a 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