"Then you, Red? You're surely coming with us?"
Red Barrett shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot.
"Well, keed—I think maybe I'd better not. I asked Sugriva about Toots, here. He tells me she couldn't take a ride in the time-machine without being—well, without having happen to her what happened to Rudra. You see, she wouldn't have no true existence in the future. So—so I think I'll just stick around for a while. Me and Evavne is going back to Britain, where she come from. Maybe I can be some help to them folks of her'n. Like—" he grinned suddenly—"like teaching 'em to talk good English instead of that stuff they talk now."
"And you, Sheng-ti?"
The bonze said quietly, "When Sugriva leaves, Ramey Winters, departs from Earth for many centuries the light of wisdom, peace and truth. These people, though they were born in a different era, are still my people. Someone must stay at Chitrakuta to help them re-establish themselves on a new footing. It is my clear and simple duty to be this one."
"Were the choice mine, Ramaíya," said Tauthus, "I would visit that future world of thine. But I cannot. So, like Sheng-ti, I shall go to my people. Much have I learned here at Chitrakuta; much more will the Lord Sugriva teach me. Then will I hie westward to bring something of the Gaanelian culture to my race."
Thus told each member of the party his intentions. Nor would argument sway any from his decision. And so it was that, some time later, Sheila and Ramey stood alone beside the trap-way to the time-machine of Rudra. Their last farewells had been made, the last hand shaken. Unless in years to come others should make the journey.
"When you return," Dr. Aiken bade them anxiously, "read well and carefully the wall-graven scripts at Angkor Vat. Before we leave Chitrakuta we shall see that all this history is carven on the walls. That and much other knowledge, lest your memories fail you. Remember!"
"We will remember," promised Ramey. Then he handed Sheila into the metal cube out of which—was it days, weeks or a lifetime ago?—they had risen into the strange, stirring world of the past. The trapdoor closed above them with a clang! of finality. Ramey moved to the lever which hurled the machine through Time ... pressed it....