about your going into Jarmuth alone? How d'you know they won't skin
you alive once you're over the border?"

"I don't," admitted his friend, shrugging slightly. "But I don't see
there's anything but to take the risk. If I don't go over there, sure
as shooting we're going to feed some damn unpleasant kind of beast
here in Atlans.

"Another thing," Nelson said, turning to the Hero who, surrounded by
the others, was bent in deep consultation over a map. "How am I to
know Altara if I see her? Is there a statue, a painting or
something--?"

The Hero's aquiline features lit in a slow smile. "Nay, we have better
than that. Come, thou shalt see the Sacred Virgin as she now is."

The members of the conference followed Hero Giles down a short
corridor, through a couple of doors and into a chamber where a huge
disc of crystal stood on edge fixed upon an axis above a bewildering
array of wires, pipes and gauges.

* * * * *

Hero John, who seemed familiar with the mechanism, turned a lever,
whereupon the disc commenced to spin like a pie plate on a dance
floor. Faster and faster it spun, silently gathering speed each second
while a low humming sound filled the chamber. Gradually the outline of
the whirling disk commenced to brighten, tinting the scar-seamed,
craggy features of the Atlantean generals and picking glorious,
glowing lights from the jewels on Hero Giles' wonderfully engraved
breastplate.

"Ah." Hero John turned a small dial. "The crystal warms. Look, oh
Wanderers!"

Nelson rubbed his eyes incredulously, for in the heart of the
shimmering circle had materialized the outline of a room with walls of
yellow marble.

"Well, I'm damned!" gasped Alden. "See how it flickers!"

As the revolving disc of crystal gained top speed, the flickering
subsided and a picture, clearer than most photographs, could be seen
in the center. A wondrously slender, yellow-haired young girl clad in
Grecian robes of pale blue sat in deep despond upon a plain wooden
couch, with a black haired servant kneeling before her, apparently
lacing sandals on her tiny, pink-hued feet.

"Bring closer the face," snapped Hero Giles gruffly.

Gradually the focus changed, like the close-up of a movie camera,
until in the center of the madly whirling disc could be seen in minute
detail and living color the face of an indescribably lovely girl.

"Whew," muttered Nelson, staring in silent amazement. "No wonder they
want