"That I may go; otherwise, of course, there would be no going. At first she wouldn't even hear of it. She feared that it might be impossible for us to maintain secrecy--that some of our precious politicians might get down into Drome. I am sure she believes that the kingdom would have more to fear from half a dozen of those sons of Proteus than from an army of sixty thousand men. And, bless her heart, when I think of some of their blunders, asininity, hypocrisy, lying, stupidity, coat-turning and sheer insanity, I am of opinion that there is not much exaggeration, if any, in that idea of hers. "But I have at last gained her consent. With our large party, there can not be any danger." I was not sure of that, but I kept those thoughts to myself. "Of course, I want to go," I told him. "But I want to come back to Drome." "Most assuredly, Bill, we'll come back to Drome." "But," said I, "there is something that I don't understand." "Which is what?" "We _can't_ keep our great discovery a secret. And, as soon as our world has it, adventurers, spoilers, crooks, thieves and worse will come swarming down that passage. We'll loose upon our poor Dromans a horde of Pizarros." "Did I think for one single moment that what you say, or anything like it, would follow, never one step would I take towards the sun. You say that we can not keep the discovery of Drome a secret; we can, and we will--until such time as it will not matter. We will come out onto the glacier in the nighttime. Our ways of egress--I suppose we'll have to tunnel our way out through the ice, that there will not be any accommodating crevasse--will be most carefully concealed. No one will see us come out. No one will know of our journeys to and from the Tamahnowis Rocks, for they will be made under cover of darkness. No one will know. "Fortunately, by the way, as it now turns out," he added, "when we adopted the Droman dress, we did not throw away our pants et cetera, and so, though those clothes are somewhat the worse for wear, our appearance up there on Mount Rainier will cause no remark." "But our showing up at home," I said, "after so long an absence will cause plenty of remarks and more than remarks. How will we answer all the questions that they will surely ask us?" "Tut, tut!" smiled Milton. "If all our difficulties could be so easily resolved as that!" "But how will we do it?" "We won't answer them, Bill; we'll keep them guessing." "But suppose we find that Scranton has let out something that will give them a pretty good idea as to what has happened?" "That might be bad," answered Rhodes. "But I have every confidence in Scranton's discretion. He will, I feel sure, maintain that utter silence which I requested, until the period designated expires. Possibly he may never tell what he knows.