"Fine! We have lots of salt in the galley, haven't we, Mart?"
"Yes, nearly a hundred pounds. We are stocked for emergencies, with two years' supply of food, you know."
Dunark's eyes opened in astonishment at the amount mentioned, in spite of his knowledge of earthly conditions. He started to say something, then stopped in confusion, but Seaton divined his thought.
"We can spare him fifty pounds as well as not, can't we, Mart?"
"Certainly. Fifty pounds of salt is a ridiculously cheap price for what he is doing for us, even though it is very rare here."
Dunark acknowledged the gift with shining eyes and heartfelt, but not profuse, thanks, and bore the precious bag to the palace under a heavy escort. He returned with a small army of workmen, and after making tests to assure himself that the power-bar would work as well through arenak as through steel, he instructed the officers concerning the work to be done. As the wonderfully skilled mechanics set to work without a single useless motion, the prince stood silent, with a look of care upon his handsome face.
"Worrying about Mardonale, Dunark?"
"Yes. I cannot help wondering what that terrible new engine of destruction is, which Nalboon now has at his command."
"Say, why don't you build a bus like the Skylark, and blow Mardonale off the map?"