"It is true. Therefore we wait now for the coming of our scouts, who were set in hiding upon _their_ sea rock of resting, that they may tell us more concerning this new ship. They should be here within this time of sleeping. Now, go you to rest, which you plainly have need of, and we shall call you when they come." Dalgard was willing enough to stretch out in the sand in the shadows of the far end of the cave. Beyond him three cubs slumbered together, their arms about each other, and a feeling of peace was there such as he had not known since he left the stronghold of Homeport. The weird glow of the imprisoned sea monsters gave light to the main part of the cave, and it might still have been night when the scout was shaken awake once more. A group of the merpeople were sitting together, and their thoughts interrupted each other as their excitement arose. Their spies must have returned. Dalgard crossed to join that group, but it seemed to him that his welcome was not unqualified, and that some of the openness of the early hours of the night was lacking. He might have been once more under suspicion. "Knife brother"--to Dalgard's sensitive mind that form of address from Sssuri was used for a special purpose: to underline the close bond between them--"listen to the words of Sssim who is a Hider-to-Watch on the island where _they_ rest their ships during the voyage from one land to another." He drew Dalgard down beside him to face a young merman who was staring round-eyed at the colony scout. "He is like--yet unlike"--his first wisp of thought meant nothing to the scout. "The strangers wear many coverings on their bodies as do _they_, and they had also coverings upon their heads. They were bigger. Also from their minds I learned that they are not of this world--" "Not of this world!" Dalgard burst out in his own speech. "There!" The spy was triumphant. "So did they talk to one another, not with the mind but by making mouth noises, different mouth noises from those that _they_ make. Yes, they are like--but unlike this one." "And these strangers flew the ship we have not seen before?" "It is so. But they did not know the way and were guided by the globe. And at least one among them was distrustful of _those_ and wished to be free to return to his own place. He walked by the rocks near my hiding place, and I read his thoughts. No, they were with _them_, but they are not _them_!" "And now they have gone on to the city?" Sssuri probed. "It was the way their ship flew."