"When we dropped into the kingdom of Baigol there was a storm on the surface of this planet. That storm must have hidden the sun, and yet the reflectors below were sending day throughout the realm." "The reflection came from other and smaller reflectors arranged to take care of just such an emergency," explained the king. "Storms are only local, you know, and when one gathers over the giant reflector the smaller ones at the other points are brought into use. But let’s not talk of this planet, but of that other one up here." And along that line the king’s conversation ran for a full hour. At last, when we were ready to descend, so far from being dismayed by the enormity of the task before him, the royal zealot was fortified in his resolution to carry it out. His majesty was in great good humor, and when we had left the lift and marched back to the square he very graciously tendered us the freedom of the town. He could not understand why the professor and I should have any desire to escape from his country, and inasmuch as he had made us his honored guests, to return us to the circle of zet would be to besmirch his hospitality. The zet had been regathered into the high chief’s zetbai and it was not again released. It was not necessary for Popham to return to the royal mines until the following night, so he remained with us, along with Markham, and we all bunked down in the centre of the plaza. "Is there no way, Professor Quinn," quavered Popham, "whereby we can escape from the inhuman monsters who people this planet? The treatment I have suffered is monstrous! I feel as though I shall die if I have to go back to those royal coal mines again. Being a large man, they expect me to do the work of a dozen Mercurials. There are blisters on my hands and my feet are so sore I can hardly walk." This wail from the brusque and tyrannical Popham was in itself a highly edifying comment on his sad experiences. "Your position was grace itself compared with mine," mourned Markham. "These people seemed determined to starve me to death. I am expected to travel from house to house, begging food, and they hardly give me enough at one house to take me to the next." "You are on the surface," returned Popham, "and you are not delving continually in the hot, unhealthy regions where I must do my work. I have to toil like a galley slave for a cent a day, and a cent’s worth of this vegetable food, which seems to be all they have here, does not furnish me with enough strength for my labor." "You have your clothes, at least," whimpered Meigs. "Quinn ought to help us; he _must_ help us." "I shall do what I can, gentlemen," said the professor wearily. "I have not succeeded in showing you the error of your ways, but I must let that pass. A greater calamity menaces our planet than any you could possibly let loose upon our devoted country." "Meigs was saying something about that," spoke up Popham. "What is it this mad king thinks of doing?"