out through a
well, and into a subterranean body of water that extends under the
entire city. And here we are."

We fell silent. Here we were. But what was going to happen to us among
these friendly-seeming people; and how--if ever--we were going to get
back to the earth's surface, were questions we could not even try to
answer.

* * * * *

We ate of the appetizing food laid out on the long table. Shortly
afterward we heard steps in the corridor outside the room.

A woman entered. She was ravishingly beautiful, tall, slender but
symmetrically rounded. A soft leather robe slanted upward across her
breast to a single shoulder fastening and ended just above her knees in
a skirt arrangement. Around her head was a regal circlet of silvery gray
metal with a flashing bit of crystal set in the center above her broad,
low forehead.

She smiled at Stanley who looked dazzled and smiled eagerly back.

She pointed toward the door, signifying that we were to go with her. We
did so; and were led down the great staircase and to a huge room that
took up half the ground floor of the building. And here we met the
nobility of the little kingdom--the upper class that governed the
immaculate little city.

They were standing along the walls, leaving a lane down the center of
the room--tall, finely modelled men and women dressed in the single
garments of soft leather. There were people there with gray hair and
wisdom wrinkled faces; but all were alike in being erect of body, firm
of bearing and in splendid health.

They stopped talking as we entered the big room. Our gaze strayed ahead
down the lane toward the further wall.

Here was a raised dais. On it was a gleaming crystal encrusted throne.
And occupying it was the most queenly, exquisitely beautiful woman I
had ever dreamed about.

* * * * *

Woman? She was just a girl in years in spite of her grave and royal air.
Her eyes were deep violet. Her hair was black as ebony and gleaming with
sudden glints of light. Her skin--

But she cannot be described. Only a great painter could give a hint of
her glory. Too, I might truthfully be described as prejudiced about her
perfections.

The Queen, for patently she was that, bowed graciously at us. It seemed
to me--though I told myself that I was an imaginative fool--that her
eyes rested longest on me, and had in them an expression not granted to
the Professor or Stanley.