when moon veils it an incredible
blossoming of splendours in the black heavens.

And strangely, strangely, it was like the Dweller's beauty when with
its dazzling spirallings and writhings it raced amid its storm of
crystal bell sounds!

The abyss was behind us; we had paused at the golden portals; they
swung inward. A wide corridor filled with soft light was before us,
and on its threshold stood--bizarre, yellow gems gleaming, huge muzzle
wide in what was evidently meant for a smile of welcome--the woman
frog of the Moon Pool wall.

Lakla raised her head; swept back the silken tent of her hair and
gazed at me with eyes misty from weeping. The frog-woman crept to her
side; gazed down upon Larry; spoke--_spoke_--to the Golden Girl in a
swift stream of the sonorous, reverberant monosyllables; and Lakla
answered her in kind. The webbed digits swept over O'Keefe's face,
felt at his heart; she shook her head and moved ahead of us up the
passage.

Still borne in the litters we went on, winding, ascending until at
last they were set down in a great hall carpeted with soft fragrant
rushes and into which from high narrow slits streamed the crimson
light from without.

I jumped over to Larry, there had been no change in his condition;
still the terrifying limpness, the slow, infrequent pulsation. Rador
and Olaf--and the fever now seemed to be gone from him--came and stood
beside me, silent.

"I go to the Three," said Lakla. "Wait you here." She passed through
a curtaining; then as swiftly as she had gone she returned through the
hangings, tresses braided, a swathing of golden gauze about her.

"Rador," she said, "bear you Larry--for into your heart the Silent
Ones would look. And fear nothing," she added at the green dwarf's
disconcerted, almost fearful start.

Rador bowed, was thrust aside by Olaf.

"No," said the Norseman; "I will carry him."

He lifted Larry like a child against his broad breast. The dwarf
glanced quickly at Lakla; she nodded.

"Come!" she commanded, and held aside the folds.

Of that journey I have few memories. I only know that we went through
corridor upon corridor; successions of vast halls and chambers, some
carpeted with the rushes, others with rugs into which the feet sank as
into deep, soft meadows; spaces illumined by the rubrous light, and
spaces in which softer lights held sway.

We paused before a slab of the same crimson stone as that the green
dwarf had called the portal, a