But they did not cheer. With solemn faces they stared upward at our columns as we rose into the water—women staring after their husbands and sons, even their daughters—women and old men staring, and wondering which of their loved ones would return alive to them. In command of the entire Marinoid forces, I rode alone on a dolphin—with hands free and with only a lance fastened flat against the dolphin’s back and a dagger in my belt. I was first off the roof of Rax. As I rose, gliding smoothly upward and outward, I looked down to see the city dropping away. A column of young men, swimming five abreast, came up next—like birds rising in orderly array to follow their lone leader. It was an inspiring sight—this sinuous curving line of swimmers. It swung into the water, bent like a huge rainbow over the city, straightened, and followed me diagonally upward. Soon Rax had dwindled small and dim in the water below. But I could see Nona’s forces—the girls mounted on dolphins—as they too were starting. Then Rax, now so far beneath me, blurred and was lost in the gray-green haze of water; and I turned my attention ahead. The backbone of my army was the line of young men swimming five abreast behind me. Five hundred of them there were—young, powerful swimmers—youths at the height of their physical strength. Each was by nature capable of shocking into insensibility with an electric discharge, any opponent he could touch by head and heels simultaneously. These young men were unarmed; I felt that they could use their natural weapon to better advantage when swimming free-handed. Nona’s corps consisted of some two hundred girls mounted on dolphins. Each with a long, lance-like spear in her hands. Nona commanded them—with ten extra girls, each to control a group of twenty. Then there was Atar’s corps of sleighs—the “light-sleighs” which I have already described. Atar himself had a dolphin mount. In each of the ten dolphin-drawn sleighs was a single occupant—an older man. These sleighs I would use to precede us—to throw light upon the enemy, blind him, and cover our onslaught made from behind. The “sleighs of darkness”—ten of them, dolphin-drawn, and each with two occupants—were commanded by Caan, himself riding a separate dolphin. These sleighs were for darkening the water in the event of a catastrophe to our fighters—to cover our retreat wherever it might be necessary. * * * * * For the rest, my main forces were a thousand fighting men—older men in whom the electric power was waning. They were armed with various types of spears—daggers, javelins and lances. They were leaving Rax in a long swimming line some ten abreast. Such was my army which now was following me into battle. I led it upward. Behind me I could see the long columns of swimming figures—the sleighs in two broad groups—the girls on the dolphins in squads of twenty, each with its leader apart.