"Bhruulo says all this happened hundreds of years ago," the voice came again within Jim's brain. "He is the last of that final group of scientists who subdued me. I have only a vague remembrance—"
"Bhruulo says!" Jim gasped, struggling with the significance of the idea.
He looked up and saw the spherish, effulgent thing spinning with silent amusement. "Is Bhruulo's longevity, then, such an unusual thing? I do not know. Your time-scheme means little to me. Perhaps Bhruulo's great age is due to his perpetual proximity to me, I only know that, unlike other Martians and Earthmen, he is immune to my strongest powers now."
Jim sensed a certain bitterness in that mental voice, almost a hatred for Bhruulo. Looking up at the greenish, brooding globe, Jim ventured a daring question.
"Don't you sometimes long to be—free again?"
He felt the tendril-fingers grasp his mind again with a fierce tenacity. He cried out against the physical pain of it, but even through the pain he heard the throbbing answer.
"Free! Yes, Earthman! Bhruulo glories that he has me trapped here. Often I remember those olden days when I almost conquered the city of M'Tonak and the planet Mars! Bhruulo has promised me those days again, and much more. He says he is preparing for it, but I do not know what he means. I only know that I tire of waiting!"
There were more mental words, but Jim only heard them through a mist about his brain. He knew that here, at last, he had solved the mystery of M'Tonak! This evil entity from out of another universe or another dimension was the "emeralds" of M'Tonak which had lured men up here in ages past for its own, or Bhruulo's, devilish purpose. But what was that purpose? Something vastly imminent, Jim knew! Perhaps it was something the entity even now was trying to tell him in its strangely confidential mood.
"That is enough. You have said enough! I have warned you about this!"