urora lighter--that spot. I told you--look at that!" he cried.

The green lances had fallen back. The blackness gathered itself
together--then from it began to pulse billows of radiance, spangled with
infinite darting swarms of flashing corpuscles like uncounted hosts of
dancing fireflies.

Higher the waves rolled--phosphorescent green and iridescent violet,
weird copperous yellows and metallic saffrons and a shimmer of
glittering ash of rose--then wavered, split and formed into gigantic,
sparkling, marching curtains of splendor.

A vast circle of light sprang out upon the folds of the flickering,
rushing curtains. Misty at first, its edges sharpened until they rested
upon the blazing glory of the northern sky like a pale ring of cold
flame. And about it the aurora began to churn, to heap itself, to
revolve.

Toward the ring from every side raced the majestic folds, drew
themselves together, circled, seethed around it like foam of fire about
the lip of a cauldron, and poured through the shining circle as though
it were the mouth of that fabled cavern where old Aeolus sits blowing
forth and breathing back the winds that sweep the earth.

Yes--into the ring's mouth the aurora flew, cascading in a columned
stream to earth. Then swiftly, a mist swept over all the heavens, veiled
that incredible cataract.

"Magnetism?" muttered Drake. "I guess NOT!"

"It struck about where the Ting-Pa was broken and seemed drawn down like
the rays," I said.

"Purposeful," Drake said. "And devilish. It hit on all my nerves like
a--like a metal claw. Purposeful and deliberate. There was intelligence
behind that."

"Intelligence? Drake--what intelligence could break the rays of the
setting sun and suck down the aurora?"

"I don't know," he answered.

"Devils," croaked Chiu-Ming. "The devils that defied Buddha--and have
grown strong--"

"Like a metal claw!" breathed Drake.

Far to the west a sound came to us; first a whisper, then a wild
rushing, a prolonged wailing, a crackling. A great light flashed
through the mist, glowed about us and faded. Again the wailing, the vast
rushing, the retreating whisper.

Then silence and darkness dropped embraced upon the valley of the blue
poppies.

CHAPTER II. THE SIGIL ON THE ROCKS

Dawn came. Drake had slept well. But I, who had not his youthful
resiliency, lay for long, awake and uneasy. I had hardly sunk into
troubled slumber before dawn awakened me.

As we breakfasted, I ap