of the draughtsman. Yet, above
them, the ceiling sprang lightly into vaulted, sweeping curves.
McGuire's training had held little of architecture, yet even he felt the
beauty of line and airy gracefulness of treatment in the structure
itself.

* * * * *

The contrast between the flaunting colors and the finished artistry that
lay beneath must have struck a discordant note to the scientist. He
leaned closer to whisper.

"It is all wrong some way--the whole world! Beauty and refinement--then
crude vulgarity, as incongruous as the people themselves--they do not
belong here."

"Neither do we," was McGuire's reply; "it looks like a tough spot that
we're in."

He was watching toward a high, arched entrance across the room. A
platform before it was raised some six feet above the floor, and on
this were seats--ornate chairs, done in sweeping scrolls of scarlet and
gold. A massive seat in the center was like the fantastic throne of a
child's fairy tale. From the corridor beyond that entrance came a stir
and rustling that rivetted the man's attention.

A trumpet peal, vibrant and peculiar, blared forth from the ceiling
overhead, and the red figures of the guards stood at rigid attention
with lean arms held stiffly before them. The one in scarlet took the
same attitude, then dropped his hands to motion the two men to give the
same salute.

"You go to hell," said Lieutenant McGuire in his gentlest tones. And the
scarlet figure's thin lips were snarling as he turned to whip his arms
up to their position. The first of a procession of figures was entering
through the arch.

Sykes, the scientist, was paying little attention. "It isn't true," he
was muttering aloud; "it can't be true. Venus! Twenty-six million miles
at inferior conjunction!"

He seemed lost in silent communion with his own thoughts; then: "But
I said there was every probability of life; I pointed out the
similarities--"

"Hush!" warned McGuire. The eyes of the scarlet man were sending wicked
looks in their direction. Tall forms were advancing through the arch.
They, too, were robed in scarlet, and behind them others followed.

* * * * *

The trumpet peal from the dome above held now on a long-drawn, single
note, while the scarlet men strode in silence across the dais and parted
to form two lines. An inverted "V" that faced the entrance--they were an
assembly of rigid, blazing statues whose ar