A. Merritt

“ They streamed from beneath it and around the side, swiftly now, like countless swarms of fireflies, each carrying a lamp of diamond light.
“There”—Suarra pointed to the rocky curtain’s edge—“there lies your way. Beyond it is that place I promised I would show you—the place where the jewels grow like fruit in a garden and the living gold flows forth. Here we will wait you. Now go.”
Long Graydon looked at that curtain and at the streaming radiant atoms pouring from beyond it. Gaunt man, little man, giant man stood, beside him, soulless faces staring at him—awaiting his command, his movement. ”

“ And as Graydon glared into their chill depths swift visions passed from them to his own. Ravishing of cities and looting of ships; men drunk with greed wresting great golden nuggets from the breast of earth; men crouching like spiders in the hearts of shining yellow webs and gloating over hordes of golden flies. ”

“ Under Soames’s left arm pit was another. He took it out and put it in the holster from which he had withdrawn his. He slipped into Sterrett’s a new magazine of cartridges. Dancre’s gun was ready for use.
“They’ll have their chance, anyway,” he said to himself.
He stood over them for a moment; scanned them. The scores of tiny punctures had closed. Their breathing was normal. They seemed to be asleep. And yet—they looked like dead men. Like dead men, livid and wan and bloodless as the pallid sands beneath the growing dawn.
Graydon shuddered; turned his back upon them. ”

“ Poured into him from the cold eyes other visions—visions of what gold, gold without end, could do for him. Flaming lures of power over men and nations, power limitless and ruthless as that which sat upon the Face’s own brow—fair women—earthly Paradises—Fata Morganas of the senses. ”

“ Great crystals, cabochon and edged, globular and angled, alive under that jubilant light with the very soul of fire that is the lure of jewel. Rubies that glowed with every rubrous tint from that clear scarlet that is sunlight streaming through the fin ger tips of delicate maids to deepest sullen reds of bruised hearts; sapphires that shone with blues as rare as that beneath the blue bird’s wings and blues as deep as those which darken beneath the creamy crest of the Gulf Stream’s crisping waves ”

“ Suddenly he became conscious of others near him; turned his head and saw close behind him Suarra and the hooded pair. The eyes of Soames, of Sterrett and of Dancre turned with his own. And now he knew that not even memory had been left them! Blankly, with no recognition—unseeing—they stared at Suarra.
“It is time to start, Graydon,” she said softly, her own eyes averted from their dead gaze. “We leave the llama here. It cannot walk. Take with you only your own animal, your weapons and what belongs to you. The other animals will stay here.” ”

“ Now blue cowl and yellow swung into the lead, Suarra at their heels.
“Come on, Soames,” he said. “Come, Sterrett. It’s time to start, Dancre.”
Obediently they swung upon the trail, marching side by side—gaunt man at left, giant in the center, little man at right. Like marionettes they marched, obediently, unquestioning, without word. If they knew the llama and its treasures were no longer with them, they gave no sign. If they knew Graydon again carried his guns, they gave no sign either. ”

“ It was from its curving walls that the luminosity streamed, and these walls were jetty black and polished like mirrors, and the rays that issued from them seemed to come from infinite depths within them, darting through them with prodigious speed—like rays shot up through inconceivable depths of black water, be neath which in some unknown firmament, blazed a sun of diamond incandescence. ”

“ A light that was as though it came from radiant atoms, infinitely small, that shed their rays as they floated slowly by.
Thicker grew these luminous atoms whose radiance only, and not their bodies, could be perceived by the eye. Lighter and lighter grew the way.
Again, and as abruptly as before, it turned.
They stood within a cavern that was like a great square auditorium to some gigantic stage; the interior of a cube of rock whose four sides, whose roof a hundred feet over head, and whose floor were smooth and straight as though trued by giant spirit level and by plane. ”