Of this small secret council within a larger secret council I can only state with certainty that its numbers vary from fourteen (the minimum) to twenty, which latter figure is never exceeded. The members of this inner clique are elected from the other members of the council, but on what principles I cannot say. The great difference between the larger and the smaller sets within the council is this: the latter not only know The Secret, but they are the individuals who carry out its details and work its machinery for the purposes I have already explained. With one exception every member of this interior circle has some time or another performed the voyage between the Earth and Meleager; and how strangely does it strike me in my utter solitude to reflect that here in Meleager are nearly a score of persons whose acquaintance with the planet of my birth is in some ways more extensive than my own! The sole exception is the Arch-priest, who may not be transported to Earth, because he is the one person who is in constant and close touch with the King. The limitation is subtle, but it is sound; for I can imagine some fine possibilities of intrigue between the King and the Arch-priest, if the latter had not only visited the Earth but was also familiar with the extraordinary methods whereby that end was attained. (I need hardly add that no senator of the inner ring is ever allowed to address or visit the King except in the presence of two other councillors.) This picked handful of the council chooses the Arch-priest from the general body, so that this functionary stands in an intermediate position of knowledge concerning the working of The Secret, for he thus knows more than the ordinary member of the council and less than his brethren of the inner ring. He is chiefly charged with the control of the services and staff of the temple, and he has also to superintend the establishment on Mount Crystal, where (so I strongly suspect) are kept in honourable confinement those aged members of the council who have grown infirm or garrulous under stress of years. What exact share these persons of the inner ring partake in the working of The Secret I naturally cannot tell; and I often speculate as to whether they themselves are mechanicians possessing a skill far beyond that achieved by any of our engineers on Earth, or whether they merely control certain servants who own the necessary technical knowledge to carry out the intricacies of the aerial machinery under their instruction. In other words, are these score of elderly men their own mechanics, or are they only overseers of others? For there are certainly large numbers of assistants attached to the service of the council, and a certain proportion of these menials I know to be deaf and dumb, the result, it is whispered, of a certain cruel operation which is inflicted sometimes with the consent of the patient, and sometimes (so I gather) by force following on brutal seizure. Is it