is rosy finger pointed to the east,
then arched itself, divided slowly into six shining, rosy bands; began
to creep downward toward the eastern horizon where a nebulous, pulsing
splendor arose to meet it.

And as we watched I heard a gasp from Drake. And it was echoed by my
own.

For the six beams were swaying, moving with ever swifter motion from
side to side in ever-widening sweep, as though the hidden orb from which
they sprang were swaying like a pendulum.

Faster and faster the six high-flung beams swayed--and then broke--broke
as though a gigantic, unseen hand had reached up and snapped them!

An instant the severed ends ribboned aimlessly, then bent, turned down
and darted earthward into the welter of clustered summits at the north
and swiftly were gone, while down upon the valley fell night.

"Good God!" whispered Drake. "It was as though something reached up,
broke those rays and drew them down--like threads."

"I saw it." I struggled with bewilderment. "I saw it. But I never saw
anything like it before," I ended, most inadequately.

"It was PURPOSEFUL," he whispered. "It was DELIBERATE. As though
something reached up, juggled with the rays, broke them, and drew them
down like willow withes."

"The devils that dwell here!" quavered Chiu-Ming.

"Some magnetic phenomenon." I was half angry at myself for my own touch
of panic. "Light can be deflected by passage through a magnetic field.
Of course that's it. Certainly."

"I don't know." Drake's tone was doubtful indeed. "It would take a whale
of a magnetic field to have done THAT--it's inconceivable." He harked
back to his first idea. "It was so--so DAMNED deliberate," he repeated.

"Devils--" muttered the frightened Chinese.

"What's that?" Drake gripped my arm and pointed to the north. A deeper
blackness had grown there while we had been talking, a pool of darkness
against which the mountain summits stood out, blade-sharp edges faintly
luminous.

A gigantic lance of misty green fire darted from the blackness and
thrust its point into the heart of the zenith; following it, leaped into
the sky a host of the sparkling spears of light, and now the blackness
was like an ebon hand, brandishing a thousand javelins of tinseled
flame.

"The aurora," I said.

"It ought to be a good one," mused Drake, gaze intent upon it. "Did you
notice the big sun spot?"

I shook my head.

"The biggest I ever saw. Noticed it first at dawn this morning. Some
little a