As quickly as he had drawn it, he thrust the pistol back into place and stood there empty handed, looking at her sternly.

From the anteroom came shouting, a rush of feet.
Yolara's face was white, her eyes strained--but her voice was unshaken as she called to the clamouring guards: "It is nothing--go to your places!" But when the sound of their return had ceased she stared tensely at the Irishman--then looked again at the shattered vase.
"It is true!" she cried, "but see, the Keth is--alive!" I followed her pointing finger.

Each broken bit of the crystal was vibrating, shaking its particles out into space.

Broken it the bullet of Larry's had--but not released it from the grip of the disintegrating force.

The priestess's face was triumphant.
"But what matters it, O shining urn of beauty--what matters it to the vase that is broken what happens to its fragments ?" asked Larry, gravely--and pointedly.
The triumph died from her face and for a space she was silent; brooding.
"Next," whispered O'Keefe to me.