I was still half a mile above the scarlet plain when the shadow of the western wall was flung fast over the valley floor, and the light purple mists beyond the argent lake deepened their hue to a dark and ominous purple-red. But the Silver Lake did not darken. It seemed luminous. It gleamed with a bright, metallic silvery luster, even when the shadow had fallen upon it. Whenever I rested, I searched keenly the whole visible floor of the abyss, but nowhere was any life or motion to be seen. With a growing apprehension, I realized that I would not have time to reach the ground before dark. I had no desire to be sticking like a fly to the face of the cliff when the Thing that had made the red light was moving about. Disregarding my fatigue and pain, I clambered down as fast as I could force my wearied limbs to move. The process of motion had become almost automatic. Hands and feet moved regularly, rhythmically, without orders from the brain. But sometimes they fumbled or slipped. Then I had to grasp, frenzied, at the rungs to save my life. Night fell like a black curtain rolled quickly over the top of the pit, but the half-moon of the Silver Lake still shone with its white metallic light. And strange, moving shapes of red appeared in the mist in the hollow of the crescent. The light that fell upon the rock was faint, but still enough to help, and still I hurried--forcing hands and feet to follow down and find the rungs. And fearfully I looked over my shoulder at the bank of mist. Suddenly a long pale finger of red--a delicate rosy ray--shot high out of it. And up the vague pathway it sped, a long slender pencil of crimson light--a narrow, sharp-tipped scarlet shape--high into the night, and over and around in a long arching curve. Down it plunged, and back into the mist. Presently I heard its sound--that strange whistling sigh that rolled majestically and rose and fell, vast as the roar of an erupting volcano. Other things sprang out of the purple bank, slender searching needles of brilliant scarlet, sweeping over the valley and high into the starlit sky above. Following paths that were smooth and arched, with incredible speed, they swept about like a swarm of strange insects, always with amazing ease, and always shooting back into the cloud, leaving faint purple tracks behind them. And the great rushing sounds rose and fell. Those lights were incredible entities, intelligent--and evil. They flew, more often than anywhere else, over the crown of lights upon the hill--the gems still shone with a faint beautiful glow of mingled colors. Whenever one swept near the mountain, a pale blue ray shot toward it from the cap of jewels. And the red things fled from the ray. More and more the flying things of crimson were drawn to the mountain top, wheeling swiftly and ceaselessly, ever evading the feeble beams of blue. Their persistence was inhuman--and terrible. They were like insects wheeling about a light.