Part 13 (2/2)

Slowly she turned to us--reat leap, then seemed to stop For her sweet face was touched with that same unearthly tranquillity which was Norhala's; in her brown eyes was a shadow of that passionless spirit brooding in Norhala's own; her voice as she answered held within it

”Yes,” she sighed; ”yes, Martin--have no fear forforward once lanced covertly at Ventnor, at Drake--had I iined, or had they too seen? Then I knew they had seen, for Ventnor's face hite to the lips, and Drake's jaas set, his teeth clenched, his eyes blazing with anger

”What's she doing to Ruth--you saw her face,” he gritted, half inarticulately

”Ruth!” There was anguish in Ventnor's cry

She did not turn again It was as though she had not heard hiathered hi surface, reat chest swelled with his effort, the muscles of his neck knotted, sweat steaasped, ”no use, Goodwin It's like trying to lift yourself by your boot-straps--like a fly stuck in molasses”

”Ruth,” cried Ventnor once nal the block darted forward, resu the distance it had foruard of the Metal Things began to race With an incredible speed they fled into, were lost in an instant within, the luirl accelerated; flew faster and faster onward And as swiftly our own followed it The lustrous walls flowed by, dizzily

We had swept over toward the right wall of the cleft and were gliding over a broad ledge This ledge was, I judged, all of a hundred feet in width Fro rapidly

The opposite precipices were slowly drawing closer After us flowed the flanking host

Steadily our ledge arose and the floor of the canyon dropped Noere twenty feet above it, now thirty And the character of the cliffs was changing Veins of quartz shone under thelike cut crystal, like cloudy opals; here was a splash of vermilion, there a patch of aht by a line of inky blackness in the exact center of the falling floor So black was it that at first glance I took it for a vein of jetty lignite

It widened It was a crack, a fissure Noas a yard in width, now three, and blackness seemed to well up from within it, blackness that was the very essence of the depths Steadily the ebon rift expanded; spread suddenly wide open in two sharp-edged, flying wedges--

Earth had dropped away At our side a gulf had opened, an abyss, striking down depth upon depth; profound; i upon a steed of sorcery and racing along a split rampart of infinite space

I looked behind--scores of the cubes were darting fro column of twos they flashed by, raced ahead Far in front of us a gloo into blackest night

Through thelance of pale blue phosphorescence

It unrolled like a ribbon of wan flaue--held steady I felt the Thing beneath us leap forward; its velocity grew prodigious; the wind beat upon us with hurricane force

I shi+elded h the chinks of ed directly in our path was a barricade of the cubes and upon the-ra i on which we rode lifted

We were soaring at a long angle straight to the top of the barrier; were upon it, and still with that awful speed unchecked were hurtling through the blackness over the shaft of phosphorescence, the ribbon of pale light that I had watched pierce it and kneas but another span of the cubes that but a little before had fled past us Beneath the span, on each side of it, I sensed illi in darkness There began a or waxed, beat about us with tremendous strokes of sound