“I’m going to bed,” he said abruptly. “Keep an eye on the wall, Doc!”

Between the seven sleeps that followed, Larry and I saw but little of each other. Yolara sought him more and more. Thrice we were called before the Council; once we were at a great feast, whose splendours and surprises I can never forget. Largely I was in the company of Rador. Together we two passed the green barriers into the dwelling-place of the ladala .

They seemed provided with everything needful for life. But everywhere was an oppressiveness, a gathering together of hate, that was spiritual rather than material⁠—as tangible as the latter and far, far more menacing!

“They do not like to dance with the Shining One,” was Rador’s constant and only reply to my efforts to find the cause.