lmost as tall, and that both wore hooded white robes, the woman's
falling to her heels, the man's to his knees, waist-girdled with black
cords.

"Look for yourself, Helen."

She bent over the transparent cage. "Oh Anthony, how wonderful!"

Allan attempted to rise. He was unutterably weak; to move a finger was
a gigantic task, to do more impossible. He tried to call out. No sound
came from his straining throat.

The couple straightened. The man spoke, too low for Dane to hear. Each
took something from the table, something that gleamed metallically.
Then they turned--and Allan saw what the white robes clothed!

* * * * *

Skulls leered at him from beneath the hoods--fleshless skulls; tinted
a pale green! Jutting jawbones, cavernous cheeks, lipless mouths that
grinned mirthlessly--his eyes froze to them and a scream formed within
him that he could not utter. Hands appeared from within the flowing
sleeves, and they were skeleton hands, each phalanx clearly marked.
They moved, that was the worst of it, the hands moved; and deep in the
shadowed eye-pits of the skulls blue light glowed in living eyes that
peered at something to Allan's right.

His eyes followed the direction of their gaze. Ranged along the wall,
and jutting out, he saw four couches. On each was a figure, shrouded
and hooded in white. Utterly still they were--and the cadaverous
countenances exposed between robe and hood betrayed not the slightest
twitch. The arms were crossed on each breast. Allan realized that his
own arms were similarly crossed. He looked down at them, saw the white
gleam of a robe that fell down his length in smooth, still folds, saw
his hands--greenish skin stretched tight over fleshless bones.
Suddenly it seemed to him that the air was musty and fetid.

Footsteps slithered across the floor. The woman-form bent over the
farthest couch. With one skeleton hand she bared an arm of the
corpselike figure; the other hand lifted--metal glinted in it and
plunged into the unshrinking limb! A slow movement of the bony fingers
and the threadlike, silvery thing was withdrawn. She stared
ghoulishly--and the man, too, gazed tensely at her victim. A long
quiver ran through the recumbent shape, another. The death's-head on
the pallet moved slightly--and merciful blackness welled up in Allan's
brain....

* * * * *

A cool liquid was in his mouth. He swallowed instinctively, and warmth