"Excellency," said Kori at last, a hard edge to his voice, "look thou at that buffet. No, no—the end nearest my chair."
"Well?" said the elderly man. "I see nothing."
Thorn breathed a sigh of relief. But the relief was to be of short duration.
"Come to my place, if thou wilt, and see from here," said Kori.
The leader got up and came to Kori's place. Kori pointed straight at Thorn.
"There—seest thou anything out of the ordinary?"
"I see nothing," said the leader, after a moment. "Thine eyes, Kori, are not good."
"They are the eyes of a hawk," said Kori stubbornly. "And they see this—the vertical line of the end of that buffet does not continue straightly up and down. At its middle, the line is broken, then continues up—a fraction of an inch to the side! Like an object seen under water, distorted by the sun-rays that strike the surface!"
Thorn fairly jumped away from the buffet and stood against bare wall. Fool! Of course the light refraction would not be perfect! Why hadn't he thought of that—thought to stand clear of revealing vertical lines!
"There, it is gone," said Kori, blinking. "But something, Excellency, made that distortion of line. And something made Soyo's wolfhound act as it did! Something—"