I lighted up a cigar and took a chair, tacitly preparing for a stay of some considerable time, and then as Croft continued to smoke in an almost meditative silence, I opened the matter myself: "Even supposing that Zud did get at your plans, I hardly see why he should have taken the step he did before your return." Croft nodded. "It wasn't only the plans," he said. "You must recall Abbu, the priest of the pyramid at Scira--the one who was present when I entered Jasor's body and made it my own--who administered the last rites of his church to the dying Jasor, and with whom I talked after I had succeeded in compelling the Nodhurian's form to obey my will. "I told you that to Abbu I had acknowledged that my spirit was not Jasor's, but that what I was about to do was for Tamarizia's good, thereby enlisting his aid in my undertakings--also how he acted as an instrument in saving Naia from becoming a victim of the plan Cathur's crown prince and his Zollarian coplotters had so cunningly laid. "At the time I swore him to secrecy, of course, and I honestly believe that up until the time I left Jasor's body for the purpose of making a final trip to earth, he was the only man who knew that the spirit within it was not the same as the one it had held at birth. But"--a smile flicked across his lips--"just as on my first excursion to Palos I made an error and nearly precipitated myself into the fiery heart of Sirius, so I seem to have overlooked the human equation which holds on Palos no less than earth--and I overlooked also the fact that Zud was the high priest. "Abbu, after the war with Zollaria, had been brought to Zitra and raised to a higher rank, because of his part in first assisting me. Naturally Zud was acquainted with all such facts, and one can hardly blame him for wanting to know more in view of what I can well understand were the tremendous changes I had brought about in Tamarizia's affairs. "To me motors and firearms were nothing save things of every-day experience, and what I had made on Palos seemed but as crude devices at the best. But to Zud and all others they appeared little short of the miraculous, upsetting all former conceptions of their lives. Take that into consideration and then picture the impression on his mind likely to be made by the fact that by my own admission I was not the same Jasor of Nodhur who, according to the physician attending him in Scira, had there died." I began to understand what must have happened. "He pumped Abbu?" I exclaimed. "Exactly." Croft smiled dryly again. "He absolved him from his oath and learned all the facts with which Abbu was acquainted. You can easily understand the rest. Jasor of Nodhur dies. His body comes back to life. Its lips speak to Abbu, the priest. He hears that a new spirit inhabits Jasor's body. Immediately after strange things--but things aimed wholly for Tamarizia's good--begin to happen.