"Just a minute," remarked Smith in his ordinary voice; "just a minute. You're forgetting that we don't really know whether Rolla and Cunora are safe. Everything depends upon them now, you know."
In silence the four went back into telepathic connection. Now, of course, Smith and Van Emmon were practically without agents. The prisoners could tell them nothing whatever except the tale of increasing agony as their torture went on. All that Van Emmon and Smith could do was lend the aid of their mentality to the efforts of the other two, and for a while had to be content with what Billie, through Supreme, and the doctor, through Rolla, were able to learn. However, Kinney did suggest that one of the other two men get in touch with Cunora.
"Good idea," said Smith. "Go to it, Van Emmon."
The geologist stirred uneasily, and avoided his wife's eyes. "I—I'm afraid not, Smith. Rather think I'd prefer to rest a while. You do it!"
Smith laughed and reddened. "Nothing doing for an old bach like me. Cunora might—well, you know—go in bathing, for instance. It's all right for the doctor, of course; but—let me out!"
Meanwhile the two women on Sanus, taking the utmost care, managed to retreat from the river bank without being discovered. Keeping their eyes very wide open and their ears strained for the slightest buzz, the two contrived to pass through the village, out into the fields, and thence, from cover to cover, into the foothills on that side of the valley where their lovers had found the pyrites.
"If only we knew which stream they ascended!" lamented Cunora, as they stood in indecision before a fork in the river.
"But we don't!" Rolla pointed out philosophically. "We must trust to luck and Mownoth, ye and I."
And despite all the effort the doctor could put forth to the contrary, the two women picked out the wrong branch. They searched as diligently as two people possibly could; but somehow the doctor knew, just because of the wrong choice that had been made, that their search would be unsuccessful. He thought the matter over for a few moments, and finally admitted to his three friends:
"I wonder if I haven't been a little silly? Why should I have been so precious specific in impressing Rolla about the pyrites? Pshaw! Almost any hard rock will strike sparks from flint!"