It was midnight when the night superintendent called and told me No. 27 had died. I rose. The thing was no surprise. I had known it was going to happen. No. 27 had told me so himself. None the less, I went to his room. Routine in the mental hospital had nothing to do with that strange secret held in common between myself and the man—that strange state of affairs which had enabled him to predicate his own death so accurately. And yet as I mounted the stairs to the room where his body now lay as a

I went toward the curtains and stood looking out between them, removing so far as I could even my invisible presence from the tableau behind me. The attendants were moving about. I heard the soft pad of their gnuppa-hide sandaled feet, the softened tones of their voices. I heard Naia speaking and Croft's deeply quivering answer, and once more the wail of the child. "Murray," Jason was speaking to me. I sensed his touch on my arm. Again he was in astral form. "Come, while the women perform their

Violence, conflict. The marks of the thing were on every side. The ghastly gash in the breast of Mitlos bore dumb testimony to the fact that the man had battled grimly till he died. I gazed into Jason's face, even in its astral semblance haggard. "Croft," I stammered, "what in Zitu's name has happened?" He jerked out an arm in an all-embracing gesture. "Gone, Murray," he told me with a vibration of agony in his answer; "both of them—both Naia and the—child." "Gone?" For a moment my senses seemed

At another door he stopped, wrenching it open and laying hands upon a cord that hung within it. He jerked upon it, released it, and stood waiting with hands clenched as though in impatience, until there rose slowly into sight a platform, upon which he stepped. The platform sank slowly, carrying him downward inside a rock-faced shaft, which ended in a dimly lighted chamber, where blue men strained about a capstan and windlass by means of which the primitive lift was controlled. "Hai! The Mouthpie

Freedom of action, cooperation, a friendly understanding, marked the following days for Croft. That night he visited Naia while his body lay in a room in Robur's part of the palace, covered with a silken tissue, worked over by Gaya's own maids, whom she sent to rub into its stalwart muscles, soft, nourishing, perfumed ointments, such as the Tamarizian nobles used. He found the Zollarian party not far from Berla, confident that the succeeding day would see them inside the city itself. He returned

Croft went not to Himyra, however, as I fancied, but to Zitra, after he left me, and the sleeping apartment of Zud, taking his stand close to where the high priest lay wrapped in slumber on a copper couch. "Zud! Zud! Man of Zitu!" he let the call of his spirit steal forth. Once in a past time he had taught the high priest something of the astral body, finding it necessary to his purpose then to convince him of the truth. And he had told him that when he should call him in the future he would ans

Koryphu of Cathur, under the banner of Tamarizia—with seven red and white stripes and a blue field with seven stars—a thing designed by Croft himself after the republic was established, fared north in a gnuppa drawn conveyance with his escort of Cathurian guards. Kalamita and Zollaria came down from the north in a similar fashion, but with a vastly heavier escort—strong enough as Croft had suggested to Robur to avoid any chance of surprise. Croft sailed south, but watched their progress each nig

Kalamita and Ptah. He knew not wholly what they plotted, what plans might lie in their brains. Yet whatever they might intend certain it was that the death of Jason, son of Jason, was included in the plan. And whatever that plan might be, Croft was assured that the priest had taken time to weigh many matters while he bent above the entrails of the tabur suckling, before he had given voice to his none too explicit interpretation of their meaning. Kalamita—beautiful toy of the Zollarian court, and

Jadgor's faith in the action of the assembly proved justified, in fact. Croft went before the representatives of the Tamarizian states that very same night. With Koryphu to precede him, telling of the meeting in the mountains north of Cathur, the slaying of the flier by Kalamita's orders—the swift retaliation of his fellow in simple fashion, he waited until the Cathurian had lashed the minds of the men who heard him to a pitch of sullen fury, then rose slowly to his feet. "These demands bid for

Ten days, at most twelve, before Helmor's spurious sign should be cut on a lying stone. And then one would bear it down to that dungeon where Naia waited a promised rescue, and with it as authority demand the child. And after that? Croft sickened as he left Ptah's chamber—sickened at the thought of what might have happened save for Maia's listening ear as she lay on the straw inside the door of the dungeon—Naia's mention of the words the blue girl had overheard to him. But—suddenly he stiffened.

To the Temple of Bel! To that ebon dark structure, where in its mighty enclosure crouched the figure of the unclean god. It was the one chance—the one remaining hope of a full success in his venture, and Jason knew it. "To Avron—up and remain with him," he cried to Naia. "Nay, Jason—nay, my beloved," she denied him, gasping. "With thee. Keep me in this at thy side." "Come, then." He tightened the arm about her yielding waist and crushed her to him. There was scant time to argue. Already the guar