them to a
simple sickly perfume.

He had leapt to his feet. He stood swaying like a drunken man, while a
strange bemusing attacked his brain and left a singing in his ears.
Staggering under the influence of the deadly drug, he fled from the
clearing up towards the hill-top.

* * * * *

It was victory! Complete, overwhelming.

Steve was gazing out upon a wide, seemingly limitless table-land. In
every direction it spread itself out, far as the eye could see. To the
west it looked to launch itself into the very heart of the land of fire
which was shedding its ruddy light from miles and miles away. To the
north it went on till it lost itself against the slopes of the lofty,
containing hills of the valley. Southward, its spread was swallowed up
under a rolling fog of smoke, which settled upon the world like a pall.
It was a great, white, limitless field of dead white lily bloom,
unbroken, unsullied, like the perfect damask of napery, purer in tone
than virgin snow.

The great cup-like blooms stood up nearly to the height of his
shoulders. They were superb in their gracious form, and suggested
nothing so much as a mask of innocence and purity concealing a heart of
unimaginable evil.

Steve gazed at those nearest him with mixed feelings of repulsion and
delight. Nor could he wholly rid himself of the fear his knowledge
inspired. His mask was closely adjusted over mouth and nostrils, and he
knew that it was only that product of the dead chemist's genius that
stood between him and a dreamless sleep from which there would be no
awakening.

And as he gazed he became aware of a strange phenomenon. Each lily was
slightly inclining its gaping mouth towards the distant heart of Unaga,
which inspired its life. To him it suggested an attitude of the
devoutest worship. It seemed to his mind that these strange plants,
containing all that was most beneficent, and all that was most deadly in
their composition, were yielding a silent expression of thankful worship
to the tremendous power which saved them from the frigid death to which
the dead of Arctic winter would otherwise have condemned them.

His feelings yielded to the profound wonder of it all. For all his fear
his soul was stirred to its depths. And his thankfulness was no less
than his wonder.

Yes, it was victory at last, after years of ceaseless effort. It was a
victory surpassing even his wildest hopes. Here was the wonderful field
of