Once more I followed his lead across the red and yellow court where unknown plants bloomed about us on every side. Mitlos, intent on his duties, knew not of our passing, but Hupor sensed us, I think, and turned his huge head toward us, and stood looking at us out of amber eyes. Then we were outside the arch of a doorway at the head of a flight of pure white steps, on a far-reaching esplanade. On every hand there were mountains, wooded on their sides. The house stood on one side of a natural mountain valley, in the emerald cup of which was a tiny lake, its waters gilded now by the rays of the Dog Star. And winding past it, and off along the flank of the hills in a series of perfect tangents was a wonderfully metaled road. I followed its turnings until I lost them, and my vision found itself baffled by a further reach of the landscape, blanketed as it seemed beneath a singular dun-colored haze. In its way the scene was not unlike that of a morning on earth. I turned my eyes back to the dim shape of Croft beside me. He lifted an arm. "Over there is Himyra," he said, pointing, "but a ground fog is hiding the desert. If you'll look across it, however, you'll see a silver sort of shimmer. That's the Central Sea." Himyra--the capital of Aphur--the Central Sea. And this was Palos. The weirdness of the whole adventure came upon me. It was hard to realize. And the sun up there was Sirius and not the sun to which I was accustomed. Abruptly Jason chuckled. "Murray--do you remember the night my housekeeper thought I had died, and routed you out in a storm, and you came to my house and compelled me to return from Palos by the infernal insistence of your will? Well, tit for tat, old man. That night I did your bidding, but last night I called you here." "Quite so," I assented, smiling. In a way his remark seemed to lighten the atmosphere between us. I caught sight of a rapidly moving object. "Look there, Croft--that's one of your motors or some or sort of speedy contraption coming up the road." He glanced down the course of what I could not but agree he had done well at first to compare to the ancient highways of the Romans because of its permanent type of construction. "Lakkon, by Zitu!" he exclaimed. "I telephoned him last night, but--I'd forgotten all about him. He said he'd drive out the first thing in the morning, and he seems to be burning the wind. See here--I'll have to leave you, Murray, long enough to welcome grandpa, if you don't mind." I nodded. Lakkon was Naia's father. And it was no more than natural surely that he should be hastening to her, especially as she was the old noble's only child. "Run along," I said. "There's plenty to look at. I'll amuse myself." Then, as an afterthought, I added, "Only don't spend too much time with him. I've got to be getting out of here, Croft, or someone's likely to fancy Dr. Murray is dead."