"And will," he declared.
He saw Naia of Aphur quiver. "One who did that might ask what he would, and receive it of the State," she said slowly, and then once more her fingers touched his arm and he found them icy cold. "My lord, does Zitu answer prayers?"
Croft's mind leaped swiftly from her words to a night when he had seen her kneeling before the figure of Azil in this self-same house—when he had heard her plea, lifted out of an anguished spirit—to the One Eternal Source. "What mean you?" he asked.
"If one—in sore trouble—one with a spirit which rebelled at a task to which it was set should cry for aid, would Zitu give heed?"
O girl of gold, sang the heart in Croft's breast—O wonder-woman of all the universe of life! How well he knew her meaning. How well he sensed that in his words of promise for a future strength in her nation which would render needless her living immolation on the altar of patriotic duty, she saw a possible answer to that prayer she had lifted to Zitu, and Ga, and Azil the Giver of Life. And, how he longed to turn and sweep her supple form into his arms, crush it against his breast and speak to her soul the words which should assure her that he stood even now between her and the coming fate she loathed.
As it was he sought to reassure by his reply. "Yes, Naia of Aphur, I think that indeed Zitu hears a troubled spirit's prayer. As for the form his answer may take—what man knows?"
Her lips parted. "Aye, who knows," she repeated. "How long a time shall it require to bring these things to pass?"
"They shall be Aphur's before a cycle has run out," said Croft.
"Zitu! Then—then Aphur shall be strong beyond Jadgor's dreams ere—ere so short a time is gone!"
Again Croft's heart pounded in his breast. Almost she had said ere—she was forced into hated wedlock with Kyphallos, he thought. He inclined his head.