d circlet set like a diadem, and it crowned a young queen,
proud and knowing very well her beauty and its power.

Her features were neither Caucasian nor Oriental, certainly not the
heavy-boned native stock. I couldn't pin them down to any race. Her nose
was straight, the nostrils neither wide nor narrow, but strong and firm.
Her eyes were too wide-set and heavy-lidded to be Aryan, but they were
not tilted; they were level. Her hair was not black, but chestnut and
curled or naturally very wavy. Her glance was tawny and aflame with
anger and excitement, furious upon the prostrate Barto. They were very
light-colored eyes, and they caught the sun in a blaze that made them
seem yellow.

Striking, she was a figure not of any ordinary kind. Her every aspect
told that she came of a culture unknown to me. She was evidently not
ignorant, but of a different way of life.

Looking into her eyes, appraising her interest in myself that had
brought her back, drinking in the immense appeal of her strangeness and
her evident gentility--the evidences of a past of cultivated living as
strange as her attire--I forgot the unconscious man at my feet.

Her skin was whiter than my own! Her arms were bruised purple where
Barto had clutched her. Then she spoke, in halting Korean:

"Is he dead?"

"No," I answered.

"Then he will live to meet a far worse fate! I know why you are here,
stranger, and I warn you! You are on a fool's errand! The Golden Goddess
is death for such as you!"

I was bewildered.

"What Golden Goddess?"

"The Golden Goddess whose symbol led him here. He does not know what it
is. He stole it by murdering one of our own messengers for it. He did
not _know_ at all; he only heard the tales that some relate about her.
They are false tales."

"Did he tell you how he got it?"

"He was boasting to me, trying to get me to tell what I knew about her
dwelling-place. I would not, that is why he hurt me."

"Why did you come back, whatever-your-name?"

"My name is Nokomee, and I came back to tell you something you need to
know. Leave these others, and you will live! Stay with them, you will be
slain with them. We do not allow such as he to come among us, golden
girl or no."

"I cannot leave my comrades because of danger. What kind of man do you
think me?"

"I do not care! I can only tell you. This is a secret place, where we
remain hidden from the men of earth. I know what happens to those who
stray upon our secrets!