Abruptly the harpings ceased; the moon fires shuddered, fell, and
began to sweep back into the crystal globes; Yolara's swaying form
grew rigid, every atom of it listening. She threw aside the veiling
cloud of hair, and in the gleam of the last retreating spirals her
face glared out like some old Greek mask of tragedy.
The sweet lips that even at their sweetest could never lose their
delicate cruelty, had no sweetness now. They were drawn into a
square--inhuman as that of the Medusa; in her eyes were the fires of
the pit, and her hair seemed to writhe like the serpent locks of that
Gorgon whose mouth she had borrowed; all her beauty was transformed
into a nameless thing--hideous, inhuman, blasting! If this was the
true soul of Yolara springing to her face, then, I thought, God help
us in very deed!
I wrested my gaze away to O'Keefe. All drunkenness gone, himself
again, he was staring down at her, and in his eyes were loathing and
horror unutterable. So they stood--and the light fled.
Only for a moment did the darkness hold.
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