Jim’s heart leaped. Something was impending! He sat between them tensely; his hand touched Altho’s arm; his eyes flashed at Altho with eager questioning. Ren murmured, “I’ve got it now, Jim! It’s Sonya! She says, _I am Sonya. We know you are with Altho. I am getting his thoughts too!_” A silence. Altho sat cross-legged on the stone floor, as Jim and Ren were sitting, with the stone slab of table before them; the green glow of light nearby threw shadows behind them. Altho was sitting with closed eyes, his hands to his temples. He looked up momentarily; his gaze rested on Jim and Ren with a new understanding, a new friendship. Ren murmured, “She’s telling Altho about us. She says, _Hold connection! I’m telling him . . . he’s telling me_—” Altho’s lips were moving with his thoughts to Sonya. The girl, over all this distance, was translating from the universal language of thoughts for these two strangers at Jim’s elbow. Ren added, “Altho says to us in his thoughts, Talon had promised not to kill him; Talon now thinks he will be useful after our city of Kalima is conquered. But one of Talon’s men—that head who was in here a while ago—he said they had decided we all three were to die. I’m asking Altho what he thinks we can do to escape.” Altho raised his head at the question; his eyes searched Ren’s face. His lips moved. “Jim! Jim, she says, _We are coming to try and rescue you! If you or Altho can direct us . . . we’re coming . . . in the air now._” Altho was on his feet. He seemed to be warning Sonya back. “No!” cried Ren. “Altho says no, they must not come! But they’re coming! Sonya and . . . she doesn’t say who’s coming.” “What’s that?” Altho and Jim stiffened. From the entrance passage a figure had emerged, a giant, hairy bruteman. He stood with swaying, dangling arms, green eyes blazing in the pale green cave light; a leer on his small flat face, a black tongue like an animal’s, licking his black lips with murderous anticipation! XIII CROWDED HOURS “Sonya,” I exclaimed vehemently, “stay beside me! Don’t leave me!” How I cursed my inability to speak this language during those crowded hours following the king’s death! At every turn, with every move I was handicapped, the force of my words lost since I had only a girl for mouthpiece. Yet Sonya did well. The crowd in the garden had dispersed; Sonya had led the girls into cheering me. I had made a speech promising them justice in their cause, and sent them away, not to the Virgins’ Island, but peacefully back to the homes they had left. They were glad to go; there was no government now to force them into a distasteful marriage. The guards had come before me, at first with an indecision, a sullenness, but the old men counsellors had swiftly abdicated.