"Aye—they shall not have them," they made answer.
"By Zitu," Jason prompted.
"By Zitu," they returned.
Croft saluted them flat-handed. "It is an oath," he said. "To break it were treason to the nation. In four days you will descend at Scira. Look to your machines."
Back in the motur he found his pulses leaping to the spur of action and the ésprit du corps among the fliers he had seen. They were men, men—their number would furnish him others—to man the blimps and urge them over Berla—if need be, to blot out the Zollarian city beneath a fiery rain.
"Tonight, Rob, I give you many plans and dimensions," he told Robur, breaking the silence of his introspection. "That done, I board Jadgor's galley for Scira. Till I return, the work lies in your hands."
All Scira was en fête, or seemed so, though there was a strange sullenness about her crowds, despite the flags, the banners that decked the houses and lined the streets, and flew above her blue walls.
The Mouthpiece of Zitu was coming from Aphur on a mission, and the city was adorned to greet him by the orders of Mutlos, Governor of Cathur himself. The throngs which waited his coming, to welcome him, and escort him to the house of Koryphu, where the sun-rayed banner of Aphur hung beside that of Cathur in the almost breathless air, wore their brightest garments. But his mission forbade holiday spirits in the minds of the crowd.
True, vendors of sweetmeats and light wines in tabur hide sacks slung on sinewy, naked shoulders, passed among them, jugglers and acrobats performed their tricks and feats of strength on mats spread on the pavement. But that was merely the seeking of profit on the part of those who plied their various trades. It had naught to do with the kidnapping of Naia, wife of the Mouthpiece, her carrying into the neighboring nation which had twice endeavored to capture the northern pillar of the Gateway—once over fifty years before, and again at a more recent date.