Then he slept once more, and, when at last he woke again, it was with the clouded brain of high fever. Thus for many days he lay and tossed, and was ministered unto by tender hands, with no very clear realization of where, or even who, he might be.
Occasionally he even imagined that he heard human voices speaking in a strange and alien tongue, which of course was impossible, for Cupians are the only humans on Poros, and they radiate, instead of giving forth audible speech.
Finally, after many days, his brain cleared, and he was able to take an interest in his surroundings. He was alone in a small cell hewn from the solid rock, but equipped with every modern convenience and lighted with electric vapor lamps.
He called aloud, and the walls reverberated; but there came no answer. Of course not for Cupians cannot perceive human speech. But if the inhabitants of these grottoes were Cupians, then how about the spoken words which he was sure he had heard in his delirium?
No one entered. Gradually his mind reconstructed the events which had brought him here, and he realized that he was in the caves of the famous lost river of Kar. No one had ever known that there were such caves, or that the planet Poros had any subterranean inhabitants. But there was a popular legend to the effect that the first man and first woman had arisen from the soil to populate the world, although the more prevalent legend told that these two forerunners of the race had come from another land beyond the boiling seas. Perhaps the first legend was right after all, and Cabot was now in the presence of the remnants of the prehistoric inhabitants of Poros. But, if so, then how explain the culture evidenced by the bed, the other furniture, and the electric lights? He gave it up, and lay back weakly to await some further clue.
Not long did he have to wait, for presently a venerable man entered the room. This man was unmistakably Cupian, for he had the antennae, the lack of ears, the rudimentary wings and the six digits on each hand, which distinguish the human inhabitants of Poros from those of the planet Earth. He was clad, however, in a different style from that prevalent among the Cupians to whom Cabot was accustomed; for, in place of a toga reaching only to the knees, he wore a ground-sweeping gown of many folds, and instead of bare feet, he wore sandals. On the front of his gown was a red triangle. His face had that calm sweet majesty which one sees on the faces of many of the prelates of the Roman Catholic Church.
Producing a pad of paper and a stylus, he wrote in Cupian characters the message: “Good morning, Myles Cabot; I rejoice to see that you have thus far recovered.”
Myles stared at the paper with surprise and not a little horror.
“How do you know my name?” he wrote in reply.
“Why not?” the man countered. “Myles Cabot is well known throughout all of Cupia.”