"One thing I'll bet, and that is that Miran didn't follow me this far but stayed down on the ground. With that belly of his he'd never have made it; he'd have tumbled off like a big fat bug and been squashed like one, too. Wouldn't that have been awful! However, he didn't have to go all the way with me. The very fact that I would dare to enter a taboo area is enough to condemn me. I should have slit his throat when Amra told me he'd been shadowing me. But I couldn't do it without absolutely convincing evidence, and even if I'd had that I suppose I'm too civilized to kill him in cold blood." "You should have told me how you felt," said Grizquetr. "I would have slipped a dagger through the tallow over his ribs." "No doubt, and so would your mother. Well, down we go." And he set the example by throwing his leg over the edge of the wall and letting himself down, somewhat gingerly. The descent was even worse than the ascent, but he didn't bother telling the boy that. By the time he found out he'd be at the bottom. Even so, when he reached ground, he thought that the lad couldn't be one whit more shaky than he. Forty feet was a long, long way when you were up on top looking down, especially in the moonlight. "This is the second time I've done it, but I don't think I'd have guts enough for a third time," said Green. "But we have to climb back out, don't we?" "Oh, we'll have to go over it, but I hope it won't be so high by then," said Green, looking mysterious. "What do you mean?" "Well I hope those stones will all be tumbled to the ground. In fact, it's a necessity, if we're to do what I expect to do." He took the bewildered boy by the hand and led him past the cold and silent statue and into the cave's entrance. "We could use a light," he said, "but a torch would have been too awkward to carry up that wall, and we can grope our way to the rooms that are lighted." Wonder why the passageway wasn't lighted, too? he thought. Or had this cave been added by the savages who used to live on the island, so that the _sanctum sanctorum_ would have to be approached through darkness? Perhaps it was, the primitives having constructed such a chamber so that the initiate into the religion could go through darkness both literal and symbolical and come into a light that also embraced both worlds? He didn't and couldn't know; he could only guess. But I can take advantage of what I do have on hand, he said to himself, gritting his teeth with determination. The dust beneath his feet gave way to clean metal. They rounded a corner and found themselves in a chamber much like the one upon their first island, except that this had furniture. A skeleton lay in the middle of the floor, face down. The back of the skull exhibited a great hole. "He may have been here for a thousand years or more," said Green. "I'd like to know his story. But I never will." "Do you think the Goddess killed him?"