Further talk was interrupted by a stir among their captors. The ranks parted--and into that dazzling chamber stepped a tall, bearded personage whose aristocratic features and haughty bearing suggested a Russian of the old regime. * * * * * He strode toward them, smiling sardonically. "Greetings, my friends! Nice of you to drop in on me while in the neighborhood." His English was suave, precise. "Professor Norman Prescott, leader of the American Kinchinjunga expedition, I believe." He paused and lifted inquiring eyebrows to his other guest. "And--?" "Dr. John Stoddard, our geologist," came the answer stiffly. "And you, sir?" "A fellow professor, you might say. Prince Ivan Krassnov. You have heard of me, perhaps?" Prescott had indeed. One of Russia's most brilliant and erratic scientists under the czar, the man had been permitted to continue his work for the Soviets, developing among other inventions, a rocket reported to be capable of carrying passengers. But some two years ago he and his rocket had vanished in the course of a test flight from Moscow, and the natural conclusion was that he had either perished in the sea or shot off the earth altogether, since no trace of the unique mechanism was ever found. "Yes, I have heard of you," said the professor, recalling this sensational story that had occupied the front pages of the world's press for days. "And so it turns out that your rocket didn't come to grief." "Not exactly--though as you can see, it landed me in rather an inaccessible spot," was the reply. "But quite an interesting one! I was well satisfied to let the papers report me missing. You can understand, yes?" "I think I can, that part of it." While as for Stoddard, he was beginning to understand a great deal. "But these curious creatures?" he said, indicating the whispering, pigmy host that filled the cavern. "You found them here?" * * * * * "They found me, rather!" corrected the prince. "But we get on quite well together. They consider me a god, you see, since I, too, came out of the sky in a thunderbolt, as their great diamond once did, according to their legends." "But who are they? What is their origin? Why are they so small, so pale?" "Natural questions, Professor, but not so easy to answer. Who they are I cannot say, save that they are the snow people of native superstition. Their origin? It is lost in antiquity. Perhaps they are the remnants of some Tibetan tribe driven into the mountains by enemies, thousands of years ago. While as for their stature, their pallor--these no doubt are the result of the furtive underground life they lead." He paused, waited politely, as though for further questions, but neither spoke. Now that the main mystery was solved, the one question uppermost in both their minds was what this suave, inscrutable nobleman was going to do with them--and that question neither cared to ask, fearful of what the answer might be.