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 behin