that reigned, serene and untroubled, upon
the throne of her mind; something utterly UNCOMPREHENDING, utterly
unconscious OF, cosmically blind TO all human emotion; that spread
itself like a veil over her own consciousness; that PLATED her
thought--that was a strange word--why had it come to me--something that
had set its mark upon her like--like--the gigantic claw print on the
poppied field, the little print of the dragoned hall.

I caught at my mind, whirling I thought then in the grip of fantasy;
strove by taking minute note of her to bring myself back to normal.

Her veils had slipped from her, baring her neck, her arms, the right
shoulder. Under the smooth throat a buckle of dull gold held the sheer,
diaphanous folds of the pale amber silk which swathed the high and
rounded breasts, hiding no goddess curve of them.

A wide and golden girdle clasped the waist, covered the rounded hips
and thighs. The long, narrow, and high-arched feet were shod with golden
sandals, laced just below the rounded knees with flat turquoise studded
bands.

And shining through the amber folds, as glowing above them, the miracle
of her body.

The dream of master sculptor given life. A goddess of earth's youth
reborn in Himalayan wilds.

She raised her eyes; broke the long silence.

"Now being with you," she said dreamily, "there waken within me old
thoughts, old wisdom, old questioning--all that I had forgotten and
thought forgotten forever--"

The golden voice died--she who had spoken was gone from us, like the
fading out of a phantom; like the breaking of a film.

A flicker shot over the skies, another and another. A brilliant ray of
intense green like that of a distant searchlight swept to the zenith,
hung for a moment and withdrew. Up came pouring the lances and the
streamers of the aurora; faster and faster, banners and slender shining
spears of green and iridescent blues and smoky, glistening reds.

The valley sprang into full view.

I felt Ventnor's grip upon my wrist. I followed his pointing finger.
Into the valley from the right ran a black spur of rock, half a mile
from us, fifty feet high.

Upon its crest stood--Norhala!

Her arms were lifted to the sparkling sky; her braids were loosened--and
as the fires of the aurora rose and fell, raced and were still, the
silken cloud of her tresses swirled and eddied with them. Little clouds
of coruscations danced gaily like fireflies about and through it.

And all her bar