So thinking I became aware of increasing light; strode past Yuruk to the door and peeped out. Dawn was paling the sky. I stooped over Drake, shook him. On the instant he was awake, alert. “I only need a little sleep, Dick,” I said. “When the sun is well up, call me.” “Why, it's dawn,” he whispered. “Goodwin, you ought not to have let me sleep so long. I feel like a damned pig.” “Never mind,” I said. “But watch the eunuch closely.” I rolled myself up in his warm blanket; sank almost instantly into dreamless slumber. CHAPTER XVIII. INTO THE PIT High was the sun when I awakened; or so, I supposed, opening my eyes upon a flood of daylight. As I lay, lazily, recollection rushed upon me. It was no sky into which I was gazing; it was the dome of Norhala's elfin home. And Drake had not aroused me. Why? And how long had I slept? I jumped to my feet, stared about. Ruth nor Drake nor the black eunuch was there! “Ruth!” I shouted. “Drake!” There was no answer. I ran to the doorway. Peering up into the white vault of the heavens I set the time of day as close to seven; I had slept then three hours, more or less. Yet short as that time of slumber had been, I felt marvelously refreshed, reenergized; the effect, I was certain, of the extraordinarily tonic qualities of the atmosphere of this place. But where were the others? Where Yuruk? I heard Ruth's laughter. Some hundred yards to the left, half hidden by a screen of flowering shrubs, I saw a small meadow. Within it a half-dozen little white goats nuzzled around her and Dick. She was milking one of them. Reassured, I drew back into the chamber, knelt over Ventnor. His condition was unchanged. My gaze fell upon the pool that had been Norhala's bath. Longingly I looked at it; then satisfying myself that the milking process was not finished, slipped off my clothes and splashed about. I had just time to get back in my clothes when through the doorway came the pair, each carrying a porcelain pannikin full of milk. There was no shadow of fear or horror on her face. It was the old Ruth who stood before me; nor was there effort in the smile she gave me. She had been washed clean in the waters of sleep. “Don't worry, Walter,” she said. “I know what you're thinking. But I'm--ME again.” “Where is Yuruk?” I turned to Drake bruskly to smother the sob of sheer happiness I felt rising in my throat; and at his wink and warning grimace abruptly forebore to press the question. “You men pick out the things and I'll get breakfast ready,” said Ruth. Drake picked up the teakettle and motioned me before him. “About Yuruk,” he whispered when he had gotten outside. “I gave him a little object lesson. Persuaded him to go down the line a bit, showed him my pistol, and then picked off one of Norhala's goats with it. Hated to do it, but I knew it would be good for his soul.