Jain was solemn, but there was an excited triumph upon him. For months now the Togarites had kept hidden in smallness. Their headquarters--the place where they kept their interplanetary ship--could not be found. The Mitans had searched. Thousands of organized searchers were scattered everywhere throughout the land. For months no Togarite giant had ever appeared. But now Togaro's arrival would disclose where his followers lurked. "We will get the news at the palace, Drake. We'll know now--and we will organize an army, with the drugs and your weapons, and go after them, Drake. We will get them now!" It was a ride of no more than ten minutes. The narrow city streets were lined with low houses, all built of metallic blocks. There were few lights, for the night was cloudless and the brilliant moon bathed everything with silver. The city was in a turmoil. Crowds thronged the streets, milling and shoving and shouting. The cart nosed its way along. The identity of its occupants was known. Drake often heard his name shouted. The crowd opened for the cart, but closed in behind, and followed it. They wound up a hill, and entered the tree-shrouded gardens of the palace. It was a scene of almost normal earthly beauty, with paths and flowers, and low-stunted trees, heavy with redolent blossoms, all shining in the white moonlight, with a gentle warm nightbreeze from the lake. The palace was a long building some forty feet in height, overgrown with climbing plants like some ancient castle of earth. Two stories, and a queer dome roof like the crown of a helmet surmounted by a needle-spire. There was a single broad doorway up a short flight of stone steps. The lower windows at the ground level were barred. But overhead was a broad balcony with a metal railing, with open doors and windows giving access to the second floor rooms. The palace faced the garden on this side, and on the other stood sheer upon the brink of a cliff--a perpendicular rocky wall, a hundred feet down, at the bottom of which the waters of the lake lapped on a narrow rocky beach. As the cart rumbled across the garden, Drake caught a glimpse of the lake beyond the corner of the building. A moonlit spread of placid water, sharply convex. At the near horizon a green island loomed in the moonlight. The cart stopped, and they hurried into the palace. The garden behind them was jammed with the arriving mob. A silent, gathering throng. Ominously silent. CHAPTER XX _In the Blood Light of Dawn_ Drake leaped to his feet. "But this must be stopped! Good God, this is madness!" An hour or more had passed. The brief night was more than half over. Drake had sat in the palace with the harassed council. Night of turmoil! This brief night, preface to the end. It seemed as though all the city sensed it. The crowds were in a wild chaos, surging everywhere throughout the city. Aimless, leaderless mobs.