Thursday's Serial: "The Moon Pool" by A. Merritt (in English) VIII

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.