unfamiliar, an infernal joy. It came to me and passed away--leaving me
trembling with its shock of bitter sweet.

He bent forward, all his soul in his eyes. The moon path swept
closer, closer still. It was now less than half a mile away. From it
the ship fled--almost as though pursued. Down upon it, swift and
straight, a radiant torrent cleaving the waves, raced the moon stream.

"Good God!" breathed Throckmartin, and if ever the words were a prayer
and an invocation they were.

And then, for the first time--I saw--_it_!

The moon path stretched to the horizon and was bordered by darkness.
It was as though the clouds above had been parted to form a lane-drawn
aside like curtains or as the waters of the Red Sea were held back to
let the hosts of Israel through. On each side of the stream was the
black shadow cast by the folds of the high canopies And straight as a
road between the opaque walls gleamed, shimmered, and danced the
shining, racing, rapids of the moonlight.

Far, it seemed immeasurably far, along this stream of silver fire I
sensed, rather than saw, something coming. It drew first into sight as
a deeper glow within the light. On and on it swept toward us--an
opalescent mistiness that sped with the suggestion of some winged
creature in arrowed flight. Dimly there crept into my mind memory of
the Dyak legend of the winged messenger of Buddha--the Akla bird
whose feathers are woven of the moon rays, whose heart is a living
opal, whose wings in flight echo the crystal clear music of the white
stars--but whose beak is of frozen flame and shreds the souls of