“Hurting her!” exclaimed Ventnor. “Man--she's my sister! I know what I'm doing. Can't you see? Can't you see how little of Ruth is in that body there--how little of the girl you love? How or why I don't know--but that it is so I DO know. Drake--have you forgotten how Norhala beguiled Cherkis? I want my sister back. I'm helping her to get back. Now let be. I know what I'm doing. Look at her!” We looked. In the face that glared up at Ventnor was nothing of Ruth--even as he had said. There was the same cold, awesome wrath that had rested upon Norhala's as she watched Cherkis weep over the eating up of his city. Swiftly came a change--like the sudden smoothing out of the rushing waves of a hill-locked, wind-lashed lake. The face was again Ruth's face--and Ruth's alone; the eyes were Ruth's eyes--supplicating, adjuring. “Ruth!” Ventnor cried. “While you can hear--am I not right?” She nodded vigorously, sternly; she was lost, hidden once more. “You see.” He turned to us grimly. A shattering shaft of light flashed upon the veils; almost pierced them. An avalanche of sound passed high above us. Yet now I noted that where we stood the clamor was lessened, muffled. Of course, it came to me, it was the veils. I wondered why--for whatever the quality of the radiant mists, their purpose certainly had to do with concentration of the magnetic flux. The deadening of the noise must be accidental, could have nothing to do with their actual use; for sound is an air vibration solely. No--it must be a secondary effect. The Metal Monster was as heedless of clamor as it was of heat or cold-- “We've got to see,” Ventnor broke the chain of thought. “We've got to get through and see what's happening. Win or lose--we've got to KNOW.” “Cut off your sleeve, as I did,” he motioned to Drake. “Tie her ankles. We'll carry her.” Quickly it was done. Ruth's light body swinging between brother and lover, we moved forward into the mists; we crept cautiously through their dead silences. Passed out and fell back into them from a searing chaos of light, chaotic tumult. From the slackened grip of Ventnor and Drake the body of Ruth dropped while we three stood blinded, deafened, fighting for recovery. Ruth twisted, rolled toward the brink; Ventnor threw himself upon her, held her fast. Dragging her, crawling on our knees, we crept forward; we stopped when the thinning of the mists permitted us to see through them yet still interposed a curtaining which, though tenuous, dimmed the intolerable brilliancy that filled the Pit, muffled its din to a degree we could bear. I peered through them--and nerve and muscle were locked in the grip of a paralyzing awe. I felt then as one would feel set close to warring regiments of stars, made witness to the death-throes of a universe, or swept through space and held above the whirling coils of Andromeda's nebula to watch its birth agonies of nascent suns.