Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1909-12-04

| point of view. A bastion Of the third
wall hid the Eye, however; he was CRATE
| full for that.
Casting about he discovered the second
gateway at some distance to the left.
| and started toward 1t. forcing a way
through a tangle of scrubby underground,
| weeds and thOrny acacia. but had taken
| few steps ere. a heavy splash in the river
below brought him up standing, with q
humping heart. After an irresoute mo-
| ment he turned back to see for himself.
and found his apprehension only too we'll
grounded; the Swordwide Bridge was
gone, displaced by an agency which had
| been prompt to seek cover-though he
confessed himself unable to suggest where
that cover had been found. There was
no one visible the oauseway. and no
body skulked in the shadows of the bas-
tions of the main gate Furthermore, it
seemed hardly possible that in so scant a
space of time human hands could have
worked that heavy beam out of its
sockets. And If the hands had been hui
man (of course any other hypothesis were
ridiculous), what had become of their
owners?
He gave it up, considering that it were
futile to badger his wits for the how and
the wherefor. The important fact re-
manned that he was a prisoner in dead
Kathiapur. his retreat cut off, and
Here he made a second discovery. infin-
itely more shocking-his pistol was gone.
Amber remembered distinctly eXamin-
when he had found no occasion to think
of it. Now either it had jolted out of his
pocket in that wild ride from Kuttarpur
or else Naraini had managed deity to
abstract it while in his arms by the sum-
mer palace, or when. later, she had
shrunk against him in real or affected
terror of the Eye. OF the two explana
tons his reason favored the second. But
he made no audible comment, though his
thoughts were as black as his brow and
grimlv fashioned the set OF his
jaw.
Turning back at length he made his
way to the second gateway and from 1t
to the third, under the lewdly sculptured
arch of which he stopped and gasped, for
getting himself as for the first time
Kathiapur the Fallen was revealed to him
in all the awful beauty of its naked desc
lation.
A wide and stately avenue stretched
away from the portals. between rows of
dwellings, palaces of marble and stone
tombs and mausoleums. with meaner
houses of sun-dried brick and rubble,
roofless all and disintegrating in the slow,
terrible process of the years. Here a
wall had caved In, there an arch had
fallen out. The thoroughfare was strewn
with fallen lintels. broken marble screens
blocks of red sandstone. bricks. and in
between them the fig and pipal fourished
with the bebel-thorn, the ak. the mimosa,
the insidious convolvulus twining every
where. AT the far end of the street a
yawning black arch rose in the white.
beautiful facade of a marble temple on
whose uppermost pinnacle the Eye how
cred, staring horribly.
AS Amber moved forward small, alert
ghosts rose from the underground and
scurried silently thence-a circumstance
which made him very unhappy. Even
brilliant chorus Of sharp banks from an
adjacent street failed to convince him
that he had merely disturbed a pack of
Jackals after all. and not the disconsolate
brooding wraiths of those who had died
and been buried in the imposing ruined
tombs. what time kathiapur boasted ten
thousand swords and elephants by the
herd.
TO be continued tomorrow