the six beams were swaying, moving with ever swifter motion from side to side in ever-widening sweep, as though the hidden orb from which they sprang were swaying like a pendulum.
Faster and faster the six high-flung beams swayed — and then broke — broke as though a gigantic, unseen hand had reached up and snapped them!
An instant the severed ends ribboned aimlessly, then bent, turned down and darted earthward into the welter of clustered summits at the north and swiftly were gone, while down upon the valley fell night.
“Good God!” whispered Drake. “It was as though something reached up, broke those rays and drew them down — like threads.”
“I saw it.” I struggled with bewilderment. “I saw it. But I never saw anything like it before,” I ended, most inadequately.
“It was PURPOSEFUL,” he whispered. “It was DELIBERATE. As though something reached up, juggled with the rays, broke them, and drew them down like willow withes.”
“The devils that dwell here!” quavered Chiu–Ming.
“Some magnetic phenomenon.” I was half angry at myself for my own touch of panic. “Light can be deflected by passage through a magnetic field. Of course that’s it. Certainly.”
“I don’t know.” Drake’s tone was doubtful indeed. “It would take a whale of a magnetic field to have done THAT— it’s inconceivable.” He harked back to his first idea. “It was so — so DAMNED deliberate,” he repeated.
“Devils —” muttered the frightened Chinese.
“What’s that?” Drake gripped my arm and pointed to the north. A deeper blackness had grown there while we had been talking, a pool of darkness against which the mountain summits stood out, blade-sharp edges faintly luminous.
A gigantic lance of misty green fire darted from the blackness and thrust its point into the heart of the zenith; following it, leaped into the sky a host of the sparkling spears of light, and now the blackness was like an ebon hand, brandishing a thousand javelins of tinseled flame.
“The aurora,” I said.
“It ought to be a good one,” mused Drake, gaze intent upon it. “Did you notice the big sun spot?”
I shook my head.
“The biggest I ever saw. Noticed it first at dawn this morning. Some little aurora lighter — that spot. I told you — look at that!” he cried.
The green lances had fallen back. The blackness gathered itself together — then from it began to pulse billows of radiance, spangled with infinite darting swarms of flashing corpuscles like uncounted hosts of dancing fireflies.
Higher the waves rolled — phosphorescent green and iridescent violet, weird copperous yellows and metallic saffrons and a shimmer of glittering ash of rose — then wavered, split and formed into gigantic, sparkling, marching curtains of splendor.
A vast circle of light sprang out upon the folds of the flickering, rushing curtains. Misty at first, its edges sharpened until they rested upon the blazing glory of the northern sky like a pale ring of cold flame. And about it the aurora began to churn, to heap itself, to revolve.
Toward the ring from every side raced the majestic folds, drew themselves together, circled, seethed around it like foam of fire about the lip of a cauldron, and poured through the shining circle as though it were the mouth of that fabled cavern where old Aeolus sits blowing forth and breathing back the winds that sweep the earth.
Yes — into the ring’s mouth the aurora flew, cascading in a columned stream to earth. Then swiftly, a mist swept over all the heavens, veiled that incredible cataract.
“Magnetism?” muttered Drake. “I guess NOT!”
“It struck about where the Ting–Pa was broken and seemed drawn down like the rays,” I said.
“Purposeful,” Drake said. “And devilish. It hit on all my nerves like a — like a metal claw. Purposeful and deliberate. There was intelligence behind that.”
“Intelligence? Drake — what intelligence could break the rays of the setting sun and suck down the aurora?”
“I don’t know,” he answered.
“Devils,” croaked Chiu–Ming. “The devils that defied Buddha — and have grown strong —”
“Like a metal claw!” breathed Drake.
Far to the west a sound came to us; first a whisper, then a wild rushing, a prolonged wailing, a crackling. A great light flashed through the mist, glowed about us and faded. Again the wailing, the vast rushing, the retreating whisper.
Then silence and darkness dropped embraced upon the valley of the blue poppies.
CHAPTER II
THE SIGIL ON THE ROCKS
Dawn came. Drake had slept well. But I, who had not his youthful resiliency, lay for long, awake and uneasy. I had hardly sunk into troubled slumber before dawn awakened me.
As we breakfasted, I approached directly that matter which my growing liking for him was turning into strong desire.
“Drake,” I asked. “Where are you going?”
“With you,” he laughed. “I’m foot loose and fancy free. And I think you ought to have somebody with you to help watch that cook. He might get away.”
The idea seemed to appall him.
“Fine!” I exclaimed heartily, and thrust out my hand to him. “I’m thinking of striking over the range soon to the Manasarowar Lakes. There’s a curious flora I’d like to study.”
“Anywhere you say suits me,” he answered.
We clasped hands on our partnership and soon we were on our way to the valley’s western gate; our united caravans stringing along behind us. Mile after mile we trudged through the blue poppies, discussing the enigmas of the twilight and of the night.
In the light of day their breath of vague terror was dissipated. There was no place for mystery nor dread under this floor of brilliant sunshine. The smiling sapphire floor rolled ever on before us.
Whispering little playful breezes flew down the slopes to gossip for a moment with the nodding flowers. Flocks of rose finches raced chattering overhead to quarrel with the tiny willow warblers, the chi-u-teb-tok, holding fief of the drooping, graceful bowers bending down to the little laughing stream that for the past hour had chuckled and gurgled like a friendly water baby beside us.
I had proven, almost to my own satisfaction, that what we had beheld had been a creation of the extraordinary atmospheric attributes of these highlands, an atmosphere so unique as to make almost anything of the kind possible. But Drake was not convinced.
“I know,” he said. “Of course I understand all that —
