"That's just it, but we can't go any closer this way."
Aura thought a moment. "If you lie there," she indicated the bottom of the boat under a forward seat, "no one can see. And I will steer—there to the beach ahead; me they will not notice. Then at the beach we will take the drug."
"We've got to take a chance," said the Very Young Man. "Some one may come along and see us getting small."
They talked it over very carefully for some time. Finally they decided to follow Aura's plan and run the boat to the beach under her guidance; then to take the drug. There were few people around the lake front at this hour; the beach itself, as far as they could see, was entirely deserted, and the danger of discovery seemed slight. Aura pointed out, however, that once on shore, if their stature were so great as a foot they would be even more conspicuous than when of normal size even allowing for the strangeness of the Very Young Man's appearance. The Very Young Man made a calculation and reached the conclusion that with a height of six or seven inches they would have to walk about a mile from the landing-place to reach Targo's palace. They decided to become as near that size as they conveniently could.
When both fully understood what they intended to do, the Very Young Man gave Aura one of the pellets of the drug and lay down in the bow of the boat. Without a word the girl took her seat in the stern and steered for the beach. When they were close inshore Aura signalled her companion and at the same moment both took the drug. Then she left her seat and lay down beside the Very Young Man. The boat, from the momentum it had gained, floated inshore and grounded gently on the beach.
As they lay there, the Very Young Man could see the sides of the boat growing up steadily above their heads. The gunwale was nearly six feet above them before he realized a new danger. Scrambling to his feet he pulled the girl up with him; even when standing upright their heads came below the sides of the vessel.
"We've got to get out right now," the Very Young Man said in an excited whisper. "We'd be too small." He led the girl hastily into the bow and with a running leap clambered up and sat astride the gunwale. Then, reaching down he pulled Aura up beside him.
In a moment they had dropped overboard up to their shoulders in the water. High overhead loomed the hull of the boat—a large sailing vessel it seemed to them now. They started wading towards shore immediately, but, because they were so rapidly diminishing in size, it was nearly five minutes before they could get there.
Once on shore they lay prone upon the sand, waiting for the drug to cease its action. When, by proper administering of both chemicals, they had reached approximately their predetermined stature, which, in itself, required considerable calculation on the Very Young Man's part, they stood up near the water's edge and looked about them.
The beach to them now, with its coarse-grained sand, seemed nearly a quarter of a mile wide; in length it extended as far as they could see in both directions. Beyond the beach, directly in front of them on a hill perhaps a thousand feet above the lake level, and about a mile or more away, stood Targo's palace. To the Very Young Man it looked far larger than any building he had ever seen.