that the priests are ever on the look-out for capable young mechanics to train for this purpose, and are such promising youths liable to disappear? On the other hand, many of these deaf and dumb servants of the temple have families, and apart from their unknown duties seem free to come and go; being dumb, they cannot chatter, and being deaf they cannot listen; and since the native language is purely phonetic and not literary, people so afflicted cannot converse with their fingers, as is the case with our deaf-mutes on Earth. My own theory is that these persons, having a natural taste in things scientific, are first carefully trained so as to acquire all the technical skill necessary for the accomplishment of the details of The Secret, and are then to their surprise suddenly given the option of being rendered deaf and dumb to be thus retained in the service of the council, or of being instantly and privately executed, for the hierarchy would have no scruples in so acting if by their refusal to submit The Secret were in any way endangered. All this reasoning however on my part is, I admit, founded on pure supposition. For aught I can adduce to the contrary, the journey to and from the Earth may be accomplished by means of some unknown power of levitation, such as is only claimed on Earth by the mahatmas and skooshoks of Tibet, whose wild theories are laughed to scorn by all enlightened Europeans and Americans. There are, I know, vast vaults beneath the Temple of the Sun, and perhaps these may shelter aeroplanes and cars of a type and capacity undreamed of on Earth; on the other hand, these capacious cellars may merely contain treasure and archives, or indeed nothing at all. Possibly there may be elaborate machines concealed in the temple on Mount Crystal, for I am convinced that it is on this conspicuous mountain that the returning Meleagrian envoys from the Earth alight. But I frankly confess I am completely at a loss to explain the system of communication with the Earth; it is a fascinating subject for speculation, but I am also fully cognizant of its perils to any would-be investigator.