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Title: Palos of the Dog Star Pack

Author: J. U. Giesy

Release date: March 19, 2011 [eBook #35614]
                Most recently updated: February 7, 2022

Language: English

Credits: Greg Weeks, Sankar Viswanathan, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PALOS OF THE DOG STAR PACK ***





                      Palos of the Dog Star Pack

                            By J. U. GIESY

                          _A Complete Novel_

            _Copyright 1918 by The Frank A. Munsey Company_




                               CHAPTER I

                           OUT OF THE STORM


It was a miserable night which brought me first in touch with Jason
Croft. There was a rain and enough wind to send it in gusty dashes
against the windows. It was the sort of a night when I always felt glad
to cast off coat and shoes, don a robe and slippers, and sit down
with the curtains drawn, a lighted pipe, and the soft glow of a lamp
falling across the pages of my book. I am, I admit, always strangely
susceptible to the shut-in sense of comfort afforded by a pipe, the
steady yellow of a light, and the magic of printed lines at a time of
elemental turmoil and stress.

It was with a feeling little short of positive annoyance that I heard
the door-bell ring. Indeed, I confess, I was tempted to ignore it
altogether at first. But as it rang again, and was followed by a rapid
tattoo of rapping, as of fists pounded against the door itself, I rose,
laid aside my book, and stepped into the hall.

First switching on a porch-light, I opened the outer door, to reveal
the figure of an old woman, somewhat stooping, her head covered by a
shawl, which sloped wetly from her head to either shoulder, and was
caught and held beneath her chin by one bony hand.

"Doctor," she began in a tone of almost frantic excitement. "Dr.
Murray--come quick!"

Perhaps I may as well introduce myself here as anywhere else. I am Dr.
George Murray, still, as at the time of which I write, in charge of the
State Mental Hospital in a Western State. The institution was not then
very large, and since taking my position at the head of its staff I had
found myself with considerable time for my study along the lines of
human psychology and the various powers and aberrations of the mind.

Also, I may as well confess, as a first step toward a better
understanding of my part in what followed, that for years before coming
to the asylum I had delved more or less deeply into such studies,
seeking to learn what I might concerning both the normal and the
abnormal manifestations of mental force.

There is good reading and highly entertaining, I assure you, in the
various philosophies dealing with life, religion, and the several
beliefs regarding the soul of man. I was therefore fairly conversant
not only with the Occidental creeds, but with those of the Oriental
races as well. And I knew that certain of the Eastern sects had
advanced in their knowledge far beyond our Western world. I had
even endeavored to make their knowledge mine, so far as I could, in
certain lines at least, and had from time to time applied some of that
knowledge to the treatment of cases in the institution of which I was
the head.

But I was not thinking of anything like that as I looked at the
shawl-wrapped face of the little bent woman, wrinkled and wry enough
to have been a very part of the storm which beat about her and blew
back the skirts of my lounging-robe and chilled my ankles. I lived in a
residence detached from the asylum buildings proper, but none the less
a part of the institution; and, as a matter of fact, my sole thought
was a feeling of surprise that any one should have come here to find
me, and despite the woman's manifest state of anxiety and haste, a
decided reluctance to go with her quickly or otherwise on such a night.

I rather temporized: "But, my dear woman, surely there are other
doctors for you to call. I am really not in general practice. I am
connected with the asylum--"

"And that is the very reason I always said I would come for you if
anything happened to Mr. Jason," she cut in.

"Whom?" I inquired, interested in spite of myself at this plainly
premeditated demand for my service.

"Mr. Jason Croft, sir," she returned. "He's dead maybe--I dunno. But
he's been that way for a week."

"Dead?" I exclaimed in almost an involuntary fashion, startled by her
words.

"Dead, or asleep. I don't know which."

Clearly there was something here I wasn't getting into fully, and my
interest aroused. The whole affair seemed to be taking on an atmosphere
of the peculiar, and it was equally clear that the gusty doorway was no
place to talk. "Come in," I said. "What is your name?"

"Goss," said she, without making any move to enter. "I'm housekeeper
for Mr. Jason, but I'll not be comin' in unless you say you'll go."

"Then come in without any more delay," I replied, making up my mind. I
knew Croft in a way--by sight at least. He was a big fellow with light
hair and a splendid physique, who had been pointed out to me shortly
after my arrival. Once I had even got close enough to the man to look
into his eyes. They were gray, and held a peculiar something in their
gaze which had arrested my attention at once. Jason Croft had the eyes
of a mystic--of a student of those very things I myself had studied
more or less.

They were the eyes of one who saw deeper than the mere objective
surface of life, and the old woman's words at the last had waked up
my interest in no uncertain degree. I had decided I would go with her
to Croft's house, which was not very far down the street, and see, if
I might, for myself just what had occurred to send her rushing to me
through the night.

I gave her a seat, said I would get on my shoes and coat, and went back
into the room I had left some moments before. There I dressed quickly
for my venture into the storm, adding a raincoat to my other attire,
and was back in the hall inside five minutes at most.

       *       *       *       *       *

We set out at once, emerging into the wind-driven rain, my long
raincoat flapping about my legs and the little old woman tottering
along at my side. And what with the rain, the wind, and the unexpected
summons, I found myself in a rather strange frame of mind. The whole
thing seemed more like some story I had read than a happening of real
life, particularly so as my companion kept pace with me and uttered no
sound save at times a rather rasping sort of breath. The whole thing
became an almost eery experience as we hastened down the storm-swept
street.

Then we turned in at a gate and went up toward the large house I knew
to be Croft's, and the little old woman unlocked a heavy front door
and led me into a hall. It was a most unusual hall, too, its walls
draped with rare tapestries and rugs, its floor covered with other rugs
such as I had never seen outside private collections, lighted by a
hammered brass lantern through the pierced sides of which the rays of
an electric light shone forth.

Across the hall she scuttered, still in evident haste, and flung open
a door to permit me to enter a room which was plainly a study. It was
lined with cases of books, furnished richly yet plainly with chairs, a
heavy desk, and a broad couch, on which I saw in one swift glance the
stretched-out body of Croft himself.

He lay wholly relaxed, like one sunk in heavy sleep, his eyelids
closed, his arms and hands dropped limply at his sides, but with no
visible sign of respiration animating his deep full chest.

Toward him the little woman gestured with a hand, and stood watching,
still with her wet shawl about her head and shoulders, while I
approached and bent over the man.

I touched his face and found it cold. My fingers sought his pulse
and failed to find it at all. But his body was limp as I lifted an
arm and dropped it. There was no rigor, yet there was no evidence of
decay, such as must follow once rigor has passed away. I had brought
instruments with me as a matter of course. I took them from my pocket
and listened for some sound from the heart. I thought I found the
barest flutter, but I wasn't sure. I tested the tension of the eyeball
under the closed lids and found it firm. I straightened and turned to
face the little old woman.

"Dead, sir?" she asked in a sibilant whisper. Her eyes were wide in
their sockets. They stared into mine.

I shook my head. "He doesn't appear to be dead," I replied. "See here,
Mrs. Goss, what did you mean by saying he ought to have been back three
days ago? What do you mean by back?"

She fingered at her lips with one bony hand. "Why--awake, sir," she
said at last.

"Then why didn't you say so?" I snapped. "Why use the word back?"

"Because, sir," she faltered, "that's what he says when he wakes up.
'Well, Mary, I'm back.' I--I guess I just said it because he does,
doctor. I--was worrit when he didn't come back--when he didn't wake up,
tonight, an' it took to rainin', I reckon maybe it was th' storm scared
me, sir."

Her words had, however, given me a clue. "He's been like this before,
then?"

"Yes, sir. But never more than four days without telling me he would.
Th' first time was months ago--but it's been gettin' oftener and
oftener, till now all his sleeps are like this. He told me not to be
scared--an' to--to never bother about him--to--to just let him alone;
but--I guess I was scared tonight, when it begun to storm an' him
layin' there like that. It was like havin' a corpse in the house."

I began to gain a fuller appreciation of the situation. I myself had
seen people in a cataleptic condition, had even induced the state
in subjects myself, and it appeared to me that Jason Croft was in a
similar state, no matter how induced.

"What does your employer do?" I asked.

"He studies, sir--just studies things like that." Mrs. Goss gestured at
the cases of books. "He don't have to work, you know. His uncle left
him rich."

I followed her arm as she swept it about the glass-fronted cases. I
brought my glances back to the desk in the center of the room, between
the woman and myself as we stood. Upon it I spied another volume lying
open. It was unlike any book I had ever seen, yellowed with age; in
fact not a book at all, but a series of parchment pages tied together
with bits of silken cord.

I took the thing up and found the open pages covered with marginal
notes in English, although the original was plainly in Sanskrit, an
ancient language I had seen before, but was wholly unable to read. The
notations, however, threw some light into my mind, and as I read them
I forgot the storm, the little old woman--everything save what I read
and the bearing it held on the man behind me on the couch. I felt sure
they had been written by his own hand, and they bore on the subject of
astral projection--the ability of the soul to separate itself, or be
separated, from the physical body and return to its fleshy husk again
at will.

I finished the open pages and turned to others. The notations were
still present wherever I looked. At last I turned to the very front
and found that the manuscript was by Ahmid, an occult adept of
Hindustan, who lived somewhere in the second or third century of the
Christian era.

With a strange sensation I laid down the silk-bound pages. They were
very, very old. Over a thousand years had come and passed since they
were written by the dead Ahmid's hand. Yet I had held them tonight, and
I felt sure Jason Croft had held them often--read them and understood
them, and that the condition in which I found him this night was
in some way subtly connected with their store of ancient lore. And
suddenly I sensed the storm and the little old woman and the silent
body of the man at my back again, with a feeling of something uncanny
in the whole affair.

       *       *       *       *       *

"You can do nothing for him?" the woman broke my introspection.

I looked up and into her eyes, dark and bright and questioning as she
stood still clutching her damp shawl.

"I'm not so sure of that," I said. "But--Mr. Croft's condition is
rather--peculiar. Whatever I do will require quiet--that I am alone
with him for some time. I think if I can be left here with him for
possibly an hour, I can bring him back."

I paused abruptly. I had used the woman's former words almost. And I
saw she noticed the fact, for a slight smile gathered on her faded
lips. She nodded. "You'll bring him back," she said. "Mind you, doctor,
th' trouble is with Mr. Jason's head, I've been thinking. 'Twas for
that I've been telling myself I would come for you, if he forgot to
come back some time, like I've been afraid he would."

"You did quite right," I agreed. "But--the trouble is not with Mr.
Croft's mind. In fact, Mrs. Goss, I believe he is a very learned man.
How long have you known him, may I ask?"

"Ever since he was a boy, except when he was travelin'," she returned.

"He has traveled?" I took her up.

"Yes, sir, a lot. Me an' my husband kept up th' place while he was
gone."

"I see," I said. "And now if you will let me try what I can do."

"Yes, sir. I'll set out in th' hall," she agreed, and turned in her
rapid putter from the room.

Left alone, I took a chair, dragged it to the side of the couch, and
studied my man.

So far as I could judge, he was at least six feet tall, and
correspondingly built. His hair was heavy, almost tawny, and, as I
knew, his eyes were gray. The whole contour of his head and features
showed what appeared to me remarkable intelligence and strength,
the nose finely chiseled, the mouth well formed and firm, the chin
unmistakably strong. That Croft was an unusual character I felt more
and more as I sat there. His very condition, which, from what I had
learned from the little old woman and his own notation on the margins
of Ahmid's writings, I believed self-induced, would certainly indicate
that.

But my own years of study had taught me no little of hypnosis,
suggestion, and the various phases of the subconscious mind. I had
developed no little power with various patients, or "subjects," as a
hypnotist calls them, who from time to time had submitted themselves
to my control. Wherefore I felt that I knew about what to do to waken
the sleeping objective mind of the man on the couch. I had asked for an
hour, and the time had been granted. It behooved me to get to work.

I began. I concentrated my mind to the exclusion of all else upon
my task, sending a mental call to the soul of Jason Croft, wherever
it might be, commanding it to return to the body it had temporarily
quitted of its own volition, and once more animate it to a conscious
life. I forgot the strangeness of the situation, the rattle of the
rain against the glass panes of the room. And after a time I began
speaking to the form beside which I sat, as to a conscious person,
firmly repeating over and over my demand for the presence of Jason
Croft--demanding it, nor letting myself doubt for a single instant that
the demand would be given heed in time.

It was a nerve-racking task. In the end it came to seem that I sat
there and struggled against some intangible, invisible force which
resisted all my efforts. I look back now on the time spent there
that night as an ordeal such as I never desire to again attempt. But
I did not desist. I had asked for an hour, because when I asked I
never dreamed the thing I had attempted, the thing which is yet to be
related, concerning the weird, yet true narrative, as I fully believe,
of Jason Croft.

I had then no conception of how far his venturesome spirit had plumbed
the universe. If I thought of him at all, it was merely as some
experimenter who might have need of help, rather than as an adept of
adepts, who had transcended all human accomplishments in his line of
research and thought.

In my own blindness I had fancied that his overlong period in his
cataleptic trance might even be due to some inability on his part to
reanimate his own body, after leaving it where it lay. I thought of
myself as possibly aiding him in the task by what I would do in the
time for which I had asked.

But the hour ran away, and another, and still the body over which I
worked lay as it had lain at first, nor gave any sign of any effect
of my concentrated will. It had been close to ten when I came to the
house. It was three in the morning when I gained my first reward.

And when it came, it was so sudden that I actually started back in
my chair and sat clutching its carved arms, and staring in something
almost like horror, I think, at first at the body which had lifted
itself to a sitting posture on the couch.

And I know that when the man said, "So you are the one who called me
back?" I actually gasped before I answered:

"Yes."

       *       *       *       *       *

Croft fastened his eyes upon me in a steady regard. "You are Dr.
Murray, from the Mental Hospital, are you not?" he went on.

"Ye-es," I stammered again. Mrs. Goss had said his sleep was like
having a corpse about the house. I found myself thinking this was
nearly as though a corpse should rise up and speak.

But he nodded, with the barest smile on his lips. "Only one acquainted
with the nature of my condition could have roused me," he said.
"However, you were engaging in a dangerous undertaking, friend."

"Dangerous for you, you mean," I rejoined. "Do you know you have lain
cataleptic for something like a week?"

"Yes." He nodded again. "But I was occupied on a most important
mission."

"Occupied!" I exclaimed. "You mean you were engaged in some undertaking
while you lay there?" I pointed to the couch where he sat.

"Yes." Once more he smiled.

Well, the man was sane. In fact, it seemed to me in those first few
moments that he was far saner than I, far less excited, far less
affected by the whole business from the first to last. In fact, he
seemed quite calm and a trifle amused, while I was admittedly upset.
And my very knowledge gained by years of study told me he was sane,
that his was a perfectly balanced brain. There was nothing about him to
even hint at anything else, save his extraordinary words. In the end I
continued with a question:

"Where?"

"On the planet Palos, one of the Dog Star pack--a star in the system of
the sun Sirius," he replied.

"And you mean you have just returned from--there?" I faltered over
the last word badly. My brain seemed slightly dazed at the astounding
statement he had made--that I--I had called him from a planet beyond
the ken of the naked eye, known only to those who studied the heavens
with powerful glasses--farther away than any star of our own earthly
system of planets. The thing made my senses reel.

And he seemed to sense my emotions, because he went on in a softly
modulated tone: "Do not think me in any way similar to those
unfortunates under your charge. As an alienist you must know the
truth of that, just as you knew that my trancelike sleep was wholly
self-induced."

"I gathered that from the volume on your desk," I explained.

He glanced toward Ahmid's work. "You read the Sanskrit?" he inquired.

I shook my head. "No, I read the marginal notes."

"I see. Who called you here?"

I explained.

Croft frowned. "I cannot blame her; she is a faithful soul," he
remarked. "I can comprehend her worry. I have explained to her as fully
as I dared, but--she does not understand, and I remained away longer
than I really intended, to tell the truth. However, now that you can
reassure her, I must ask you to excuse me, doctor, for a while. Come to
me in about twelve hours and I will be here to meet you and explain in
part at least." He stretched himself out once more on the couch.

"Wait!" I cried. "What are you going to do?"

"I am going back to Palos," he told me with a smile.

"But--will your body stand the strain?" I questioned, beginning to
doubt his sanity after all.

He met my objection with another smile. "I have studied that well
before I began these little excursions of mine. Meet me at, say, four
o'clock this afternoon." He appeared to relax, sighed softly, and sank
again into his trance.

I sprang up and stood looking down upon him. I hardly knew what to do.
I began pacing the floor. Finally I gave my attention to the books
in the cases which lined the room. They comprised the most wonderful
collection of works on the occult ever gathered within four walls. They
helped me to make up my mind in the end. I decided to take Jason Croft
at his word and keep the engagement for the coming afternoon.

I went to the study door and set it open. The little old woman sat
huddled on a chair. At first I thought she slept, but almost at once I
found her bright eyes upon me, and she started to her feet.

"He came back--I--I heard him speaking," she began in a husky whisper.
"He--is he all right?"

"All right," I replied. "But he is asleep again now and has promised
to see me this afternoon at four. In the mean time do not attempt to
disturb him in any way, Mrs. Goss."

She nodded. Suddenly she seemed wholly satisfied. "I won't, sir," she
gave her promise. "I was worrit--worrit--that was all."

"You need not worry any more," I sought to reassure her. "I fancy Mr.
Croft is able to take care of himself."

And, oddly enough, I found myself believing my own words as I went
down the steps and turned toward my own home to get what sleep I
could--since, to tell the truth, I felt utterly exhausted after my
efforts to call Jason Croft back from--the planet of a distant sun.




                              CHAPTER II

                        A COUNTRY IN THE CLOUDS


And yet when I woke in the morning and went about my duties at the
asylum, I confess the events of the night before seemed rather unreal.
I began to half fancy myself the victim of some sort of hoax. I did
not doubt that Croft had been up to some psychic experiment when his
old servant, Mrs. Goss, had become alarmed and brought me into the
situation. But--I felt inclined to believe that after I had waked
him from his self-induced trance he had deliberately turned the
conversation into a channel which would give me a mental jolt before he
had calmly gone back to sleep.

I knew something of the occult, of course, but I was hardly ready
to credit the rather lurid statement he had made. Before noon I was
smiling at myself, and determining to keep my appointment with him for
the afternoon, and show him from the start that I was not so complete a
fool as I had seemed.

Hence it was with a resolve not to be swept off my feet by any unusual
fabrication of his devising that I approached his house at about three
o'clock and turned in from the street to his porch.

He sat there, in a wicker chair, smoking an excellent cigar. No doubt
but he had recovered completely from the state in which I had beheld
him first. He rose as I mounted the steps and put out a hand. "Ah, Dr.
Murray," he greeted me with a smile. "I have been waiting your coming.
Let me offer you a chair and a smoke while we talk."

We shook hands, and then I sat down and lighted the mate of the cigar
Croft held between his strong, even teeth. Then, as I threw away the
match, I looked straight into his eyes. And, believe me or not, it was
as though the man read my thoughts.

He shook his head. "I really told you the truth, Murray, you know," he
said.

"About--Palos?" I smiled.

He nodded. "Yes, I was really there, and--I went back after we had our
talk."

"Rather quick work," I remarked, and puffed out some smoke. "Have you
figured out how long it takes even light to reach the earth from that
distant star, Mr. Croft?"

"Light?" He half-knit his brows, then suddenly laughed without sound.
"Oh, I see--you refer to the equation of time?"

"Well, yes. The distance is considerable, as you must admit."

He shook his head. "How long does it take you to think of Palos--of
Sirius?" he asked.

"Not long," I replied.

He leaned back in his seat. "Murray," he went on, staring straight
before him, "time is but the measure of consciousness. Outside
the atmospheric envelopes of the planets--outside the limit of,
well--say--human thought--time ceases to exist. And--if between the
planets there is no time beyond the depths of their surrounding
atmosphere--how long will it take to go from here to there?"

I stared. His statement was startling, at least.

"You mean that time is a mental conception?" I managed at last.

"Time is a mental measure of a span of eternity," he said slowly.
"Past planetary atmospheres, eternity alone exists. In eternity there
is no time. Hence, I cannot use what _is not_, either in going to
or returning from that planet I have named. You admit you can think
instantly of Palos. I allege that I can _think_ myself, carry my astral
consciousness instantly to Palos. Do you see?"

I saw what he meant, of course, and I indicated as much by a nod.
"But," I objected, "you told me you had to return to Palos. Now you
tell me you had projected your astral body to that star. What could you
do there in the astral state?"

He smiled. "Very little. I know. I have passed through that stage. As a
matter of fact, I have a body there now."

"You have what--" As I remember, I came half out of my chair, and then
sank back. The thing hit me as nothing else in my whole life had done
before. His calm avowal was unbelievable on its face--impossible--a man
with a double corporeal existence on two separate planets at one and
the same time.

"A body--a living, breathing body," he repeated his declaration. "Oh,
man, I know it overthrows all human conceptions of life, but--last
night you asked me a question concerning _this_ body of mine--and I
told you I knew what I was doing. And I know you must have studied some
of the teachings of the higher cult--the esoteric philosophies, if
you will. And therefore you must have read of the ability of a spirit
to dispossess a body of its original spiritual tenant and occupy its
place--"

"Obsession," I interrupted. "You are practicing that--up there?"

"No. I've gone farther than that. I took this body when its original
occupant was done with it," he said. "Murray--wait--let me explain. I'm
a physician like yourself."

"You?" I exclaimed, none too politely, I fear, in the face of this
additional surprise.

Croft's lips twitched. He seemed to understand and yet be slightly
amused. "Yes. That's why I was able to assure you I knew how long the
body I occupy now could endure a cataleptic condition last night. I am
a graduate of Rush, and I fancy, fully qualified to speak concerning
the body's needs. And--" He paused a moment, then resumed:

"Frankly, Murray, I find myself confronted by what I think I may call
the strangest position a man was ever called upon to face. Last night I
recognized in you one who had probably far from a minor understanding
of mental and spiritual forces. Your ability to force my return at a
time when I was otherwise engaged showed me your understanding. For
that very reason I asked you to return to me here today. I would like
to talk to you--a brother physician; to tell you a story--my story,
provided you would care to hear it. Most men would call me insane.
Something tells me you, who devote your time to the care of the insane,
will not."

He paused and sat once more staring across the sunlit landscape which,
after the storm of the night before, was glowing and fresh. After a
time he turned his eyes and looked into mine with something almost an
appeal, in his glance. In response, I nodded and settled myself in my
chair.

       *       *       *       *       *

"I'm not going to deny a natural curiosity, Dr. Croft," I said, since,
to tell the absolute truth, I was anxious to get at the inward facts
underlying the entire peculiar affair.

"Then," he said in an almost eager fashion, "I shall tell you--the
whole thing, I think. Murray, when Shakespeare wrote into one of his
character's mouth the statement that there are more things in heaven
and earth than are dreamt of, he told the truth. Mankind in the main is
like a crowd storming the doors of a showhouse sold out to capacity and
unable to accommodate any one else. Mankind is the crowd in the lobby,
shut out from the real sights back of the veiling doors which bar their
perception of what goes on within. Mankind stands only on the fringe of
life, does not dream of the truth. Only here and there is there one who
_knows_. It was one such who first directed my mind toward the truth.

"Murray"--he paused and once more fastened me with his gaze--"I am
going to tell that truth to you.... But first--in order that you may
understand, and believe if you can, I shall tell you something of
myself."

That telling took a long time; hours, the rest of the afternoon, and
most of the following night. It was a strange tale, an unbelievably
strange story. And yet, in view of what happened inside that same week,
I am not sure, after all, but it was the truth, just as Croft alleged.
What, when all is said, do any of us know beyond the round of our own
human life? What do we know of those things which may lie outside the
scope of our mental vision? There must be things in heaven and earth
not dreamt of in the philosophy of _Horatio_. Here is the tale.

Jason Croft was born in New Jersey, but brought West at an early age
by his parents, who had become converts to a certain faith. Right
there, it seems to me, may have been laid the foundation of Croft's
interest in the occult in later life, since that faith contains
possibly a greater number of parallels to occult teachings than any of
the Occidental creeds. Of course, in all religions there is the germ of
truth. Were it not, they would be dead dogmas rather than living sects.
But in this church, which has grown strong in the Western States, I
think there is a closer approach to the Eastern theory of soul and
spiritual life.

Be that as it may, Croft grew to manhood in the very State and town
where I was now employed, and in the home on the porch of which we sat.
He elected medicine as a career. He went to Chicago and put in his
first three years. The second year his mother died, and a year later
his father. He returned on each occasion, and went back to his studies
after the obsequies were done. In his fourth year he met a man named
Gatua Kahaun, destined, as it seems, to change the entire course of his
life.

Gatua Kahaun was a Hindu, a member of an Eastern brotherhood, come to
the United States to study the religions of the West. One can see how
naturally he took up with Croft, who had been raised in one of those
religions.

The two became friends. From what Croft told me, the Hindu was a man of
marked attainments, well versed in the Oriental creeds. When Croft came
West after his graduation, Gatua Kahaun was his companion and stopped
at his home, which had been kept up by Mrs. Goss and her husband, then
still alive. The two lived there together for some weeks, and the Hindu
taught Croft the rudiments at least of the occult philosophy of life.

Then, with little warning, Croft was assigned on a mission to Australia
by his church. He got a letter from "Box B," as he told me, smiling,
knowing I would understand. The church of which he was a member has
a custom of sending their members about the world as missionaries of
their faith, to spread its doctrines and win converts to their ranks.
Croft went, though even then he had begun to see the similarity between
his own lifelong creed and the scheme of things held before him by
Gatua Kahaun.

For over two years he did not see the Hindu, though he kept up his
studies of the occult, to which he seemed inclined by a natural bent.
Then, just as he was nearly finished with his "mission," what should
happen but that, walking the streets of Melbourne, he bumped into Gatua
Kahaun.

The two men renewed their acquaintance at once. Gatua Kahaun taught
Croft Hindustani and the mysteries of the Sanskrit tongue. When Croft's
mission was finished he prevailed upon him to visit India before
returning home.

Croft went. Through Gatua's influence he was admitted to the man's
own brotherhood. He forgot his former objects and aims in life in
the new world of thought which opened up before his mental eyes.
He studied and thought. He learned the secrets of the magnetic or
enveloping body of the soul, and after a time he became convinced
that by constant application to the major purpose the spirit could
break the bonds of the material body without going through the change
which men call death. He came to believe that beyond the phenomenon of
astral projection--the sending of the conscious ego about the earthly
sphere--projections might be made beyond the planet, with only the
universe to limit the scope of the flight.

       *       *       *       *       *

At times he lay staring at the starry vault of the heavens with a vague
longing within him to put the thing to the test. And always there was
one star which seemed to call him, to beckon to him, to draw his spirit
toward it as a magnet may draw a fleck of iron. That was the Dog Star,
Sirius, known to astronomers as the sun of another planetary system
like our own.

Meantime his studies went on. He learned that matter is the reflex of
spirit; that no blade of grass, no chemical atom exists save as the
envelope of an essence which cannot and does not die. He came to see
that nature is no more than a realm of force, comprising light, heat,
magnetism, chemical affinity, aura, essence, and all the imponderables
which go to produce the various forms of motion as expressions of the
ocean of force, so that motion comes to be no more than force refracted
through the various forms of existence, from the lowest to the highest,
as a ray of light is split into the seven primary colors by a prism,
each being different in itself, yet each but an integral part of the
original ray.

He came to comprehend that all stages of existence are but stages
and nothing more, and that mind, spirit, is the highest form of life
force--the true essence--manifesting through material means, yet
independent of them in itself. So only, he argued, was life after death
a possible thing. And so, he reasoned further, could the mystery be
solved, there was no real reason why the spirit could not be set free
to roam and return to the body at will. If that were true, it seemed to
him that the spirit could return from such excursions, bringing with it
a conscious recollection of the place where it had been.

Then once more he was called home by a thing which seems like no more
than a further step in the course of what mortals call fate. His
father's brother died. He was a bachelor. He left Croft sufficient
wealth to provide for his every need. Croft decided to pursue his
studies at home. He had gained all India could give him. Indeed, he
had rather startled even Gatua Kahaun by some of the theories he had
deduced.

He began work at once. He stocked the library where I had found him the
night before, with everything on the subject he could find. And the
more he studied, the more firmly did he become convinced that ordinary
astral projection was but the first step in developing the spirit's
power--that it was akin to the first step of an infant learning to
walk, and that, if confidence were forthcoming, if the will to dare the
experiment were sufficiently strong--then he could accomplish the thing
of which he dreamed.

He began to experiment, sending his astral consciousness here and
there. He centered on that one phase of his knowledge alone. He roamed
the earth at will. He perfected his ability to bring back from such
excursions a vivid recollection of all he had seen. So at last he was
ready for the great experiment. Yet in the end he made it on impulse
rather than at any pre-selected time.

He sat one evening on his porch. Over the eastern mountains which hem
in the valley the full moon was rising in a blaze of mellow glory. Its
rays caught the sleeping surface of a lake which lies near our little
city, touching each rippling wavelet until they seemed made of molten
silver. The lights of the town itself were like fireflies twinkling
amid the trees. The mountains hazed somewhat in a silvery mist,
compounded of the moonrays and distance, seemed to him no more than the
figments of a fairy tale or a dream.

Everything was quiet. Mrs. Goss, now a widow, had gone to bed, and
Croft had simply been enjoying the soft air and a cigar. Suddenly, as
the moon appeared to leap free of the mountains, it suggested a thought
of a spirit set free and rising above the material shell of existence
to his mind.

He sat watching the golden wheel radiant with reflected light, and
after a time he asked himself why he should not try the great adventure
without a longer delay. He was the last of his race. No one depended
upon him. Should he fail, they would merely find his body in the chair.
Should he succeed, he would have won his ambition and placed himself in
a position to learn of things which had heretofore baffled man.

He decided to try it there and then. Knocking the ash from his cigar,
he took one last, long, possibly farewell whiff, and laid it down on
the broad arm of his chair. Then summoning all the potent power of his
will, he fixed his whole mind upon his purpose and sank into cataleptic
sleep.

The moon is dead. In so much science is right. It is lifeless, without
moisture, without an atmosphere. Croft won his great experiment, or its
first step at least. His body sank to sleep, but his ego leaped into a
fuller, wider life.

There was a sensation of airy lightness, as though his sublimated
consciousness had dropped material weight. His body sat beneath him in
the chair. He could see it. He could see the city and the lake and the
mountains and the yellow disk of the moon. He knew he was rising toward
the latter swiftly. Then--space was annihilated in an instant, and he
seemed to himself to be standing on the topmost edge of a mighty crater
in the full, unobstructed glare of a blinding light.

He sensed that as the sun, which hung like a ball of fire halfway up
from the horizon, flinging its rays in a dazzling brilliance against
the dead satellite's surface, unprotected by an atmospheric screen. His
first sensation was an amazing realization of his own success. Then he
gazed about.

       *       *       *       *       *

To one side was the vast ring of the crater itself, a well of
unutterable darkness and unplumbed depth, as yet not opened up to the
burning light of the sun. To the other was the downward sweep of the
crater's flank, dun, dead, wrinkled, seamed and seared by the stabbing
rays which bathed it in pitiless light. And beyond the foot of the
crater was a vast irregular plain, lower in the center as though eons
past it might have been the bed of some vanished sea. About the plain
were the crests of barren mountains, crags, pinnacles, misshapen and
weird beyond thought.

Yes, the moon is dead--now. But--there was life upon it once. Croft
willed himself down from the lip of the crater to the plain. He moved
about it. Indeed it had been a sea. There in the airless blaze, still
etched in the lifeless formations, he found an ancient water-line, the
mark of the fingers of vanished waters--like a mockery of what had
been. And skirting the outline of that long-lost sea, he came to the
ruin of a city which had stood upon the shores a myriad years ago. It
stood there still--a thing of paved streets, and dead walls, safe in
that moistureless world from decay.

Through those dead streets and houses, some of them thrown down by
terrific earthquakes which he judged had accompanied the final cooling
stages and death of the moon, Croft took his way, pausing now and then
to examine some ancient inscriptions cut into the blocks of stone from
which the buildings had been reared. In a way they impressed him as
similar in many respects to the Asiatic structures of today, most of
them being windowless on the first story, but built about an inner
court, gardens of beauty in the time when the moon supported life.

So far as he could judge from the buildings themselves and frescoes
on the walls, done in pigments which still prevailed, the lunarians
had been a tiny people, probably not above an average of four feet
in height, but extremely intelligent past any doubt, as shown by the
remains of their homes. They had possessed rather large heads in
proportion to their slender bodies, as the paintings done on the inside
walls led Croft to believe.

From the same source he became convinced that their social life had
been highly developed, and that they had been well versed in the arts
of manufacture and commerce, and had at the time when lunar seas
persisted maintained a merchant marine.

Through the hours of the lunar day he explored. Not, in fact, until
the sun was dropping swiftly below the rim of the mountains beyond the
old sea-bed, did he desist. Then lifting his eyes he beheld a luminous
crescent, many times larger than the moon appears to us, emitting a
soft, green light. He stood and gazed upon it for some moment before he
realized fully that he looked upon a sun-rise on the earth--that the
monster crescent was the earth indeed as seen from her satellite.

Then as realization came upon him he remembered his body--left on the
porch of his home in the chair. Suddenly he felt a longing to return,
to forsake the forsaken relics of a life which had passed and go back
to the full, pulsing tide of life which still flowed on.

Here, then, he was faced by the second step of his experiment. He had
consciously reached the moon. Could he return again to the earth? If
so, he had proved his theory beyond any further doubt. Fastening his
full power upon the endeavor, he willed himself back, and--

He opened his eyes--his physical eyes--and gazed into the early sun of
a new day rising over the mountains and turning the world to emerald
and gold.

The sound of a caught-in breath fell on his ears. He turned his glance.
Mrs. Goss stood beside him.

"Laws, sir, but you was sound asleep!" she exclaimed. "I come to call
you to breakfast an' you wasn't in your room, an' when I found you
you was sleepin' like th' dead. You must have got up awful early, Mr.
Jason."

"I was here before you were moving," Croft said as he rose. He smiled
as he spoke. Indeed, he wanted to laugh, to shout. He had done what no
mortal had ever accomplished before. The wonders of the universe were
his to explore at will. Yet even so he did not dream of what the future
held.




                              CHAPTER III

                            BEYOND THE MOON


And now the Dog Star called. Croft had proved his ability to project
his conscious self beyond earth's attraction and return. And, having
proved that, the old lure of the star he had watched when a student in
the Indian mountains came back with a double strength. No longer was
it an occasional prompting. Rather it was a never-ceasing urge which
nagged him night and day.

He yielded at last. But remembering his return from his first
experiment, he arranged for the next with due care. In order that
Mrs. Goss might not become alarmed by seeing his body entranced, he
arranged for her to take a holiday with a married daughter in another
part of the State, telling her simply that he himself expected to be
absent from his home for an indefinite time and would summon her upon
his return.

He knew the woman well enough to be sure she would spread the word of
his coming absence, and so felt assured that his body would remain
undisturbed during the period of his venture into universal space.

Having seen the old woman depart, he entered the library, drew down
all the blinds, and stretched himself on the couch. Fixing his mind on
Sirius to the exclusion of everything else, he threw off the bonds of
the flesh.

Yet here, as it chanced, even Croft made a well-nigh fatal mistake. It
was toward Sirius he had willed himself in his thoughts, and Sirius is
a sun. As a result, he realized none too soon that he was floating in
the actual nebula surrounding the flaming orb itself.

Directly beneath him, as it appeared, the Dog Star rolled, a mass
of electric fire. Mountains of flame ran darting off into space in
all directions. Between them the whole surface of the sun boiled and
bubbled and seethed like a world-wide caldron. Not for a moment was
there any rest upon that surface toward which he was sinking with
incredible speed. Every atom of the monster sun was in motion, ever
shifting, ever changing yet always the same. It quivered and billowed
and shook. Flames of every conceivable color radiated from it in waves
of awful heat. Vast explosions recurred again and again on the ever
heaving surface. What seemed unthinkable hurricanes rushed into the
voids created by the exploding gases.

In this maelstrom of titanic forces Croft found himself caught. Not
even the wonderful force his spirit had attained could overcome the
sun's power of repulsion. His progress stayed, he hung above the molten
globe beneath him, imprisoned, unable to extricate himself from his
position, buffeted, swirled about and swayed by the irresistible forces
which warred around him in a never-ceasing tumult such as he had never
conceived.

Something like a vague question as to his fate rather than any fear
assailed him, something like a blind wonder. The force which held him
was one beyond his experience or knowledge. He knew that a true spirit,
a pure ego, could not wholly perish, yet now he asked himself what
would be the effect of close proximity to such an enormous center of
elemental activity upon an ego not wholly sublimated, such as his.

His will power actually faltered, staggered. For the time being he
lost his ability to chose his course. He had willed himself here,
and here he was, but he found himself unable to will himself back or
anywhere else, in fact. The sensation crept through his soul that he
was a plaything of fate, a mad ego which had ventured too far, dared
too much, sought to learn those things possibly forbidden, hence caught
in a net of universal law, woven about him by his own mad thirst
for knowledge--a spirit doomed by its own daring to an eternity of
something closely approaching the orthodox hell.

       *       *       *       *       *

Through eons of time, as it seemed to him, he hung above that blazing
orb, surrounded by seething gases which dimmed but did not wholly
obscure his vision. Then a change began taking place. A great spot of
darkness appeared on the pulsing body of the sun. It widened swiftly.
About it the fiery elements of molten mass seemed to center their main
endeavor. Vast streamers of flaming gas leaped and darted about its
spreading center. It stretched and spread.

To Croft's fascinated vision it showed a mighty, funnel-like chasm,
reaching down for thousands of miles into the very heart of their
solar mass. And suddenly he knew that once more he was sinking, was
being drawn down, down, to be engulfed in that terrible throat of the
terrifying funnel, swept and sucked down like a bit of driftwood into
the maw of a whirlpool, powerless to resist.

Down he sank, down, between walls of living fire which swirled about
him with an inconceivable velocity of revolution. The vapors which
closed about him seemed to stifle even his spirit senses. Down, down,
how far he had no conception. He had lost all control, all conscious
power to judge of time or distance. Yet he was able still to see. And
so at last he sensed that the fiery walls were coming swiftly together.

For a wild instant he conceived himself engulfed. Then he knew that he
was being thrown out and upward again with terrific force, literally
crowded forth with the outrushing gases between the collapsing walls,
and hurled again into space.

Darkness came down, a darkness so deep it seemed a thousand suns
might not pierce it through with their rays. Sirius, the great sun,
seemed blotted out. He was seized by a sense of falling through that
Stygian shroud. In which direction he knew not, or why or how. He knew
only that his ego over which he had lost control was swirling in vast
spirals down and down through an endless void to an endless fate--that
he who had come so confidently forth to explore the universal secrets
had become a waif in the uncharted immensity of the eternal universe.

The sensation went on and on. So much he knew. Still he was conscious.
The thought came to him that this was his punishment for daring to
know. Still conscious, he must be still bound by natural law. Had he
broken that law and been cast into utter darkness, to remain forever
conscious of his fate? Yet if so, where was he falling, where was he to
wander, and for how long? His senses reeled.

By degrees, however, he fought back to some measure of control. His
very necessity prompted the attempt. And by degrees there came to him
a sense of not being any longer alone. In the almost palpable darkness
it seemed that other shapes and forms, whose warp and woof was darkness
also, floated and writhed about him as he fell.

They thrust against him; they gibbered soundlessly at him. They taunted
him as he passed. And yet their very presence helped him in the end. He
called his own knowledge to his assistance. He recognized these shapes
of terror as those elementals of which occult teaching spoke, things
which roamed in the darkness, which had as yet never been able to reach
out and gain a soul for themselves.

With understanding came again the power of independent action.
Unknowing whither, Croft willed himself out of their midst to some spot
unnamed, where he might gain a spiritual moment of rest--to the nearest
bit of matter afloat in the universal void. Abruptly he became aware of
the near presence of some solid substance, the sense of falling ended,
and he knew that his will had found expression in fact.

Yet wherever it was he had landed, the region was dead. Like the moon,
it was wholly devoid of moisture or atmosphere. The presence of solid
matter, however, gave him back a still further sense of control. Though
he was still enveloped in darkness, he reasoned that if this was a
planet and possessed of a sun in its system, its farther side must
be bathed in light. Reason also told him that in all probability he
was still within the system of Sirius despite the seemingly endless
distance he had come.

Exerting his will, he passed over the darkened face and emerged on the
other side in the midst of a ghostly light. At once he became conscious
of his surroundings, of a valley and encircling lofty mountains. From
the sides of the latter came the peculiar light. Examination showed
Croft that it was given off by some substance which glowed with a
phosphorescence sufficient to cast faint shadows of the rocks which
strewed the dead and silent waste.

Not knowing where he was, loath to dare again the void, hardly knowing
whether to will himself back to earth or remain and abide the issue of
his own adventure, Croft waited, debating the question, until at length
the top of a mountain lighted as if from a rising sun. Inside a few
moments the valley was bathed in light; he saw the great sun Sirius
wheel up the morning sky.

Peace came into his soul. He was still a conscious ego, still a
creature in the universe of light. He gazed about. Close to the line of
the horizon, and shining with what was plainly reflected light, he saw
the vast outlines of another planet he had failed to note until now.

He understood. This was the major planet, surely one of the Dog Star's
pack; and he had alighted on one of its moons. All desire to remain
there left him. He was tired of dead worlds, of bottomless voids.

As before on the moon itself, he felt a resurgent desire to bathe in an
atmosphere of life. By now, fairly himself again, the wish was father
to the fact. Summoning his will, he made the final step of his journey,
as it was to prove, and found himself standing on a world not so vastly
different from his own.

       *       *       *       *       *

He stood on the side of a mountain in the midst of an almost tropic
vegetation. Giant trees were about him, giant ferns sprouted from the
soil. But here, as on earth, the color of the leaves was green. Through
a break in the forest he gazed across a vast, wide-flung plain through
which a mighty river made its way. Its waters glinted in the rays of
the rising sun. Its banks were lined with patches of what he knew from
their appearance were cultivated fields. Beyond them was a dun track,
reminding him of the arid stretches of a desert, reaching out as far
as his vision could plumb the distance.

He turned his eyes and followed the course of the river. By stages of
swift interest he traced it to a point where it disappeared beneath
what seemed the dull red walls of a mighty city. They were huge walls,
high and broad, bastioned and towered, flung across the course of the
river, which ran on through the city itself, passed beyond a farther
wall, and--beyond that again there was the glint of silver and blue
in Croft's eyes--the shimmer of a vast body of water--whether lake or
ocean he did not know then.

The call of a bird brought his attention back. Life was waking in the
mountain forest where he stood. Gay-plumaged creatures, not unlike
earthly parrots, were fluttering from tree to tree. The sound of a
grunting came toward him. He swung about. His eyes encountered those
of other life. A creature such as he had never seen was coming out of
a quivering mass of sturdy fern. It had small, beady eyes and a snout
like a pig. Two tusks sprouted from its jaws like the tusks of a boar.
But the rest of the body, although something like that of a hog, was
covered with a long wool-like hair, fine and seemingly almost silken
soft.

This, as he was to learn later, was the tabur, an animal still wild
on Palos, though domesticated and raised both for its hair, which was
woven into fabrics, and for its flesh, which was valued as food. While
Croft watched, it began rooting about the foot of a tree on one side of
the small glade where he stood. Plainly it was hunting for something to
eat.

Once more he turned to the plain and stood lost in something new.
Across the dun reaches of the desert, beyond the green region of the
river, was moving a long dark string of figures, headed toward the city
he had seen. It was like a caravan, Croft thought, in its arrangement,
save that the moving objects which he deemed animals of some sort,
belonged in no picture of a caravan such as he had ever seen.

Swiftly he willed himself toward them and moved along by their side.
Something like amazement filled his being. These beasts were such
creatures as might have peopled the earth in the Silurian age. They
were huge, twice the size of an earthly elephant. They moved in a
majestic fashion, yet with a surprising speed. Their bodies were
covered with a hairless skin, reddish pink in color, wrinkled and
warted and plainly extremely thick. It slipped and slid over the
muscles beneath it as they swung forward on their four massive legs,
each one of which ended in a five-toed foot armed with short heavy
claws.

But it was the head and neck and tail of the things which gave Croft
pause. The head was more that of a sea-serpent or a monster lizard than
anything else. The neck was long and flexible and curved like that of a
camel. The tail was heavy where it joined the main spine, but thinned
rapidly to a point. And the crest of head and neck, the back of each
creature, so far as he could see, was covered with a sort of heavy
scale, an armor devised by nature for the thing's protection, as it
appeared. Yet he could not see very well, since each Sarpelca, as he
was to learn their Palosian name, was loaded heavily with bundles and
bales of what might be valuable merchandise.

And on each sat a man. Croft hesitated not at all to give them that
title, since they were strikingly like the men of earth in so far as
he could see. They had heads and arms and legs and a body, and their
faces were white. Their features departed in no particular, so far as
he could see, from the faces of earth, save that all were smooth, with
no evidence of hair on upper lip or cheek or chin.

They were clad in loose cloak-like garments and a hooded cap or cowl.
They sat the Sarpelcas just back of the juncture of the body and neck,
and guided the strange-appearing monsters by means of slender reins
affixed to two of the fleshy tentacles which sprouted about the beast's
almost snakelike mouths.

That this strange cortège was a caravan Croft was now assured. He
decided to follow it to the city and inspect that as well. Wherefore
he kept on beside it down the valley, along what he now saw was a
well-defined and carefully constructed road, built of stone, cut to a
nice approximation, along which the unwieldy procession made good time.
The road showed no small knowledge of engineering. It was like the
roads of Ancient Rome, Croft thought with quickened interest. It was
in a perfect state of preservation and showed signs of recent mending
here and there. While he was feeling a quickened interest in this the
caravan entered the cultivated region along the river, and Croft gave
his attention to the fields.

       *       *       *       *       *

The first thing he noted here was the fact that all growth was due to
irrigation, carried out by means of ditches and laterals very much as
on earth at the present time. Here and there as the caravan passed down
the splendid road he found a farmer's hut set in a bower of trees.
For the most part they were built of a tan-colored brick, and roofed
with a thatching of rushes from the river's bank. He saw the natives
working in the fields, strong-bodied men, clad in what seemed a single
short-skirted tunic reaching to the knees, with the arms and lower
limbs left bare.

One or two stopped work and stood to watch the caravan pass, and Croft
noticed that their faces were intelligent, well featured, and their
hair for the most part a sort of rich, almost chestnut brown, worn
rather long and wholly uncovered or else caught about the brows by a
cincture which held a bit of woven fabric draped over the head and down
the neck.

Travel began to thicken along the road. The natives seemed heading to
the city, to sell the produce of their fields. Croft found himself
drawing aside in the press as the caravan overtook the others and
crowded past. So real had it become to him that for the time he forgot
he was no more than an impalpable, invisible thing these people could
not contact or see. Then he remembered and gave his attention to what
he might behold once more.

They had just passed a heavy cart drawn by two odd creatures,
resembling a deer save that they were larger and possessed of hoofs
like those of earth-born horses, and instead of antlers sported two
little horns not over six inches long. They were in color almost a
creamy white, and he fancied them among the most beautiful forms of
animal life he had ever beheld. On the cart itself were high piled
crates of some unknown fowl, as he supposed--some edible bird, with
the head of a goose, the plumage of a pheasant so far as its brilliant
coloring went, long necks and bluish, webbed feet. Past the cart they
came upon a band of native women carrying baskets and other burdens,
strapped to their shoulders. Croft gave them particular attention,
since as yet he had seen only men.

The Palosian females were fit mates, he decided, after he had given
them a comprehensive glance. They were strong limbed and deep breasted.
These peasant folks at least were simply clad. Like the men, they
wore but a single garment, falling just over the bend of the knees and
caught together over one shoulder with an embossed metal button, so far
as he could tell. The other arm and shoulder were left wholly bare, as
were their feet and legs, save that they wore coarse sandals of wood,
strapped by leather thongs about ankle and calf. Their baskets were
piled with vegetables and fruit, and they chattered and laughed among
themselves as they walked.

And now as the Sarpelcas shuffled past, the highway grew actually
packed. Also it drew nearer to the river and the city itself. The
caravan thrust its way through a drove of the taburs--the woolly hogs
such as Croft had seen on the side of the mountain. The hogsherds,
rough, powerful, bronzed fellows, clad in hide aprons belted about
their waists and nothing else, stalked beside their charges and
exchanged heavy banter with the riders of the Sarpelcas as the caravan
passed.

From behind a sound of shouting reached Croft's ears. He glanced
around. Down the highway, splitting the throng of early market people,
came some sort of conveyance, drawn by four of the beautiful creamy
deerlike creatures he had seen before. They were harnessed abreast and
had nodding plumes fixed to the head bands of their bridles in front of
their horns. These plumes were all of a purple color, and from the way
the crowds gave way before the advance of the equipage, Croft deemed
that it bore some one of note. Even the captain of the Sarpelca train,
noting the advance of the gorgeous team, drew his huge beasts to the
side of the road and stood up in his seatlike saddle to face inward as
it passed.

       *       *       *       *       *

The vehicle came on. Croft watched intently as it approached. So nearly
as he could tell, it was a four-wheeled conveyance something like an
old-time chariot in front, where stood the driver of the cream-white
steeds, and behind that protected from the sun by an arched cover
draped on each side with a substance not unlike heavy silk. These
draperies, too, were purple in shade, and the body and wheels of the
carriage seemed fashioned from something like burnished copper, as it
glistened brightly in advance.

Then it was upon them, and Croft could look squarely into the shaded
depths beneath the cover he now saw to be supported by upright metal
rods, save at the back where the body continued straight up in a curve
to form the top.

The curtains were drawn back since the morning air was still fresh,
and Jason gained a view of those who rode. He gave them one glance and
mentally caught his breath. There were two passengers in the coach--a
woman and a man. The latter was plainly past middle age, well built,
with a strongly set face and hair somewhat sprinkled with gray. He was
clad in a tunic the like of which Croft had never seen, since it seemed
woven of gold, etched and embroidered in what appeared stones or jewels
of purple, red, and green. This covered his entire body and ended in
half sleeves below which his forearms were bare.

He wore a jeweled cap supporting a single spray of purple feathers.
From an inch below his knees his legs were incased in what seemed an
open-meshed casing of metal, in color not unlike his tunic, jointed
at the ankles to allow of motion when he walked. There were no seats
proper in the carriage, but rather a broad padded couch upon which both
passengers lay.

So much Croft saw, and then, forsaking the caravan, let himself drift
along beside the strange conveyance to inspect the girl. In fact,
after the first swift glance at the man, he had no eyes save for his
companion in the coach.

She was younger than the man, yet strangely like him in a feminine
way--more slender, more graceful as she lay at her ease. Her face was
a perfect oval, framed in a wealth of golden hair, which, save for a
jeweled cincture, fell unrestrained about her shoulders in a silken
flood. Her eyes were blue--the purple blue of the pansy--her skin, seen
on face and throat and bared left shoulder and arm, a soft, firm white.
For she was dressed like the peasant women, save in a richer fashion.
Her single robe was white, lustrous in its sheen. It was broidered with
a simple jeweled margin at throat and hem and over the breasts with
stones of blue and green.

Her girdle was of gold in color, catching her just above the hips with
long ends and fringe which fell down the left side of the knee-length
skirt. Sandals of the finest imaginable skin were on the soles of her
slender pink-nailed feet, bare save for a jewel-studded toe and instep
band, and the lacing cords which were twined about each limb as high as
the top of the calf. On her left arm she wore a bracelet, just above
the wrist, as a single ornament.

Croft gave her one glance which took in every detail of her presence
and attire. He quivered as with a chill. Some change as cataclysmic
as his experience of the night before above the Dog Star itself took
place in his spiritual being. He felt drawn toward this beautiful girl
of Palos as he had never in all his life on earth been drawn toward a
woman before.

It was as though suddenly he had found something he had lost--as though
he had met one known and forgotten and now once more recognized.
Without giving the act the slightest thought of consideration, he
willed himself into the coach between the fluttering curtains of purple
silk, and crouched down on the padded platform at her feet.




                              CHAPTER IV

                        NAIA, PRINCESS OF PALOS


Croft, in his earth life, had never looked on a woman with the longing
such as is apt to possess the average healthy male at times. But in his
studies of the occult he had more than once come in contact with the
doctrine of twin souls--that theory that in the beginning the spirit
is dual, and that projecting into material existence the dual entity
separates into two halves, a male and a female, and so exists forever
until the two halves meet once more and unite.

Sometimes because he had never found a woman to appeal to him as he
wished a woman to appeal, he had been half inclined to doubt. But this
morning on Palos he no longer doubted. He believed. More than that he
knew now why no earth woman had ever reached to the center of his being
with her soft attraction. He knew now why the Dog Star had always drawn
him during his student days. That longing to span the miles between
Sirius and earth was explained. It was because in the economy of the
Infinite it had been seen fit, God alone knew why, to send his half of
their original spirit to earth, and his female counterpart to this life
on another sphere.

This beautiful girl was his twin. He knew her. He had found her. A
wonderful elation filled his conscious soul as he sat feasting his
eyes upon her every graceful line and feature. But suddenly his
contemplation was followed by the bitterest despair.

He had found her, yes; but to what avail? The mere fact that he saw her
now and was unseen by either her or her father, as he judged the man
with whom she rode to be, was proof that his finding her was in vain.
She was a living, breathing woman, every cell of whose glowing body
sent a subtle call to his spirit, such as only the true mate can send
to its absolute complement.

He felt love, a sense of protection, a desire for possession, spiritual
uplift, and physical passion all in a breath. He felt a mad urge to
cast himself at her side, there on the padded cushion, and gather her
lovely form to his heart close within his arms. And he knew himself but
a spirit--invisible to her--imperceptible to her--realized that should
he follow his impulse she would not know--or should she know even
faintly would not understand.

Croft knew himself but a sublimated shape, and nothing more, and it was
then he went down into the deepest depths of a mental hell of despair.
The torture of Tantalus was his. He could see her, sense her youth, her
beauty, her sweetness, every charm which was hers; experience every
potent wave of her appeal, yet he could not reveal his presence or make
known his response to her spirit-call. Could he have done so he would
have groaned in a crushing anguish too great to be endured. Yet even
that expression was denied.

The stopping of the gnuppas, as he was to learn the half horse, half
deerlike steers were called, brought him back from his introspection
after a time. He could hear the driver shouting, and now quite oddly,
these people being human, and thoughts being more or less akin to all
thinking minds, he found he could understand the intent, even though
the words were strange.

"Way! Way for Prince Lakkon, Counselor to the King of Aphur!"

On the words the girl opened her lips. "There is a wonderful press of
travelers this morning, my father."

Croft gloried in the soft, full tones of her voice, even before Prince
Lakkon made answer. "Aye, the highway is like to a swarm of insects,
Naia, my child."

Naia! The sound was music in Croft's ears. He whispered it over and
over to himself as the carriage once more advanced through the throngs
of market people, carters, freighters, past a caravan of heavily loaded
Sarpelcas outward bound. Naia. The word fitted her--seemed oddly
appropriate--was music in his ears. Naia, Naia--the other part of his
soul. The word beat upon his senses through the shuffle of passing feet.

"I shall tell Chythron to drive directly to our home," Prince Lakkon
said.

"You will go on to confer with Uncle Jadgor from there?"

"Aye. You will have most of the day to set the servants about the
preparations for the coming of Prince Kyphallos. Spare no expense,
Naia, in those preparations. Report hath it he is a hard young man to
please."

"Such reports as I have heard would not confirm yours, my father," Naia
retorted with a contemptuous curl of her crimson lips. "What has come
to my ears would prove him no better than a beast, far too easy to
please, indeed."

Prince Lakkon shook his head. "Child!" he chided in sibilant fashion.
"You must not speak such words of a Prince of Tamarizia, Naia."

But the maid replied more calmly: "I speak not of him as a Prince of
Tamarizia, but as a man and his attitude toward women."

       *       *       *       *       *

Croft was rather surprised to see Lakkon frown at his daughter's
speech. He himself applauded her attitude toward a man he judged must
be a profligate of national reputation. He set the man's facial grimace
down to mere distaste for hearing any one of royal blood disrated, and
as the prince made no reply, sat waiting what might happen next and
watching Naia where she reclined.

"What brings him to Himyra?" she questioned at length.

"He comes on matters of state." Prince Lakkon's reply was almost rudely
sharp and short. As he ended his answer he sighed and lifted himself
to a cross-legged seat. "Ah, here we are at the gate. Naia, there is
nothing finer in all Tamarizia than this. No, not even in Zitra itself."

Whether he uttered the exact truth or not Croft did not then know, but
as he gazed from the coach between the curtains of fluttering purple he
was inclined to agree.

They had come to a place outside the walls--those monster walls Croft
had seen hours ago, shining a dull deep red in the morning sun. Now
close by, they towered above him in their mighty mass--still red--a
deep, ruddy red with an odd effect of a glaze on the surface of what
he could now perceive was some sort of artificial building block laid
in cement. So far as he could judge, the wall rose a good hundred feet
above the road and stretched away on either side, strengthened and
guarded every so far by a jutting tower as far as his eye could reach.

Where they now stood the road came down to the bank of the river on a
wide-built approach made of stone masonry laid in cement, protected on
the shoreline by a wall or rail, fully six feet wide across its top,
which was provided every so far with huge stone urns, blackened about
their upper edges as though from fire. Croft recognized their purpose
as that of flaming beacons to light the wide stone esplanade before the
gate at night.

Beyond the wall was the river--a vast yellow flood, moving slowly
along. It was at least a half-mile wide where it met the wall. And the
wall crossed it on a series of arches, leaving free way for the boats
Croft now saw upon the yellow water, equipped with sails and masts,
making slow advance against the current, or driven perhaps by their
crews at long sweeplike oars. He noted that each arch was guarded by
what seemed gates of metal lattice, and that drawn up above each was a
huge metal door which could be let down in case of need to present an
unbroken outward front above the surface of the flood.

It was a wonderful sight, river, wall, and wide-paved approach as
the gnuppas drew the carriage swiftly toward the gates. Then it all
vanished. Croft caught sight of two men dressed something like ancient
Roman soldiers, huge, powerful fellows, with metal cuirass, spear and
shield, barelegged half up their thighs where a short skirt extended,
their shins covered by metal greaves, their heads inside metal casques
from the top of which sprouted a tuft of wine-red plumes.

They stood beside the leaves of two huge doors, fashioned from copper,
as it seemed to Croft, things solidly molded, carved, graved, and
embossed in an intricate design. These doors were open and the carriage
darted through, entering a shadowy tunnel in the wall itself.

It was high, wide, and deep, the latter dimension giving the actual
width of the wall itself. Croft judged it to be nearly as wide as tall.
Then it was passed, and he found himself gazing upon such a scene as
had never met mortal eyes perhaps since the days of Babylon.

The great river flowed straight before him for a distance so great
that the farther wall was lost in a shimmering haze of heat. It flowed
between solid walls of stone, cut and fitted to perfect jointure. From
the lowest quay the banks sloped back in gentle terraces, green with
grass and studded with trees and blooming masses of flowers and shrubs.

Huge stairways and gradually sloping roadways ran from terrace to
terrace, down the river's course. And back of the terraced banks there
stretched off and away the splendid piles of house after house, huge,
massive, each a palace in itself, until beyond them, seemingly halfway
down the wonderful river gardens, there loomed a structure greater,
vaster, more wide flung than any of the rest. In the light of the risen
sun it shone an almost blinding white. To Croft at that distance it
appeared built of an absolutely spotless stone.

       *       *       *       *       *

As for the other houses, surely as he felt the abodes of the nobles and
the rich, they were constructed mainly of red sandstone, red granites
and marbles, although here and there was one which glowed white through
the surrounding trees, or perhaps a combination of red and white both.
Yet, aside from the monster structure in the distance, the majority
were red. Indeed, he was to come to know later that the word Himyra
meant red in the literal sense; that in the Palosian tongue this was
the "red city," just as he was to learn also that the name of the
mighty river was Na, because of its yellow colored flood.

But this morning he knew none of that as he gazed down the terraced
vista, bathed in the rays of Sirius, now rapidly mounting the sky.

And there was much to see. Across from the vast white building, on
the other side of the river Na, he beheld a pyramid. He could call it
nothing else in his earthly mind. It, too, was huge, vast--a monster
red pile, rising high above all other buildings in the city, until
near the top was a final terrace or story of blinding white, capped
with a finishing band of red; the whole thing supporting a pure white
structure, pillared and porticoed like a temple on its truncated top.
Even in the distance it was a monster thing. How large he could not
tell. Later he was to know it was two thousand feet square at the base,
and three hundred feet in its rise above its foundation, ere the temple
of Zitu was reached.

But then it struck him merely as vast. Indeed, the whole vista so
impressed him, with its palaces, its mighty river, its terraces and
parks, and the great white structure toward which they were rapidly
dashing along a road before the massive dwellings each surrounded by
its own private park. Far, far ahead he caught the dim outline of the
farther city wall. He began to feel somewhat like Gulliver in the land
of Brobdingnag save that the city life which he had seen was little
larger than that of its kind on earth.

And now between the great white palace and the pyramid a bridge grew
into being before his eyes. While he watched span after span swung
into place to form the whole. Already he had noted a series of masonry
pillars in the stream, but had not comprehended what they meant. Closer
examination was to teach him that each supported a metal span, mounted
on rollers and worked by the tug of the current itself through a series
of bucketlike bits of apparatus, which dragged the sections open or
drew them shut; also that at night the sections were opened to permit
free passage to boats.

The things like the terraces and the roads showed a good knowledge
of engineering as a characteristic of the Palosian peoples. But from
the fact that the terraces and the river embankment were studded at
intervals with more of the stone fire-urns, Croft decided that they
were unacquainted with the use of electricity in any form. Nor did
they seem to be possessed of a practical knowledge of the various
applications of steam.

None of the boats on the river, of which there were many, some plainly
pleasure craft equipped with parti-colored sails and others as plainly
freight and commercial barges, but were propelled by sail and oar. Nor
was the traffic of the streets other than by foot, or by equipages
drawn by gnuppas, such as Prince Lakkon's driver was guiding down the
well-paved street.

In fact, the more Croft saw of the city of Himyra, the more did he
become convinced that civilization on Palos had risen little above the
stage which had marked the Assyrian and Babylonian states on earth in
their day.

Prince Lakkon spoke now to Chythron a word of direction and turned
to his daughter again. "I shall be with Jadgor the greater part
of the day. You, Naia, as head of my household, must see to these
preparations, since as counselor to the king I must show a noble from
Cathur what courtesy I may, in an official capacity at least. Aphur and
Cathur guard the highway to all outer nations. Those who would carry
goods must pass through the gate and so up the Na even to the region of
Mazzer. Cathur is a mighty state."

"As is Ahpur, which holds the mouth of the Na," the girl returned.

"Aye. Together with Nodhur, whose interests are Aphur's interests, the
three could place your Uncle Jadgor on the imperial throne when the
term of the Emperor Tamhys shall expire."

       *       *       *       *       *

Croft pricked his ears, even as he saw a quickened interest wake in
Naia's face. Plainly Lakkon spoke of various states of the country, and
it was evident that the girl understood the full import of her father's
words. "Only Bithur would be against him," she said.

"Hardly all of Bithur. It lies too close to the lost state of Mazhur
for that," Lakkon replied. "There were seven states in the Tamarizian
Empire, as you know, before the war with the Zollarians took one and
gave Zollaria their first seaport on the central ocean, through our
loss." His face darkened as he spoke. "Small good it did them, however,
since there is still the Na, and our other rivers to which they pay
toll, if they wish to sail to Mazzer or the other barbarian tribes. And
as long as Cathur and Aphur guard the gate small good will it do them.
Zitemque take them and all their spawn!"

"As long as Cathur holds!" Naia exclaimed.

Lakkon nodded. "Aye. Cathur stands cut off from the rest of Tamarizia,
as you know, by Mazhur's fall. Jadgor would see to it that Cathur still
stands despite that fact or Zollaria's plans, if she has them, as some
of us fear. Tamhys is a man of peace. So am I if I may be and Zitu
sends it; yet will I fight for my own."

"And Kyphallos comes in regard to this--this--alliance?"

Prince Lakkon nodded. "Aye. List you, Naia. Order Bazka to send runners
to the hills to bring back snows on the eighth day from this. Kyphallos
likes his wines cooled, and will drink no other. In our own place I
have given orders for all fruits and fish and fowls to be made ready
at the appointed time. See to it that the house is decked for his
coming--that all things are made clean and fit for inspection. As for
yourself, you must have a new robe. Spare no expense, my child, spare
no expense."

Naia's eyes lighted as he paused. "I should desire it of gold broidered
in purple," she flashed back, smiling; "with purple sandals wrought
with gold."

And suddenly as the carriage turned into a broad approach leading from
the main street to a huge red palace, Lakkon laughingly remarked:

"Have what you will, so long as it becomes thy beauty. Well are you
called Naia--maid of gold."

The carriage paused before the double leaves of a molded copper door.
Chythron reached out and, seizing a cord which hung down from an arm
at one side, tugged sharply upon it to sound a deep-toned gong, which
boomed faintly within.

Hardly had the sound died than the two leaves rolled back, sinking into
sockets in the walls of the building itself, to reveal a vast interior
to the eye, and in the immediate foreground the figure of a man who
gave Croft a start of surprise.

He was nude as Adam, save for a narrow cord about the loins, supporting
a broad phallary of purple leather. And he was blue! From his shaven
scalp which supported a single stiff upstanding tuft of ruddy hair
throughout his entire superbly supple length he was blue. And the color
was natural to his skin. At first Jason had thought him painted, until
a closer glance had proved his mistake. Aside from his surprising
complexion he seemed human enough, with dark eyes, high molar
prominences, and a strongly bridged nose. He was indeed not unlike an
American Indian, Croft thought, or perhaps a Tartar. He remembered now
that in times long past the Tartars had worn scalp locks, too.

The blue man bowed from the hips, straightened, and stood waiting.

Lakkon sprang from the coach and assisted Naia to alight.

"Bazka," he spoke in command, "your mistress returns. Give ear to her
words and do those things she says until I come again."

He sprang back into the coach, and Chythron swung the equipage about.
He cried aloud to the gnuppas, and they dashed away, back toward the
road along the Na. Croft found himself standing before the open door of
Prince Lakkon's city palace with Naia and the strange blue man.

"Call thy fellow servants," the Palosian princess directed as she
passed inside and Bazka closed the doors by means of a golden lever
affixed to the inner wall. "I shall see them here and issue my
commands."

She walked with the grace of limbs unrestrained toward the center of
the wonderful hall.

For wonderful it was. At first Croft had thought it paved, in part at
least, with glass of a faultless grade. But as he passed by Naia's side
toward the center of the half room, half court in which flowers and
shrubs and even small trees grew in beds between the pavement, he saw
it was in reality some sort of transparent, colorless crystal, cut and
set into an intricate design.

Yet that the Palosians made glass he soon found proof. Casting his eyes
aloft, he saw the metal framework of an enclosing roof arching the
court above his head. Plainly it was thrown across the width of the
court to support shutters made of glass of several colors, some of them
in place, others removed or laid back to leave the court open to the
air.

       *       *       *       *       *

The court itself was two stories high, and from either end rose a
staircase of some substance like a lemon-yellow onyx, save that it
seemed devoid of any mottling of veins. These stairs mounted to the
upper gallery, supported above the central grand apartment on a series
of pure white pillars, between which gleamed the exquisite forms of
sculptured figures and groups.

There was also a group done in some stone of a translucent white, at
the foot of each great stair. One, Croft noted, depicted a man and a
woman locked in each other's arms. The other showed a winged figure,
binding up the broken pinion of a bird. "Love" and "Mercy" he thought.
If this were a sample of the ideal of this people, they must be a
nation worth while.

So much he saw, and then Naia seated herself on a chair of a wine-red
wood, set beside a hedge of some unknown vegetation which enclosed a
splendid central space of the crystal floor.

Bazka had disappeared, but now came the sound of voices, and the
servants appeared, emerging from a passage beneath one of the stairs.
There were several members of both sexes in the group, and, like Bazka
himself, one and all wore no more than a purple apron about the thighs.
Croft was to learn in the end that the Palosians wore clothing more as
a protection against the elements than for any desire to conceal the
form; and with that fact he was to find them a highly moral people none
the less.

Now, though their apparel, or lack of it, was something of a shock
to his sense of conventions, as the men and women of the blue tribe
advanced to greet their mistress in her chair, and listen to those
directions she gave, he found himself wondering if they were slaves.
Indeed he so regarded them until he knew more of the planet to which he
had come. Then he knew slavery no longer existed among the Tamarizians,
and that the blue men and women were the children of former slaves
captured in wars, but now freed, given the rights of citizenship and
paid by those whom they served.

In the end Naia turned to one of the women and ordered her to go to a
cloth merchant and bid him attend her at once, with fabrics from which
to choose her gown. That done, she dismissed each to his or her task,
rose, and moved down the court. Croft followed as she went, mounted one
of the yellow stairs, and came out on the upper balcony, down which she
passed over an inlaid floor, beside walls frescoed with what he took to
be scenes of Palosian history and social life.

She paused at a door fashioned from the wine-red wood, set it open,
and entered an apartment plainly her own. Its walls were faced with
the same yellow stone used in the stairs. Purple draperies broke the
color here and there. Purple curtains hung beside two windows which
she set open, turning the casings on hinges, to let in the air. In the
center of the floor, which was covered with woven rugs and the skins of
various beasts, was a circular metal basin holding water in a shallow
pool. On one side was a pedestal of gold supporting a pure white
miniature of a winged male figure, poised on toes as if about to take
flight.

Beside the pool Naia paused as she turned from opening the window. Her
figure was reflected from the motionless surface. Croft recognized it
as a mirror in purpose, similar in all respects to those the ancient
Phoenicians used. For a time she stood gazing at the image of her
figure, then turned away to a chest, made of the wine-red wood, heavily
bound with burnished copper bands.

Beside the chest, the room held several chairs and stools, and a molded
copper couch covered with rich draperies.

Naia rummaged in the chest while Croft watched. She rose and turned
with a garment in her hands. Gossamer it was, fine, soft, sheer, a
cobweb of texture as she shook it out. It shimmered with an indefinable
play of colors, transparent as gauze. She lifted a hand and unfastened
the gown she wore from the heavy shoulder boss that held it in place.




                               CHAPTER V

                          PALOSIAN DIPLOMACY


Taken wholly by surprise, Croft caught one glimpse of a glowing,
pliant figure, cinctured just above the hips by a golden girdle. Then,
realizing that the maiden believed herself utterly alone, he turned to
the open window and incontinently fled.

Light as a thistle-down in his sublimated self he emerged into the full
Palosian day. Yet he quivered in his soul as with a chill. Naia of
Aphur, Princess of the Tamarizian nation, was a woman to stir the soul
of any man. And she was his--his! The thought blurred his senses as he
rushed forth. His? A second thought gave him pause. His indeed, yet no
more his now than always since their dual spirit had projected into the
material world and had been lost each to the other how many eons ago?
His--found now at last, yet unclaimable still! Unclaimable!

The thought was madness. Croft put it away--or tried. To distract
himself he wandered over the city of Himyra stretched red in the Sirian
ray. And as before he knew it vast. From the river it stretched in its
red and white collection of walls both ways. He visited each part,
finding it poorer and poorer as he wandered from the river to the walls
until inside them, at all parts, save where the main avenue by the
river reached the two principal gates, he found the poorest classes of
the people dwelling in huts of yellow-red brick.

Yet Himyra was a wonderful place. Croft visited the quays along the Na,
farthest from the gate, where he had entered with Prince Lakkon and his
daughter hours before. They swarmed with life, were lined with boats,
built principally of wood, though some were mere skin-covered coracles,
more than anything else. They lay by the stone loading platforms,
taking on or discharging the commerce of the Palosian world. Men, white
and blue, swarmed about them, tugging, sweating, straining at their
tasks, speaking a variety of tongues.

From the loading platforms on the lower levels tunnels ran up beneath
the terraces on the surface to reach the warehouses above where the
goods were stored. Within them, moving in metal-grooves braced to an
equal width by cross-bars fixed to the floors, small flat-topped cars
were drawn by whipcord-muscled creatures like giant dogs.

Croft followed one such team to a warehouse and watched the storing
of the load by a series of blue-skinned porters, under the captaincy
of a white Aphurian who marked each package and bale with a symbol
before it was carried away. This captain wore a tunic, metalwork cases
on his calves and sandals and a belt, from which depended a short,
broad-bladed sword. He had seen his counterpart on the quays as well
and was satisfied that Himyra had a very efficient system of officers
of the port.

From the warehouse he went toward an adjacent section, evidently the
retail mart of the town. Here were shops of every conceivable nature
open in front like those of some Oriental bazaar. At this hour of the
day business was brisk. More than one Palosian lady had come in a
gnuppa-drawn conveyance to see and choose her purchases for herself.
A steady current of life, motion and speech, ran through the section.
Blue attendants, male or female, as the chance fell out, walked with
these matrons of Palos, shielding their heads from the sun with
parasols woven of feathers, held above them on long handles, while they
examined, selected, and bought. Porters brought baskets of fruit and
flowers, bolts of cloth, strings of jewels to the metal-built carriages
behind returning women, and bowed their patrons away.

Suddenly the sound of a vast, mellow gong, a series of gongs, like an
old-time carillon rang out. The bustle of the market stopped. As by one
accord the people turned toward the vast pyramid beyond the river and
stood standing, gazing toward it.

It came over Croft that it was here the great chime had sounded--that
this midday cessation in the activities of life had something to
do with the religion of the nation. Driven by his will, he reached
the great structure where the topmost temple shone, dazzling in the
noontime light. He found himself on the vast level top of the pyramid
itself. Before him was the temple supported on a base, its doors
reached by a flight of stairs. It was pillared with monster monoliths,
crowned by huge capitals which supported the porticoed roof.

A sound as of chanting came from within. Croft mounted the stairs and
passed the doors and paused before the beauty of what he saw.

The temple was roofed with massive slabs of stone save in the exact
center, where an opening was left. Through that aperture the light of
the midday sun was falling to bathe a wonderful figure in its rays.

       *       *       *       *       *

The face of the statue was divine--the face of a man, superbly strong,
broad-browed, and with purity and strength writ in its every line.
The head and face were wrought in purest white as were the bared left
shoulder and arm. Below that the figure was portrayed as clad in gold,
which was also the material used in modeling the staff crowned by a
loop and cross-bar, grasped by the hand of the extended left arm. The
man was portrayed as seated on a massive throne. Now as the sun's rays
struck full upon it, it seemed that the strong face glowed with an
inward fire.

On either side of the statue stood a living man, shaven of head,
wearing long white robes which extended to their feet. Each held in
his hand a miniature replica of the stave held by the statue--a staff
crowned by a golden cross-bar and loop.

Croft started. This was the _crux ansata_ of the ancient Egyptians in
all outward form--the symbol of life everlasting, of man's immortality.
And he found it here on Palos on the top of a pyramid.

The chant he had heard was growing louder. It held a feminine timbre
to his ears. At the rear of the temple a curtain swept aside seemingly
of its own volition and a procession appeared. It was formed of young
girls--their hair garlanded with flowers, each carrying a flaming
blossom in her hand. They advanced, singing as they came, to form a
kneeling circle in front of the monster statue on its throne.

They were clad in purest white, unadorned from their rosy shoulders
to their dimpled knees save for a cincture of golden tissue which ran
about the neck, down between the breasts, back about the body, and
around to fasten in front like a sash with pendent ends, which hung in
a golden fringe to the edge of the knee-length skirt.

And as they advanced and knelt and rose and cast their offering of
flowers before the glowing statue, they continued to chant the harmony
which had first reached Croft's ear. In it the word Zitu recurred,
again and again. Zitu then was the name of the statue--the name of the
god. He listened intently and finally gained the purport of the hymn.

    "Zitu, hail Zitu!
    Father of all life!
    Who through thy angels
    Give life and withdraw it,
    Into our bodies--out of our bodies;
    God--the one god--
    Accept our praise."

The chant died and the singer turned back behind the curtain, which
swung shut as they passed. Croft left the temple and stood on the
top of its broad approach, gazing across the river at the vast white
structure which he had first seen at a distance that morning, and which
now stretched directly before his eyes. It came to him that this was
the capital of Aphur--the palace of that Jadgor--Prince Lakkon had
mentioned, brother of Naia's mother, as he was to learn. Bent on seeing
the man who aspired to Tamarizia's imperial throne at close quarters,
he willed himself toward the far-flung white pile.

It was built of stone he did not know, as he found when he came down to
the broad, paved esplanade before it. But the substance seemed to be
between a marble and an onyx, so nearly as he could judge. It stretched
for the best part of an earth-mile and housed the entire working force
of the Aphur government as he came to know in the following days.

Now, however, he gave more attention to his immediate surroundings--the
vast towers on either side of the monstrous entrance, heavy and
imposing and each flanked by guardian figures of what seemed winged
dogs, whose front legs supported webbed membranes from body to paw.

Croft passed between them through the entrance where flowed counter
streams of Palosians, on foot or dashing past in gnuppa-drawn chariots,
trundling on two wheels, and driven by men clad in cuirasses and belted
with short swords.

He entered a vast court, surrounded by colonnades, reached by sloping
inclines and stairs and paved with a dull red stone. Here stood more
of the chariots before the doors of this or that office of state. Blue
porters moved about it, sprinkling the pavement with cooling streams of
water from metal tanks strapped to their shoulders and fitted with a
curved nozzle and spraying device.

It made a splendid picture as the sun struck down on the red floor, the
gaily trapped gnuppas, the metal of the chariots and the flashing armor
on the bodies of those who rode them, or the men at arms who stood here
and there about the court, armed with sword and spear. This was the
heart of Aphur's life, Croft thought, gave it a glance, and set off in
quest of Aphur's king.

       *       *       *       *       *

He passed through vast chambers of audience, of council, or banqueting
and reception, as he judged from the furnishing of each place. He
passed other courts, marveling always at the blending of grace with
strength in the construction of the whole. Also, he marveled at the
richness of the draperies with which various rooms and doorways and
arches were hung. Much of it seemed to possess a metallic quality in
texture. It seemed like thin-spun gold. Yet it was everywhere about
the palace as he passed. Finally he paused. He was getting nowhere. He
decided there was but one means of attaining his desire. He put it into
force. He _willed_ himself into the presence of Jadgor without further
search.

Thereafter he was in a room, where, beside a huge wine-red table, two
men sat. The one was Prince Lakkon, whom he knew. The other was even
a larger man--heavy set, dark of complexion, with grizzled hair, and
a mouth held so tightly by habit that it gave the impression of lips
consciously compressed. His eyes were dark as those of a bird. His nose
high and somewhat bent at the middle of the bridge. The whole face
was that of a man of driving purpose, who would brook small hindrance
between himself and a predetermined goal.

Aside from that, however, there was little of the king about him
since he was clad simply in a loose, white tunic, out of which his
neck rose massive, below which his lower limbs showed corded with
muscle and strong. Plainly Jadgor was talking state business with his
brother-in-law at ease.

As Croft gained the room he struck the table at which he sat with
clenched fist. "Cathur must still guard the gateway with Aphur, Prince
Lakkon!" he cried. "Let Zollaria plan. Cathur's mountains make her
impregnable now as fifty years before. Had Mazhur been other than a
low-lying country she would have never fallen victim to Zollaria's
greed. But Cathur must be assured in her loyalty to the state."

"Her loyalty?" Prince Lakkon exclaimed. "What does Aphur's king mean?"

"What he says." Jadgor set his lips quite firmly. "Scythys is king--a
dotard! Kyphallos is what--a fop--a voluptuary, as you know--as all
Tamarizia knows. When he mounts the throne--as he doubtless will since
there seems none to oppose him--what will Zollaria do? Cathur, since
Mazhur was taken, stands alone--secure in her mountains, it is true,
but alone, none the less. And Cathur guards the western gate to the
inland sea.

"Fifty years ago Zollaria meant to take Cathur as well, and she failed.
The capture of Mazhur, save the territorial addition to her borders,
gave her nothing at which she aimed. True, she has now a seaport at
Niera, yet to what end? We hold the gate and the mouths to all rivers
opening into the sea. Yet has Zollaria ceased to prate of a freedom of
the seas? You know she has not. With Kyphallos on Cathur's throne, will
she seek to gain by craft what was denied to her arms?"

"But Kyphallos himself?" Lakkon objected as Jadgor paused.

"Kyphallos!" The heavy shoulders of Aphur's monarch shrugged. "List
ye Lakkon! Zollaria is strong. Cathur stands alone. Cathur guards
the gate. Aphur could not hold it alone. Think you our foemen to the
north have ceased of their ambition or to plan or prepare, while
Tamarizia wounded by Mazhur's loss, has licked her wounds for fifty
years--and what now? Tamhys--Zitu knows I mean no unjust criticism of
a nobleman--is one who believes in peace. So, too, do I, if peace can
be enjoyed without the sacrifice of the innate right of man to regulate
his own ways of life. Yet were I on the throne at Zitra, do you think
I would ignore the possible peril to the north? No! I would prepare to
meet move by move should the occasion arise."

"And your first step?" Lakkon asked.

"To make sure of Cathur," Jadgor said.

"How?"

       *       *       *       *       *

Jadgor leaned toward his companion before he replied. "I would take a
lesson from Zollaria herself. Lakkon, we have lived--each state too
much in itself. Tamarizia is a loosely held collection of states,
each ruled by what--a nominal king and a state assembly? And those
assemblies in turn elect the central ruler--the emperor of the
nation--to serve for ten Palosian cycles.

"Zollaria is what? A nation ruled by one man and a cycle of
advisors, whose word is ultimate law. How was that brought about? By
intermarriage--by making the governing house of Zollaria one, bound
wholly together by a common interest without regard to anything else
save that. Hence, let us make the interests of Aphur and Cathur one,
and let us not delay."

"By intermarriage?"

"Aye. With the right princess on Cathur's throne Kyphallos might be
swayed, and certainly nothing would transpire without our gaining word."

"You have such an one in mind?" Lakkon asked.

"Aye. I plan not so vaguely, Lakkon. I would give him the fairest maid
of Aphur to wife. It would require such to hold a man of his type.
Do you know that inside the last cycle he has been seen frequently at
Niera, mingling with the Zollarian nobles who come to summer there?"

"So I have heard rumored." Prince Lakkon inclined his head. "But this
woman?"

"Your daughter Naia," Jadgor declared.

"Naia! Your sister's own child!" Prince Lakkon half rose from his chair.

"Hilka!" Jadgor waved him back. "Stop Lakkon! She is beautiful as Ga,
the mother of Azil. It is because of her Kyphallos comes to Himyra
now. I, Jadgor of Aphur, sent him the invitation with this in mind for
Tamarizia's good. The betrothal must be agreed upon before he returns.
Lakkon, I speak as your king."

Prince Lakkon's face seemed to Croft to age, to grow drawn and somewhat
pale as he bowed to his king's command. He looked to Croft, indeed,
as Jason knew he himself felt. Never had he seen Prince Kyphallos of
Cathur, yet he had heard him mentioned that morning in Lakkon's coach.
He had heard Naia's soft lips utter sincere disgust of the lecherous
young noble.

Now Naia--the woman he himself loved--was planned a sacrifice to policy
of state. Every atom of his soul cried out in revolt--"not that--not
that." He might not win her himself, as he very well knew. Yet he had
seen her--known her, loved her. A sick loathing evoked by Jadgor's plan
waked in his soul. The thought of her surrender to the foul embrace
of the northern prince roused within him a rebellion so vast that his
senses whirled.

Lakkon rose slowly. His features were dull and his voice a monotone of
feeling too deep for an accent of expression.

"King of Aphur, I shall inform the maid that she is chosen a
sacrifice," he said. "I know her mind. She loathes this Prince of
Cathur in her heart."

"Yet other women have sacrificed themselves to their nation in
Tamarizia's history," Jadgor replied.

"I shall place the matter before her in that light," Lakkon informed
him, and turned to leave the room.

Croft left, too, flitting out of the palace and once more taking up his
own purposeless wandering about the town. Naia, Naia, Naia, his soul
cried out within him! Naia, mate of his spirit!--sweet, pure maid of
gold. Would that he had a body here on the planet of Palos! He would
fight this monstrous step, he told himself, to the death! He would
seize this golden girl and bear her away--somewhere--anywhere, beyond
the reach, the touch of the satyr Prince of Cathur. He would prevent
this intended sacrifice of all that was holy in human existence--or die
in the attempt!

Here and there he made his way among the life of Himyra, torn by an
agony of thought. Dimly he saw where he went--through the stables of
the mighty caravans full of the ungainly sarpelcas--through what seemed
a market of cattle, where were droves of the long-haired taburs and
herds of other creatures like monster sheep save that they had huge
pendulous udders, evidently the source of the nation's supply of milk.

He noted these things without being fully aware of the fact at the
time. Only later did he recall them as objects beheld before. In a
similar fashion he came upon the barracks of troops guarding the
various gates in the great wall, entered them, passed through them,
found Himyra's weapons no more than strong bows and swords and spears,
her soldiery, sturdy looking fellows clad in leathern tunics.

Yet not for one instant did the tumult in his senses cease as he passed
from scene to scene. Always was the thought of Naia with him. Always
was his spirit hot in revolt against the plan of Aphur's king. And so
in the end thoughts of Naia seemed to draw him back in a circuit to
Lakkon's palace where was the girl herself.

He reached it and paused outside its doors. They were open. The
copper-hued chariot drawn by the four plumed gnuppas stood before them,
with Chythron back of the reins.

Bazka, too, stood between the open leaves of the portal, and across
the crystal pavement, leading to them, Lakkon was leading Naia toward
the coach.

While Jason watched, Aphur's prince and his daughter entered the
conveyance and the great doors closed. Chythron spoke to the gnuppas
and they sprang into their stride. Quite as he had done that morning
Croft entered the carriage and crouched on the padded cushion where
Naia already reclined. Where they were going, he did not know. Nor did
he care, so long as she lay there before his eyes.




                              CHAPTER VI

                           A VIRGIN'S PRAYER


For a time as they turned toward the city gate, which they had entered
that morning, silence held between Prince Lakkon and his child.

Lakkon broke it himself at last. "All is arranged as you thought best,
my Naia?" he inquired.

"Aye, my father." She turned her eyes. "The messengers have departed to
the mountains for the snows; the servants are cleaning. I have ordered
the tables set in the crystal court, inside the hedge, and I have
arranged for a band of dancers and musicians on the appointed day."

"And the robe. You did not forget the new robe?" Lakkon smiled.

Naia shook her head, her eyes dancing. "I am a woman," she replied.
"The makers came at my summons to take my measure. It will be ready on
the seventh day from this."

"That is well," Prince Lakkon said. But he sighed.

And suddenly Naia's face lost its light and grew sweetly brooding. She
stretched out a rounded arm and touched him on the breast. "You are
tired, my father," she spoke in almost crooning fashion, edging nearer
to him. "The day with Uncle Jadgor has left you weary."

"Aye, somewhat," Lakkon confessed. With a swift, yet powerful gesture,
he reached out and swept her into his arms, drawing her against his
massive chest and sinking his cheek to touch her golden hair. "Naia, my
daughter, thou knowest that I love you well," he said.

Croft quivered in his being. It seemed to him he was looking into
Lakkon's heart and reading there all his lips held back--the fatherly
love, the fatherly pain, attendant on that scene in Jadgor's apartment,
where he had spent much of the day. It was that, he felt, inspired
that sudden, almost hungry clasping of the girl's supple figure to the
father's breast--that almost plaintive cry for her assurance of her
faith in his love.

But Naia seemed not to sense any deeper reason than the mere love
between them expressed. Her red lips parted, and she laughed softly as
she lay against him, lifting a hand to his gray-shot hair. "Know that
you love me?" she repeated. "Think you I could doubt it? Did you not
give me my life? Do we not love what we create--so long as it comes
from ourselves?" She nestled her head in the hollow of his corded neck.

Above that gold-crowned head the man's face worked. "We were happy the
day of thy birth, thy mother and I," he said.

And now it seemed that at last the woman sensed some trouble
unexpressed in the mind of the man. Very gently she released herself
and sat up on the padded cushion. Her almost purple eyes looked full
into those of her parent. "Concerning what did you speak with Uncle
Jadgor today?"

"Concerning thee." Lakkon met the issue fairly now that it confronted
him at last.

"Concerning me?" To Croft every line of Naia's figure stiffened.

"Aye." Prince Lakkon sat up. He spoke swiftly, briefly, and paused. Yet
ere he paused he had fully outlined all King Jadgor planned.

And while he spoke the eyes of the woman widened swiftly, as the iris
stretched to leave her pupils deep wells of horror.

Then as Lakkon finished speaking she cried out: "No!" in swift
instinctive protest, and lifted herself upon her pink bent knees to
poise so an instant before she flung herself once more upon her
father's breast. "No!" she cried again, clinging to him. "No, no! Not
that--not that! Father, unsay it! Give me not to that beast!"

"Hush!" Prince Lakkon stayed her. "Chythron will hear your outcry."

"Chythron!" she exclaimed. "Not Chythron but all Aphur--all Tamarizia
shall hear my outcry against what Jadgor intends--every woman in the
nation shall give thanks to Azil and Ga, that she stands not in my
place."

"Naia." Her father spoke in a voice not wholly steady.

"Would you profane a shrine, sully a temple, defile a sacred thing?"
she flared. "Is a virgin's body a thing to be bartered and sold in
Aphur? Does my uncle regard me as a shameless creature who sells
herself for a price? Azil and his holy mother would veil their faces
from such marriage rites."

"Think not I wish it," her father said. "Yet can I not deny the truth
of Jadgor's words, or that the union of the houses of the two states
would work for Tamarizia's great good."

Naia was panting. "Tamarizia's?" she faltered now.

"Aye, did you not comprehend what I said concerning the welfare of our
nation?" Lakkon asked.

She shook her head. "I--I think horror must have dulled my
understanding," she said. "Explain to me again."

Long since they had left the city gates and were following a well-built
road which led off toward those mountains where Croft had first stood
and viewed the Palosian landscape in the light of this waning day. As
he reached the end of his second exposition of the facts, Prince Lakkon
turned and suddenly swept aside the purple curtain which draped the
side of the coach. He flung out an arm and pointed straight to where
the dull red walls of Himyra still shone in the afternoon rays.

"Behold Himyra, jewel on the breast of Aphur," he cried. "There she
lies. Think you I would have given ear to Jadgor's plans save for that?
Think you I would send you flesh of my loins to such a union save for
the good of unborn souls to come? Think you were it not for Himyra,
Aphur, Tamarizia herself, I would have bowed my head to the words of
Aphur's king? Nay. If so, you are wrong. But for Tamarizia and that
glory and honor which are hers and have been for a thousand cycles of
our sun, a true son of the nation must sink all thoughts of self, must
live, if by living he can serve, or should it serve better, must--die!"

       *       *       *       *       *

Despite himself, Croft thrilled at the words, such as only a true
patriot might speak in such tones of fire--tones which quivered and
pulsed with emotion, one might not deny. In spite of his own sorry
rebellion of spirit, echoed, as he now knew, in the soul of the gentle
girl before him, some feeling akin to pity for this royal father of
hers, crept through his mind. Prince Lakkon was a man torn between
parental love and the love of his nation--destined, as it seemed, to
suffer, no matter how this thing fell out.

And while he spoke, the girl, his child, flesh of his flesh, crept
to his side, to kneel and gaze out at the distant walls of the city
she knew as her own. Her expression changed. Some of the indefinable
quality of girlhood seemed to fall from her and expose the deeper,
firmer woman's nature, as though a veil had been torn aside.

"And I must live for her--with--Kyphallos?" she whispered tensely as
Lakkon once more paused.

"If you can win him--hold him--sway him--with Jadgor on the throne at
Zitra you will have made Tamarizia strong."

"I--will have made--Tamarizia--strong."

O girl of gold! Croft's heart cried out as he caught her scanning
speech. O wonderful woman--so true to womanhood--so true now to the
spirit of ultimate woman, ultimate sacrifice through which attribute
of woman comes life itself! Unseen, unknown to her or the man who rode
beside her, Croft approached and bent above her in that moment of
struggle and decision. For, as she turned her eyes back to the interior
of the coach, Croft knew she had decided, and that in deciding she had
chosen the path which led against every personal impulse of her own
clean spirit.

"What am I against Tamarizia?" she said.

"You are my daughter and I love thee," said Lakkon, Aphur's prince.

"I know." Naia crept to him and laid herself in his arms. "I know,"
she murmured after a time of silence.

Lakkon's arms tightened about her as the coach swung along. Her arm
crept up and stole about his neck. Silence came down again save for the
patter of the gnuppa's feet on the stone surface of the highway which
had now left the plain and begun to scale the mountainside.

Crouched invisible, Croft turned his gaze from the man and woman to
stare out between the fluttering curtains.

The road came to an end in a mountain valley, open toward the east and
so unveiled a fresh scene of beauty to Jason's eyes.

Here was a country palace, gleaming white above a series of terraced
gardens which rose from the shores of a tiny mountain lake. Toward it
Chythron guided his steeds along a private drive which branched off
from the highway they had traversed thus far.

As though the turning had been a signal, Naia loosened the embrace
which held her and sat up, still without speaking, before Chythron
brought his team to a stand.

Then, as in the morning, Prince Lakkon helped her to descend and moved
beside her up a low, broad flight of steps to reach the portals of
their home.

       *       *       *       *       *

At their heels Croft followed on. His eyes swept the scope of the
valley so far as he could mark it from the steps. Groups of the
woolly, sheep-like cattle he had seen in Himyra fed in the lush grass
of mountain meadows. Cultivated fields stretched out before his eyes.
At the top of the steps he turned briefly and looked off to the east.
There his eyes caught the glint of distant sun-kissed water--the
Central Sea, of which Prince Lakkon had spoken, he now believed.

Then the portals before which Lakkon and Naia stood swung open, and
once more a blue native appeared. Beside him was a monster beast,
similar in all respects to those Croft had seen harnessed to the tiny
trams in the cargo tunnels. It marked the advent of Lakkon and Naia
with a slow wagging of its tail, and, suddenly rearing, laid its huge
front paws, one on each of the girl's shoulders.

She spoke to the creature softly, and when it dropped back, at her
command, she patted its head. Then turning to the man of Mazzer, who
stood waiting, she proferred a command: "I am going to my apartments,
Miltos; send Maia to me there."

"You will attend me later--over our evening viands?" her father asked.

"Aye, presently," she returned as she moved toward a stair at one
end of the entrance court, which, in a smaller way, was not unlike
Prince Lakkon's Himyra palace, save that here its pavement was laid
in alternate squares of pale yellow and dull red. The treads of the
stairway, also, were of yellow and red, as Croft saw while mounting,
and the pillars which supported the balcony were yellow, while the
balcony itself was red. Here, too, as in the city, a group of white
sculpture stood at the foot of the stair. It depicted a very Hercules
of a man throttling a creature not far unlike a tiger, while behind him
crouched a woman, holding a tiny figure of a child.

All this he saw as Naia ascended without pause, reached a door, guarded
by a heavy golden curtain, swept it aside and entered into her own room.

Here, as in Himyra, Croft found couch and chairs, and windows, the
mirror basin, the pedestal, and the winged figure poised as though for
flight.

Once more the golden curtain was drawn back and a young Mazzer woman
appeared.

Naia turned. "Maia, how is the pool?"

"It should be delightful, princess," the blue girl replied. "All this
day Zitu warmed it with his light."

Naia tapped with her foot. "Procure fresh raiment and bring it
thither," she said. "The ride was tiresome and I will bathe."

Five minutes later, accompanied by Maia, who bore fresh robes, she
left the room and led the way to one end of the corridor and through
a small door to an outer stair. Descending that she passed through a
sort of sunken garden, laid out in odd geometric designs and planted
with shrubs and trees and flowers, among which gleamed the white of
ornamental urns, fire-urns, and statues toward a low, white wall in
which an opening appeared. Passing this, she turned about the angle
of a protecting inner stone screen and stood on the margin of an open
bath, its water clear as crystal and tinted a delicate amber from the
yellow bottom and sides of the peculiar onyxlike stone.

Naia bathed. Refusing to spy upon her, Croft waited without the
concealing wall, while twilight fell and the sounds of soft splashings
came to his ear. The bath took a long time. Croft fancied the girl
found some vague comfort in the soft, warm kiss of the waters tempered
all day by the sun--that to lie wrapped in their liquid caress soothed
somewhat her spirit, torn by the revelations her recent journey had
held. While he waited twilight deepened, and after a time a softer
light stole through the garden.

He lifted his gaze to the skies. Three moons hung there, casting their
blended light over mountain and valley and plain. Vaguely he wondered
which of the three he had visited during the night before--that night
with its weird experience, ending on the edge of this day which, after
all, had been but little less weird--this day in which he had found and
recognized and yielded to the one feminine counterpart of his nature,
only to find her destined to another less worthy than himself, and to
know himself unable to intervene between her and her fate.

       *       *       *       *       *

While he sat there brooding the whole strange situation--a man in all
save material body--a consciousness, suffering all the pangs of spirit
he was unable to physically express, Naia came forth and moved with her
accompanying servant, a pure, white figure, through the garden to the
house.

Like her shadow, Croft pursued her every step. He stood beside her
while she sat waiting for the evening meal. He was behind her when she
reclined on the couch beside the table, opposite her father, and ate.
He dogged her steps when she once more sought the quiet of her room,
and bade Maia leave her for the night.

Hence he witnessed what no other eyes beheld as the flaring oil-lamp,
with its guttering wick little better than a candle extinguished, and
the apartment flooded only by the light of the Palosian moons, she
knelt by the mirror basin, before the winged figure on the wine-red
pedestal.

And he heard what no other ears save her own could hear as she lifted
her hands to the figure, before which she knelt--the cry of her
soul--her womanhood's suppliant prayer.

"O, Azil, Giver of Life, must this be forced upon me? O Ga, Mother of
Azil--thou virgin woman, whom Zitu ordained the one to give an angel
life, that he might speak to men of Zitu himself and teach them how to
live, do thou intercede for me! Thou knowest woman guards the sacred
flame, which is life itself; so that it burns clear and never ceasing.
Must that flame in me be fouled? Ga the Mother, Azil the Son--Azil the
Angel--hear ye my prayer!"

She ceased and knelt on, silent, with hands clasped and lovely head
bowed down.

And once more it seemed to Croft that his senses went spinning,
eddying, whirling around. Azil the Giver of Life. Ga the mother of Azil
the Son. A Virgin and a Child. And Zitu the father--God. She prayed to
them.

This was the Palosian religion, at least, in part. Strange analogy
to the earth-creed Croft found it--to the creed in which he had been
raised. Zitu was the one creative source here as elsewhere, no matter
by what name called--the source to which the projected atoms of its
thought looked back, to whom they lifted their voices in praise or
prayer.

What did it matter whether on earth or Palos, life was then the same,
and the source was one place as another, all-embracing, universal,
always the same? And Azil the Angel of Life was what? A Messianic
spirit, surely, which had come to speak to the human atoms and tell
them of the source. What else? And Ga--the medium, through which spirit
was translated into matter--the eternal woman, through whom Life came
to the incarnated man.

And to these, this maid--this other woman who had pledged herself as a
sacrifice for her nation, prayed. Alone here before the pedestal shrine
of Azil, Son of Zitu, she knelt and asked that the cup she had promised
to drink might be divinely removed from her lips since all human hope
of such a removal seemed to have died in so far as she could know.

Should that prayer go unheeded or unheard? Could the pure cry of a
clean spirit fail to reach the listening ears of the source?

No! Croft's spirit cried the word to his soul. No, no! A thousand times
no! Somehow, some way, he knew not how that prayer must be heard and
answered. He tore himself free from the spell of the kneeling figure,
and with no definite purpose in his going save to remove himself from
a privacy he felt he must no longer intrude, went blindly out of the
room.




                              CHAPTER VII

                        KYPHALLOS AND KALAMITA


Yet once outside the mountain villa, Croft knew where he wanted to
go. It was back to Himyra--back to the palace of Lakkon itself--to be
alone with his thoughts. To that point, therefore, he once more willed
himself.

The city swam beneath him. The yellow Na sparkled and glinted in the
flickering gleams of the fire basins lighted along the embankments
as they leaped and flared. Other fires flashed out in various of
the public squares. And here the population met for their hours of
relaxation. Here groups of wandering musicians played on reed and harp
and horn as the gaily decked crowds filed by. Here mountebanks plied
their stock of tricks, and acrobats proved their supple agility and
strength. Over it all the three moons of Palos poured a silvery light
as Croft flitted past.

Then he was at the palace of Lakkon, finding still open, a window of
Naia's own room, and so at length the place he sought. The moonlight
filtered in. It fell in a broad bank, which struck across the pure
white figure of Azil with its outstretched wings.

Through a long moment Croft stood gazing at the statue, bathed in the
light of the moons. Then, without removing his eyes, he found the couch
and sat down upon it, and thought, still staring at Azil--the material
symbol of that spirit to whom the girl, the aura of whose presence
pervaded this room, had prayed.

And, after a time, out of all his agony of spirit, his tumult of
thought, his rebellion at what was proposed for the girl's fate, the
sick knowledge of his own futility to aid her, there came to him a
prompting impulse as to his future course. To what end he did not know.
In his present state he could do nothing and knew it--had raged at the
knowledge ever since he had seen Naia of Aphur on her way to this room,
where he now sat.

Yet despite the acknowledged fact of impotency, something seemed to
urge him to go on, to learn all he might of Palos and its people, of
Tamarizia and its history, its manners and customs, its government and
laws, and more particularly the true state of things in Cathur and the
truth concerning Kyphallos, son of Cathur's king.

To Cathur then would he go, Croft decided, while he sat there staring
at Azil, the Angel of Life. And Cathur, he judged, lay toward the north
since Jadgor had spoken of the state of Nodhur as lying beyond Aphur on
the Na. Hence he willed his spirit in projection without further delay.

Thereafter followed a week in which Jason Croft, disembodied spirit,
learned much concerning the nation and the country to which he had
dared venture across millions of miles of space.

He found Cathur, a mountainous state lying to the north of a wide
mountain walled strait. He found Scira, its capital city, not unlike
Himyra save that it was built of an odd blue stone quarried from the
mountains which ribbed the state in all directions. There was white
stone, too, used in the governmental palace, and also in a splendid
collection of buildings lying on a small plateau above the city proper.
This was the National University of Tamarizia, as Jason quickly
learned, once he was inside its walls. Endowed as he was with the
peculiar ability of reading the words of the people by reason of his
sublimated state, he found this school a wonderful means of quickly
gaining all knowledge of the nation which he desired to know.

He literally went to school, an unknown scholar who listened to the
recitation of classes and the lectures of grave professorial men clad
in long robes of spotless white. Geography held his interest mainly at
first. He learned that Tamarizia lay upon a continent holding itself
completely surrounded save for the narrow strait, a vast central sea,
studded here and there with islands, the major of which, Hiranur, some
fifty miles long by twenty wide, was the seat of the imperial throne
at the city of Zitra, of which Jadgor had made mention before. The
Tamarizian states bordered this central ocean--or had done so before
the Zollarian war had wrested Mazhur, on the extreme north shore, from
the original group of states.

East of Mazhur lay Bithur. South of that was Milidhur, completing the
eastern side of the Central Sea. Aphur joined Milidhur on the west--its
name literally meaning "the state to the west," and south of Milidhur
and Aphur was Nodhur, gaining outlet for its commerce by means of the
river Na.

Cathur lay west of Mazhur, north of the strait, to the outer
ocean, completing the circle. Its name might be translated as the
battle-ground, which, in fact, it was, Zollaria having more than once
sought to conquer it and lost because of the nature of its mountainous
terrain. Having learned so much, he could readily see wherein the
possession of this state would give Zollaria the freedom of the seas,
which she desired, and a joint control of the entire Central Sea.

From geography he turned to sociology and science. He found out quickly
that the Tamarizians used a metric system, numbering their population
by tens and dividing the national census on the basis of thousands
and tens of thousands, each thousand unit having a captain and each
ten thousand a local governor. Their day was twenty-seven hours long,
their year longer than that of earth, but divided into twelve periods
or months, each in their belief ruled over by an angel designated by a
symbolic sign.

They believed in the immortality of the soul, as he had learned the
first day. They believed in the resurrection of the dead. They used
a system of social castes, to which the naturalized descendants of
the Mazzerian nations belonged, being purely a caste of the lowest or
serving type. The trades of fathers descended to sons, instruction in
crafts and arts being largely by word of mouth alone. They had a bard
or minstrel caste, a caste of dancers wholly female in its circle.

A Palosian year was called a cycle, a day a sun, a month a Zitran--or
period set by Zitu, the national God. There was a priesthood and a
vestal order of women. Also, there was an order of knighthood, to which
belonged men of noble blood or those raised to it by kingly decree
for some signal accomplishment in the arts or sciences or some other
service to the state.

       *       *       *       *       *

The royal house of each state was hereditary, but governed jointly
with a state assembly elected by the vote of each ten thousand unit of
population, each unit selecting a state delegate to the assembly. The
imperial throne was filled by the choice of the states, as he had once
before heard Jadgor, of Aphur, say.

Agriculture was highly held and greatly specialized. Metal working
was a very advanced science, as he had already guessed. Copper was
abundant, and the Tamarizians held the secret of tempering the metal,
now unknown on earth. Of it they made their weapons and most of their
public structural metal, including their carriages and chariots and
all conveyances of a finer sort. Gold was plentiful, too. But silver
and lead were rare and held in high esteem. Steam and electricity were
unknown in their application, as Croft had already seen.

They had reached a high plane in art, sculpture and weaving. He
discovered that the golden cloth was actually gold spun into threads
and mixed with a vegetable fiber to form warp and wool. There was also
a medical caste, somewhat crude, but seemingly efficient, so far as he
could learn, and attached to it a female or nursing caste, consisting
wholly again of women, who entered it from choice. In fact, women, as
he came to see, held a prominent place in the nation. They held the
right of suffrage. Their citizenship was coequal with their men. They
sat in the class-rooms of the university, as he actually saw, and even
took part in public ceremonials and competed in the public games.

All in all, before his week at Scira was past, he had come to
understand that Tamarizia was a very democratic nation despite its
form of royal rulership, and that the emperor of Zitra was little more
than a relic of old-time government, with little more power than a
republican president.

And that, like most republics, the nation had grown weak in the pursuit
of the profession arms, he had to admit that Jadgor was right. Each
city had a sort of civic guard--each unit of ten thousand possessed a
military police. There was an imperial guard at Zitra of possibly five
hundred men. Civic guards, imperial guards and police, the national
maximum force none too well armed or trained would not be judged as
aggregating over fifty thousand effective men.

To the north of Tamarizia lay Zollaria, her western shore line that
of the great or outer ocean. Like Tamarizia, Zollaria was a nation of
whites, differing, however, in their national regime and their physical
appearance to no small degree. As Jadgor had said to Lakkon, theirs was
a rule of absolutism, first and last, with the governing class distinct
from the common people in each detail of their life.

Larger than Tamarizia, Zollaria looked with envy on the position of the
country to the south. Fifty years before she had sought to change it
and failed. Yet Jadgor was assured she had not laid aside her ambition,
and Croft was inclined to agree.

The Zollarians themselves were a light-haired race, to a great extent,
heavily built, strong, virile, sturdy, many of them blue-eyed, except
in the southern part of the nation, where they approached more nearly
to the Tamarizian type.

East of Tamarizia and south of Zollaria, in the hinterland of the
continent on which the three nations lived, was the half-savage tribe
of Mazzer, the blue men, inhabiting a region consisting mainly of
semitropic forests and plains, living largely by hunting and the
exporting of skins and dried meats and natural fruits, together with
a variety of cheese. In these articles they maintained commerce with
Zollaria and Tamarizia, along their adjoining borders, and had done so
for years. Commerce was entirely by water in such boats as Croft had
seen on the Na, and by means of the sarpelca caravans across stretches
of desert to regions not approachable by the streams.

That week in school proved a rather peculiar experience to Croft. He
came to feel actually at home in Scira. Without being seen or known he
came to know the youths of the various classes.

And to one in particular he gave special note. He was a wonderful
man in so far as physique was concerned. He stood a good six feet in
height and was built in perfect proportion. In the games and sports he
always excelled because of his splendid strength. And there he ceased.
Mentally he was not the equal of those with whom he strove.

Nature seemed to have left her task uncompleted so far as Jasor was
concerned. That was his name--Jasor, from Nodhur, the state to the
south of Aphur as Croft learned by degrees. He was a lovable young
man, mild-mannered, friendly and kind. But he was rated in his studies
with youths two years his juniors and appeared unable to do more than
maintain his standing with them. Watching him, Croft felt both pity
and interest develop through the course of the seven days wherein he
himself acquired so great an understanding of Palosian life.

It seemed a pity to Croft that one so splendidly endowed with physical
perfection should be so mentally weak. He rather followed young Jasor
about and discovered to his pleasure that although seemingly well
provided with means the youth was naturally of a cleanly life. More
than that, through association with him, he came to know that Jasor
felt his position acutely, and was brooding over his own mental
capacity to an unwise degree.

       *       *       *       *       *

Throughout his stay in Cathur, however, Croft did not lose sight of his
main object in coming to the northern state. He had come to find and
judge Kyphallos for himself, and he attended to that, not the first
night, as he had intended, but the next night after that. There was a
reason for the delay. Kyphallos was not in Scira when Croft came to the
capital of Cathur. Jason managed to see Scythys the king. He found him
in a splendid room clad in a loose robe of scarlet, a senile husk of
a once massive man, with a look of vague trouble in his half-blinded
cataract-filmed eyes. But of Kyphallos the son there was no sign.

Only by chance remarks was Croft able to learn the whereabouts of the
prince. By such means he finally learned of a second palace maintained
on an island in the Central Sea, off the coast of Cathur, not far from
the border of the former Tamarizian state of Mazhur. The island was
known as Anthra, was a part of the state of Cathur, and a favorite
retreat with the crown prince.

To Anthra on the second night Croft went. And on Anthra he plunged
into such a scene as he had not met in Tamarizia as yet. Heretofore
he had been struck with the mild beauty of Palosian life, with a sort
of personal dignity which seemed to pervade the nation, despite the
magnificence of their public structures and the undoubted wealth of the
state.

Not but what, being human, there was a percentage of criminality in
the social life. Such things, as among other races, were known and
recognized, but he had found it here regulated to a surprising extent.

On Anthra, he came into an atmosphere the antithesis of this, combined
with a degree of voluptuous luxury, cradled in a setting of utter
magnificence.

He came upon a saturnalia of pleasure. He could liken it to nothing
else. A feast was in progress in the palace Kyphallos had made the
scene of his private debauches for years.

Above an artificial harbor as calm as glass, the palace rose an
imposing pile. At the quays of the harbor their colored sails picked
out by flaming fire-urns, their gilded hulls set asparkle in the
flicker of the light-giving flames, lay a number of elaborate pleasure
craft more like gold and copper galleys than anything else.

Steps led up from the stone quays to the palace proper, giving on a
wide expanse of crystal flagging, under a heavy portico supported by
pillars of lemon-yellow stone. And beyond this through wide airy arches
was the main court, in the center of which was a pool of limpid water,
some fifty feet long, by as many wide.

Like the other Palosian palaces this central court was the main
gathering place of the inmates and guests. On Anthra the structure
was flagged in a pale-green stone. The pillars supporting the balcony
about it were lemon-yellow, and the stairways at either end of a clear
translucent blue. Innumerable oil-lamps lighted it this night, and
about one corner of the central pool were arranged the tables for the
feast.

Here Croft found the man he sought, reclining on a padded divan, his
too full red lips slightly parted in a bibulous smile, his long hair
curled and anointed and perfumed till he reeked of aromatic scents;
his well-formed hands loaded with rings, his body clad in a crimson
garment, embroidered in gold.

Beside him, lying outstretched like some splendid creature of the
jungle as it came to Croft, was a woman; tawny as a lioness in the tint
of her hair and heavy-lidded eyes, lithe as a lioness, too, in every
sensuous line of her body, well-nigh unclothed.

Her sandalless feet were stained on the soles with crimson. Anklets
gripped her lower limbs, and tinkled tiny golden bells as she moved.
Bracelets banded her graceful naked arms. Gem-incrusted cups, fastened
by jeweled bands covered in part her breasts. A bit of gold gauze,
studded with bright red stones, accentuated rather than veiled the rest
of her perfect figure from waist to the bend of her knees. She lay
there close to Kyphallos and after a bit she lifted a golden goblet and
pressed it to his lips and laughed.

Beyond her was a man, Croft marked at a glance. He was heavy, gross;
yet gave an impression of mighty strength in the size of his hairy
arms, the pillars of his mighty limbs, the breadth of his shoulder and
chest. And he, too, was tawny haired.

And on the other side of Kyphallos was a figure to give Croft pause.
A blue warrior sat there; but surely no member of the serving class,
Jason thought. This man was never made to serve. His were the features
of one who commands, strong, firm-lipped, high-cheeked, with almost
a somnolent sneer in the expression of his mouth and the glint of his
eyes as he turned them on Kyphallos and the woman by his side. This was
some Mazzerian chief--here in the palace of Cathur's prince. Who then
were the tawny woman and man, Croft asked himself, and found he was
soon to know.

For as the woman laughed Kyphallos spoke. "Your laughter is music
better than any I can offer, my Kalamita. Since first I heard it in
Niera, the time I met you there with your brother, Bandhor, I have
longed to hear it more. Your graciousness in coming to this farewell
feast, ere I sail for Aphur, burdens me with debt. Yet were I loath to
have sailed without a final sight of you--a parting word. And I have
provided such entertainment as I might."

"As you do always, Prince of Aphur," his companion responded. "Is it
not true, Bandhor, my brother, that we are honored to be present when
Cathur desires?"

"Aye. Wine, food, music, and women. What more can a man desire?"
the massive individual at whom she smiled over her rounded shoulder
replied. "When Cathur returns, he must come to our house at Niera as he
has done before. There are others of Zollaria I desire him to meet, as
well as other men of Mazzer, besides the noble Bazd, whom we made bold
to bring with us tonight."

       *       *       *       *       *

As he finished the blue man smiled, and Kyphallos picking up his own
goblet of wine passed it to the Mazzerian with a languid grace. "Thy
friends are my friends, O Bandhor of Zollaria!" he exclaimed, and
bending close to the face of the girl said: "Shall I come when I return
from Aphur?"

And as he gazed upon her the heavy lids slowly contracted until her
eyes narrowed to slits. Then they shot up, fully open, and she flashed
him a smile. "Aye, my Kyphallos, unless you desire me to suffer, come
when you return."

Kyphallos took back the cup from which Bazd, the Mazzerian, had drunk
and drained it at a gulp. "I shall come," he shouted and clapped his
hands. "Let the entertainment begin!"

After that Croft could only watch and marvel at what he beheld. A sound
of harps burst forth. Golden and scarlet curtains drew apart at one
end of the immense court. He caught a glimpse of moving figures behind
them, and then--fifty dancing girls broke forth.

Swaying, posturing, gesturing they moved down the hall toward the
tables. At first they were clothed. But as they advanced they dropped
veil after veil from their posturing bodies, until they gleamed white
and pink swinging figures, caught in the eddies of the dance. Closer
and closer they came. They reached the tables themselves. They sprang
upon them. They danced among the remnants of the feast. The hands
of the guests--other companions of Cathur's prince, reached toward
them--sought to capture them and draw them down upon the divans.

And then the music ceased. Crying aloud the dancers leaped from the
table into the pool. Like nymphs they swam across it and disappeared
behind a curtain of flowers and shrubs at the farther end. Yet in a
moment they were back, dragging what looked like a monster shell in
which sat the figure of an aged man, carrying yet another shell in his
hand, and wearing a long green robe.

This they launched in the pool, and seizing ropes fastened to it they
swam back toward the tables towing it along. At the corner of the pool
they clustered on each side, while the aged passenger rose and stepped
to land.

Kyphallos rose, too. "Hail Kronhor--Ruler of the Seas!" he exclaimed.
"I am about to entrust myself to your domain for a journey to the
south. What fare may I expect?"

"Good, O Prince of Cathur," the aged one returned. "I shall instruct
all handmaids to wait upon you and steer your ship in safety, even as
they have brought me into your presence tonight."

Kyphallos filled a goblet with wine and held it out.

He who played Kronhor took it.

"Drink!" the Cathurian cried. "Cathur does honor to Kronhor--thus."

Kalamita sprang to her feet. She filled other goblets, swiftly
motioning the others about the tables to do the same. "Drink!" her
voice rang out. "Drink to Kronhor. Drink to Kyphallos and the safety of
his voyage."

The toast was drunk. Kronhor made his adieus and was towed back to the
other side of the pool. Kalamita was leaning with both hands locked
over Kyphallos's shoulder. "Tell me," she whispered. "Why does Jadgor
of Aphur ask your presence, my friend?"

"I know not," said the Cathurian prince. "Some business of state, no
doubt, to which I must attend for my father, who grows feeble with age
as you know."

The dancing girls were hauling the shell from the pool. They made what
looked like a straining group in pink bisque.

"It was a pretty play," Kalamita murmured. "Did you design it,
Kyphallos? I know from the past you are clever."

The man turned and looked once more into her eyes. "I designed it--I
planned it to amuse--you."

Croft turned away. He had seen enough. This was the man to whom it was
planned to give the woman he--Jason Croft--loved; that sweet, pure
Naia of Aphur who had knelt two nights ago in appeal before Azil the
Angel of Life. This scented sensualist, caught fast in the charms of a
Zollarian woman, of a type Croft could not mistake. Jadgor had hinted
at something like this in his talk with Lakkon two days before. And
tonight--on the eve of his departure of Aphur, Kyphallos of Cathur sat
as the host of the enemies of his land. Surely Jadgor had reason for
the fears he had expressed. Surely here was food for serious thought.




                             CHAPTER VIII

                             APHUR ACCEPTS


Croft left the court and made his way outside into the calm beauty of
the night. Flooded by the moonlight, he stood watching the flicker of
the fire-urns on the waters of the tiny harbor, where lay the gilded
pleasure craft.

And after a time he turned back attracted by the fact that the inner
lights had died. Only for a moment, however, did he remain inside. In
the court, flooded now only by the moons, a wild and loathesome orgy
was taking place between the dancing girls and the guests, in and about
the pool. Cries, shrill laughter, sounds of splashing and fleeting
glimpses of flitting shapes told him the full story as to the end of
Kyphallos's feast. It sickened him, and once more he fled the spot to
spend the night outside.

Naia! The thought came to him. Suddenly he wanted to see her, be near
her, away from this scene of brutal carnival where license reigned
supreme. He wanted to be in the hills of Aphur, where she had her home.
And swiftly he was. There was Lakkon's palace, white under the triple
moons--and here was the window of the room where she had knelt and
prayed.

Invisible, yet seeing, he crept inside, like a wraith of the night.
Only the moon gave him light. But it showed him the woman of his soul.
She lay on the metal couch, asleep. Her fair hair shadowed her face as
he bent above her. A slender arm was thrown out to one side. Coverings
as light as silk betrayed the grace of her form. Her lips were half
parted, and as Jason bent down, she sighed.

Croft straightened and stood like a guardian spirit above her. His
soul was once more on fire at the thought of what was planned. This
was the girl who was to be offered to the lecherous young spawn of
royalty, even now disporting himself with the tawny siren from another
nation--that Kalamita, whose name, Croft knew, might best be translated
into English as Magnet. Kalamita--the magnet--a human magnet--a female
magnet to draw men to her by her shameless charms and bind them fast
past any chance of escape.

How much he wondered did Jadgor of Aphur really know of what was going
on. How fully was he informed of what was coming now to seem, to Croft,
as one side of the workings of Zollaria's plot? Surely he must know how
much to be willing to sacrifice this fair young sleeper, his sister's
child. Little by little Croft was coming to understand the workings of
Jadgor's mind--to believe him a patriot really rather than a seeker of
selfish power, such as he had fancied he might be for all his brave
words at first.

What then? Croft could not answer. Bound as he was--despite his ability
to hear and see and know, he could do nothing in himself. All night
long he raved in impotent rage, unknowing that by degrees he was
solving the problem presented to him.

At morn he went back to Anthra. He witnessed the departure of Kyphallos
in a gilded galley, with red sails and red silken cordage rowed by
twenty blue men, ten to each bank of oars.

Kalamita's barge, in which rode the Zollarian woman, her brother and
Bazd the Mazzerian chief, accompanied the Cathurian for some two hours
before it turned north and made off for Niera, as Croft gathered from
what conversation passed.

Kyphallos's craft continued south. Croft let him go. He himself went
back to Scira and the national school for his lessons of the day. The
Cathurian prince was safe for five days while he sailed and rowed to
Himyra. Meanwhile Croft was determined to learn all he could. It was
after that he first met Jasor and studied him during the few days
remaining until the first meeting between Kyphallos and Naia which he
had determined to attend. And in so studying the youth, he discovered
Jasor's full recognition of his own shortcomings, and that his
knowledge of his own backward mental powers was preying upon his mind
to produce a melancholic turn in the young man's thoughts.

At night Jasor sat in his quarters brooding, or took long solitary
walks. Even in the four days he lost flesh. Croft realized that his
introspections were sapping the young Nodhurian's strength--that he
was physically as well as mentally sick. He had drawn into himself and
no longer took part in the games in which, not only the dares of his
classmates, but his very stature, told Croft he had once excelled.

Then came the seventh day, and Croft had willed himself back to Himyra
once more, with an eye out for the galley from Anthra along the yellow
Na.

He found it a little below the city wall, and followed it as it worked
its way up the current with flashing dripping blades which rose and
glistened and fell in the brilliant light. Under a scarlet awning,
Kyphallos, curled and perfumed, lay on a burnished divan and watched
the city slip past until the galley swung into one of the quays in
front of the palace, where a chariot accompanied by a part of the
royal guard waited as the galley moored. Meanwhile vast crowds lined
the terraces along that portion of the Na and trumpets blared a
greeting to the northern guest.

The Cathurian came ashore and entered the burnished car. The detachment
of the guards fell in on either side. The procession mounted the
inclines from terrace to terrace past the gathered throngs, until
in the end it passed through the monster entrance of the palace and
brought up in the principal court.

There various nobles of the state, Lakkon among them, waited to conduct
the visiting noble to Aphur's king. Under their escort Kyphallos moved
through the corridors and across courts to where, in an audience-room
of huge proportions, Jadgor sat in state.

Here his guard of honor drew aside and left the prince standing alone
as Jadgor rose.

       *       *       *       *       *

"Welcome Cathur, to such poor hospitality as is mine," said Aphur's
king.

"Hail Aphur," Kyphallos replied, bowing in the least degree. "Cathur
sends greeting through me, his son."

Jadgor descended a step of the dais on which he sat. He put out a hand.
"Accept a seat beside me, son of Cathur, whose presence gladdens the
eye," he went on.

Kyphallos advanced, clasped palms with the Aphurian king, mounted the
steps and seated himself on the gilded divan where Jadgor had sat alone.

The king of Aphur turned to two guards stationed on either side.
"Announce that Cathur is Aphur's guest."

"Cathur is the guest of Aphur!" proclaimed the soldier heralds.

This completed the ceremonial of the royal arrival and the nobles
withdrew with the exception of Lakkon, who, at a sign from Jadgor,
remained and approached the dais.

Jadgor waved away his guards. "I would speak with you on matters of
weight, O Cathur," he said when the three were alone.

"I give ear, King of Aphur," Kyphallos replied.

Like the man of purpose he was Jadgor did not waste time in airy
persiflage. "Cathur guards the western gate with Aphur, Kyphallos," he
began. "To my mind it occurs the guards are bound by a common interest.
It occurs to me to strengthen the tie."

"To what end?" A slight frown grew between the younger man's eyes. He
seemed like one taken suddenly by surprise and his words came only
after a perceptible pause.

"To the end of strengthening our nation," Jadgor shot out his reply.
"In one year Tamhys's reign is done, unless he be reelected, as you
know. With Cathur's help and that of Nodhur, which is well assured, and
support from Milidhur already promised, Aphur can win the day."

"Ah!" Suddenly Kyphallos smiled. And as swiftly his eyelids drew
together. "But what," he asked, "if Cathur should look toward Zitra as
well?"

Like a stab of light a thought pierced Croft's listening brain. Was
that it--was that the bait Zollaria held forth? Kyphallos on the throne
of Tamarizia--not for ten years, but for life--Zollaria and Tamarizia
practically one if not actually united--Cathur in Zollaria's hands and
Kyphallos a noble of a vast empire--a dual monarchy such as Palos had
never seen. The conception from the standpoint of royalty at least was
no less than magnificent.

Jadgor, too, gave his companion a piercing glance. "Could Cathur win
without Aphur?" he asked.

Kyphallos shrugged. "My words were but a question," he evaded the
answer direct. "What does Aphur propose?"

"An alliance of their houses," Jadgor said and paused.

And once more Kyphallos frowned without reply. Plainly he was giving
this matter consideration.

Jadgor resumed. "It is in our minds to offer you the fairest flower in
Aphur's garden of women to this end."

"Hai! A woman! Thou meanest marriage?" Kyphallos cried.

"Aye."

Kyphallos smiled. "And this wonderful woman--who is she?"

"The daughter of Prince Lakkon here," Jadgor declared. "Naia, the child
of my sister, more beautiful than any girl in Aphur and pure as the
Virgin Ga."

"Naia!" Kyphallos's eyes lighted. "I have heard of her, O Aphur. It
would seem you plan to make this alliance strong."

"The guard of the western gate should be strong," Jadgor said.

Kyphallos nodded. "Yet have I never seen her," he remarked in a tone
of musing, "though the fame of her beauty has reached Cathur ere this.
I have heard she has hair like spun gold and eyes as purple as the
twilight in the mountains. Is this true?"

"Cathur shall judge the truth for himself," Jadgor made response.
"Prince Lakkon craves the presence of Kyphallos at a feast tomorrow
night. The maiden shall be there."

"Good." Once more Kyphallos smiled. Women were his main interest in
life. "I have never given serious thought to marriage, yet it can do no
harm to see this fairest of Aphur's maids. Say to Prince Lakkon that
Cathur shall do himself the pleasure to accept his invitation to a
feast. As for the rest--" He shrugged. "A man, O Jadgor, should never
marry in haste. I must think upon your words."

There was something in the Cathurian's mind. Croft tried to read the
secret thought, and failed. Jadgor, too, seemed to sense some reason
beyond the one assigned for the man's hesitation, although an immediate
answer was hardly to have been expected to such a proposition as that
by which the prince was faced.

And Jadgor did not seek to press the matter further. Instead, he
turned to Lakkon with a request to escort the royal guest to the rooms
prepared against his coming, and rose from his seat.

       *       *       *       *       *

Croft sought Prince Lakkon's palace without more delay.

He found it receiving the finishing touches of preparation for the
Cathurian's entertainment, and Naia, with her own maid beside her,
supervising the hangings of fresh draperies in the huge central court.

His soul quickened at sight of her and then sank as he saw the
expression of her face. It was an expression of deliberate endurance,
and he recalled how nights before she had sighed in her sleep.

Yet he hovered near her and after hours Lakkon himself arrived and came
to her side. Father and daughter sat upon one of the carved and gilded
seats with which the court had been set forth.

Naia looked into Lakkon's eyes. "What said the Cathurian to Jadgor's
proposal?" she inquired.

"He accepted our invitation for the night after this," Lakkon replied.
"He seems a cautious man. He would see you before he decides."

"He would see me!" Naia of Aphur flashed. "He would view me--learn if I
please his royal fancy--Zitu! must I submit to this?"

"Nay." Lakkon shook his head. "Cathur's prince was but gaining time to
consider all sides of the case. Jadgor's offer took him by surprise."

"Perhaps," said Naia in almost eager fashion, "he does not wish a wife."

Lakkon shook his head again. "Scythys, his father, is old. Kyphallos
must marry when he gains the throne at latest. Is everything prepared?"

"Aye--even to--the sacrifice." Naia's tone was bitter. She rose and
moved away without more words, mounting the stairs toward her rooms.

Croft's heart was bitter, too, as he left the place and returned by his
will to Scira and the apartment of Jasor of Nodhur.

Just why he went there he hardly knew--save that the sympathy he felt
for the soul-sick youth seemed to keep the boy in his mind. Yet once in
his presence he found the youth sitting before an untouched plate of
food. And after a time he hurled this to the floor and buried his head
in his hands, to break into muttered speech.

Croft listened and after a time he found the cause. Jasor's father had
sent him word to come home. The two leaves of a writing tablet--bits of
thin metal covered with hardened wax, in which characters were cut with
a metal stylus, lay unbound and spread out on the table where the food
had sat. Jasor's father had evidently become convinced that his son was
a dullard and was wasting his time in seeking to learn more than he
already knew.

Croft remained with him during the night. For a time he whimpered and
cursed. Later he destroyed the tablets as he had destroyed his food.
After that he flung himself on his couch and for hours he dozed and
waked and tossed and muttered. Croft fancied him in a fever from the
broken nature of the words he spoke. And in the morning the boy did
not rise. The woman of whom he rented his lodgings came to clean and
found him muttering and mouthing. He sprang up and drove her from the
room. She ran crying downstairs and out to the street and along it for
some distance to a house where quite evidently one of the nursing caste
lived.

Presently a woman in the uniform of her calling, a short blue-skirted
costume, embroidered with a red, heart-shaped symbol came forth and
followed her back to her house. Five minutes after her arrival she had
sent the old woman for a doctor and was herself bathing Jasor's flushed
neck and face.

The doctor came, examined the patient, left some liquid substance to
be given in interval doses and went away. Croft remained till evening.
Jasor was more quiet by then, and he left. But, physician as he was,
he felt that the young Nodhurian's days were numbered, that unless he
had the will to recover he would sink slowly and die in the end. And he
knew Jasor had not the will to get well.

His own will carried him to Himyra in a flash, and to Lakkon's palace
at once. Night had fallen when he reached it and the central court was
a blaze of light from a myriad of oil-lamps. In the main expanse of the
crystal flooring the tables were set forth, decked with flowers and
loaded with viands. Serving men and maidens of the blue Mazzerian race
were still at work in the final preparations. Of Naia or Lakkon there
was no sign.

The latter came down the stairs at one end after some time, however,
and signing to Bazka, the Mazzerian _major-domo_, took up a place near
the massive doors. There he remained until a clatter of hoofs marked
the first arriving guests.

       *       *       *       *       *

They came in a stream thereafter, nobles of Aphur and their daughters
and wives; captains of the civic guard, and finally, with a blare of
trumpets from riders mounted on gnuppas, Jadgor himself and Kyphallos
in a golden coach drawn by eight gnuppas harnessed four abreast.

And still Naia had not appeared. But as the King of Aphur and the
Prince of Cathur moved down the crystal pave from the doors toward the
tables in the center of the court, she came slowly down the stairs.

Croft stared in delight. She was a thing of purple and gold. The gown
she had described that first day wrapped her supple form like a second
skin, from right shoulder to hip, and fell from there to the knees. It
was a shimmering thing embroidered in purple stones.

Halfway down the stairs she stood and inclined her head, while Jadgor
and Kyphallos paused. Then as the men advanced she began again to
descend, until near the head of the tables she sank on her left knee
and bowed before the king.

Jadgor's own hand helped her to rise. Jadgor made Kyphallos known.
Prince and princess touched hands. Lakkon led toward the feast.

At the head sat Jadgor and Kyphallos side by side. Lakkon reclined
beside the king. Naia's place was on the Prince of Cathur's left. Blue
servants in Lakkon's livery placed the other guests and began their
service at once.

For an hour the feast went on. Hidden musicians filled the air with
the sound of their harps. That snow-chilled wine, of which Lakkon
had spoken, poured from golden pitchers into goblets of silver as
serving-maids passed up and down the board to keep all well supplied.

Croft noted Kyphallos more closely than the rest. He had seen the
swift lighting of his eyes when Naia appeared on the stairs; the swift
instinctive parting of his too full lips, the twitch of his nostrils,
accompanying that first glance of the maid suggested for his wife.

Now, as he lay on the divan, he found him watching her with what seemed
a steady interest, plying her with gallant conversation, finding excuse
to frequently touch her hands, staring into her long-lashed purple
eyes. With his resentment for the Cathurian growing by swift leaps and
bounds, he realized that Kyphallos was impressed, sensed that before
this chaste beauty of his own people, he had forgotten Zollaria's
magnet for the time.

Also he thought it had been better had the wine been less nicely
chilled, for Kyphallos drank deep and his eyes began to sparkle as time
passed with new toasts proposed and drunk about the board. It came to
Croft that Cathur's prince was losing his head at a time when he had
better have kept it, as his voice became more and more loud.

Intoxication may be very well on Anthra, where it was the accepted
thing. In Himyra and the palace of Lakkon, before his proposed bride,
it might prove another thing. He was strengthened in his belief by the
questioning glance Naia cast at the northern noble from time to time--a
glance of something like surprised dismay.

The harps struck up a different measure toward the last. Golden
curtains parted under the balcony, near the stairs. A band of dancing
girls trooped in. They were things of beauty, laughing faced, their
soft hair flowing, clad in what seemed no more than garlands of
flowers twined about their slender bodies and halfway down their
limbs. Beginning to dance they advanced and as they danced they sang.
The scene became one of rhythmic beauty, delightful to the senses.
Each girl bore a parti-colored veil of gauze and waved it as she
moved. Massed inside the rectangle of the tables on the crystal floor,
they seemed to be a very dancing, nodding bed of flowers, amid which
twinkled their flying feet and gesturing arms, beating time to the
pulse of the harps.

Then it was done. The dancers were drawing back with graceful
genuflections, as applause broke forth from the guests. Lakkon tossed
a handful of silver pieces among them. Jadgor cast a double handful of
jewels into the scarf of a maid who advanced at his sign.

"Divide them among you," he said.

The girl sank to the floor, and rose.

       *       *       *       *       *

"Hold!" cried Cathur's prince. His face was flushed and his eyes
shone with an unholy light. Croft saw his nostrils fairly quiver as
he watched the lissom dancer. He lifted himself and struck the table.
"Up!" he commanded thickly. "Up beauteous maid."

With a glance at Jadgor, who made no sign whatever, the dancing girl
obeyed. She stood on the table before Kyphallos.

"Unveil!" he said.

Again the woman glanced at Aphur's king. But Jadgor did not draw back
from the situation invoked by his bibulous guest. Too much hung on the
moment as Jadgor saw it to quibble over the uncloaking of a dancer.
"Unveil!" he added his command.

The girl lifted her hands. Her garlands fell away. She stood a lithely
rounded form, her feet lost in the mass of blossoms she had worn.

Kyphallos laughed. His eyes were blazing. He caught up a goblet of
wine and rose. "Hail Adita, goddess of womanly beauty," he exclaimed.
"Now, are you perfect as you stand revealed, stripped of the silly
trappings which concealed the greater charms beneath. Flowers are
things of beauty in their place, but--woman unadorned is the fairest
flower of life. Arise, my friends, and drink with me to woman as she
is, this new Adita I have found!"

They rose at Jadgor's sign, though Croft caught more than one glance of
question passing among the guests.

So much he saw and turned back to Naia who had risen, too, her face a
mask of outraged dignity and scorn.

Kyphallos lifted his goblet and set it to his lips.

Naia lifted hers and cast it from her so that its contents spilled and
flowed across the table at the dancer's feet.

"Thou beast!" her voice came in tones of sharp displeasure. "Thou
sensuous offspring of Cathur! 'Tis thus I drink your toast!"

Silence came down--a breathless pause about the tables.

Kyphallos lowered his cup and turned toward the Princess of Aphur
slowly.

And suddenly the Cathurian smiled. He replaced his goblet on the
table and sank to one knee before the haughty daughter of his host.
"By Zitu!" his voice rang out; "but you are truly royal. You are
magnificent, daughter of Aphur. Did I pick me a lesser toy, 'twas but
that I knew you for what you are--one fit to be a queen. Naia of
Aphur, wilt pledge yourself queen of Cathur's throne?"

The words were out. Croft felt his senses sink. Yet even so he saw
the whole psychology of the event. To Cathur, the maiden offered, had
seemed but an easy prize--to take at his pleasure, if at all. To Cathur
drunk the dancer had appealed. To Cathur still drunk Naia of Aphur,
offended, angered, hurling her scorn in his teeth, appeared suddenly
not a thing to be taken lightly, but a beautiful consort to be won if
taken at all.

On Jadgor's face was a satisfaction unvoiced. He rose and lifted his
hands. "My lords and ladies," he announced, "I call you to witness that
Cathur asks the hand of Aphur's princess. Let Naia choose."

Kyphallos drew himself up and folded his arms. To Croft it seemed
the man was sobered by Jadgor's words. Yet as cries of assent and
acclamation rang out through the court, he remained silent before the
tense figure of the girl.

And slowly the golden head beneath the curling plume of purple bowed.
One bared arm rose and extended its fingers toward the northern prince.
"Aphur accepts." Her words came scarcely above a whisper and were
drowned in a greeting roar of voices upraised by the waiting guests.

Cathur caught the extended hand and turned to the forward straining
faces, the watching eyes.

"A happy consummation to our feast," rang the words of Aphur's king.
"Men and women of Aphur this shall be arranged. I, Jadgor, myself shall
sponsor the formal betrothal on a day one twelfth of a cycle hence."

The thing was done. A month from tonight would see it ratified. A
sick impotency filled Croft's soul as once more cries of approbation
greeted the promise of the king. And into the midst of his despair
there flashed one ray of blinding thought. Before it he staggered, drew
back, shaken in the primal elements of his being. Yet he did not put it
aside. He held it. He marveled at it. And suddenly taking it with him,
he left the scented atmosphere of Lakkon's palace court and rose up
toward the heavens, studded with stars.

To earth! His will gathered, centered, focused by the wonder of the
thing he had conceived cast all its driving power into the demand.
Palos and all it held sank swiftly away beneath him. He opened the eyes
of the form he left on his library couch.




                              CHAPTER IX

                        'TWIXT EARTH AND HEAVEN


Nothing had been disturbed. Everything was as he had last seen it, save
that a layer of dust had collected, thanks to the absence of Mrs. Goss,
and that due to the difference of the length of the Palosian day. Nine
terrestrial days had passed since Croft had lain his body on the couch.

Rising slowly, he ignited the flame of a small alcohol-lamp and quickly
brewed himself a cup of strong beef-extract, which he drank. The hot
beverage and the food put new physical life into his sluggish veins, as
he knew it would. Seating himself in a chair, he gave himself over to
a consideration of the thought he had brought with him from Palos--a
thought more weird than any of which he had ever dreamed.

Briefly, Croft had conceived of a way to acquire a physical life on
Palos. That was his unheard-of plan, the possibility of which had
wakened in his consciousness as Jadgor announced the formal betrothal
of Naia to Kyphallos at the end of the month. It was that that had sent
him back here to his study and his books.

And after a bit he rose and drew a volume from a case and brought it
back to the desk. It was a work dealing with obsessions--that theory of
the occultist that a stronger spirit might displace the weaker tenant
of an earthly shell, and occupy and dominate the body it had possessed.

He read over the written page and sat pondering once more while the
night dragged past. Even as he had gone a step farther in astral
projection, carrying it into spirit projection as a further step, so
now he was considering a step beyond mere obsession, and questioning
whether or not it were possible for a spirit, potent beyond the average
ego of earth, to enter and revivify the body laid down by another soul.

His thoughts were of Jasor as he sat there wrapped in thought. The
young Nodhurian was dying, unless Croft's medical knowledge was all
at fault. Yet he was dying not from disease in the physical sense.
His body was organically healthy. It was his soul which was sick unto
death. And--here was the wonderful question: Could Croft's strong
spirit enter Jasor's body as Jasor laid it aside and, operating on the
still inherent and reasonably sound cell-energy still contained within
it, possess it for its own?

It was an amazing thought--a daring thought--yet not so far beyond the
spirit which had dared the emptiness of the unknown in the adventure
which had brought Croft to his present position, thereby inspiring the
thought itself. Day broke, however, before Croft made up his mind.

He realized fully that he must remain on earth for a day or two to
provide his present body against another period of trance. He realized
also that in the experiment he meant to make he might lose that earthly
body and fail in his other attempt at one and the same time. But he
made up his mind none the less.

Should he succeed, he would live as an inhabitant of Palos--would be
able to physically stand between Naia--the one woman of his soul--and
her fate--and, winning, be able perhaps to claim her for himself.
Against the possibility of such a consummation to his great adventure
no argument of a personal peril held weight.

Croft sent for Mrs. Goss, telegraphing her shortly after it was
light. He spent the day waiting her arrival in feeding his body with
concentrated foods. He met her when she came, and for a week life went
on in the Croft house as it had gone on before. Then Croft summoned
the little woman and bade her sit down in one of the library chairs.
He told her he was engaged on a wonderful investigation of the forces
of life. He made her understand dimly he was doing something never
attempted before, which, if it succeeded, would make him very happy.
He explained that he was about to take a long sleep--that it would
last for three, and possibly four days. He forbade her to disturb his
body during that time, or to touch it for a week. Then, if he was not
returned and in his sane mind, she might know that he was dead.

With quivering lips and wide eyes and apron-plucking hands, she
promised to obey. Croft sensed her anxiety for himself, and tried to be
very gentle as he saw her from the room.

But with the door closed behind her, he moved quickly to the couch and
stretched himself out. For a moment he lay staring about the familiar
room. Then into his mind there came a thought of Naia--and of Jasor--of
love for the one and pity for the other. He smiled and fastened his
mind on the object of this present attempt. And suddenly his eyelids
closed and his body relaxed. Once more time and space suffered
annihilation, and he knew himself in Jasor's room.

It was full. The nurse was there, and the physician. And there was
another--a young man with a strong, composed face, clad in a tunic of
unembroidered brown, whom Croft recognized as a priest.

He stood by the couch on which Jasor lay, pallid as wax, with closed
lids, and a barely perceptible respiration. He held a silver basin in
his hands, and as Croft watched he sprinkled the face of the dying
youth with his fingers dipped in the water it contained. A quiver of
emotion shook Croft's spirit. He had returned to Palos none too soon.

The priest drew back. The doctor approached the bed. He lifted the
wrist of Jasor and set his fingers to the pulse. In a moment he laid it
down, and bowed his head. And as he did so, Jasor sighed once deeply
like one very tired.

"He passes," the physician said.

       *       *       *       *       *

Priest, nurse, and physician all saw it. But Croft saw more than they.
He saw the astral form, the soul-body of Jasor, rise from the discarded
clay. And swiftly casting aside all other considerations, he willed his
own consciousness into the vacant brain.

Thereafter followed an experience, the most terrible he had ever
known. He was within Jasor's body, yet he was chained. For what seemed
hours he fought to control the physical elements of the fleshy form he
had seized. And always he failed. In some indefinable way it seemed
to resist the new tenant who had taken the place of the old. Croft
describes his own sensations as those of one who presses against and
seeks to move an immovable weight.

He suffered--suffered until the very suffering broke down the bonds
in a demand for some outward expression. Then, and only then he knew
that the chest of the body had once more moved, and that he had drawn
air into the lungs. Encouraged, he exerted his staggering will afresh,
and--he knew he was looking into the faces above him--through Jasor's
physical eyes!

"He lives!"

With Jasor's ears he heard the physician exclaim:

"This passes understanding, man of Zitu. He was dead, yet now he lives
again!"

"The ways of Zitu oft pass the understanding, man of healing," said the
priest, advancing to the bed. "What is man to understand the things
that Zitu plans?"

Croft thrilled. Coordination between his conscious spirit and the body
of the man of Palos was established. He had won again--won a visible,
material existence on the planet with the woman he loved. The thought
brought a sense of absolute satisfaction; he closed the lids above
Jasor's eyes, and slept.

For several hours he lay in restful slumber, then awoke refreshed. His
deductions had been correct. Jasor's body was healthy, aside from the
weakening influences of his spirit. Given a strong spirit to dominate
it now, it responded in full tide.

He glanced about. It was night. By the dim light of an oil-lamp he saw
two persons in the room. One was the nurse. The other was the priest.
They appeared to converse in lowered tones.

"Man of Zitu," Croft spoke for the first time with his new-found tongue.

The priest rose and hurried to him. "My son."

"I am much improved," said Croft. "In the morning I shall be almost
wholly well."

"It is a miracle," the priest declared, holding his forearms
horizontally before him until he made a perfect cross.

A miracle! Croft considered the words. They carried a sudden meaning to
his mind. Truly the priest had spoken rightly. This was little short of
a miracle indeed, did the other know the facts. Swiftly Croft formed a
plan. "Father, what is your name?" he inquired.

"Abbu, my son."

Croft turned his eyes. "Send the nurse away. I would talk with you
alone."

The priest spoke to the woman, who withdrew slowly, her face a mingled
mask of emotions, chief among which Croft read a sort of awed wonder.

"Why does she look at me like that?" he asked.

The priest seated himself on a stool beside the couch. "I said your
recovery was a miracle, my son," he replied. "I am minded that I told
the truth. You have changed, even your face has changed while you
slept. You are not the same."

Croft felt his muscles stiffen. He understood. The new spirit was
molding the fleshy elements to itself--uniting itself to them, knitting
soul and body together. The experiment was a success. He smiled. "That
is true, Father Abbu," he replied. "I am not the same as the Jasor who
died."

"Died?" The priest drew back. His eyes widened.

"Died," repeated Croft. "Listen, father. These things must be in
confidence."

"Aye," Abbu agreed.

Croft told what had occurred.

       *       *       *       *       *

Abbu heard him out. At the end he was seized by a shaking which caused
him to quiver through body and limbs.

"Listen, father," Croft said. "I am not Jasor, though I inhabit his
form. Yet I know something of him, and of Tamarizia as well. Jasor had
a father."

"And a mother." The priest inclined his head.

Croft had gained information, but he did not make a comment upon it
then. "To them I must appear still as Jasor," he returned.

"They are looked for in Scira," Abbu declared. "We hoped for their
coming. Why have you done this thing? Are you good or evil?"

"Good, by the grace of Zitu," said Croft. "I come to help Tamarizia.
Think you I could have come had not Zitu willed?"

Suddenly the face of the young priest flamed. "Nay!" he cried, and rose
to stand by the couch. "Now my eyes are open and I see. This thing is
of Zitu, nor could he save by his will. It is as I said, a miracle
indeed." Again he lifted his arms in the sign of the cross.

"Then," said Croft, striking quickly while the man was lost in the
grip of religious fervor. "Will you help me to do that for which I
came--will you help me to help Tamarizia should the need arise?"

"Aye." To his surprise Abbu sank before him on bended knees. "How am I
to serve him who comes at the behest of Zitu, in so miraculous a way?"

"Call me Jasor as in the past," decided Croft. The name was near enough
to his own to fit easily into both his ears and mouth. "Yet think me
not Jasor," he went on. "Jasor was a dullard, weak in his brain. Soon
shall I show you things such as you have never dreamed. Think you I am
Jasor or another indeed?"

"You are not Jasor," said the priest.

"Nay--by Zitu himself, I swear it," said Croft. "Go now and send back
the nurse. Say nothing of what I have told you. Swear silence by Zitu,
and come to me every day."

"I swear," Abbu promised, rising, "and--I shall come, O Spirit sent by
Zitu." He left the room backward and with bowed head.

Croft let every cell of his new body relax and stretched out. He closed
his eyes as he heard the nurse return, and gave himself up to thought.
It appeared to him that he had made a very good beginning and won an
ally in Abbu, into whose astonishment he had woven a thread of the
man's own religion to strengthen his belief. Now it remained to gain
utter control of the body he possessed--to master it completely, and
make it not only responsive to his physical use, but to so impregnate
it with his own essence that he might leave it for short times at least
in order to return to the earth.

And to accomplish that he had just four days. Lying there apparently
asleep, he sought to exercise that control he possessed over the body
now lying on his library couch. And he failed. Strive as he might, he
could not compass success. In something like a panic he desisted after
a time and sought to fight back to a balanced mental calm.

Was he trapped? he asked himself. Was he a prisoner of the thing he had
sought to make his own? Reason told him the question was folly--that
already the body was responding in a physical sense. In the end he
decided to take a longer time in his endeavors, and so at last fell
into a genuine sleep.

From that he awakened to the sound of voices, and turned his eyes to
behold a woman past middle age, with graying hair, and a man, strongly
built, with a well-featured face, in the room.

Working swiftly, his mind recalled Abbu's words concerning Jasor's
parents. The priest had said they were expected in Scira. This woman,
then, must be the Nodhurian's mother.

He opened his lips and called her by that word.

She ran to him and sank her knees by the couch. "Jasor, my son!" she
cried in a voice which quavered, and as the man approached more slowly,
turned her face upward to meet his eyes. "He knows me, Sinon--he knows
me," she said.

"Aye, Mellia, praise be to Zitu. Jasor, my son, dost thou know me
also?" the Nodhurian's father said.

"Aye, sir," said Croft, marking his parents' names. "But--how come you
in Scira?"

"Did we not write that we should arrive and take you with us on our
return?" Sinon asked.

Croft saw it in a flash, and the slip he had made. This explained
Abbu's assertion that they were expected. The tablets hurled to the
floor by Jasor had been deciphered after his illness, it appeared.
"Aye," he admitted somewhat faintly. "But--I have been ill."

"And are recovered now," he who was to be his father said.

"Aye. Had I my clothing I could rise."

"We shall return then at once," Sinon declared.

But Mellia, the mother, broke into protests, and Croft became much
more cautious, spoke for delay. He did not wish to undertake a trip to
Nodhur before he had returned to earth. That was necessary if he was to
protect his earth body from Mrs. Goss at the end of the week, since now
he knew he must have more time. He determined to make another attempt
at escape from his new body, when he would appear merely to be asleep.

And he succeeded late that night, freeing himself and once more rousing
on the library couch. He did several things at once. He examined his
own body and found it sound. He wrote a note telling his housekeeper he
had returned and gone away for at least a month. He knew many a body
had been kept entranced for longer periods by the Indian adepts of the
East, so did not fear the attempt.

Next he crept up-stairs to his former bedroom and packed a suitcase,
carrying it to one of the several spare rooms seldom used and always
kept closed. Locking himself into this room, he opened the window
slightly to assure a supply of air. He had told Mrs. Goss to remain at
the house or go to her daughter's, as she preferred, until his return.
He felt assured he would be undisturbed. Laying himself on the bed, he
once more satisfied himself that all was as he wished it, and returned
to Jasor's room.




                               CHAPTER X

                           WHOM ZITU CHANGED


Dawn was breaking on Palos as he opened his eyes. The nurse dozed not
far from his couch. He waked her and demanded his clothing. She brought
it in some doubt and assisted him to put it on. Ten minutes later he
sat on the edge of the couch a Palosian in all physical seeming. Yet
the woman regarded him still in a more or less uncertain fashion.

Croft smiled. "Thank you for your kindness, my nurse," he said. "I
shall ask my father to remunerate you for it. Now I would eat."

She nodded and hurried from the room, to return with food. Hardly had
Croft disposed of the meal with a zest evoked of his physical needs,
that Sinon of Nodhur appeared.

Croft rose and stood as the man came in. "We return home today, my
father," he declared.

Sinon seemed embarrassed before the words of his son. "Aye, if you
wish," he made answer after a pause. "Sit you, my son. We must speak
together. Your sickness has wrought changes within you. You are not the
Jasor to whom I wrote it were useless to remain in Scira. The glance of
your eye, the sound of your voice, even the lines of your face, have
changed."

Croft smiled. "That is true," he agreed. "Yet even so it is of small
value to remain in Scira, since now I know all and more than the
learned men can teach me, were I to linger among them for many more
cycles that I have."

"Zitu!" Sinon regarded him oddly. "My son, is this change to make you a
braggart instead of a dullard?" he began slowly after a time.

"Not so," Croft returned. "My father, I am as one born anew. I shall
prove my words, yet not until I have returned to our home. Let us begin
the journey this day."

"It shall be as you wish," Sinon said, and left the room.

Later Abbu came and was admitted. To him Croft explained that he was
going south to Nodhur with his father. He went further and questioned
the priest concerning Sinon himself, learning that he was a wealthy
merchant, residing in Ladhra, capital of the southern state.

The information was a considerable shock to Croft. The merchant caste,
while exercising great influence and weight in Tamarizian affairs, were
not of noble blood. Hence now, at the very beginning he found himself
confronted by a gulf of caste separating him from Naia of Aphur hardly
less completely than before he had made Jasor's body his own. For a
moment the thought occurred to him that he had chosen that body rather
badly. Then his natural determination came to his aid, and he set his
lips as he resolved to find a way to win to Naia's side.

Abbu rather drew back before the gleam which crept into his eyes.
"Jasor, since I know you by no other name," he cried, "wherein have I
given offense?"

Croft laughed. He rose and flexed his arms and stared into Abbu's
face. "In nothing; I was but thinking," he made answer. "Abbu, give
me tablets to the priesthood at Himyra, stating those things you have
seen."

Abbu nodded. "You stop at Himyra?" he said.

"Aye." The first step of winning to the woman of his soul flashed into
Croft's brain, even as his plan for winning a body had flashed there
days before.

But he kept it to himself, locked safely in his breast, as he set
forth for his new home, with his parents, Sinon and Mellia, that
afternoon.

That Sinon of Nodhur was wealthy he was assured when he saw the galley
in which the homeward journey was to be made. It was a swift craft,
gilded and ornate as to hull and masts and spars. Ten rowers furnished
power on its two banks of oars, seated on the benches in the waist of
the hull. Behind them were the cabin and a deck under an awning of the
silklike fabric, a brilliant green in hue. Not only did all this show
Croft his supposed father's financial condition, but he learned from
Sinon that he was owner of a fleet of merchant craft which plied up and
down the Na, and across the Central Sea. In addition, the largess Sinon
bestowed on the nurse was evidence of a well-filled purse.

       *       *       *       *       *

All these things Croft considered in the intervals of conversation with
Sinon and Mellia while the galley ran south. In his boyhood Jason had
been possessed of a natural aptitude for mechanics. In later manhood he
had owned and operated his own automobiles, making most of the repairs
upon the cars himself. Learning now of his father's line of business,
it occurred to him to revolutionize transportation on Palos as a first
step toward making his name a word familiar to every tongue.

To this end he approached Sinon the first evening as he and Mellia
reclined on the deck.

"My father," he said, "what if the trip to Ladhra could be shortened by
half?"

"Shortened, in what fashion?" Sinon asked, turning a swift glance
toward Croft.

"By increasing the speed."

Sinon smiled. "The galley is the best product of our builders," he
replied.

"Granted," said Croft. "But were one to place a device upon it, to do
the work of the rowers with ten times their strength?"

"Zitu!" Sinon lifted himself on his couch. "What, Jasor, is this? What
mean you, my son? What is this device?"

"One I have in mind," Croft told him. "Come. You make your money with
ships. Apply some of it to making them more swift of motion. Let me
make this device, and they shall mount the Na more swiftly than now
they run with the current and the wind."

Sinon turned his eyes to the woman at his side. "And this is our son,
who was a dullard!" he exclaimed.

"In whom I always have had faith," Mellia replied with a smile of
maternal joy on her face.

"You have faith in this thing he proposes?" Sinon went on.

"Aye. I think Zitu himself spoke to him in his deathlike sleep," the
woman said.

"Then, by Zitu--he shall make the attempt!" Sinon roared. "Should he
succeed, the king himself would make him a knight for his service to
the state."

Croft's heart leaped and ran racing for a minute at the words.
Knighthood! That was the answer to the question in his brain--the
bridge which should cross the gulf between Naia of Aphur and himself.
He crushed back his emotions, however, and faced Sinon again. "Then I
may carry out my plan?"

"Aye--to the half of my wealth," Sinon declared. "Jasor, I do not
understand the change which has come upon you. But this thing you may
do if you can."

"Then we stop at Himyra," Croft announced.

"At Himyra!" Sinon stared.

"Aye. I would see Jadgor of Aphur so quickly as I may."

"See Jadgor? You?" Sinon protested. "Think you Jadgor receives men of
our caste without good cause?"

"He will see Jasor of Nodhur," Croft told him with a smile. "Wait, my
father, and you shall witness that, and more."

And now all doubt, all foreboding left him, and he planned. That night
as he lay in his bunk aboard the galley, he smiled. To him it seemed
that any doubt must have been transferred to the minds of Sinon and
Mellia. He heard them speaking above the lap of the waters and the
squeak of the oars. He realized how much of an enigma he had become to
these two who believed themselves his parents--how wonderful to them
must be the change in their son.

But his own mind was coolly collected and calm. He would see Jadgor.
He would use his knowledge of that monarch's present wishes to interest
him in his plans. He would become not a knight of Nodhur, but a knight
of Aphur instead. And then--then--Croft smiled and fell asleep.

The next day he questioned Sinon concerning the nature of the oil used
in the lamps, and found it a vegetable product, as he had feared.
But--he had been given evidence that the wine supply of the country
held no small alcoholic content, which could be recovered in pure
form with comparative ease. And--he knew enough of motors to know
that slight changes would enable them to burn alcohol in lieu of
petroleum-gas. Straightway he asked for something on which to draft his
plans.

Sinon, eager now in the development of his son's remarkable plan,
furnished parchment and brushes with a square of color, something like
India ink, and Croft set to work during the remainder of the trip. He
had assembled more than one motor in his day, and after deciding upon
his type of construction he immediately went to work. At the end of
four days, while the galley was mounting the Na toward the gates of
Himyra, he finished the first drafting of parts, and was ready for
Jadgor the king. Yet he did not go to Jadgor first, when once he has
stepped ashore.

"Wait here," he requested Sinon. "After a time I shall return."

"Hold, my son," Sinon objected at once. "What have you in mind?"

"To see the priest of Zitu without delay," Croft replied without
evasion. "Shall Jadgor not give ear, if the priest of Zitu asks?"

"And the priest?" Sinon asked.

"I carry a message to him from Abbu of Scira." Croft held up the
tablets that Abbu had inscribed.

"My son!" Sinon gave him a glance of admiration. "Go, and Zitu go with
you. We shall wait for you here."

Croft nodded and left. He had purposely had the galley moored as near
the Palace as he might. Now he rapidly made his way to the bridge
across the Na, and along it to the middle span. And there he paused and
gazed about him, at the palace, the pyramid, the vista of the terraced
stream. This was Himyra--this was the home of Naia. Today he stood here
unheralded and unknown. Yet he stood there because of the dominant
spirit which was his, which had dared all to stand there, and--it
should not be long until all Himyra--all Tamarizia knew of Jasor of
Nodhur, as he surely must be known.

       *       *       *       *       *

He went on across the bridge and approached the pyramid. It lifted its
vast pile above him. He found an inclined way and began to mount. After
a considerable time he reached the top and entered the temple itself.
The huge statue of Zitu sat there as he had seen it in his former
state. Now almost without volition he bent his knees before it. After
all, it stood for the One Eternal Source. He gave it reverence as such.

A voice spoke to him as he knelt. He rose and confronted a priest.

"Who art thou?" the latter asked, advancing toward him. "How come you
here at no hour appointed for prayer?"

Croft smiled and held forth the tablets he had brought.

The priest took them, unbound them, and looked at the salutation. His
interest quickened. "Ye come from Scira?" he said.

"Aye. Carrying these tablets from the good Abbu, as you see."

The priest considered. "Come," he said again at last, and led the way
back of the statue to the head of a descending stair.

Together they went down, along the worn tread of stone steps, turning
here and there, until at length they came into a lofty apartment where
sat a man in robes of an azure blue.

Before him Croft's guide bowed. "Thy pardon, Magur, Priest of Zitu," he
spoke, still in his stilted formal way. "But one comes carrying tablets
inscribed with thy name. Even now he knelt in the Holy Place, so that I
questioned--asking what he sought."

Magur, high priest in Himyra, at least as Croft judged, took the
tablets and scanned each leaf. As he read, his expression altered, grew
at first well-nigh startled, and after that nothing short of amazed.

In the end he waved the lay brother from the room and faced Croft
alone. "Thou art called how?" he began.

"Jasor of Nodhur--son of Sinon and Mellia of Nodhur," Croft replied.

"Whom, Abbu writes, Zitu hath changed?"

"Aye."

"Thou comest to Himyra, why?"

"To assist the State--to safeguard Tamarizia from the designs of
Zollaria perhaps."

"Hold!" Magur cried. "What know ye of Zollaria's plans?"

"Zollaria desires Cathur and plots the downfall of Tamarizia, Priest of
Zitu. Think that I bring no knowledge to my task?"

"Yet, were you Jasor indeed, thou mightest know somewhat of Zollaria's
plans to some extent," said the priest.

"And Jasor was a dullard, as the schools of Scira will declare," Croft
flashed back. "Let my works show whether I stand a fool or not."

"Thy works?" Magur inquired.

"Aye--those I shall do in Tamarizia's name. The first shall be one
which shall span the desert twenty times as quickly as the sarpelca
caravan--or drive a boat without sails or oars, or propel a carriage
without any gnuppa, and so haul ten times the load."

"Thou canst do this?" Magur laid the tablets on the lap of his robe and
sat staring at the man who spoke such words.

"Aye."

"And what do you desire of me?"

"An audience with Jadgor," Croft replied: "Since Aphur's king suspects
the things Zollaria plans."

Magur frowned. Croft's knowledge seemed to have swept him somewhat off
his feet. For moments he sat without motion or sound. But after a time
he raised his head. "To me Abbu seemeth right in this," he said. "In
this Zitu's hand is. This thing shall be arranged."

He clapped his hands. A brown-robed priest appeared.

"Prepare my chariot for use," the high priest said.

The other bowed and withdrew.

Thereafter Magur sat through another period of silence ere he rose and,
signing to Croft, led him through a passage to a small metal platform
which, when Magur pulled on a slender cord, began to descend.

Croft smiled. It was a primitive sort of elevator as he saw while they
sank down a narrow shaft. He fancied it not unlike the ancient lifts
employed in Nero's palace in Rome. But he made no comment as they
reached the bottom of the shaft and emerged past double lines of bowing
priests to the waiting chariot.

Magur mounted and took the reins. Croft stepped into a place at his
side. The gnuppas leaped forward at a word. They rumbled down the
street and out upon the bridge. Croft had crossed it alone and on foot
an hour before. Now he rode back in the car of Zitu's priest.




                              CHAPTER XI

                         WITH A MOTOR IN PALOS


And in that car he passed the palace gates, where the winged dogs stood
guard, and entered the palace court.

Guards in burnished cuirasses leaped to the gnuppas' heads when Magur
drew rein.

Inclining his head, Magur stepped from his car and led the way within
that wing of the palace where Croft already knew that Jadgor led his
private life. The high priest moved as of perfect right, saluted by a
sentry here and there in corridor and hall. So at length he came to two
guardsmen posted outside a door of molded copper, embossed with the
symbol of a setting sun, which Croft sensed at once as Aphur's sign.

And here Magur asked for the king.

Quitting his fellow, one of the guardsmen disappeared through the door,
was absent for some few moments, and returned. Leaving the door agape
behind him, he signed Magur and Croft to enter the room beyond.

Thus for the third time Croft came upon Jadgor of Aphur. And now, as
on the first occasion, he found him in the room where he had conversed
with Lakkon concerning a way to counter Zollaria's plans. Yet now for
the first time he met Aphur's ruler in the flesh, and faced him man to
man.

Magur approached the seat where Jadgor waited his coming. "King of
Aphur," he said. "I bring with me Jasor of Nodhur, in whom Zitu himself
has worked a miracle, as it seems, so that he who was known a dull wit
for cycles at Scira's school, having fallen ill unto death, returns
to life with a changed mind, and comes bringing tablets to me from a
brother in Scira to the end that I gain him audience with thee."

"With me," Jadgor said, bending a glance at Croft.

"Aye."

Jadgor continued to study Croft. "To what end?" he inquired at length.

"To the end that Himyra and all Aphur may grow strong beyond any
Tamarizian dream, and Cathur never mount the throne at Zitra," Croft
replied.

Jadgor started. He narrowed his eyes. "What talk is this?" he cried,
his strong hand gripping the edge of his seat.

"Jadgor the king knows best in his heart," said Croft, and waited. "I
ask but his aid to bring this thing to pass."

"These things have been spoken to Magur?" Jadgor turned his eyes to the
face of the priest.

"Aye," Croft said quickly.

Jadgor nodded. "Then speak of them to me."

An hour passed while Croft explained and the two Tamarizians listened
or bent above the drawings he unrolled. "And this--how do you name
it--" Jadgor began at last.

"Motur." Croft threw the word into the native speech.

"This motur will do these things?" Jadgor asked in a tone of amaze.

"All I have promised, and more."

"And what is required to bring this to pass?"

"Workers in metals--a supply of wine to be used as I shall direct--and
a closed mouth that Cathur shall not be advised, nor permitted to view
the work until done."

"Those things are granted. I shall see it arranged." Jadgor turned
his eyes again in Magur's direction. "Priest of Zitu--Zitu's own hand
appears in the plans of Jasor's mind. The designs of Zitu himself have
surely entered his soul. I, Jadgor, shall sponsor the carrying out."
And once more he addressed Croft. "When shall this work begin?"

"So soon as Aphur wills."

"Good." Jadgor clapped his hands. He was a man of action as Croft knew,
quick to see an opportunity and seize it. Now as a guardsman answered
the summons, he spoke quickly in direction. "Make search for my son,
Prince Robur, and say I desire him here."

The soldier withdrew, and Jadgor plunged into further questions
concerning Croft's plans. Croft on his part answered him fully,
promising other wonders than the motor in good time, until a faint
tinge of color crept into Jadgor's cheeks and his eyes were aglint with
a deep and subtle light. Croft would not doubt but that he saw Aphur
dominating all the nation, that he dreamed a far-reaching dream.

And at that moment there entered the room a youth to whom Croft's
heart went out. Clean-limbed, strong-featured, with a well-shaped jaw,
and a mouth not lacking in humor, he advanced with a springing stride
and stood before the king.

       *       *       *       *       *

"Robur, my son," Jadgor began. "Jasor of Nodhur is our guest. In
all things shall you aid him, speaking in all such matters as the
mouthpiece of the king. See to it that he has metal-workers under his
command to do his bidding, also that wine is given into his hands for
such use as he sees fit."

Robur put forth a hand, which Croft took in his own. The Prince
of Aphur smiled. "My father's word is the law in Aphur," he said.
"Welcome, Nodhur. Ask and I obey."

"First, then," said Croft, "I would visit my father's galley at the
quays and acquaint them with what has occurred before they continue up
the Na."

"Come, then," Robur responded to the natural request.

He led Croft from the room. Five minutes later the two men were driving
down the terraced inclines to the quay where Sinon's galley lay. Not
only that, but at his own request, Croft held the reins above the four
gnuppas and guided them down the sloping roads. He felt for the first
time that at last he stood on the threshold of that success for which
he had planned.

And thus he began that work on Palos which was to hold him for many
months. He presented Sinon and Mellia to Robur, and after an hour spent
in explanations, and ending with a promise to visit Ladhra after he had
his work in Himyra started, he left them divided between amazement and
pride in their son.

"Once what I intend is completed, we will mount these splendid roads
without gnuppas, and at many times their speed," he said as Robur and
he re-entered the prince's car.

Robur opened his eyes. "Say you so? Is it for that I am to aid you as
my father said?"

"Aye."

"Then let us begin at once. I would like to see the thing
accomplished," Robur urged.

Croft nodded and briefly described what was required.

"There is a place where the doors of metal and the bodies of the
chariots and carriage are molded," Robur said. "Metal is melted and
worked into shape, according to designs."

Croft had felt assured that some such industry existed from the molded
doors and the type of the other metalwork he had seen. "Take me there,
O Robur of Aphur," he said.

Robur laughed. He was an exceedingly companionable man. "Call me not
by so lengthy a title," he exclaimed. "I am drawn to you, Jasor. Let
us forget questions of caste or rank between ourselves. Speak to me as
Rob."

"Gladly will I call you so," said Croft, his heart warming to this
proffered friendship of Aphur's heir. "And let us pledge ourselves now
to work for the welfare of our nation until it is assured." He thrust
out a hand.

Robur's eyes lighted as they held Croft's palm. "This is a day of
wonder for all Tamarizia," he said, and turned the gnuppas southward
along the river road.

In the end he brought them to a stand before an enormous building,
wherein Croft found the flares of fires, and men, well-nigh naked, at
work in their glare. Robur led him to the captain in charge of the
place, and made him acquainted with Croft's needs. Inside an hour Croft
was superintending the makings of certain wooden patterns, to be molded
and cast in tempered copper, while Robur looked on, all eyes.

And his eyes were glinting as they left the Palosian foundry and drove
toward the royal depots of wines, after Croft had given certain of the
metal-workers the designs for a huge copper retort to be made at once.

At the depots, where Croft found unlimited supplies of wine, stored
in skin bottles of tabur hide, Jason ordered the building of a brick
furnace for the retort when it was done, giving the dimensions and
plans of construction to masons hurriedly called. That task arranged
for, Robur drove him back to the palace, and led him straight to his
own private suite.

       *       *       *       *       *

A woman rose as they entered. She was sweet-faced, with brown eyes and
hair. Robur presented Croft to her as his wife, a princess of Milidhur,
and proudly displayed two children, a boy and a girl. Croft found his
reception gracious in the extreme, and learned he was to be the guest
of Robur and Gaya while engaged in his work. He was to learn also that
Gaya was no uncommon name in Tamarizia, and that it fitted the wife of
Aphur's prince. She was a cheerful, bright, and sympathetic soul, who
listened to Robur's and Croft's description of their plans, and cried
out with delight at what they proposed.

Thereafter the days passed quickly, and Croft checked off each as it
fled as bringing one day nearer the time set for the formal betrothal
of Naia to Kyphallos, whom, he learned, was also a guest of the palace,
through meeting him now and again, and questioning the prince, whom,
when alone, he now called Rob.

And as the days passed, part after part of the new engine which was to
revolutionize transportation on Palos was drafted, molded, and made.
Robur's wonder grew, as it seemed, with the making of each new part,
and his impatience of the final result became intense. But many hands
made rapid work. Croft selected each man who showed any particular
aptitude and delegated him to that individual task.

The huge retort was set up and was producing pure alcoholic spirit
every day. Inside ten days Croft himself began the assembling of the
already finished parts. At his own request, Robur was permitted to
assist. More than once Croft smiled to himself as he beheld the crown
prince of Aphur soiled, grimy, smudged, and enjoying himself immensely,
tugging away at a wrench or wielding a riveting-hammer on the growing
work of wonder which they built.

To gain speed, Croft had introduced the unheard-of night-shift in
Himyra. Day and night now the work went on, and his first creation
advanced apace. Only on the winding of the magneto did he maintain
great secrecy. Over that he and Robur worked alone. It was the main,
essential part, he explained to the prince. Without it the whole thing
would be useless and dead. He even tried to make Robur understand the
electric nature of the device and, failing, told him it was the same as
the lightning in the clouds.

"Zitu!" cried Robur with a glance of something akin to fright. "Jasor,
would you harness Zitu's fire?"

"By Zitu's permission," Croft said.

Aphur's prince studied that. "Aye," he said at length. "My friend, you
are a strange and wonderful man. Jadgor believes that Zitu himself had
endowed your mind, and Magur says as much in your favor, also."

"Magur speaks the truth," Croft declared, once more sensing a possible
means of harmonizing the approaching need for his return to earth,
were he to keep the bond unbroken between Palos and his earthly body.
"Listen, Rob. Strange things occurred in this body of mine in Scira.
At times--when the need occurs--it shall fall asleep; and from each
sleep shall it return with new knowledge for the good of Tamarizia's
race, and the confounding of Zollaria's plans."

"Zollaria! Hai!" Robur exclaimed. It was the first time Croft had
mentioned the northern nation to him.

"To oppose which Jadgor designs to betroth your cousin to Kyphallos of
Cathur." Suddenly Croft grew bold.

Robur frowned.

"Rob," Croft went on, "I would ask favor if it may be granted."

"Speak," Robur said.

"I would be present at the betrothal-feast inside the next few days."

"By Zitu, and you shall," Robur declared.

"My caste--" Croft began.

Robur laughed and tapped him on the breast with a wrench. "Rise, Hupor!
If this work succeeds, that will be arranged."

Croft felt his pulses quicken. "You mean--" he began again, and once
more paused.

Robur nodded. "That Jadgor, my father, will raise you to the first rank
beneath the throne."




                              CHAPTER XII

                      THE NEW PRINCE, HUPOR JASOR


On the day before the betrothal-feast Croft finished his magneto,
tested it out before Robur's eyes, and obtained a good, fat spark.
Hastily connecting it with the now assembled motor, for which workmen
were building a chassis such as Palos had never seen, he filled a
testing-tank with spirit, primed the carburetor, that he had somewhat
changed for the use of the different fuel, and then laid hold of the
crank.

It was a tense moment, and his voice showed his realization of the fact
as he spoke to Robur: "Watch now, Rob--watch!"

He spun the crank around. For the first time on Palos there came a
motor's cough. Again Croft whirred the crank, spinning it to generate
the life-giving spark. He was answered by a hearty hum. The motor
quivered and shook. A staccato sound of steady explosions filled the
room in which it stood. Like gunfire its exhaust broke forth. The heavy
balance-wheel Croft had arranged for the trial to load it to safety
spun swiftly round and round.

A commotion rose in the shop. Captains and subcaptains ran from their
work to view the success of that for which they had worked. They stood
staring at the throbbing, quivering engine. Croft straightened and
stood, pale of face but with blazing eyes, before them. He had won!
Won! Robur's face told him he had won! It was a face filled with a
mighty wonder and delight.

And suddenly the crown prince spoke: "Back--back to your work. Work as
ye have never worked before. Complete the frame for this to ride upon,
the wheels. Make all ready, men of Aphur, and spare no effort to the
aim. A new day has dawned in Aphur--in Tamarizia. Inside the hour there
shall be a new prince. Salute him, _Hupor Jasor_, who thus has served
the state."

They lifted their hands in salute, those captains, and turned away.
Croft looked into Robur's eyes. "Rob," he stammered, and put out his
hands--"Rob--"

"Aye," Robur said. "Such is the order of Aphur's king did the test we
were to make today succeed. He will himself confirm it tomorrow night.
In the meantime I am told to bid Jasor to the betrothal-feast of Naia
of Aphur to Cathur's prince. What now of caste my friend?"

Croft quivered. He shook in every limb. The gulf was bridged--that
gulf of rank between himself and the girl of gold at the shrine of
whose sweet presence his own spirit bowed. He opened his lips yet found
himself overwhelmed with emotion, unable to speak.

Robur cast an arm about his shoulders as the two men stood. "Jasor, my
friend," he once more began. "Means this thing so much to you? Why?
What things have you in mind I know not of?

"Speak. Know you not, Jasor, that I love you?"

"Aye," said Croft. "Yet Rob, I may not speak of those things as yet."
Nor did he feel that he could at present confess the thing in his
heart. "Later you shall know all," he declared. "As for the rest--you
are my dearest friend."

"Speak when you will," Robur replied. "Tomorrow at the house of Prince
Lakkon, Jadgor shall name you Hupor before the nobles of Aphur. So is
it planned. And when this motur of ours is completed, you shall drive
it to Ladhra and take with you the noble rank for Sinon, since he has
served his state in bringing about your birth."

Tomorrow night at the house of Prince Lakkon! The words rang in Croft's
brain. Naia--his beloved should see him exalted, made a noble of
Aphur. What more auspicious meeting could he desire than this? It was
fate--fate. Suddenly Croft felt his face flush and his eyes took on a
flashing light. "Rob," he cried. "This is only the beginning. What we
shall do for Tamarizia Zitu only knows."

"Would Zitu had sent you before this then," Robur growled.

Croft noted his change of manner with amaze, and plainly Robur was not
unmindful of his regard.

"I question not the wisdom of Jadgor, my father," he went on quickly.
"Yet like I not this sacrifice of a virgin maid to the lecherous son of
Cathur's king."

"Rob!" Croft cried, as his friend and comrade paused and caught a
single lung-filling breath and went on. "Zitu himself must frown upon
such a thing."

Robur eyed him with mounting interest, and suddenly Croft raced ahead
in eager question. "Rob--how long between the night of betrothal and
the marriage itself?"

"Hai!" Robur narrowed his eyes. "A cycle, my friend. By royal custom
these things are never matters of haste."

"A cycle!" Croft threw up his head and laughed. "Rob, could we make
Tamarizia strong beyond any dream of her wisest men inside that cycle,
what then?"

Robur frowned. "A promise is a promise, my friend."

"But," said Croft, "Much may happen in a cycle--and Zollaria plans."

"What mean you?" Robur seized his arm in a grip like iron. "Jasor--you
are a strange man. Twice now have you spoken of Zollaria's plans. What
do you have in mind?"

"To watch Cathur's prince," said Croft. "Hold, Rob--the priest, Abbu,
is my friend. He will help us in this. Magur, too, must give us aid.
Let us watch--and work."

       *       *       *       *       *

Work--yes, work. With a Sirian year in which to work for such a prize
what could a man not do? Croft threw up his face and met Robur's
questioning gaze. "Aphur shall show the way to the nation," he cried.
"Zollaria's plans shall come to naught, my friend."

"Zitu!" Robur gasped. "After tomorrow night we must speak of these
things to Aphur's king. Jasor, I am minded that Magur is right. Zitu
works through you to his ends."

The motor coughed and died, having used up its fuel. Croft smiled, and
called Robur back to work. Through the day they toiled, and by night
the engine was bolted to the chassis, wheeled into the assembling-room
by the workmen that afternoon. There remained now no more than the
assembling of the clutch and the transmission before the body should be
affixed to complete the car. And the body was ready and waiting to be
bolted fast.

Croft worked throughout the night. Robur offered to assist, but he
refused. He wanted to be alone--to think--think--plan the future steps
of those things he would do inside the coming year. He had sworn to
make Aphur strong. And as he assembled the final portions of this first
work of his genius, he considered that.

The answer was plain. Aphur must arm--and Nodhur--and Milidhur from
whence came the gentle, sweetly sympathetic Gaya, Robur's wife. And
of arms he knew little, but--he could learn. Only he had to return
to earth. There, not many miles from his own town, was the home of a
man who before now had won fame as a maker of arms. Indeed, as Croft
knew he had designed weapons afterward adopted by the royal nations of
Europe and made by them on a patent lease from this man, Croft's friend.

It would be easy, then, to learn what he desired; to bring back the
plans of those self-same weapons and make them here under the patronage
of Aphur's king. Then--well--let Zollaria plan and hold what bait she
would before Cathur's eyes. Croft chuckled to himself as he worked, and
the captain assisting him in Robur's place thought him pleased with
their progress and smiled.

"This motur of thine will surely draw the car in lieu of gnuppas, my
lord?" he inquired.

"Aye," said Croft with a nod.

"By Zitu! Never was anything like it dreamed of in Tamarizia before thy
coming," the captain rumbled in his throat.

Croft nodded again. "Tomorrow I shall bring you orders to start all men
working on those parts they have made for this, in untold numbers,"
he returned. "And hark you, captain. Each man shall make but the one
part--which he makes the best. So shall we make many and build them
together at once and produce a vast number of cars, and other motors to
drive boats on the Na."

"By Zitu! Then shall Aphur rule the seas indeed."

"Tamarizia shall rule," said Croft with an assurance not to be denied.

The captain gave him a glance. What he read carried conviction to his
mind. "My lord," he said. "My lord."

"Lord." They called him that now. Croft chuckled again to himself and
went to work. Lord. And tomorrow night--no, the night of this day as it
would be on earth--they would call him "lord" before Naia herself. He
would meet her--speak to her, perhaps. He called upon the captain for
assistance and redoubled his rate of work.

And as the first rays of Sirius began to gild the red walls of Himyra,
he finished filling the fuel tank with spirits, told the captain to
open wide the doors of the building wherein they had toiled through the
night, and seized hold upon the crank of the engine he had built.

The motor roared out. Croft sprang to the driver's seat. He let in his
clutch. And slowly--very slowly the car moved toward the open doors.

One glimpse Jason had of the captain's face--a thing wide-eyed, agape
with amazed belief, and then he was outside the massive walls of that
foundry womb in which the car had been formed. He was out in the
streets of Himyra, riding the thing he had made--the first of many
things as he had determined during the night.

For a moment visions of marine motors, tractors, airplanes, filled his
brain; then as a night guard at the throat of the street caught sight
of him, and wavering between fear and duty, yielded swiftly to the
former and fled with a yell of terror, he came back to the matter in
hand.

He gained the river road and opened the throttle notch by notch.
Swiftly and more swiftly the new car moved. The sweet air of morning
sang about his ears. The throb of the motor was a paean of praise--a
promise of what was to come. He reached the palace entrance and turned
in. Straight to the steps of the king's wing he drove and brought the
car to a stand.

Like their fellow of the street, the guards shrank back in amazement
from this strangest of chariots they had ever seen, until Croft, rising
in his seat, ordered them to send word to Robur and Jadgor himself,
that he waited their inspection of the car. He himself was thrilling
with creative fire, divine. It was in his mind to demonstrate the
new creation in the vast court, deserted thus early in the day. He
throttled down and sat waiting while a guardsman hurried away.

Then into the midst of his elation broke the voice of Aphur's prince.
"Hai, Jasor, my lord, this is a surprise. Now I see that which last
night you planned."

Robur had hurried forth with Gaya by his side, and behind him now came
Jadgor, between a double row of guards. While Croft rose and gave a
hand to Robur and Gaya in turn, and bowed before the king, the latter
advanced quite to the side of the new, and to his experience, wonderful
machine.

       *       *       *       *       *

"You came here in the motur itself?" Robur asked.

"Yes," Croft replied. "And well-nigh frightened a night guard out
of his wits when he saw me bearing down on him, as well as carrying
consternation into the minds of even soldiers here."

Robur laughed. "I can well believe that," he agreed. "Had I known not
of it I fear I should have been sadly disturbed myself."

Jadgor smiled. "If it carried fear into the hearts of Aphur's guards,
might it not do likewise to an enemy's men as well?" he remarked.

"O king, it is in my mind that it would do even that," Croft returned,
sensing the deeper meaning back of the mere words as applying to a
specific enemy. He gave Jadgor a meaning glance. "May I show you the
motur in action, O King of Aphur?" he asked.

"Yes," Jadgor agreed.

"Wait!" Robur cried, as Croft resumed his seat. "Wait, Jasor, I shall
go with you. Gaya will be the first woman of Aphur to ride in such a
chariot."

Gaya smiled. Like most of the Tamarizian women, Croft had seen she
seemed devoid of any particular fear. She took Robur's hand and stepped
into the car. Robur followed with scant dignity in his eagerness to put
this new mode of travel to the test.

Then Croft engaged his clutch and the car moved off, rolling without
apparent means of propulsion in circles about the great red court while
the guards and Jadgor watched. For some five minutes Croft kept up the
circling before he brought the machine to a stand before the king, and
once more rising, bowed.

"Your words were true, O Jasor," spoke Jadgor then. "In this I see
great service to the state. Hail Hupor!" He caught a sword from the
nearest soldier, and advancing, struck Croft lightly upon the breast
with the flat of the blade. "More of this tonight," he said, stepping
back. "In the meantime arrange to build as many of these moturs as you
may--also for those which shall propel the boats."

Turning, he withdrew with his guard, disappearing into the palace.
Gaya smiled at her husband and Croft. "I, too, shall withdraw now,"
she began. "I can see you are eager to be alone with this new toy. My
thanks, Lord Jasor, for the ride. All my life long I shall remember
myself the first of Tamarizian women to mount your wonderful car."

Robur helped her to get out, then sprang back to Croft's side. His face
was alight. "Now--go! Let us ride!" he exclaimed. "Let us leave the
city along the highway to the south and test the motur for speed."

Nothing loth, Croft once more advanced gas and spark and let in the
clutch. Outside the palace entrance he turned south along the Na.
Robur, beside him, seemed strangely like a boy. "Approach the gate
slowly," he chuckled as they rode. "Let me see for myself what effect
we have on the guards."

His wish was granted in a surprisingly short time. As they neared the
gate, not yet open to morning traffic, a guardsman appeared. Plainly he
was watching, yet he made no move. He seemed practically paralyzed at
the sight which met his eyes. In the end, however, he suddenly lifted
his spear as though expecting to meet a charge with its point. His face
was rigidly set. He appeared one determined to die in the path of duty
if die he must.

"Open, fellow!" Robur shouted with a grin.

His voice wrought a change in the man. He caught a deep breath, dropped
his spear and flung himself toward the levers which worked the gate.
"My lord," he said, as Croft drove past where he now stood at attention
with the gate swung wide. "My lord!"

Robur flung him a bit of silver and a laugh. Then they were out of
the tunnel through the wall and rushing up the well-built road. "That
fellow thought us Zitemque himself, to judge by his expression," he
chuckled. "Jasor, my friend--go faster--let--"

"Let her out!" Croft could not resist the expression of earth.

"Aye," said Robur, staring. "Let--her--out. Where got you that form of
speech, my friend?"

"I--it was used on the moment to express the idea intended," Croft
replied. "It is as though one released the reins and allowed the
gnuppas to run free."

Robur nodded. "Yes, I sense it. Let--her--out."

Croft complied. They sped south. Without a speedometer Croft could only
estimate their rate of progress, but he judged the new engine made
thirty miles an hour at least.

Robur was amazed. So were others after a time. The speeding car met the
first of the early market throng and cleared the road of everything
it met. Men, women, and live stock bolted as the undreamed engine of
locomotion roared past. Their cries blended into an uproar which tore
laughter from Robur's throat. Croft himself gave way to more than one
smile.

Swiftly they passed the area of cultivation and entered the desert road
where Croft had seen the sarpelca caravan on his first Palosian day.
On, on they roared along the level surface between dunes of yellow
sand and across golden arid flats. The exhilaration of motion was in
their veins. Head down above his wheel Croft sent the car ahead, until
dashing between two dunes they came to where a second road joined that
on which they ran.

Robur cried out. Croft flung up his head. One swift glimpse he had
of a team of purple-plumed gnuppas reared on their haunches, their
forefeet pawing the air, their nostrils flaring, their eyes maddened
with fright, and of a burnished carriage behind them. Then he was past,
throttling the engine, seeking to bring the car to a stand. While from
behind the sound of a strong man shouting, came hoarsely to his ears.




                             CHAPTER XIII

                       HOW NAIA FIRST SAW JASOR


The car slowed down and stood still. Robur sprang to his feet. Croft
turned to look back. The carriage was off the road and dashing across a
level stretch of sand.

How it came that Prince Lakkon's carriage was here, neither man knew.
They were to only learn later that Naia, wearied of her preparations
for the coming feast of betrothal, had induced her father to take
her to her mountain home on the previous night, and that now she was
returning in time to avoid the later heat of the Sirian day. Yet both
men had recognized the purple-plumed gnuppas and the conveyance which
now swayed and rocked behind their fright-maddened flight.

"Lakkon's!" Croft gasped.

"Aye, by Zitu," Robur gave assent. "And should Chythron fail to hold
them soon, death lies in that direction at the bottom of the gorge."

"Sit down. Hold fast!" Even as Robur spoke, Croft sensed his full
meaning and planned. Under his touch the engine roared. He let in his
clutch with a jerk which shot the car into motion with a leap. Death
lay ahead of the careening carriage behind the beasts he had frightened
out of their driver's control. Whether Chythron alone, or Lakkon or
the prince and his daughter rode in that rocking conveyance it was his
place to do what he could. Leaving the road with a lurch which nearly
unseated Robur and himself, he swung the car about and increased its
speed.

He had told Jadgor he would build an engine to outrun the Tamarizian
gnuppa, and here at once was the test. True Croft thought not of that
in any such fashion as he drove. His only fear was lest he fail to
overhaul the flying beasts in time. His greatest fear was that Naia
herself might be in that frantic rush toward death, hurtling to an end
invoked at his hands. His soul sank in a sick wave of horror. Yet he
set his lips and clenched his jaws and drove. Faster and faster leaped
the roaring car behind the leaping things of flesh and blood he sought
to overtake.

And he was overtaking them now. He crossed the second road with a
nerve-wracking swing and jolt. Unable to procure rubber for his wheels
he had faced them with heavy leather some two inches thick, which
lacked the resiliency of air. His arms ached from the wrench with
which he crossed the road. But that past he gathered speed with every
revolution of the wheels.

"Faster! Zitu! Faster!" Robur urged at his side. "Faster, Jasor--the
gorge is just ahead!"

Croft made no reply. He was almost abreast of the carriage now. But he
himself had seen the break in the surface of the flat across which he
drove. He set his teeth till the muscles in his strong jaws bunched and
drove toward it at top speed. His one hope was that the thing which had
set the gnuppas into flight might be able to turn them back.

And he was past them now! Past them, with the gorge directly ahead. He
began to edge in upon them. He would stop them or turn them at any cost
to himself. And the margin was scant. Nearer and nearer to the lip of
the sheer descent he was forced to turn in order to hold his lead.

"Jump! Save yourself!" His voice rose in a cry of warning to his
companion in the car. The gorge was very close. He turned to parallel
its course and found it angling off at a slant. And the gnuppas were
turning, too--edging away from the thing they feared--edging, edging
away. Croft edged with them, turning them more and more. Chythron was
sawing on his reins. Suddenly the beasts stopped in a series of ragged
lunges and stood quivering and panting. Croft stopped the car.

"By Zitu! Jasor, you are a man!"

He became conscious that Robur was still with him on the seat, and that
he himself was aquiver in every limb.

Yet he forgot that as the purple curtains of the carriage were swept
back and Prince Lakkon leaped out, gave Robur and him a swift glance,
and assisted Naia to alight.

       *       *       *       *       *

Robur and he leaped down. They advanced toward Lakkon and his daughter.
"My uncle and my cousin," Robur began; "we crave your pardon for
causing you this inconvenience through no intent of our own. Yet must
you give thanks to our brave Lord Jasor here for undoing our work so
quickly as he might, and turning back the gnuppas from their course. By
Zitu, I am assured, had he not succeeded he would have gone with you
into the gorge."

Lakkon bowed. "My Lord Jasor," said he, "it appears that I owe you my
safety as well as that of my child. Accept my service at your need. I
have heard of you and yonder wonder-carriage you have wrought. After
tonight I go to my villa in the mountains. You must be our guest for a
time. Naia, my child, extend your thanks to the noble Jasor for your
life."

Croft found himself looking into the purple eyes of the woman he loved.
He thrilled as she lifted her glance. Then, as her red lips parted, he
opened his own. "Nay, not your life, Princess Naia--some bruises had
you leaped from the carriage, perhaps."

"My thanks for the service none the less, my lord," she made answer in
her own well-remembered voice. "I like not bruises truly, and at least
you did save me those."

She extended a slender hand.

Croft took her fingers in his and found his pulses leaping at the
contact. What more favorable meeting could have brought him before this
girl in the flesh? Prompted by a sudden impulse, he bent and set his
lips to the fingers he held, straightened and looked deep into the
wells of her eyes.

A swift color mounted into the maiden's cheeks at the unwonted form of
homage and the fire in Croft's glance. She dropped her lids and seemed
confused for the first time during the course of the whole affair.

Robur broke into the rather tense pause. "What say you, Lakkon; your
gnuppas are hardly fit to be trusted more today. Enter this car our
Hupor has built, and be the first Prince of Aphur to enter Himyra thus."

Lakkon smiled. He spoke to Chythron, ordering him to drive the gnuppas
to the city as best he might. Then, with Croft acting as Naia's guide,
turned with Robur toward the car.

Nor was he niggard in his praise as Croft started the engine, and
placing the girl beside him, drove back to the road and along it to the
city gates. He even laughed with enjoyment at the further consternation
their progress caused along the road, and when a team of draft gnuppas
bolting, scattered a mass of broken crates full of the strange
water-fowl Croft had found the first day, in a squawking confusion, he
scattered largess to the owner of team and load and bade Croft proceed.

As for Croft, that ride with the girl of his ultimate desire at his
side was a delight such as he had never known. Coupled with the sense
that he had saved her from possible injury at least, if not from
actual death, and at the same time proved his own daring, was blended
the sheer enjoyment of her presence and the sound of her voice as she
questioned him concerning the, to her marvelous, conveyance he drove.
Those questions he answered freely, knowing her loyal to Tamarizia at
heart.

So in the end they passed the city gates and made their way to Lakkon's
house, where Croft turned in toward the massive moulded doors.

Naia showed some surprise. "My lord," she said, "you know our dwelling,
it would seem."

"I have looked upon it with longing ere this," said Croft, growing bold
through the kindness of fate. For fate he felt it was which had brought
them together in a fashion such as this.

And Naia gave him a glance and once more veiled her eyes while a tide
of responsive color dyed her face. Plainly she caught the meaning of
his words.

"Your name is among those of our guests for tonight," she said. "Your
welcome will be doubly great after today, and--you will accept our
invitation to the mountains?"

"If you add your invitation to your father's, so soon as I may arrange
the work on other moturs," Croft agreed.

"Then you will come," she told him softly without lifting her eyes. And
Croft thrilled at her manner as much as at her words. He stopped the
car, reached up and rang the gong as Chythron had done the first day he
came to Aphur, leaped out and assisted Naia to alight.




                              CHAPTER XIV

                      THE SLIP 'TWIXT CUP AND LIP


And that night all Himyra was _en fête_. Under the light of fire, oil
lamps, and flaring torches, whose glare lit up the sky above the walls,
the Red City of Aphur made holiday. Crowds swarmed the public squares
and clustered about the free entertainments, the free refreshment
booths erected by order of Jadgor, Aphur's king, to celebrate the
coming alliance between Cathur and the state.

Processions of the people moved through the streets, laughing, singing,
shouting and making merry in honor of the event. Once before when Robur
brought a princess of Milidhur to Himyra the city had flared thus red
in the night. Now again Jadgor was making greater his prestige of power
and increasing Aphur's political might.

Croft, returning to his quarters in the palace from a day spent in
starting intensive work on a hundred engines and a marine adoption of
the same, met a surprise.

Upon his copper couch was a noble dress consisting of a golden cuirass
embossed in silver, a kilted skirt, gold and silver leg casings, and
sandals, a leathern belt, and a tempered copper sword. As he came in
a Mazzerian servant rose and bade him to one of the palace baths.
Returning from that, Croft donned a sleeveless shirt of silklike tissue
and the cuirass over that. Kneeling, the servant adjusted the sandals
and rose to buckle on the sword. These things he mentioned were a gift
from Jadgor himself, a mark of Croft's service to the state.

Jason had been less than human had he not felt a glow of satisfaction
in this sign of royal esteem and friendship. But greater far than that
was the knowledge that this night in Lakkon's house he would meet Naia
herself as a friend already known, and be lifted to high rank before
her eyes. That tonight would see her pledged to Kyphallos, he chose to
overlook. A year must follow before she became the Cathurian's wife.
Much could happen in a year, as he had said to Robur days ago.

Something he had read came into his mind. "Let him who wins her take
and keep Faustine." He thought that was the form of the quotation. At
least it was the sense. He nodded to himself. Let him who could win her
take and keep Naia of Aphur. He, Croft, had a year in which to win the
woman he desired.

Robur came into the room. Gaya had gone to Lakkon's earlier in the day
to act as Naia's lady in the ceremonial preparations. He suggested that
Croft and he be off. Aphurian etiquette decreed that the principal
guest be the last to arrive, in order that the assembled company might
do him honor when he came. Jadgor and Kyphallos would follow, said the
prince.

Croft assented at once. Lifting a circlet supporting a tuft of orange
feathers, he set it upon his head, and Robur and he set out, in the
prince's own car, drawn by four beautiful gnuppas, their bridles
trimmed with nodding scarlet plumes.

Before Lakkon's house they found themselves in a press of other
carriages and chariots from which were descending the best of Aphur's
life.

The huge doors of the court stood open, and the court itself blazed
with light. A double line of guards stood within the portals as the
guests streamed in, and a herald in gold and purple cried the name of
each new arrival aloud through a wide-mouthed trumpet held before his
lips.

Inside, the tables were spread much as on the former occasion Croft
had witnessed, save that now a dais had been constructed at one end,
where were the places of Kyphallos and Naia, Jadgor and Lakkon, and as
Jason was to learn of Robur, Gaya and himself. Lakkon stood at the end
of the double row of guards and welcomed his guests. He gave Croft his
hand with a smile which lighted his eyes. "Welcome, Lord Jasor--to mine
house--to Himyra's happiness, to the honor of Aphur," he said, and bent
his knee to Robur as the two men passed.

It was then Robur led Croft to the dais and mounted the steps as one
who knew beforehand his place assigned. Croft hung back, and his
companion laughed. "Up," he cried. "Tonight you are honored of Aphur
above most men."

       *       *       *       *       *

Tingling at the knowledge, Croft mounted and seated himself at a wave
from Robur's hand. The prince gazed on the brilliant scene with a smile
of something like pride. "A goodly company," he said.

Croft, too, gazed around before he replied. Surely Robur had spoken
aright he thought as he swept the body of the guests where colors
blended in endless harmony of shades, and the white arms and shoulders
of matron and maid gleamed in the play of the lights.

Lights! He cast his eyes about the myriad of flaming lamps and suddenly
he smiled. "Yet would it be even more brilliant were the oil lamps
removed and in their place we were to put small globes of glass which
would emit a radiance not due to oil, but to a glowing filament shut
within them, so that they would need no filling, but would burn when a
small knob were turned."

"Zitu!" Robur gave him a glance. "Are you at it again--with your
wonderful dreams?"

"Yes." Once more Croft smiled and grew serious as it recurred to his
mind that before long he must again return to earth. "Call them dreams,
Rob," he said. "Dreams they may be--yet shall you see them come true.
And--listen, my loyal friend; it may be that before long I shall dream
again as I dreamed before--that my body shall lie as Jasor's body lay
in Scira--shall seem to die."

"What mean you?" Robur cried. "This you have said before."

Croft shook his head. "I may not tell you more; yet I would exact your
promise that when the time comes, as I know it will, you shall set a
guard about my body and forbid that it be disturbed until I shall again
awake with a full knowledge of what more shall be done for Aphur's
good."

"You mean this--you do not jest?" Robur's voice had grown little better
than a whisper, and his eyes burned the question into Croft's brain.

"Yes. Will you promise, Rob?"

"I will promise, and what I promise I fulfill," said Robur. "Yet--you
arouse fancies within me, Jasor. One would think Zitu himself spoke to
you in that sleep."

"No--yet what I do, I do by His grace," Croft replied. "And from
each sleep I am assured shall come good to the Tamarizian race." And
suddenly as trumpets announced the arrival of Kyphallos and the King,
he felt light, relieved, free. He had arranged for those periods of
unconsciousness for Jasor's body, and need not trouble more about it
with the promise he had won from Jadgor's son.

He watched while Kyphallos came in with Jadgor now and approached the
dais. Then, attracted by other trumpets, he turned toward the stair.
As before, Naia stood there with Gaya by her side. Yet now she was not
the same. Then she had been radiant in gold and purple. Now she stood
simply clad in white. White was her robe, edged in silver; white were
her sandals and white the plumes which rose above her hair.

Kyphallos and Jadgor waited while the guests took their seats. Lakkon
advanced to meet the two women on the stairs, gave his hand to his
daughter and turned to descend.

Another figure appeared. It was Magur, the priest, robed in blue,
accompanied by two young boys, each bearing a silver goblet on a tray
of the same metal. He advanced and met Naia and Lakkon as they reached
the foot of the stairs.

"Who comes?" his voice rang out.

"A maid who would pledge herself and her life to a youth, O Prince of
Zitu," Lakkon replied.

"The youth is present?" Magur went on with the ritualistic form.

"Aye. He stands yonder with Aphur's king," Lakkon declared.

"Who sponsors this woman at this time?" Magur spoke again.

"I--King of Aphur--brother of her who gave her life," Jadgor's voice
boomed forth.

"Come then," Magur said.

The party advanced again across the crystal floor. They joined
Kyphallos and the king. They ascended the dais and stood before the
assembled guests, who rose.

Magur spoke anew. "Naia of Aphur--thou woman--being woman sister of
Ga, and hence a priestess of that shrine of life which is eternal, and
guardian of the fire of life which is eternal, is it your intent to
pledge thyself to this man of Cathur who stands now at thy side?"

While Croft watched, Naia's lips moved. "Aye," came her response into
the ensuing silence. "Myself I pledge to him."

"And thou, Kyphallos of Cathur, do you accept this pledge and with it
the woman herself, to make her in the fulness of time thy bride to
cherish her and cause her to live as a glory to the name of woman to
whom all men may justly give respect?"

"Aye. So I pledge, by Zitu, and Azil, Giver of Life," said Cathur's
prince.

"Then take ye this, maid of Aphur." Magur drew from his robe a looped
silver cross and pressed it into her hands. "Hold it and guard it;
look upon is at the symbol of that life eternal which through you shall
be kept eternal, and which taken from the hands of Azil the Angel shall
be transmuted within thee into the life of men."

Turning, he took two goblets and poured wine from one to the other and
back. One he extended to Naia and one to Cathur's prince. "Drink," he
said. "Let these symbolize thy two bodies, the life of which shall be
united from this time on in purpose. Drink, and may Zitu bless ye in
that union which comes by his intent."

Cathur raised his goblet. "I drink of thee deeply," he spoke,
addressing Naia.

"And of thee I drink," she made answer, and set the wine to her lips.

As she did so her eyes leaped over the silver rim and met the eyes
of Croft. For a single instant his glance burned into hers, and she
faltered, her hand lowered the goblet quickly and she swayed. Yet even
so, she caught herself on the instant as a storm of applause broke from
the guests and sank to the divan, supported by Kyphallos's hand.

       *       *       *       *       *

As for Croft, for him the light of the oil-lamps flickered and paled.
He sat momentarily lost in a mental tumult roused by that glance in
Naia's eyes. In that moment he felt he had spoken to her soul--had
reached to her inmost spirit, and made himself known. He had not meant
to do it. He had not realized while he leaned forward watching the
betrothal rite, that all his loathing of it, all his protest of spirit
against it, had kindled in his eyes. Not, indeed, until he had plumbed
the purple depths of _her_ eyes over the rim of the goblet had he
known--or dreamed that she could see and know--as now he felt she had
known.

Now, however, he stole a second glance to where she sat and found her
deathly pale with set lips and a bosom heaving so strongly beneath the
pure white fabric of her robe, that it seemed to actually flutter above
her rounded breasts. Her hand stole out and lifted a goblet from the
table and she drank. It seemed to Croft that she sought so to steady
herself before she set the wine back, and forced herself to smile.

Thereafter came the feast, the music, the dancers, a troupe of singers
and another of acrobats--the usual gamut of a Tamarizian state
entertainment, dragging out its length, before Jadgor rose at last in
his place and a hush fell over the court.

Croft, who throughout it all had been strangely silent, roused to the
pressure of Robur's hand, and as the prince prompted, he rose.

Thereafter he left his place and knelt before Jadgor while the king
drew his sword and struck him upon the breast and dubbed him so a
Prince of Aphur, and rising, bowed to the king, and to the guests who
rose to salute him in his new-found rank.

But of them all to Croft it seemed that he saw only the fair young
girl beside the Cathurian prince. And now, as before, his eyes leaped
swiftly to her face. Only now, instead of an expression of something
like a startled knowledge, there leaped toward him a purple light of
pleasure, of approval, of congratulation, and she smiled, as one may
smile in recognition of an old and well-known friend.

Then he found himself clasping hands with Robur, with Lakkon, with
Kyphallos, since the thing could not be avoided. Gaya, too, gave him
her hand and a word of congratulation, and--Naia was holding forth her
rounded, bare arm and the slender fingers which that morning he had
kissed.

He took them now and held them in his own. He trembled, and knew it,
and even so dared again to meet her eyes.

Once more he found them startled, puzzled, almost confused. A faint
color crept into her cheeks. "My lord," she said, "Aphur has given her
highest appreciation of your worth. That should mean much to you."

"Aye," Croft found his tongue. "Since it accords me the privilege of a
further word with you."

She drew her hand away. "Is a word with me of so great a value?" she
questioned with a somewhat unsteady laugh.

"To speak with Naia of Aphur I would dare death itself." Croft did not
tell her how much he had already dared for that word indeed.

"You are a bold man," she said, as he paused, and went on quickly.
"Yet, since you value it so highly, forget not our invitation of this
morning or that house in the mountains which is ours."

"I shall not forget, Princess Naia," Croft replied. His brain was in
a whirl. She had repeated the invitation. Did she really wish him to
come? Had he read her glorious eyes aright? Had she sensed the truth as
he had sensed it the first time he had seen her? Did she feel it? Did
she know? Had the call of his spirit reached the spirit which was hers?
Croft hardly believed that it had.

He scarcely believed that her knowledge of that call was a definite
thing as yet. Still--he was sure she felt something she herself could
not wholly fathom--that her invitation was sincere, dictated by the
call she as yet did not understand. Therefore he promised himself as
well as her, to accept. And he vowed that before that visit to her
mountain home was ended, she should recognize the truth.




                              CHAPTER XV

                           THE MAN'S DEMAND


Toward that end and what it should finally bring about, Croft now made
his plans. Kyphallos he learned would leave on the morrow for Scira,
and as he knew would very shortly thereafter make that promised journey
to Niera, where he would once more come under the attraction of the
Zollarian Magnet--that tawny Kalamita who had attended the feast on
Anthra before he started south.

On the following day therefore, he asked audience of Jadgor, took Robur
with him when he appeared before the king and suggested the use of a
spy on Cathur's heir; telling so much as he felt he dared, to support
his plea.

At first Jadgor was amazed. "How know you these things, Lord Jasor!" he
cried.

"I have heard things in the north," Croft replied without naming the
location, letting Jadgor suppose it was during his days in Scira if he
would.

And it seemed that Jadgor did that very thing, since after a time he
asked exactly what Jasor would propose.

Croft suggested a consultation with Magur--and the sending of word
to Abbu in the name of both Jasor and the Chief Priest of Himyra to
see what Kyphallos did. That there was reason for his suggestion the
very next day brought proof. A sailor from a Cathurian galley was
found concealed in the shop where the new engines were being made.
This following hard on the heels of Kyphallos's departure, Croft held
suspicious indeed.

He smiled in rather a grim way when Robur told him of the occurrence,
rushing into the room where he sat engaged in the drawing of some
further plans. But he took no steps save to have the sailor taken back
to his ship and his captain cautioned to keep him out of harm's way,
and to recommend that Robur place a guard about the shop. Indeed he
was not greatly worried as he knew of one way in which he could watch
Kyphallos and learn what he planned.

On the sixth day, having seen the work on the engines well under way,
he took the car, filled its tanks with spirits and drove out the north
road toward that white palace in the mountains where he had been hidden
as a guest.

He had sent no word of his coming, yet he felt assured that a welcome
would be his. There was a smile on his lips and a paean of joy in his
heart as he stormed up the mountain grades and out across those gorges
the road crossed on massive arches of stone.

So at last he stopped before the steps leading up to the doors of the
white Aphurian mansion, and sprang down. He mounted the steps and found
once more the blue servant he had seen on another occasion, watching
in awed expectancy just inside. To him he gave his title and asked for
Naia herself.

The blue man bowed. "She lies yonder, Lord," he replied. "I shall lead
you to her."

Following the servant, Croft came about a cluster of flowering bushes
to find the hostess he sought.

She lay upon a wine-red wood divan, while beside her sat the blue girl
Maia, her supple body swinging in easy rhythm as she waved a fan for
the comfort of the woman she served.

By now, Croft was fully accustomed to the disregard of clothing
displayed by the Tamarizian servants and even the nobles themselves in
their more private life.

Hence he was not disturbed by the fact that Maia's well-turned torso
swayed before him unclothed, or surprised that since she knew not of
his coming, no more than a tissue so sheer that the flesh beneath it
lent it color, draped Naia's perfect form as she rose, to stand before
him and stretch forth her hands.

"My Lord, Jasor," she exclaimed. "Your coming is as unexpected as
welcome. Would you feel flattered were I to confess that I was thinking
of you before you appeared?"

"Nay, not flattered, but filled with a delight beyond words and a fear
lest I deserve less than that!" Croft smiled, as he took her warm flesh
in his hands and gazing down into her eyes, found in their wide opened
purple depths no surprise or startled question, but only pleasure as it
seemed to him then.

Hupor, the great houndlike beast who had been lying beside the two
women, rose, and lifting himself upon his massive haunches laid his
forepaws on Croft's shoulder and stared into his face.

"Ah, Hupor gives you his favor, granted a few. Remove your cuirass and
rest," Naia said resuming her seat and signing the Mazzerian to assist
her guest. Then as he slipped out of the metal harness and stood in
the soft shirt beneath it, she invited him to a place at her side and
directed both servants to withdraw.

"You are come for the promised visit?" she began when they sat alone.

"If the time fits in with your convenience," Croft replied.

       *       *       *       *       *

Naia looked down at her sandalless feet, high arched and pink of nail,
"I will be frank," she went on. "I have been piqued because you delayed
your coming." She glanced up with a little laugh.

"And I that I could not come the sooner," Croft blended his laughter
with hers.

"You came in your car?"

"Yes."

"Tell me," she said, and laid a hand on his arm. "My father declares
that Jadgor thinks you inspired of Zitu to make Tamarizia great. Tell
me, about these moturs and your work."

Next to his love, these things were first in Croft's mind. For an hour
he talked to the girl at his side. And he talked well. Her presence
fired him, loosened his tongue. He painted for her a picture of
Aphurian transportation transformed, of motors filling the highways,
of motor-driven ships on river and sea, and swept on by his own
conceptions spoke of motors as possible things of the air.

"Zitu!" she cried. "My lord would dare what none save the birds dare
now?"

"Even so," said Croft. "So shall Aphur become strong--stronger than
any other State of Tamarizia--strong enough to guard the western gate
without another's aid."

He had made the remark of deliberate purpose, and now he heard the
girl beside him catch her breath, and glancing toward her, found her
eyes wide and very, very dark, with a strange light in their depths.
"You--my Lord Jasor, you can do this thing?"

"And will," he declared.

He saw Naia of Aphur quiver. "One who did that might ask what he would,
and receive it of the State," she said slowly, and then once more her
fingers touched his arm and he found them icy cold. "My lord, does Zitu
answer prayers?"

Croft's mind leaped swiftly from her words to a night when he had seen
her kneeling before the figure of Azil in this self-same house--when
he had heard her plea, lifted out of an anguished spirit--to the One
Eternal Source. "What mean you?" he asked.

"If one--in sore trouble--one with a spirit which rebelled at a task to
which it was set should cry for aid, would Zitu give heed?"

O girl of gold, sang the heart in Croft's breast--O wonder-woman of all
the universe of life! How well he knew her meaning. How well he sensed
that in his words of promise for a future strength in her nation which
would render needless her living immolation on the altar of patriotic
duty, she saw a possible answer to that prayer she had lifted to Zitu,
and Ga, and Azil the Giver of Life. And, how he longed to turn and
sweep her supple form into his arms, crush it against his breast and
speak to her soul the words which should assure her that he stood even
now between her and the coming fate she loathed.

As it was he sought to reassure by his reply. "Yes, Naia of Aphur, I
think that indeed Zitu hears a troubled spirit's prayer. As for the
form his answer may take--what man knows?"

Her lips parted. "Aye, who knows," she repeated. "How long a time shall
it require to bring these things to pass?"

"They shall be Aphur's before a cycle has run out," said Croft.

"Zitu! Then--then Aphur shall be strong beyond Jadgor's dreams ere--ere
so short a time is gone!"

Again Croft's heart pounded in his breast. Almost she had said ere--she
was forced into hated wedlock with Kyphallos, he thought. He inclined
his head.

"But why," Naia went on more calmly, "being of Nodhur, did you come
with these plans to Aphur, my lord?"

"You have said it." Croft turned to face her fully.

"I?" She drew herself a trifle back as in surprise.

"Yes. Because I am _your_ lord." Croft did not hesitate now.

And suddenly he saw once more that strange, startled look of half
recognition which had leaped at him over the rim of the silver goblet
the night of the betrothal-feast. "_My_ lord?" Naia began and faltered
and came to a pause.

"Aye--yours." Croft bent toward her. "Because I knew of you--and so
knowing, knew you the one woman in all Tamarizia, or in all the worlds
Zitu has made, whom I wished to possess as wife. Because I love you,
Naia, Princess of Aphur. Because you are mine, and I yours, and have
been since Zitu himself sent our two souls to dwell in the flesh.
Because your flesh cries to mine, your soul calls to mine, your spirit
seeks to be one with mine, as mine with yours. Therefore forgetting
caste and all else, came I to Aphur and to you. Caste I have overridden
and risen above. Think you I shall let Cathur stand between me and the
heaven of your lips, the soft prison of your arms?"

       *       *       *       *       *

For one wild instant while he spoke he thought her about to answer word
for word. For she smiled. The thing started in her eyes and spread
in a slow, divine wonder to her lips. Then, she sprang swiftly to
her feet and faced him tensely erect, both voice and figure vibrant
as she cried: "Stop! Jasor of Nodhur, you forget yourself. Think you
so lightly of my plighted word, that you dare to address me thus? To
Cathur I am pledged. To a maid of Tamarizia--or a woman of my house,
and to all the courts of our nation that promise is sacred, not to be
broken or put aside, save by an act of Zitu himself--save it be broken
by death."

Croft had risen, too. "An act of Zitu," he said as she paused. "And
may not my coming to Aphur in itself be an answer to your prayer for
deliverance from the embraces of Cathur's unworthy heir?"

"My prayer?" Some of the resentful tension left Naia's form. "What know
you--"

"I know much," Croft cut her short. "Am I dull of comprehension not
to sense the name of her who prayed to Zitu in her travail? And what
should wring such prayers from your flower-sweet breast, save that
defilement it is planned to bring about, to add to Aphur's strength?"

Once more she flamed before him. "Were I to speak your words to Lakkon
or to Jadgor, it would mean your death," she hissed.

"Then speak them--if you wish, beloved." Croft smiled.

As quickly as she had threatened, she drooped now at his words.
Something akin to fear came into her eyes. "Who are you--" she began in
the voice of a child.

"One who loves you," said Croft. "Who has loved you always--who always
will. One whom you love--"

"Hold!" Once more she checked him.

But he shook his head. "What need of the sacrifice--when I shall give
Aphur and all Tamarizia that strength they would purchase now with
you?"

"Yet for that strength your price would be the same."

"Nay--" Croft denied, "unless it were paid gladly."

"And if it were not?"

"Still would I give Tamarizia strength."

Suddenly Naia of Aphur smiled. To Croft it seemed that she was well
pleased with his answer. But barely had her lips parted as though for
some further reply, than the Mazzerian passed toward the outer doors of
the court.

The princess's whole expression altered. "My father comes, I cannot
speak further concerning this matter now. Did he dream of our
discussion, there would be no bounds to his wrath. Did he know that I
could consider such things, Zitu himself might not quench his rage."

"Yet will you consider them, my Naia. You will give me an answer."

"Later," she told him quickly. "I--we may not discuss it further
now--my lord."




                              CHAPTER XVI

                          THE WOMAN'S ANSWER


Hours later Croft looked from the windows of his room. The evening had
been spent in a far more formal fashion than the late afternoon. Lakkon
had come in. He had welcomed his guest. Naia had gone to her rooms to
dress for the evening meal. They had dined. Over the meal Croft had
described again his plans, to the flattering attention of his host.
Naia had lingered with them for a time, now and then meeting Croft's
glance with a smile of her crimson lips before she had gone to her room.

Now as he leaned from his window he found all the garden beneath him,
the mountain valley, the lake flooded in the light of the Palosian
moons. The night called to him, and his heart was too full, his brain
too busy with thought, to feel the spell of sleep. Drawing back he
left his apartment, passed down the balcony corridor to the small door
giving onto the garden stair and ran quickly down.

The breath of flowering shrubs was about him. Light and shadow filled
the place with a quiet beauty. Choosing a path which ran off before him
he strolled along. So by degrees he approached the white walls of the
garden bath, doubly white now in the night. And having approached them
he paused. The sound of a gentle splashing came from within.

Croft smiled. Another had felt the call of the outside world beside
himself, and surely he felt that he knew who that one was. "Princess,"
he called softly, from beside the entrance screen.

"Aye." The word came as soft as his own and was followed by a gentle
laugh. "Wait, Jasor of Nodhur." There came a louder sound of movement,
followed by a silence, and then: "And now my lord you may come."

Croft passed the screen. The maiden stood before him. Her hair was
coiled about her head. Her shoulder and arms showed glistening in the
moonlight from the moisture of her skin.

"Naia," said the man.

"My lord." She smiled.

"Nay--call me Jasor at least," he returned.

"Jasor," said she.

They were alone--a man and a maid. The white walls of the bath shut
them in from all prying eyes. The pool lay silvered by the moonlight
beneath them.

And suddenly, Croft reached out toward her and swept her into his arms.
That bold spirit which was his brooked no longer delay. He drew her to
him. His arms sensed the lithe coolness of her figure as its dampness
struck through the single garment, hastily donned at his call. So he
held her and sensed all her maddening presence. "Mine!" he cried,
pressing her close in the circle of his arms. "Mine! Woman whom Zitu
himself has made for me."

"Hush." Her hand fell over his lips, and he felt her tremble. "Jasor,
how knew you I was here?"

"I knew not until the night called me into the garden and I heard the
sound of the water," he replied. "Then your presence told me of itself
and I spoke your name."

There was a stone seat at one end of the pool. She led him there and
seated herself at his side. "You are bold," she said, speaking quickly.
"Jasor, I came here to think--as I have thought ever since we spoke
together today."

"And having thought, will you give me my answer now?"

She lifted her eyes, dark in the silver night. "Can you truly do those
things you spoke of?" she questioned him again as she had questioned
before.

"Do you doubt it?" he questioned in reply.

"Nay, I think not. You would do all you say--for me?"

"All and more, for you, or to save you a sorrow," Croft said.

"Think you," said she, "that Kyphallos of Aphur is aught to me?"

"No," Croft laughed. "I know you hate him, Princess--name him the beast
he is."

"You know much," she said in response and her voice was vibrant with
a tone he had never heard her use before. "Yet things there may be
you know not of. Listen, my lord. My lips touched not the wine in the
silver goblet the night of the betrothal-feast."

"Naia!" Croft came to his feet.

Naia of Aphur rose also. Her eyes were stars in the night. She stood
before him a slender, swaying shape. She put forth her hands. "My eyes
looked into yours above the goblet," she said softly, still in that
strange new tone. "They forbade my lips to drink. Hence, Jasor, this is
my answer--I am yours can you win me in time."

And now she came into his arms of her own volition. Croft found her
upon his breast, clinging to him with her slender hands, looking up
into his face. Some way his face sank to meet hers. Some way his mouth
found her lips.

Then she had torn her mouth away. "Zitu, what have I done?" she cried.
"No maid of Aphur may touch the lips of a man not of her blood, unless
she is his bride. But--but--this thing is stronger than I. Days span
the time since I have known you, yet Zitu knows it seems I have known
you always--have waited for you to come, and knew it not, until that
night when your glance met mine and told me I was yours. Jasor of
Nodhur, you _must_ save me--win me--now."

"Aye, I shall win you." Once more Croft claimed her lips and she did
not resist. A mad exaltation filled him. He had won--Naia of Aphur. She
lay in his arms. She had given him more than a maid of her race had any
right to give according to convention's code. No question then but that
her heart which beat so wildly against his breast, beat with the pulse
of love. He had won--and he would win, not only this, but all that she
could give.

"Swear it," she panted when once more her lips were free. "O Zitu,
swear I shall be wholly yours. Think you I could yield to Kyphallos
now? Nay--I had rather die."

"I swear," said Croft. "And tomorrow I shall return to Himyra and my
work."

"Tomorrow." Disappointment rang in her tones. "When I have counted each
day until you should come."

"Himyra is not far in the car already made," Croft said ignoring her
ingenuous confession. "I shall come to you again--aye, again and
again."

"Yet must we be discreet," Naia exclaimed. "You must come--I _must_ see
you--but we must keep this secret in our hearts. Did Lakkon dream that
Naia had dared to break her spoken pledge--" She paused. A tremor shook
her as she leaned against him with his arm about her waist.

       *       *       *       *       *

"You must return to your room," he urged. "Fear not. Yet when you pray,
ask of Zitu that he give me speed and knowledge in my work. And should
you not see or hear from me for a time, be sure that all I do is for
you, that you are ever in my thoughts."

"As you will be in mine." Once more she turned to face him. "Yet before
I go in now, my lord, give me again your lips."

"Beloved!" Croft held her a final moment and saw her depart.

Himself he lingered by the pool. His soul was on fire. He had won!
Naia of Aphur in her soul was his. The soft warmth of her lips still
lingered upon his own. Aye, he had won--her surrender to himself. That
final kiss showed how complete that surrender was. So complete was it,
that she had over-stepped all the code of her nation and caste in order
to give it expression, had placed herself where, should her act be
learned, she would stand before her people disgraced.

Nor was his love less than hers. It was a great love, which had brought
him to this time--so great, so all compelling, he felt now that even in
his student days in India it had drawn him in a strange, subconscious
fashion not then understood--so great that for it he had dared the
unknown, to find the feminine complement of his spirit, whom tonight he
had held within his arms.

No mere lure of the flesh was his divine passion, which had drawn him
and fired him now to a resolution to work, work for it and it alone,
until he had won not only Naia's love, but Naia as well. She had said
the thing was stronger than herself. Croft knew it was stronger than
himself as he sat beside the moonlit pool. It was one of those great
loves, which have made history before this and will again. Hence
tomorrow he would go back to Himyra, and there he would work and plan.

And, thought Croft, he must spy upon Cathur's prince, in the way only
he could compass so far as he knew. Kyphallos must be in Scira now,
unless he had gone back to Anthra. Kyphallos must be watched. There was
that trip to Niera he had promised Kalamita to make. Would he tell her
what had occurred in Himyra? And if so, what would Zollaria's Magnet
of white flesh do? That she felt any emotion for Kyphallos other than
as a pawn to her hand, Croft did not believe. He knew her type, and
frankly he believed her an agent of her nation set to ensnare the heir
of Cathur and further Zollaria's plans. He nodded his head and rose.
He would find this Cathurian prince and see what he did, and where at
present he was.

Quickly he went back to his own apartment and laid himself on the
couch. Naia he fancied was lying so even now in that room where Azil
lifted his carved white wings beside her mirror pool. He smiled. Some
day he promised his heart, his empty arms, they should not lie apart,
but together, on a moonlit Palosian night.

Then he put all that out of his mind and fixed its full power on his
task. Swifty that conscious entity which was the real man flitted
across the Central Sea, and found itself in the palace of Scythys,
the Cathurian king. About it he prowled, invisible and unseen by the
nodding palace guards. And in it he found no sign of Scythys's son.

Once more he flitted free. To Abbu he went and found the monk asleep
in a room of the Scira pyramid. And from there he flashed to Anthra,
and found the gilded galley of the fickle youth tied up in the harbor
basin, and Kyphallos lost in dalliance with a slender and beautiful
dancer. He turned away with disgust; yet not before he learned that
Kyphallos went to Niera tomorrow, as he had promised Kalamita he would
do more than a month before.

       *       *       *       *       *

Back to his chamber and the body of Jasor of Nodhur went Croft. At
least now he was satisfied that he could watch Kyphallos and mark his
every move. Then let Kyphallos beware. He gave a final glance to the
moon-flooded night and slept.

And in the morning he entered the motor and ran back to Himyra before
the heat of the day. Work--work. That was to be his motto for the
golden days to come. But first he must again return to earth.

That day, therefore, he spent in coaching Robur toward keeping the
work moving on the engines. Also he requested that he have a great
shop erected beyond the one they were using to expedite the work, and
drew for him the plans for a sort of dock, wherein motors might be
installed in a number of ships.

"Why give these to me?" Robur asked after Croft had explained.

"Since, that tonight, Rob, I shall fall into the sleep of which I have
told you," Croft replied.

"Zitu! You feel it upon you?" Robur half started back.

"Yes."

"And it will last for how long a time?"

"I know not," said Croft. "It shall endure until I am possessed of the
next means for making Aphur strong. Do you remember your promise to
guard my body well?"

"It shall be well guarded, my strange friend," Robur promised again.

Yet that night a sudden panic seized upon Croft. What, he asked
himself, if some unknown peril should threaten Naia while he was
studying munition-making on earth? He considered that for a time,
before he saw a way around. And then he sought out Gaya, and finding
her alone as luck would have it, explained to her as he had explained
to Robur before the nature of his coming sleep.

She heard him wide-eyed, and before she could break forth in comment
Croft went on. "But Gaya, wife of my friend, should any peril or danger
threaten Naia, daughter of Lakkon, the cousin of your lord, and I be
still asleep--come quickly to me and bend to whisper, 'Naia needs you'
and I promise I shall awake."

Gaya gave him a wide-eyed, startled glance. "Her name will rouse you
from this sleep of deathlike seeming?" she exclaimed.

"Aye," Croft smiled. Gaya's expression had told him in a flash that she
understood. "Wife of my friend, I think her name might wake me from
death itself."

"Jasor!" Gaya cried. "My lord--can this thing be?"

"That my heart lies at her pink-nailed feet?" Croft retorted. "Aye."

"Yet is she pledged to Cathur." Gaya grew swiftly pale. "Jasor, my
good lord--and you love her, speak not concerning it to any other save
myself. I swear by Zitu to keep your words in my heart. Do you control
your tongue."

Croft smiled into her troubled face again. "My tongue I may control,"
he declared. "But my heart can I not curb in its mad passion for the
maid, nor make it less rebel against this plighted troth."

"Robur approves not of it, nor I," Gaya told him softly. "Love brought
Milidhur and Aphur together. But--this--this is of--of other design."
And suddenly she knit her well-formed brows. "Jasor," said she speaking
very quickly; "you are strong--you have thoughts above other men, and
something tells me the maid would lie happy in your arms."

Croft sprang to his feet. "You would approve it, Gaya, my sweet
friend?" he exclaimed with flashing eyes.

"I am a woman," she replied in almost breathless fashion. "Naia loathes
this Cathurian prince."

"And a cycle lies before us, ere he claims her for his own," Croft
smiled.

"What mean you?" Gaya half rose. Her hand lifted to her breast.

"Nay." Croft shook his head. "I cannot tell you. Yet, as you say, I
am strong, and I shall make Aphur and Tamarizia strong as myself and
stronger a thousand fold. Remember, therefore, the words I have told
you to speak, and say them close in my ear, in case any need should
arise."




                             CHAPTER XVII

                        THE TEUTONS IN THE SKY


Naia! Naia of Aphur would lie happy in his arms. And by Zitu! Some
day she should. This was for her. Croft laid himself on his couch and
fell into that deathlike sleep of the body, he had learned so well to
produce.

But his spirit fled across the Central Sea to Niera, willing itself
into the presence of Cathur's heir wherever he might be.

He found him in the room of a red stone palace overlooking the sea from
the terraced side of the shore on which it stood. He lay on a copper
couch, covered with silken cloth of a clear pure yellow, and he wore an
expression of sullen pique upon his face.

For he was not alone. Nor was this his private apartment as Croft
understood in a glance. It was the suite of Kalamita herself. And the
tawny beauty was present in quite shameless fashion, plainly preparing
herself for some coming function as it appeared from the litter of
feminine articles of toilet which lay on the red wood table at which
she sat.

"Nay--think you I have no other source of information beyond your own
rosy lips, good Kyphallos," she broke forth in an almost taunting
voice; "or that I know not men for what they are? This flower of
Aphur is pretty as I have heard, as Bzad who has disguised himself
and journeyed to Himyra as a common sailor and seen her, tells me of
his own knowledge. Also it comes to my ears that you drank too deeply
of the Aphurian wine. A drunkard and a pretty fleshly toy. Zitemque
himself never fashioned a stronger design for the making of trouble and
fools. Think you I cannot understand?"

Kyphallos frowned. "One would think you Gayana," he grumbled as
Kalamita paused.

She shrugged. "Nay, I am no priestess of Ga, nor a virgin as you know.
Nor do I ask that you look no less clay. What are your pastimes with
dancers and women of the people to me? Yet Kalamita gives not herself
to be cast aside for a woman of Aphur's choosing--or a woman of equal
rank."

So that was it, thought Croft. Kyphallos was in this woman's power
indeed. And now Kyphallos quitted his couch and crossed to her side.
He caught her and raised her in his arms. "You are the fool!" he
cried. "Yet by Zitu, I delight to see you heated, by word of another
than yourself. Listen--and this time believe. I found myself in a
trap of Jadgor's devising, as I have said. Had I refused this rite
of betrothal, how think you he would have looked upon my act? Could
I allay all suspicion of those things which shall bring you queen to
Zitra's throne in better fashion than to accept?

"Think not all the wisdom of mankind lies wrapped in your beauteous
head. Kyphallos of Cathur, is no more a fool than another. Hence I
stand pledged to Naia, of Aphur, whom Bzad himself may have for a toy,
should he wish, so long as I keep Kalamita in my arms. Thus have I
gained the time of a cycle for the further perfecting of my plans."

"This is the truth?" A flash of selfish satisfaction crept into the
woman's eyes.

"Aye--as I tell you. Small need of your spies in Aphur to bring you
word. Myself, I left a spy to find out the secret of this new car which
runs itself, as I told you. Aye--Cathur, too, knows how to plan."

Croft felt a thrill of humor at the words. He knew well what had
happened to Cathur's spy. He watched while Kalamita freed herself from
Kyphallos's embrace and began loading herself with jewels.

"And how does Cathur plan when the cycle is run out?" she inquired at
length. "What of this pledge with Aphur, then?"

"Zollaria will be ready--then," Kyphallos said.

Zollaria would be ready. The thing was plotted then, arranged. There
was a full understanding between Kyphallos and the nation which had
used this beautiful vampire to bait its trap.

"And if not?" she said.

"The pledge can be forsworn--and Aphur can do what she likes."

"Your father?"

"Knows not his own mind from day to day, as you yourself know. Even now
he speaks of giving me the throne."

Kalamita smiled. "Yet Bzad says Naia is very fair." She narrowed her
eyes.

"Bzad speaks truth, yet have I not come straight to you as I said on my
return?"

"Aye. Good then my lord. Tonight let us speak as one of this journey
to the south. Myself, I shall seem as one who knows and understands,
and am satisfied in all that has occurred. Do you maintain your action
solely to gain time and allay all suspicion in Aphur's mind. Tonight
shall you know Zollaria's final plans which shall bring you to Zitra's
throne." She rose and stood before him. "Do you love me indeed, my
lord?"

"Yes, by Zitu!" Kyphallos's voice was thickened. He reached out eager
hands.

But Kalamita laughed. "Not Kyphallos alone may pledge himself for
reasons of State," she taunted, drawing back. "I also have given my
troth to another since you left."

"You!" For an instant the Cathurian seemed bereft of further power
of speech. He grew deadly pale. Then the red blood surged back into
his face. It grew dark, with a deadly passion. He sprang forward and
seized her by her jewel-banded arms, holding her in a grip she might
not resist. "What mean you? Say quickly your words are a jest, or, by
Zitu and Azil, you shall find no time before I crush in your unfaithful
breast!"

It came over Croft that the Cathurian loved her--with such love as a
man of his type could give; that for her he was ready to sacrifice
honor and country and all a true man would hold sacred; that this
explained all he had so far heard. And it came into his mind that the
woman was in danger.

But she smiled in mockery into the threatening face. "For reasons of
State, my lord," she said.

"What?" Kyphallos caught a breath.

Kalamita loosened his grip on her arms, carried his arms downward
beside her and drew them about her form. "Plans have gone forward since
you departed for the south. When all is ready you shall invite me to
Anthra--and once in your power you shall refuse to permit my return.
Zollaria, and he to whom I am pledged, shall demand it, and still
shall you refuse. Then shall Zollaria wage war on Cathur and Cathur
shall appeal to Tamarizia for aid. And since Cathur guards the gate to
the Central Sea and her loss would spell the downfall of a thousand
cycles of power that aid may not be refused."

The rape of Helen--the siege of Troy. Woman--woman--the source of life
and the cause of so much death. Croft felt his senses swirl as he saw
the subtle way in which nothing less than a war of conquest had been
planned and practically assured.

       *       *       *       *       *

Kyphallos spoke. "And Cathur's unprepared army, thanks to Tamhys's
thoughts of peace, and of others before him, shall scarcely stop the
armies Zollaria has trained and armed and taught for fifty years. Then
shall Kyphallos and Kalamita mount the throne of Zitra, and--"

"Naia!" Once more the woman taunted with a smile.

"Bzad can have her, if he takes her," Kyphallos cried.

Bzad--the blue Mazzerian chief! Naia to a savage! Croft's spirit
quivered and shook with a righteous rage. The last vestige of any
compunction he might have held against leading the girl to declare her
passion for himself disappeared.

"Not an impossible fate," he heard Kalamita speaking and noted a crafty
light creep into her yellow eyes. "Come, then. Let us descend. Play
your part strongly, my lord, and all, I think, shall be well."

Croft followed them downstairs to the court where a table was spread.
Save Kalamita herself the guests were wholly men. He recognized
Bandhor, her brother, and the Mazzerian Bzad. The others, plainly
Zollarians and men of Mazzer by their appearance and speech, were as
yet unknown to him.

The appearance of the Zollarian Magnet and her captive victim was a
signal for all to take their seats. Thereafter, as the meal progressed,
Croft learned the final details of the plan.

It was mainly such as he had already conceived save that the Mazzerian
nation was to aid Zollaria in the war of annexation she planned. For
this Mazzeria was to be given a seaport on the Central Sea and free use
of a river leading from it through the state of Bithur, as well as the
eastern half of Bithur itself. War would be made by Mazzeria on the
eastern frontier, while Zollaria threw her main force against Cathur
and crushed her smaller army by sheer force of weight.

"Thus," said one of the party, a man unknown to Croft, yet one, he
felt, could be no less than a representative of the Zollarian ruler
himself from the deference paid him by the others, "shall Zollaria make
good that freedom of the seas she has long desired, and prove her good
faith and her friendship for our Mazzerian allies to the east. Thus
shall Zollaria and Tamarizia become one nation, with Cathur to rule the
southern half. As for the fashion in which our good Prince Kyphallos
met Aphur's plans, it is well. For since war is to be the outcome of
all our planning, what matters one pledge broken more or less?"

This was Zollarian statecraft, Croft thought. This was the weight
of Zollaria's word. This was the right of might. To take what she
wished, to trick, betray, seduce, that she might gain her ends thereby.
Nothing which mankind held sacred was sacred to her, it appeared. She
sent a royal woman of easy morals to lure Cathur into a snare. She
would make this tawny enchantress her final excuse for war. She was
callous, overbearing, greedy of power, gross save for a surface seeming
of culture she used as a mask--behind which lurked the true nature
which inspired her plans and acts. To her Kyphallos would sell his
birthright, his state, his nation, for the favor of the wanton beside
him and a place upon a secondary throne.

And it was Kyphallos who spoke now. "And thus shall Kalamita be queen
at Zitra when all is done! A toast to Kalamita now!"

"To Kalamita, queen of women now. Queen of Zitra later!" the unknown
noble cried and lifted a goblet brimming with wine.

"To Kalamita!" the party drank.

"And now," said the unknown, rising and lifting the goblet above his
head, "another toast, my friends. To those things we have planned and
their fruition. To--the day--whenever it shall be!"

"To the day!" They drank it standing.

Bandhor, in whose palace Croft judged the conference has occurred,
clapped his hands sharply and a band of dancers trooped in.

Croft left. He had learned all he had hoped and more. He knew now what
Tamarizia faced--war. And he knew more. He knew that Naia, of Aphur,
was his! He knew that Cathur meant to forswear her--that there would be
no need on his part to win her other than by winning this war. His part
now to arm Aphur, Nodhur, Milidhur--so much of Tamarizia as he could
in the space of a year. His part to bring disaster to these carefully
laid plans of a greedy nation and a traitor prince.

That was his work. It was best he should be about it. To do what he
must the time was painfully short. Turning his mind upon the first step
which should lead him to its completion, he focused his mind upon it
with all his power and left Palos for the earth.




                             CHAPTER XVIII

                          "ARMS AND THE MAN"


Two weeks went by before he once more opened the eyes of Jasor's body
and found himself in a guarded room in the palace of Aphur's king.

He had spent them on earth in the study of firearms and munitions and
the various devices required for making the same. Now he returned with
a consciousness full of designs and an urgent desire to attempt their
carrying out.

He sat up. "List, soldier, I would drink!" he announced.

The guard inside the door of his chamber started, shot a quick glance
toward his bed, and approached none too swiftly, Croft thought. The man
actually seemed afraid. "Wine!" he snapped, seeking to overcome the
first shock induced by his words.

"Aye, my lord." The guard turned to the door and set it open. "Wine!"
he bawled. "The Lord Jasor awakes!"

"My clothes." Croft left his couch.

Ten minutes later a rap fell on the door. Robur appeared. Word of
Croft's waking had spread. The prince himself came with a page bringing
wine. Croft drank: "I would see Jadgor at once," he declared.

"He sleeps," Prince Robur began.

"Then wake him. All Tamarizia totters to a fall unless we be ready in
less than a single cycle, Rob."

"Zitu!" Robur stared. "Say you truly. How know you this, Jasor, my
friend?"

Croft turned and pointed toward his couch. "I was told while my body
lay there," he said quickly. "You call on Zitu in vain unless you give
heed to my words!"

"Nay, not so. Come," replied Aphur's prince. "I myself shall take you
to my father without delay."

That was a strange night in Himyra of Aphur, pregnant with the
destinies of a nation--and nothing less. Jadgor, no king in seeming
now, but a stern-faced man in a simple garment sat upon his couch
while Croft revealed his knowledge of what Zollaria planned.

"By Zitu!" he roared at the end, "would Cathur dare this thing?"

"Aye--for the woman and Zitra's throne," said Croft.

"To foreswear his pledge to Aphur?"

"Aye."

"To surrender his state?"

"Aye--that too, Jadgor the king."

And suddenly Jadgor was king indeed despite the disadvantage of
position and clothes. "Then let Zilla the Destroyer take me unless
we meet them, spear to spear and sword to sword! Jasor of Nodhur, I
understand you not--nor yet how your knowledge is obtained save Zitu
speaks through you as a mouthpiece for his own designs. Yet know I that
what you say falls out. Wherefore I shall once more heed your words.
This falls on Aphur, Nodhur, Milidhur, I think, with Tamhys, man of
peace on Zitra's throne. Yet shall Aphur, Nodhur, and Milidhur prepare.
Inside a cycle, should we work together, we shall have a very horde of
ready spears and swords."

"Nay, scarcely that," said Croft.

"What else?" Jadgor stared.

"Stronger weapons than those, for which I bring the plans. If made in
time, a thousand men instructed in their use, can end this war almost
before it starts. Let Aphur, Milidhur, and Nodhur plan together, that
these weapons may be produced some in Himyra and some in Ladhra. The
work is vast. Yet shall the final end be sure if this is done before
Zollaria strikes. Robur and I shall undertake the carrying out of my
designs, if Jadgor gives the word."

"Then Jadgor gives it," said the king. "On Nodhur will I call and
Milidhur. No man may say that Aphur failed to think of Tamarizia's
good. For though I see that should you do this thing your name will
stand above all others in the state--I love my nation more than I love
either fame or rank. Hence, Nodhur, make your weapons for this coming
trial of strength, and I shall give you moneys, metals, men--all things
you may require."

Croft's heart swelled in his breast. Had he ever doubted Jadgor's
patriotic motives for a moment, those doubts died now as he heard him
lay aside those dreams of imperial rank he knew had once been his.
And in that moment there was born within his brain the plan he was
fated to carry out--a plan which would make Tamhys the last emperor of
Tamarizia, and after him no other ever again. "Then," he accepted the
king's assurance, "Robur and I shall plan that this work may start at
once. Aphur, I crave your pardon for having broken your sleep."

That was the beginning of Croft's real work. Oddly enough, on a planet
where he had come upon seeming peace, his first task outside the
original motor was in preparing for war; and even the motor entered
largely into that.

       *       *       *       *       *

At once he plunged into a very frenzy of action, almost appalled
himself by the amount to be done inside a year. That first night he
spent with Robur drafting to his attentive ears those things which they
must do--the finishing of the motors--their installation in ships.

"The structure for that end is well-nigh completed," Robur said.

"Good!" Croft cried, and went on swiftly to demand the construction or
appropriation of buildings for the making of arms. As to the nature
of the latter, he held back the details for the time, and spoke of
preparing a fleet of swift motor-driven galleys in which to transport
the troops they would raise across the Central Sea when the need should
arise.

Robur's eyes sparkled at that. "We shall come upon them ere they dream
we can arrive. Jasor, my friend, your name shall be greatest among
Tamarizia's men."

"No greater than that of Jadgor," Croft replied. "Rob, your father is a
man above other men. None save a man of noble spirit forgets himself to
assure his nation's good."

In the month that followed Croft did many things. He began the training
of a number of men in assembling the motors, choosing only such as
seemed peculiarly adapted to the work. He installed a motor in a galley
and drove the craft through Himyra along the Na at a speed which had
never been seen in a ship in Palos before. In this, with Jadgor himself
and Lakkon, whom he persuaded to bring Naia along, he journeyed on up
the river to make his long-promised visit to Jasor's parents at Ladhra
and enlist Belzor, King of Nodhur, in their plans.

Sinon and Mellia scarcely knew how to take him they thought their son.

"By Zitu! You have done it!" Sinon cried as he rode the galley across
the Na's yellow flood.

Later, loaded with honors, both by Jadgor and Belzor himself, he grew
abashed. "That my son should raise me to noble station," he faltered to
Mellia at his side. "Strange days are coming to Tamarizia, wife of my
heart, when he who was a dullard sits in the council of the kings."

For Croft had appeared before Belzor inside the first day after Ladhra
was reached. And Belzor, startled by the fact of a galley which ran
up the turgid current of the mighty river without oars or sails, had
listened to him and Jadgor and joined his support to their plans. That
settled, he arranged with Sinon to send several galleys to Himyra to
be equipped with motors, and returning to that city for a few days,
dropped down stream, entered the Central Sea, and sailed to the capital
city of Milidhur.

On this trip Gaya made one of their party, and though Croft perforce
acted as engineer, he managed more than one word with Naia during the
course of the voyage, and once the fleeting bliss of a stolen kiss.

In Milidhur, Gaya's voice helped to turn the tide to Jadgor and Croft.
A princess of state, she brought all her influence to bear. And since
Milidhur was asked only to form a part of the army, to be equipped
before Zollaria struck, the matter was soon arranged.

Back in Himyra at length, Croft found the work on the motors
progressing swiftly under Robur's direction and at once began the
actual construction of machines for the fashioning of arms. Now and
then he stole away for an evening and drove out to Lakkon's mountain
palace for a meal. Not only did he find pleasure in the going, but Naia
pleaded for the all too short hours they managed to spend together, and
to Croft it seemed that each time he brought back from her presence a
freshened and driving energy to his work.

That work progressed. Of that progress he spoke to her from time to
time. And always she spurred him on with eyes and lips through the task
at the end of which she herself was the waiting and willing prize.

       *       *       *       *       *

Day and night the fire of creation flared in Himyra, and so soon as
work was started, and he had shown Robur how to keep busy the many men
Jadgor had furnished for their needs, Croft put some of the new motors
into commission between Himyra and Ladhra and started other work there,
in a mighty building set apart by Belzor for his use. Those necessary
bits of machinery first installed in the Himyra shops he had made, like
the motor parts were now made, in numbers.

Sinon's first galley up the Na carried as its cargo partly assembled
engines of queer design to a Palosian mind, which should when set up in
the shops at Ladhra fulfil their portion of Croft's plan. Thereafter
the fires of the new era flared in Ladhra, too, and Croft spent his
time between the two shops, motoring back and forth mainly at night,
regardless of the loss of sleep until he should have everything running
smoothly.

Twenty of the hundred cars which were gradually taking shape he set
apart, however, after they were tested--and these he had equipped with
all-metal wheels carrying cross-bars on their tires like short, strong
teeth. He put workmen to the task of making metal walls to bolt upon
each chassis. And these walls were pierced with slots. Thus he arranged
for twenty armored cars and had them set aside. Likewise he speeded the
construction of numbers of flat-bottomed power-boats capable of speed,
yet having floor space enough to transport no small number of men.

A month passed, two months, three. Always the fires in Ladhra and
Himyra flared. Men toiled day and night. Croft's plans were drawn for
each part of the arm he intended to make. Machines were assembled and
set up--motors were harnessed to them to Robur's amazement. Croft found
the Tamarizians apt of comprehension and willing to work. Each man
employed was sworn to fealty to the State. Each knew himself a member
in an army working for the safety of the nation. At the end of three
months he found himself the supreme captain of a picked corps. And at
the end of a month he was ready to begin the actual making of arms.

Now and then Croft went back to his earthly body, not only to renew
its physical life, but to gain help in the work he was carrying on
by learning fresh details on each trip. He gave up any intention of
manufacturing machine guns, as a thing requiring too much time. On
an average he spent two days of every week on earth. His sleeps on
Palos had become too frequent to cause any further comment when they
occurred. Thus a fourth month passed.

In it Croft accomplished several things. He did not stop motor
production with the first hundred. He continued their building and
began selling the output of the shops to private owners. The things
became a not too unusual sight on the Himyra streets, and the first
motor caravan was organized and crossed the inland desert to Milidhur
with success.

One special car Croft had built. On it he lavished all his present
ability of refinement. And when it was done he drove it to Lakkon's
mountain mansion in the twilight of a busy day. It was for Naia, and
himself he gave it to her, and after the evening meal when the three
moons rose he placed her in it and taught her how to drive.

Far down the mountain road and out upon the desert between the foot
of the hills and Himyra they went. They were alone in the soft light
which turned the dun plain to silver. Far off the red fires in Croft's
workshops flared over Himyra's walls.

Croft stopped the car and pointed to that red reflection in the lesser
light. Suddenly it seemed to him that in all the world there were just
they two--that they were alone--that nothing else mattered. His heart
swelled.

"For you!" he said, and drew Naia into his arms, and against his
breast. "For you!" He kissed her on eyes and lips. "To free you and
give you to me always. Those fires are burning away all need of your
sacrifice. In the end they shall make you mine."

"Yours." Naia sighed in his arms as one content. "Here in the desert
you preserved my life. Why should it not belong to you?

"Your work progresses well?" she went on after a time.

"Beyond my hopes," Croft assured her. "Have no fear. All shall be
ready--in time."

"My lord," she whispered.

"Aye--_your_ lord, beloved," said Croft.

"Beloved," she repeated.

For a time Croft simply held her, and then he turned the car and drove
back up the mountain road.




                              CHAPTER XIX

                         A SUMMONS FROM ZITRA


At the end of the fourth month the first rifle was done. It was an
odd-appearing affair. Tempered copper took the place of earthly
steel in barrel and other metal parts. Copper formed the shell for
the ammunition, over which Croft had experienced more trouble than
in anything else. Lead was very scarce on Palos. But there were vast
quantities of gold. That explained the enormous use made of it in
draperies and the common trades as he had learned.

Yet it was with some compunction due to the opposite conditions on
earth and their lifelong effect on his brain that he finally hit on
an alloy from which the bullets were made. Powder had troubled him,
too--though in the end he managed to make it. And for the fulminating
centers of his cartridge complete, he was compelled to spend several
days on earth.

In the end, however, he held the first completed weapon in his hands,
and gloated over its finished lines. Taking Robur in a car, he drove
out along the south road to a place where he knew vast flocks of
water-fowl were wont to frequent the Na.

As a boy he had been a good shot, until such time as he waked in his
soul a repugnance for killing the natural creatures the One Great
Source had made, save as necessity arose.

He gestured to the wild fowl floating on the yellow water more than a
bow-shot away. "Now watch, Rob," he said, and took the rifle in his
hands.

Vaguely by now Prince Robur understood the design of the new instrument
of destruction. Yet it was hard for him to comprehend fully a thing
such as he had never dreamed before Croft put it into his mind. He
smiled. "Had we not better draw a little closer, Jasor, my friend?" he
inquired.

"No." On the word Croft fired. Nor did he fire blindly into the flock.
He chose a bird swimming to one side. And hard on the sound of his shot
that bird jerked in the spasmodic fashion of a sorely stricken thing,
struggled for an instant and floated away, half sunk in the yellow tide.

The entire flock rose at the new strange sound on the silent air. They
swarmed across the sky. Pumping up a fresh cartridge, Croft lifted
his rifle swiftly, chanced another hit--and scored. One of the flying
creatures checked its rapid course, slanted drunkenly downward and then
spun dizzily over and over to fall not far from where the two men
stood in the car.

"Zitu! Zitu!" Robur exclaimed, springing from the machine to retrieve
the fallen bird. Croft watched him run toward it in very unprincelike
haste. Then he was coming back with the dead thing in his hands,
staring wide-eyed at the drops of blood on its feathers, lifting his
face with a strange expression to Croft, as he climbed back to his seat.

"Are you convinced, Rob?" Croft laid the rifle aside.

"I am convinced Zitu himself but uses you as his agent. These things
never came from a mortal brain alone," the Prince of Aphur replied.

"Man comes by Zitu's will, why should not Zitu use man for the things
it pleases him to do?" said Croft.

"You do not deny it?" Robur spoke in almost startled fashion.

"Nay. Have I not already said that all I did was by Zitu's grace?"
There were times when Croft found it hard to avoid a direct avowal of
the actual state which was his, times when he hungered to make some
human soul a confidant concerning all that had occurred. And he loved
the strong young man by his side.

Now, however, Robur laughed in a somewhat unsteady way. "There are
times when you cause me to stand in awe of your power, Jasor, my
friend," he said.

"Think you not Zollaria will stand in awe of our weapons when they are
in the hands of our men, on foot or mounted in the cars I have armored
and pierced with holes for the barrels of the rifles?" Croft asked.

"Aye, by Zitu!" Robur shouted. "Turn around Jasor--and 'let her out.'
We must return to our work."

       *       *       *       *       *

But that night Croft drove out to the mountains, taking his rifle
along. Others were being assembled now, and he had seen Jadgor himself
and arranged for the beginning of the army they must raise. The thing
would be started by a public demonstration, at which Croft should show
the power of the new weapon. The men of Aphur, and Nodhur, and Milidhur
would be invited to join. To each who did so a rifle would be given
wholly as his property for all time to come, and a certain wage would
be given also while they were being trained.

Fired by the thought, Croft asked for a copy of the Tamarizian
alphabet, found it not unlike the ancient Maya inscriptions in Central
America and had taken it to the shop and set his pattern-makers
to forming molds for the making of type. He intended printing
proclamations of the coming call for volunteers and posting them about
the streets, where those who knew how to read might understand and
impart the knowledge to their fellows.

Thus to his inventions he added the printing-press, crude, and for
large work only at first, but printing none the less. He had taken all
this up with Jadgor, and advised waiting another month, until many
rifles were finished or being made, since the civic and royal guards
would form the nucleus of the army and must be armed before a call for
volunteers. Jadgor had listened to all he said, gazing at the dead
water-fowl Robur had insisted on lugging into the palace. He examined
the wound made by the bullet and agreed to all his son and Croft had
asked. Now at the end of the day Croft was speeding forth to show
the woman he loved the thing which should win for them their heart's
desire, and wreck Zollaria's plans.

Lakkon himself met him as he descended at the door. Despite his resolve
Croft's visits were growing more and more frequent and Lakkon was not a
fool.

"My lord," he said, giving his hand, "what brings you again thus soon?"

Croft drew himself up. "Success," he returned. "I came but to prove to
you the power of the first of the new weapons we have made. And having
done so I shall return to Himyra so soon as I may."

"Nay." A trouble expression waked in Lakkon's eyes. "Take not my words
amiss." He seemed suddenly abashed. "The weapon does all you said?"

"Aye. I shall show you and the princess, if I may."

Lakkon's eyes flashed. The meaning of this wonder-worker's statement if
proved, which he did not doubt, swept all else out of his mind for the
time. "What do you require?" he asked in a tense tone.

Croft glanced about. Below him near the lake in a mountain meadow were
some of the strange sheep-like cattle, knee deep in grass. He gestured
toward them with his hand. "Permission to slay one of those."

"Granted, so be you can do it," Lakkon smiled. The distance was twice
the range of any bow.

Croft reflected the smile as he made answer. "If the princess may be
summoned." He turned and took the rifle from the car.

Lakkon eyed it with unconcealed interest. He called the Mazzerian from
within the door and directed that Naia be bidden to appear.

While they waited, Croft opened the magazine and extracted a bullet.
He was explaining it to Lakkon when Naia hurried forth. "A powder
within the shell furnishes the power to propel the ball in the end," he
finished in time to greet her. "And now Prince Lakkon, to take you at
your word." He lifted the shining barrel.

"What would you do?" Naia exclaimed.

"Behold," said Croft and fired.

Far below in the meadow one of the woolly creatures appeared to
stumble, to stagger a pace or two forward before it sank into the grass.

"Zitu!" came Lakkon's voice.

Croft smiled.

Naia approached. Her face was devoid of color--as white as though the
bullet had pierced her heart instead of the body of the unknowing
sacrifice to developing science, now lying in swift dissolution beside
the lake. Slowly she put forth a finger and touched the shining thing
in Croft's hands. "This is the new weapon?" she said in a sibilant
whisper, and lifted her face to his.

"Aye. And having shown Lakkon its power, I must return to Himyra."
Croft turned toward the car. He hoped she would understand his
abruptness, since after Lakkon's words he was afraid to meet the glance
of her eyes.

"Return?" she cried protestingly. "Must you go so soon, my lord?"

"The need presses," Lakkon cut in. "Lord Jasor came but to show us the
last fruits of his wonderful knowledge. I called you to witness the
test. You need not remain."

"You see," he went on as Naia turned with a quivering lip and slowly
mounted the stairs.

"What?" Croft met him eye to eye.

"That my daughter is a woman, Jasor of Nodhur, and that your name is
a word on every tongue in Aphur, and that the princess is pledged to
Cathur."

"Who will foreswear his pledge," Croft interrupted, knowing Jadgor must
have told the counselor what they had discussed.

"If your words be true?"

"You doubt them?"

"Nay--yet Lakkon is a name of honor, and a pledge is a pledge until
broken indeed."

"And should it be so broken?" Croft leaned a trifle toward him from the
hips.

"Aphur would refuse you nothing," Prince Lakkon said.

Croft laughed as he sprang into his seat. "Forget not those words,
Prince Lakkon," he flung back as he started the car.

       *       *       *       *       *

He drove to Himyra in a rage. Before him floated a vision of Naia's
purple eyes gone black with hurt misunderstanding, of her quivering
crimson lips. But his rage was as much with himself as with Lakkon, to
tell the truth. He had been indiscreet after promising discretion. He
had gone to the mountains too often. He had let eye and voice speak too
plainly those things in his soul. Lakkon had been blind not to see what
was ripening under his nose. And Lakkon was a man of honor according to
his code.

He drove to the palace, found Gaya, and told her the whole thing from
beginning to end.

"You mean that the maiden loves you?" she cried.

"Aye," Croft said.

"You have told her of your love?" Gaya seemed a bit breathless as she
paused.

"Aye." Croft inclined his head.

"You are mad!"

"Nay--I am in love. It comes to the same thing." Croft smiled.

"Ga and Azil help you both," Gaya returned. "I can do nothing. And--you
must not imperil her honor, my lord. But--I shall make it my task to
see her and explain the manner of your return tonight, and," her color
deepened swiftly, "to assure her of your love."

"Thank you, sweet Gaya." Croft rose. "You are a blessed hypocrite--and
a true woman."

He bent and gripped her hand.

And Gaya smiled upon him because he was a strong man and she was a
woman indeed.

For the rest as the days and weeks dragged away, Croft sought to drown
himself in attention to his work. All day he toiled and oftentimes
far into the night. Jasor's splendid physique stood him in good stead
during the months of preparation.

There were no labor troubles in Aphur. The state fixed the scale of
wages, and those who would not work were summarily sent to the mines to
dig the metals needed by their more energetic fellow citizens. Thus the
fifth month passed.

Rifles were being turned forth in a glittering array at Himyra and
Ladhra and stored with their ammunition for the time of need. Croft
finished his printing-press and struck from it the first bulletins
which should appeal to the men of three states to come to their
country's need.

"Citizens of Tamarizia," Croft wrote. "Shall Tamarizia weaken or grow
strong? Recall the heritage your forebears left. Yours is the Central
Sea. Yours is a government of the people, for the people, under liberal
heads of state, who express the people's will as set forth once in a
cycle by the state assemblies you by your votes elect. But a government
by the people is strong only as the people themselves shall make it.
Citizens make Tamarizia strong as never before.

"Let each man step to the fore and agree to serve as a soldier for one
year. To each shall be given a weapon which he may keep. Ponder on
this. If each year each man of good health and a certain age shall for
one year win his weapon and learn concerning its use, how long before
Tamarizia shall be so strong in the strength of her men that she shall
be safe in the possession of the proud station those brave men your
forefathers left to you in trust? Ask of your civic captains concerning
this. Enroll yourself as citizens of Tamarizia under them."

These bulletins were posted in Aphur, Nodhur and Milidhur, and in the
capital of each state a public demonstration of the new army weapon
was held by a picked squad of Jadgor's royal guards whom Croft had
taught to shoot. At each a herd of taburs was slaughtered, singly and
in groups. All southwest Tamarizia gasped. The word flew from mouth to
mouth. The stories fired men's hearts. They flocked to the captains of
the city guards.

Croft began teaching the royal guard and the guard of Himyra, the
school of the company and squad, marksmanship and a simple manual of
arms. They learned quickly and inside a month he sent many of them as
special instructors to all Aphur and the other southern states. Thus
far things had progressed to the end of the ninth month, when the
imperial throne at Zitra interfered. A messenger arrived, commanding
Jadgor and all others responsible for the warlike activity in Aphur and
Nodhur to appear before Tamhys with the least possible delay.




                              CHAPTER XX

                        WHEN THE EMPEROR HEDGED


The thing was not unexpected to Croft. From the start he had feared
some such event. Hence, without offering explanation to Jadgor he had
taken steps to convince Magur of Himyra of the deathlike stupor in
which his body lay at such times as he was absent from it.

He had gone on one occasion to the pyramid and deliberately left
Jasor's form sitting in a chair, while he projected himself to Scira
and found out Abbu, now for some months engaged in keeping watch on the
moves of Cathur's prince. Returning to find Magur standing above him
in something like awe, he had told exactly what Abbu was doing at the
time, and requested Magur to verify his words in any fashion he chose.

Now faced by the imperial interference with all his plans, he called
Magur to his aid. He took him to Zitra, with Jadgor, Lakkon and
himself, making the journey quickly in a motor-driven craft and taking
the messenger along.

Croft marveled at Zitra, despite all he had seen of Tamarizian
architecture before. It rose crystal and silver and white, save
that the temple of Zitu, surmounting a pyramid twice the size of
that at Himyra was of an azure-blue stone--the color of the highest
priesthood as he was to learn. The palace of Tamhys was a marvel to the
eye--vaster than Himyra's mighty white structure built wholly of white
and crystal and roofed with burnished silver, paved with alternate
squares of silver, and crystal, and gold.

The thing was unbelievable, Croft felt. He moved as in a dream. This
was the central city of empire, impregnable to any weapon then known on
Palosian soil. Its walls rose sheer from the sea on the side which they
approached. The harbor was within them. Sea gates closed the entrance
with leaves of copper, covered by silver faces. The walls themselves
were white. Darting through the gates their galley entered the gulf of
a harbor smooth as glass wherein were mirrored the quays and structures
along the water's edge. The cool green of trees banked the terraces and
relieved the well-nigh blinding radiance created by the sun upon the
glistening white. He forgot everything in the beauty of the vision and
exclaimed aloud.

Magur watched him, well pleased. His pleasure grew as Croft turned and
faced the monstrous pile of the pyramid and the pure blue temple on the
top. They landed, and while the wharfmen were unloading a motor which
Croft had brought as a present for Tamhys, and the messenger hurried to
the palace to announce their arrival, he led Croft to one side.

"I would have you meet Zud, High Priest of all Tamarizia," he said. "We
who keep alive the love of Zitu in the hearts of the nation are not
devoid of all material power, my friend."

Croft inclined his head. He had hoped for something of this sort; had
planned for it, indeed. "I also serve Zitu in my way," he declared. "I
should be honored to enter the presence of him he has seen fit to exalt
to so high a degree."

An armed guard appeared, escorting a number of gnuppa-drawn chariots.
At the invitation of a noble in glistening cuirass and helmet, the
party from Himyra entered the cars and drove toward the palace through
the streets paved in broad, flat stones. Croft, however, insisted on
driving the motor he had brought, and with him went Magur, the priest.

Tamhys would grant them audience that evening, it appeared.

Magur smiled. He beckoned the noble to his side. "Then will Jasor of
Nodhur, who sits before me, visit first on Zud," he announced. "Say
this to Tamhys, when you reach the palace with Lakkon of Aphur and
Jadgor, Aphur's king."

The man saluted and withdrew without question. Once more Magur smiled.
Croft started the engine and moved off in the wake of the gnuppas that
he might not frighten them out of their wits. "Turn here," said Magur
after a time. Inside ten minutes they stopped in front of the main
approach to the mighty pyramid.

Magur told of what he had seen and of what he had heard. The High
Priest eyed him when he finished. "Magur believes these things?" he
inquired.

"Aye, as in Zitu I believe." Magur inclined his head.

"That these things are of Zitu, through Jasor of Nodhur's mind?"

"Aye, Zud, servant of Zitu, so I believe."

Zud turned his eyes from the priest to Croft and back. "First came he
to you, at Himyra, from Abbu the brother at Scira," he recited Magur's
words.

"Aye."

"As a servant of Zitu's undreamed designs to come."

"Zud speaks the words present in my mind."

"Before the audience my request to be present shall reach Tamhys," Zud
decided. "And now, Jasor of Nodhur, how come you by the knowledge of
things undreamed?"

Croft told him so much as he dared. "My body lies as dead. In truth my
spirit leaves it. And, while absent, acquires the knowledge with which
it returns."

"As a voice?" said Zud.

"Nay, as something shown to me, together with the manner in which it
may be made."

Zud rose and lifted his hands. "Who may understand Zitu?" he intoned in
a voice of amazement. Croft felt he was convinced.

Hence when he stood that night before the white-haired Tamhys, he felt
a quiet assurance born of the belief that Magur and Zud, both present,
were his friends, and they were the friends of his cause.

       *       *       *       *       *

"Jadgor of Aphur," Tamhys began. "I have now summoned you before me,
since for some time I have had you beneath my eye. You have married
your son to a princess of Milidhur, and within half a cycle you have
betrothed your sister's child to Cathur, and Belzor of Nodhur and
yourself are friends. Thus only Bithur seems not swayed in more or less
degree by those wishes which are yours, and you wax strong in power.
Why have you done these things?"

"Tamhys of Tamarizia," Jadgor replied; "these things I do not deny.
Robur of Aphur wedded the Princess Gaya for love. Nodhur's interests
are one with Aphur, since both possess the Na within their lines. Naia
has plighted her troth to Kyphallos of Aphur at my wish to make strong
the guard of the western gate and assure to Tamarizia those things she
holds." He spoke boldly and faced the emperor of his nation with an
unflinching eye.

But Tamhys frowned. "This is not all," he said. "It has come to my ear
that you have in Himyra a man--Jasor of Nodhur--who stands now before
me--a man who works new marvels undreamed of before--that some of them
are weapons, designed for the work of war--that Aphur and Nodhur and
Milidhur increase the men in their guards to an unwarranted degree.
What say you to this?"

"That you have heard the truth, O Tamhys," Jadgor again replied. "These
things have been made. The guards have been increased. These things
also have I done to make Tamarizia strong."

The lines of Tamhys's countenance contracted further. His features grew
dark and he clenched a hand. "You are a man of power, Jadgor of Aphur,"
he cried. "Power is beneath your nostrils. Hence you dream of war. Yet
is war not of my creed, nor shall be. For fifty cycles has Tamarizia
known peace--"

"Aye--and fifty cycles past lost she the State of Mazhur, because she
knew not the art of war--as she knows it now," Jadgor flared into
interruption. Strong man that he was and crafty, he knew not the
diplomatic speech. "Is she to lose Cathur now as well?" he rushed on
and paused.

Tamhys smiled as one might at a child. "Jadgor of Aphur, the warning I
have received concerning your aims comes to me from the loyal house of
Cathur itself. Cathur thinks your eyes turn toward the throne. To me
that is of little consequence. Yet you hesitate to see one mount the
throne of Zitra to plunge our nation in war. You think, perhaps, to win
Mazhur back."

"And if I should--should I make Tamarizia whole again!" Jadgor's voice
rose with a fervid fire of patriotic feeling.

As for Croft, he felt assured he understood the situation better now.
Cathur's spies had carried word of what was forward as he had felt
assured they would. Cathur of Zollaria's prompting thus sought through
the peace-loving Tamhys to tie the hands of Tamarizia while she made
ready for the blow she expected to strike ere long. He said as much to
Magur, who repeated it to Zud.

Tamhys smiled again. "Should you attempt it, you would send our sons
to death for a little ground. Let be, Jadgor. Hold we not the western
gate as always? Are the wails of dying men and the sobs of women things
grown sweet to your ears?"

"Nay; but if Cathur falls--if Zollaria makes war and we cannot defend
what yet remains of our ground?" Jadgor's voice shook as he saw the end
of his dream of strength in view.

"Would Zollaria have waited fifty years to make war had she it in
mind?" Tamhys asked.

"Then what does Tamhys wish?" Jadgor inquired, with a sigh. He was no
traitor, and under the law he must heed the emperor's word.

"That you cease those unwise undertakings--that you send the men from
the shops of their making back to their fathers' trades; that you cease
to dream of war and pursue the ways of peace in which we have prospered
in the past. That you turn Jasor of Nodhur's mind to other things than
the making of the instruments of destruction. I have heard he has
builded chariots which run seemingly of themselves, and galleys which
propel themselves up rivers and across the seas. Those things are well.
Jadgor, I command that you forsake--"

"Hold, Tamhys!" It was Zud, the High Priest, who spoke. "Truth you have
been told, yet not all the truth as it appears. None know the plans of
Zitu save Zitu himself. A priest, I am as yourself, a man of peace.
Yet Zitu himself may send a war at times to, like a sorrow, purge the
soul of the nation and recall it to him, even as a grief may turn the
soul of a man to higher things. Jasor of Nodhur was a dullard till Zitu
opened his mind. He died as his physician declares, yet now he lives
again, and speaks with a mind inspired.

"Himself he says these things are delivered unto him while his body
lies as dead. This I have from Magur of Himyra who has seen him in such
a sleep, and Magur has the account of his changing from Abbu of Scira
who administered to him the last rites of life, ere he seemingly died.
Hence Zitu's hand appears in this to the minds of Magur and myself.
Shall Tamhys seek to interfere when Zitu directs?"

       *       *       *       *       *

For the first time the emperor wavered in his course. Man of peace
and believer in the State religion, the priest's words had a powerful
effect upon his mind.

"If he comes as an agent of Zitu, why came he not first to Zitra?" he
questioned at length.

Zud smiled. "Zitu acts many times through the means at hand. It were
easier to convince the mind of Jadgor perhaps than to persuade Tamhys,"
he replied.

The emperor winced, and turned to Jadgor again. "Swear to me by
Zitu that your acts were meant for Tamarizia's welfare and for no
advancement of self through an increase of your power," he required.

Jadgor's face set into lines of a swift resentment. His color mounted,
but he controlled his voice. "I swear it, O Tamhys," he said.

"These weapons are for Tamarizia's defense alone?"

"As Zitu sees my heart."

Tamhys chose a middle course. "Keep, then, what you have," he decreed;
"yet fashion not any more. Nor urge your men to look for war, when
peace is in their land. I have heard of strange writings posted on
walls, inviting men to join your guards."

Jadgor's face was dark, but he bowed in submission to the emperor's
command. "What of the men who stand pledged at present?" he asked. "I
have promised them a stated wage for a cycle. It is understood. My word
has passed."

"At the end of the cycle, let them be dismissed," said Tamhys after
some thought.

Again Jadgor bowed.

Yet Croft found himself not unduly cast down, and he thought he caught
a smile in Lakkon's eyes. Suspecting some such event as had just
transpired, he had instructed Robur to speed the assembling of all
rifles both at Himyra and at Ladhra, before leaving for Zitra himself.

Tamhys's decision regarding such weapons as already existed he
determined to accept in its broadest sense of application, and as for
the dismissal of the guards now in process of training at the end of a
cycle, he knew full well that they would probably not be needed after
that time, or so hotly engaged that even Tamhys would rescind his
decree.

Hence he felt that things had not turned out so badly as they might,
and he fancied Lakkon's view of the matter was practically the same.
In fact, his feeling was now as all along--a wonder that Tamhys had
not interfered before as he had oftentimes feared he would. That he
understood better now, having seen the man. He was old--wedded to a
theory, rather than of practical type. His very begging of the issue as
shown by his final ruling showed this.

He carried his desire for peace even into this conference to which he
had called the men before him, and reached--a useless compromise which
while nominally affecting the end at which he aimed, yet literally made
small difference to Croft's plans, and, as he suddenly saw, would, when
reported to Cathur and by Cathur given to other ears, result in no more
than a determination on Zollaria's part to carry out her intent. This
since she would now in all likelinood believe she had tied Jadgor's
hands by stopping the manufacture of the weapon Croft had devised.

He said as much to Jadgor and Lakkon once they were alone, and for the
first time Jadgor appeared pleased.

"Nor," said Croft, "has Tamhys forbidden the construction of _other_
weapons, my friends."

"Hai!" Jadgor's tight lips relaxed. He gave Lakkon a glance. "By Zitu!
So he did not. Jasor--you have other things in mind."

Croft nodded. It had occurred to him that, with powder and plenty of
metal, it would not be impossible to construct some very effective
forms of grenades. He explained, and Jadgor's eyes flashed fire.




                              CHAPTER XXI

                          MUCH MISCHIEF AFOOT


The morrow saw them on their return journey to Himyra, with Croft
pushing his engine top speed. He wanted to get back and to work on the
grenades at once, for two reasons. First, that they would offset in
part at least the embargo against the manufacture of more rifles, and
because it occurred to him that they would be of vast service should he
have to force entrance to some enemy town.

For now Croft was planning his campaign. His knowledge gained through
his unsensed presence at the council at Niera months before made
him believe that Zollaria would throw her entire weight on Cathur's
northern frontier, while Mazzeria attacked Bithur and possibly eastern
Milidhur.

From a second motor-shop established at Ladhra and equipped with men
trained in the Himyra plant he had already sent a motor-fleet to the
capital of Gaya's home state for the rapid transport of troops to the
frontier in case of need. He had organized a fleet of motor-driven
marine transports to take men from Aphur and Nodhur to Bithur's aid.
This expedition was to be led by Robur in person, and with him Croft
had outlined each step so far as he could. They would proceed up that
river promised Mazzeria for her aid in the war of conquest Zollaria
planned, and debarking near the frontier, carry the war straight to the
foe.

As for himself, he planned with Jadgor to cross the Central Sea almost
due north, capture Niera, and penetrate the State of Mazhur, thereby
establishing a dangerous flank movement which, if successful, would
result in withdrawing the Zollarian army operating against Cathur's
frontier. Two of his armored motors would go with the Milidhurian
expedition and two with Robur against the blue men of Mazzer. The other
sixteen would accompany the expedition north. These things he now
explained to Jadgor, Lakkon, and Magur while they rushed back to the
capital of Aphur. They heard him and nodded agreement.

Jadgor smiled and turned to the priest. "It appears Zitu has sent us
a general as well as a genius of design," he exclaimed. "If Zitu
inspires not his mind directly, then is he the most wonderful man
Tamarizia has seen."

"Raised up for Tamarizia's hour of great need, O Jadgor," Magur
declared. "And who should raise him save Zitu, who knows the future
as we know the present and past? Zud says as much, and I believe it.
Praised be Zitu's name." He made the odd horizontal sign of the cross
Croft had first seen Abbu of Scira use.

"Nay, I doubt it not," Jadgor replied. "Tamhys shall yet live to learn
the truth of this!"

Yet Croft, despite the religious superstitions of these truly patriotic
minds, was human after all. He plunged into a frenzy of work on his
return. He explained all to Robur, saw him thoroughly versed in the
making of the grenades, leaped into his car and drove to Ladhra
to begin operations there. Two weeks elapsed while he was getting
everything to his satisfaction, and during those two weeks other things
happened, which he could not foresee.

He returned to Himyra late one afternoon, drove to the shops, saw
everything running smoothly, listened to the reports of Robur, who was
enthusiastic over the progress being made, and drove on to the palace
to bathe and rest for an hour, since even the splendid physique of
Jasor's body was beginning to feel the strain of the months of scheming
and toiling.

Fresh from his bath, he was suddenly minded to seek Gaya and learn
if there were any word from Naia, such as she frequently sent him by
Robur's wife.

He found her awaiting Robur's return, and proffered his request.

That Gaya was glad to see him there could be no doubt. His coming
seemed to afford her relief. "My lord, your coming lightens my heart,"
she declared after Croft had greeted her by sinking on one knee. "The
maid sent you her farewell, and asked that I say this much more: 'Tell
him to forget not his promise.' She did not explain, yet I have felt
you would know the meaning of her words."

"Her farewell? You say she sent me that?" exclaimed Croft, staring into
her face. "By Zitu, Gaya, my friend, what meant she by that?"

"You know not of her absence from Aphur?" Gaya widened her eyes in
surprise. "You have not heard?"

"I have heard nothing. I came to you for word," Croft began, and paused
with an odd grip taking hold of his heart.

"Aye," Gaya wrinkled her brows. "Some days ago an escort came from
Cathur, asking that the maid and Lakkon, her father, visit Scira, in
order that Kyphallos might present his bride-to-be to his people before
he ascended the throne."

"Kyphallos on the throne of Cathur!" Croft frowned. "Has Scythys, then,
laid down the scepter in favor of his son?"

"Scythys has died," Gaya said. "Wherefore, despite the fact that the
cycle of betrothal has not run out, Kyphallos craves the privilege of
entertaining Naia and her father, and assuring his people that he has
chosen a worthy queen as his consort on the throne."

"And--and she--and they--have gone?" Croft stammered as he spoke.

"Aye." Gaya looked into his eyes. "Jasor, what of it? I--I am a woman,
and I have thoughts--fears, perhaps, or fancies. I like this journey
not. What does it portend?"

"That I know not; yet shall I ascertain," Croft replied between set
teeth. "She told me to forget not my promise. By Zitu and Azil and Ga,
I shall not. Gaya, my sweet woman, how long have they been gone?"

"This is the third day since they departed, my lord."

"They went--how?"

"In the ship which brought the escort--one Kyphallos sent."

"The day after tomorrow they arrive. So then there is time."

       *       *       *       *       *

Croft relaxed somewhat the physical tension which had held him, and his
voice grew less sharp. He sighed.

"Time? Time for what, Jasor?" Gaya inquired.

"Tonight I shall sleep," Croft told her frankly. "And while I sleep
I shall learn what is the true intent of this sudden desire on
Kyphallos's part to show Cathur their queen."

Gaya's eyes grew wide. "You shall sleep--as you sleep to learn?" she
faltered.

"Yes," Croft smiled. "And I shall learn, wife of my friend. Zitu made
Naia of Aphur a maid to madden men's blood, not for Cathur, but for
Jasor. Yes, I shall learn."

But despite his confident tone he was more than a little disturbed as
he sought his own rooms that night and stretched himself on his couch.
What intent lurked in the mind of Cathur's prince he could not see. Nor
could he understand why, knowing what already he had told them, Jadgor
and Lakkon had decided to accede to the Cathurian's request, unless
they had followed the other man's course at the time of the betrothal
and acted in order to blind suspicion of their counter preparations so
far as they might, or at least to avoid an open rupture at this time.

Hence it appeared doubly important that he should learn what was toward
in Cathur now. He focused his mind. His body relaxed. He projected his
intelligent ego toward Scira to discover what it might.

At first he went to the cell of Abbu in the Scira pyramid to learn, if
he might, what Abbu was about.

He found him speaking with a brother priest--was half-minded to leave,
yet lingered, held by the first remark of the unknown monk.

"A nice time for Kyphallos to be at Niera, with his promised queen
approaching Scira on the sea."

"He will return in time to greet her," Abbu said.

"Yet I like not his frequent journeyings to Niera, nor his association
with the Zollarian nobles who make it their resort. Nor does Cathur
like it overly well."

Abbu frowned. "Nor does Cathur like the stories which come back from
Anthra concerning the things which occur there in the palace. Adita,
they tell me, is more worshiped than Zitu. Ga, the true woman, or Azil,
her son, have small consideration. 'Tis Adita, woman of folly and
beauty, whose shrine is there."

"I have heard said that, while a creature of beauty, this Aphurian
princess is not given to folly," his lay brother replied. "Mayhap she
shall win Kyphallos from his present course, and so prove a blessing to
Cathur in cycles to come."

"If so be she mounts the throne at all."

"You think she will not?"

Abbu shrugged. "Who knows? Cathur mutters even now, as you know.
Scythys was a dotard. Kyphallos is a degenerate. Cathur is the
worst-governed state in all Tamarizia--the most beset with taxes,
with the least returns to show. But--Cathur is loyal to Tamarizia as
a people. Think you they will long brook a king who makes merry with
Zollarian nobles, while affairs of state go to pot?"

"Come!" cried the other. "You have heard something, Abbu, it would
seem."

Abbu nodded. "Perhaps I keep my eyes and ears about me when I leave the
pyramid."

Croft left. At least, he thought, Abbu was attending to his duties as
Aphur's spy in so far as he might. And Cathur was muttering against
their soon-to-be king. Cathur, then, was loyal--what if Kyphallos found
her betrayal less easy than he expected? He smiled and willed himself
to Niera, since now it appeared the Cathurian profligate was once more
there. And if there, Croft thought he knew where to find him. He would
be, almost without doubt, in the presence of Kalamita of the tawny eyes
and hair.

And it was with her and her brother and Bzad, the Mazzerian chief, he
found him, in a room of that palace overlooking the Central Sea. They
sat together in a low-toned conversation. Evidently something important
was forward, since they had closeted themselves thus, thought Croft.

       *       *       *       *       *

Kalamita stretched her supple length like a cat about to yawn, and
turned a slow smile on the Cathurian prince.

"So then," she said, "it is all thought out. You men, with your spears
and swords, are far stronger than subtle, my lords. Leave the subtlety
to a woman in your plans."

"I see no chance of failure in this, I confess," Bzad spoke as she
paused. Croft noted a flash in his eyes.

"Not unless you bungle." Kalamita laughed.

"I?" Bzad growled. "By Adita, goddess of beautiful women, I shall make
no mistake. See, I shall repeat it step by step. On the fourth day
after the princess arrives, Kyphallos of Cathur invites her and her
father to visit Anthra, and they take the ship the next day. Meanwhile
I place my galley under the cover of Anthra and wait. At the same hour
they set sail I slip forth. Midway we meet and I sail close in passing.
A collision seeming imminent, in the confusion a wrong order is given
on board Kyphallos's galley. The prow of my galley strikes his ship
as it seeks to cross my bows through turning in the wrong direction.
Kyphallos and the maid are saved. Lakkon drowns, and any surviving
sailors on board the Cathurian ship are destroyed, so that none shall
survive to tell what happened really.

"I sail to Scira and put Kyphallos ashore. We tell a story of disaster
in which all perished save only him. According to it, this Naia died
with her father. I sail away. She is mine--and once in Mazzeria, think
you I shall not enjoy her beauty. By Adita, I think I shall!"

Kalamita nodded. "You have it, Bzad," she declared, "and soon you shall
have--her--to do with--as you please. They tell me she is very fair
indeed. She should bring you joy for some time."

A blind rage--a fiery disgust and loathing filled Croft's soul as
he heard the wanton's words. This was the fate her soiled brain
had evolved for the pure, sweet jewel of womanhood for whom his
spirit cried. Yet since in his present state there was no chance for
expression of those things he felt, he controlled his horror at the
thought of Naia as the plaything of this cold-faced blue savage, and
learned all he could.

"Thereafter," Bandhor spoke for the first time, with a thin-lipped
leer, "our good lord Kyphallos shall come to Anthra, after a period
of mourning, and invite our sister to visit him for a time. But upon
her desiring to leave he shall refuse. A man of her ship's crew shall
escape Anthra in a boat and bring tidings, whereupon him to whom she is
pledged shall lay the affair before the emperor himself. Our army shall
be ready. An expedition shall proceed to Anthra to rescue Kalamita.
In the meantime Kyphallos shall have taken her to Cathur, and have
concealed her--placing her in the sanctuary of Ga, where the vestals
will have her in charge. Then shall Zollaria attack, and Mazzer.
Tamarizia, finding herself assailed on all sides, shall break like the
crushed-in shell of an egg!" He contracted the fingers of a mighty hand
until they were flexed in his palm. "Thus it shall be."

Thus it shall be. Would it? Man proposes but God disposes, Croft
thought to himself, Naia of Aphur the toy to a man of blue--a member
of the servants' caste nation--Cathur to Zollaria. Tamarizia crushed.
Kyphallos and his light o' love on the throne of Zitra where now the
pacific old Tamhys sat. A pretty plan. Bzad and Bandhor, Kyphallos and
Kalamita, in her scented and voluptuous beauty, seemed very sure it was
coming about in time. To Croft, as he left them at their scheming and
flitted back to his room in Aphur's palace, it seemed somewhat less
likely to occur.




                             CHAPTER XXII

                         IN THE HABIT OF ZITU


Once in the flesh again, conscious of all he had seen and heard, he
sprang from his couch and dressed. He was going in the flesh to Scira.
That one thing was clear in his mind. He would go to the capital of
Cathur as quickly as his swiftest motor-galley might take him, and
get into touch with Abbu and through him with Naia. After that, things
must be met as they arose, only there was another thing on which he
was equally determined: the girl should never embark for Anthra on the
Prince of Cathur's craft.

Leaving the palace, he entered his car, kept in the court now always
for any emergency, and drove straight to the dock on the Na, where the
fleet of motor craft were kept busy. Here he selected a galley--one of
the latest models he had prepared; sent runners to rout out the crew
and order them aboard, ready to sail at once.

From the dock he drove to the shops, flaring with light as the
night-shift worked; called one of his most expert motor builders to
one side, and directed him to report aboard the galley as quickly as
he might. To him he gave authority to open a warehouse and provision
the boat for a voyage of some days, and instructions to bring it to the
quay below the palace so soon as ready to sail.

Then he went back to the palace itself, and sent a nodding guard to
rouse Robur and ask him to come to Croft's rooms. He waited there in a
vast impatience until the door opened to admit Aphur's crown prince.

That Robur was keyed to some expectancy he saw at a glance. The man's
eyes were wide, his whole expression eager. Croft suspected Gaya had
whispered wifely confidences into his ear earlier that night. He
plunged into his theme at once:

"Rob--I've slept--one of my certain sleeps. Gaya told you, I suppose."

Robur nodded. "Yes. And you have learned, Jasor--what?"

Croft told him, and Robur swore a strong Aphurian oath. "They plan
that, do they? Naia to Bzad, a man of Mazzer. By Zitu, Jasor, I am with
you in whatever you mean to do."

Croft shook his head. "Nay, Rob, my friend. Your duty is to Tamarizia
first. You know all we have planned. Your place is here--to general the
Bithurian expedition when it is time. Mine is the duty to the maid."

"You love her." Robur made the statement direct.

"Aye." Croft met it and looked him in the eye.

Robur put forth a hand. "Azil be kind to you and her," he made answer.
"What have you planned?"

Croft explained his intent in a very few words. "I await now the lights
of the galley at the quay below," he finished. "I desire to slip forth
unknown to any save the guards. Will you drive me down with what arms I
shall take?"

"Aye," said Aphur's heir. "You can reach Scira how soon?"

"In two days--the day after Naia and Lakkon arrive."

Robur smiled thinly. "Should you save Lakkon's life as well as his
daughter's a second time, his gratitude should overcome much."

Croft shook his head. "I plan not on gratitude, Rob. I myself shall
overcome much--Kyphallos, Zollaria, and Mazzer. So shall I reach to
the woman Zitu formed for me. I shall enter Scira at night, and go to
the pyramid, and--Hold! Drive now with me to Magur. He must lend me a
priestly robe."

"Come!" Robur's eyes flashed. Once more he smiled. "A priest shall
reach Scira, my friend? He shall go to the pyramid. I understand."

The two men left the palace, entered the car, and crossed the bridge,
swung into position on Robur's order. They stopped before the pyramid
and hammered on the door. A sleepy priest admitted them at last and
sent them up on the primitive lift to Magur's lofty apartments. Magur
himself appeared in the end, blinking sleepily with startled eyes when
he faced Croft and Robur himself.

Croft explained.

Magur balked. "Shall the garments of Zitu be used for deception?" he
exclaimed.

"Shall not the garments of Zitu serve to guard a clean shrine of life
from pollution?" Croft snapped in return. "Can the cloth of the Source
of all Life be put to a better end?"

Magur gave him a glance little short of admiration. "Ye speak, as
always, with the words of Zitu himself," he returned. "I am convinced.
Wait, and this matter shall be arranged." He turned away. In five
minutes he was back with a dark-brown robe and hood, not unlike a cowl,
also a pair of leather sandals and a cord with which to belt the robe
about the waist. These he placed in Croft's hands, and raised his own.
"Zitu go with ye, my son," he spoke in a formal blessing. "Should he
favor ye on this mission, what shall ye do with the maid? Her return to
Himyra would cause a clacking of tongues."

"I have thought of that, O Magur," Croft replied. "The maid shall go
to Zitra so quickly as she may. There Zud himself shall see her in
sanctuary in the quarters of the virgins, until this thing has passed,
unless you have better to suggest. Thus it is Zollaria plans to hide
their unclean Kalamita in Scira. I am minded to turn their own trick
upon themselves."

"Nay," Magur smiled. "Thy plan is worthy of one of your mind. Go, then,
and may Ga, the pure mother, use you to guard the maid."

The galley lights glared red in the night at the quay as Croft and
Robur drove back across the bridge which opened behind them span by
span. All was ready now save the arms and ammunition. Working in haste
at the palace, the prince and Croft collected those and took them down
to the ship.

"You shall win, my friend," said Robur as he clasped hands with Croft
at parting.

Croft smiled somewhat grimly. "I shall win, Rob," he returned, "or you
need not look for me back."

Then he was off, dropping down the Na, passing the high-reared barrier
of the walls, and once past those, opening the motor and speeding down
the mighty yellow flood to the sea.

A day passed, two days, and night came down. Far to the front the
lights of Scira lifted above the waters. Croft called his crew and gave
them their instructions in detail. They were to stay by the ship, were
to be ready to start at once. Then, to their amaze, he slipped on the
priest's robe over his cuirass and sword, and appeared before them thus
as they approached the harbor gates. The standard of Aphur broke out at
the galley's stern. They passed inside unchallenged and moored at the
quay. To the harbor master--a huge Cathurian captain--Croft said merely
that he was a priest come on a mission from Magur to the pyramid, and
stepped ashore.

And knowing Scira as he did, he set off in the right direction without
delay, arrived in due time and without incident at the pyramid portals
and rapped for admission, asking for Abbu as soon as he was inside.
Then--he was in Abbu's cell, fumbling with his robe and casting it from
him, to stand in gold and silver harness before the monk's staring eyes.

"My lord--my lord!" faltered the priest.

"Hold." Croft lifted his hand. "Strange things are forward in Scira.
What know you of them, Abbu, who have acted as Aphur's eyes?"

"Yesterday the prince returned from Niera to greet the Aphurian maid
he is to wed," Abbu replied. "It was a holiday occasion. The streets
swarmed with people."

       *       *       *       *       *

"Think you Kyphallos intends to lead Naia to the throne?" Croft snapped.

"Zitu!" Abbu lifted his hands in the sign of the cross. "Is it not so
pledged, Jasor?"

"Aye--by the lips, yet not by the heart," said Croft. Swiftly he told
the staring monk those things he had learned.

"Zitu would not permit this," Abbu mumbled at the last.

"Nay. Hence am I here. Listen, Abbu the priest. What I do, I do by
the grace of Zitu--and with His consent. I am come to overthrow this
most foul plot. You who have sworn to help me in Zitu's name must gain
access to this maid. Say to her what is to be. Say to her thus when you
have told her all else as a sign: 'Jasor has not forgotten.' Hearing
this, she will believe. Say to her then that on the night after you
have spoken to her she shall desire to speak with a priest from the
holy pyramid, to receive a blessing before she is presented to Cathur's
people. She shall prefer her request of Kyphallos himself, and insist
that it be granted.

"She shall specify the priest Abbu, whom she knows. I shall then go
to her in the palace. Instruct her that her father shall be with her
when I arrive. Thereafter shall we contrive a way out of the palace
and to the boat I hold waiting for her escape. Say not to her that I
shall come in your place. That she will learn when I appear. Now give
me a place to sleep, and when you see her state these facts concerning
Kyphallos's plan as things of your own knowledge, confessing to her
that you have acted as Aphur's eyes for well-nigh a whole cycle past."

Abbu bowed. "Indeed," he said, "I believe you speak truth, O Jasor,
and with Zitu's help I shall do all you say. Take my pallet for your
slumber. I shall pray through the night for your success to Zitu
himself."

Throughout the next day Croft lay hid. Abbu brought him food in the
morning and disappeared. He was not disturbed during the day. What
Abbu was about he could not know. Only late in the day when the monk
returned was he to learn how he had managed his task.

"My lord, there was a pageant in honor of her, of Aphur and her
father," he explained. "The civic guard and that of the palace marched
before them, while the people watched, and you know that it is a custom
for the lay brothers of the pyramid to solicit alms. So with my little
earthen jar I passed among the people, and after a time I approached
the raised station where Aphur's princess sat, and lifting my little
jar I cried to her as Cathur's queen-to-be that she give freely to
Cathur's temple. This I did for a purpose which fell out as I desired.
A guard about the noble party angrily bade me be off.

"I lifted my voice in protest, crying again to that beautiful woman
for alms. She heard me, my lord. She has a gentle heart. 'Hold,' said
she to the guard. 'Let the priest approach.' Thus, my lord, I gained
her side, and she gave me pieces of silver enough to fill my jar,
compelling all her party to contribute freely.

"And when that had been done she asked me of our temple, and I told her
concerning it, and called a blessing upon her, and contrived to whisper
that I had an important message, meant for her ears alone.

"The maid, my lord, is quick of comprehension. She turned to the
prince himself. 'This priest finds favor with me,' she said. 'I would
speak with him further. It may be that I shall select him for my own
spiritual instructor once I am Cathur's queen.'

"Kyphallos smiled, my lord. 'As you will, my princess,' he replied, and
I think he suspected nothing.

"Then the maid turned back to me and set a time for me to come to her
at the palace on the morrow in the morning. Is it well, my lord."

"It is well," said Croft, though the delay of another day did not
please his impatience to know Naia safe. "Yet there is more for you to
do. Provide me a second robe such as Magur gave me which I wore here,
and arrange for a carriage to be waiting tomorrow night on the street
from the palace to the harbor. Do this in time that I may know the
driver's name, when I shall come upon him, and so calling him identify
myself as the man for whom he is employed. Here--" He drew a pouch and
placed silver in Abbu's hand. "Pay the man well, and tell him to look
for as much beyond what you give him if he serves me without fail. Also
provide me a standard of Cathur's colors, such as are used on ships."

The latter request was due to a sudden thought which had popped into
Croft's mind, and evoked a tight-lipped smile. He had conceived a way
to throw consternation into the camp of his foes. He set about planning
it out that same night and the succeeding day.




                             CHAPTER XXIII

                      WHEN THE TABLES WERE TURNED


And when night came down once more on Scira he was ready. Once he had
ventured forth, gone to the harbor, in seeming a priest, and conferred
with the captain of his ship, telling him to be prepared to sail on the
word that night.

Back in the pyramid he waited Abbu's coming with what patience he
could. The monk came about noon. "All things are ready, my lord, so far
as time permits," he made his report.

"You saw the maid?"

"Aye."

"And what said she?"

"At first she was amazed, bewildered, I think, as was her father whom
she summoned after I had told my tale, that I might relate it again
to his ears. That was after I said to her the words you told me to
repeat. Hearing them, she believed and called Prince Lakkon at once.
His anger was great. He was for carrying the thing to Kyphallos himself
and compelling him to admit or deny. But--both the maid and I prevailed
upon him to see that by so doing he would destroy not only himself but
her. In the end they agreed to summon me to the palace as soon as it
fell dark."

"That is well," said Croft. "The rest is prepared."

"The driver and the standard, aye. I shall give you the robe before you
depart."

"You shall live to receive your reward," said Croft. "Now we have
naught to do save wait."

And waiting proved the hardest part as the day dragged past. Of the
adventure of the evening he had no fear. In fact he chafed to be at
it as a restive horse frets at restraint. Never had the hours of a
single day seemed so long in their course. He marked mid-afternoon,
and watched the lowering sun. He welcomed evening and the creeping
twilight. Dusk was a boon to give thanks for, and yet he raged because
dusk having fallen, Naia did not send for Abbu the monk.

Yet in the end Abbu appeared before him and whispered that the time
was come--that a chariot from the palace waited without the pyramid.
He carried a tightly rolled package in his hands and gave it to Croft.
"The robe, my lord," he declared. "Zitu aid you in its use."

"Zitu reward you, as I shall see you rewarded in a time to come," Croft
told him, donning his own robe and thrusting the other beneath it.
"Farewell for the present, Abbu. Your service is done."

Leaving the pyramid he entered the chariot sent to fetch him and rode
swiftly to the palace. Once as he noted his driver he smiled as he
imagined the man's consternation could he dream who his passenger was
despite his priestly seeming and the final results of this drive. But
he spoke no word while they threaded the streets or when the chariot
pausing, he descended, passed inside the palace, and was led by a page
to the Princess Naia's door.

That door he entered, and for the first time in months found himself in
the presence of the woman he loved.

She rose and stood before him. "I have done as I promised my father,
what more must I do?" he heard her sweet-toned voice.

"Aye, what more have you to tell us, Abbu, you could not tell us
before?" asked Lakkon, rising from a couch placed farther back from the
door.

Croft threw off his enveloping cowl and robe. He stood before them, his
cuirass with the sun of Aphur shining on its metal breast, sending a
sparkle of light through the room. "Not Abbu this time, Prince Lakkon,"
he said.

"Jasor!" Naia's eyes went wide. She started back a pace while her color
faded swiftly, and she lifted her hand to her breast.

"Jasor of Nodhur, by Zitu!" Lakkon cried. "Come, my lord, what means
this priestly disguise?"

"Life--for yourself--life and honor for your daughter, as I hope, since
I know she would not live without the latter," Croft returned. "Hark
you, Lakkon of Aphur. You are a man with a sword at your belt. Tell me
is your daughter's serving-maid, Maia, of your party here?"

"Aye," Lakkon returned, visibly impressed by Croft's presence and
bearing. "Yet--"

"Enough," Croft cut him short. "Here is an extra robe of a priest. Let
the princess and Maia don them and pass out of the palace doors. You
and I shall walk forth together. To any who seek to stay us, I am your
friend. I wear Aphur's arms. Let them stop two nobles of Aphur at their
peril. Without the palace, the princess and the maid will turn to the
right and walk down the street toward the harbor which is by happy
chance toward the Scira pyramid. We shall overtake them. We shall enter
a carriage and drive to the harbor and leave this nest of treason. Abbu
has told before this what is planned."

"Aye--but--" Lakkon stammered.

"I shall prove his words true," Croft flashed. "Summon Maia quickly
lest something intervenes."

"Father--do as my lord advises." Naia laid a hand on Lakkon's arm.

"By Zitu--I like it not, yet--if it be for your safety. Were it
not--were it for myself alone--summon your maid." Jadgor's counselor
yielded to her plea.

The thing was so simple, indeed, that it made Croft smile. Inside five
minutes the two women were prepared. Naia's wealth of hair was lost
beneath the cowl. Croft opened the door and they sallied forth.

"Be of good heart," he found means to whisper into Naia's ear. "You see
I did not forget, O maid of gold."

His reward was a quiet smile and a deep glance out of her eyes. Then
she was gone, a monk seeming, with Maia at her side. Croft felt sure of
their escape. Priests were no unusual sight about the palaces of the
Tamarizian states. He doubted they would be questioned, even though two
went out where one had come in.

Hence he waited with the frowning Lakkon until some five minutes had
passed. Then opening the door he strode forth and turned down toward
the palace doors. Beside him Lakkon stalked in silence. "Talk to
me--seem to converse for the sake of your daughter at least," Croft
urged.

Lakkon complied. In seemingly friendly converse they progressed. They
reached the portals giving on the entrance court and passed the guards
the more easily, perhaps, since none there as yet suspected what
Kyphallos really planned, and so were not on guard against any act of
the father of Cathur's queen-to-be, or some Aphurian friend of his, who
wore the sun of Aphur in silver shining on his breast.

Thus what might have proved difficult, proved easy. They left the
court, overtook the women, led them to the carriage and drove swiftly
to Croft's ship. There he paid and dismissed the driver and took his
passengers aboard. Only when his sailors cast off the moorings did
comment arise at his acts. Then a harbor guard appeared and questioned
the proceeding. And by then Croft was once more a priest, while Maia
had resumed her natural part. And the priest explained he must return
to Himyra quickly. The guard saluted and withdrew with the monk's
commendation of his attention to duty. The ship left the quay. It
passed the harbor gates and floated free. Croft heaved a sigh of
relief.

       *       *       *       *       *

"On the fifth day you and your daughter would have journeyed to
Anthra," he turned to Lakkon to say. "Midway you would have been met by
Bzad of Mazzer and your vessel rammed. Death for yourself and dishonor
for your child would have swiftly followed. Lakkon of Aphur, I told you
I would prove my words true, and I will. We shall meet this galley of
the Mazzerian's midway to Anthra on the fifth day."

Lakkon beat the planks of the deck with his foot. "Jasor of Nodhur, you
are a bold man," he said. "You seem to have faith in your words. Yet
should you fail to prove them, I think I shall have your head."

"Then take mine with it, father," Naia who had approached unseen by
either man burst forth. "Once before has Jasor saved our lives. Now
saves he our lives and that which I prize higher still. You are hard to
persuade, if you call him not son in the end."

"Ah--fall it so!" Lakkon turned upon her. "To your quarters, girl. Is
it seemly for her who values honor so highly, to offer herself to a
man?"

"To the one man, yes," she retorted, turning to go below. "Between him
and her is no question of honor, nor of aught, save love. To that man
she belongs, nor will yield to any other while Zitu gives her breath."

"Azil, Giver of Life, and Ga, the Virgin!" Lakkon swore.

"Peace!" Croft's hand fell on his arm. His heart was singing in his
breast at Naia's words. "Hold, Lakkon. Let me prove my words true."

And now Croft carried out the change he had made in his plans. All
the succeeding day he sailed in circles, drawing nearer and nearer to
Anthra rather than to Zitra. He lay to at night, keeping no more than
headway on the ship.

Just what Kyphallos might think when he found his affianced princess
flown he did not know, but he smiled more than once as he fancied
a pretty to-do in Scira, and a somewhat confused rage in the young
reprobate's mind. For indeed as he saw it Kyphallos must sense himself
in a rather precarious plight. His hostage to Bzad was gone. As yet
there was no war. He might hardly send word to Aphur, that their
princess and Lakkon were gone he knew not where. He must find it an
embarrassing thing to explain the incident to Zollaria as well--a hard
thing to make them swallow. A thing which might very well shake their
confidence in himself.

Indeed, as Croft saw it, Kyphallos would put off the explanation so
long as he might, hoping to find some trace of the Aphurians themselves
and thereby obviate any necessity of explaining anything at all.
Yes, Croft chuckled to himself, Kyphallos was in something of a fix.
Probably, though, failing to find his escaped guests the first day, he
would go in person to meet Bzad. That must be foreseen. Hence it were
best for Croft to be ready with his arms. He got them out and saw them
loaded--and since he had chosen a war galley for his trip north, he
had men aboard he had already trained in their use. He distributed the
weapons to a selected number and was ready for what might occur.

Lakkon saw the rifles in the hands of the men and questioned concerning
it at once. Croft, nothing loath, explained the entire situation as
he viewed it. "You have asked proof, and proof I intend to give you,
Prince Lakkon," he declared.

Lakkon's face grew grave. "Indeed, I think you believe all you say, my
lord," he replied. "What do you intend?"

"To meet Bzad close to Aphur," Croft explained. "To hang forth the
standard of Cathur. To lure him close, and give you proof of what I
have said from the man's own mouth."

For so he had planned and was bent on carrying out. The morning of the
fifth day found him therefore close to Anthra--yet not too close.

Before its shores were more than a faint blur on the horizon the
lookout reported a galley heading west.

Croft called Lakkon and bade him stand beside him on the deck. He
directed the standard of Cathur hung from the stern and ordered the
speed of the engines increased. The galley surged toward the meeting at
top speed. And the other galley came on.

"She will sail very close," said Croft.

Lakkon frowned.

"At the last I am supposed to give a wrong order," Croft spoke again.
"My helmsman knows his duty. We shall crush her near bank of oars."

       *       *       *       *       *

The two ships drew nearer still. Croft fancied Bzad would be surprised
at their speed, but--Cathur's standard rippled in the breeze. He would
think everything well.

Closer and closer. Croft raised his hand. Two sailors sprang to the
rail in the waist. They carried grappling hooks attached to ropes.
Closer still--

Croft dropped his hand. The bow of his galley veered.

Crash! The near bank of oars snapped like straws. The vessels ground
together. The men in the waist cast their hooks and lashed all fast.

Bzad appeared on the after-deck. His face was dark, yet he seemed not
yet to comprehend the full bearing of what had occurred. Lakkon was
in full sight of the Cathurian galley, and Lakkon he knew was to be
aboard. Kyphallos was not visible, but another man in armor was by
Lakkon's side.

Bzad lifted his voice. "What means this?" he cried.

"There has been a change of plan," Croft returned.

"A change of plan!" the Mazzerian repeated. "Yes, a change of plan
indeed it would seem, when you crash into my side and destroy my oars
instead of crossing my bows as 'twas arranged. Still, small matter. I
have others. Where is the maid?"

"Below," said Croft, sensing Lakkon stiffen at his side. "Do you wish
her still?"

"Do I wish her? Adita, goddess of beauty, was she not promised me for
myself as a part of the price?" Bzad roared.

Again Croft lifted an arm. Men appeared with rifles in their hands.
"Then if so be you wish her, come and take her, aid of Zollaria and man
of an unclean tribe. If you wish her, come and take her from a ship of
Aphur, Bzad."

And now the Mazzerian understood at last. He started back and raised
his voice: "Aboard them--strike, slay! We are betrayed. Let none live
save the maid of the yellow hair!"

His men were no cowards. They rallied to his cry. Seizing weapons they
hurled themselves toward the close lashed rails.

"Fire," said Croft, as an arrow whistled between himself and Lakkon.

His men responded with a will. This was the first trial of the new
weapon in actual war. They fired and loaded and fired again. On board
Bzad's vessel men fell. They slumped to the deck or toppled back from
the rail which they had reached.

Bzad appeared among them. He was beside himself with rage. He sprang
on the rail. A sailor fired pointblank in his face and missed him. He
reached the deck and charged with drawn sword toward Lakkon and Croft.

With a strange tingle running through his entire body, Croft drew his
own sword and set himself before Aphur's prince. And then, before they
could come together, Bzad staggered and fell. The sailor had not missed
his second shot.

Bzad struggled for a moment. He forced himself halfway up and sank
back. His limbs twitched oddly for a moment, and he died.

Beyond him the deck of his own craft was a shambles. Men lay on Croft's
deck as well, some of them his, more of them Bzad's, of whom no more
than six survived out of a possible score. Of Croft's none had been
killed and the whole affair had taken no more than five minutes from
beginning to end.

Croft's voice boomed forth. "Overboard with the dead. Bind the
remaining men and take them with us. Board the galley and sink it. We
shall leave no trace of this."

Then as his men sprang laughing to do his bidding he turned to where
Lakkon stood by the body of Bzad. "Will you go below and reassure your
daughter, Prince Lakkon?" he said.

"Come--we will go together," Jadgor's brother-in-law replied.

Croft complied. The two men went below. They entered the quarters where
Naia sought to look from a tiny port, and Maia crouched in a corner as
far from the opening as she might.

"Come, my child," said Aphur's prince; and as she advanced slowly
toward himself and Croft, stretched out his hand for hers.

"Behold your lord," he went on and laid her hand in Croft's. "To him
shall you be given by Magur himself, when this thing is ended. In the
mean time shall you lie with the Virgins at Zitra, even as he has
decreed."

Naia flushed. A soft color dyed her face and perfect throat. She
lowered her eyes, and suddenly throwing all reticence aside, she lifted
her arms and laid them about Croft's neck and raised her lips to his.

"Ah!" exclaimed Lakkon somewhat aghast. "Naught can keep you from her
now with honor, Jasor of Nodhur--my son."

"Nothing shall keep me from her save death," Croft told him and held
her very close.

And lying against him, Naia turned her head. Her eyes were glowing
with the light of a sacred fire. But she laughed. "My father--you have
called him son," she reminded. "Recall that I said you should."

"I ask no better privilege, my son and daughter," Lakkon yielded with a
smile. "Zitu himself knows I liked not the other arrangement. He knows
this pleases me well."

The captain tapped on the door. He reported the Mazzerian's galley
sinking, and the decks as cleared.

Two minutes later, Croft's vessel was headed for Zitra south by east.
Behind was an empty sea. If Kyphallos had started a galley to inform
Bzad of what had occurred at Scira, it was apt to search long and
vainly for him it was meant to meet.




                             CHAPTER XXIV

                            THE DOGS OF WAR


War! War between Zollaria and Tamarizia! War planned for fifty years
and now set into motion! It had come as Croft had predicted, as Jadgor
of Aphur had feared. As though malignly determined to be avenged even
in death, the bullet-pierced body of Bzad had washed ashore, and been
discovered. No other pretext was needed by the Empire to the north.

All other plans they threw by the board. Bzad of Mazzer--a guest of
their nation had been slain on the Central Sea. They made demands for
redress, and they asked Cathur as the price of what had just occurred.

Tamhys of Zitra with a pained, almost puzzled expression in his aged
eyes, heard the demands of the envoys and answered them finally not as
a man of peace but as a patriot of his country, unwilling to see his
land dismembered to appease an enemy's greed.

The Na was alive with motor-driven vessels, gathering at Himyra,
filling its yellow flood with a ready fleet. Aboard them marched men or
rolled armored motors, soon to have their test on a bloody field. Into
them were loaded those things Croft had fashioned against this time,
rifles and ammunition and grenades.

Ladhra and Himyra swarmed with marching men. Milidhur's two armored
cars were rushing overland to join her assembling forces. Robur in his
glory was loading his expedition for the relief of Bithur, where Mazzer
was to strike. The gentle Gaya wept, while her war lord girded on his
armor and boasted of the fate he would carry among the blue men with
his death-dealing tools.

Naia of Aphur was with the Vestals of Zitra, where Croft had left her a
month before. He had taken her to Zud, and explained what he desired.
Zud had listened and given assent. Their parting had been brief
since Croft knew he must hasten back to Himyra and begin the final
preparations for what was soon to come, Zud knowing her pledged by
Lakkon to Croft, had left them alone at the last, before he took her to
the apartments of the Virgins, close to the top of the monster pyramid,
where a white flame leaped from oils never allowed to diminish in front
of a figure of Ga--the Eternal Woman--brooding over the sacred fire of
life.

Croft stretched forth his arms.

Naia of Aphur gave him the look of the woman, and laid herself on his
breast.

"Mine," said the man.

"Yours," said the maid, in a voice like the sighing of a harp. "Promise
me you shall come again to claim me, Jasor, my lord, whom I love."

"I shall come to claim you, my Naia, and make you my own," he said.

"And should you not, no other shall claim me ever," she whispered and
raised her lips.

"Naught save death shall keep me," Croft vowed with his lips on hers.

"I know. If you come not, I stay here forever," she told him, clinging
to him.

"Nay." He held her from him to look down into her face. "You shall tend
the fire for me, rather than Ga."

"Azil permitting, beloved." And because of the meaning of her own words
to her soul she colored beneath his eyes.

Then came Zud and led her to the Vestals, and Croft, full of the divine
fire of that parting, went back to Himyra to prepare for those things
which must come to pass ere he might return to her.

He plunged into the task with the full cooperation of Jadgor, Lakkon,
and Robur. A swift boat was sent to Zitra to wait any news at that
point. Word was sent to Milidhur and Ladhra to mobilize their forces
and be ready to move on the word. At Himyra activities of every nature
were pushed. Never had the Red City seen such ceaseless preparation as
now went on to meet and check Zollaria's plans.

Of those plans Croft kept track, leaving his body at times in the
night and hovering over Cathur and the northern nation. He knew when
the envoys left for Zitra to demand Cathur, of Tamhys, as the price
of peace. He witnessed the massing of her army along Cathur's north
frontier. He saw Kyphallos at the head of the hastily gathered levies
of Cathur, men untrained, unready, herded into hasty companies, poorly
equipped--beings to be led to the slaughter in a sham of resistance as
he knew, before Kyphallos did his part and surrendered to what would
seem overwhelming forces equipped and trained for this moment through
a span of fifty years.

Yet Croft smiled. In all that vast army set aside for this one task
by the empire which had raised it, there was nothing to compare with
the weapons he possessed, naught to resemble them in the least. Spears
there were and bows, crossbows even, and swords. Chariots there were,
and men in glistening armor, who drove them. Scythelike blades armed
their wheels to cut and rend asunder all who stood in their course. But
what were they to his chariots which would move themselves across the
field of carnage and vomit the fire of death into Zollaria's ranks?

       *       *       *       *       *

Then came the swift boat from Zitra, reporting Tamhys's answer and the
return of the envoys north. Tamhys had refused. Croft laughed into
Jadgor's eyes. Tamhys had asked--_asked_ that Aphur and Nodhur and
Milidhur use their full power and their new weapons to make Tamarizia
strong.

"Think you he would have been so bold had he not known of them?" Jadgor
growled, with a teeth-baring grin. "Nay by Zitu! If so I do not agree.
'Twas because he knew these things were in our hands, and Tamarizia in
our hearts he refused."

"Go!" he cried to the messenger who had but returned. "Say to Tamhys
that we stand ready--that we say at once--that ere Zollaria's men shall
return with his word, we shall be nearing the northern coast! How say
you, Jasor, my lord?"

"Even as Jadgor has said, O King," Croft replied, since this was what
he had planned.

That night all Himyra flared with fire. That night the sound of
marching feet, the rumble of motors filled the Red City's streets. The
firelight struck on the motors' metal bodies, glinted on the slanting
barrels of the rifles carried by Aphur's sons. A swift car had flown
to Ladhra carrying the word. In Ladhra, too, the night was filled with
embarkation of the forces which were to join with Aphur in the north.

At break of day Croft, Jadgor and Lakkon sailed. That afternoon
Ladhra's first contingent arrived. Then Robur sent part on the heels
of the former fleet, and took part in his own party, to Bithur's aid.
Belzor himself led the section which hurried after Croft. He reported
the motor transports as already whirling the bulk of the troops for
Milidhur's aid toward the east.

In three days Croft made landfall on the coast of Mazhur not far from
Niera and coasted toward the town, after landing a party under Lakkon
some miles above it with instructions to advance down the coast, and
entrench themselves on the landward side of the city, at once. He
appeared before the city with his fleet about mid-morning and demanded
its surrender at once.

His answer was defiance, of course.

Croft set to work. His own galley ran close in toward the gates of the
harbor. The enemy manned the walls. They began a rain of arrows and
spears and the casting down of fireballs, hoping to set the galley on
fire.

Croft had expected this. He had prepared some metal shields which could
be used to cover the decks against arrows and spears from above. They
were impregnable save for some square-cut holes. Through these he began
a bombardment of the gates themselves with grenades. Heavy as they
were, they had not been built to resist the assault of powder. Inside
twenty minutes, while the air filled with shouts and missiles of the
defenders, one was blown from its hinges and fell with a mighty splash.
The other followed shortly after. Croft's galley sailed in, followed by
that of Jadgor and several others of the fleet.

And now he had the defenders of the walls in the rear. His galley
paused. The others followed suit. Their decks swarmed with men who
knelt and opened fire from the rifles Croft had made. A smell of
powder filled the air. Smoke clouds floated in the air. The shouts
of the defenders changed to cries of alarm as they found themselves
stricken by this new and unknown force. Other galleys forced passage
and speeding beyond the engaged vessels opened a galling fire along the
waterfront. Under cover of this landing parties were flung ashore. They
marched into the town, engaging the Zollarian guards wherever found,
yet always at an advantage of weapons and range. In an hour it was done.

The Zollarian commander surrendered. Croft shut his men in their
barracks and posted a guard. Bulletins printed in advance, promising
freedom from harm to all non-combatants who kept their houses and
caused no trouble, were affixed at the houses at the corners of the
streets. The remainder of the fleet entered the harbor and debarked
their men and the armored motors. Inside two hours more Croft marched
out of the landward gate and joined Lakkon and his men where they had
labored on their trenches. That night Jadgor's tent stood in the midst
of an armed camp on Mazhurian soil. Tamarizia had struck swiftly and
with an overwhelming force, for which Zollaria had been unprepared.

       *       *       *       *       *

The next day the men of Ladhra arrived. Croft left them to garrison
Niera until a later body from the interior parts of Aphur should
arrive, then follow on. In fact he left orders that as each new
contingent appeared they should take over Niera, releasing the garrison
they found to advance through the state in support of his main force.
Himself he broke camp and moved inland along the splendid roads which
Tamarizia had built generations unnumbered before, when Mazhur was one
of her states.

For Palos, the sight was odd as the well-drilled ranks moved ahead
in steady cadence, with here and there a huge ungainly battle motor
rumbling along, its monster body filled with men. Here and there in
some minor town some slight resistance was met. The motors took care of
that. Rolling irresistibly forward into a slithering flight of arrows
and spears, they spat fire at the defenders until they fell or fled.

On and on crept the column with scarcely a pause save for rest or food.
That word of it went before it Croft did not doubt. He even smiled
grimly as he suggested to Jadgor what that word would be--a garbled
version of monsters which breathed fire and slew with their breath, of
troops which shot not arrows but more of the monsters' fire.

And Jadgor smiled in return as he gazed down the sturdily swinging
ranks that crept along the road the lumbering motors had cleared.

Luckily there were few streams, for the Zollarians seemed to understand
dimly by what they were attacked. They destroyed what bridges lay in
the line of their retreat. Some of them had to be repaired, thereby
losing time. Thus, as he advanced, Croft found the countryside cleared
and sensed that the retreating forces were trusting to the main body,
when they reached it, to check his victorious course.

He had some swift motors in which he himself and Jadgor and Lakkon
rode. Taking one of these, he sent it far ahead to feel out the road.
In it he placed a picked squad of his very best marksmen and ordered
them to return at all costs should they contact the enemy in force.

But the enemy in force was attacking the frontier of Cathur. That was
as Croft had planned it. That was Zollaria's second mistake, even as
her first was in not knowing the full weight of the power she faced.

Thus days passed and the Tamarizian army had actually reached the
northern bounds of Mazhur itself, as Jadgor declared, before any news
of the main enemy body was received.

Then the scout motor came back and reported heavy forces hurrying to
intercept their present line of march.

Croft ordered a halt and took stock of the situation. Before him was
a defile in the hills, through which ran the road to reach a farther
plain. And that was enough. He ordered an advance. Deploying his army
right and left, he set them to digging trenches along the hillside so
as to enfilade the plain from both sides of the central pass. In these
he posted the riflemen and one of his trained grenade corps every fifty
feet.

Across the road he built a barricade, some way back on the frontline
trench. High on each side of the pass he posted other riflemen behind
shelters of stone in such a position that they could fire into the road
or cast down grenades. In front of the barricade itself he parked his
battle-motors, unseen from the plain, but ready to emerge upon it when
the time should come.

He was hard at it in the midst of these arrangements when a band of
Zollarians mounted on gnuppas appeared above a gentle swell in the
road, perhaps a mile away, sat watching the work along the hillside for
some moments, turned and disappeared in the direction from whence they
had come.




                              CHAPTER XXV

                         WHEN HELMOR'S SUN SET


"They come, O Jadgor of Aphur!" Lakkon said.

"Let them," Croft flung out from a wonderful confidence. "You shall see
their slaughter, O king."

The hosts of Zollaria appeared. From the top of the hill above the
road Croft and the other two watched. Foot and chariots, the men of
the northern nation began to top the rolling hill before them. It was
mid-afternoon. The sunlight sparkled upon spear point and chariot, on
cuirass and plume-tufted helm.

It was a wonderful sight as the soldiers of the empire prepared to hurl
themselves against the smaller force which held the pass and the hills
to either side. They deployed right and left, spearmen, bowmen, with
a chariot filled with some noble and his driver here and there along
the far-flung front. And, having deployed, they began a slow advance,
moving like a mighty living ocean toward the shoreline of the hills.
Prisoners were to tell Croft later they were sorely puzzled by the
scant sight of the enemy they obtained.

The trenches, wherein lurked the waiting death they faced, baffled
their understanding, were new in their knowledge of war. Their captains
knew not exactly what they led them against. Yet they were proud in
their might and the training of fifty years for this moment.

Men had lived and been trained and had died and handed down the
tradition of this day to their sons who were being trained to take
their father's places in the ranks when the day should come. Now they
advanced without hesitation to write the history of the day itself upon
their nation's page.

Croft turned to Jadgor and Lakkon. "You command the wings," he said. "I
shall lead the motors. The next hour shall make us freemen or slaves.
Say as much to your men." He began the descent of the hill, reached the
motors, each with its load of tensely waiting soldiers, and entered his
own--the first and leading car.

He gave the command. The motors roared. A faint cheer broke from the
lips of the men behind the barricade. The armored cars gained speed.
They left the defile of the pass. Suddenly they broke upon the sight of
the Zollarian host.

For a moment it seemed to falter all along the line as the motors left
the road and deployed now in their turn to right and left. Then, with
a shout, a flashing chariot dashed from their ranks and headed with
plunging gnuppas at Croft's own machine. Crash! Crash! Two of the
gnuppas were down. The chariot was overturned in a smother of dust and
flying hoofs as the stricken creatures dragged their teammates with
them in their fall. Croft's motor advanced. The whole line of unwieldy
shapes rolled forward. They began to spit acrid smoke and flame.

Crash, crash! The trenches opened fire, shooting above the moving
motors toward the Zollarians' ranks.

Men went down in a swift dissolution. Some one sounded the charge.
Zollaria's manhood answered the summon to their manhood. They surged
ahead in a roaring human flood. The motors were engulfed, but still
they spat fire. Men gathered about them and sought to overturn them.
They died. The press of the charge passed toward the hill. The motors
lumbered about and fired into the rear of the storming forces. They
squatted on the plain and sent a stream of death into the backs of
their foes.

And in the faces of those foes a stream of death was pouring. Rifles
blazed and grenades began exploding along the sides of the hills. Still
they stormed up. This was Zollaria's day--_the day_--the thing they
dreamed of, planned for, through fifty years.

Only by degrees could the thought of certain success begin to waver in
the minds of the men in that charge. Some of them died on the hillside.
Some of them reached to the lip of the trenches themselves and died.
Some of them entered the defile and found the barricade and died before
it under the blast of its rifles and the grenades hurled down upon them
from its edge. And all the while the glistening motors squatted on the
plain or ambled slowly toward the hillsides, spitting flame, while
other men died.

So in the end Zollaria's men began at first to doubt and then to fear.
In front was death, and death was at their backs. Turn where they would
that fiery, unknown, roaring death spat at them. The air was full of
it. The very ground seemed to leap into flame at their feet and carry
death. They wavered. They turned. They fled. Bowmen, spearmen, chariot,
and plume-tossing gnuppa, they streamed down the hillside and out on
the plain. And after them came death--and death met them again from the
metal-covered motors, which fired and fired into their mass as they
retreated in fear.

       *       *       *       *       *

Croft saw them vanish over the rolling hill which had veiled their
recent advance. He opened the door of his motor and called through
a trumpet to two of the cars by number. They were under command of
trusted men. He ordered them to take each two others and follow the
beaten army, giving it neither respite nor ease while daylight should
last. Himself he returned to the defile. It was a great hour, the
greatest hour he had ever known in his life--the hour in which all he
had promised was proven, all he had worked for was won. He climbed down
and mounted the hill to where Jadgor stood.

"O king," he said. "To you for Tamarizia, I give back Mazhur, the lost
state. Another meeting such as this and, I think, Zollaria will surely
sue for peace."

Jadgor reached out and embraced him--to Croft's surprise. "Jasor of
Nodhur--man of wonder!" he exclaimed. "Did I ever doubt Zitu had sent
you to Tamarizia's salvation I do not doubt it now."

That night Croft camped where he was. The next day Belzor, with his
Nodhurians, having made a forced march from Niera, came up. Gazing on
the body-strewn hillside and plain he wept with disappointment not to
have been present to witness what took place.

Croft grinned. "Patience. The emperor himself leads the army against
Cathur, some of the captives tell me. Today we advance."

Toward midnight his motors had come back to report the enemy still in
flight and the road a mass of wounded who had fallen from exhaustion
on the way. Croft's heart wept out to the poor devils, who were, after
all, but the victims of their ruler's lust for power. Yet he could do
little for them because of the lack of time and the fact that he passed
through openly hostile territory now.

It had been somewhat different in Mazhur, where many of the inhabitants
were Tamarizian still at heart. But here, should he leave men behind
to attend the wounded, he knew, that if discovered, they would perish
without any doubt. Hence beyond collecting them in one place, supplying
them with provisions, and leaving the lesser wounded to wait upon the
others, he could do nothing before he advanced on the main body of the
enemy.

That advance lasted for a week. Twice, during it, Croft left his body,
satisfied himself the state of things was safe, returned to earth, and
chatted with Mrs. Goss and went back. At the end of the week he found
himself once more facing a foe.

His first victory had produced a wonderful effect. Zollaria, driving
Cathur before her like chaff, under Kyphallos's treacherous leadership,
had made progress already when word of Croft's landing and advance from
Niera had caused the Emperor Helmor to detach a portion of his army
under his son to crush the flank attack. Instead, his son's command
was crushed and recoiled in a sorry rout. Helmor faced about. Raging
at this check to his plans, he rushed north and east to finish the
Tamarizian army himself.

And now Croft found the positions reversed. Helmor chose his own
ground. He set himself to withstand the shock of battle along a line of
gently rolling hills, up which his foe must advance to the attack. Thus
his bowmen had a tremendous advantage, according to all his knowledge
of war, and his spearmen, at close quarters, could give a most
magnificent account of themselves, while the chariots, in the rear of
the line, could take care of any small bands of the enemy which might
chance to break through.

       *       *       *       *       *

In this case Croft put his motors in the front. Deploying his men, he
instructed them to advance by rushes, keeping well in the rear of the
sixteen machines, yet close enough to take advantage of any breaks they
made in Helmor's line.

"This day will be the last," he said to Jadgor as he prepared to lead
in his own machine.

"Zitu grant it, and victory with it!" Jadgor replied. "Should you carry
defeat to Helmor, Tamarizia is yours, to do with as you please. Once
before I would remind you, Jasor, I said well-nigh as much."

"There is but one thing in Tamarizia I desire." Croft looked at Lakkon
as he spoke and smiled.

"It is yours, my son," said Aphur's prince, and spoke softly to Jadgor.
"What think you, O king? Our Jasor desires a maid."

And Jadgor nodded. "Aye, Lakkon, I am not a fool! You are willing she
should go to him?"

"I have pledged her to him," said Lakkon as he bowed his head.

"And I go to win her now," said Croft as he entered his car.

Naia of Aphur. That was the cry of his heart he carried into the fight.
Naia of Aphur. This fight should make her his. He gave the signal for
the advance with a smile upon his lips.

Like huge metal turtles the motors began crawling toward the hill where
Helmor waited. Slowly, steadily, as implacable as fate, they rumbled
ahead. And, after a time, their breath rose on the air of the cloudless
morning in acrid whiffs of smoke. Flights of arrows and crossbow bolts
rattled on their sides and fell harmless. They reached the foot of the
hill and began to climb--up and up. They were half lost now in the
smoke of their own fierce discharges and the clouds of flying shafts.

Back of them the infantry advanced as Croft directed, dashing forward
a hundred yards, and dropping down to fire in crashing volleys which
covered their comrades' sprinting rush, rising again and swarming ahead
while the other end of their companies covered them in turn. On the
hill confusion began to develop after a time. Men fell in heaps with a
chance to strike back.

Nearer and nearer, without pause, the odd metal turtles crept up the
hill. Nothing stopped them. Nothing, neither valor nor marksmanship,
silenced the deadly spitting of their fire. Arrows broke upon them,
cross-bolts slithered off their invulnerable hides. Nearer and nearer
crept the menace of their ugly snouts.

On the right flank two reached the Zollarian line and crashed against
it. Men fell and were ground into bloody pulp beneath metal wheels.
The Zollarians tried. They flung themselves in waves upon the
monsters. They sought to climb upon them. They gripped at the spitting
rifle-barrels. But still the motors plowed on in a bloody foam. They
turned and began crawling through the sea of men. Flesh and bone
could stand no more. The right flank wavered and fled just before the
infantry swarming up the slope in a final rush drove its own charge
home. They fell back in a disorganized mob, flinging bows and spears
from them as they ran.

They left the center unsupported, attacked from both front and side.
It wavered, bent, sought to turn itself to meet the double-attack,
broke in the process, and split asunder. Behind it, in his gorgeous
chariot, Helmor raged to no avail. Through the mêlée a monster thing of
metal bore down upon him. From it there came a brazen voice as of one
speaking through a trumpet:

"Yield, Helmor of Zollaria, and put a stop to slaughter! Yield, Helmor,
or perish with your men!"

This was the end. This was the fruition in blood and despair of
that day prepared against through the span of fifty years. Thus was
Zollaria's ambition sinking to destruction, smothered beneath the
swirling dust of a panic-stricken ruck. Helmor swept the lost field
with his eyes and knew the truth.

He gave the sign of surrender, spoke to his frightened aids, and sent
them galloping on gnuppas right and left to carry the word of defeat.
A standard shot up from the top of Croft's car. The sounds of battle
ceased by degrees and died as car after car raised a similar signal
across the battle-front.

Croft opened the door of his car and stepped down. "You will enter,
Helmor of Zollaria," he said shortly, and gestured to the door.

The Emperor Helmor bowed. He bent his haughty crest and disappeared
from sight. The door closed behind him, shutting him safe beyond all
dreams of conquest for all time to come. The great car turned and
lumbered back down the hill toward the camp where Jadgor of Aphur had
waited and watched. The sun was at its zenith above a field of dead and
wounded. But Helmor's sun of ambition had set.




                             CHAPTER XXVI

                           THE CONSUMMATION


These are the things Croft told me. It was three o'clock in the morning
when he was done. "That was a month ago, Dr. Murray," he said, and
sighed.

"But what became of Kyphallos?" I asked.

Croft smiled. "Kyphallos was placed under arrest and tried with speed,"
he replied. "He was sentenced to exile in that Zollaria he had tried
to aid in her plans. He went forth in a rather boastful fashion and
appeared at the capital, Berla, itself. But neither Helmor nor the
tawny Kalamita would have aught to do with him since he could be of no
further use to them. Only then I think did Kyphallos realize his true
position, because then he drew himself up before Kalamita and asked
her, for all time, to say he was nothing to her."

She replied with a sneering laugh.

Kyphallos gave her one look, drew his sword, held it before his breast,
and fell upon it and died.

"And the maid?" I asked. "Pardon me, Croft, but I'm human! And like all
human beings I recognize love as the main-spring of existence."

He laughed. "As it is--love, Murray, is life--the cause of all being.
The maid is mine, or shall be so, soon as I return."

"You're going back?" I said.

He gave me a glance. "Of course. I ask nothing better. God, man, don't
you understand that she waits for me--there? Oh, yes, I've seen her
since Zollaria was beaten! I've held her in my arms--felt her lips. The
wedding-day is set. It is to be in Himyra, with Magur as the priest.
Man, can't you understand?"

"What?" I inquired.

His laugh came again. But it was nervous. "You rather force me to blow
my own horn. Murray, I'm Tamarizia today. When we returned to Zitra
victors and learned that Robur had driven the Mazzerians like chaff
before the wind, and that Milidhur, outside of a skirmish or two, had
found nothing to do, Tamhys gave me new rank. He named me Prince of
Zitra, a title never known in Tamarizia before, but next in importance
to the imperial throne. Man, I could have been emperor had I wished
since Tamhys's term expired one week after we got back."

"Could have been?" I said.

"Yes." He smiled. "But--I didn't take it. Do you know what I did?"

"Hardly." I shook my head.

"You might deduce it," he returned. "Murray, Tamarizia is a republic
now. She was ready for it. She had come nearly to it before I arrived.
There was no reason why she should not set up a true democracy. When
they offered me the crown I replied with a request. I called for a
council of the states. I put the thing squarely before them. They
hailed the suggestion with acclaim. My word was law, Murray--law.

"Last night when you called me back and I returned, do you know what
was being done? Certainly not. But--we were completing the draft of the
republican constitution. Nothing less. When I returned I found them
clustered about me--those nobles of the nation. They thought me in a
faint, all save Jadgor and Lakkon and Robur, of course. I caught their
eyes and knew they understood. But I said nothing, and we finished the
draft last night.

"Now Jasor's body, which I have used, lies in Zud's own room in the
Zitra pyramid. It is guarded by a priest. Above it, between it and the
Temple of Zitu, Murray, between it and God, Naia of Aphur is waiting,
a virgin guarded by Virgins for my return, in that room where Ga, the
eternal woman, broods above the sacred fire. Think you I shall not go
back?"

"No--I think I would go myself if I could," I replied.

His eyes filled with a far-away look. "Earth is beautiful," he said. "I
love it, its mountains and valleys, its streams and lakes, its fields
of grass and flowers, but, Murray--there is something, someone now in
my life I love beyond anything else. Man, I have found my mate. Like
the moose of the great woods, I must answer her call.

"I shall go back. I shall make Naia of Aphur my wife. There will be an
election to select a president of the new republic. I have been asked
to put up my name. I think--no, Murray, I am sure, that Naia shall be
the first lady of all Tamarizia at Zitra itself before long."

"And your body here? What will you do? Shall you tell her the truth?"

"Yes, I think so," he declared. "Truth is a wonderful thing. It should
be kept sacred between a man and his mate. Were that done more commonly
by man and his consort half the marital trouble of the world would
disappear. But--what need have I of an earthly body any more?

"My life calls me to Palos. Henceforth I am through with earth. Hence,
Murray, my friend, when I return from this final excursion, I shall do
what I have never done before. I shall snap the invisible bond between
this body and my spirit, which, until now, I have held intact. I shall
remain here a very few days to perform some necessary tasks. I must
provide for Mrs. Goss, and I desire my estate to be given to some
foundation for the welfare of my race. Then--then, Murray--I shall go
to the woman I love--Naia--my God-given mate!"

       *       *       *       *       *

This is the story he told me that afternoon and night. Was he sane? I
think so. Was the story true? I cannot say. And yet somewhere I feel
that Jason Croft is living today--that he is happy, that he has won his
great adventure, and that Naia of Aphur, that maid of the golden hair
and purple eyes, is truly now his wife.

One thing I can set down with positive knowledge at the end. A week
from the first time she called me, Mrs. Goss came to me again. I went
with her to the great couch in Croft's study and--I found him dead!
His body lay there lifeless, rigid and cold beyond any power of mine
to help. It came over me that the man had kept his word and broken the
subtle thread between it and his spirit, just as he had said he would.
I straightened and told Mrs. Goss there was nothing I could do.

She wiped her dark, old eyes. "I knowed it," she said, "I knowed it!
Somethin' told me I was goin' to lose him this time! I've knowed him
from a baby, Dr. Murray. He was always a very strange man."



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