A heavy tread sounded far away in the distance. The Very Young Man and Aura shrank back against the wall, close by the door. In a moment a man's feet and the lower part of his legs came into view. He stopped by the door, pulling it inward. The Very Young Man looked up into the air; a hundred and fifty feet, perhaps, above their heads he saw the man's face looking out through the doorway.
In a moment another man joined him, coming from outside, and they spoke together for a time. Their roaring voices, coming down from this great height, were nevertheless distinctly audible.
"In the audience room," Aura whispered, after listening an instant, "Targo's younger brother talks with his counsellors. Big things they are planning." The Very Young Man did not answer; the two men continued their brief conversation and parted.
When the Very Young Man and Aura were left alone, he turned to the girl eagerly. "Did they mention Loto? Is he here?"
"Of him they did not speak," Aura answered. "It is best that we go to the audience room, where they are talking. Then, perhaps, we will know." The Very Young Man agreed, and they started off.
For nearly half an hour they trudged onward along this seemingly endless hallway. Then again they were confronted with a flight of steps—this time steps that were each more than three times their own height.
"We've got to chance it," said the Very Young Man, and after listening carefully and hearing no one about, they again took the drug, making themselves sufficiently large to ascend these steps to the upper story of the building.
It was nearly an hour before the two intruders, after several narrow escapes from discovery, and by alternating doses of both drugs, succeeded in getting into the room where Targo's brother and his advisers were in conference.
They entered through the open door—a doorway so wide that a hundred like them could have marched through it abreast. A thousand feet away across the vastness of the room they could see Targo's brother and ten of his men—sitting on mats upon the floor, talking earnestly. Before them stood a stone bench on which were a number of golden goblets and plates of food.
The adventurers ran swiftly down the length of the room, following its wall. It echoed with their footfalls, but they knew that this sound, so loud to their ears, would be inaudible to the huge figures they were approaching.