"Well," said Larry, a bit taken aback, "what do you call them?" "My _Akka_ are a _people_," she retorted. "As much a people as your race or mine. They are good and loyal, and they have speech and arts, and they slay not, save for food or to protect themselves. And I think them beautiful, Larry, _beautiful_!" She stamped her foot. "And you call them--_things_!" Beautiful! These? Yet, after all, they were, in their grotesque fashion. And to Lakla, surrounded by them, from babyhood, they were not strange, at all. Why shouldn't she think them beautiful? The same thought must have struck O'Keefe, for he flushed guiltily. "I think them beautiful, too, Lakla," he said remorsefully. "It's my not knowing your tongue too well that traps me. _Truly_, I think them beautiful--I'd tell them so, if I knew their talk." Lakla dimpled, laughed--spoke to the attendants in that strange speech that was unquestionably a language; they bridled, looked at O'Keefe with fantastic coquetry, cracked and boomed softly among themselves. "They say they like _you_ better than the men of Muria," laughed Lakla. "Did I ever think I'd be swapping compliments with lady frogs!" he murmured to me. "Buck up, Larry--keep your eyes on the captive Irish princess!" he muttered to himself. "Rador goes to meet one of the _ladala_ who is slipping through with news," said the Golden Girl as we addressed ourselves to the food. "Then, with Nak, he and Olaf go to muster the _Akka_--for there will be battle, and we must prepare. Nak," she added, "is he who went before me when you were dancing with Yolara, Larry." She stole a swift, mischievous glance at him. "He is headman of all the _Akka_." "Just what forces can we muster against them when they come, darlin'?" said Larry. "Darlin'?"--the Golden Girl had caught the caress of the word--"what's that?" "It's a little word that means Lakla," he answered. "It does--that is, when I say it; when you say it, then it means Larry." "I like that word," mused Lakla. "You can even say Larry darlin'!" suggested O'Keefe. "Larry darlin'!" said Lakla. "When they come we shall have first of all my _Akka_--" "Can they fight, _mavourneen_?" interrupted Larry. "Can they fight! My _Akka_!" Again her eyes flashed. "They will fight to the last of them--with the spears that give the swift rotting, covered, as they are, with the jelly of those _Saddu_ there--" She pointed through a rift in the foliage across which, on the surface of the sea, was floating one of the moon globes--and now I know why Rador had warned Larry against a plunge there. "With spears and clubs and with teeth and nails and spurs--they are a strong and brave people, Larry--darlin', and though they hurl the _Keth_ at them, it is slow to work upon them, and they slay even while they are passing into the nothingness!" "And have we none of the _Keth_?" he asked.