She shook her head impatiently. A hand stole forth from beneath her veils, slender, long-fingered with nails like rosy pearls; above the wrist was coiled a golden dragon with wicked little crimson eyes. The slender white hand touched Ruth's head, turned it until the strange, flecked orbs looked directly into the misty ones of blue. Long they gazed--and deep. Then she who had named herself Norhala thrust out a finger, touched the tear that hung upon Ruth's curled lashes, regarded it wonderingly. Something of recognition, of memory, seemed to awaken within her. “You are--troubled?” she asked with that halting effort. Ruth shook her head. “THEY--do not trouble you?” She pointed to the huddled heaps strewing the hollow. And then I saw whence the light which had streamed from her great eyes came. For the little azure and golden stars paled, trembled, then flashed out like galaxies of tiny, clustered silver suns. From that weird radiance Ruth shrank, affrighted. “No--no,” she gasped. “I weep for--HIM.” She pointed where Chiu-Ming lay, a brown blotch at the edge of the shattered men. “For--him?” There was puzzlement in the faint voice. “For--that? But why?” She looked at Chiu-Ming--and I knew that to her the sight of the crumpled form carried no recognition of the human, nothing of kin to her. There was a faint wonder in her eyes, no longer light-filled, when at last she turned back to us. Long she considered us. “Now,” she broke the silence, “now something stirs within me that it seems has long been sleeping. It bids me take you with me. Come!” Abruptly she turned from us, glided to the crevice. We looked at each other, seeking council, decision. “Chiu-Ming,” Drake spoke. “We can't leave him like that. At least let's cover him from the vultures.” “Come.” The woman had reached the mouth of the fissure. “I'm afraid! Oh, Martin--I'm afraid.” Ruth reached little trembling hands to her tall brother. “Come!” Norhala called again. There was an echo of harshness, a clanging, peremptory and inexorable, in the chiming. Ventnor shrugged his shoulders. “Come, then,” he said. With one last look at the Chinese, the lammergeiers already circling about him, we walked to the crevice. Norhala waited, silent, brooding until we passed her; then glided behind us. Before we had gone ten paces I saw that the place was no fissure. It was a tunnel, a passage hewn by human hands, its walls covered with the writhing dragon lines, its roof the mountain. The swathed woman swept by us. Swiftly we followed her. Far, far ahead was a wan gleaming. It quivered, a faintly shimmering, ghostly curtain, a full mile away. Now it was close; we passed through it and were out of the tunnel. Before us stretched a narrow gorge, a sword slash in the body of the towering giant under whose feet the tunnel crept. High above was the ribbon of the sky.