e city then, and Darion crashed in
shattered ruin and death.

Those who were left had hurled a maiden screaming into the greatest of
the clefts in the earth, that the bed of the Idol might be warmed by
an ember of the stolen Fire. Later, they had raised His awful Temple
on the spot.

So it had been, almost from the beginning. When the pillars of the
Temple shook, a maiden was chosen by the Sacred Lots to go down as a
bride to the Dark One, lest He destroy the city and the people.

The chant had come to an end. The legend had been told once more.

They led her forth then--Dura-ki, the chosen one. Shod in golden
sandals, and wearing the crimson robe of the ritual, she moved out of
Ra-sed's sight, behind the high altar. No acolyte was permitted to
approach that place.

The chanting was a thing of wild delirium now, and Ra-set placed a
cold hand to steady himself against a trembling pillar. He heard the
drawing of the ancient bolts, the booming echo as the great stone was
drawn aside, and he closed his eyes, as though that could shut out the
vision of the monstrous pit.

But his ears he could not close, and he heard the scream of Dura-ki,
his own betrothed, as they threw her to the Idol.

* * * * *

At the table in the Yarotian pleasure house, Ransome's thin lips were
pale. He swallowed his drink.

The woman opposite him was nearly forgotten now, and when he went on,
it was for himself, to rid himself of things that had haunted him down
all the bleak worlds to his final night of betrayal and death. His
eyes were empty, fixed on another life. He did not see the change that
crossed Irene's face, did not see the cold contempt fade away, to be
replaced slowly with understanding. She leaned forward, lips slightly
parted, to hear the end of his story.

For the love of golden-haired Dura-ki, the acolyte, Ra-sed, had gone
down into the pit of the Dark one, where no mortal had gone before,
except as a sacrifice.

He had hidden himself in the gloom of the pillars when the others left
in chanting procession after the ceremony. Now he was wrenching at the
rusted bolts that held the stone in place. It seemed to him that the
rumbling grew in the earth beneath his feet and in the blackness of
the vaulting overhead. Terror was in him, for his blasphemy would
bring death to Darion. But the vision of Dura-ki was in him too,
giving strength to tortured muscles. The bolts came away with a
metallic