which of course heightened
the effect. Beauty flowed from her also; although it was shrouded I knew
that it was there, no veil or coverings could obscure it--at least, to
my imagination. Moreover she breathed out power also; one felt it in the
air as one feels a thunderstorm before it breaks, and it seemed to me
that this power was not quite human, that it drew its strength from afar
and dwelt a stranger to the earth.

To tell the truth, although my curiosity, always strong, was enormously
excited and though now I felt glad that I had attempted this journey
with all its perils, I was horribly afraid, so much afraid that I should
have liked to turn and run away. From the beginning I knew myself to
be in the presence of an unearthly being clothed in soft and perfect
woman's flesh, something alien, too, and different from our human race.

What a picture it all made! There she sat, quiet and stately as a
perfect marble statue; only her breast, rising and falling beneath the
white robe, showed that she was alive and breathed as others do. Another
thing showed it also--her eyes. At first I could not see them through
the veil, but presently either because I grew accustomed to the light,
or because they brightened as those of certain animals have power to do
when they watch intently, it ceased to be a covering to them. Distinctly
I saw them now, large and dark and splendid with a tinge of deep blue
in the iris; alluring and yet awful in their majestic aloofness which
seemed to look through and beyond, to embrace all without seeking and
without effort. Those eyes were like windows through which light flows
from within, a light of the spirit.

I glanced round to see the effect of this vision upon my companions. It
was most peculiar. Hans had sunk to his knees; his hands were joined in
the attitude of prayer and his ugly little face reminded me of that of a
big fish out of water and dying from excess of air. Robertson, startled
out of his abstraction, stared at the royal-looking woman on the couch
with his mouth open.

"Man," he whispered, "I've got them back although I have touched nothing
for weeks, only this time they are lovely. For yon's no human lady, I
feel it in my bones."

Umslopogaas stood great and grim, his hands resting on the handle of his
tall axe; and he stared also, the blood pulsing against the skin that
covered the hole in his head.

"Watcher-by-Night," he said to me in his deep voice, but also speaking