“Who are you strangers, and how came you here?” She turned to Rador. “Or is it that they do not understand our tongue?”

“One understands and speaks it⁠—but very badly, O Yolara,” answered the green dwarf.

“Speak, then, that one of you,” she commanded.

But it was Marakinoff who found his voice first, and I marvelled at the fluency, so much greater than mine, with which he spoke.

“We came for different purposes. I to seek knowledge of a kind; he”⁠—pointing to me “of another. This man”⁠—he looked at Olaf⁠—“to find a wife and child.”

The grey-blue eyes had been regarding O’Keefe steadily and with plainly increasing interest.