on the trail of the mole-man. Beneath those robes must have
been a body as attenuated as a skeleton, as different as an insect's
from man's. Within those odd egg-shaped heads must have been a mind as
alien to mine as an ant's mind.

"Why do your people take my companions?" I managed, when I had regained
my composure.

"They are not my people; they are of the enemies of the Dead Goddess."
The girl gestured to the figure in the crystal pillar. "My people have
no time for them, but neither have we power over them. They go their
way, and we go ours. Once, long ago, it was different, but time has
made us a people divided."

"What will become of the three men?"

"They will become workmen of one kind or another. Everyone works, in
_their_ life-way. But it is not _our_ way! They guard our land from such
intruders; we let them. It is an ancient pact we have with them."

"Why did they not seize me, I am an intruder as much as the others?"

"Because I signed to them to let you stay. You did not see,
whatever-your-name-is...."

"Call me Carlin Keele, Carl for short. What is your name, and what is
your race, and why are you so different from people as I know them?"

"My name is Nokomee, as I told you before. You are still confused from
the magic that led you here. I have saved you once, and _now we are
even_; my debt to you is paid. You will never see your friends again,
and if you do, you will be sorry that you saw them, for they will have
become beasts of burden. Now go, before it is too late. This is not your
kind of country."

Something in her eyes, something in the sharp peremptory tone she used,
told me the truth.

"You don't really want me to go, Nokomee. I don't want to go. Many
things make me want to stay--your beauty is not the least attraction. I
could learn so much that my people do not know, that yours seem to
know."

"I would not want my beauty to lead you to your death." Nokomee did not
smile, she only looked at me, and I saw there a deep loneliness, a
tender need for companionship and sympathy that had never been filled in
her life. She looked at me, and her lower lip trembled a little, her
eyes suddenly averted from mine.

"Nokomee, there is so much we would have to tell each other, you of your
life, and I of the great country of which you have never heard. Would
you not like to see the great cities of my country?"

She shook her head, turned on me with sudden fierce words:

"When you came and stru