It was too dark to see her plainly; Paul knew her eyes were open on him. Barely audible against his shoulder, she said, "I thought I'd be insatiable. I only want to be near and not think." Nevertheless thought goaded her. "Ten thousand--ten thousand--What can you _do_?" All he could say was rehearsed, mechanical, and she had heard it before. "Frontal attack first, because the pygmies couldn't be led into anything else. But I shall turn it into an ordered retreat--to the island. Drive south, skirt the southern end of the hills, then straight for the coast. We'll be at the island in--oh, soon--" "But the range--the coastal mountains opposite the island--you can't cross them--they rise so sheer--" "Remember the river that flows almost due west from these little hills? It comes to the sea north of the range. We'll make rafts to get down that, I think. There aren't any falls. At the coast we'll contrive something--dugouts with outriggers. I've already shown old Rak how to make one; he may be working on it now." Dorothy pressed a hand over his mouth. She stammered, "Make this moment last." But even during the fine sharp agony there were words: "I shall keep--a bonfire on that beach--night and day...." and when his hand was slack in her hair and she seemed to be hardly breathing, Paul heard the drums. They were far off and everywhere. Only the remembering brain insisted they were on the lake. They were not sound at all, at first. A pressure pain in the back of the skull, a rasping of nerve endings. Nothing but drums. Hollow logs with a hide membrane, rubbed and pounded by tiny painted savages. "You must go tonight after all." Dorothy could not speak. He put Helen in her fumbling arms; he hurried out to the open space, saw the eye of the lifeboat returning. The drums took on a rhythm, a throbbing in 5/8 time, rapid, venomous. But far away. Still not quite sound--_Ah_-ah-ah-ah-ah, _ah_-ah-ah-ah-ah--growing no nearer, no louder, but gaining in vicious urgency, relentless as a waterfall, a runaway machine. _Ah_-ah-ah-ah-ah.... Paul hoped that Wright and Sears might be sleeping. It would be an hour yet before Pakriaa could return with the other leaders, if indeed she ever did. Elis and Abara were on sentry duty. The three giant children still at the camp--would they be sleepless, keyed up to vivid fantasies of the island, like Charin children before a great journey? Kamon sat alone by the gate. A small figure drooped at the other end of the enclosure. Since there was no immediate task for her, Paul had told Abroshin Nisana to rest, but he knew her little bald head turned to follow him. "Kamon--I'm going to have the third flight made tonight. There would be room for you too in the boat. Will you go?" Black lips and ancient white face smiled up at him. "If you wish."