CHAPTER V

THE SMITING
THING

Silently we looked at each other, and silently we
passed out of the courtyard. The dread was heavy upon
me. The twilight was stealing upon the close-clustered
peaks. Another hour, and their amethyst-and-purple mantles
would drop upon them; snowfields and glaciers sparkle
out in irised beauty; nightfall.

As I gazed upon them I wondered to what secret place
within their brooding immensities the little metal mysteries
had fled. And to what myriads, it might be, of their kind?
And these hidden hordes--of what shapes were they? Of
what powers? Small like these, or--or--

Quick on the screen of my mind flashed two pictures,
side by side--the little four-rayed print in the great dust of
the crumbling ruin and its colossal twin on the breast of
the poppied valley.

I turned aside, crept through the shattered portal and
looked over the haunted hollow.

Unbelieving, I rubbed my eyes; then leaped to the very
brim of the bowl.