"For you!" he said, and drew Naia into his arms, and against his breast. "For you!" He kissed her on eyes and lips. "To free you and give you to me always. Those fires are burning away all need of your sacrifice. In the end they shall make you mine." "Yours." Naia sighed in his arms as one content. "Here in the desert you preserved my life. Why should it not belong to you? "Your work progresses well?" she went on after a time. "Beyond my hopes," Croft assured her. "Have no fear. All shall be ready--in time." "My lord," she whispered. "Aye--_your_ lord, beloved," said Croft. "Beloved," she repeated. For a time Croft simply held her, and then he turned the car and drove back up the mountain road. CHAPTER XIX A SUMMONS FROM ZITRA At the end of the fourth month the first rifle was done. It was an odd-appearing affair. Tempered copper took the place of earthly steel in barrel and other metal parts. Copper formed the shell for the ammunition, over which Croft had experienced more trouble than in anything else. Lead was very scarce on Palos. But there were vast quantities of gold. That explained the enormous use made of it in draperies and the common trades as he had learned. Yet it was with some compunction due to the opposite conditions on earth and their lifelong effect on his brain that he finally hit on an alloy from which the bullets were made. Powder had troubled him, too--though in the end he managed to make it. And for the fulminating centers of his cartridge complete, he was compelled to spend several days on earth. In the end, however, he held the first completed weapon in his hands, and gloated over its finished lines. Taking Robur in a car, he drove out along the south road to a place where he knew vast flocks of water-fowl were wont to frequent the Na. As a boy he had been a good shot, until such time as he waked in his soul a repugnance for killing the natural creatures the One Great Source had made, save as necessity arose. He gestured to the wild fowl floating on the yellow water more than a bow-shot away. "Now watch, Rob," he said, and took the rifle in his hands. Vaguely by now Prince Robur understood the design of the new instrument of destruction. Yet it was hard for him to comprehend fully a thing such as he had never dreamed before Croft put it into his mind. He smiled. "Had we not better draw a little closer, Jasor, my friend?" he inquired. "No." On the word Croft fired. Nor did he fire blindly into the flock. He chose a bird swimming to one side. And hard on the sound of his shot that bird jerked in the spasmodic fashion of a sorely stricken thing, struggled for an instant and floated away, half sunk in the yellow tide.