I saw that they were not fierce, not ruthless, not inhuman, despite their strangeness; no, they were kindly; in some unmistakable way, benign and sorrowful--so sorrowful! I straightened, gazed back at them fearlessly.

Olaf drew a deep breath, gazed steadily too, the hardness, the despair wiped from his face.
Now Lakla drew closer to the dais; the three pairs of eyes searched hers, the woman's with an ineffable tenderness; some message seemed to pass between the Three and the Golden Girl.

She bowed low, turned to the Norseman.
"Place Larry there," she said softly--"there at the feet of the Silent Ones." She pointed into the radiant mist; Olaf started, hesitated, stared from Lakla to the Three, searched for a moment their eyes--and something like a smile drifted through them.

He stepped forward, lifted O'Keefe, set him squarely within the covering light.

It wavered, rolled upward, swirled about the body, steadied again--and within it there was no sign of Larry! Again the mist wavered, shook, and seemed to climb higher, hiding the chins, the beaked noses, the brows of that incredible Trinity--but before it ceased to climb, I thought the yellow feathered heads bent; sensed a movement as though they lifted something.
The mist fell; the eyes gleamed out again, inscrutable.
And groping out of the radiance, pausing at the verge of the dais, leaping down from it, came Larry, laughing, filled with life, blinking as one who draws from darkness into sunshine.