We threw ourselves down, facing them. There came a triumphant shouting. And in that strange sharpening of the senses that always goes hand in hand with deadly peril, that is indeed nature's summoning of every reserve to meet that peril, my eyes took them in with photographic nicety--the linked mail, lacquered blue and scarlet, of the horsemen; brown, padded armor of the footmen; their bows and javelins and short bronze swords, their pikes and shields; and under their round helmets their cruel, bearded faces--white as our own where the black beards did not cover them; their fierce and mocking eyes. The springs of ancient Persia's long dead power, these. Men of Xerxes's ruthless, world-conquering hordes; the lustful, ravening wolves of Darius whom Alexander scattered--in this world of ours twenty centuries beyond their time! Swiftly, accurately, even as I scanned them, we had been drilling into them. They advanced deliberately, heedless of their fallen. Their arrows had ceased to fly. I wondered why, for now we were well within their range. Had they orders to take us alive--at whatever cost to themselves? “I've got only about ten cartridges left, Martin,” I told him. “We've saved Ruth anyway,” he said. “Drake ought to be able to hold that hole in the wall. He's got lots of ammunition on the pony. But they've got us.” Another wild shouting; down swept the pack. We leaped to our feet, sent our last bullets into them; stood ready, rifles clubbed to meet the rush. I heard Ruth scream-- What was the matter with the armored men? Why had they halted? What was it at which they were glaring over our heads? And why had the rifle fire of Ruth and Drake ceased so abruptly? Simultaneously we turned. Within the black background of the fissure stood a shape, an apparition, a woman--beautiful, awesome, incredible! She was tall, standing there swathed from chin to feet in clinging veils of pale amber, she seemed taller even than tall Drake. Yet it was not her height that sent through me the thrill of awe, of half incredulous terror which, relaxing my grip, let my smoking rifle drop to earth; nor was it that about her proud head a cloud of shining tresses swirled and pennoned like a misty banner of woven copper flames--no, nor that through her veils her body gleamed faint radiance. It was her eyes--her great, wide eyes whose clear depths were like pools of living star fires. They shone from her white face--not phosphorescent, not merely lucent and light reflecting, but as though they themselves were SOURCES of the cold white flames of far stars--and as calm as those stars themselves. And in that face, although as yet I could distinguish nothing but the eyes, I sensed something unearthly. “God!” whispered Ventnor. “What IS she?” The woman stepped from the crevice. Not fifty feet from her were Ruth and Drake and Chiu-Ming, their rigid attitudes revealing the same shock of awe that had momentarily paralyzed me.