ninjured as they used to be when he was young. He added also, and
the remark struck me, that yonder was where he would wish to die. When I
answered that I feared he would never take so long a walk again, I noted
that he smiled a little.

"Well, this conversation gave me a clue, and without troubling more
about the footprints I went on as fast as I could to the Ring, half a
mile or so away. Presently I reached it, and there--yes, there--standing
by the cromlech, bareheaded, and clothed in his night-things only,
stood Mr. Holly in the snow, the strangest figure, I think, that ever I
beheld.

"Indeed never shall I forget that wild scene. The circle of rough,
single stones pointing upwards to the star-strewn sky, intensely lonely
and intensely solemn: the tall trilithon towering above them in the
centre, its shadow, thrown by the bright moon behind it, lying long
and black upon the dazzling sheet of snow, and, standing clear of this
shadow so that I could distinguish his every motion, and even the rapt
look upon his dying face, the white-draped figure of Mr. Holly. He
appeared to be uttering some invocation--in Arabic, I think--for long
before I reached him I could catch the tones of his full, sonorous
voice, and see his waving, outstretched arms. In his right hand he held
the looped sceptre which, by his express wish I send to you with the
drawings. I could see the flash of the jewels strung upon the wires, and
in the great stillness, hear the tinkling of its golden bells.

"Presently, too, I seemed to become aware of another presence, and now
you will understand why I desire and must ask that my identity should
be suppressed. Naturally enough I do not wish to be mixed up with a
superstitious tale which is, on the face of it, impossible and absurd.
Yet under all the circumstances I think it right to tell you that I saw,
or thought I saw, something gather in the shadow of the central dolmen,
or emerge from its rude chamber--I know not which for certain--something
bright and glorious which gradually took the form of a woman upon whose
forehead burned a star-like fire.

"At any rate the vision or reflection, or whatever it was, startled me
so much that I came to a halt under the lee of one of the monoliths, and
found myself unable even to call to the distraught man whom I pursued.

"Whilst I stood thus it became clear to me that Mr. Holly also saw
something. At least he turned towards the Radiance in the shadow,
uttered