Our journey for this day was already a long one, but we did not halt in that spot. We got into the boat and went floating down the stream, to get away from the thunder of the falling waters. As the current caught the craft, Rhodes turned to me, and, a smile in his eyes, he said, quoting from _The Faerie Queene_: "'Have care, I pray, to guide the cock-bote well, Least worse on sea then us on land befell.'" Drorathusa, who had learned a few words of our language, was watching him, and, after a moment's silence, she waved a hand in the downstream direction and said: "_Narranawnzee_--fine and dandy." One thing, by the way, that from the very beginning had intrigued Rhodes and me not a little was the relationship existing amongst our Dromans. It had at first been my belief (though never that of Rhodes) that Drorathusa was the wife of Ondonarkus. Ere long, however, it had become clear to me that wife she was not. But what was she? His daughter, Rhodes had said. And daughter I had at length decided, and still believed, that she was. In short, we put the relationship as follows, and I may as well say at once that the future was to place its O.K. upon this bit of Sherlock-Holmesing of ours: Ondonarkus was the father of all our Dromans except one, Silvisiris, and to her he was father-in-law. This little mystery cleared up--at any rate, to our satisfaction--we tackled another, which was this: what _was_ Drorathusa. I think it has been made sufficiently obvious that she was no ordinary woman. But what was she? The only answer that Rhodes and I had been able to find was that Drorathusa was indeed a Sibyl, a priestess or something of the kind. And again I may as well say at once that we were right. But why had they set out on a journey so strange and so hazardous--through the land of the tree-octopi and the snake-cats, through that horrible, unearthly fungoid forest, and up and up, up into the caves of utter blackness, across that frightful chasm, up to the Tamahnowis Rocks, into the blaze of the sunshine, out onto the snow and ice on Mount Rainier? * * * * * It was as though we suddenly had entered a fairyland, so wonderful was this gliding along on the placid bosom of the river when contrasted with the fatigues, the dangers and the horrors through which we had passed. There was nothing to do but steer the boat, keep her out in the stream; and so hours, the whole day long was passed in the langourous luxury of resting, in watching the strange trees glide past and in making such progress as we were able in acquiring a knowledge of the Droman language. We found the ladies much better teachers than Zenvothunbro and Ondonarkus. In fact, there was simply no comparison. Why they should have proved so immeasurably superior in this respect to the representatives of the brainy sex, I do not presume to try to explain. I merely record a fact; its explanation I leave to those who know more about science than I do.