ts. They had intercourse with the stars;
they were as gods. But like the gods they grew jealous. They and their
councillors became a race apart who alone had the secret of long life.
The rest of the world and the commonplace people about them suffered and
died. They of the Household of Wisdom lived on in pomp for generations
till the earth was mad with envy of them.

"Fewer and fewer grew the divine race of the Sons of Wisdom since
children are not given to the aged and to those of an ancient, outworn
blood. Then the World said:

"'They are great but they are not many; let us make an end of them by
numbers and take their place and power and drink of their Life-water,
that they will not give to us. If myriads of us perish by their arts,
what does it matter, since we are countless?' So the World made war upon
the Sons of Wisdom. See!"

Again a picture formed. The sky was full of aircraft which rained down
fire like flashes of lightning upon cities beneath. From these cities
leapt up other fires that destroyed the swift-travelling things above,
so that they fell in numbers like gnats burned by a lamp. Still more
and more of them came till the cities crumbled away and the flashes that
darted from them ceased to rush upwards. The Sons of Wisdom were driven
from the face of the earth.

Again the scene changed. Now it showed this subterranean hall in which
we stood. There was pomp here, yet it was but a shadow of that which
had been in the earlier days upon the face of the earth. Courtiers moved
about the palace and there were people in the radiant streets and the
houses, for most of them were occupied, but rarely did the vision show
children coming through their gates.

Of a sudden this scene shifted. Now we saw that same hall in which we
had visited Oro not an hour before. There he sat, yes, Oro himself,
upon the dais beneath the overhanging marble shell. Round him were some
ancient councillors. In the body of the hall on either side of the
dais were men in military array, guards without doubt though their only
weapon was a black rod not unlike a ruler, if indeed it were a weapon
and not a badge of office.

Yva, whose face had suddenly grown strange and fixed, began to detail
to us what was passing in this scene, in a curious monotone such as a
person might use who was repeating something learned by heart. This was
the substance of what she said:

"The case of the Sons of Wisdom is desperate. But few of them are le