This woman, Satanic. Ah, there were refinements of cruelty that none but a woman--and a woman like this--could devise! The thought flashed to me, and it was not long before I had cause to remember it! She slowly raised her arms, with the silver chains dangling. And in a moment, when the silence was complete, she began to speak. Her voice was low-pitched at first--a calm, confident voice. But there was a harsh rasp to it. The crowd listened to that carrying voice, with the driving sense of power behind it. To every corner of the garden and to the streets beyond it rolled clear. A moment, then she was speaking faster. Fluently; the words tumbling, rising to a climax. She stopped abruptly. She was raised on tiptoe, every line of her tense. Her arms were up, palms toward the faces gazing up at her--a gesture half benign, half menacing. In her pause a faint quavering cheer arose; but under it there was the murmur of threats. She began again, quietly talking above the noise. Entt, with his blurred sight, had stayed close by Fen. But he seemed fully recovered now. Nereid stood with her father’s arm protectingly around her. Tad was there; Arturo and I were a few feet farther away. The black edge of the fortress steps was near us; and beyond the black blob of an upstanding shrub the dark wall bulged out in a sort of turret. I whispered to Arturo: “What does she say? Can you understand her?” “No, not much of it.” He called cautiously, “Oh, Entt!” Entt moved over. “Entt, what is she saying?” * * * * * He told us. She was assuring the Middge people there was no cause to be frightened. “She says, ‘I am going up to conquer the world of light. A beautiful region--my Gian army will conquer it. I will rule everything--prepare it up there for you to come and live so happily.’” Arturo burst out: “But, my God, Entt--the abyss here will be flooded. You know that. If the gates break--they will break, she expects them to--we’ll all have to get out of here soon, a million or two of the Middge people. How can they get out?” “Wait! She says now she will prepare a way of escape--soon, but just at this present time all is water up there. When the--what you call ocean--is partly down, she knows where the Middge can go and wait in safety.” “She lies!” Arturo exclaimed. “She does not care where the people go, or how they escape!” “Wait! I listen more--” Entt moved back to join the others. Again I felt a soft, insistent plucking at me; Bhool cringed at my feet. “Master, look there!” In the gloom I could see his shaking gray arm; his hand pointing toward the shrub and the bulge of the castle wall. “What?” I demanded. “Arturo, what does he say?” Bhool was insistent: terrorized, but insistent. “Masters, look there!” We saw nothing. Bhool stood up; he was trembling. He took a step toward the shrub. “What is it, masters?” Arturo strode to the shrub. He poked about it. We three were alone in this small shadowed area.