power as well as beauty, growing drunken at the thought of ruling Paititi. Of ruling the man who was the king.'
Proud, triumphant, the song rose. Ivory arms gleamed.
'And her eyes fell upon a man who was not a king. But she knew that in her arms, any man might be the emperor of the universe, and the equal of the gods. Nor was she wrong. If her embrace meant death, death would be sweet poison.'
Tinkling, mocking laughter, and an undertone of sadness in the music now.
'She was faithless,' the king said, his words falling heavily as stones into the still air. 'Those lips were faithless. And the arms of Yrann sought another, and the white body of Yrann yearned too.'
The song hushed almost to silence.
'Long ago. Very long ago. Now she is no longer faithless. Nor is the king sorrowful. Maidens dance before him. They ask his love, but he has none to give. His love is for Yrann, most beautiful of all womankind, and she—she loves him now.'
Tender, obedient, the oboe murmured softly.
'But the king is mad,' the quiet, cool voice said, and the music died into stillness. 'There was a red hour long ago when the madness entered into him. That hour will not pass, Yrann, and love and madness dwell forever side by side.'
For a long time, there was no sound but the faint vibration of the cataract making the castle tremble in its iron grip.
'We speak together, Yrann and I, of things forgotten and things that are not forgotten,' the king said at last. 'But music is her tongue now.' His voice changed. 'Yrann must not die, though Paititi does. I think that you hold a certain answer in your hand, Craddock, and whether I let you open your grip upon that great secret is something I cannot tell yet. We must talk first. There are many questions.'
For the first time Raft spoke. He moistened his lips.
'One question has to be settled first,' he said.
'And that is?'
'I'm not Craddock.'
The eyes watched him. Raft plunged on.
'I tried to tell your soldier, Vann, but he didn't believe me. I don't know what story Parror had. It must have been a good one. For Craddock's in Parror's castle now, his captive. I came here to rescue Dan Craddock. and my name is Brian Raft.'
'I cannot believe that.'
'Why should I lie?' Raft asked. 'What could I gain?'
'You might have many reasons. And yet Parror is clever too. If he had wanted to gain time, he might use deception.'
'Janissa knows who I am. The girl in Parror's castle.'
'But will Janissa speak the truth?' Darum asked. 'Her mind is like a wind, changing and changing. Tell me your story, then. It may be a lie, or it may not. But I will listen.'
Raft talked. He marshaled his thoughts as clearly as he could, though the ruddy dimness of the room played strange tricks on his nerves. When he had finished, the glowing eyes of King Darum were half-closed.
'Go,' Darum said.
Raft hesitated. The deep voice sounded again, more com-mandingly.
'Go, I said. We will speak again later. Now I must test your story.'
Raft stood up. From the half-glimpsed figure at Darum's feet that exotic, haunting music breathed out again. Caressing, gentle, and indefinably sad.
The king's eyes watched him.
Stumbling, Raft moved across the chamber. He felt the velvet folds of the curtain against his face. He lifted it, stepped under its soft drape. Behind him light flared. The music rose shrilly. Raft half-turned.
On a dais strewn with cushions Darum was standing, his face hidden as he looked down at the figure at his feet. Nor had Raft's guess been wrong as to the loveliness of those ivory limbs, that half-veiled beautiful body. But Yrann's face was not veiled.
And her face was—horror.
Into Raft's mind flashed unbidden memory of the cruel-taloned gauntlet he had seen on the king's hand. Something terrible and savage and mad had destroyed the beauty of Yrann's face, leaving her goddess body untouched.
The king looked up. His eyes met Raft's.
Raft stepped backward into the corridor and let the shielding curtain fall into place.
CHAPTER VII.
DREAD FLAME
HIS WATCH said minutes had passed, but Raft knew that it had been hours since his interview with the lord of Paititi. Impatiently he waited in his apartment, left alone with his puzzled thoughts. He could not fathom the trick of the door, and Vann, after escorting him back here, had not reappeared. From the balustraded porch nothing could be seen but the torrent pouring lazily into the abyss below.
The room was sterile. It was beautiful, luxurious, but it held nothing that aroused Raft's interest. Inaction was twanging his nerves into tense irritability. He seemed the only thing not frozen into semi-stasis in this strange land.
A long time had passed when from beyond the window he heard his name called softly. He knew the voice. A stir of excitement quickened him as he hastily stepped out on the balcony. But there was nothing.
Only falling water. Lazy falling water.
'Brian!' The low call came again. 'Brian Raft!'
He leaned over the rail, and found himself looking down into the soft, familiar face of Janissa. The aquamarine eyes were darker now, almost purple. She was clinging to grips and footholds on the castle's wall, crannies where it seemed not even a squirrel could find lodgment.
Catching his breath, Raft leaned down, extending his arm. But Janissa murmured a quick warning.
'Get a cushion, Brian. Bring it. No, I'm safe enough here. Do as I say.'
He hesitated, turned, and hurried back into the room, where he snatched up the nearest cushion and carried it out with him. Janissa had not moved. Her slim body was flattened against the stone.
'Hold it by a corner. Yes, that's it. And lower it toward me, very carefully. Don't lose your grip on it.'
Raft obeyed. There was a sudden whir and a flash of steel, and the cushion was almost torn from his hand. From the smooth wall beneath the railing a fan of sharp blades had leaped out, one of them impaling the pillow as Janissa's flesh would have been pierced had she continued her climb.
Her teeth showed in a smile.
'Now it's safe, I think. Give me your hand.' With feline agility she clambered up, writhing between the swords so that no blade or edge touched her. On the balcony she shook herself, patted her hair, and took the cushion from Raft.
'You're alone? I thought you would be. I asked questions before trying this climb.'
'You might have been killed,' Raft said, looking down into dizzying emptiness where the slow cataract poured into bottomless deeps and the slower mist wreathed up in a swaying tower. Then he turned to the girl and, as he met her smile, he felt a little dizziness that did not come from vertigo.
This was the face that had drawn him over miles of river and jungle almost as unerringly as Craddock's trail had drawn him. No one, he thought, could have looked once upon this delicate, soft, malicious little creature and not wanted to look again.
In their first meeting he had been tired and bewildered. Today he could gaze more clearly into the aquamarine eyes and the gay, yet prim face of this contradictory girl. He stared frankly, trying to make the clear gaze waver.
Janissa laughed.
