"There was so much else to tell you, Father." Loto was covered with
confusion. "Besides, I wanted to have you meet Azeela first."
Azeela was trying to escape from the room, but Dee captured her and
pushed her back.
George was vigorously congratulating Loto, and Rogers, rising to the
occasion, kissed Azeela heartily.
* * * * *
It was an ominous crisis into which the visitors from a time world
twenty-eight thousand years previous had fallen. They discussed it with
Fahn and his daughters during the remainder of that morning, and at the
light noon meal, served in a shaded corner of the patio formed by the
enclosing wings of the house. Banks of vivid flowers surrounded them;
the quiet, warm air was redolent with perfume. A small fountain splashed
musically. The world was calm, languorous.
Fahn had little to add to what they already knew. Toroh and the Noths
had not been expected to attack for a month or two at least, and the
Anglese scientists were going forward with their own preparations for
the war with utmost haste.
But now these emissaries Toroh had smuggled to the island injected a new
and alarming factor into the situation. They had appeared only in
Orleen, but the Bas there were listening to them, and all over the
island the news was spreading among the Bas that Toroh was a friend, not
an enemy. The Bas might be incited to open revolt.
"Morgruud is alarmed," Fahn said to Loto. He explained to the others
that Mogruud was one of the most intelligent of the Bas in Anglese City,
a leader of his people. Mogruud was not fooled by Toroh's emissaries,
but he feared now that he could not prevent an uprising.
"And the most terrible part is the Bas are right," Fahn added. "I do not
mean in regard to Toroh--he is a scoundrel, of course. But the Bas must
have some relief. Their children--ten mothers and infants were ordered
exiled yesterday."
"Why don't you fix it?" George asked.
The Scientist leader shrugged slightly. "I do not make the laws; I obey
them. I have remonstrated with the king and the council many times." He
paused, then added thoughtfully:
"The time may come when we of the League may be forced to act against
the laws of our king. He is wrong, and we scientists all know it. But to
take the law into our own hands--it is a very drastic thing...."
During the meal, George was far more interested in the two sisters than
in the men's talk. He had opportunity now to study the girls, compare
them. In feature they were much alike; in expression and demeanor,
totally different. Azeela was calm, thoughtful--femininely wise and
patient. Dee was impulsive, vivacious--alternately demure and devilish.
Yet, in spite of the differences in temperament, there seemed a strange
bond between the sisters. Their regard for each other, the love between
them, was obvious. But it was more than that--a bond of mind and spirit.
George puzzled over it. Often when Azeela was about to speak, Dee would
impulsively speak for her, as though interpreting her sister's thoughts.
The afternoon was one of inactivity. A Toroh emissary appeared in
Anglese City, but he was arrested before he had time to harangue the
people.
"I had thought he was one of Toroh's brothers," Fahn remarked, "but it
is not so. I think now they would not dare come back to the island."
He went on to explain that Toroh had two younger brothers, banished like
himself.
"They might come--Toroh himself might come," Loto declared. "He will
dare anything that seems worth the risk."
"If we take any one of them he will die," Fahn commented.
It was at this juncture, in the late afternoon when the whole world was
bathed in the glorious colors of a sunset sky, that Azeela returned from
a short trip across the city.
"The Aran Festival of the Flowers is tonight," she exclaimed excitedly.
"It has not been postponed. The Arans say it is clever to hold it now,
in spite of the news from Orleen. It will show the Bas how little they
care--how secure is the Aran power!"
It seemed to presage evil events--the holding of this festival wherein
all the wanton luxury of the Arans could be flaunted in the faces of
those whom they ruled. And it was with foreboding in their hearts that
Fahn, his daughters and their friends, prepared that evening to go and
witness it. It was midnight when they started. Dee and Azeela were
swathed to the eyes in soft white robes, and the men carried tiny black
masks.
The city streets, even at midnight, bore a holiday aspect. The moon had
risen but, in addition to its light, there were braziers strung above
every street crossing and they cast a soft blue light downward.
Arans were hurrying along, alone and in groups--the women all shrouded
in white; the men, in clothes of gaudy colors, wearing masks, or
dangling them in their hands. Little phaetons drawn by dogs rolled by,
filled with gay figures in fancy dress; women leaned from them, waving
at the pedestrians and tossing out flowers as they swept past.
Loto and Azeela, with George and Dee close behind them, led the way
swiftly in the direction that every one else was moving. Fahn and Rogers
followed behind.
It was a fairy tale city of unreality: gaudy men and white robed women
hastening forward under the blue street lights; silent white houses
flushed with the reddish tinge of the moon; warm, moist air, almost
without a breath, heavy with sensuous perfume.
And in the shadows of the streets, the brown skinned, half naked figure
of a Bas, skulking here and there!
Azeela had, for some time, been walking in silence. She looked up at the
moon and, with a touch upon Loto's arm, indicated it.
"You said the moon was blushing, my Loto--the blush of maiden modesty to
look down upon such a city. But I do not see it so...to me it is
stained with _blood_."
The sweeping gesture of her white arm flashing from under the robe
indicated a garden beside them.
"_Blood--staining everything!_"
The street topped a rise of ground, ahead, down another short slope, lay
the sea. And even there the silver path upon the water was tinged with
red.