"Who calls?"
"Jason, Mouthpiece of Zitu, with the mandate of Jadgor from the palace of Jadgor. I would come toward you," Croft made answer.
The head disappeared. For possibly two minutes nothing happened, and then a gangway was shoved out to reach the quay.
Croft strode along it, presented Jadgor's tablet to a suddenly wide awake captain, and was led to an apartment under the after-deck, richly furnished in red woods and hangings of scarlet, the personal color of Jadgor's house.
Life woke on board the galley. There was a tramping of feet, a sound of voices bawling orders, suddenly the sibilant hiss of water past the hull. The galley heeled slightly on the long arc of a circle, straightened back to an even keel. Through the windows let into the stern I became conscious of a graying of the eastern heavens, and then a shadow fell upon us. It came to me that the monster sea-doors were opened to permit our passing.
Croft sank down upon a couch of burnished copper and sighed. He turned his glance about the apartment. "Are you still here, Murray?" he questioned.
"Aye," I bent my thought upon him, and he smiled a trifle wanly as he caught the form of my answer.
"Better be going," he said. "But give me the benefit of your thoughts in the next few days. If you've waited until now, you've had recent proof of how hard it is for the father to hold his personal interests of lesser importance than matters of state."
"Nonsense, man," I returned. "We'll beat them. Once you're in Himyra, you and Robur will get your heads together, and I'm going to work collecting all the information I can obtain on the device I suggested earlier tonight."
"Do so." He nodded and stretched himself out on the couch. "I'll use it if we can think of nothing else. You and Rob—" All at once he used a diminutive form of Robur's name, of which he had told me before. "Murray, I thank Zitu for you both. I know I have your sympathy and understanding, and—I'll find the same things once I am in Himyra. I'll see you inside the next few days, of course."