were set into
both ceiling and walls.

Silently we circled our way down the spiral stairs, and silently the
Master of the Council paused before a door at the bottom--a door of
dull red metal.

"This is the keeping place of those who come before the Council
charged with wrong doing," explained Bori Tulber. His fingers rested
upon and pressed certain of a ring of small white buttons in the face
of the door, and it opened swiftly and noiselessly. We entered, and
the door closed behind us with a soft thud.

"Behold one of those who live in the darkness," said the Master of the
Council grimly. "Do not put on the menore until you have a grip upon
yourself: I would not have him know how greatly he disturbs us."

I nodded, dumbly, holding the heavy menore dangling in my hand.

I have said that I have beheld strange worlds and strange people in my
life, and it is true that I have. I have seen the headless people of
that red world Iralo, the ant people, the dragon-fly people, the
terrible carnivorous trees of L-472, and the pointed heads of a people
who live upon a world which may not be named. But I have still to see
a more terrible creature than that which lay before me now.

* * * * *

He--or it--was reclining upon the floor, for the reason that he could
not have stood. No room save one with a vaulted ceiling such as the
great council chamber, could offer room enough for this creature to
walk erect.

He was, roughly, a shade better than twice my height, yet I believe he
would have weighed but little more. You have seen rank weeds that have
grown up in the darkness to reach the sun; if you can imagine a man
who had done likewise, you can, perhaps, picture that which I saw
before me.

His legs at the thigh were no larger than my arm, and his arms were
but half the size of my wrist, and jointed twice instead of but once.
He wore a careless garment of some dirty yellow, shaggy hide, and his
skin, revealed on feet and arms and face, was a terrible, bloodless
white; the dead white of a fish's belly. Maggot white. The white of
something that had never known the sun.

The head was small and round, with features that were a caricature of
man's. His ears were huge, and had the power of movement, for they
cocked forward as we entered the room. The nose was not prominently
arched, but the nostrils were wide, and very thin, as was his mouth,
which was faintly tinged with dusky blue, instead of he