To which the ensign replied with a stare. For the young naval man did not like the red captain and his ways, whom he blamed partly for the loss of the Minnetonka and all of the rest of the troubles, of which this land seemed to hold a plenty.
Soon after the car entered the gates, the sunlight faded into dusk, and then white-capped messengers passed through the streets, plucking the cloth hoods from globes which were fixed on posts of stone at intervals along all of the ways. From each globe, as its hood was removed, sprang a broad circle of white light. On the tall buildings and their many spires and on the towers of the city wall similar lights flared up.
Except for the quaint architecture of the place, and the strange garb of the folk who thronged its streets, the Americans might have imagined themselves entering some stately capital of the modern world, and not Adlaz of Maeronica, the oldest of all peopled cities of the earth—older, indeed, than many among the buried ruins in which archeologists love to delve.
For its pavements were curbed and guttered, and between them and the building fronts and lawns were walks of stone, bordered by well-ordered rows of trees and many shrubs and beds of flowers. The people who walked the streets, too, were quiet and orderly folk. They stared hard at those who rode in the car, but there was no unseemly outcry. Only an occasional shout of surprise and welcome went up as some group of strollers recognized the merry face and flaming poll of Oleric the Red.
At all of these marvels the two Sardanians gazed wonderingly and talked together of them in their tongue.
"Ah, surely here is one of the greatest cities of the world of men, my prince," said the Lady Memene. "Note the mighty towers yonder and how they flash and gleam. And the folk! In one short ride we have seen enough of them to people two lands like our own lost Sardanes."
"Aye, Memene, these be wonders, indeed," Minos answered. "And here is a kingdom and a city well worth the ruling over. Yet these, even these, must be as nothing to the things beyond in the greater world, whereof Polaris hath told us. I wonder if we shall ever reach them. For myself, though, I find this land and its folk more to my manner of understanding than the world-dwellers way to the north. Here, methinks, one might, did opportunity offer, carve out a kingdom for the king that is to come."
Memene flushed and hung her head, and the two of them lapsed into thoughtful silence.
Truly, Minos of Sardanes lacked not in ambition.