stle to the small
plateau on which stood this temple, where the ceremony would be held.
Now, while Kirby waited alone, the Duca and his caciques had gone to
another wing of the temple. Naida, attended by her bridesmaids, had been
assigned to a cell of their own, and the rest of the girls were waiting
in the nave of the temple. Unable to attend the walk from their plateau
to this, the old people of the race had remained in their crystal
houses.

With ten minutes more to wait, Kirby rose from a bench on which he had
been seated, and began to pace his cell. It was this archaic pile of
stone, he finally decided, which was causing his depression. Unlike the
bright and cheerful castle, this place, older than any other building in
the realm, was squat, thick-walled, and gloomy. Here, in the dusky cells
which lined labyrinthine corridors, the early generations of the race
had found protection from outside dangers. All of which was all right,
Kirby thought, but just the same he wished he had insisted upon being
wedded in the brilliant and cheerful amphitheatre.

* * * * *

But presently he stopped pacing and faced the door of his cell. Then he
breathed a sigh of relief.

From down the twisting corridors which wound out to the central nave,
stole the high sweetness of soprano voices, the whisper of flutes, and
the mellow resonance of little gongs of jade and gold. It was the signal
for which he had waited.

It had been the Duca's instructions that he should come out into the
temple when the music began, and meet Naida there. Both would advance to
the altar, and when they were in place, the Duca would come to them.
Kirby, therefore, after a glance at the blue trousers and tunic of
tanager scarlet which the girls had made for him, opened the door of his
cell, and stepped out.

In a moment he traversed the windings of the corridor, and halted under
a flat arch at one side of the temple nave.

As he paused so, to await the appearance of Naida and her bridesmaids
under a similar arch directly across the temple, he held his breath. Not
even nymphs could be as graceful as were the twenty-six girls who were
performing the dance of Life Immortal, which tradition decreed should be
given before the ceremony by which, in this realm, two souls were
wedded. The flash of rainbow gowns was like the swirling of light in a
sky at dawning. The music of voices, flutes, and the little gongs of
jade, would have