She heard him wide-eyed, and before she could break forth in comment Croft went on. "But Gaya, wife of my friend, should any peril or danger threaten Naia, daughter of Lakkon, the cousin of your lord, and I be still asleep--come quickly to me and bend to whisper, 'Naia needs you' and I promise I shall awake." Gaya gave him a wide-eyed, startled glance. "Her name will rouse you from this sleep of deathlike seeming?" she exclaimed. "Aye," Croft smiled. Gaya's expression had told him in a flash that she understood. "Wife of my friend, I think her name might wake me from death itself." "Jasor!" Gaya cried. "My lord--can this thing be?" "That my heart lies at her pink-nailed feet?" Croft retorted. "Aye." "Yet is she pledged to Cathur." Gaya grew swiftly pale. "Jasor, my good lord--and you love her, speak not concerning it to any other save myself. I swear by Zitu to keep your words in my heart. Do you control your tongue." Croft smiled into her troubled face again. "My tongue I may control," he declared. "But my heart can I not curb in its mad passion for the maid, nor make it less rebel against this plighted troth." "Robur approves not of it, nor I," Gaya told him softly. "Love brought Milidhur and Aphur together. But--this--this is of--of other design." And suddenly she knit her well-formed brows. "Jasor," said she speaking very quickly; "you are strong--you have thoughts above other men, and something tells me the maid would lie happy in your arms." Croft sprang to his feet. "You would approve it, Gaya, my sweet friend?" he exclaimed with flashing eyes. "I am a woman," she replied in almost breathless fashion. "Naia loathes this Cathurian prince." "And a cycle lies before us, ere he claims her for his own," Croft smiled. "What mean you?" Gaya half rose. Her hand lifted to her breast. "Nay." Croft shook his head. "I cannot tell you. Yet, as you say, I am strong, and I shall make Aphur and Tamarizia strong as myself and stronger a thousand fold. Remember, therefore, the words I have told you to speak, and say them close in my ear, in case any need should arise." CHAPTER XVII THE TEUTONS IN THE SKY Naia! Naia of Aphur would lie happy in his arms. And by Zitu! Some day she should. This was for her. Croft laid himself on his couch and fell into that deathlike sleep of the body, he had learned so well to produce. But his spirit fled across the Central Sea to Niera, willing itself into the presence of Cathur's heir wherever he might be. He found him in the room of a red stone palace overlooking the sea from the terraced side of the shore on which it stood. He lay on a copper couch, covered with silken cloth of a clear pure yellow, and he wore an expression of sullen pique upon his face.