For a moment he simply held her, and then he told her. "Beloved--the time approaches. The thing is done." "Done?" she faltered. "Aye, finished wholly," Jason said, and felt her quiver--sensed the fires of her astral being quicken--found the form he held suddenly glowing. "Now Zitu be praised." In all her slender length she pressed suddenly closer to him. "Draws then so near the day?" "Aye, by Zitu," he declared. "I know not the meaning of it," Naia said, "but Maia lies daily on the straw within the door of our chamber--and she had heard mutterings now and then among the guard. Thy mention of Bandhor recalls it. Kalamita's brother has come among them within the last few suns, if one may credit their speech among themselves." "Bandhor? To what purpose?" Croft questioned quickly, vaguely disturbed that the Zollarian generalissimo should have held speech in person with members of the palace guard. "Nay, I know not. Maia but heard mention of his presence--some word concerning Helmor's signet." "His signet? Hai!" Croft found himself suddenly shaken. "Now may Zitemku seize that woman, and Adita turn her favor from her!" "Thou meanest--Kalamita?" And now Naia clung against him, not in womanly yearning, but with the quick fear of a mother. "Jason--" "Aye," he said tensely, "have you forgotten how she forced thy own ring from thee--or the foul thing she planned, save Helmor had overruled her? Now Zitu be thanked you have spoken of this in time since, in my own way, those things she plans may be learned, and Helmor warned." For now it seemed to him, that lost in the press of work in Himyra, supported by the sense of security derived from the dreams he had inspired in the brain of Zollaria's monarch he had indeed been blind, and that while he had labored without ceasing, the woman who hated him as only a woman of her type could hate, and Ptah, priest of Bel, and possibly Bandhor also, had been busy with their schemes. Wherefore, it was best that he learn quickly what those schemes embraced, what new danger to Naia and Jason, Son of Jason, might be involved. "Fear not, beloved. Zitu means not these spawn of Zitemku to prevail against us--wherefore we are warned. Ga, thou art, priestess of the Eternal Fire, to me--messenger of Azil have I been to thee, and shall be again--but messenger of Zilla will I be to these plotters--making all their plotting vain. Farewell, thou mate of Jason. He goes to learn what they plan." In a final caress, he sunk his mouth again to hers, seeming as always when he kissed her in such fashion to draw the very essence of her being to him. And then he left her, making his way swiftly out of the palace and pausing where the fire urns flared before it, across a mighty space. * * * * *