"Mother," began Leonard, "last night you asked me to undertake a
great venture, and promised a reward in payment. Now, as you said, we
Englishmen will do much for gold, and I am a poor man who seeks wealth.
You demand of me that I should risk my life; now tell me of its price."

The woman Soa looked at him awhile, and answered:

"White Man, have you ever heard of the People of the Mist?"

"No," he said, "that is, except in London. I mean that I know nothing of
such a people. What of them?"

"This: I, Soa, am one of that people. I was the daughter of their
head-priest, and I fled from them many many years ago, because I was
doomed to be offered up as a sacrifice to the god Jal, he who is shaped
like the Black One yonder," and she pointed to Otter.

"This is rather interesting," said Leonard; "go on."

"White Man, that people is a great people. They live in a region of
mist, upon high lands beneath the shadow of the tops of snow mountains.
They are larger than other men in size, and very cruel, but their women
are fair. Now of the beginning of my people I know nothing, for it is
lost in the past. But they worship an ancient stone statue fashioned
like a dwarf, and to him they offer the blood of men. Beneath the feet
of the statue is a pool of water, and beyond the pool is a cave. In that
cave, White Man, he dwells whom they adore in effigy above, he, Jal,
whose name is Terror."

"Do you mean that a dwarf lives in the cave?" asked Leonard.