“No fear for us,” Drake burst out hastily. “We're Norhala's little playthings. We're tabu. Take it from me, Ruth, I'd bet my head there isn't one of these Things, great or small, and no matter how many, that doesn't by this time know all about us. “We'll probably be received with demonstrations of interest by the populace as welcome guests. Probably we'll find a sign--'Welcome to our City'--hung up over the front gate.” She smiled, a trifle tremulously. “We'll come back,” he said. Suddenly he leaned forward, put his hands on her shoulders. “Do you think there is anything that could keep me from coming back?” he whispered. She trembled, wide eyes searching deep into his. “Well,” I broke in, a bit uncomfortably, “we'd better be starting. I think as Drake does, that we're tabu. Barring accident there's no danger. And if I guess right about these Things, accident is impossible.” “As inconceivable as the multiplication table going wrong,” he laughed, straightening. And so we made ready. Our rifles would be worse than useless, we knew; our pistols we decided to carry as Drake put it, “for comfort.” Canteens filled with water; a couple of emergency rations, a few instruments, including a small spectroscope, a selection from the medical kit--all these packed in a little haversack which he threw over his broad shoulders. I pocketed my compact but exceedingly powerful field-glasses. To my poignant and everlasting regret my camera had been upon the bolting pony, and Ventnor had long been out of films for his. We were ready for our journey. Our path led straight away, a smooth and dark-gray road whose surface resembled cement packed under enormous pressure. It was all of fifty feet wide and now, in daylight, glistened faintly as though overlaid with some vitreous coating. It narrowed abruptly into a wedged way that stopped at the threshold of Norhala's door. Diminishing through the distance, it stretched straight as an arrow onward and vanished between perpendicular cliffs which formed the frowning gateway through which the night before we had passed upon the coursing cubes from the pit of the city. Here, as then, a mistiness checked the gaze. Ruth with us, we made a brief inspection of the surroundings of Norhala's house. It was set as though in the narrowest portion of an hour-glass. The precipitous walls marched inward from the gateway forming the lower half of the figure; at the back they swung apart at a wider angle. This upper part of the hour-glass was filled with a park-like forest. It was closed, perhaps twenty miles away, by a barrier of cliffs. How, I wondered, did the path which Yuruk had pointed out to me pierce them? Was it by pass or tunnel; and why was it the armored men had not found and followed it?