NEARLY GIVING IN

He was hurled down to the stone; sent rolling. Rushing feet trampled him, kicked him, knocked the breath from him. Gasping, he raised himself on hands and knees, struggled to rise.

Abruptly, the shouts and babble of the three were silenced. Ah . . . he knew why that was . . . they were looking into the eyes of the Face . . . it was promising them what it had promised him . . . He made a heart-straining effort. He was up! Swaying, sick, he glared into the cavern. Racing down the steps, halfway down them, were gaunt Soames, giant Starrett, little Dan.

By God—they couldn't get away with that! Earth and the dominion of earth . . . they were his own for the taking . . . the Face had promised them to him first . . He leaped after the three— Something like the wing of an immense bird struck him across the breast. The blow threw him back, and down again upon hands and knees. Sobbing, he regained his feet, stood swaying, then staggered to the steps . . . the eyes of the Face . . . the eyes . . . they would give him strength . . . they would— Stretched out upon the radiant air between him and the Face, her misty length half-coiled, was the phantom shape of that being, part woman and part serpent, whose image Sierra bore upon her bracelet—that being she had named the Snake Mother.

At one and the same time real and unreal, she floated there. The diamonded atoms swirled round and through her. He saw her—and still plainly through her he could see the Face. Her purple eyes were intent upon his. The Snake Mother . . . who had promised Sierra as woman to woman that she would help him . . . if he had that within him which could avail itself of her help Sierra!

With that memory, his rage and the poison that had poured into him from the eyes of the Face vanished. In their place flowed shame, contrition, a vast thankfulness. He looked fearlessly into the eyes of the Face. They were but pale blue crystals. The Face itself was nothing but carved rock. Its spell upon him was broken.

He looked down the stairway. Soames, Starrett and Dan were at its end. They were still running—running straight toward the Face. In the crystalline luminosity they stood out like moving figures cut from black cardboard. They were flattened by it—three outlines, sharp as silhouettes cut from black paper. Lank and gaunt silhouette, giant silhouette and little one, they ran side by side. And now they were at the point of the huge chin. He watched them pause there for an instant, striking at each other, each trying to push the others away. Then as one, and as though answering some summons irresistible, they began to climb up the coifed chin—climbing up to the cold blue eyes and to what those eyes promised.

And now they were in the full focus of the driving rays, the storm center of the luminous atoms. For an instant they stood out, still like three men cut from cardboard, a little darker than the black stone. They grayed, their outlines grew misty. They ceased their climbing. They writhed— They faded out! Where they had been hovered three wisps of stained cloud. The wisps dissolved. In their place were three great drops of gold.