too. Vance himself had dropped out
of recognition. He belonged to the world of things to-day. But this
woman and himself stood thousands of years away, beneath the columns of
a Temple in the sands. And the sands were moving. His feet went shifting
with them ... running down vistas of ageless memory that woke terror by
their sheer immensity of distance....

Like a muffled voice that called to him through many veils and
wrappings, he heard her describe the stupendous Powers that evocation
might coax down again among the world of men.

"To what useful end?" he asked at length, amazed at his own temerity,
and because he knew instinctively the answer in advance. It rose through
these layers of coiling memory in his soul.

"The extension of spiritual knowledge and the widening of life," she
answered. "The link with the 'unearthly kingdom' wherein this ancient
system went forever searching, would be re-established. Complete
rehabilitation might follow. Portions--little portions of these
Powers--expressed themselves naturally once in certain animal types,
instinctive life that did not deny or reject them. The worship of sacred
animals was the relic of a once gigantic system of evocation--not of
monsters," and she smiled sadly, "but of Powers that were willing and
ready to descend when worship summoned them."

Again, beneath his breath, Henriot heard himself murmur--his own voice
startled him as he whispered it: "Actual bodily shape and outline?"

"Material for bodies is everywhere," she answered, equally low; "dust to
which we all return; sand, if you prefer it, fine, fine sand. Life
moulds it easily enough, when that life is potent."

A certain confusion spread slowly through his mind as he heard her. He
lit a cigarette and smoked some minutes in silence. Lady Statham and her
nephew waited for him to speak. At length, after some inner battling and
hesitation, he put the question that he knew they waited for. It was
impossible to resist any longer.

"It would be interesting to know the method," he said, "and to revive,
perhaps, by experiment--"

Before he could complete his thought, she took him up:

"There are some who claim to know it," she said gravely--her eyes a
moment masterful. "A clue, thus followed, might lead to the entire
reconstruction I spoke of."

"And the method?" he repeated faintly.

"Evoke the Power by ceremonial evocation--the ritual is obtainable--and
note the form it assumes. Then establish it