looking into empty air while below he heard the murmur of the sea. This
way must run in the cliff face above the beach.

A click of impatient whisper drew him on to join Loketh. Here was a
flight of stairs, narrow of tread and very steep. Loketh turned back and
side against these to climb, his outspread hand flattened on the stone
as if it possessed adhesive qualities to steady him. For the first time
his twisted leg was a disadvantage.

Ross counted again--ten, fifteen of those steps, bringing them once more
into darkness. Then they emerged from a well-like opening into a
circular room. A sudden and dazzling flare of light made the Terran
shade his eyes. Loketh set a pallid but glowing cone on a wall shelf,
and the Terran discovered that the burst of light was only relative to
the dark of the passage; indeed it was very weak illumination.

The Hawaikan braced his body against the far wall. The strain of his
effort, whatever its purpose, was easy to read in the contorted line of
his shoulders. Then the wall slid under Loketh's urging, a slow move as
if the weight of the slab he strove to handle was almost too great for
his slender arms, or else the need for caution was intensified here.

They now fronted a narrow opening, and the light of the cone shone only
a few feet into the space. Loketh beckoned to Ross and they went on.
Here the left wall was cut in many places emitting patches of light in a
way which bore no resemblance to conventional windows. It was like
walking behind a pierced screen which followed no logical pattern in the
cutaway portions. Ross gazed out and gasped.

He was standing above the center core of the castle, and the life below
and beyond drew his attention. He had seen drawings reproducing the life
of a feudal castle. This resembled them and yet, as Ross studied the
scene closer, the differences between the Terran past and this became
more distinct.

In the first place there were those animals--or were they
animals?--being hooked up to a cart. They had six limbs, walking on
four, holding the remaining two folded under their necks. Their harness
consisted of a network fitted over their shoulders, anchored to the
folded limbs. Their grotesque heads, bobbing and weaving on lengthy
necks, their bodies, were sleekly scaled. Ross was startled by a
resemblance he traced to the sea dragon he had met in the future of this
world.

But the creatures were subject to the men harnessing them. And the