“Nonsense. She was a subordinate. The Empress--I call her that. Ruler of this realm, I mean; you’ll see her. We had intended to have you--” He broke off. He was highly nervous--high-pitched, overwrought, I could not mistake it; abstracted, deep in his own thoughts, with little time yet for me. And he was never one to brook questions. I turned away from him, absorbing myself in the scene of our landing. At the very peak of the mound was the house Arturo had indicated. A squat spreading building of dark frowning ramparts like some ancient moldy fortress. It stood there with a faint sheen of light upon it, grim and forbidding. Around it was an open space--a garden, with paths and low shrubs; beyond that, encircling it, a low palisade like a fence, with the city houses crowding it. * * * * * We were still at a high enough altitude for me to get a distant view. The houses covered the mound, and at its foot, thinner down on the level, they spread out into suburbs over the near-by rocky landscape. At the outer city fringes I saw a distant field with things growing. It was everywhere a squat, solid landscape. The houses, all of one low story, sat squat upon the ground. There were trees, a dark forest over which we passed. The trees spread thick and wide, but low to the ground like shrubs. There was little height to anything. I had seen no water. But now, on the edge of the city, I made out a dull-white, winding ribbon that I thought might be a river. We swung down to within a thousand feet of the frowning palace fortress. On its flat roof in a sheen of light I could make out the tiny dark blobs of figures standing in a group by a parapet-wall. From the roof a point of fire suddenly mounted. It came up toward us, mounting slowly. My heart leaped; for an instant I thought it was a missile, sent up to strike and destroy us. But it rose no more than a hundred feet; then it opened into a great ball of white light. For perhaps a minute it hung poised, burning. Entt gave a cry of fear. He and Nereid sat with hands to their eyes, blinded by the white glare. I felt our aëro wavering; Arturo leaped from my side; he and Tad, themselves shading their eyes, clung to the controls. We wavered, but they held us steady after a moment, circling over the fortress-roof, spiraling slowly down. On the roof-top, the figures stood with what seemed dark glasses over their eyes. We had dropped still lower; I made them out plainly. Twenty of them at least; most of them tall, gray-limbed women. They stood gazing, not at us, but down at the city, regarding with shaded eyes the scene revealed by the white glare of light they had sent up. [Illustration: _A minute of blinding glare showed a strange scene._]