hat had been severed from ear to ear.

The man let the corpse fall back upon the blood-stained carpet, and
sprang to his feet, shaking like a wind-blown leaf. His face was an ashy
mask of fear. But with one knee flexed for flight, he froze suddenly,
became as immobile as an image, staring across the chamber with dilated
eyes.

In the shadows beneath the balcony a ghostly light began to glow and
grow, a light that was not part of the fire-stone gleam. Valeria felt
her hair stir as she watched it; for, dimly visible in the throbbing
radiance, there floated a human skull, and it was from this skull--human
yet appallingly misshapen--that the spectral light seemed to emanate. It
hung there like a disembodied head, conjured out of night and the
shadows, growing more and more distinct; human, and yet not human as she
knew humanity.

The man stood motionless, an embodiment of paralyzed horror, staring
fixedly at the apparition. The thing moved out from the wall and a
grotesque shadow moved with it. Slowly the shadow became visible as a
man-like figure whose naked torso and limbs shone whitely, with the hue
of bleached bones. The bare skull on its shoulders grinned eyelessly, in
the midst of its unholy nimbus, and the man confronting it seemed unable
to take his eyes from it. He stood still, his sword dangling from
nerveless fingers, on his face the expression of a man bound by the
spells of a mesmerist.

* * * * *

Valeria realized that it was not fear alone that paralyzed him. Some
hellish quality of that throbbing glow had robbed him of his power to
think and act. She herself, safely above the scene, felt the subtle
impact of a nameless emanation that was a threat to sanity.

The horror swept toward its victim and he moved at last, but only to
drop his sword and sink to his knees, covering his eyes with his hands.
Dumbly he awaited the stroke of the blade that now gleamed in the
apparition's hand as it reared above him like Death triumphant over
mankind.

Valeria acted according to the first impulse of her wayward nature. With
one tigerish movement she was over the balustrade and dropping to the
floor behind the awful shape. It wheeled at the thud of her soft boots
on the floor, but even as it turned, her keen blade lashed down, and a
fierce exultation swept her as she felt the edge cleave solid flesh and
mortal bone.

The apparition cried out gurglingly and went down, severed through