in contour. Two windows let in more daylight, while two doors
evidently gave ingress to other rooms. The walls were partially
ceiled with thin strips of wood, nicely fitted and finished,
partially plastered and the rest covered with a fine, woven cloth.
Figures of reptiles and beasts were painted without regard to
any uniform scheme here and there upon the walls. A striking
feature of the decorations consisted of several engaged columns
set into the walls at no regular intervals, the capitals of
each supporting a human skull the cranium of which touched the
ceiling, as though the latter was supported by these grim
reminders either of departed relatives or of some hideous tribal
rite--Bradley could not but wonder which.

Yet it was none of these things that filled him with greatest
wonder--no, it was the figures of the two creatures that had
captured him and brought him hither. At one end of the room a
stout pole about two inches in diameter ran horizontally from
wall to wall some six or seven feet from the floor, its ends
securely set in two of the columns. Hanging by their knees from
this perch, their heads downward and their bodies wrapped in
their huge wings, slept the creatures of the night before--like
two great, horrid bats they hung, asleep.

As Bradley gazed upon them in wide-eyed astonishment, he saw
plainly that all his intelligence, all his acquired knowledge
through years of observation and experience were set at naught by
the simple evidence of the fact that stood out glaringly before
his eyes--the creatures' wings were not mechanical devices but as
natural appendages, growing from their shoulderblades, as were
their arms and legs. He saw, too, that except for their wings