The rays of the nearer moon, swinging low across the valley, touched
his jewel-incrusted harness with a thousand changing lights and
glanced from the glossy ebony of his smooth hide. Twice he turned
his head back toward the forest, after the manner of one who is upon
an evil errand, though he must have felt quite safe from pursuit.

I did not dare follow him there beneath the moonlight, since it
best suited my plans not to interrupt his--I wished him to reach
his destination unsuspecting, that I might learn just where that
destination lay and the business that awaited the night prowler
there.

So it was that I remained hidden until after Thurid had disappeared
over the edge of the steep bank beside the sea a quarter of a mile
away. Then, with Woola following, I hastened across the open after
the black dator.

The quiet of the tomb lay upon the mysterious valley of death,
crouching deep in its warm nest within the sunken area at the south
pole of the dying planet. In the far distance the Golden Cliffs
raised their mighty barrier faces far into the starlit heavens,
the precious metals and scintillating jewels that composed them
sparkling in the brilliant light of Mars's two gorgeous moons.

At my back was the forest, pruned and trimmed like the sward to
parklike symmetry by the browsing of the ghoulish plant men.

Before me lay the Lost Sea of Korus, while farther on I caught the
shimmering ribbon of Iss, the River of Mystery, where it wound out
from beneath the Golden Cliffs to empty into Korus, to which for