At last she turned to me, and relief of some kind gave light to the serenity of her eyes. “She goes. I stay with you. How long depends on yourself. But it is a condition that I must not explain.” I was so gladdened by this decision that I was disposed to be generous. “I am very glad,” I answered, “unless it will expose you to greater danger than you would otherwise meet. But I hope I have not been the cause of any difference between you and your Leader, who so plainly dislikes me.” She answered coldly, “I am in no danger that I fear to meet. We are not animals such as you are. Nor do we differ among ourselves. Our Leaders are always right.” As she gave me this thought, her Leader looked at me for the first time. I thought there was inquiry in her glance, but it passed me dumbly. She threw a thought to my companion, “You should watch the floor,” and turned and went out, and the door closed behind her, with the click which had sounded so ominously in the night when I first heard it. CHAPTER XXIV THE FIGHT IN THE ARSENAL When the door closed I was very glad to sit down with my back against it, as we had done before, and my companion was quick to perceive my exhaustion. Again I felt the small life-giving hand in mine, and, for the time at least, the effects of thirst and starvation, and the long night-hours, were overcome by the reserves of her vitality. She was very quiet at first, and indisposed for conversing. At length I asked her, “I know how I must appear to you in many ways, but why was your Leader so contemptuous of me, beyond anything I have met among your people previously?” She answered, “She was not contemptuous. She did not regard you at all. Why should she? She had more serious things of which to think. Besides, you think of our Leaders as one, because their decisions are always unanimous. But this is wrong. Each is different. There is none like this one in all practical issues, and in control of material things. That is why it was she who came to seek the first one, when she did not return. I think she regards the whole expedition as a mistake, and that she should have been left to her own ways. But such things are not for me. They are for themselves only. “She taught me much while we talked together. When I am with you only, I think myself superior in many ways. Your body breaks so easily, and you are never sure when it will fail you. Your mind is confused, and inconsequent. It is only when I think of yourself as of a Leader whose followers are mostly treacherous or disloyal, but who still endeavours without loss of courage to fulfil his purpose, that I respect you at all. But when my Leader showed my stupidity I felt that there is little difference between us. “She showed me, among other things, that I accept your conclusions without thought, and that I do not even take notice of what is beneath me.