f passing hurricanes; these lay like the
scattered bones of a dismembered giant, age-blackened, and painted
with hoarfrost by the brushes of moonlight. Feebly the dead forest
stirred under the touch of a moaning wind, and the gaunt shadows cast
by the trees seemed to be multi-armed monsters slithering over the
rocky earth.

He looked beyond the trees, and he saw light. Little squares of pale
radiance cut high in the walls of an ancient black castle. Castle?
Cliff frowned. He could liken it to nothing else, though he could not
recall ever having seen a castle which thrust curving, needle-thin
spires into the sky like a devil's horns.

Impatiently Cliff stepped from the wall of rock and glanced along a
path that writhed through the forest; glanced--and crouched swiftly, a
low cry escaping him. A single spot of water on a smooth, flat stone!
A spot shaped like a woman's shoe! Vilma had passed this way!

But--might it not have been some other woman from the _Ariel_? No!
They had been carried--and even if they had walked, their feet were
dry!

Like a hound on the scent, Cliff Darrell sped along the serpentine
path. The wind moaned above him, and the soughing branches seemed to
whisper croaking warnings, but he ran on, his eyes constantly seeking
signs of Vilma's course. Here a drop of water shaken from her drenched
skirt, there another; and Cliff blessed the full moon whose light made
possible his trailing of the almost invisible spoor.

Now he had passed beyond the dead forest and was moving toward the
castle. The trail had been growing steadily fainter, but he managed to
follow it. It led him toward a narrow stone stairway climbing
crookedly to a misshapen opening in the wall. Light glowed faintly
lurid somewhere deep within; and now Cliff heard a blasphemous sound
belch from the depths of the castle--a wheezing, sardonic croaking
like the moan of a demoniac organ, rumbling an obscene dirge. His hair
bristled, and he stopped short.

He looked at the steps, searching for the fading trail--and he
stiffened. There on the second step was an irregular blotch of
moisture! What did it mean? Had Vilma crouched there? Had she ascended
those steps? Entered?

* * * * *

With drawn face he began to skirt the base of the black building,
searching every nook and cranny, scanning the bare walls. His heart
lay like ballast in his breast. If--if something had lured Vilma into
that demon-infested va