"No," contradicted Ismeddin. "Not _strangely_ life-like. Rather it would be strange were they otherwise. Nevertheless, seek the girl and her sleeping master. She may tell you how to outwit the Resident and dispose very neatly of Maksoud. But"--Ismeddin glanced again at the disconcerting images--"she may offer a most unusual solution." In the center of the court was a circular balustrade that guarded the brink of a pit along whose walls spiraled a gently sloping runway down which a man on horse or foot might easily make his way to the abysmal depths that mocked the single star overhead. "Advance boldly," counseled the darvish, "down the center, not rashly close to the edge, nor timidly close to the wall. And in the meanwhile I will be here with Maksoud, awaiting your return." "My return? You are optimistic." "But with reason," countered Ismeddin. "I myself was once there; and I returned." "If you are wrong, it will be the first time," conceded the sultan as he began his descent. "Ismeddin," reflected the sultan, "is doubtless right. And yet I would rather be up there in the courtyard watching him pick his way down and out of sight and into this playground of Shaitan's little sister. Ismeddin would be quite in his element." * * * * * Darkness did not engulf him as quickly as he had expected. The blackness receded as he descended, and the broad, white tiles gleamed dully ahead of him, so that it was simple enough to keep to the middle of the spiral runway. From far above came the click-click of horses' hoofs. The sultan smiled grimly at the thought of Maksoud awaiting a doom that was to emerge from that black pit. Down ... down ... turn after turn ... until finally the sultan was as far beneath the court as the capitals of its encircling pillars were above it. Then came the scarcely perceptible thump-thump of a drum, and the thin wailing notes of a pipe. An overwhelming, poison sweetness breathed from the blackness and enfolded him. "By Allah and by Abaddon!" said the sultan to himself, as he paused and half turned. "Vengeance is costly!" He wiped his brow, and licked his lips; then resolutely advanced. The spiraling path was curving in ever narrowing circles, vortex-like. The perfume was now overwhelming. At the bottom of the pit he found himself facing a low archway, that opened into a vault pervaded by glowing vapors whose luminescence throbbed to the cadence of those muttering drums and wailing pipes. Then a gong sounded once: thinly, as the rustle of silk rather than the resonance of bronze; and the rose-hued mists parted, revealing a girl whose Babylonic eyes gazed through and past him as though he were nebulous as the smoke-wisps of gauze that thinly veiled her loveliness. A numbness crept over the sultan; all save those intent, sultry eyes was blotted out of existence. Then she spoke. "Welcome, son of the Old Tiger. You have done well. But unaided you can go no farther."