e, cadaverous pallor, there was no mark of death.
With a fancy that the body might be miraculously living, sleeping,
Thad thrust an arm out through the opened panel of his suit, and
touched a slender, bare white arm. It was stiff, very cold.

The still, pallid face was framed in fine brown hair. The fair, small
hands were crossed upon the breast, over the simple white garment.

A queer ache came into his heart. Something made him think of a white
tower in the red hills near Helion, and a girl waiting in its fragrant
garden of saffron and purple--a girl like this.

The body lay upon a bed of blazing jewels.

It appeared, Thad thought, as if the pile of gems upon the floor had
been hastily scraped from the coffer, to make room for the quiet form.
He wondered how long it had lain there. It looked as if it might have
been living but minutes before. Some preservative....

His thought was broken by a sound that rang from the open hatchway on
the deck above--the furious barking and yelping of the dog. Abruptly
that was silent, and in its place came the uncanny and terrifying
scream that Thad had heard once before, on this flier of mystery. A
shriek so keen and shrill that it seemed to tear out his nerves by
their roots. The voice of the haunter of the ship.

* * * * *

When Thad came back upon the deck, the dog was still barking
nervously. He saw the animal forward, almost at the bow. Hackles
raised, tail between its legs, it was slinking backward, barking
sharply as if to call for aid.

Apparently it was retreating from something between Thad and itself.
But Thad, searching the dimly-lit deck, could see no source of alarm.
Nor could the structures upon it have shut any large object from his
view.

"It's all right!" Thad called, intending to reassure the frightened
animal, but finding his voice queerly dry. "Coming on the double, old
man. Don't worry."

The dog had reached the end of the deck. It stopped yelping, but
snarled and whined as if in terror. It began darting back and forth,
moving exactly as if something were slowly closing in upon it,
trapping it in the corner. But Thad could see nothing.

Then it made a wild dash back toward Thad, darting along by the wall,
as if trying to run past an unseen enemy.

Thad thought he heard quick, rasping footsteps, then, that were not
those of the dog. And something seemed to catch the dog in mid-air, as
it leaped. It was hurled howling