s standing; the one beside them
was sullenly silent as the other on the platform addressed their ruler.

He spoke at some length, not with the fire and vehemence of the one who
had claimed them, but more quietly and dispassionately, and his cold
eyes, when they rested on those of McGuire and Sykes, seemed more
crafty than actively ablaze with malevolent ill-will. Plainly it was the
councilor now, addressing his superior. His inhuman voice was silenced
by a reply from the one on the throne.

He motioned--this gold-crowned figure of personified evil--toward the
two men, and his hand swept on toward the one who had spoken. He intoned
a command in harsh gutturals that ended in a sibilant shriek. And the
two standing silent and hopeless exchanged looks of despair.

They were being delivered to this other--that much was plain--but that
it boded anything but captivity and torment they could not believe. That
last phrase was too eloquent of hissing hate.

* * * * *

The creature rose, tall and ungainly, from his throne; amid the
salutations of his followers he turned and vanished through the arch.
The others of his council followed, all but the one. He motioned to the
two men to come with him, and the sullen one who had demanded the men
for himself obeyed an order from this councilor who was his superior.

He snapped an order, and four of his men ranged themselves about the
captives as a guard. Thin metal cords were whipped about the wrists of
each; their hands were tied. The wire cut like a knife-edge if they
strained against it.

The new director of their destinies was vanishing through an exit at one
side of the great hall; their guard hustled them after. A corridor
opened before them to end in a gold-lit portal; it was daylight out
beyond where a street was filled with hurrying figures in many colors.
With quavering shrieks they scattered like frightened fowls as an
airship descended between the tall buildings that reflected its passing
in opalescent hues.

It was a small craft compared with the one that had brought them, and
it swept down to settle lightly upon the street with no least regard
for those who might be crushed by its descent. Consideration for their
fellows did not appear as a marked characteristic of this strange
people, McGuire observed thoughtfully. They swarmed in endless droves,
these multicolored beings who made of the thoroughfare an ever-changing
kaleidoscope--an