Then, even in that thought, he found happiness. "That means that Loah is safe," he told himself. "The shaft is clear; she's on her way back right now."
He pictured the jana falling swiftly through that dark shaft. He saw in his mind the beautiful figure of the girl, lithe and slender, standing at the controls.
About him was a silence like that of the grave; his blood pounded in his temples like a throbbing drum. It was some time before he knew that, with that throbbing, other faint sounds were mingled.
They came from the wall beside him, sharp tappings muffled by distance, the faintest whispering echo of rock striking upon rock. Tap-tap ... tap. A longer pause.... Tap. They were making dots and dashes that blurred with the beating in his own brain.
In that dreadful silence he strained every nerve in an agony of listening. There was nothing more.
He had been roughly handled by the savages. His whole body was bruised and aching, his thoughts hazy and blurred. "Woozy," he told himself. "Guess the old bean must have got a bad crack. Hearing things—mustn't do that."
Again he tried to picture the girl, speeding on toward that inner world. Was she thinking of him? Surely she was. He could hear her calling his name. "Dean," she was saying. "Dean-San." The words were repeated, an agonized, ghostly whisper—repeated again, "Dean-San—oh, Dean-San," before he knew that the sound was coming from overhead. Then a light flashed once in the little room, and he saw her face, looking down.
She was beside him an instant later. "Dean-San," she was saying, "did you think that I really would leave you?" She was pressing her lips to his. Uncovering her light, she worked frenziedly at the metal cords that bound his wrists, pausing only to repeat her caresses—and at last he was free.
"I reached the jana," she told him in hurried whispers, "and then I came up. Their great room, where the Pathway to the Light begins, was deserted. With a cord I pulled the lever, and the jana vanished. I could not leave it for them to use. Then I followed—I knew by the sounds where they were taking you. And now, what can we do, Dean-San? Where can we go?"
It was real! Loah was there beside him; he had her in his arms, his bruised, bleeding arms whose hurts he no longer felt. And then, through his mind, flashed the question: if this was real, what of the other—the rappings he had heard? Perhaps it hadn't been a dream.