Larry's hand still
clutching her girdle.

The roaring, impalpable gale from the cosmos was retreating to the
outposts of space--was still; the intense, streaming, flooding
radiance lessened--died.

"Now have you beheld," said Lakla, "and well you trod the road. And
now shall you hear, even as the Silent Ones have commanded, what the
Shining One is--and how it came to be."

The steps flashed back; the doorway into the chamber opened.

Larry as silent as I--we followed her through it.

[1] Reprinted in full in _Nature_, in which those sufficiently interested
may peruse it.--W. T. G.

CHAPTER XXIX

The Shaping of the Shining One

We reached what I knew to be Lakla's own boudoir, if I may so call it.
Smaller than any of the other chambers of the domed castle in which we
had been, its intimacy was revealed not only by its faint fragrance
but by its high mirrors of polished silver and various oddly wrought
articles of the feminine toilet that lay here and there; things I
afterward knew to be the work of the artisans of the _Akka_--and no
mean metal workers were they. One of the window slits dropped almost
to the floor, and at its base was a wide, comfortably cushioned seat
commanding a view of the bridge and of the cavern ledge. To this the
handmaiden beckoned us; sank upon it, drew Larry down beside her and
motioned me to sit close to him.

"Now this," she said, "is what the Silent Ones have commanded me to
tell you two: To you Larry, that knowing you may weigh all things in
your mind and answer as your spirit bids you a question that the Three
will ask--and what that is I know not," she murmured, "and I, they
say, must answer, too--and it--frightens me!"

The great golden eyes widened; darkened with dread; she sighed, shook
her head impatiently.

"Not like us, and never like us," she spoke low, wonderingly, "the
Silent Ones say were they. Nor were those from which they sprang like
those from which we have come. Ancient, ancient beyond thought are the
_Taithu_, the race of the Silent Ones. Far, far below this place where
now we sit, close to earth heart itself were they born; and there they
dwelt for time upon time, _laya_ upon _laya_ upon _laya_--with others,
not like them, some of which have vanished time upon time agone,
others that still dwell--below--in their--cradle.

"It is hard"--she hesitated--"hard to tell this--that slips through my
mind--because I know so little that even as the Three told