Tara of Helium made no reply.  Evidently no vocal reply was necessary.

“You doubt my ability!” stated Luud, which was precisely the fact, though the girl had only thought it—­she had not said it.

Luud crossed the room and lay down.  Then he detached himself from the body and crawled across the floor until he stood directly in front of the circular opening through which she had seen him emerge the day that she had first been brought to his presence.  He stopped there and fastened his terrible eyes upon her.  He did not speak, but his eyes seemed to be boring straight to the center of her brain.  She felt an almost irresistible force urging her toward the kaldane.  She fought to resist it; she tried to turn away her eyes, but she could not.  They were held as in horrid fascination upon the glittering, lidless orbs of the great brain that faced her.  Slowly, every step a painful struggle of resistance, she moved toward the horrific monster.  She tried to cry aloud in an effort to awaken her numbing faculties, but no sound passed her lips.  If those eyes would but turn away, just for an instant, she felt that she might regain the power to control her steps; but the eyes never left hers.  They seemed but to burn deeper and deeper, gathering up every vestige of control of her entire nervous system.

As she approached the thing it backed slowly away upon its spider legs.  She noticed that its chelae waved slowly to and fro before it as it backed, backed, backed, through the round aperture in the wall.  Must she follow it there, too?  What new and nameless horror lay concealed in that hidden chamber?  No! she would not do it.  Yet before she reached the wall she found herself down and crawling upon her hands and knees straight toward the hole from which the two eyes still clung to hers.  At the very threshold of the opening she made a last, heroic stand, battling against the force that drew her on; but in the end she succumbed.  With a gasp that ended in a sob Tara of Helium passed through the aperture into the chamber beyond.

The opening was but barely large enough to admit her.  Upon the opposite side she found herself in a small chamber.  Before her squatted Luud.  Against the opposite wall lay a large and beautiful male rykor.  He was without harness or other trappings.

“You see now,” said Luud, “the futility of revolt.”

The words seemed to release her momentarily from the spell.  Quickly she turned away her eyes.

“Look at me!” commanded Luud.

Tara of Helium kept her eyes averted.  She felt a new strength, or at least a diminution of the creature’s power over her.  Had she stumbled upon the secret of its uncanny domination over her will?  She dared not hope.  With eyes averted she turned toward the aperture through which those baleful eyes had drawn her.  Again Luud commanded her to stop, but the voice alone lacked all authority to influence her.  It was not like the eyes.  She heard the creature whistle and knew that it was summoning assistance, but because she did not dare look toward it she did not see it turn and concentrate its gaze upon the great, headless body lying by the further wall.