Part 31 (1/2)

I saw again the luolden zone, the , petal flame, the still core of incandescent ruby that was the heart of that rose

Strangely I feltbefore its beauty and its strength; alh lance at Drake He was crouching dangerously close to the lip of the ledge, hands clasped and knuckles white with the intensity of his grip, eyes rapt, staring--upon the verge of worshi+p even as I had been

”Drake!” I thrust my elbow into his side brutally ”None of that!

Reuard yourself!”

”What?” he muttered; then, abruptly: ”How did you know?”

”I felt it myself,” I answered: ”For God's sake, dick--hold fast to yourself! Reh to be rid of soain,” he said

He huddled down onceover

No one of the Metal People had moved; the silence, the stillness, was unbroken

Now the flanking pyra with violet luminescences And one by one after the orbs; beautiful they were, but far less glorious than that Disk of whom they were the counselors?-- all the arrased, girdered, pillared hosts

There ca; far away it was and far Nearer it drew

Was that a treh the crowded crater? A quick pulse of--eagerness?

”Hungry!” whispered Drake ”They're HUNGRY!”

Closer was the wailing; again that faint treht it--a quick and avid pulsing

”Hungry,” whispered Drake again ”Like a lot of lions with the keeper co was below us I felt, not a quiver this tih the Horde It throbbed--and passed

Into the field of our vision, up to the flaht of a tall man--as I think I have noted before--when it unfolded its radiance was that shape of led beauty and power I call the Metal E eclipsed it Black, unco, in some indefinable way BRUTAL, its square bulk blotted out the Disk's effulgence; shrouded it And a shadow see stars pulsed out--watchfully, threateningly

For only an instant the darkening block looainst the Disk; blackened it

There caht Where the cube had been was now a tremendous, fiery cross--a cross inverted

Its upper arth either of its horizontals or the square that was its foot In its opening it must have turned, for its--FACE--was toward us and away from the Cones, its body hid the Disk, and alhty feet at least in height, this cruciforry, slitterings of sulphurous yellows Within its fires were none of those leaping, lories that were the Metal E, mystic rose; no shadow of jubilant sapphire; no purple royal; no tender,even of the blasting violet of the Stars

All angry, smoky reds and ochres the cross blazed forth--and in its lurid glowings was so--nearer to earth, closer to man