ve earth has ever
been--or, that force willing which some call God, ever again shall be!

"Chert!" whispered Marakinoff. "Incredible!"

"Trolldom!" gasped Olaf Huldricksson. "It is Trolldom!"

"Listen, Olaf!" said Larry. "Cut out that Trolldom stuff! There's no
Trolldom, or fairies, outside Ireland. Get that! And this isn't
Ireland. And, buck up, Professor!" This to Marakinoff. "What you see
down there are people--_just plain people_. And wherever there's people
is where I live. Get me?

"There's no way in but in--and no way out but out," said O'Keefe.
"And there's the stairway. Eggs are eggs no matter how they're
cooked--and people are just people, fellow travellers, no matter what
dish they are in," he concluded. "Come on!"

With the three of us close behind him, he marched toward the entrance.

CHAPTER XIII

Yolara, Priestess of the Shining One

"You'd better have this handy, Doc." O'Keefe paused at the head of the
stairway and handed me one of the automatics he had taken from
Marakinoff.

"Shall I not have one also?" rather anxiously asked the latter.

"When you need it you'll get it," answered O'Keefe. "I'll tell you
frankly, though, Professor, that you'll have to show me before I trust
you with a gun. You shoot too straight--from cover."

The flash of anger in the Russian's eyes turned to a cold
consideration.

"You say always just what is in your mind, Lieutenant O'Keefe," he
mused. "Da--that I shall remember!" Later I was to recall this odd
observation--and Marakinoff was to remember indeed.

In single file, O'Keefe at the head and Olaf bringing up the rear, we
passed through the portal. Before us dropped a circular shaft, into
which the light from the chamber of the oval streamed liquidly; set in
its sides the steps spiralled, and down them we went, cautiously. The
stairway ended in a circular well; silent--with no trace of exit! The
rounded stones joined each other evenly--hermetically. Carved on one
of the slabs was one of the five flowered vines. I pressed my fingers
upon the calyxes, even as Larry had within the Moon Chamber.

A crack--horizontal, four feet wide--appeared on the wall; widened,
and as the sinking slab that made it dropped to the level of our eyes,
we looked through a hundred-feet-long rift in the living rock! The
stone fell steadily--and we saw that it was a Cyclopean wedge set
within the slit of the passageway. It reached the level of our feet
and stopped. At the f