Croft told him. "Start all men working on more bullets and the bombs we throw by hand. Send men to call the assembly together against the time Jadgor's messenger comes, yet state not why, save that Robur commands. Order all captains of decktarons to hold those men we trained in readiness for a possible call to arms. Give these orders merely; say naught as yet of war."
"Aye," Robur nodded, "it shall be done."
"Speed also," Croft went on, "the completion of the other airplanes. In the morning I begin training men to fly them when they are done. Also"—his eyes narrowed with a sudden thought—"Rob—we shall remove the dynamo, and transport it to Atla, after we have shown Himyra this new light."
"Thou wilt do that still—in the face of this?" Robur stammered.
Croft nodded. Before his mind's eye floated Naia of Aphur's face—Naia who was to pin the seal of Azil on her girdle the day the light he had promised to Himyra was born. Come weal or woe, come war or peace, Croft swore naught should interfere with that occasion.
"Aye," he said, "on the seventh sun from this."
Yet despite Croft's interdiction on the spreading of the word abroad, Naia and Gaya were told—the latter as Robur's wife, the former as Croft's assistant in his work. For from now on she became fully that. Day after day, from the hour of the morning bath until late at night, she toiled in the laboratory he had equipped in the palace, preparing the chemicals for the dry cells, aiding him with a tight-lipped, yet unfaltering purpose while the cells were packed, taking full charge in the daytime while he was engaged elsewhere on other work.
Clad in a coarse smock, acid stained and scorched, her hands soiled by the manipulation of reagents, she yet had never to Jason presented a fairer, braver sight. She worked. She neither complained nor cried out. She gave her service to her country and to him, in the depths of her purple eyes an almost Spartan light. And Gaya helped. Day after day she labored beside her, under her direction, learning in turn from Naia what she had learned from Croft.
"Are you not glad you have taught me to fly?" Naia questioned one night as they worked. "See you not Zitu's hand in this, beloved, since when you are gone to this spawn of Mazzer's undoing I may continue your work?"