Occasionally a few girls would hover overhead, but when the guards shouted up at them they flew away obediently.
The king's castle was constructed of metal and stone—a long, low, rambling structure, flanked by two spires or minarets, giving it somewhat an Oriental appearance. Each of these minarets was girdled, halfway up, by a narrow balcony.
The first room into which we passed was small, seemingly an antechamber. From it, announced by two other guards who stood at the entrance, we entered directly into the main hall of the building. At one end of it there was a raised platform. On this, seated about a large table, were some ten or twelve dignitaries—the king's advisers. They were, I saw, all aged men, with beardless, seamed faces, long snowy‑white hair to their shoulders, and dressed in flowing silk robes.
The king was a man of seventy‑odd, kindly faced, gentle in demeanor. He bore himself with the dignity of a born ruler, and yet his very kindliness of aspect and the doddering gravity of his aged councilors, seemed to explain at once most of the trouble that now confronted him.
We stood beside this table—they courteously made way for Lua to sit among them—and all its occupants immediately turned to face us.
Our audience lasted perhaps an hour and a half altogether. I need not go into details. I was right in assuming that the king desired to help us prevent Tao from his attempted conquest of the earth. This was so, but only in so far as his actions would not jeopardize the peace of his own nation. He sadly admitted his error in allowing Tao's emissaries into the Light Country. But now they were there, he did not see how to get them out.
His people were daily listening to them more eagerly; and, what was worse, the police guards themselves seemed rather more in sympathy with them than otherwise. A slight disturbance had occurred in the streets the day before, and the guards had stood apathetically by, taking no part. Above all else, the king stoutly protested, he would have no bloodshed in his country if he could prevent it.
In the neighboring towns of the Light Country—the nearest of which was some forty miles away from the Great City—the situation was almost the same. Reports brought by young women flying between the cities said that to many Tao also had sent emissaries who were fast winning converts to his cause.
"Do all these people who believe in Tao expect to go to our earth when it is conquered?" I asked Miela. "How can they—so many of them—hope to benefit in that way? Aren't they satisfied here?"
Miela smiled sadly.