aress him. No sweet laughter in his ears, and no
light anywhere but what he made with his almost depleted hand flash.

* * * * *

Like a man bereft of reason he rushed away through the endless vaulted
cavern halls, seeking, seeking his loved playmates, his glowing
angel-shapes. And his heart seemed about to burst in his breast with the
terrible sense of loss, like a man who has just lost his family ... and
who thinks he will find them alive if he runs fast enough.

After an endless time of running and walking and panting his hand flash
went dark in his hand and he flung it away. He went on like a madman,
blind, caroming off the carved stone walls and on and on until at last
he sank to the floor in exhaustion.

Lying there, in despair as dark as the utter darkness of the caverns,
his eyes began to note after a time a soft glow spreading out before
him. Still longer he lay, looking, and his eyes began to see that it was
water glowing, rippling softly away before his eyes. The glow
strengthened little by little, until he could make out a vast
throne-like chair afar above the glowing water.

For a still longer time McCarthy did not believe his eyes, for on the
throne was a mighty female figure of dark green flesh.

Her long dripping hair was not hair, but writhed softly about her
beautiful head with a life of its own. The great eyes and wide scarlet
mouth were not exactly human, but they were very attractive and kind and
somehow lonely with a weight of wisdom. The gleaming shoulders and
tremendous long arms ended in wide-webbed fingers. The red tipped
breasts, the pillaring waist, the proud arched hips that did not divide
into legs but into two great serpentine drivers finned and scaled like
the tails of beautiful fish ... were to McCarthy after all his dreams
but figments of his overworked imagination.

Peter McCarthy lay silently looking on this new phantasm, wondering if
he were still sane, and indeed, if he were still alive, or if this were
perhaps a place into which a soul wandered after death--where nothing
was as a man expected it to be. And in the midst of his wondering the
great lovely sea-woman's head turned. Her eyes sought him out and that
unearthly music of her voice murmured--a sound like the surf breaking on
ringing rocks far off.

"You had to know the truth some time, Peter McCarthy."

Pete struggled to his feet and found his strength flowing back. And
being the kind