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,