Her hand crept out and lay against him. Almost it seemed to him that she sought the contact. "You are strong, O Jason. You should be at home in the water, even as an Acquor," she said with a quick-drawn breath.
There was a hint of witchery in her smile, however, as Croft knew. The Acquor was a gaudy aquatic creature, colored something like a pheasant, with the head of a goose, red legs, and blue, webbed feet. Consequently he laughed as he replied: "Work in the mountains has reddened my skin, it is true, O little fish of gold and purple and silver—yet have a care, since the Acquor eats little fish that it catches in the water."
"Zitu!" Naia exclaimed, as very much like a silver fish, indeed, she dived.
Thereafter Croft forgot all else save her new mood and her presence, until Robur announced that it was growing late, and that he had many things that he must discuss with Croft.
In such fashion, however, did he enter upon the multitudinous energies that marked the following Himyran days. He plunged into them and their endeavors with a song in his heart. Indeed, it was as though the absence which until now he had actually courted had worked its effect on them both—as though that propinquity which followed brought now a sort of reflex attitude into their bearing toward one another, swung them from one extreme to the other more than anything else.
That first day Croft started work on the ovens to produce his coke. With Robur he talked over all his plans. He drove out to the site of his hangars and inspected the rising sheds. He returned to the shops of the carpenter caste, and set in motion the work of assembling the airplane wings. He inspected the bodies, found fault and made corrections, looked into the motor plant, and ordered the captains there to speed up their work. He drove to the glass plant from there, and gave orders for the making of his arc-lamp bodies. He seemed inspired with a ceaseless energy, which finally drove Robur into comment:
"Zitu—Jason, my friend, where is the need for such haste?"
Then, and then only, did he realize with what a restless energy, what a tireless thrill of driving force, he had moved from place to place.
"None, Rob," he said with a quick-caught inhalation; "save that today the fire of life burns high within me, and my spirit seeks action, not rest." He broke off and lifted his own hand to the spot where Naia's fingers had lain that morning on his flesh.