something cold and clammy--they passed to and fro over the thing

until Bradley knew that it was the face of a dead man floating

upon the surface of the stream. With an oath he pushed his

gruesome companion out into mid-stream to float on down toward

the great pool and the awaiting scavengers of the deep.

At his four hundred and thirteenth step another corpse bumped

against him--how many had passed him without touching he could

not guess; but suddenly he experienced the sensation of being

surrounded by dead faces floating along with him, all set in

hideous grimaces, their dead eyes glaring at this profaning alien

who dared intrude upon the waters of this river of the dead--a

horrid escort, pregnant with dire forebodings and with menace.

Though he advanced very slowly, he tried always to take steps of

about the same length; so that he knew that though considerable

time had elapsed, yet he had really advanced no more than four

hundred yards when ahead he saw a lessening of the pitch-darkness,

and at the next turn of the stream his surroundings became

vaguelydiscernible. Above him was an arched roof and on either

hand walls pierced at intervals by apertures covered with

wooden doors. Just ahead of him in the roof of the aqueduct

was a round, black hole about thirty inches in diameter.

His eyes still rested upon the opening when there shot downward

from it to the water below the naked body of a human being which

almost immediately rose to the surface again and floated off down

the stream. In the dim light Bradley saw that it was a dead

Wieroo from which the wings and head had been removed. A moment

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