efore us. Back from them, a pace, ten
paces, twenty, we retreated.

They lay immobile--staring at us.

Cleaving the mists, silk of copper hair streaming wide, unearthly eyes
lambent, floated up behind them--Norhala. For an instant she was hidden
behind their bulk; suddenly was upon them; drifted over them like some
spirit of light; stood before us.

Her veils were again about her; golden girdle, sandals of gold and
turquoise in their places. Pearl white her body gleamed; no mark of
lightning marred it.

She walked toward us, turned and faced the watching cubes. She uttered
no sound, but as at a signal the central cube slid forward, halted
before her. She rested a hand upon its edge.

"Ride with me," she said to Ruth.

"Norhala." Ventnor took a step forward. "Norhala, we must go with her.
And this"--he pointed to the pony--"must go with us."

"I meant--you--to come," the faraway voice chimed, "but I had not
thought of--that."

A moment she considered; then turned to the six waiting cubes. Again as
at a command four of the things moved, swirled in toward each other
with a weird precision, with a monstrous martial mimicry; joined; stood
before us, a platform twelve feet square, six high.

"Mount," sighed Norhala.

Ventnor looked helplessly at the sheer front facing him.

"Mount." There was half-wondering impatience in her command. "See!"

She caught Ruth by the waist and with the same bewildering swiftness
with which she had vanished from us when the aurora beckoned she stood,
holding the girl, upon the top of the single cube. It was as though the
two had been lifted, had been levitated with an incredible rapidity.

"Mount," she murmured again, looking down upon us.

Slowly Ventnor began to bandage the pony's eyes. I placed my hand upon
the edge of the quadruple; sprang. A myriad unseen hands caught me,
raised me, set me instantaneously on the upward surface.

"Lift the pony to me," I called to Ventnor.

"Lift it?" he echoed, incredulously.

Drake's grin cut like a sunray through the nightmare dread that shrouded
my mind.

"Catch," he called; placed one hand beneath the beast's belly, the other
under its throat; his shoulders heaved--and up shot the pony, laden as
it was, landed softly upon four wide-stretched legs beside me. The faces
of the two gaped up, ludicrous in their amazement.

"Follow," cried Norhala.

Ventnor leaped wildly for the top, Drake beside him; in the flash of a
humming-bird's