+
+The sword-club struck--and on the floor lay the half body of a dwarf,
+writhing with vanishments and reappearings of legs and arms. Beside
+him was the shattered tripod from which Larry had wrenched his weapon.
+I flung myself upon it, dashed it down to break loose one of the
+remaining supports, struck in midfall one of the unseen even as his
+dagger darted toward me! The seat splintered, leaving in my clutch a
+golden bar. I jumped to Larry's side, guarding his back, whirling it
+like a staff; felt it crunch once--twice--through unseen bone and
+muscle.
+
+At the door was a booming.  Into the chamber rushed a dozen of the
+frog-men. While some guarded the entrances, others leaped straight to
+us, and forming a circle about us began to strike with talons and
+spurs at unseen things that screamed and sought to escape. Now here
+and there about the blue rugs great stains of blood appeared; heads of
+dwarfs, torn arms and gashed bodies, half occulted, half revealed. And
+at last the priestess lay silent, vanquished, white body gleaming with
+that uncanny--fragmentariness--from her torn robes. Then O'Keefe
+reached down, drew Lakla from her. Shakily, Yolara rose to her feet.
+The handmaiden, face still blazing with wrath, stepped before her;
+with difficulty she steadied her voice.
+
+"Yolara," she said, "you have defied the Silent Ones, you have
+desecrated their abode, you came to slay these men who are the guests
+of the Silent Ones and me, who am their handmaiden--why did you do
+these things?"
+
+"I came for him!" gasped the priestess; she pointed to O'Keefe.
+
+"Why?" asked Lakla.
+
+"Because he is pledged to me," replied Yolara, all the devils that
+were hers in her face. "Because he wooed me! Because he is mine!"
+
+"That is a lie!" The handmaiden's voice shook with rage. "It is a lie!
+But here and now he shall choose, Yolara. And if you he choose, you
+and he shall go forth from here unmolested--for Yolara, it is his
+happiness that I most desire, and if you are that happiness--you shall
+go together. And now, Larry, choose!"
+
+Swiftly she stepped beside the priestess; swiftly wrenched the last
+shreds of the hiding robes from her.
+
+There they stood--Yolara with but the filmiest net of gauze about her
+wonderful body; gleaming flesh shining through it; serpent woman---and
+wonderful, too, beyond the dreams even of Phidias--and hell-fire
+glowing from the purple eyes.
+
+And Lakla, like a girl of the Vikings, like one of those warrior maids
+who stood and fought for dun and babes at the side of those old heroes
+of Larry's own green isle; translucent ivory lambent through the rents
+of her torn draperies, and in the wide, golden eyes flaming wrath,
+indeed--not the diabolic flames of the priestess but the righteous
+wrath of some soul that looking out of paradise sees vile wrong in the
+doing.
+
+"Lakla," the O'Keefe's voice was subdued, hurt, "there _is_ no choice.
+I love you and only you--and have from the moment I saw you. It's not
+easy--this. God, Goodwin, I feel like an utter cad," he flashed at me.
+"There is no choice, Lakla," he ended, eyes steady upon hers.
+
+The priestess's face grew deadlier still.
+
+"What will you do with me?" she asked.
+
+"Keep you," I said, "as hostage."
+
+O'Keefe was silent; the Golden Girl shook her head.
+
+"Well would I like to," her face grew dreaming; "but the Silent Ones
+say--_no_; they bid me let you go, Yolara--"
+
+"The Silent Ones," the priestess laughed. "_You_, Lakla! You fear,
+perhaps, to let me tarry here too close!"
+
+Storm gathered again in the handmaiden's eyes; she forced it back.
+
+"No," she answered, "the Silent Ones so command--and for their own
+purposes. Yet do I think, Yolara, that you will have little time to
+feed your wickedness--tell that to Lugur--and to your Shining One!"
+she added slowly.
+
+Mockery and disbelief rode high in the priestess's pose. "Am I to
+return alone--like this?" she asked.
+
+"Nay, Yolara, nay; you shall be accompanied," said Lakla; "and by
+those who will guard--and _watch_--you well. They are here even now."
+
+The hangings parted, and into the chamber came Olaf and Rador.
+
+The priestess met the fierce hatred and contempt in the eyes of the
+Norseman--and for the first time lost her bravado.
+
+"Let not _him_ go with me," she gasped--her eyes searched the floor
+frantically.
+
+"He goes with you," said Lakla, and threw about Yolara a swathing that
+covered the exquisite, alluring body. "And you shall pass through the
+Portal, not skulk along the path of the worm!"
+
+She bent to Rador, whispered to him; he nodded; she had told him, I
+supposed, the secret of its opening.
+
+"Come," he said, and with the ice-eyed giant behind her, Yolara, head
+bent, passed out of those hangings through which, but a little before,
+unseen, triumph in her grasp, she had slipped.
+
+Then Lakla came to the unhappy O'Keefe, rested her hands on his
+shoulders, looked deep into his eyes.
+
+"_Did_ you woo her, even as she said?" she asked.
+
+The Irishman flushed miserably.
+
+"I did not," he said.  "I was pleasant to her, of course, because I
+thought it would bring me quicker to you, darlin'."
+
+She looked at him doubtfully; then--
+
+"I think you must have been _very_--pleasant!" was all she said--and
+leaning, kissed him forgivingly straight on the lips. An extremely
+direct maiden was Lakla, with a truly sovereign contempt for anything
+she might consider non-essentials; and at this moment I decided she
+was wiser even than I had thought her.
+
+He stumbled, feet vanishing; reached down and picked up something that
+in the grasping turned his hand to air.
+
+"One of the invisible cloaks," he said to me.  "There must be quite a
+lot of them about--I guess Yolara brought her full staff of murderers.
+They're a bit shopworn, probably--but we're considerably better off
+with 'em in our hands than in hers. And they may come in handy--who
+knows?"
+
+There was a choking rattle at my feet; half the head of a dwarf raised
+out of vacancy; beat twice upon the floor in death throes; fell back.
+Lakla shivered; gave a command. The frog-men moved about; peering here
+and there; lifting unseen folds revealing in stark rigidity torn form
+after form of the priestess's men.
+
+Lakla had been right--her _Akka_ were thorough fighters!
+
+She called, and to her came the frog-woman who was her attendant.  To
+her the handmaiden spoke, pointing to the batrachians who stood, paws
+and forearms melted beneath the robes they had gathered. She took them
+and passed out--more grotesque than ever, shattering into streaks of
+vacancies, reappearing with flickers of shining scale and yellow gems
+as the tattered pennants of invisibility fluttered about her.
+
+The frog-men reached down, swung each a dead dwarf in his arms, and
+filed, booming triumphantly away.
+
+And then I remembered the cone of the _Keth_ which had slipped from
+Yolara's hand; knew it had been that for which her wild eyes searched.
+But look as closely as we might, search in every nook and corner as we
+did, we could not find it. Had the dying hand of one of her men
+clutched it and had it been borne away with them? With the thought
+Larry and I raced after the scaled warriors, searched every body they
+carried. It was not there. Perhaps the priestess had found it,
+retrieved it swiftly without our seeing.
+
+Whatever was true--the cone was gone.  And what a weapon that one
+little holder of the shaking death would have been for us!
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+In the Lair of the Dweller
+
+
+It is with marked hesitation that I begin this chapter, because in it
+I must deal with an experience so contrary to every known law of
+physics as to seem impossible. Until this time, barring, of course,
+the mystery of the Dweller, I had encountered nothing that was not
+susceptible of naturalistic explanation; nothing, in a word, outside
+the domain of science itself; nothing that I would have felt hesitancy
+in reciting to my colleagues of the International Association of
+Science. Amazing, unfamiliar--_advanced_--as many of the phenomena were,
+still they lay well within the limits of what we have mapped as the
+possible; in regions, it is true, still virgin to the mind of man, but
+toward which that mind is steadily advancing.
+
+But this--well, I confess that I have a theory that is naturalistic;
+but so abstruse, so difficult to make clear within the short confines
+of the space I have to give it, so dependent upon conceptions that
+even the highest-trained scientific brains find difficult to grasp,
+that I despair.
+
+I can only say that the thing occurred; that it took place in
+precisely the manner I am about to narrate, and that I experienced it.
+
+Yet, in justice to myself, I must open up some paths of preliminary
+approach toward the heart of the perplexity. And the first path is the
+realization that our world _whatever_ it is, is certainly _not_ the
+world as we see it! Regarding this I shall refer to a discourse upon
+"Gravitation and the Principle of Relativity," by the distinguished
+English physicist, Dr. A. S. Eddington, which I had the pleasure of
+hearing him deliver before the Royal Institution. *1
+
+
+*1 Reprinted in full in _Nature_, in which those sufficiently interested
+may peruse it.--W. T. G.
+
+
+
+I realize, of course, that it is not true logic to argue--"The world
+is not as we think it is--therefore everything we think impossible is
+possible in it." Even if it _be_ different, it is governed by _law_. The
+truly impossible is that which is outside law, and as nothing _can_ be
+outside law, the impossible _cannot_ exist.
+
+The crux of the matter then becomes our determination whether what we
+think is impossible may or may not be possible under laws still beyond
+our knowledge.
+
+I hope that you will pardon me for this somewhat academic digression,
+but I felt it was necessary, and it has, at least, put me more at
+ease. And now to resume.
+
+We had watched, Larry and I, the frog-men throw the bodies of Yolara's
+assassins into the crimson waters. As vultures swoop down upon the
+dying, there came sailing swiftly to where the dead men floated,
+dozens of the luminous globes. Their slender, varicoloured tentacles
+whipped out; the giant iridescent bubbles _climbed_ over the cadavers.
+And as they touched them there was the swift dissolution, the melting
+away into putrescence of flesh and bone that I had witnessed when the
+dart touched fruit that time I had saved Rador--and upon this the
+Medusae gorged; pulsing lambently; their wondrous colours shifting,
+changing, glowing stronger; elfin moons now indeed, but satellites
+whose glimmering beauty was fed by death; alembics of enchantment
+whose glorious hues were sucked from horror.
+
+Sick, I turned away--O'Keefe as pale as I; passed back into the
+corridor that had opened on the ledge from which we had watched; met
+Lakla hurrying toward us. Before she could speak there throbbed
+faintly about us a vast sighing. It grew into a murmur, a whispering,
+shook us--then passing like a presence, died away in far distance.
+
+"The Portal has opened," said the handmaiden.  A fainter sighing, like
+an echo of the other, mourned about us. "Yolara is gone," she said,
+"the Portal is closed. Now must we hasten--for the Three have
+commanded that you, Goodwin, and Larry and I tread that strange road
+of which I have spoken, and which Olaf may not take lest his heart
+break--and we must return ere he and Rador cross the bridge."
+
+Her hand sought Larry's.
+
+"Come!" said Lakla, and we walked on; down and down through hall after
+hall, flight upon flight of stairways. Deep, deep indeed, we must be
+beneath the domed castle--Lakla paused before a curved, smooth breast
+of the crimson stone rounding gently into the passage. She pressed its
+side; it revolved; we entered; it closed behind us.
+
+The room, the--hollow--in which we stood was faceted like a diamond;
+and like a cut brilliant its sides glistened--though dully. Its shape
+was a deep oval, and our path dropped down to a circular polished
+base, roughly two yards in diameter. Glancing behind me I saw that in
+the closing of the entrance there had been left no trace of it save
+the steps that led from where that entrance had been--and as I looked
+these steps _turned_, leaving us isolated upon the circle, only the
+faceted walls about us--and in each of the gleaming faces the three of
+us reflected--dimly. It was as though we were within a diamond egg
+whose graven angles had been turned _inward_.
+
+But the oval was not perfect; at my right a screen cut it--a screen
+that gleamed with fugitive, fleeting luminescences--stretching from
+the side of our standing place up to the tip of the chamber; slightly
+convex and crisscrossed by millions of fine lines like those upon a
+spectroscopic plate, but with this difference--that within each line I
+sensed the presence of multitudes of finer lines, dwindling into
+infinitude, ultramicroscopic, traced by some instrument compared to
+whose delicacy our finest tool would be as a crowbar to the needle of
+a micrometer.
+
+A foot or two from it stood something like the standee of a compass,
+bearing, like it a cradled dial under whose crystal ran concentric
+rings of prisoned, lambent vapours, faintly blue. From the edge of the
+dial jutted a little shelf of crystal, a keyboard, in which were cut
+eight small cups.
+
+Within these cups the handmaiden placed her tapering fingers.  She
+gazed down upon the disk; pressed a digit--and the screen behind us
+slipped noiselessly into another angle.
+
+"Put your arm around my waist, Larry, darlin', and stand close," she
+murmured. "You, Goodwin, place your arm over my shoulder."
+
+Wondering, I did as she bade; she pressed other fingers upon the
+shelf's indentations--three of the rings of vapour spun into intense
+light, raced around each other; from the screen behind us grew a
+radiance that held within itself all spectrums--not only those seen,
+but those _unseen_ by man's eyes. It waxed brilliant and ever more
+brilliant, all suffusing, passing through me as day streams through a
+window pane!
+
+The enclosing facets burst into a blaze of coruscations, and in each
+sparkling panel I saw our images, shaken and torn like pennants in a
+whirlwind. I turned to look--was stopped by the handmaiden's swift
+command: "Turn not--on your life!"
+
+The radiance behind me grew; was a rushing tempest of light in which I
+was but the shadow of a shadow. I heard, but not with my ears--nay with
+_mind_ itself--a vast roaring; an _ordered_ tumult of sound that came
+hurling from the outposts of space; approaching--rushing--hurricane
+out of the heart of the cosmos--closer, closer. It wrapped itself
+about us with unearthly mighty arms.
+
+And brilliant, ever more brilliant, streamed the radiance through us.
+
+The faceted walls dimmed; in front of me they melted, diaphanously,
+like a gelatinous wall in a blast of flame; through their vanishing,
+under the torrent of driving light, the unthinkable, impalpable
+tornado, I began to move, slowly--then ever more swiftly!
+
+Still the roaring grew; the radiance streamed--ever faster we went.
+Cutting down through the length, the _extension_ of me, dropped a wall
+of rock, foreshortened, clenched close; I caught a glimpse of the
+elfin gardens; they whirled, contracted, into a thin--slice--of colour
+that was a part of me; another wall of rock shrinking into a thin
+wedge through which I flew, and that at once took its place within me
+like a card slipped beside those others!
+
+Flashing around me, and from Lakla and O'Keefe, were nimbuses of
+flickering scarlet flames. And always the steady hurling
+forward--appallingly mechanical.
+
+Another barrier of rock--a gleam of white waters incorporating
+themselves into my--_drawing out_--even as were the flowered moss lands,
+the slicing, rocky walls--still another rampart of cliff, dwindling
+instantly into the vertical plane of those others. Our flight checked;
+we seemed to hover within, then to sway onward--slowly, cautiously.
+
+A mist danced ahead of me--a mist that grew steadily thinner.  We
+stopped, wavered--the mist cleared.
+
+I looked out into translucent, green distances; shot with swift
+prismatic gleamings; waves and pulsings of luminosity like midday sun
+glow through green, tropic waters: dancing, scintillating veils of
+sparkling atoms that flew, hither and yon, through depths of nebulous
+splendour!
+
+And Lakla and Larry and I were, I saw, like shadow shapes upon a
+smooth breast of stone twenty feet or more above the surface of this
+place--a surface spangled with tiny white blossoms gleaming wanly
+through creeping veils of phosphorescence like smoke of moon fire. We
+were shadows--and yet we had substance; we were incorporated with, a
+part of, the rock--and yet we were living flesh and blood; we
+stretched--nor will I qualify this--we _stretched_ through mile upon
+mile of space that weirdly enough gave at one and the same time an
+absolute certainty of immense horizontal lengths and a vertical
+concentration that contained nothing of length, nothing of space
+whatever; we stood _there_ upon the face of the stone--and still we
+were _here_ within the faceted oval before the screen of radiance!
+
+"Steady!" It was Lakla's voice--and not beside me _there_, but at my ear
+close before the screen. "Steady, Goodwin! And--see!"
+
+The sparkling haze cleared.  Enormous reaches stretched before me.
+Shimmering up through them, and as though growing in some medium
+thicker than air, was mass upon mass of verdure--fruiting trees and
+trees laden with pale blossoms, arbours and bowers of pallid blooms,
+like that sea fruit of oblivion--grapes of Lethe--that cling to the
+tide-swept walls of the caverns of the Hebrides.
+
+Through them, beyond them, around and about them, drifted and eddied a
+horde--great as that with which Tamerlane swept down upon Rome, vast
+as the myriads which Genghis Khan rolled upon the califs--men and
+women and children--clothed in tatters, half nude and wholly naked;
+slant-eyed Chinese, sloe-eyed Malays, islanders black and brown and
+yellow, fierce-faced warriors of the Solomons with grizzled locks
+fantastically bedizened; Papuans, feline Javans, Dyaks of hill and
+shore; hook-nosed Phoenicians, Romans, straight-browed Greeks, and
+Vikings centuries _beyond_ their lives: scores of the black-haired
+Murians; white faces of our own Westerners--men and women and children
+--drifting, eddying--each stamped with that mingled horror and
+rapture, eyes filled with ecstasy and terror entwined, marked by God
+and devil in embrace--the seal of the Shining One--the dead-alive; the
+lost ones!
+
+The loot of the Dweller!
+
+Soul-sick, I gazed.  They lifted to us visages of dread; they swept
+down toward us, glaring upward--a bank against which other and still
+other waves of faces rolled, were checked, paused; until as far as I
+could see, like billows piled upon an ever-growing barrier, they
+stretched beneath us--staring--staring!
+
+Now there was a movement--far, far away; a concentrating of the
+lambency; the dead-alive swayed, oscillated, separated--forming a long
+lane against whose outskirts they crowded with avid, hungry
+insistence.
+
+First only a luminous cloud, then a whirling pillar of splendours
+through the lane came--the Shining One. As it passed, the dead-alive
+swirled in its wake like leaves behind a whirlwind, eddying, twisting;
+and as the Dweller raced by them, brushing them with its spirallings
+and tentacles, they shone forth with unearthly, awesome
+gleamings--like vessels of alabaster in which wicks flare suddenly.
+And when it had passed they closed behind it, staring up at us once
+more.
+
+The Dweller paused beneath us.
+
+Out of the drifting ruck swam the body of Throckmartin! Throckmartin,
+my friend, to find whom I had gone to the pallid moon door; my friend
+whose call I had so laggardly followed. On his face was the Dweller's
+dreadful stamp; the lips were bloodless; the eyes were wide, lucent,
+something like pale, phosphorescence gleaming within them--and
+soulless.
+
+He stared straight up at me, unwinking, unrecognizing. Pressing
+against his side was a woman, young and gentle, and lovely--lovely
+even through the mask that lay upon her face. And her wide eyes, like
+Throckmartin's, glowed with the lurking, unholy fires. She pressed
+against him closely; though the hordes kept up the faint churning,
+these two kept ever together, as though bound by unseen fetters.
+
+And I knew the girl for Edith, his wife, who in vain effort to save
+him had cast herself into the Dweller's embrace!
+
+"Throckmartin!" I cried.  "Throckmartin!  I'm here!"
+
+Did he hear?  I know now, of course, he could not.
+
+But then I waited--hope striving to break through the nightmare hands
+that gripped my heart.
+
+Their wide eyes never left me.  There was another movement about them,
+others pushed past them; they drifted back, swaying, eddying--and
+still staring were lost in the awful throng.
+
+Vainly I strained my gaze to find them again, to force some sign of
+recognition, some awakening of the clean life we know. But they were
+gone. Try as I would I could not see them--nor Stanton and the
+northern woman named Thora who had been the first of that tragic party
+to be taken by the Dweller.
+
+"Throckmartin!" I cried again, despairingly.  My tears blinded me.
+
+I felt Lakla's light touch.
+
+"Steady," she commanded, pitifully.  "Steady, Goodwin. You cannot help
+them--now! Steady and--watch!"
+
+Below us the Shining One had paused--spiralling, swirling, vibrant
+with all its transcendent, devilish beauty; had paused and was
+contemplating us. Now I could see clearly that nucleus, that core shot
+through with flashing veins of radiance, that ever-shifting shape of
+glory through the shroudings of shimmering, misty plumes, throbbing
+lacy opalescences, vaporous spirallings of prismatic phantom fires.
+Steady over it hung the seven little moons of amethyst, of saffron, of
+emerald and azure and silver, of rose of life and moon white. They
+poised themselves like a diadem--calm, serene, immobile--and down
+from them into the Dweller, piercing plumes and swirls and spirals,
+ran countless tiny strands, radiations, finer than the finest spun
+thread of spider's web, gleaming filaments through which seemed to
+run--_power_--from the seven globes; like--yes, that was it--miniatures
+of the seven torrents of moon flame that poured through the
+septichromatic, high crystals in the Moon Pool's chamber roof.
+
+Swam out of the coruscating haze the--face!
+
+Both of man and of woman it was--like some ancient, androgynous deity
+of Etruscan fanes long dust, and yet neither woman nor man; human and
+unhuman, seraphic and sinister, benign and malefic--and still no more
+of these four than is flame, which is beautiful whether it warms or
+devours, or wind whether it feathers the trees or shatters them, or
+the wave which is wondrous whether it caresses or kills.
+
+Subtly, undefinably it was of our world and of one not ours.  Its
+lineaments flowed from another sphere, took fleeting familiar
+form--and as swiftly withdrew whence they had come; something
+amorphous, unearthly--as of unknown unheeding, unseen gods rushing
+through the depths of star-hung space; and still of our own earth,
+with the very soul of earth peering out from it, caught within it--and
+in some--unholy--way debased.
+
+It had eyes--eyes that were now only shadows darkening within its
+luminosity like veils falling, and falling, _opening_ windows into the
+unknowable; deepening into softly glowing blue pools, blue as the Moon
+Pool itself; then flashing out, and this only when the--face--bore its
+most human resemblance, into twin stars large almost as the crown of
+little moons; and with that same baffling suggestion of peep-holes
+into a world untrodden, alien, perilous to man!
+
+"Steady!" came Lakla's voice, her body leaned against mine.
+
+I gripped myself, my brain steadied, I looked again.  And I saw that
+of body, at least body as we know it, the Shining One had
+none--nothing but the throbbing, pulsing core streaked with lightning
+veins of rainbows; and around this, never still, sheathing it, the
+swirling, glorious veilings of its hell and heaven born radiance.
+
+So the Dweller stood--and gazed.
+
+Then up toward us swept a reaching, questing spiral!
+
+Under my hand Lakla's shoulder quivered; dead-alive and their master
+vanished--I danced, flickered, _within_ the rock; felt a swift sense of
+shrinking, of withdrawal; slice upon slice the carded walls of stone,
+of silvery waters, of elfin gardens slipped from me as cards are
+withdrawn from a pack, one by one--slipped, wheeled, flattened, and
+lengthened out as I passed through them and they passed from me.
+
+Gasping, shaken, weak, I stood within the faceted oval chamber; arm
+still about the handmaiden's white shoulder; Larry's hand still
+clutching her girdle.
+
+The roaring, impalpable gale from the cosmos was retreating to the
+outposts of space--was still; the intense, streaming, flooding
+radiance lessened--died.
+
+"Now have you beheld," said Lakla, "and well you trod the road.  And
+now shall you hear, even as the Silent Ones have commanded, what the
+Shining One is--and how it came to be."
+
+The steps flashed back; the doorway into the chamber opened.
+
+Larry as silent as I--we followed her through it.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+The Shaping of the Shining One
+
+
+We reached what I knew to be Lakla's own boudoir, if I may so call it.
+Smaller than any of the other chambers of the domed castle in which we
+had been, its intimacy was revealed not only by its faint fragrance
+but by its high mirrors of polished silver and various oddly wrought
+articles of the feminine toilet that lay here and there; things I
+afterward knew to be the work of the artisans of the _Akka_--and no
+mean metal workers were they. One of the window slits dropped almost
+to the floor, and at its base was a wide, comfortably cushioned seat
+commanding a view of the bridge and of the cavern ledge. To this the
+handmaiden beckoned us; sank upon it, drew Larry down beside her and
+motioned me to sit close to him.
+
+"Now this," she said, "is what the Silent Ones have commanded me to
+tell you two: To you Larry, that knowing you may weigh all things in
+your mind and answer as your spirit bids you a question that the Three
+will ask--and what that is I know not," she murmured, "and I, they
+say, must answer, too--and it--frightens me!"
+
+The great golden eyes widened; darkened with dread; she sighed, shook
+her head impatiently.
+
+"Not like us, and never like us," she spoke low, wonderingly, "the
+Silent Ones say were they. Nor were those from which they sprang like
+those from which we have come. Ancient, ancient beyond thought are the
+_Taithu_, the race of the Silent Ones. Far, far below this place where
+now we sit, close to earth heart itself were they born; and there they
+dwelt for time upon time, _laya_ upon _laya_ upon _laya_--with others,
+not like them, some of which have vanished time upon time agone,
+others that still dwell--below--in their--cradle.
+
+"It is hard"--she hesitated--"hard to tell this--that slips through my
+mind--because I know so little that even as the Three told it to me it
+passed from me for lack of place to stand upon," she went on,
+quaintly. "Something there was of time when earth and sun were but
+cold mists in the--the heavens--something of these mists drawing
+together, whirling, whirling, faster and faster--drawing as they
+whirled more and more of the mists--growing larger, growing
+warm--forming at last into the globes they are, with others spinning
+around the sun--something of regions within this globe where vast fire
+was prisoned and bursting forth tore and rent the young orb--of one
+such bursting forth that sent what you call moon flying out to company
+us and left behind those spaces whence we now dwell--and of--of life
+particles that here and there below grew into the race of the Silent
+Ones, and those others--but not the _Akka_ which, like you, they say
+came from above--and all this I do not understand--do you, Goodwin?"
+she appealed to me.
+
+I nodded--for what she had related so fragmentarily was in reality an
+excellent approach to the Chamberlain-Moulton theory of a coalescing
+nebula contracting into the sun and its planets.
+
+Astonishing was the recognition of this theory.  Even more so was the
+reference to the life particles, the idea of Arrhenius, the great
+Swede, of life starting on earth through the dropping of minute, life
+_spores_, propelled through space by the driving power of light and,
+encountering favourable environment here, developing through the vast
+ages into man and every other living thing we know. *1
+
+
+*1 Professor Svante August Arrhenius, in his _Worlds in the Making_--
+the conception that life is universally diffused, constantly emitted
+from all habitable worlds in the form of spores which traverse space
+for years and ages, the majority being ultimately destroyed by the
+heat of some blazing star, but some few finding a resting-place on
+globes which have reached the habitable stage.--W. T. G.
+
+
+
+Nor was it incredible that in the ancient nebula that was the matrix
+of our solar system similar, or rather _dissimilar_, particles in all
+but the subtle essence we call life, might have become entangled and,
+resisting every cataclysm as they had resisted the absolute zero of
+outer space, found in these caverned spaces their proper environment
+to develop into the race of the Silent Ones and--only _they_ could
+tell what else!
+
+"They say," the handmaiden's voice was surer, "they say that in
+their--cradle--near earth's heart they grew; grew untroubled by the
+turmoil and disorder which flayed the surface of this globe. And they
+say it was a place of light and that strength came to them from earth
+heart--strength greater than you and those from which you sprang ever
+derived from sun.
+
+"At last, ancient, ancient beyond all thought, they say again, was
+this time--they began to know, to--to--realize--themselves. And
+wisdom came ever more swiftly. Up from their cradle, because they did
+not wish to dwell longer with those--others--they came and found this
+place.
+
+"When all the face of earth was covered with waters in which lived
+only tiny, hungry things that knew naught save hunger and its
+satisfaction, _they_ had attained wisdom that enabled them to make paths
+such as we have just travelled and to look out upon those waters! And
+_laya_ upon _laya_ thereafter, time upon time, they went upon the
+paths and watched the flood recede; saw great bare flats of steaming
+ooze appear on which crawled and splashed larger things which had
+grown from the tiny hungry ones; watched the flats rise higher and
+higher and green life begin to clothe them; saw mountains uplift and
+vanish.
+
+"Ever the green life waxed and the things which crept and crawled grew
+greater and took ever different forms; until at last came a time when
+the steaming mists lightened and the things which had begun as little
+more than tiny hungry mouths were huge and monstrous, so huge that the
+tallest of my _Akka_ would not have reached the knee of the smallest
+of them.
+
+"But in none of these, in _none_, was there--realization--of
+themselves, say the Three; naught but hunger driving, always driving
+them to still its crying.
+
+"So for time upon time the race of the Silent Ones took the paths no
+more, placing aside the half-thought that they had of making their way
+to earth face even as they had made their way from beside earth heart.
+They turned wholly to the seeking of wisdom--and after other time on
+time they attained that which killed even the faintest shadow of the
+half-thought. For they crept far within the mysteries of life and
+death, they mastered the illusion of space, they lifted the veils of
+creation and of its twin destruction, and they stripped the covering
+from the flaming jewel of truth--but when they had crept within those
+mysteries they bid me tell _you_, Goodwin, they found ever other
+mysteries veiling the way; and after they had uncovered the jewel of
+truth they found it to be a gem of infinite facets and therefore not
+wholly to be read before eternity's unthinkable end!
+
+"And for this they were glad--because now throughout eternity might
+they and theirs pursue knowledge over ways illimitable.
+
+"They conquered light--light that sprang at their bidding from the
+nothingness that gives birth to all things and in which lie all things
+that are, have been and shall be; light that streamed through their
+bodies cleansing them of all dross; light that was food and drink;
+light that carried their vision afar or bore to them images out of
+space opening many windows through which they gazed down upon life on
+thousands upon thousands of the rushing worlds; light that was the
+flame of life itself and in which they bathed, ever renewing their
+own. They set radiant lamps within the stones, and of black light they
+wove the sheltering shadows and the shadows that slay.
+
+"Arose from this people those Three--the Silent Ones. They led them
+all in wisdom so that in the Three grew--pride. And the Three built
+them this place in which we sit and set the Portal in its place and
+withdrew from their kind to go alone into the mysteries and to map
+alone the facets of Truth Jewel.
+
+"Then there came the ancestors of the--_Akka_; not as they are now,
+and glowing but faintly within them the spark of--self-realization.
+And the _Taithu_ seeing this spark did not slay them. But they took
+the ancient, long untrodden paths and looked forth once more upon
+earth face. Now on the land were vast forests and a chaos of green
+life. On the shores things scaled and fanged, fought and devoured each
+other, and in the green life moved bodies great and small that slew
+and ran from those that would slay.
+
+"They searched for the passage through which the _Akka_ had come and
+closed it. Then the Three took them and brought them here; and taught
+them and blew upon the spark until it burned ever stronger and in time
+they became much as they are now--my _Akka_.
+
+"The Three took counsel after this and said--'We have strengthened
+life in these until it has become articulate; shall we not _create_
+life?'" Again she hesitated, her eyes rapt, dreaming. "The Three are
+speaking," she murmured. "They have my tongue--"
+
+And certainly, with an ease and rapidity as though she were but a
+voice through which minds far more facile, more powerful poured their
+thoughts, she spoke.
+
+"Yea," the golden voice was vibrant.  "We said that what we would
+create should be of the spirit of life itself, speaking to us with the
+tongues of the far-flung stars, of the winds, of the waters, and of
+all upon and within these. Upon that universal matrix of matter, that
+mother of all things that you name the ether, we laboured. Think not
+that her wondrous fertility is limited by what ye see on earth or what
+has been on earth from its beginning. Infinite, infinite are the forms
+the mother bears and countless are the energies that are part of her.
+
+"By our wisdom we had fashioned many windows out of our abode and
+through them we stared into the faces of myriads of worlds, and upon
+them all were the children of ether even as the worlds themselves were
+her children.
+
+"Watching we learned, and learning we formed that ye term the Dweller,
+which those without name--the Shining One. Within the Universal Mother
+we shaped it, to be a voice to tell us her secrets, a lamp to go
+before us lighting the mysteries. Out of the ether we fashioned it,
+giving it the soul of light that still ye know not nor perhaps ever
+may know, and with the essence of life that ye saw blossoming deep in
+the abyss and that is the pulse of earth heart we filled it. And we
+wrought with pain and with love, with yearning and with scorching
+pride and from our travail came the Shining One--our child!
+
+"There is an energy beyond and above ether, a purposeful, sentient
+force that laps like an ocean the furthest-flung star, that transfuses
+all that ether bears, that sees and speaks and feels in us and in you,
+that is incorporate in beast and bird and reptile, in tree and grass
+and all living things, that sleeps in rock and stone, that finds
+sparkling tongue in jewel and star and in all dwellers within the
+firmament. And this ye call consciousness!
+
+"We crowned the Shining One with the seven orbs of light which are the
+channels between it and the sentience we sought to make articulate,
+the portals through which flow its currents and so flowing, become
+choate, vocal, self-realizant within our child.
+
+"But as we shaped, there passed some of the essence of our pride; in
+giving will we had given power, perforce, to exercise that will for
+good or for evil, to speak or to be silent, to tell us what we wished
+of that which poured into it through the seven orbs or to withhold
+that knowledge itself; and in forging it from the immortal energies we
+had endowed it with their indifference; open to all consciousness it
+held within it the pole of utter joy and the pole of utter woe with
+all the arc that lies between; all the ecstasies of the countless
+worlds and suns and all their sorrows; all that ye symbolize as gods
+and all ye symbolize as devils--not negativing each other, for there
+is no such thing as negation, but holding them together, balancing
+them, encompassing them, pole upon pole!"
+
+So _this_ was the explanation of the entwined emotions of joy and terror
+that had changed so appallingly Throckmartin's face and the faces of
+all the Dweller's slaves!
+
+The handmaiden's eyes grew bright, alert, again; the brooding passed
+from her face; the golden voice that had been so deep found its own
+familiar pitch.
+
+"I listened while the Three spoke to you," she said.  "Now the shaping
+of the Shining One had been a long, long travail and time had flown
+over the outer world _laya_ upon _laya_. For a space the Shining One
+was content to dwell here; to be fed with the foods of light: to open
+the eyes of the Three to mystery upon mystery and to read for them
+facet after facet of the gem of truth. Yet as the tides of
+consciousness flowed through it they left behind shadowings and echoes
+of their burdens; and the Shining One grew stronger, always stronger
+of _itself within itself_. Its will strengthened and now not always was
+it the will of the Three; and the pride that was woven in the making
+of it waxed, while the love for them that its creators had set within
+it waned.
+
+"Not ignorant were the _Taithu_ of the work of the Three. First there
+were a few, then more and more who coveted the Shining One and who
+would have had the Three share with them the knowledge it drew in for
+them. But the Silent Ones in their pride, would not.
+
+"There came a time when its will was now _all_ its own, and it rebelled,
+turning its gaze to the wider spaces beyond the Portal, offering
+itself to the many there who would serve it; tiring of the Three,
+their control and their abode.
+
+"Now the Shining One has its limitations, even as we.  Over water it
+can pass, through air and through fire; but pass it cannot, through
+rock or metal. So it sent a message--how I know not--to the _Taithu_
+who desired it, whispering to them the secret of the Portal. And when
+the time was ripe they opened the Portal and the Shining One passed
+through it to them; nor would it return to the Three though they
+commanded, and when they would have forced it they found that it had
+hived and hidden a knowledge that they could not overcome.
+
+"Yet by their arts the Three could have shattered the seven shining
+orbs; but they would not because--they loved, it!
+
+"Those to whom it had gone built for it that place I have shown you,
+and they bowed to it and drew wisdom from it. And ever they turned
+more and more from the ways in which the _Taithu_ had walked--for it
+seemed that which came to the Shining One through the seven orbs had
+less and less of good and more and more of the power you call evil.
+Knowledge it gave and understanding, yes; but not that which, clear
+and serene, lights the paths of right wisdom; rather were they flares
+pointing the dark roads that lead to--to the ultimate evil!
+
+"Not all of the race of the Three followed the counsel of the Shining
+One. There were many, many, who would have none of it nor of its
+power. So were the _Taithu_ split; and to this place where there had
+been none, came hatred, fear and suspicion. Those who pursued the
+ancient ways went to the Three and pleaded with them to destroy their
+work--and they would not, for still they loved it.
+
+"Stronger grew the Dweller and less and less did it lay before its
+worshippers--for now so they had become--the fruits of its knowledge;
+and it grew--restless--turning its gaze upon earth face even as it had
+turned it from the Three. It whispered to the _Taithu_ to take again
+the paths and look out upon the world. Lo! above them was a great
+fertile land on which dwelt an unfamiliar race, skilled in arts,
+seeking and finding wisdom--mankind! Mighty builders were they; vast
+were their cities and huge their temples of stone.
+
+"They called their lands Muria and they worshipped a god Thanaroa whom
+they imagined to be the maker of all things, dwelling far away. They
+worshipped as closer gods, not indifferent but to be prayed to and to
+be propitiated, the moon and the sun. Two kings they had, each with
+his council and his court. One was high priest to the moon and the
+other high priest to the sun.
+
+"The mass of this people were black-haired, but the sun king and his
+nobles were ruddy with hair like mine; and the moon king and his
+followers were like Yolara--or Lugur. And this, the Three say,
+Goodwin, came about because for time upon time the law had been that
+whenever a ruddy-haired or ashen-tressed child was born of the
+black-haired it became dedicated at once to either sun god or moon
+god, later wedding and bearing children only to their own kind. Until
+at last from the black-haired came no more of the light-locked ones,
+but the ruddy ones, being stronger, still arose from them."
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+The Building of the Moon Pool
+
+
+She paused, running her long fingers through her own bronze-flecked
+ringlets. Selective breeding this, with a vengeance, I thought; an
+ancient experiment in heredity which of course would in time result in
+the stamping out of the tendency to depart from type that lies in all
+organisms; resulting, obviously, at last, in three fixed forms of
+black-haired, ruddy-haired, and silver-haired--but this, with a shock
+of realization it came to me, was also an accurate description of the
+dark-polled _ladala_, their fair-haired rulers and of the golden-brown
+tressed Lakla!
+
+How--questions began to stream through my mind; silenced by the
+handmaiden's voice.
+
+"Above, far, far above the abode of the Shining One," she said, "was
+their greatest temple, holding the shrines both of sun and moon. All
+about it were other temples hidden behind mighty walls, each enclosing
+its own space and squared and ruled and standing within a shallow
+lake; the sacred city, the city of the gods of this land--"
+
+"It is the Nan-Matal that she is describing," I thought.
+
+"Out upon all this looked the _Taithu_ who were now but the servants
+of the Shining One as it had been the messenger of the Three," she
+went on. "When they returned the Shining One spoke to them, promising
+them dominion over all that they had seen, yea, _under it_ dominion of
+all earth itself and later perhaps of other earths!
+
+"In the Shining One had grown craft, cunning; knowledge to gain that
+which it desired. Therefore it told its _Taithu_--and mayhap told
+them truth--that not yet was it time for _them_ to go forth; that slowly
+must they pass into that outer world, for they had sprung from heart
+of earth and even it lacked power to swirl unaided into and through
+the above. Then it counselled them, instructing them what to do. They
+hollowed the chamber wherein first I saw you, cutting their way to it
+that path down which from it you sped.
+
+"It revealed to them that the force that is within moon flame is kin
+to the force that is within it, for the chamber of its birth was the
+chamber too of moon birth and into it went the subtle essence and
+powers that flow in that earth child: and it taught them how to make
+that which fills what you call the Moon Pool whose opening is close
+behind its Veil hanging upon the gleaming cliffs.
+
+"When this was done it taught them how to make and how to place the
+seven lights through which moon flame streams into Moon Pool--the
+seven lights that are kin to its own seven orbs even as its fires are
+kin to moon fires--and which would open for it a path that it could
+tread. And all this the _Taithu_ did, working so secretly that neither
+those of their race whose faces were set against the Shining One nor
+the busy men above know aught of it.
+
+"When it was done they moved up the path, clustering within the Moon
+Pool Chamber. Moon flame streamed through the seven globes, poured
+down upon the pool; they saw mists arise, embrace, and become one with
+the moon flame--and then up through Moon Pool, shaping itself within
+the mists of light, whirling, radiant--the Shining One!
+
+"Almost free, almost loosed upon the world it coveted!
+
+"Again it counselled them, and they pierced the passage whose portal
+you found first; set the fires within its stones, and revealing
+themselves to the moon king and his priests spake to them even as the
+Shining One had instructed.
+
+"Now was the moon king filled with fear when he looked upon the
+_Taithu_, shrouded with protecting mists of light in Moon Pool
+Chamber, and heard their words. Yet, being crafty, he thought of the
+power that would be his if he heeded and how quickly the strength of
+the sun king would dwindle. So he and his made a pact with the Shining
+One's messengers.
+
+"When next the moon was round and poured its flames down upon Moon
+Pool, the _Taithu_ gathered there again, watched the child of the
+Three take shape within the pillars, speed away--and out! They heard a
+mighty shouting, a tumult of terror, of awe and of worship; a silence;
+a vast sighing--and they waited, wrapped in their mists of light, for
+they feared to follow nor were they near the paths that would have
+enabled them to look without.
+
+"Another tumult--and back came the Shining One, murmuring with joy,
+pulsing, triumphant, and clasped within its vapours a man and woman,
+ruddy-haired, golden-eyed, in whose faces rapture and horror lay side
+by side--gloriously, hideously. And still holding them it danced above
+the Moon Pool and--sank!
+
+"Now must I be brief. _Lat_ after _lat_ the Shining One went forth,
+returning with its sacrifices. And stronger after each it grew--and
+gayer and more cruel. Ever when it passed with its prey toward the
+pool, the _Taithu_ who watched felt a swift, strong intoxication, a
+drunkenness of spirit, streaming from it to them. And the Shining One
+forgot what it had promised them of dominion--and in this new evil
+delight they too forgot.
+
+"The outer land was torn with hatred and open strife. The moon king
+and his kind, through the guidance of the evil _Taithu_ and the favour
+of the Shining One, had become powerful and the sun king and his were
+darkened. And the moon priests preached that the child of the Three
+was the moon god itself come to dwell with them.
+
+"Now vast tides arose and when they withdrew they took with them great
+portions of this country. And the land itself began to sink. Then said
+the moon king that the moon had called to ocean to destroy because
+wroth that another than he was worshipped. The people believed and
+there was slaughter. When it was over there was no more a sun king nor
+any of the ruddy-haired folk; slain were they, slain down to the babe
+at breast.
+
+"But still the tides swept higher; still dwindled the land!
+
+"As it shrank multitudes of the fleeing people were led through Moon
+Pool Chamber and carried here. They were what now are called the
+_ladala_, and they were given place and set to work; and they thrived.
+Came many of the fair-haired; and they were given dwellings. They sat
+beside the evil _Taithu_; they became drunk even as they with the
+dancing of the Shining One; they learned--not all; only a little part
+but little enough--of their arts. And ever the Shining One danced more
+gaily out there within the black amphitheatre; grew ever stronger--and
+ever the hordes of its slaves behind the Veil increased.
+
+"Nor did the _Taithu_ who clung to the old ways check this--they
+could not. By the sinking of the land above, their own spaces were
+imperilled. All of their strength and all of their wisdom it took to
+keep this land from perishing; nor had they help from those others mad
+for the poison of the Shining One; and they had no time to deal with
+them nor the earth race with whom they had foregathered.
+
+"At last came a slow, vast flood.  It rolled even to the bases of the
+walled islets of the city of the gods--and within these now were all
+that were left of my people on earth face.
+
+"I am of those people," she paused, looking at me proudly, "one of the
+daughters of the sun king whose seed is still alive in the _ladala_!"
+
+As Larry opened his mouth to speak she waved a silencing hand.
+
+"This tide did not recede," she went on.  "And after a time the
+remnant, the moon king leading them, joined those who had already fled
+below. The rocks became still, the quakings ceased, and now those
+Ancient Ones who had been labouring could take breath. And anger grew
+within them as they looked upon the work of their evil kin. Again they
+sought the Three--and the Three now knew what they had done and their
+pride was humbled. They would not slay the Shining One themselves, for
+still they loved it; but they instructed these others how to undo
+their work; how also they might destroy the evil _Taithu_ were it
+necessary.
+
+"Armed with the wisdom of the Three they went forth--but now the
+Shining One was strong indeed. They could not slay it!
+
+"Nay, it knew and was prepared; they could not even pass beyond its
+Veil nor seal its abode. Ah, strong, strong, mighty of will, full of
+craft and cunning had the Shining One become. So they turned upon
+their kind who had gone astray and made them perish, to the last. The
+Shining One came not to the aid of its servants--though they called;
+for within its will was the thought that they were of no further use
+to it; that it would rest awhile and dance with them--who had so
+little of the power and wisdom of its _Taithu_ and therefore no reins
+upon it. And while this was happening black-haired and fair-haired ran
+and hid and were but shaking vessels of terror.
+
+"The Ancient Ones took counsel.  This was their decision; that they
+would go from the gardens before the Silver Waters--leaving, since
+they could not kill it, the Shining One with its worshippers. They
+sealed the mouth of the passage that leads to the Moon Pool Chamber
+and they changed the face of the cliff so that none might tell where
+it had been. But the passage itself they left open--having
+foreknowledge I think, of a thing that was to come to pass in the far
+future--perhaps it was your journey here, my Larry and Goodwin
+--verily I think so. And they destroyed all the ways save that which
+we three trod to the Dweller's abode.
+
+"For the last time they went to the Three--to pass sentence upon them.
+This was the doom--that here they should remain, alone, among the
+_Akka_, served by them, until that time dawned when they would have
+will to destroy the evil they had created--and even now--loved; nor
+might they seek death, nor follow their judges until this had come to
+pass. This was the doom they put upon the Three for the wickedness
+that had sprung from their pride, and they strengthened it with their
+arts that it might not be broken.
+
+"Then they passed--to a far land they had chosen where the Shining One
+could not go, beyond the Black Precipices of Doul, a green land--"
+
+"Ireland!" interrupted Larry, with conviction, "I knew it."
+
+"Since then time upon time had passed," she went on, unheeding.  "The
+people called this place Muria after their sunken land and soon they
+forgot where had been the passage the _Taithu_ had sealed. The moon
+king became the Voice of the Dweller and always with the Voice is a
+woman of the moon king's kin who is its priestess.
+
+"And many have been the journeys upward of the Shining One, through
+the Moon Pool--returning with still others in its coils.
+
+"And now again has it grown restless, longing for the wider spaces.
+It has spoken to Yolara and to Lugur even as it did to the dead
+_Taithu_, promising them dominion. And it has grown stronger, drawing
+to itself power to go far on the moon stream where it will. Thus was
+it able to seize your friend, Goodwin, and Olaf's wife and babe--and
+many more. Yolara and Lugur plan to open way to earth face; to depart
+with their court and under the Shining One grasp the world!
+
+"And this is the tale the Silent Ones bade me tell you--and it is
+done."
+
+Breathlessly I had listened to the stupendous epic of a long-lost
+world. Now I found speech to voice the question ever with me, the
+thing that lay as close to my heart as did the welfare of Larry,
+indeed the whole object of my quest--the fate of Throckmartin and
+those who had passed with him into the Dweller's lair; yes, and of
+Olaf's wife, too.
+
+"Lakla," I said, "the friend who drew me here and those he loved who
+went before him--can we not save them?"
+
+"The Three say no, Goodwin." There was again in her eyes the pity with
+which she had looked upon Olaf. "The Shining One--_feeds_--upon the
+flame of life itself, setting in its place its own fires and its own
+will. Its slaves are only shells through which it gleams. Death, say
+the Three, is the best that can come to them; yet will that be a boon
+great indeed."
+
+"But they have souls, _mavourneen_," Larry said to her. "And they're
+alive still--in a way. Anyhow, their souls have not gone from them."
+
+I caught a hope from his words--sceptic though I am--holding that the
+existence of soul has never been proved by dependable laboratory
+methods--for they recalled to me that when I had seen Throckmartin,
+Edith had been close beside him.
+
+"It was days after his wife was taken, that the Dweller seized
+Throckmartin," I cried. "How, if their wills, their life, were indeed
+gone, how did they find each other mid all that horde? How did they
+come together in the Dweller's lair?"
+
+"I do not know," she answered, slowly.  "You say they loved--and it is
+true that love is stronger even than death!"
+
+"One thing I _don't_ understand"--this was Larry again--"is why a girl
+like you keeps coming out of the black-haired crowd; so frequently and
+one might say, so regularly, Lakla. Aren't there ever any red-headed
+boys--and if they are what becomes of them?"
+
+"That, Larry, I cannot answer," she said, very frankly. "There was a
+pact of some kind; how made or by whom I know not. But for long the
+Murians feared the return of the _Taithu_ and greatly they feared the
+Three. Even the Shining One feared those who had created it--for a
+time; and not even now is it eager to face them--_that_ I know. Nor are
+Yolara and Lugur so _sure_. It may be that the Three commanded it: but
+how or why I know not. I only know that it is true--for here am I and
+from where else would I have come?"
+
+"From Ireland," said Larry O'Keefe, promptly.  "And that's where
+you're going. For 'tis no place for a girl like you to have been
+brought up--Lakla; what with people like frogs, and a half-god three
+quarters devil, and red oceans, an' the only Irish things yourself and
+the Silent Ones up there, bless their hearts. It's no place for ye,
+and by the soul of St. Patrick, it's out of it soon ye'll be gettin'!"
+
+Larry!  Larry!  If it had but been true--and I could see Lakla and you
+beside me now!
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+Larry and the Frog-Men
+
+
+Long had been her tale in the telling, and too long, perhaps, have I
+been in the repeating--but not every day are the mists rolled away to
+reveal undreamed secrets of earth-youth. And I have set it down here,
+adding nothing, taking nothing from it; translating liberally, it is
+true, but constantly striving, while putting it into idea-forms and
+phraseology to be readily understood by my readers, to keep accurately
+to the spirit. And this, I must repeat, I have done throughout my
+narrative, wherever it has been necessary to record conversation with
+the Murians.
+
+Rising, I found I was painfully stiff--as muscle-bound as though I had
+actually trudged many miles. Larry, imitating me, gave an involuntary
+groan.
+
+"Faith, _mavourneen_," he said to Lakla, relapsing unconsciously into
+English, "your roads would never wear out shoe-leather, but they've
+got their kick, just the same!"
+
+She understood our plight, if not his words; gave a soft little cry of
+mingled pity and self-reproach; forced us back upon the cushions.
+
+"Oh, but I'm sorry!" mourned Lakla, leaning over us.  "I had
+forgotten--for those new to it the way is a weary one, indeed--"
+
+She ran to the doorway, whistled a clear high note down the passage.
+Through the hangings came two of the frog-men. She spoke to them
+rapidly. They crouched toward us, what certainly was meant for an
+amiable grin wrinkling the grotesque muzzles, baring the glistening
+rows of needle-teeth. And while I watched them with the fascination
+that they never lost for me, the monsters calmly swung one arm around
+our knees, lifted us up like babies--and as calmly started to walk
+away with us!
+
+"Put me down!  Put me down, I say!" The O'Keefe's voice was both
+outraged and angry; squinting around I saw him struggling violently to
+get to his feet. The _Akka_ only held him tighter, booming
+comfortingly, peering down into his flushed face inquiringly.
+
+"But, Larry--darlin'!"--Lakla's tones were--well, maternally
+surprised--"you're stiff and sore, and Kra can carry you quite
+easily."
+
+"I _won't_ be carried!" sputtered the O'Keefe.  "Damn it, Goodwin, there
+are such things as the unities even here, an' for a lieutenant of the
+Royal Air Force to be picked up an' carted around like a--like a
+bundle of rags--it's not discipline! Put me down, ye _omadhaun_, or
+I'll poke ye in the snout!" he shouted to his bearer--who only boomed
+gently, and stared at the handmaiden, plainly for further
+instructions.
+
+"But, Larry--dear!"--Lakla was plainly distressed--"it will _hurt_ you
+to walk; and I don't _want_ you to hurt, Larry--darlin'!"
+
+"Holy shade of St. Patrick!" moaned Larry; again he made a mighty
+effort to tear himself from the frog-man's grip; gave up with a groan.
+"Listen, _alanna_!" he said plaintively. "When we get to Ireland, you
+and I, we won't have anybody to pick us up and carry us about every
+time we get a bit tired. And it's getting me in bad habits you are!"
+
+"Oh, _yes_, we will, Larry!" cried the handmaiden, "because many, oh,
+many, of my _Akka_ will go with us!"
+
+"Will you tell this--BOOB!--to put me down!" gritted the now
+thoroughly aroused O'Keefe. I couldn't help laughing; he glared at me.
+
+"Bo-oo-ob?" exclaimed Lakla.
+
+"Yes, boo-oo-ob!" said O'Keefe, "an' I have no desire to explain the
+word in my present position, light of my soul!"
+
+The handmaiden sighed, plainly dejected.  But she spoke again to the
+_Akka_, who gently lowered the O'Keefe to the floor.
+
+"I don't understand," she said hopelessly, "if you want to walk, why,
+of course, you shall, Larry." She turned to me.
+
+"Do you?" she asked.
+
+"I do not," I said firmly.
+
+"Well, then," murmured Lakla, "go you, Larry and Goodwin, with Kra and
+Gulk, and let them minister to you. After, sleep a little--for not
+soon will Rador and Olaf return. And let me feel your lips before you
+go, Larry--darlin'!" She covered his eyes caressingly with her soft
+little palms; pushed him away.
+
+"Now go," said Lakla, "and rest!"
+
+Unashamed I lay back against the horny chest of Gulk; and with a smile
+noticed that Larry, even if he had rebelled at being carried, did not
+disdain the support of Kra's shining, black-scaled arm which, slipping
+around his waist, half-lifted him along.
+
+They parted a hanging and dropped us softly down beside a little pool,
+sparkling with the clear water that had heretofore been brought us in
+the wide basins. Then they began to undress us. And at this point the
+O'Keefe gave up.
+
+"Whatever they're going to do we can't stop 'em, Doc!" he moaned.
+"Anyway, I feel as though I've been pulled through a knot-hole, and I
+don't care--I don't care--as the song says."
+
+When we were stripped we were lowered gently into the water.  But not
+long did the _Akka_ let us splash about the shallow basin. They lifted
+us out, and from jars began deftly to anoint and rub us with aromatic
+unguents.
+
+I think that in all the medley of grotesque, of tragic, of baffling,
+strange and perilous experiences in that underground world none was
+more bizarre than this--valeting. I began to laugh, Larry joined me,
+and then Kra and Gulk joined in our merriment with deep batrachian
+cachinnations and gruntings. Then, having finished apparelling us and
+still chuckling, the two touched our arms and led us out, into a room
+whose circular sides were ringed with soft divans. Still smiling, I
+sank at once into sleep.
+
+How long I slumbered I do not know.  A low and thunderous booming
+coming through the deep window slit, reverberated through the room and
+awakened me. Larry yawned; arose briskly.
+
+"Sounds as though the bass drums of every jazz band in New York were
+serenading us!" he observed. Simultaneously we sprang to the window;
+peered through.
+
+We were a little above the level of the bridge, and its full length
+was plain before us. Thousands upon thousands of the _Akka_ were
+crowding upon it, and far away other hordes filled like a glittering
+thicket both sides of the cavern ledge's crescent strand. On black
+scale and orange scale the crimson light fell, picking them off in
+little flickering points.
+
+Upon the platform from which sprang the smaller span over the abyss
+were Lakla, Olaf, and Rador; the handmaiden clearly acting as
+interpreter between them and the giant she had called Nak, the Frog
+King.
+
+"Come on!" shouted Larry.
+
+Out of the open portal we ran; over the World Heart Bridge--and
+straight into the group.
+
+"Oh!" cried Lakla, "I didn't want you to wake up so soon,
+Larry--darlin'!"
+
+"See here, _mavourneen_!" Indignation thrilled in the Irishman's
+voice. "I'm not going to be done up with baby-ribbons and laid away in
+a cradle for safe-keeping while a fight is on; don't think it. Why
+didn't you call me?"
+
+"You needed rest!" There was indomitable determination in the
+handmaiden's tones, the eternal maternal shining defiant from her
+eyes. "You were tired and you hurt! You shouldn't have got up!"
+
+"Needed the rest!" groaned Larry.  "Look here, Lakla, what do you
+think I am?"
+
+"You're all I have," said that maiden firmly, "and I'm going to take
+care of you, Larry--darlin'! Don't you ever think anything else."
+
+"Well, pulse of my heart, considering my delicate health and general
+fragility, would it hurt me, do you think, to be told what's going
+on?" he asked.
+
+"Not at all, Larry!" answered the handmaiden serenely. "Yolara went
+through the Portal. She was very, _very_ angry--"
+
+"She was all the devil's woman that she is!" rumbled Olaf.
+
+"Rador met the messenger," went on the Golden Girl calmly.  "The
+_ladala_ are ready to rise when Lugur and Yolara lead their hosts
+against us. They will strike at those left behind. And in the meantime
+we shall have disposed my _Akka_ to meet Yolara's men. And on that
+disposal we must all take counsel, you, Larry, and Rador, Olaf and
+Goodwin and Nak, the ruler of the _Akka_."
+
+"Did the messenger give any idea when Yolara expects to make her
+little call?" asked Larry.
+
+"Yes," she answered.  "They prepare, and we may expect them in--" She
+gave the equivalent of about thirty-six hours of our time.
+
+"But, Lakla," I said, the doubt that I had long been holding finding
+voice, "should the Shining One come--with its slaves--are the Three
+strong enough to cope with it?"
+
+There was troubled doubt in her own eyes.
+
+"I do not know," she said at last, frankly.  "You have heard their
+story. What they promise is that they will help. I do not know--any
+more than do you, Goodwin!"
+
+I looked up at the dome beneath which I knew the dread Trinity stared
+forth; even down upon us. And despite the awe, the assurance, I had
+felt when I stood before them I, too, doubted.
+
+"Well," said Larry, "you and I, uncle," he turned to Rador, "and Olaf
+here had better decide just what part of the battle we'll lead--"
+
+"Lead!" the handmaiden was appalled. "_You_ lead, Larry? Why you are
+to stay with Goodwin and with me--up there, there we can watch."
+
+"Heart's beloved," O'Keefe was stern indeed.  "A thousand times I've
+looked Death straight in the face, peered into his eyes. Yes, and with
+ten thousand feet of space under me an' bursting shells tickling the
+ribs of the boat I was in. An' d'ye think I'll sit now on the
+grandstand an' watch while a game like this is being pulled? Ye don't
+know your future husband, soul of my delight!"
+
+And so we started toward the golden opening, squads of the frog-men
+following us soldierly and disappearing about the huge structure. Nor
+did we stop until we came to the handmaiden's boudoir. There we seated
+ourselves.
+
+"Now," said Larry, "two things I want to know.  First--how many can
+Yolara muster against us; second, how many of these _Akka_ have we to
+meet them?"
+
+Rador gave our equivalent for eighty thousand men as the force Yolara
+could muster without stripping her city. Against this force, it
+appeared, we could count, roughly, upon two hundred thousand of the
+_Akka_.
+
+"And they're some fighters!" exclaimed Larry.  "Hell, with odds like
+that what're you worrying about? It's over before it's begun."
+
+"But, _Larree_," objected Rador to this, "you forget that the nobles
+will have the _Keth_--and other things; also that the soldiers have
+fought against the _Akka_ before and will be shielded very well from
+their spears and clubs--and that their blades and javelins can bite
+through the scales of Nak's warriors. They have many things--"
+
+"Uncle," interjected O'Keefe, "one thing they have is your nerve.
+Why, we're more than two to one. And take it from me--"
+
+Without warning dropped the tragedy!
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+"Your Love; Your Lives; Your Souls!"
+
+
+Lakla had taken no part in the talk since we had reached her bower.
+She had seated herself close to the O'Keefe. Glancing at her I had
+seen steal over her face that brooding, listening look that was hers
+whenever in that mysterious communion with the Three. It vanished;
+swiftly she arose; interrupted the Irishman without ceremony.
+
+"Larry darlin'," said the handmaiden.  "The Silent Ones summon us!"
+
+"When do we go?" I asked; Larry's face grew bright with interest.
+
+"The time is now," she said--and hesitated.  "Larry dear, put your
+arms about me," she faltered, "for there is something cold that
+catches at my heart--and I am afraid."
+
+At his exclamation she gathered herself together; gave a shaky little
+laugh.
+
+"It's because I love you so that fear has power to plague me," she
+told him.
+
+Without another word he bent and kissed her; in silence we passed on,
+his arm still about her girdled waist, golden head and black close
+together. Soon we stood before the crimson slab that was the door to
+the sanctuary of the Silent Ones. She poised uncertainly before it;
+then with a defiant arching of the proud little head that sent all the
+bronze-flecked curls flying, she pressed. It slipped aside and once
+more the opalescence gushed out, flooding all about us.
+
+Dazzled as before, I followed through the lambent cascades pouring
+from the high, carved walls; paused, and my eyes clearing, looked
+up--straight into the faces of the Three. The angled orbs centred upon
+the handmaiden; softened as I had seen them do when first we had faced
+them. She smiled up; seemed to listen.
+
+"Come closer," she commanded, "close to the feet of the Silent Ones."
+
+We moved, pausing at the very base of the dais.  The sparkling mists
+thinned; the great heads bent slightly over us; through the veils I
+caught a glimpse of huge columnar necks, enormous shoulders covered
+with draperies as of pale-blue fire.
+
+I came back to attention with a start, for Lakla was answering a
+question only heard by her, and, answering it aloud, I perceived for
+our benefit; for whatever was the mode of communication between those
+whose handmaiden she was, and her, it was clearly independent of
+speech.
+
+"He has been told," she said, "even as you commanded."
+
+Did I see a shadow of pain flit across the flickering eyes? Wondering,
+I glanced at Lakla's face and there was a dawn of foreboding and
+bewilderment. For a little she held her listening attitude; then the
+gaze of the Three left her; focused upon the O'Keefe.
+
+"Thus speak the Silent Ones--through Lakla, their handmaiden," the
+golden voice was like low trumpet notes. "At the threshold of doom is
+that world of yours above. Yea, even the doom, Goodwin, that ye
+dreamed and the shadow of which, looking into your mind they see, say
+the Three. For not upon earth and never upon earth can man find means
+to destroy the Shining One."
+
+She listened again--and the foreboding deepened to an amazed fear.
+
+"They say, the Silent Ones," she went on, "that they know not whether
+even they have power to destroy. Energies we know nothing of entered
+into its shaping and are part of it; and still other energies it has
+gathered to itself"--she paused; a shadow of puzzlement crept into her
+voice "and other energies still, forces that ye _do_ know and symbolize
+by certain names--hatred and pride and lust and many others which are
+forces real as that hidden in the _Keth_; and among them--fear, which
+weakens all those others--" Again she paused.
+
+"But within it is nothing of that greatest of all, that which can make
+powerless all the evil others, that which we call--love," she ended
+softly.
+
+"I'd like to be the one to put a little more _fear_ in the beast,"
+whispered Larry to me, grimly in our own English. The three weird
+heads bent, ever so slightly--and I gasped, and Larry grew a little
+white as Lakla nodded--
+
+"They say, Larry," she said, "that there you touch one side of the
+heart of the matter--for it is through the way of fear the Silent Ones
+hope to strike at the very life of the Shining One!"
+
+The visage Larry turned to me was eloquent of wonder; and mine
+reflected it--for what _really_ were this Three to whom our minds were
+but open pages, so easily read? Not long could we conjecture; Lakla
+broke the little silence.
+
+"This, they say, is what is to happen.  First will come upon us Lugur
+and Yolara with all their host. Because of fear the Shining One will
+lurk behind within its lair; for despite all, the Dweller _does_ dread
+the Three, and only them. With this host the Voice and the priestess
+will strive to conquer. And if they do, then will they be strong
+enough, too, to destroy us all. For if they take the abode they banish
+from the Dweller all fear and sound the end of the Three.
+
+"Then will the Shining One be all free indeed; free to go out into the
+world, free to do there as it wills!
+
+"But if they do not conquer--and the Shining One comes not to their
+aid, abandoning them even as it abandoned its own _Taithu_--then will
+the Three be loosed from a part of their doom, and they will go
+through the Portal, seek the Shining One beyond the Veil, and,
+piercing it through fear's opening, destroy it."
+
+"That's quite clear," murmured the O'Keefe in my ear. "Weaken the
+morale--then smash. I've seen it happen a dozen times in Europe. While
+they've got their nerve there's not a thing you can do; get their
+nerve--and not a thing can they do. And yet in both cases they're the
+same men."
+
+Lakla had been listening again.  She turned, thrust out hands to
+Larry, a wild hope in her eyes--and yet a hope half shamed.
+
+"They say," she cried, "that they give us choice.  Remembering that
+your world doom hangs in the balance, we have choice--choice to stay
+and help fight Yolara's armies--and they say they look not lightly on
+that help. Or choice to go--and if so be you choose the latter, then
+will they show another way that leads into your world!"
+
+A flush had crept over the O'Keefe's face as she was speaking.  He
+took her hands and looked long into the golden eyes; glancing up I saw
+the Trinity were watching them intently--imperturbably.
+
+"What do you say, _mavourneen_?" asked Larry gently.  The handmaiden
+hung her head; trembled.
+
+"Your words shall be mine, O one I love," she whispered. "So going or
+staying, I am beside you."
+
+"And you, Goodwin?" he turned to me.  I shrugged my shoulders--after
+all I had no one to care.
+
+"It's up to you, Larry," I remarked, deliberately choosing his own
+phraseology.
+
+The O'Keefe straightened, squared his shoulders, gazed straight into
+the flame-flickering eyes.
+
+"We stick!" he said briefly.
+
+Shamefacedly I recall now that at the time I thought this
+colloquialism not only irreverent, but in somewhat bad taste. I am
+glad to say I was alone in that bit of weakness. The face that Lakla
+turned to Larry was radiant with love, and although the shamed hope
+had vanished from the sweet eyes, they were shining with adoring
+pride. And the marble visages of the Three softened, and the little
+flames died down.
+
+"Wait," said Lakla, "there is one other thing they say we must answer
+before they will hold us to that promise--wait--"
+
+She listened, and then her face grew white--white as those of the
+Three themselves; the glorious eyes widened, stark terror filling
+them; the whole lithe body of her shook like a reed in the wind.
+
+"Not that!" she cried out to the Three.  "Oh, not that!  Not
+Larry--let me go even as you will--but not him!" She threw up frantic
+hands to the woman-being of the Trinity. "Let _me_ bear it alone," she
+wailed. "Alone--mother! Mother!"
+
+The Three bent their heads toward her, their faces pitiful, and from
+the eyes of the woman One rolled--tears! Larry leaped to Lakla's side.
+
+_"Mavourneen!"_ he cried.  "Sweetheart, what have they said to you?"
+
+He glared up at the Silent Ones, his hand twitching toward the
+high-hung pistol holster.
+
+The handmaiden swung to him; threw white arms around his neck; held
+her head upon his heart until her sobbing ceased.
+
+"This they--say--the Silent Ones," she gasped and then all the courage
+of her came back. "O heart of mine!" she whispered to Larry, gazing
+deep into his eyes, his anxious face cupped between her white palms.
+"This they say--that should the Shining One come to succour Yolara and
+Lugur, should it conquer its fear--and--do this--then is there but one
+way left to destroy it--and to save your world."
+
+She swayed; he gripped her tightly.
+
+"But one way--you and I must go--together--into its embrace!  Yea, we
+must pass within it--loving each other, loving the world, realizing to
+the full all that we sacrifice and sacrificing all, our love, our
+lives, perhaps even that you call soul, O loved one; must give
+ourselves _all_ to the Shining One--gladly, freely, our love for each
+other flaming high within us--that this curse shall pass away! For if
+we do this, pledge the Three, then shall that power of love we carry
+into it weaken for a time all that evil which the Shining One has
+become--and in that time the Three can strike and slay!"
+
+The blood rushed from my heart; scientist that I am, essentially, my
+reason rejected any such solution as this of the activities of the
+Dweller. Was it not, the thought flashed, a propitiation by the Three
+out of their own weakness--and as it flashed I looked up to see their
+eyes, full of sorrow, on mine--and knew they read the thought. Then
+into the whirling vortex of my mind came steadying reflections--of
+history changed by the power of hate, of passion, of ambition, and
+most of all, by love. Was there not actual dynamic energy in these
+things--was there not a Son of Man who hung upon a cross on Calvary?
+
+"Dear love o' mine," said the O'Keefe quietly, "is it in your heart to
+say _yes_ to this?"
+
+"Larry," she spoke low, "what is in your heart is in mine; but I did
+so want to go with you, to live with you--to--to bear you children,
+Larry--and to see the sun."
+
+My eyes were wet; dimly through them I saw his gaze on me.
+
+"If the world _is_ at stake," he whispered, "why of course there's only
+one thing to do. God knows I never was afraid when I was fighting up
+there--and many a better man than me has gone West with shell and
+bullet for the same idea; but these things aren't shell and
+bullet--but I hadn't Lakla then--and it's the damned _doubt_ I have
+behind it all."
+
+He turned to the Three--and did I in their poise sense a rigidity, an
+anxiety that sat upon them as alienly as would divinity upon men?
+
+"Tell me this, Silent Ones," he cried.  "If we do this, Lakla and I,
+is it _sure_ you are that you can slay the--Thing, and save my world? Is
+it _sure_ you are?"
+
+For the first and the last time, I heard the voice of the Silent Ones.
+It was the man-being at the right who spoke.
+
+"We are sure," the tones rolled out like deepest organ notes, shaking,
+vibrating, assailing the ears as strangely as their appearance struck
+the eyes. Another moment the O'Keefe stared at them. Once more he
+squared his shoulders; lifted Lakla's chin and smiled into her eyes.
+
+"We stick!" he said again, nodding to the Three.
+
+Over the visages of the Trinity fell benignity that was--awesome; the
+tiny flames in the jet orbs vanished, leaving them wells in which
+brimmed serenity, hope--an extraordinary joyfulness. The woman sat
+upright, tender gaze fixed upon the man and girl. Her great shoulders
+raised as though she had lifted her arms and had drawn to her those
+others. The three faces pressed together for a fleeting moment; raised
+again. The woman bent forward--and as she did so, Lakla and Larry, as
+though drawn by some outer force, were swept upon the dais.
+
+Out from the sparkling mist stretched two hands, enormously long,
+six-fingered, thumbless, a faint tracery of golden scales upon their
+white backs, utterly unhuman and still in some strange way beautiful,
+radiating power and--all womanly!
+
+They stretched forth; they touched the bent heads of Lakla and the
+O'Keefe; caressed them, drew them together, softly stroked
+them--lovingly, with more than a touch of benediction. And withdrew!
+
+The sparkling mists rolled up once more, hiding the Silent Ones.  As
+silently as once before we had gone we passed out of the place of
+light, beyond the crimson stone, back to the handmaiden's chamber.
+
+Only once on our way did Larry speak.
+
+"Cheer up, darlin'," he said to her, "it's a long way yet before the
+finish. An' are you thinking that Lugur and Yolara are going to pull
+this thing off? Are you?"
+
+The handmaiden only looked at him, eyes love and sorrow filled.
+
+"They are!" said Larry.  "They are!  Like HELL they are!"
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+The Meeting of Titans
+
+
+It is not my intention, nor is it possible no matter how interesting
+to me, to set down _ad seriatim_ the happenings of the next twelve
+hours. But a few will not be denied recital.
+
+O'Keefe regained cheerfulness.
+
+"After all, Doc," he said to me, "it's a beautiful scrap we're going
+to have. At the worst the worst is no more than the leprechaun warned
+about. I would have told the Taitha De about the banshee raid he
+promised me; but I was a bit taken off my feet at the time. The old
+girl an' all the clan'll be along, said the little green man, an' I
+bet the Three will be damned glad of it, take it from me."
+
+Lakla, shining-eyed and half fearful too:
+
+"I have other tidings that I am afraid will please you little,
+Larry--darlin'. The Silent Ones say that you must not go into battle
+yourself. You must stay here with me, and with Goodwin--for
+if--if--the Shining One does come, then must we be here to meet it.
+And you might not be, you know, Larry, if you fight," she said,
+looking shyly up at him from under the long lashes.
+
+The O'Keefe's jaw dropped.
+
+"That's about the hardest yet," he answered slowly.  "Still--I see
+their point; the lamb corralled for the altar has no right to stray
+out among the lions," he added grimly. "Don't worry, sweet," he told
+her. "As long as I've sat in the game I'll stick to the rules."
+
+Olaf took fierce joy in the coming fray. "The Norns spin close to the
+end of this web," he rumbled. "_Ja!_ And the threads of Lugur and the
+Heks woman are between their fingers for the breaking! Thor will be
+with me, and I have fashioned me a hammer in glory of Thor." In his
+hand was an enormous mace of black metal, fully five feet long,
+crowned with a massive head.
+
+I pass to the twelve hours' closing.
+
+At the end of the _coria_ road where the giant fernland met the edge
+of the cavern's ruby floor, hundreds of the _Akka_ were stationed in
+ambush, armed with their spears tipped with the rotting death and
+their nail-studded, metal-headed clubs. These were to attack when the
+Murians debauched from the _corials_. We had little hope of doing more
+here than effect some attrition of Yolara's hosts, for at this place
+the captains of the Shining One could wield the _Keth_ and their other
+uncanny weapons freely. We had learned, too, that every forge and
+artisan had been put to work to make an armour Marakinoff had devised
+to withstand the natural battle equipment of the frog-people--and both
+Larry and I had a disquieting faith in the Russian's ingenuity.
+
+At any rate the numbers against us would be lessened.
+
+Next, under the direction of the frog-king, levies commanded by
+subsidiary chieftains had completed rows of rough walls along the
+probable route of the Murians through the cavern. These afforded the
+_Akka_ a fair protection behind which they could hurl their darts and
+spears--curiously enough they had never developed the bow as a weapon.
+
+At the opening of the cavern a strong barricade stretched almost to
+the two ends of the crescent strand; almost, I say, because there had
+not been time to build it entirely across the mouth.
+
+And from edge to edge of the titanic bridge, from where it sprang
+outward at the shore of the Crimson Sea to a hundred feet away from
+the golden door of the abode, barrier after barrier was piled.
+
+Behind the wall defending the mouth of the cavern, waited other
+thousands of the _Akka_. At each end of the unfinished barricade they
+were mustered thickly, and at right and left of the crescent where
+their forest began, more legions were assembled to make way up to the
+ledge as opportunity offered.
+
+Rank upon rank they manned the bridge barriers; they swarmed over the
+pinnacles and in the hollows of the island's ragged outer lip; the
+domed castle was a hive of them, if I may mix my metaphors--and the
+rocks and gardens that surrounded the abode glittered with them.
+
+"Now," said the handmaiden, "there's nothing else we can do--save
+wait."
+
+She led us out through her bower and up the little path that ran to
+the embrasure.
+
+Through the quiet came a sound, a sighing, a half-mournful whispering
+that beat about us and fled away.
+
+"They come!" cried Lakla, the light of battle in her eyes. Larry drew
+her to him, raised her in his arms, kissed her.
+
+"A woman!" acclaimed the O'Keefe.  "A real woman--and mine!"
+
+With the cry of the Portal there was movement among the _Akka_, the
+glint of moving spears, flash of metal-tipped clubs, rattle of horny
+spurs, rumblings of battle-cries.
+
+And we waited--waited it seemed interminably, gaze fastened upon the
+low wall across the cavern mouth. Suddenly I remembered the crystal
+through which I had peered when the hidden assassins had crept upon
+us. Mentioning it to Lakla, she gave a little cry of vexation, a
+command to her attendant; and not long that faithful if unusual lady
+had returned with a tray of the glasses. Raising mine, I saw the lines
+furthest away leap into sudden activity. Spurred warrior after warrior
+leaped upon the barricade and over it. Flashes of intense, green
+light, mingled with gleams like lightning strokes of concentrated moon
+rays, sprang from behind the wall--sprang and struck and burned upon
+the scales of the batrachians.
+
+"They come!" whispered Lakla.
+
+At the far ends of the crescent a terrific milling had begun. Here it
+was plain the _Akka_ were holding. Faintly, for the distance was
+great, I could see fresh force upon force rush up and take the places
+of those who had fallen.
+
+Over each of these ends, and along the whole line of the barricade a
+mist of dancing, diamonded atoms began to rise; sparking, coruscating
+points of diamond dust that darted and danced.
+
+What had once been Lakla's guardians--dancing now in the nothingness!
+
+"God, but it's hard to stay here like this!" groaned the O'Keefe;
+Olaf's teeth were bared, the lips drawn back in such a fighting grin
+as his ancestors berserk on their raven ships must have borne; Rador
+was livid with rage; the handmaiden's nostrils flaring wide, all her
+wrathful soul in her eyes.
+
+Suddenly, while we looked, the rocky wall which the _Akka_ had built
+at the cavern mouth--was not! It vanished, as though an unseen,
+unbelievably gigantic hand had with the lightning's speed swept it
+away. And with it vanished, too, long lines of the great amphibians
+close behind it.
+
+Then down upon the ledge, dropping into the Crimson Sea, sending up
+geysers of ruby spray, dashing on the bridge, crushing the frog-men,
+fell a shower of stone, mingled with distorted shapes and fragments
+whose scales still flashed meteoric as they hurled from above.
+
+"That which makes things fall upward," hissed Olaf. "That which I saw
+in the garden of Lugur!"
+
+The fiendish agency of destruction which Marakinoff had revealed to
+Larry; the force that cut off gravitation and sent all things within
+its range racing outward into space!
+
+And now over the debris upon the ledge, striking with long sword and
+daggers, here and there a captain flashing the green ray, moving on in
+ordered squares, came the soldiers of the Shining One. Nearer and
+nearer the verge of the ledge they pushed Nak's warriors. Leaping upon
+the dwarfs, smiting them with spear and club, with teeth and spur, the
+_Akka_ fought like devils. Quivering under the ray, they leaped and
+dragged down and slew.
+
+Now there was but one long line of the frog-men at the very edge of
+the cliff.
+
+And ever the clouds of dancing, diamonded atoms grew thicker over them
+all!
+
+That last thin line of the _Akka_ was going; yet they fought to the
+last, and none toppled over the lip without at least one of the
+armoured Murians in his arms.
+
+My gaze dropped to the foot of the cliffs.  Stretched along their
+length was a wide ribbon of beauty--a shimmering multitude of
+gleaming, pulsing, prismatic moons; glowing, glowing ever brighter,
+ever more wondrous--the gigantic Medusae globes feasting on dwarf and
+frog-man alike!
+
+Across the waters, faintly, came a triumphant shouting from Lugur's
+and Yolara's men!
+
+Was the ruddy light of the place lessening, growing paler, changing to
+a faint rose? There was an exclamation from Larry; something like hope
+relaxed the drawn muscles of his face. He pointed to the aureate dome
+wherein sat the Three--and then I saw!
+
+Out of it, through the long transverse slit through which the Silent
+Ones kept their watch on cavern, bridge, and abyss, a torrent of the
+opalescent light was pouring. It cascaded like a waterfall, and as it
+flowed it spread whirling out, in columns and eddies, clouds and wisps
+of misty, curdled coruscations. It hung like a veil over all the
+islands, filtering everywhere, driving back the crimson light as
+though possessed of impenetrable substance--and still it cast not the
+faintest shadowing upon our vision.
+
+"Good God!" breathed Larry.  "Look!"
+
+The radiance was marching--_marching_--down the colossal bridge. It
+moved swiftly, in some unthinkable way _intelligently_. It swathed the
+_Akka_, and closer, ever closer it swept toward the approach upon
+which Yolara's men had now gained foothold.
+
+From their ranks came flash after flash of the green ray--aimed at
+the abode! But as the light sped and struck the opalescence it was
+blotted out! The shimmering mists seemed to enfold, to dissipate it.
+
+Lakla drew a deep breath.
+
+"The Silent Ones forgive me for doubting them," she whispered; and
+again hope blossomed on her face even as it did on Larry's.
+
+The frog-men were gaining.  Clothed in the armour of that mist, they
+pressed back from the bridge-head the invaders. There was another
+prodigious movement at the ends of the crescent, and racing up,
+pressing against the dwarfs, came other legions of Nak's warriors. And
+re-enforcing those out on the prodigious arch, the frog-men stationed
+in the gardens below us poured back to the castle and out through the
+open Portal.
+
+"They're licked!" shouted Larry.  "They're--"
+
+So quickly I could not follow the movement his automatic leaped to his
+hand--spoke, once and again and again. Rador leaped to the head of the
+little path, sword in hand; Olaf, shouting and whirling his mace,
+followed. I strove to get my own gun quickly.
+
+For up that path were running twoscore of Lugur's men, while from
+below Lugur's own voice roared.
+
+"Quick!  Slay not the handmaiden or her lover!  Carry them down.
+Quick! But slay the others!"
+
+The handmaiden raced toward Larry, stopped, whistled shrilly--again
+and again. Larry's pistol was empty, but as the dwarfs rushed upon him
+I dropped two of them with mine. It jammed--I could not use it; I
+sprang to his side. Rador was down, struggling in a heap of Lugur's
+men. Olaf, a Viking of old, was whirling his great hammer, and
+striking, striking through armour, flesh, and bone.
+
+Larry was down, Lakla flew to him.  But the Norseman, now streaming
+blood from a dozen wounds, caught a glimpse of her coming, turned,
+thrust out a mighty hand, sent her reeling back, and then with his
+hammer cracked the skulls of those trying to drag the O'Keefe down the
+path.
+
+A cry from Lakla--the dwarfs had seized her, had lifted her despite
+her struggles, were carrying her away. One I dropped with the butt of
+my useless pistol, and then went down myself under the rush of
+another.
+
+Through the clamour I heard a booming of the _Akka_, closer, closer;
+then through it the bellow of Lugur. I made a mighty effort, swung a
+hand up, and sunk my fingers in the throat of the soldier striving to
+kill me. Writhing over him, my fingers touched a poniard; I thrust it
+deep, staggered to my feet.
+
+The O'Keefe, shielding Lakla, was battling with a long sword against a
+half dozen of the soldiers. I started toward him, was struck, and
+under the impact hurled to the ground. Dizzily I raised myself--and
+leaning upon my elbow, stared and moved no more. For the dwarfs lay
+dead, and Larry, holding Lakla tightly, was staring even as I, and
+ranged at the head of the path were the _Akka_, whose booming advance
+in obedience to the handmaiden's call I had heard.
+
+And at what we all stared was Olaf, crimson with his wounds, and
+Lugur, in blood-red armour, locked in each other's grip, struggling,
+smiting, tearing, kicking, and swaying about the little space before
+the embrasure. I crawled over toward the O'Keefe. He raised his
+pistol, dropped it.
+
+"Can't hit him without hitting Olaf," he whispered.  Lakla signalled
+the frog-men; they advanced toward the two--but Olaf saw them, broke
+the red dwarf's hold, sent Lugur reeling a dozen feet away.
+
+"No!" shouted the Norseman, the ice of his pale-blue eyes glinting
+like frozen flames, blood streaming down his face and dripping from
+his hands. "No! Lugur is mine! None but me slays him! Ho, you Lugur--"
+and cursed him and Yolara and the Dweller hideously--I cannot set
+those curses down here.
+
+They spurred Lugur.  Mad now as the Norseman, the red dwarf sprang.
+Olaf struck a blow that would have killed an ordinary man, but Lugur
+only grunted, swept in, and seized him about the waist; one mighty arm
+began to creep up toward Huldricksson's throat.
+
+"'Ware, Olaf!" cried O'Keefe; but Olaf did not answer. He waited until
+the red dwarf's hand was close to his shoulder; and then, with an
+incredibly rapid movement--once before had I seen something like it
+in a wrestling match between Papuans--he had twisted Lugur around;
+twisted him so that Olaf's right arm lay across the tremendous breast,
+the left behind the neck, and Olaf's left leg held the Voice's
+armoured thighs viselike against his right knee while over that knee
+lay the small of the red dwarf's back.
+
+For a second or two the Norseman looked down upon his enemy,
+motionless in that paralyzing grip. And then--slowly--he began to
+break him!
+
+Lakla gave a little cry; made a motion toward the two. But Larry drew
+her head down against his breast, hiding her eyes; then fastened his
+own upon the pair, white-faced, stern.
+
+Slowly, ever so slowly, proceeded Olaf.  Twice Lugur moaned.  At the
+end he screamed--horribly. There was a cracking sound, as of a stout
+stick snapped.
+
+Huldricksson stooped, silently.  He picked up the limp body of the
+Voice, not yet dead, for the eyes rolled, the lips strove to speak;
+lifted it, walked to the parapet, swung it twice over his head, and
+cast it down to the red waters!
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+
+The Coming of the Shining One
+
+
+The Norseman turned toward us.  There was now no madness in his eyes;
+only a great weariness. And there was peace on the once tortured face.
+
+"Helma," he whispered, "I go a little before!  Soon you will come to
+me--to me and the Yndling who will await you--Helma, _meine liebe!_"
+
+Blood gushed from his mouth; he swayed, fell.  And thus died Olaf
+Huldricksson.
+
+We looked down upon him; nor did Lakla, nor Larry, nor I try to hide
+our tears. And as we stood the _Akka_ brought to us that other mighty
+fighter, Rador; but in him there was life, and we attended to him
+there as best we could.
+
+Then Lakla spoke.
+
+"We will bear him into the castle where we may give him greater care,"
+she said. "For, lo! the hosts of Yolara have been beaten back; and on
+the bridge comes Nak with tidings."
+
+We looked over the parapet.  It was even as she had said. Neither on
+ledge nor bridge was there trace of living men of Muria--only heaps of
+slain that lay everywhere--and thick against the cavern mouth still
+danced the flashing atoms of those the green ray had destroyed.
+
+"Over!" exclaimed Larry incredulously.  "We live then--heart of
+mine!"
+
+"The Silent Ones recall their veils," she said, pointing to the dome.
+Back through the slitted opening the radiance was streaming;
+withdrawing from sea and island; marching back over the bridge with
+that same ordered, intelligent motion. Behind it the red light
+pressed, like skirmishers on the heels of a retreating army.
+
+"And yet--" faltered the handmaiden as we passed into her chamber, and
+doubtful were the eyes she turned upon the O'Keefe.
+
+"I don't believe," he said, "there's a kick left in them--"
+
+What was that sound beating into the chamber faintly, so faintly?  My
+heart gave a great throb and seemed to stop for an eternity. What was
+it--coming nearer, ever nearer? Now Lakla and O'Keefe heard it, life
+ebbing from lips and cheeks.
+
+Nearer, nearer--a music as of myriads of tiny crystal bells, tinkling,
+tinkling--a storm of pizzicati upon violins of glass! Nearer,
+nearer--not sweetly now, nor luring; no--raging, wrathful, sinister
+beyond words; sweeping on; nearer--
+
+The Dweller!  The Shining One!
+
+We leaped to the narrow window; peered out, aghast.  The bell notes
+swept through and about us, a hurricane. The crescent strand was once
+more a ferment. Back, back were the _Akka_ being swept, as though by
+brooms, tottering on the edge of the ledge, falling into the waters.
+Swiftly they were finished; and where they had fought was an eddying
+throng clothed in tatters or naked, swaying, drifting, arms tossing
+--like marionettes of Satan.
+
+The dead-alive!  The slaves of the Dweller!
+
+They swayed and tossed, and then, like water racing through an opened
+dam, they swept upon the bridge-head. On and on they pushed, like the
+bore of a mighty tide. The frog-men strove against them, clubbing,
+spearing, tearing them. But even those worst smitten seemed not to
+fall. On they pushed, driving forward, irresistible--a battering ram
+of flesh and bone. They clove the masses of the _Akka_, pressing them
+to the sides of the bridge and over. Through the open gates they
+forced them--for there was no room for the frog-men to stand against
+that implacable tide.
+
+Then those of the _Akka_ who were left turned their backs and ran.  We
+heard the clang of the golden wings of the portal, and none too soon
+to keep out the first of the Dweller's dreadful hordes.
+
+Now upon the cavern ledge and over the whole length of the bridge
+there were none but the dead-alive, men and women, black-polled
+_ladala_, sloe-eyed Malays, slant-eyed Chinese, men of every race that
+sailed the seas--milling, turning, swaying, like leaves caught in a
+sluggish current.
+
+The bell notes became sharper, more insistent.  At the cavern mouth a
+radiance began to grow--a gleaming from which the atoms of diamond
+dust seemed to try to flee. As the radiance grew and the crystal notes
+rang nearer, every head of that hideous multitude turned stiffly,
+slowly toward the right, looking toward the far bridge end; their eyes
+fixed and glaring; every face an inhuman mask of rapture and of
+horror!
+
+A movement shook them.  Those in the centre began to stream back,
+faster and ever faster, leaving motionless deep ranks on each side.
+Back they flowed until from golden doors to cavern mouth a wide lane
+stretched, walled on each side by the dead-alive.
+
+The far radiance became brighter; it gathered itself at the end of the
+dreadful lane; it was shot with sparklings and with pulsings of
+polychromatic light. The crystal storm was intolerable, piercing the
+ears with countless tiny lances; brighter still the radiance.
+
+From the cavern swirled the Shining One!
+
+The Dweller paused, seemed to scan the island of the Silent Ones half
+doubtfully; then slowly, stately, it drifted out upon the bridge.
+Closer it drew; behind it glided Yolara at the head of a company of
+her dwarfs, and at her side was the hag of the Council whose face was
+the withered, shattered echo of her own.
+
+Slower grew the Dweller's pace as it drew nearer.  Did I sense in it a
+doubt, an uncertainty? The crystal-tongued, unseen choristers that
+accompanied it subtly seemed to reflect the doubt; their notes were
+not sure, no longer insistent; rather was there in them an undertone
+of hesitancy, of warning! Yet on came the Shining One until it stood
+plain beneath us, searching with those eyes that thrust from and
+withdrew into unknown spheres, the golden gateway, the cliff face, the
+castle's rounded bulk--and more intently than any of these, the dome
+wherein sat the Three.
+
+Behind it each face of the dead-alive turned toward it, and those
+beside it throbbed and gleamed with its luminescence.
+
+Yolara crept close, just beyond the reach of its spirals. She
+murmured--and the Dweller bent toward her, its seven globes steady in
+their shining mists, as though listening. It drew erect once more,
+resumed its doubtful scrutiny. Yolara's face darkened; she turned
+abruptly, spoke to a captain of her guards. A dwarf raced back between
+the palisades of dead-alive.
+
+Now the priestess cried out, her voice ringing like a silver clarion.
+
+"Ye are done, ye Three!  The Shining One stands at your door,
+demanding entrance. Your beasts are slain and your power is gone. Who
+are ye, says the Shining One, to deny it entrance to the place of its
+birth?"
+
+"Ye do not answer," she cried again, "yet know we that ye hear!  The
+Shining One offers these terms: Send forth your handmaiden and that
+lying stranger she stole; send them forth to us--and perhaps ye may
+live. But if ye send them not forth, then shall ye too die--and soon!"
+
+We waited, silent, even as did Yolara--and again there was no answer
+from the Three.
+
+The priestess laughed; the blue eyes flashed.
+
+"It is ended!" she cried.  "If you will not open, needs must we open
+for you!"
+
+Over the bridge was marching a long double file of the dwarfs.  They
+bore a smoothed and handled tree-trunk whose head was knobbed with a
+huge ball of metal. Past the priestess, past the Shining One, they
+carried it; fifty of them to each side of the ram; and behind them
+stepped--Marakinoff!
+
+Larry awoke to life.
+
+"Now, thank God," he rasped, "I can get that devil, anyway!"
+
+He drew his pistol, took careful aim.  Even as he pressed the trigger
+there rang through the abode a tremendous clanging. The ram was
+battering at the gates. O'Keefe's bullet went wild. The Russian must
+have heard the shot; perhaps the missile was closer than we knew. He
+made a swift leap behind the guards; was lost to sight.
+
+Once more the thunderous clanging rang through the castle.
+
+Lakla drew herself erect; down upon her dropped the listening
+aloofness. Gravely she bowed her head.
+
+"It is time, O love of mine." She turned to O'Keefe.  "The Silent Ones
+say that the way of fear is closed, but the way of love is open. They
+call upon us to redeem our promise!"
+
+For a hundred heart-beats they clung to each other, breast to breast
+and lip to lip. Below, the clangour was increasing, the great trunk
+swinging harder and faster upon the metal gates. Now Lakla gently
+loosed the arms of the O'Keefe, and for another instant those two
+looked into each other's souls. The handmaiden smiled tremulously.
+
+"I would it might have been otherwise, Larry darlin'," she whispered.
+"But at least--we pass together, dearest of mine!"
+
+She leaped to the window.
+
+"Yolara!" the golden voice rang out sweetly.  The clanging ceased.
+"Draw back your men. We open the Portal and come forth to you and the
+Shining One--Larry and I."
+
+The priestess's silver chimes of laughter rang out, cruel, mocking.
+
+"Come, then, quickly," she jeered.  "For surely both the Shining One
+and I yearn for you!" Her malice-laden laughter chimed high once more.
+"Keep us not lonely long!" the priestess mocked.
+
+Larry drew a deep breath, stretched both hands out to me.
+
+"It's good-by, I guess, Doc." His voice was strained. "Good-by and
+good luck, old boy. If you get out, and you _will_, let the old
+_Dolphin_ know I'm gone. And carry on, pal--and always remember the
+O'Keefe loved you like a brother."
+
+I squeezed his hands desperately.  Then out of my balanceshaking woe a
+strange comfort was born.
+
+"Maybe it's not good-by, Larry!" I cried.  "The banshee has not
+cried!"
+
+A flash of hope passed over his face; the old reckless grin shone
+forth.
+
+"It's so!" he said.  "By the Lord, it's so!"
+
+Then Lakla bent toward me, and for the second time--kissed me.
+
+"Come!" she said to Larry.  Hand in hand they moved away, into the
+corridor that led to the door outside of which waited the Shining One
+and its priestess.
+
+And unseen by them, wrapped as they were within their love and
+sacrifice, I crept softly behind. For I had determined that if enter
+the Dweller's embrace they must, they should not go alone.
+
+They paused before the Golden Portals; the handmaiden pressed its
+opening lever; the massive leaves rolled back.
+
+Heads high, proudly, serenely, they passed through and out upon the
+hither span. I followed.
+
+On each side of us stood the Dweller's slaves, faces turned rigidly
+toward their master. A hundred feet away the Shining One pulsed and
+spiralled in its evilly glorious lambency of sparkling plumes.
+
+Unhesitating, always with that same high serenity, Lakla and the
+O'Keefe, hands clasped like little children, drew closer to that
+wondrous shape. I could not see their faces, but I saw awe fall upon
+those of the watching dwarfs, and into the burning eyes of Yolara
+crept a doubt. Closer they drew to the Dweller, and closer, I
+following them step by step. The Shining One's whirling lessened; its
+tinklings were faint, almost stilled. It seemed to watch them
+apprehensively. A silence fell upon us all, a thick silence, brooding,
+ominous, palpable. Now the pair were face to face with the child of
+the Three--so near that with one of its misty tentacles it could have
+enfolded them.
+
+And the Shining One drew back!
+
+Yes, drew back--and back with it stepped Yolara, the doubt in her eyes
+deepening. Onward paced the handmaiden and the O'Keefe--and step by
+step, as they advanced, the Dweller withdrew; its bell notes chiming
+out, puzzled questioning--half fearful!
+
+And back it drew, and back until it had reached the very centre of
+that platform over the abyss in whose depths pulsed the green fires of
+earth heart. And there Yolara gripped herself; the hell that seethed
+within her soul leaped out of her eyes, a cry, a shriek of rage, tore
+from her lips.
+
+As at a signal, the Shining One flamed high; its spirals and eddying
+mists swirled madly, the pulsing core of it blazed radiance. A score
+of coruscating tentacles swept straight upon the pair who stood
+intrepid, unresisting, awaiting its embrace. And upon me, lurking
+behind them.
+
+Through me swept a mighty exaltation.  It was the end then--and I was
+to meet it with them.
+
+Something drew us back, back with an incredible swiftness, and yet as
+gently as a summer breeze sweeps a bit of thistle-down! Drew us back
+from those darting misty arms even as they were a hair-breadth from
+us! I heard the Dweller's bell notes burst out ragingly! I heard
+Yolara scream.
+
+What was that?
+
+Between the three of us and them was a ring of curdled moon flames,
+swirling about the Shining One and its priestess, pressing in upon
+them, enfolding them!
+
+And within it I glimpsed the faces of the Three--implacable,
+sorrowful, filled with a supernal power!
+
+Sparks and flashes of white flame darted from the ring, penetrating
+the radiant swathings of the Dweller, striking through its pulsing
+nucleus, piercing its seven crowning orbs.
+
+Now the Shining One's radiance began to dim, the seven orbs to dull;
+the tiny sparkling filaments that ran from them down into the
+Dweller's body snapped, vanished! Through the battling nebulosities
+Yolara's face swam forth--horror-filled, distorted, inhuman!
+
+The ranks of the dead-alive quivered, moved, writhed, as though each
+felt the torment of the Thing that had enslaved them. The radiance
+that the Three wielded grew more intense, thicker, seemed to expand.
+Within it, suddenly, were scores of flaming triangles--scores of eyes
+like those of the Silent Ones!
+
+And the Shining One's seven little moons of amber, of silver, of blue
+and amethyst and green, of rose and white, split, shattered, were
+gone! Abruptly the tortured crystal chimings ceased.
+
+Dulled, all its soul-shaking beauty dead, blotched and shadowed
+squalidly, its gleaming plumes tarnished, its dancing spirals stripped
+from it, that which had been the Shining One wrapped itself about
+Yolara--wrapped and drew her into itself; writhed, swayed, and hurled
+itself over the edge of the bridge--down, down into the green fires of
+the unfathomable abyss--with its priestess still enfolded in its
+coils!
+
+From the dwarfs who had watched that terror came screams of panic
+fear. They turned and ran, racing frantically over the bridge toward
+the cavern mouth.
+
+The serried ranks of the dead-alive trembled, shook.  Then from their
+faces tied the horror of wedded ecstasy and anguish. Peace, utter
+peace, followed in its wake.
+
+And as fields of wheat are bent and fall beneath the wind, they fell.
+No longer dead-alive, now all of the blessed dead, freed from their
+dreadful slavery!
+
+Abruptly from the sparkling mists the cloud of eyes was gone.  Faintly
+revealed in them were only the heads of the Silent Ones. And they drew
+before us; were before us! No flames now in their ebon eyes--for the
+flickering fires were quenched in great tears, streaming down the
+marble white faces. They bent toward us, over us; their radiance
+enfolded us. My eyes darkened. I could not see. I felt a tender hand
+upon my head--and panic and frozen dread and nightmare web that held
+me fled.
+
+Then they, too, were gone.
+
+Upon Larry's breast the handmaiden was sobbing--sobbing out her
+heart--but this time with the joy of one who is swept up from the
+very threshold of hell into paradise.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV
+
+"Larry--Farewell!"
+
+
+"My heart, Larry--" It was the handmaiden's murmur. "My heart feels
+like a bird that is flying from a nest of sorrow."
+
+We were pacing down the length of the bridge, guards of the _Akka_
+beside us, others following with those companies of _ladala_ that had
+rushed to aid us; in front of us the bandaged Rador swung gently
+within a litter; beside him, in another, lay Nak, the frog-king--much
+less of him than there had been before the battle began, but living.
+
+Hours had passed since the terror I have just related.  My first task
+had been to search for Throckmartin and his wife among the fallen
+multitudes strewn thick as autumn leaves along the flying arch of
+stone, over the cavern ledge, and back, back as far as the eye could
+reach.
+
+At last, Lakla and Larry helping, we found them.  They lay close to
+the bridge-end, not parted--locked tight in each other's arms, pallid
+face to face, her hair streaming over his breast! As though when that
+unearthly life the Dweller had set within them passed away, their own
+had come back for one fleeting instant--and they had known each other,
+and clasped before kindly death had taken them.
+
+"Love is stronger than all things." The handmaiden was weeping softly.
+"Love never left them. Love was stronger than the Shining One. And
+when its evil fled, love went with them--wherever souls go."
+
+Of Stanton and Thora there was no trace; nor, after our discovery of
+those other two, did I care to look more. They were dead--and they
+were free.
+
+We buried Throckmartin and Edith beside Olaf in Lakla's bower.  But
+before the body of my old friend was placed within the grave I gave it
+a careful and sorrowful examination. The skin was firm and smooth, but
+cold; not the cold of death, but with a chill that set my touching
+fingers tingling unpleasantly. The body was bloodless; the course of
+veins and arteries marked by faintly indented white furrows, as though
+their walls had long collapsed. Lips, mouth, even the tongue, was
+paper white. There was no sign of dissolution as we know it; no shadow
+or stain upon the marble surface. Whatever the force that, streaming
+from the Dweller or impregnating its lair, had energized the
+dead-alive, it was barrier against putrescence of any kind; that at
+least was certain.
+
+But it was not barrier against the poison of the Medusae, for, our sad
+task done, and looking down upon the waters, I saw the pale forms of
+the Dweller's hordes dissolving, vanishing into the shifting glories
+of the gigantic moons sailing down upon them from every quarter of the
+Sea of Crimson.
+
+While the frog-men, those late levies from the farthest forests, were
+clearing bridge and ledge of cavern of the litter of the dead, we
+listened to a leader of the _ladala_. They had risen, even as the
+messenger had promised Rador. Fierce had been the struggle in the
+gardened city by the silver waters with those Lugur and Yolara had
+left behind to garrison it. Deadly had been the slaughter of the
+fair-haired, reaping the harvest of hatred they had been sowing so
+long. Not without a pang of regret did I think of the beautiful, gaily
+malicious elfin women destroyed--evil though they may have been.
+
+The ancient city of Lara was a charnel.  Of all the rulers not
+twoscore had escaped, and these into regions of peril which to
+describe as sanctuary would be mockery. Nor had the _ladala_ fared so
+well. Of all the men and women, for women as well as men had taken
+their part in the swift war, not more than a tenth remained alive.
+
+And the dancing motes of light in the silver air were thick,
+thick--they whispered.
+
+They told us of the Shining One rushing through the Veil, cometlike,
+its hosts streaming behind it, raging with it, in ranks that seemed
+interminable!
+
+Of the massacre of the priests and priestesses in the Cyclopean
+temple; of the flashing forth of the summoning lights by unseen
+hands--followed by the tearing of the rainbow curtain, by colossal
+shatterings of the radiant cliffs; the vanishing behind their debris
+of all trace of entrance to the haunted place wherein the hordes of
+the Shining One had slaved--the sealing of the lair!
+
+Then, when the tempest of hate had ended in seething Lara, how,
+thrilled with victory, armed with the weapons of those they had slain,
+they had lifted the Shadow, passed through the Portal, met and
+slaughtered the fleeing remnants of Yolara's men--only to find the
+tempest stilled here, too.
+
+But of Marakinoff they had seen nothing!  Had the Russian escaped, I
+wondered, or was he lying out there among the dead?
+
+But now the _ladala_ were calling upon Lakla to come with them, to
+govern them.
+
+"I don't want to, Larry darlin'," she told him.  "I want to go out
+with you to Ireland. But for a time--I think the Three would have us
+remain and set that place in order."
+
+The O'Keefe was bothered about something else than the government of
+Muria.
+
+"If they've killed off all the priests, who's to marry us, heart of
+mine?" he worried. "None of those Siya and Siyana rites, no matter
+what," he added hastily.
+
+"Marry!" cried the handmaiden incredulously.  "Marry us? Why, Larry
+dear, we _are_ married!"
+
+The O'Keefe's astonishment was complete; his jaw dropped; collapse
+seemed imminent.
+
+"We are?" he gasped.  "When?" he stammered fatuously.
+
+"Why, when the Mother drew us together before her; when she put her
+hands on our heads after we had made the promise! Didn't you
+understand that?" asked the handmaiden wonderingly.
+
+He looked at her, into the purity of the clear golden eyes, into the
+purity of the soul that gazed out of them; all his own great love
+transfiguring his keen face.
+
+"An' is that enough for you, _mavourneen_?" he whispered humbly.
+
+"Enough?" The handmaiden's puzzlement was complete, profound.
+"Enough? Larry darlin', what _more_ could we ask?"
+
+He drew a deep breath, clasped her close.
+
+"Kiss the bride, Doc!" cried the O'Keefe.  And for the third and,
+soul's sorrow! the last time, Lakla dimpling and blushing, I thrilled
+to the touch of her soft, sweet lips.
+
+Quickly were our preparations for departure made.  Rador, conscious,
+his immense vitality conquering fast his wounds, was to be borne ahead
+of us. And when all was done, Lakla, Larry, and I made our way up to
+the scarlet stone that was the doorway to the chamber of the Three. We
+knew, of course, that they had gone, following, no doubt, those whose
+eyes I had seen in the curdled mists, and who, coming to the aid of
+the Three at last from whatever mysterious place that was their home,
+had thrown their strength with them against the Shining One. Nor were
+we wrong. When the great slab rolled away, no torrents of opalescence
+came rushing out upon us. The vast dome was dim, tenantless; its
+curved walls that had cascaded Light shone now but faintly; the dais
+was empty; its wall of moon-flame radiance gone.
+
+A little time we stood, heads bent, reverent, our hearts filled with
+gratitude and love--yes, and with pity for that strange trinity so
+alien to us and yet so near; children even as we, though so unlike us,
+of our same Mother Earth.
+
+And what I wondered had been the secret of that promise they had wrung
+from their handmaiden and from Larry. And whence, if what the Three
+had said had been all true--whence had come their power to avert the
+sacrifice at the very verge of its consummation?
+
+"Love is stronger than all things!" had said Lakla.
+
+Was it that they had needed, must have, the force which dwells within
+love, within willing sacrifice, to strengthen their own power and to
+enable them to destroy the evil, glorious Thing so long shielded by
+their own love? Did the thought of sacrifice, the will toward
+abnegation, have to be as strong as the eternals, unshaken by faintest
+thrill of hope, before the Three could make of it their key to unlock
+the Dweller's guard and strike through at its life?
+
+Here was a mystery--a mystery indeed!  Lakla softly closed the crimson
+stone. The mystery of the red dwarf's appearance was explained when we
+discovered a half-dozen of the water _coria_ moored in a small cove
+not far from where the _Sekta_ flashed their heads of living bloom.
+The dwarfs had borne the shallops with them, and from somewhere beyond
+the cavern ledge had launched them unperceived; stealing up to the
+farther side of the island and risking all in one bold stroke. Well,
+Lugur, no matter what he held of wickedness, held also high courage.
+
+The cavern was paved with the dead-alive, the _Akka_ carrying them out
+by the hundreds, casting them into the waters. Through the lane down
+which the Dweller had passed we went as quickly as we could, coming at
+last to the space where the _coria_ waited. And not long after we
+swung past where the shadow had hung and hovered over the shining
+depths of the Midnight Pool.
+
+Upon Lakla's insistence we passed on to the palace of Lugur, not to
+Yolara's--I do not know why, but go there then she would not. And
+within one of its columned rooms, maidens of the black-haired folks,
+the wistfulness, the fear, all gone from their sparkling eyes, served
+us.
+
+There came to me a huge desire to see the destruction they had told us
+of the Dweller's lair; to observe for myself whether it was not
+possible to make a way of entrance and to study its mysteries.
+
+I spoke of this, and to my surprise both the handmaiden and the
+O'Keefe showed an almost embarrassed haste to acquiesce in my hesitant
+suggestion.
+
+"Sure," cried Larry, "there's lots of time before night!"
+
+He caught himself sheepishly; cast a glance at Lakla.
+
+"I keep forgettin' there's no night here," he mumbled.
+
+"What did you say, Larry?" asked she.
+
+"I said I wish we were sitting in our home in Ireland, watching the
+sun go down," he whispered to her. Vaguely I wondered why she blushed.
+
+But now I must hasten.  We went to the temple, and here at least the
+ghastly litter of the dead had been cleaned away. We passed through
+the blue-caverned space, crossed the narrow arch that spanned the
+rushing sea stream, and, ascending, stood again upon the ivoried pave
+at the foot of the frowning, towering amphitheatre of jet.
+
+Across the Silver Waters there was sign of neither Web of Rainbows nor
+colossal pillars nor the templed lips that I had seen curving out
+beneath the Veil when the Shining One had swirled out to greet its
+priestess and its voice and to dance with the sacrifices. There was
+but a broken and rent mass of the radiant cliffs against whose base
+the lake lapped.
+
+Long I looked--and turned away saddened.  Knowing even as I did what
+the irised curtain had hidden, still it was as though some thing of
+supernal beauty and wonder had been swept away, never to be replaced;
+a glamour gone for ever; a work of the high gods destroyed.
+
+"Let's go back," said Larry abruptly.
+
+I dropped a little behind them to examine a bit of carving--and,
+after all, they did not want me. I watched them pacing slowly ahead,
+his arm around her, black hair close to bronze-gold ringlets. Then I
+followed. Half were they over the bridge when through the roar of the
+imprisoned stream I heard my name called softly.
+
+"Goodwin!  Dr. Goodwin!"
+
+Amazed, I turned.  From behind the pedestal of a carved group
+slunk--Marakinoff! My premonition had been right. Some way he had
+escaped, slipped through to here. He held his hands high, came forward
+cautiously.
+
+"I am finished," he whispered--"Done!  I don't care what _they'll_ do
+to me." He nodded toward the handmaiden and Larry, now at the end of
+the bridge and passing on, oblivious of all save each other. He drew
+closer. His eyes were sunken, burning, mad; his face etched with deep
+lines, as though a graver's tool had cut down through it. I took a
+step backward.
+
+A grin, like the grimace of a fiend, blasted the Russian's visage.
+He threw himself upon me, his hands clenching at my throat!
+
+"Larry!" I yelled--and as I spun around under the shock of his
+onslaught, saw the two turn, stand paralyzed, then race toward me.
+
+"But _you'll_ carry nothing out of here!" shrieked Marakinoff.  "No!"
+
+My foot, darting out behind me, touched vacancy.  The roaring of the
+racing stream deafened me. I felt its mists about me; threw myself
+forward.
+
+I was falling--falling--with the Russian's hand strangling me. I
+struck water, sank; the hands that gripped my throat relaxed for a
+moment their clutch. I strove to writhe loose; felt that I was being
+hurled with dreadful speed on--full realization came--on the breast of
+that racing torrent dropping from some far ocean cleft and
+rushing--where? A little time, a few breathless instants, I struggled
+with the devil who clutched me--inflexibly, indomitably.
+
+Then a shrieking as of all the pent winds of the universe in my
+ears--blackness!
+
+Consciousness returned slowly, agonizedly.
+
+"Larry!" I groaned.  "Lakla!"
+
+A brilliant light was glowing through my closed lids.  It hurt.  I
+opened my eyes, closed them with swords and needles of dazzling pain
+shooting through them. Again I opened them cautiously. It was the sun!
+
+I staggered to my feet.  Behind me was a shattered wall of basalt
+monoliths, hewn and squared. Before me was the Pacific, smooth and
+blue and smiling.
+
+And not far away, cast up on the strand even as I had been,
+was--Marakinoff!
+
+He lay there, broken and dead indeed.  Yet all the waters through
+which we had passed--not even the waters of death themselves--could
+wash from his face the grin of triumph. With the last of my strength I
+dragged the body from the strand and pushed it out into the waves. A
+little billow ran up, coiled about it, and carried it away, ducking
+and bending. Another seized it, and another, playing with it. It
+floated from my sight--that which had been Marakinoff, with all his
+schemes to turn our fair world into an undreamed-of-hell.
+
+My strength began to come back to me.  I found a thicket and slept;
+slept it must have been for many hours, for when I again awakened the
+dawn was rosing the east. I will not tell my sufferings. Suffice it to
+say that I found a spring and some fruit, and just before dusk had
+recovered enough to writhe up to the top of the wall and discover
+where I was.
+
+The place was one of the farther islets of the Nan-Matal. To the north
+I caught the shadows of the ruins of Nan-Tauach, where was the moon
+door, black against the sky. Where was the moon door--which, someway,
+somehow, I must reach, and quickly.
+
+At dawn of the next day I got together driftwood and bound it together
+in shape of a rough raft with fallen creepers. Then, with a makeshift
+paddle, I set forth for Nan-Tauach. Slowly, painfully, I crept up to
+it. It was late afternoon before I grounded my shaky craft on the
+little beach between the ruined sea-gates and, creeping up the giant
+steps, made my way to the inner enclosure.
+
+And at its opening I stopped, and the tears ran streaming down my
+cheeks while I wept aloud with sorrow and with disappointment and with
+weariness.
+
+For the great wall in which had been set the pale slab whose threshold
+we had crossed to the land of the Shining One lay shattered and
+broken. The monoliths were heaped about; the wall had fallen, and
+about them shone a film of water, half covering them.
+
+There was no moon door!
+
+Dazed and weeping, I drew closer, climbed upon their outlying
+fragments. I looked out only upon the sea. There had been a great
+subsidence, an earth shock, perhaps, tilting downward all that
+side--the echo, little doubt, of that cataclysm which had blasted the
+Dweller's lair!
+
+The little squared islet called Tau, in which were hidden the seven
+globes, had entirely disappeared. Upon the waters there was no trace
+of it.
+
+The moon door was gone; the passage to the Moon Pool was closed to
+me--its chamber covered by the sea!
+
+There was no road to Larry--nor to Lakla!
+
+And there, for me, the world ended.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+I have made the following changes to the text:
+PAGE  LINE  ORIGINAL         CHANGED TO
+   3    14  sinster          sinister
+  17    11  Nam-Tauach       Nan-Tauach
+  22    20  on on            on
+  69    39  'Didn't          "Didn't
+  75    21  'But             "But
+  90    36  "Trolde!"        _"Trolde!"_
+  91    35  'We              "We
+  96    11  shown            shone
+  96    14  smiled           smiled.
+ 105    11  drank            drunk
+ 106    24  acomplish        accomplish
+ 109    23  'Shake           "Shake
+ 111    18  overtstressed    overstressed
+ 116    11  increduously     incredulously
+ 120    30  Yolar            Yolara
+ 128    12  spirtual         spiritual
+ 150    13  cushoned         cushioned
+ 172    29  semed            seemed
+ 204    34  there?"'         there?"
+ 208    25  "Its             "It's
+ 231     8  meal             metal
+ 239     6  suling           sulting
+ 248    28  finshed          finished
+ 280    29  much             must
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Moon Pool, by A. Merritt
+
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