I saw them strike each other with stone knives, slashing the flesh till blood ran.

Heartsick and trembling, I glanced aside at my companions.

The _pere_ lay clasping the stone, his eyes wide with horror, his countenance death-like; Cairnes was upon his knees, his great hands gripped, staring straight down like some animal crouching for a spring.
It was when I turned back, loathing the sight yet unable to resist facing it, that I beheld for the first time those I sought--Eloise, De Noyan, and the Queen Naladi.

An instant I blinded my eyes with uplifted arm, half believing that the horror had turned my brain, that all this was vision.

Yet, as I ventured to look again, they were there before me in the flesh--Naladi all in red, a wondrous figure amid that spectral glow, tall, straight, with proud, imperious face, crowned by the brilliant hair, radiant and sparkling in the flame.