"See here, _mavourneen_!" Indignation thrilled in the Irishman's voice. "I'm not going to be done up with baby-ribbons and laid away in a cradle for safe-keeping while a fight is on; don't think it. Why didn't you call me?" "You needed rest!" There was indomitable determination in the handmaiden's tones, the eternal maternal shining defiant from her eyes. "You were tired and you hurt! You shouldn't have got up!" "Needed the rest!" groaned Larry. "Look here, Lakla, what do you think I am?" "You're all I have," said that maiden firmly, "and I'm going to take care of you, Larry--darlin'! Don't you ever think anything else." "Well, pulse of my heart, considering my delicate health and general fragility, would it hurt me, do you think, to be told what's going on?" he asked. "Not at all, Larry!" answered the handmaiden serenely. "Yolara went through the Portal. She was very, _very_ angry--" "She was all the devil's woman that she is!" rumbled Olaf. "Rador met the messenger," went on the Golden Girl calmly. "The _ladala_ are ready to rise when Lugur and Yolara lead their hosts against us. They will strike at those left behind. And in the meantime we shall have disposed my _Akka_ to meet Yolara's men. And on that disposal we must all take counsel, you, Larry, and Rador, Olaf and Goodwin and Nak, the ruler of the _Akka_." "Did the messenger give any idea when Yolara expects to make her little call?" asked Larry. "Yes," she answered. "They prepare, and we may expect them in--" She gave the equivalent of about thirty-six hours of our time. "But, Lakla," I said, the doubt that I had long been holding finding voice, "should the Shining One come--with its slaves--are the Three strong enough to cope with it?" There was troubled doubt in her own eyes. "I do not know," she said at last, frankly. "You have heard their story. What they promise is that they will help. I do not know--any more than do you, Goodwin!" I looked up at the dome beneath which I knew the dread Trinity stared forth; even down upon us. And despite the awe, the assurance, I had felt when I stood before them I, too, doubted. "Well," said Larry, "you and I, uncle," he turned to Rador, "and Olaf here had better decide just what part of the battle we'll lead--" "Lead!" the handmaiden was appalled. "_You_ lead, Larry? Why you are to stay with Goodwin and with me--up there, there we can watch." "Heart's beloved," O'Keefe was stern indeed. "A thousand times I've looked Death straight in the face, peered into his eyes. Yes, and with ten thousand feet of space under me an' bursting shells tickling the ribs of the boat I was in. An' d'ye think I'll sit now on the grandstand an' watch while a game like this is being pulled? Ye don't know your future husband, soul of my delight!"