f yellow fire. All
right--they or IT lost control. Every pin point swelled out into a
Niagara. And as it did so, it expanded from a controlled dust dot to
an uncontrolled cataract--in other words, its energy was unleashed and
undammed.

"Very well--what followed? What HAD to follow? Every living battery of
block and globe and spike was supercharged and went--blooey. The valley
must have been some sweet little volcano while that short circuiting
was going on. All right--let's go down and see what it did to your
unclimbable slide and unscalable walls, Ventnor. I'm not sure we won't
be able to get out that way."

"Come on; everything's ready," Ruth was calling; her summoning blocked
any objection we might have raised to Drake's argument.

It was no dryad, no distressed pagan clad maid we saw as we passed back
into the room of the pool. In knickerbockers and short skirt, prim and
self-possessed, rebellious curls held severely in place by close-fitting
cap and slender feet stoutly shod, Ruth hovered over the steaming kettle
swung above the spirit lamp.

And she was very silent as we hastily broke fast. Nor when we had
finished did she go to Drake. She clung close to her brother and beside
him as we set forth down the roadway, through the rain, toward the ledge
between the cliffs where the veils had shimmered.

Hotter and hotter it grew as we advanced; the air steamed like a Turkish
bath. The mists clustered so thickly that at last we groped forward step
by step, holding to each other.

"No use," gasped Ventnor. "We couldn't see. We'll have to turn back."

"Burned out!" said Dick. "Didn't I tell you? The whole valley was a
volcano. And with that deluge falling in it--why wouldn't there be a
fog? It's why there IS a fog. We'll have to wait until it clears."

We trudged back to the blue globe.

All that day the rain fell. Throughout the few remaining hours of
daylight we wandered over the house of Norhala, examining its most
interesting contents, or sat theorizing, discussing all phases of the
phenomena we had witnessed.

We told Ruth what had occurred after she had thrown in her lot with
Norhala; and of the enigmatic struggle between the glorious Disk and the
sullenly flaming Thing I have called the Keeper.

We told her of the entombment of Norhala.

When she heard that she wept.

"She was sweet," she sobbed; "she was lovely. And she was beautiful.
Dearly she loved me. I KNOW she loved me. Oh, I know that we an