velvet pipings of elfland, mellow distances of thunderings.

"I wait," Ngurn prompted after a long pause, the long-handled
tomahawk unassumingly ready in his hand.

"Once, O Ngurn," Bassett repeated, "let the Red One speak so that I
may see it speak as well as hear it. Then strike, thus, when I
raise my hand; for, when I raise my hand, I shall drop my head
forward and make place for the stroke at the base of my neck. But,
O Ngurn, I, who am about to pass out of the light of day for ever,
would like to pass with the wonder-voice of the Red One singing
greatly in my ears."

"And I promise you that never will a head be so well cured as
yours," Ngurn assured him, at the same time signalling the
tribesmen to man the propelling ropes suspended from the king-post
striker. "Your head shall be my greatest piece of work in the
curing of heads."

Bassett smiled quietly to the old one's conceit, as the great
carved log, drawn back through two-score feet of space, was
released. The next moment he was lost in ecstasy at the abrupt and
thunderous liberation of sound. But such thunder! Mellow it was
with preciousness of all sounding metals. Archangels spoke in it;
it was magnificently beautiful before all other sounds; it was
invested with the intelligence of supermen of planets of other
suns; it was the voice of God, seducing and commanding to be heard.
And--the everlasting miracle of that interstellar metal! Bassett,
with his own eyes, saw colour and colours transform into sound till
the whole visible surface of the vast sphere was a-crawl and