"That she lies hid some distance beyond the camp of thy enemies, Hupor. Come."
"But—" Croft found himself confused by the manner of Naia's presence. Barely seven days had passed since she must have wakened in Himyra after their astral conversation in the tent where he lay bound. The time was not sufficient to brand Maia's words as truth. And yet Croft knew that he believed them. How, then, had Naia come?
Almost with impatience Maia interrupted. "Seven suns from now she waked from her slumber, Hupor, in a most strange mood. For the Hupor Robur she sent me, and for long they spoke together, and after that she spoke with me again. Bidding me place her in the garment she wears when she dares to rise in the air, she took me with her to the great house where the thing she rides is kept, and compelled me to enter it with her, so that my spirit turned as weak as water when, with a great roaring, we leaped into space."
"Zitu—you mean she flew to Bithur?" Croft's stained chest rose sharply. His eyes began to flash.
"Aye, Hupor—partly in the air like a bird, and partly on the water like a boat—which, praise to Zitu, was calm, and with wonderful speed."
"But fuel—what is burned in the motor?" Jason questioned.
Maia shrugged. "Her lips, not mine, should tell you how, like a bird to its mate, she came to seek thee, Hupor," she admonished. "Yet—were not the great galleys already seeking to reach Bithur with men and weapons by the Hupor Robur's orders? And though he swore by Zitu and Azil she should not undertake this madness, he did not refuse to his cousin that which would spell her death. On the waves we rode beside the galleys when the thing that makes the motor turn was required."
"My God!" Croft spoke not as a man of Tamarizia, but of earth. Naia had solved all difficulties, driven by the desire of saving him from the results of his own misfortune. She had overcome all obstacles in her desire to reach him. And this was love—the flight of Naia of Aphur, as the blue girl had phrased it, like that of a bird to its mate.
"On the night of the sun before this we came down in an open place in the forest," Maia explained further. "There the great wings we rode on lie hid. And some distance farther in this direction she awaits thee, Hupor. Come."
"Aye," said Croft, and caught a great, a wondrous breath of realization. "Aye, come." And now as he moved off, where he had delayed before he seemed fired by an all-compelling haste.