"I should not tell even you," he answered, his fingers working swiftly in their secret, silent language, which all the world could see, but which only these two understood. "For if my enemies knew that you possessed the information, there is nothing they would stop at to make you tell." "But I would not tell, Sarka," she said softly. "You know that!" He patted her hands, and the ghost of a smile touched his lips. "No," he said, "you would not tell. Some day soon--and it must be soon if the children of men are not to destroy themselves, I will tell you! It is a secret that lies heavily on my heart. If I should make a mistake.... Chaos! Catastrophe! Eternal, perpetual dark, the children of men reduced to nothingness!" * * * * * A little gasp from Jaska, for it was plain that this thing Sarka hinted at was far and away beyond anything he had hitherto done--and Sarka had already performed miracles beyond any that had ever been done by his predecessors. "When my grandfather," went on Sarka moodily, "perfected, in this self-same laboratory, the machinery by which the waters of the oceans could be disintegrated, our enemies called him mad, and fought their way up these mountain slopes to destroy him! With the pack at his doors, he did as he had told them he would do. Though they hurried swiftly into the great valleys to colonize them--where oceans had been--they were like ravening beasts, and gave my grandfather no thanks. Our people have always fought against progress, have always been disparaging of its advocates! When the first Sarka discovered the Secret they would have destroyed him, though he made them immortal...." "If only the Secret," interrupted Jaska, "could be returned to him who discovered it! That would solve our problem, for men then would die and be buried, leaving their places for others." Again that weary smile on the face of Sarka. "Take back the Secret which is known to-day to every son and daughter of woman? Impossible! More nearly impossible than the attainment of my most ambitious dream!" "And that dream?" spoke Jaska with speeding fingers. "I have wondered about you," said Sarka softly, while those eyes of his bored deeply into hers. "We have been the best of friends, the best of comrades; but there are times when it comes to me that I do not know you entirely! And I have many enemies!" "You mean," gasped the woman, for the moment forgetting the secret sign manual, "you think it possible that I--I--might be one of your enemies, in secret?"