第54章

At first all that my staggering consciousness could realize was an immensity, an immeasurable uprearing that brought with it the same throat-gripping vertigo as comes from gaz-ing downward from some great height--then a blur of white faces--intolerable shinings of hundreds upon thousands of eyes.Huge, incredibly huge, a colossal amphitheatre of jet, a stupendous semi-circle, held within its mighty arc the ivory platform on which I stood.

It reared itself almost perpendicularly hundreds of feet up into the sparkling heavens, and thrust down on each side its ebon bulwarks--like monstrous paws.Now, the giddiness from its sheer greatness passing, I saw that it was indeed an amphitheatre sloping slightly backward tier after tier, and that the white blur of faces against its blackness, the gleam-ing of countless eyes were those of myriads of the people who sat silent, flower-garlanded, their gaze focused upon the rain-bow curtain and sweeping over me like a torrent--tangible, appalling!

Five hundred feet beyond, the smooth, high retaining wall of the amphitheatre raised itself--above it the first terrace of the seats, and above this, dividing the tiers for another half a thousand feet upward, set within them like a panel, was a dead-black surface in which shone faintly with a bluish radi-ance a gigantic disk; above it and around it a cluster of in-numerable smaller ones.

On each side of me, bordering the platform, were scores of small pillared alcoves, a low wall stretching across their fronts; delicate, fretted grills shielding them, save where in each lattice an opening stared--it came to me that they were like those stalls in ancient Gothic cathedrals wherein for centuries had kneeled paladins and people of my own race on earth's fair face.And within these alcoves were gathered, score upon score, the elfin beauties, the dwarfish men of the fair-haired folk.At my right, a few feet from the opening through which we had come, a passageway led back between the fretted stalls.Half-way between us and the massive base of the amphitheatre a dais rose.Up the platform to it a wide ramp ascended; and on ramp and dais and along the centre of the gleaming platform down to where it kissed the white waters, a broad ribbon of the radiant flowers lay like a fairy carpet.

On one side of this dais, meshed in a silken web that hid no line or curve of her sweet body, white flesh gleaming through its folds, stood Yolara; and opposite her, crowned with a circlet of flashing blue stones, his mighty body stark bare, was Lugur!

O'Keefe drew a long breath; Rador touched my arm and, still dazed, I let myself be drawn into the aisle and through a corridor that ran behind the alcoves.At the back of one of these the green dwarf paused, opened a door, and motioned us within.

Entering, I found that we were exactly opposite where the ramp ran up to the dais--and that Yolara was not more than fifty feet away.She glanced at O'Keefe and smiled.Her eyes were ablaze with little dancing points of light; her body seemed to palpitate, the rounded delicate muscles beneath the translucent skin to run with joyful little eager waves!

Larry whistled softly.

"There's Marakinoff!" he said.

I looked where he pointed.Opposite us sat the Russian, clothed as we were, leaning forward, his eyes eager behind his glasses; but if he saw us he gave no sign.

"And there's Olaf!" said O'Keefe.

Beneath the carved stall in which sat the Russian was an aperture and within it was Huldricksson.Unprotected by pillars or by grills, opening clear upon the platform, near him stretched the trail of flowers up to the great dais which Lugur and Yolara the priestess guarded.He sat alone, and my heart went out to him.

O'Keefe's face softened.

"Bring him here," he said to Rador.

The green dwarf was looking at the Norseman, too, a shade of pity upon his mocking face.He shook his head.

"Wait!" he said."You can do nothing now--and it may be there will be no need to do anything," he added; but Icould feel that there was little of conviction in his words.