"The Three say no, Goodwin." There was again in her eyes the pity with which she had looked upon Olaf. "The Shining One--_feeds_--upon the flame of life itself, setting in its place its own fires and its own will. Its slaves are only shells through which it gleams. Death, say the Three, is the best that can come to them; yet will that be a boon great indeed." "But they have souls, _mavourneen_," Larry said to her. "And they're alive still--in a way. Anyhow, their souls have not gone from them." I caught a hope from his words--sceptic though I am--holding that the existence of soul has never been proved by dependable laboratory methods--for they recalled to me that when I had seen Throckmartin, Edith had been close beside him. "It was days after his wife was taken, that the Dweller seized Throckmartin," I cried. "How, if their wills, their life, were indeed gone, how did they find each other mid all that horde? How did they come together in the Dweller's lair?" "I do not know," she answered, slowly. "You say they loved--and it is true that love is stronger even than death!" "One thing I _don't_ understand"--this was Larry again--"is why a girl like you keeps coming out of the black-haired crowd; so frequently and one might say, so regularly, Lakla. Aren't there ever any red-headed boys--and if they are what becomes of them?" "That, Larry, I cannot answer," she said, very frankly. "There was a pact of some kind; how made or by whom I know not. But for long the Murians feared the return of the _Taithu_ and greatly they feared the Three. Even the Shining One feared those who had created it--for a time; and not even now is it eager to face them--_that_ I know. Nor are Yolara and Lugur so _sure_. It may be that the Three commanded it: but how or why I know not. I only know that it is true--for here am I and from where else would I have come?" "From Ireland," said Larry O'Keefe, promptly. "And that's where you're going. For 'tis no place for a girl like you to have been brought up--Lakla; what with people like frogs, and a half-god three quarters devil, and red oceans, an' the only Irish things yourself and the Silent Ones up there, bless their hearts. It's no place for ye, and by the soul of St. Patrick, it's out of it soon ye'll be gettin'!" Larry! Larry! If it had but been true--and I could see Lakla and you beside me now! CHAPTER XXXI Larry and the Frog-Men Long had been her tale in the telling, and too long, perhaps, have I been in the repeating--but not every day are the mists rolled away to reveal undreamed secrets of earth-youth. And I have set it down here, adding nothing, taking nothing from it; translating liberally, it is true, but constantly striving, while putting it into idea-forms and phraseology to be readily understood by my readers, to keep accurately to the spirit. And this, I must repeat, I have done throughout my narrative, wherever it has been necessary to record conversation with the Murians.