For an hour the clouds had been gathering in the sky and now a fine, cold rain commenced to fall.
A peal of thunder echoed above them after a sharp flash of lightning had streaked across the black night above them.
A servant appeared from the entrance to the apartment and pressed a button close to the door.
Protective plates of glass noiselessly enveloped the terrace, sheltering those upon it from the inclement weather.
“It is well,” remarked Fragoni, breaking the silence, “that we were found by a leader like Teuxical. Our tribute will not be unbearable, and he will bestow many benefits upon us.”
“But surely,” protested Dirk, “you do not intend to surrender without a struggle! Nothing but disaster,” he asserted earnestly, “will come upon the earth if you do. Teuxical may be honest and just but, after all, he neither is immortal nor all-powerful, and something may happen to him at any moment. And there are those like Zitlan who would turn the world over to ravage and rape, and then convert it into a blazing pyre, if they had their way. These vandals,” he insisted, “must be slain one and all, or, mark my words, our world will be laid waste.”
Dirk spoke with such a sense of conviction that his words held his listeners spellbound.
“Who is Teuxical,” he asked, “but the vassal of a monarch whose corsairs, very apparently, are carrying on a war of conquest in the universe? It will be disastrous, I say, to place any dependence in the good will of this one Lodorian. If he, or any of his men, return to that far-off planet where they dwell word will be carried there of the existence of our world. But who can say that Teuxical ever will return here again? It may be the whim of his ruler to refuse his request, or any one of a thousand other events might arise to thwart his desire to live among us. No,” concluded Dirk passionately, “it never will do to let that great engine of destruction rise into the skies again!”
“He is right!” asserted Steinholt positively. “It will be far better to annihilate these raiders, if such a thing can be accomplished!”