nly of globe and pyramid; an
inconceivably grotesque shape, it hung over us.

Throughout the towering Shape was awful movement; its units writhed
within it. Then it was lost to sight in the mists through which the
Thing we had pursued had gone.

In Norhala's face as she watched it go was a dismay, a poignant
uncertainty, that held in it something indescribably pitiful.

"I am afraid!" I heard her whisper.

She tightened her grasp upon dreaming Ruth; motioned us to go within.
We passed, silently; behind us she came, followed by three of the great
globes, by a pair of her tetrahedrons.

Beside a pile of the silken stuffs she halted. The girl's eyes dwelt
upon hers trustingly.

"I am afraid!" whispered Norhala again. "Afraid--for you!"

Tenderly she looked down upon her, the galaxies of stars in her eyes
soft and tremulous.

"I am afraid, little sister," she whispered for the third time. "Not yet
can you go as I do--among the fires." She hesitated. "Rest here until I
return. I shall leave these to guard you and obey you."

She motioned to the five shapes. They ranged themselves about Ruth.
Norhala kissed her upon both brown eyes.

"Sleep till I return," she murmured.

She swept from the chamber--with never a glance for us three. I heard a
little wailing chorus without, fast dying into silence.

Spheres and pyramids twinkled at us, guarding the silken pile whereon
Ruth lay asleep--like some enchanted princess.

Beat down upon the blue globe like hollow metal worlds, beaten and
shrieking.

The drums of Destiny!

The drums of Doom!

Beating taps for the world of men?

CHAPTER XXVIII. THE FRENZY OF RUTH

For many minutes we stood silent, in the shadowy chamber, listening,
each absorbed in his own thoughts. The thunderous drumming was
continuous; sometimes it faded into a background for clattering storms
as of thousands of machine guns, thousands of riveters at work at once
upon a thousand metal frameworks; sometimes it was nearly submerged
beneath splitting crashes as of meeting meteors of hollow steel.

But always the drumming persisted, rhythmic, thunderous. Through it
all Ruth slept, undisturbed, cheek pillowed in one rounded arm, the two
great pyramids erect behind her, watchful; a globe at her feet, a globe
at her head, the third sphere poised between her and us, and, like the
pyramids--watchful.

What was happening out there--over the edge of the canyon, beyond the
portal of the cliffs, b