But here's where the O'Keefe lands.

"I said," he turned to her, "O voice of silver fire, that your spirit
is high even as your beauty--and searches out men's souls as does your
loveliness their hearts. And now listen, Yolara, for what I speak is
truth"--into his eyes came the far-away gaze; into his voice the Irish
softness--"Lo, in my land of Ireland, this many of your life's length
agone--see"--he raised his ten fingers, clenched and unclenched them
times twenty--"the mighty men of my race, the Taitha-da-Dainn, could
send men out into the nothingness even as do you with the Keth. And
this they did by their harpings, and by words spoken--words of power,
O Yolara, that have their power still--and by pipings and by slaying
sounds.

"There was Cravetheen who played swift flames from his harp, flying
flames that ate those they were sent against. And there was Dalua, of
Hy Brasil, whose pipes played away from man and beast and all living
things their shadows--and at last played them to shadows too, so that
wherever Dalua went his shadows that had been men and beast followed
like a storm of little rustling leaves; yea, and Bel the Harper, who
could make women's hearts run like wax and men's hearts flame to ashes
and whose harpings could shatter strong cliffs and bow great trees to
the sod--"

His eyes were bright, dream-filled; she shrank a little from him,
faint pallor under the perfect skin.

"I say to you, Yolara, that these things were and are--in Ireland."
His voice rang strong. "And I have seen men as many as those that are
in your great chamber this many times over"--he clenched his hands
once more, perhaps a dozen times--"blasted into nothingness before
your Keth could even have touched them. Yea--and rocks as mighty as
those through which we came lifted up and shattered before the lids
could fall over your blue eyes. And this is truth, Yolara--all truth!
Stay--have you that little cone of the Keth with which you destroyed
Songar?"

She nodded, gazing at him, fascinated, fear and puzzlement contending.

"Then use it." He took a vase of crystal from the table, placed it on
the threshold that led into the garden. "Use it on this--and I will
show you."

"I will use it upon one of the ladala--" she began eagerly.

The exaltation dropped from him; there was a touch of horror in the
eyes he turned to her; her own dropped before it.

"It shall be as you say," she said hurriedly. She drew the shining
cone fro