Then drawn perhaps by my gaze, she dropped her eyes upon me; golden, translucent, with tiny flecks of amber in their aureate irises, the soul that looked through them was as far removed from that flaming out of the priestess as zenith is above nadir.
I noted the low, broad brow, the proud little nose, the tender mouth, and the soft--sunlight--glow that seemed to transfuse the delicate skin.

And suddenly in the eyes dawned a smile--sweet, friendly, a touch of roguishness, profoundly reassuring in its all humanness.

I felt my heart expand as though freed from fetters, a recrudescence of confidence in the essential reality of things--as though in nightmare the struggling consciousness should glimpse some familiar face and know the terrors with which it strove were but dreams.

And involuntarily I smiled back at her.
She raised her head and looked again at Yolara, contempt and a certain curiosity in her gaze; at O'Keefe--and through the softened eyes drifted swiftly a shadow of sorrow, and on its fleeting wings deepest interest, and hovering over that a naive approval as reassuringly human as had been her smile.
She spoke, and her voice, deep-timbred, liquid gold as was Yolara's all silver, was subtly the synthesis of all the golden glowing beauty of her.
"The Silent Ones have sent me, O Yolara," she said.

"And this is their command to you--that you deliver to me to bring before them three of the four strangers who have found their way here.