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out: “Hziulquoigmnzhah” in the most resonant bellow that he could summon. At the same time he drew his sword and thrust it between two plates of the horny mail that covered the monster’s hindquarters.
    Greatly to his relief, the animal began to move and resumed its progression along the road. The Hyperboreans followed it; and whenever the creature slackened its pace Eibon would repeat the formula which he had found so effective. Morghi was compelled to regard him with a certain awe.
    They travelled on in this manner for several hours. The great luminous triple ring still over-arched the zenith, but a strangely small and chilly sun had now intersected the ring and was declining toward the west of Cykranosh. The forest along the way was still a high wall of sharp metallic foliage; but other roads and paths and byways were now branching off from the one that the monster followed.
    All was very silent, except for the many-footed shuffling of this uncouth animal; and neither Eibon nor Morghi had spoken for miles. The high-priest was regretting more and more his rashness in pursuing Eibon through the panel; and Eibon was wishing that Zhothaqquah had given him the entrée to a different sort of world. They were startled out of their meditations by a sudden clamor of deep and booming voices that rose from somewhere in advance of the monster. It was a veritable tintamar of unhuman guttural bellowings and croakings, with notes that were somehow suggestive of reproof and objurgation, like shrewish drums, as if the monster were being scolded by a group of unimaginable entities.
    “Well?” queried Morghi.
    “All that we are destined to behold will reveal itself at the proper time,” said Eibon.
    The forest was thinning rapidly, and the clamor of termagant bellows was drawing closer. Still ensuing the hindquarters of their multipedal guide, which was crawling on with reluctant slowness, the travellers emerged in an open space, on a most singular tableau. The monster, which was plainly of a tame and harmless and stupid sort, was cowering before a knot of beings no larger than men, who were armed only with long-handled goads. These beings, though they were bipeds, and were not quite so unheard-of in their anatomic structure as the entity which Eibon had met by the lake, were nevertheless sufficiently unusual; for their head and bodies were apparently combined in one, and their ears, eyes, nostrils, mouths, and certain other organs of doubtful use were all arranged in a somewhat unconventional grouping on their chests and abdomens. They were wholly naked, and were rather dark in color, with no trace of hair on any of their parts or members. Behind them at a little distance were many edifices of a kind which hardly conformed to human ideas of architectural symmetry.
    Eibon strode valorously forward, with Morghi following discreetly. The torso-headed beings ceased their objurgation of the fawning monster and peered at the earth-men with expressions that were difficult to read on account of the odd and baffling relationship of their features.
    “Hziulquoigmnzhah! Zhothaqquah!” said Eibon with oracular solemnity and sonority. Then, after a pause of hieratic length: “ Iqhui dlosh odhqlonqh !”
    The result was indeed gratifying, and was all that could be expected even from a formula so remarkable; for the Cykranoshian beings dropped their goads and bowed before the sorcerer till their featured bosoms almost touched the ground.
    “I have performed the mission, I have delivered the message given me by Hziulquoigmnzhah,” said Eibon to Morghi.

    IV
    F or several Cykranoshian months the two Hyperboreans were the honored guests of this quaint and worthy and virtuous people, who called themselves the Bhlemphroims. Eibon had a real gift for languages and made progress in the local tongue far more readily than Morghi. His knowledge of the customs, manners, ideas, and beliefs of the Bhlemphroims soon became extensive; but he found it a