As they hurried down the trail, each related his or her adventures to the other. Cabot’s have already been set down. As for Quivven, she had gone with a few soldiers to hunt for Myles after his prospecting party had returned and reported his disappearance by the river; but her party had been killed, and she had been taken prisoner.
“Did Grod treat you with respect?” Myles asked, with clenched fists.
“Absolutely,” she replied, tossing her pretty head. “I never knew a man so impersonal. I am accustomed to have men recognize my presence and pay some attention to my existence. But this brute—why, I might just as well have been a piece of furniture or one of his servants. I don’t believe he knows now what color my eyes are, or whether I’m pretty or not. And you’re just as bad as he is,” she added somewhat irrelevantly.
“Your eyes are blue, and you are very pretty,” Cabot replied. “In fact, you closely resemble my own wife, the beautiful Princess Lilla, who waits for me far across the boiling seas.”
“Which reminds me to ask,” Quivven said abruptly. “How successful was your expedition, apart from your being captured and getting yourself into all kinds of trouble?”
So he told her about the glistening metallic particles in the sands of the river. Also how he had found what were probably zinc-blende and galena. Then they discussed in detail his plans for his various factories. From time to time they munched some of the food which had been given them.
The day quickly sped, and evening drew near, yet still they were upon the mountain road with no sight of Vairkingi or of any landmark familiar to either of them. Quivven was for stopping and resting, but Myles urged her on.
“No matter how tired you are,” he said, “it is not safe to stop in this strange country.”
So still she struggled on. The sky darkened without the usual pinkening of the west. All too well they knew what that portended—one of the heaven-splitting tropical storms so common on Poros. And they were right. The storm broke, the thunder roared in one continuous volume of sound, the lightning and the rain alike poured down in continuous sheets. The trail became a mountain torrent, so that they had to cease their journey and crawl upon a huge boulder, in order to avoid being engulfed by the water.
The rain stopped as abruptly as it had begun. Again the silver sky appeared overhead. The extempore brook rapidly disappeared, but left in its wake a wet, muddy, and slippery trail, down which the two took up their journey once more.