“I didn’t ask him. But he brought news.”
The conversation was interrupted by a deep rumbling noise which caused the solid cliff to vibrate and the flame to leap up in the aperture. It was followed by an explosion in the group of mountains over against that on which they were, and a column of smoke and fire climbed heavily into the sky, spread out fountain-wise, and subsided, sending fragments of molten stone and cinders in all directions, some of them falling close to the entrance of the cave, into which Krotox and Asgar had withdrawn. They now resumed their places and their meal, letting the incident, which was far from being a novelty, pass without comment.
“News, eh?” grunted Asgar. “Another raid on Saturn, probably?”
“I said news!” retorted the other. “He has taken a woman!”
“Who? Yolgu?”
“No; Torpeon!”
“Torpeon! I wish I could believe it! When Torpeon takes a woman honest men may hope for their rights! But Yolgu was always a liar.”
“And Asgar will never cease being a fool. Torpeon has taken a woman, and he got her from the little planet down beyond Jupiter.”
Asgar chuckled contemptuously. “Did she bring her little planet with her?”
“She was visiting Lamara,” Krotox continued composedly. “There were details, but nothing of importance. Torpeon got her away, and she is now with him at the castle. Yolgu saw her just before he came here. She’s not like our kind, or the Saturnians either.”