The entire flock rose at the new strange sound on the silent air. They swarmed across the sky. Pumping up a fresh cartridge, Croft lifted his rifle swiftly, chanced another hit--and scored. One of the flying creatures checked its rapid course, slanted drunkenly downward and then spun dizzily over and over to fall not far from where the two men stood in the car. "Zitu! Zitu!" Robur exclaimed, springing from the machine to retrieve the fallen bird. Croft watched him run toward it in very unprincelike haste. Then he was coming back with the dead thing in his hands, staring wide-eyed at the drops of blood on its feathers, lifting his face with a strange expression to Croft, as he climbed back to his seat. "Are you convinced, Rob?" Croft laid the rifle aside. "I am convinced Zitu himself but uses you as his agent. These things never came from a mortal brain alone," the Prince of Aphur replied. "Man comes by Zitu's will, why should not Zitu use man for the things it pleases him to do?" said Croft. "You do not deny it?" Robur spoke in almost startled fashion. "Nay. Have I not already said that all I did was by Zitu's grace?" There were times when Croft found it hard to avoid a direct avowal of the actual state which was his, times when he hungered to make some human soul a confidant concerning all that had occurred. And he loved the strong young man by his side. Now, however, Robur laughed in a somewhat unsteady way. "There are times when you cause me to stand in awe of your power, Jasor, my friend," he said. "Think you not Zollaria will stand in awe of our weapons when they are in the hands of our men, on foot or mounted in the cars I have armored and pierced with holes for the barrels of the rifles?" Croft asked. "Aye, by Zitu!" Robur shouted. "Turn around Jasor--and 'let her out.' We must return to our work." * * * * * But that night Croft drove out to the mountains, taking his rifle along. Others were being assembled now, and he had seen Jadgor himself and arranged for the beginning of the army they must raise. The thing would be started by a public demonstration, at which Croft should show the power of the new weapon. The men of Aphur, and Nodhur, and Milidhur would be invited to join. To each who did so a rifle would be given wholly as his property for all time to come, and a certain wage would be given also while they were being trained. Fired by the thought, Croft asked for a copy of the Tamarizian alphabet, found it not unlike the ancient Maya inscriptions in Central America and had taken it to the shop and set his pattern-makers to forming molds for the making of type. He intended printing proclamations of the coming call for volunteers and posting them about the streets, where those who knew how to read might understand and impart the knowledge to their fellows.