"I came gladly," the blue girl said quickly, "yet do I not understand these sleeps in which you lie as dead, and I remember once when Mitlos and I worked above you thinking Zilla had taken your spirit, before you were the Hupor Jason's bride--and it was even so with the Hupor himself in the camp of the Mazzerian army, when we went to save him--" "Peace, girl," Naia interrupted, and paused and caught her breath sharply, as Jason bent the force of his presence on her. She smiled, handed the child to Maia, and reclined her body on the warm sand of the beach. Then she let the fair astral tenant of her body steal forth! "Beloved," said Jason Croft, and drew her close. "Beloved--woman of gold--we have heard your words, I and our friend of earth." Naia turned her head toward me from the shelter of his arms. "Once more," she addressed me, "you come to our aid, good friend. Did Jason, my lord, call you to him?" "Aye, Princess of Aphur." I inclined my head, finding the Tamarizian idiom in that moment best fitted to my tongue. She spoke again to Jason. "You have followed me, beloved; what else lies in your mind?" "Naught for the present," Croft told her. "It is plain that they intend taking you upon yonder ship, and we shall follow you aboard it. It is our purpose to learn, in so far as we may, what these spawn of Zitemku and Lith, his filthy consort, have in mind. Yet fear not--though I do no more than this in the spirit, I shall do much more in the flesh, once the spirit is informed." "I shall not fear," said Naia of Aphur. "Have I not given myself wholly into your keeping? My part it shall be to meet what Zitu sends upon us boldly and without fear, and safeguard that smaller Jason, who even now is a mirror of his father." "And thyself, beloved," Croft added quickly. "Look to thyself. It were hard choice for a father between child and mother, but--" "Nay! Say no further," she stayed his almost passionate answer swiftly. Yet something like an inward fire seemed to light her mistlike form until it glowed. "By Bel--they are awake out there at last," the sound of a rough voice drifted to my ears. Croft turned his head at the same instant, toward the group of Zollarian raiders and the ship beyond them, between which and the beach a boat now appeared. "Aye," growled another speaker. "And time enough. Look to the women and the slave." "The time is at hand, beloved," I heard Jason speaking. "Return, soul of my soul, to your beautiful mansion--and think not I shall not be near." For a moment he clasped her closer and sank his lips to hers uplifted, and then--she was gone and her body stirred, sat up as two of the Zollarians approached and ordered her to rise. "What did they mean by 'the slave'?" I questioned Jason. "Wait," he said as another group of Naia's captors led a blue man into the light of the fire. "Bathos--one of my house servants," he went on. "Now, for what purpose in Zitu's name have they brought him along?"