So thinking, Druga walked beside her vital beauty, noting the deep lagoons of her eyes upon him, curious, blue as the sea, shaded by long lashes of dusky amber shielding from him some deep wisdom that she must keep from him just yet. Try as he might he could not plumb the swirling depths within her mind. Reach as he would he could find there nothing to read but pictured vastnesses of strange beauty and violent passions strongly withheld, nooks and crannies of mysterious, unreadable thought far beyond his understanding to interpret. His senses turned away from the inner mysterious glory of her mind, and his eyes came to rest on her lips, crimson arches riper than tropic flowers, moist as with desire, wide and capable and smiling upon him with a woman's will to captivate twinkling all along the crimson outline of her smile. Behind her lips her teeth gleamed, almost avid, parted in a hunger that he did not then care to understand. Her breasts were ripe and full, beneath the blue, shielding robe, her waist a column of cunningly tapered ivory rounding into hips and thighs of masterful curves, moving with mysterious woman magic beneath the vaguely transparent shimmer of her robe. Druga stared into the blue lagoons of her eyes, and at last asked what was closest to his heart. "Who and what are you, who lives here at the summit of female attraction in all the universe?" "In ancient times, many were the men who were alive enough to sense this pole and come questing to me as the moth to the flame. But in these times, who are you to sense the mighty energy of the Universal Pole and be drawn here to me?" "I am Druga, and I am sad and bereft, and I wander seeking death as much as life. If the name tells you anything, you are welcome to the information. I am no immortal. Are you then one of those who do not die?" "I have been called by many names in the past, but men sometimes remember me as Aurora. Others have called me Eos." "A fool is easily convinced, immortal Eos. But though I have not lived long, I have learned that appearances are deceiving and not to be trusted. How do I know that I am not out of my mind, and this place and yourself but delusions?" "You _are_ in a state, aren't you? You must tell me all about it; there will be plenty of time. For there is no way for a man to leave here of his own will." "What became of all those visitors you tell me came here in the old time?" Eos laughed loudly, a clear ringing laugh. "Perhaps you had better worry about that, Druga! What do you suppose could have happened to them?" CHAPTER II Eos led him into a great feasting chamber, and Druga saw there a great host of men sitting, as to a feast, side by side. Each one of them was of solid black stone. The fact struck Druga's mind with a terrible impact. With a face like thunder he said: "So it was you who turned my Feronia to stone, to drag me here to you by your spells, and then when you tire of me to turn me likewise into stone?"