sing.

"I looked upward, following the radiant pillars to their source. Far
above were seven shining globes, and it was from these that the rays
poured. Even as I watched their brightness grew. They were like seven
moons set high in some caverned heaven. Slowly their splendour
increased, and with it the splendour of the seven beams streaming from
them.

"I tore my gaze away and stared at the Pool. It had grown milky,
opalescent. The rays gushing into it seemed to be filling it; it was
alive with sparklings, scintillations, glimmerings. And the
luminescence I had seen rising from its depths was larger, nearer!

"A swirl of mist floated up from its surface. It drifted within the
embrace of the rosy beam and hung there for a moment. The beam seemed
to embrace it, sending through it little shining corpuscles, tiny rosy
spiralings. The mist absorbed the rays, was strengthened by them,
gained substance. Another swirl sprang into the amber shaft, clung and
fed there, moved swiftly toward the first and mingled with it. And now
other swirls arose, here and there, too fast to be counted; hung
poised in the embrace of the light streams; flashed and pulsed into
each other.

"Thicker and thicker still they arose until over the surface of the
Pool was a pulsating pillar of opalescent mist steadily growing
stronger; drawing within it life from the seven beams falling upon it;
drawing to it from below the darting, incandescent atoms of the Pool.
Into its centre was passing the luminescence rising from the far
depths. And the pillar glowed, throbbed--began to send out questing
swirls and tendrils--

"There forming before me was That which had walked with Stanton, which
had taken Thora--the thing I had come to find!

"My brain sprang into action. My hand threw up the pistol and I fired
shot after shot into the shining core.

"As I fired, it swayed and shook; gathered again. I slipped a second
clip into the automatic and another idea coming to me took careful aim
at one of the globes in the roof. From thence I knew came the force
that shaped this Dweller in the Pool--from the pouring rays came its
strength. If I could destroy them I could check its forming. I fired
again and again. If I hit the globes I did no damage. The little motes
in their beams danced with the motes in the mist, troubled. That was
all.

"But up from the Pool like little bells, like tiny bursting bubbles of
glass, swarmed the tinkling sounds--their pit