Now here and there about the blue rugs great stains of blood appeared; heads of dwarfs, torn arms and gashed bodies, half occulted, half revealed.

And at last the priestess lay silent, vanquished, white body gleaming with that uncanny--fragmentariness--from her torn robes.

Then O'Keefe reached down, drew Lakla from her.

Shakily, Yolara rose to her feet.
The handmaiden, face still blazing with wrath, stepped before her; with difficulty she steadied her voice.
"Yolara," she said, "you have defied the Silent Ones, you have desecrated their abode, you came to slay these men who are the guests of the Silent Ones and me, who am their handmaiden--why did you do these things ?" "I came for him!" gasped the priestess; she pointed to O'Keefe.
"Why ?" asked Lakla.
"Because he is pledged to me," replied Yolara, all the devils that were hers in her face.

"Because he wooed me! Because he is mine!" "That is a lie!" The handmaiden's voice shook with rage.