Rhodes and I flashed on our lights. For a time the Dromans waited, as though expecting the light to come at any moment; but it did not come. Along the shore on either side and in the distant city, lights were gleaming out. A sudden voice came, mystic and wonderful; Rhodes and I turned, and there was Drorathusa standing with arms extended upward in invocation, as we had seen her in that first eclipse. Minutes passed. But the light did not come. At last the oars were put in motion again. Dark and agitated, however, were the looks of the Dromans, and more than one pair of eyes fixed themselves on Rhodes and me in a manner that plainly marked us as objects of some superstitious dread--if, indeed, it was not something worse. Steadily, however, our boat glided forward through the black and awful night. "What is that?" I at length asked as suddenly there before us some vapor or an obscuring something thinned out or rose from the surface of the water. "It looks like a floating-palace, with a lot of dwarfish buildings floating behind it. That isn't part of the city itself." "No; but a palace in all probability," Rhodes answered. "Certainly a very large and imposing structure. That must be an island." And an island it is. At this moment Drorathusa moved to our side, and, indicating the great building in question, many windows of which were a perfect blaze of light, she said: "Lathendra Lepraylya." Her eyes lingered on Rhodes' face, and her look, I saw, was somber and troubled. So that was the queen's palace. Soon we would be in the presence of this Lathendra (Queen) Lepraylya. What manner of woman was this sovereign of the Dromans? What awaited us there? I remembered that look of Drorathusa's, and I confess that my thoughts were soon troubled and somber. Chapter 40 BEFORE LEPRAYLYA One by one, in twos and threes and then in a body, the small craft had dropped behind, and now we were alone on the black waters, across which, from the shores and from many of the boats, came quivering lines of light. "It must be the eclipse," said Rhodes, "that has affected the Dromans in this manner so remarkable. It is plain, Bill, that there is something about this sudden darkness that is mysterious and awful to these Hypogeans. It must be that it is in some way a most extraordinary eclipse." It _was_ a most extraordinary eclipse, and there _was_ something awful about it--something more awful than we thought. And what troubled me the most was this: they seemed to think that we men from the World Above had something to do with this dread darkness--already one of far longer duration than any eclipse any living Droman had ever known. Indeed, none such had been recorded for what we would call centuries, and the last had been the harbinger of the most fearful calamities.