—”
“Lead!” the handmaiden was appalled. “YOU lead, Larry? Why you are to stay with Goodwin and with me — up there, there we can watch.”
“Heart’s beloved,” O’Keefe was stern indeed. “A thousand times I’ve looked Death straight in the face, peered into his eyes. Yes, and with ten thousand feet of space under me an’ bursting shells tickling the ribs of the boat I was in. An’ d’ye think I’ll sit now on the grandstand an’ watch while a game like this is being pulled? Ye don’t know your future husband, soul of my delight!”
And so we started toward the golden opening, squads of the frog-men following us soldierly and disappearing about the huge structure. Nor did we stop until we came to the handmaiden’s boudoir. There we seated ourselves.
“Now,” said Larry, “two things I want to know. First — how many can Yolara muster against us; second, how many of these Akka have we to meet them?”
Rador gave our equivalent for eighty thousand men as the force Yolara could muster without stripping her city. Against this force, it appeared, we could count, roughly, upon two hundred thousand of the Akka.
“And they’re some fighters!” exclaimed Larry. “Hell, with odds like that what’re you worrying about? It’s over before it’s begun.”
“But, Larree,” objected Rador to this, “you forget that the nobles will have the Keth — and other things; also that the soldiers have fought against the Akka before and will be shielded very well from their spears and clubs — and that their blades and javelins can bite through the scales of Nak’s warriors. They have many things —”
“Uncle,” interjected O’Keefe, “one thing they have is your nerve. Why, we’re more than two to one. And take it from me —”
Without warning dropped the tragedy!
CHAPTER XXXII
“YOUR LOVE; YOUR LIVES; YOUR SOULS!”
Lakla had taken no part in the talk since we had reached her bower. She had seated herself close to the O’Keefe. Glancing at her I had seen steal over her face that brooding, listening look that was hers whenever in that mysterious communion with the Three. It vanished; swiftly she arose; interrupted the Irishman without ceremony.
“Larry darlin’,” said the handmaiden. “The Silent Ones summon us!”
“When do we go?” I asked; Larry’s face grew bright with interest.
“The time is now,” she said — and hesitated. “Larry dear, put your arms about me,” she faltered, “for there is something cold that catches at my heart — and I am afraid.”
At his exclamation she gathered herself together; gave a shaky little laugh.
“It’s because I love you so that fear has power to plague me,” she told him.
Without another word he bent and kissed her; in silence we passed on, his arm still about her girdled waist, golden head and black close together. Soon we stood before the crimson slab that was the door to the sanctuary of the Silent Ones. She poised uncertainly before it; then with a defiant arching of the proud little head that sent all the bronze-flecked curls flying, she pressed. It slipped aside and once more the opalescence gushed out, flooding all about us.
Dazzled as before, I followed through the lambent cascades pouring from the high, carved walls; paused, and my eyes clearing, looked up — straight into the faces of the Three. The angled orbs centred upon the handmaiden; softened as I had seen them do when first we had faced them. She smiled up; seemed to listen.
“Come closer,” she commanded, “close to the feet of the Silent Ones.”
We moved, pausing at the very base of the dais. The sparkling mists thinned; the great heads bent slightly over us; through the veils I caught a glimpse of huge columnar necks, enormous shoulders covered with draperies as of pale-blue fire.
I came back to attention with a start, for Lakla was answering a question only heard by her, and, answering it aloud, I perceived for our benefit; for whatever was the mode of communication between those whose handmaiden she was, and her, it was clearly independent of speech.
“He has been told,” she said, “even as you commanded.”
Did I see a shadow of pain flit across the flickering eyes? Wondering, I glanced at Lakla’s face and there was a dawn of foreboding and bewilderment. For a little she held her listening attitude; then the gaze of the Three left her; focused upon the O’Keefe.
“Thus speak the Silent Ones — through Lakla, their handmaiden,” the golden voice was like low trumpet notes. “At the threshold of doom is that world of yours above. Yea, even the doom, Goodwin, that ye dreamed and the shadow of which, looking into your mind they see, say the Three. For not upon earth and never upon earth can man find means to destroy the Shining One.”
She listened again — and the foreboding deepened to an amazed fear.
“They say, the Silent Ones,” she went on, “that they know not whether even they have power to destroy. Energies we know nothing of entered into its shaping and are part of it; and still other energies it has gathered to itself”— she paused; a shadow of puzzlement crept into her voice “and other energies still, forces that ye DO know and symbolize by certain names — hatred and pride and lust and many others which are forces real as that hidden in the Keth; and among them — fear, which weakens all those others —” Again she paused.
“But within it is nothing of that greatest of all, that which can make powerless all the evil others, that which we call — love,” she ended softly.
“I’d like to be the one to put a little more FEAR in the beast,” whispered Larry to me, grimly in our own English. The three weird heads bent, ever so slightly — and I gasped, and Larry grew a little white as Lakla nodded —
“They say, Larry,” she said, “that there you touch one side of the heart of the matter — for it is through the way of fear the Silent Ones hope to strike at the very life of the Shining One!”
The visage Larry turned to me was eloquent of wonder; and mine reflected it — for what REALLY were this Three to whom our minds were but open pages, so easily read? Not long could we conjecture; Lakla broke the little silence.
“This, they say, is what is to happen. First will come upon us Lugur and Yolara with all their host. Because of fear the Shining One will lurk behind within its lair; for despite all, the Dweller DOES dread the Three, and only them. With this host the Voice and the priestess will strive to conquer. And if they do, then will they be strong enough, too, to destroy us all. For if they take the abode they banish from the Dweller all fear and sound the end of the Three.
“Then will the Shining One be all free indeed; free to go out into the world, free to do there as it wills!
“But if they do not conquer — and the Shining One comes not to their aid, abandoning them even as it abandoned its own Taithu — then will the Three be loosed from a part of their doom, and
