“Who could know but that it might have been this Vad Varo himself, or even Gor Hajus,” said the other, “and our orders are to search all ships.” “I would that they were here,” replied Bal Zak, “for the reward is high. But how could they, when Ras Thavas himself with his own eyes saw them fly off in the Pinsar before dawn this day and disappear in the east?” “Right you are, Bal Zak,” agreed the other, “and it were a waste of time to search your ship. Come men! to our own!” I could feel the muscles about my heart relax with the receding footfalls of Vobis Kan’s warriors as they quitted the deck of the Vosar for their own ship, and my spirits rose with the renewed purring of our own motor as Ras Thavas’ flier again got under way. Gor Hajus bent his lips close to my ear. “The spirits of our ancestors smile upon us,” he whispered. “It is night and the darkness will aid in covering our escape from the ship and the landing stage.” “What makes you think it is night?” I asked. “Vobis Kan’s ship was close by when it hailed and asked our name. By daylight it could have seen what ship we were.” He was right. We had been locked in that stuffy hole since before dawn, and while I had thought that it had been for a considerable time, I also had realized that the darkness and the inaction and the nervous strain would tend to make it seem much longer than it really had been; so that I would not have been greatly surprised had we made Toonol by daylight. The distance from the Tower of Thavas to Toonol is inconsiderable, so that shortly after Vobis Kan’s ship had spoken to us we came to rest upon the landing stage at our destination. For a long time we waited, listening to the sounds of movement aboard the ship and wondering, upon my part at least, as to what the intentions of the captain might be. It was quite possible that Bal Zak might return to Thavas this same night, especially if he had come to Toonol to fetch a rich or powerful patient to the laboratories; but if he had come only for supplies he might well lie here until the morrow. This much I had learned from Gor Hajus, my own knowledge of the movements of the fliers of Ras Thavas being considerably less than nothing; for, though I had been months a lieutenant of the master surgeon, I had learned only the day before of the existence of his small fleet, it being according to the policy of Ras Thavas to tell me nothing unless the telling of it coincided with and furthered his own plans. Questions which I asked he always answered, if he reasoned that the effects would not be harmful to his own interests, but he volunteered nothing that he did not particularly wish me to know; and the fact that there were no windows in the outside walls of the building facing towards Toonol, that I had never before the previous day been upon the roof and that I never had seen a ship sail over the inner court towards the east all tended to explain my ignorance of the fleet and its customary operations.