Closing my eyes, I see it even now,
and I shudder.
Exactly in the center of the lake, in the midst of the columns of
fire, was a fourth column, built of some strangely lustrous rock.
Prisms of a formation new to me--innumerable thousands of
them--caused its sides to sparkle and glisten like an immense
tower of whitest diamonds, blinding the eye.
The effect was indescribable. The huge cavern was lined and
dotted with the rays shot forth from their brilliant angles. The
height of this column was double that of the others; it rose
straight toward the unseen dome of the cavern to the height of a
hundred feet.
It was cylindrical in shape, not more than ten feet in diameter.
And on its top, high above the surface of the lake, surrounded by
the mounting tongues of flame, whirled and swayed and bent the
figure of a woman.
Her limbs and body, which were covered only by long, flowing
strands of golden hair, shone and glistened strangely in the
lurid, weird light. And of all the ten thousand reflections that
shot at us from the length of the column not one was so
brilliant, so blinding, as the wild glow of her eyes.
Her arms, upraised above her head, kept time with and served as a
key to every movement of her white, supple body.
Pages:
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136