There was no dust--nowhere in these caverned spaces had I found this
constant companion of ours in the world overhead. My eyes caught a
sparkle from a corner. Pursuing it I found upon one of the low seats a
flat, clear crystal oval, remarkably like a lens. I took it and
stepped up on the balcony. Standing on tiptoe I found I commanded from
the bottom of a window slit a view of the bridge approach. Scanning it
I could see no trace of the garrison there, nor of the green spear
flashes. I placed the crystal to my eyes--and with a disconcerting
abruptness the cavern mouth leaped before me, apparently not a hundred
feet away; decidedly the crystal was a very excellent lens--but where
were the guards?
I peered closely. Nothing! But now against the aperture I saw a
score or more of tiny, dancing sparks. An optical illusion, I thought,
and turned the crystal in another direction. There were no sparklings
there. I turned it back again--and there they were. And what were
they like? Realization came to me--they were like the little, dancing,
radiant atoms that had played for a time about the emptiness where had
stood Sorgar of the Lower Waters before he had been shaken into the
nothingness! And that green light I had noticed--the _Keth_!
A cry on my lips, I turned to Larry--and the cry died as the heavy
curtainings at the entrance on my right undulated, parted as though a
body had slipped through, shook and parted again and again--with the
dreadful passing of unseen things!
"Larry!" I cried.
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