ed into the depths of the forest.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE CHEMIST AND HIS SON

For an hour or more the three adventurers followed their strange guide
in silence through the dense, trackless woods. He walked very rapidly,
looking neither to the right nor to the left, finding his way apparently
by an intuitive sense of direction. Occasionally he glanced back over
his shoulder and smiled.

Walking through the woods here was not difficult, and the party made
rapid progress. The huge, upstanding tree-trunks were devoid of limbs
for a hundred feet or more above the ground. On some of them a luxuriant
vine was growing--a vine that bore a profusion of little gray berries.
In the branches high overhead a few birds flew to and fro, calling out
at times with a soft, cooing note. The ground--a gray, finely powdered
sandy loam--was carpeted with bluish fallen leaves, sometimes with a
species of blue moss, and occasional ferns of a like color.

The forest was dense, deep, and silent; the tree branches overhead
locked together in a solid canopy, shutting out the black sky above. Yet
even in this seclusion the scene remained as light as it had been
outside the woods in the open. Darkness indeed was impossible in this
land; under all circumstances the light seemed the same--neither too
bright nor too dim--a comfortable, steady glow, restful, almost hypnotic
in its sameness.

They had traveled perhaps six miles from the point where they met their
Oroid guide when suddenly the Very Young Man became aware that other
Oroids were with them. Looking to one side, he saw two more of these
strange gray men, silently stalking along, keeping pace with them.
Turning, he made out still another, following a short distance behind.
The Very Young Man was startled, and hurriedly pointed them out to his
companions.

"Wait," called the Doctor to their youthful guide, and abruptly the
party came to a halt.

By these signs they made their guide understand that they wanted these
other men to come closer. The Oroid shouted to them in his own quaint
tongue, words of a soft, liquid quality with a wistful sound--words
wholly unintelligible to the adventurers.

The men came forward diffidently, six of them, for three others appeared
out of the shadows of the forest, and stood in a group, talking among
themselves a little and smiling at their visitors. They were all dressed
similarly to Lao--for such was the young Oroid's name--and all of them
olde