"Suppose," through set teeth, "suppose They should threaten to kill thee?"
"I should rather die, Dulnop, than be untrue to Rolla!"
The younger man bounded to his feet. "Spoken like a man! And I tell thee, neither shall I have aught to do with Rolla! Rather death than dishonor!"
Next moment silence fell between them; and then Van Emmon and Smith noted that both men had been bluffing in what they had said. For, sitting apart in the growing darkness, each was plainly in terror of the morrow. Presently Corrus spoke in a low tone:
"All the same, Dulnop, it were well for me and thee if the secret of the flowing blossom were given us this night. I"—he paused, abashed—"I am not so sure of myself, Dulnop, when I hear Their accursed buzzing. I fear—I am afraid I might give in!"
At this Dulnop broke down, and fell to sobbing. Nothing could have told the investigators so well just how childlike the Sanusians really were. Corrus had all he could do to hold in himself.
"Mownoth!" he exclaimed, his eyes raised fervently. "If it be thy will to deliver us, give us the secret this night!"
Meanwhile, in Rolla's hut, a similar scene was going on under the doctor's projected eye. Cunora lost her nerve, and Rolla came near to doing the same in her efforts to comfort the other.
"They are heartless things!" Rolla exclaimed with such bitterness as her nature would permit. "They know not what love is: They with their drones and their egg-babes! What is family life to Them? Nothing!
"Somehow I feel that Their reign is nearly at an end, Cunora.
Perhaps the great secret shall be given us to-night!"