From the room below came a concerted whine of ceremonial devotion, a hollow, hungry wail. It rose from the bloodless lips of strangely assorted human figures ranging down the center of the long stairway in two facing columns. A hundred or more there must have been, representing half as many periods and countries, according to their strange and ancient costumes. Men in the armor of medieval Persia--the crew of the black galley; yellow-haired Vikings; hawk-faced Egyptians with leather-brown skins; half-naked islanders; red-sashed pirates from the Spanish main; men of today! And about all, like the dampness that clings to a tombstone, hovered a cloud of--death! The undead! Cliff's gaze roved over the tensely waiting columns, then leaped to the foot of the stairs. There, cowering dumbly like sheep in a slaughter-pen, were his friends from the _Ariel_. All clothing had been stripped from them, and they stood waiting in waxen, statuesque stiffness. He saw then that three others lay prone before the stone altar, naked and ominously still. And far down at the very end of the hall stood Leon Corio, draped in a hooded cape of unbroken black, a glint of silver in his hand--his horn of drugging sounds. Now, as though at a silent command, a girl left the group and began to mount the stairs, as those motionless three must have mounted! Vivacious Ann--she had been the life of Cliff's yacht party; but now she was--changed. Her blanched face was rigid with inexpressible terror despite the semi-stupor which numbed her senses. Her nude body glowed like marble in the dim light. Horribly, her feet began their climb with a little catch step suggested by the moaning chant of that cracked organ note. She reached the first of the undead, and Cliff saw light glint on a knife-blade. A crimson gash appeared in the flesh of her thigh; and dead lips touched that wound, drank thirstily. The girl strode on, blood gleaming darkly on the white skin. A second drank of the crimson flow--a third--and the blood ceased gushing forth. Another knife flashed--and lips closed again and again on a redly dripping wound. And the girl with the unchanging pace of a robot climbed the stairway to its very top--climbed while fiendish corpses drank her life's blood--climbed, to sink down on the altar. One of the red-clad figures stooped over her, lifted her, buried long teeth in her throat--and Cliff saw his face.... His own face paled, and talons of fear raked his brain. Those others on the stairs--they were abhorrent, zombies freed from the grave. But this monster! A vampire vested with the lust and cruelty and power of hell! He lowered her, finally, and she sank down, lay still, beside the other three.