y DO.” I was once more master of myself. “Drake — don’t you agree?”
“Sure,” he replied. “Sure. I’ll look after Ruth — er — I mean Miss Ventnor.”
The glint of amusement Men Track Pants in Ventnor’s eyes at this faded abruptly; his face grew somber.
“Wait,” he said. “I Men Biker Jackets carried away some — some exhibits Women Single Breasted Coats from the crevice of the noises, Goodwin.”
“What kind of exhibits?” I asked, eagerly.
“Put ’em where they’d be safe,” he continued. “I’ve an idea they’re far more curious than our armored men — and Converse High Tops of far more importance. At any rate, we must take them with us.
“Go with Ruth, you and Drake, and look at them. And bring them back with the pony. Then we’ll make a start. A few minutes more probably won’t make much difference — but hurry.”
He turned back to his watch. Ordering Chiu-Ming to stay with him I followed Ruth and Drake down the ruined stairway. At the bottom she came to me, laid little hands on my shoulders.
“Walter,” she breathed, “I’m frightened. I’m so frightened I’m afraid to tell even Men Denim Jackets Mart. He doesn’t like them, either, these little things you’re going Chuck Taylor All Star to see. He likes them so little that he’s afraid to let me know how little he does like them.”
“But what are they? What’s to fear about them?” asked Drake.
“See what you think!” She led us slowly, almost reluctantly toward the rear of the fortress. “They Women Shirts lay in a little heap at the mouth of the cleft where we Menn Adidas Hoodies&Track Tops heard the noises. Martin picked them up and dropped them in a sack before we ran through the hollow.
“They’re grotesque and they’re almost CUTE, and they make me feel as though they were the tiniest tippy-tip of the claw of some incredibly large Męskie Vans Surf cat just stealing around the corner, a terrible cat, a cat as big as a mountain,” she ended breathlessly.
We climbed through the crumbling masonry into a central, open court. Here a clear spring bubbled up in a ruined and choked stone basin; close to the ancient well was their pony, contentedly browsing in the thick grass that grew around it. From one of its hampers Ruth took a large cloth bag.
“To carry them,” she said, and trembled.
We passed through what had once been a great door into another chamber larger than that we had just left; and it was in better preservation, the ceiling unbroken, the light dim after the blazing sun of the court. Near its center she halted us.
Before me ran a two-feet-wide ragged crack, splitting the floor and dropping down into black depths. Beyond was an expanse of smooth flagging, Converse Superhero almost clear of debris.
Drake gave a low Vans Bottoms Men whistle. I followed his pointing finger. Damskie Vans Love In the wall at the end whirled two enormous dragon shapes, cut in low relief. Their gigantic wings, their monstrous coils, covered the nearly unbroken surface, and these CHIMERAE were the shapes upon the upthrust blocks of the haunted roadway.
In Ruth’s gaze I read a nameless fear, a half shuddering fascination.
But she was not looking at the cavern dragons.
Her gaze was fixed links:
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