“Sister!” she whispered. “Little sister! These men you shall have as long as it pleases you--to do with as you will. Or if it is your wish they shall go back to their world and I will guard them to its gates. “But you and I, little sister, will dwell together--in the vastnesses--in the peace. Shall it not be so?” With no faltering, with no glance toward us three--lover, brother, old friend--Ruth crept closer to her, rested her head upon the virginal, royal breasts. “It shall be so!” she murmured. “Sister--it shall be so. Norhala--I am tired. Norhala--I have seen enough of men.” An ecstasy of tenderness, a flame of unearthly rapture, trembled over the woman's wondrous face. Hungrily, defiantly, she pressed the girl to her; the stars in the lucid heavens of her eyes were soft and gentle and caressing. “Ruth!” cried Drake--and sprang toward them. She paid no heed; and even as he leaped he was caught, whirled back against us. “Wait,” said Ventnor, and caught him by the arm as wrathfully, blindedly, he strove against the force that held him. “Wait. No use--now.” There was a curious understanding in his voice--a curious sympathy, too, in the patient, untroubled gaze that dwelt upon his sister and this weirdly exquisite woman who held her. “Wait!” exclaimed Drake. “Wait--hell! The damned witch is stealing her away from us!” Again he threw himself forward; recoiled as though swept back by an invisible arm; fell against us and was clasped and held by Ventnor. And as he struggled the Thing we rode halted. Like metal waves back into it rushed the enigmatic billows that had washed over the fragments of the city. We were lifted; between us and the woman and girl a cleft appeared; it widened into a rift. It was as though Norhala had decreed it as a symbol of this her second victory--or had set it between us as a barrier. Wider grew the rift. Save for the bridge of our voices it separated us from Ruth as though she stood upon another world. Higher we rose; the three of us now upon the flat top of a tower upon whose counterpart fifty feet away and facing the homeward path, Ruth and Norhala stood with white arms interlaced. The serpent shape flashed toward us; it vanished beneath, merging into the waiting Thing. Then slowly the Thing began to move; quietly it glided to the chasm it had blasted in the cliff wall. The shadow of those walls fell upon us. As one we looked back; as one we searched out the patch of blue with the black blot at its breast. We found it; then the precipices hid it. Silently we streamed through the chasm, through the canyon and the tunnel--speaking no word, Drake's eyes fixed with bitter hatred upon Norhala, Ventnor brooding upon her always with that enigmatic sympathy. We passed between the walls of the further cleft; stood for an instant at the brink of the green forest.