To her the handmaiden spoke, pointing to the batrachians who stood, paws and forearms melted beneath the robes they had gathered.

She took them and passed out--more grotesque than ever, shattering into streaks of vacancies, reappearing with flickers of shining scale and yellow gems as the tattered pennants of invisibility fluttered about her.
The frog-men reached down, swung each a dead dwarf in his arms, and filed, booming triumphantly away.
And then I remembered the cone of the _Keth_ which had slipped from Yolara's hand; knew it had been that for which her wild eyes searched.
But look as closely as we might, search in every nook and corner as we did, we could not find it.

Had the dying hand of one of her men clutched it and had it been borne away with them?
With the thought Larry and I raced after the scaled warriors, searched every body they carried.

It was not there.

Perhaps the priestess had found it, retrieved it swiftly without our seeing.
Whatever was true--the cone was gone.