"What can we do?" asked Duare, "Where can we hide?"
"You can do nothing," said the old man, "but wait until they come. There is no place in all Kormor that they will not search."
"We can do something," said Nalte; then she turned to our informant. "Can you get us paints such as the corpses use to make themselves appear like living men?"
"Yes," said the old man.
"Well, go quickly and fetch them," urged Nalte.
The old man hobbled out of the room, mumbling to himself.
"It is the only way, Nalte," I cried. "I believe that if he returns in time we can fool them; dead men are not very bright."
It seemed a long time before the old man came back; but he came finally, and he brought a large box of make-up with him. It was quite an elaborate affair which he said that he had obtained from a friend of his, a living man, whose craft was applying the make-up to corpses.
Quickly Nalte went to work on Duare and soon had transformed her into an old woman with lines and wrinkles and hollows. The hair was the most difficult problem to solve, but we finally succeeded in approximating the results we desired, though we used up all of the cosmetician's white pigment, rubbing it into our hair.
Duare and I together worked on Nalte, for we knew that we had no time to spare, the old man having brought word when he returned with the make-up that the searchers were working in the next block and coming our way; then Nalte and Duare transformed me into a very sad looking old man.