us. From the center of the dais a mighty pillar
of green flame mounted into the air nearly twenty times the height of
a man. All around the dais, seated on the sloping floor of the cavern,
were Lakonians.

There were hundreds of them, thousands of them, and they were as
silent and motionless as death. They paid no heed to us; they
crouched, each in his place, and stared at the column of greenish
flame.

"It was a trap," muttered Kincaide as our captors marched us rapidly
toward the dais in the center of the huge amphitheater. "They were
waiting for us; I imagine we have been watched all the time. And we
walked into the trap exactly like a bunch of schoolboys."

"True--but we've found, I believe, what we wished to find," I told
him. "This is the meeting place of the Worshipers of the Flame. There,
I imagine is the Flame itself. And unless I'm badly mistaken, that's
Liane waiting up there in the center!"

It was Liane. She was seated on a massive, simple throne of the
greenish-yellow metal, the column of fire rising directly behind her
like an impossible plume. In a semicircle at her feet, in massive
chairs made of the odd metal, were perhaps twenty old men, their heads
crowned with great, unkempt manes of white hair.

And standing beside Liane's throne, at her right hand,
was--_Hendricks!_

* * * * *

His shoulders drooped, his chin rested upon his breast. He was
wearing, not the blue-and-silver uniform of the Service, but a simple
tunic of pale green, with buskins of dark green leather, laced with
black. He did not look up as we were ushered before this impressive
group, but Liane watched us with smiling interest.

Liane, seated there upon her throne, was not the Liane of those days
in the _Ertak_. There, she had been scarcely more than a peculiarly
fascinating young woman with a regal bearing and commanding eyes.
Here, she was a goddess, terrifyingly beautiful, smiling with her
lips, yet holding the power of death in the white hands which hung
gracefully from the massive arms of the throne.

She wore a simple garment of thin, shimmering stuff, diaphanous as
finest silk. It was black, caught at one shoulder with a flashing
green stone. The other shoulder was bared, and the black garment was a
perfect foil for the whiteness of her perfect skin, her amazing blue
eyes, and the pale gold of her hair.

She lifted one hand in a slight gesture as our conductors paused
before the dai