We turned expectant eyes to the west. A little, cool
breeze raced down from the watching steeps like a messenger,
whispered to the nodding poppies, sighed and was
gone. The poppies were still. High overhead a homing kite
whistled, mellowly.

As if it were a signal there sprang out in the pale azure
of the western sky row upon row of cirrus cloudlets, rank
upon rank of them, thrusting their heads into the path of
the setting sun. They changed from mottled silver into
faint rose, deepened to crimson.

"The dragons of the sky drink the blood of the sunset,"
said Chiu-Ming.

As though a gigantic globe of crystal had dropped upon
the heavens, their blue turned swiftly to a clear and glowing
amber--then as abruptly shifted to a luminous violet
A soft green light pulsed through the valley.

Under it, like hills ensorcelled, the rocky walls about it
seemed to flatten. They glowed and all at once pressed
forward like gigantic slices of palest emerald jade, translucent,
illumined, as though by a circlet of little suns shining
behind them.

The light faded, robes of deepest amethyst dropped
around the mountain's mighty shoulders. And then from
every snow and glacier-crowned peak, from minaret and
pinnacle and towering turret, leaped forth a confusion of