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Updated: May 3, 2025
We might, indeed, have barred the several roads that entered it, but it seemed probable that if Tao wanted to come out he would come, for all we could do to stop him. And yet to starve him out seemed our only possible plan. "We'll have to send back for reënforcements," I told Mercer, Miela and Anina at one of our many conferences. "An army of several thousand, if we can maintain it up here."
The thunder rolled heavily and ominously in the distance, with occasional sharp cracks near at hand. "Look, Anina there comes the rain! See it there behind us! I hope it won't be a bad storm. I wouldn't want to be out in this little tub." The wind veered to the left, increasing steadily. The sea was lashed into foam; its spray swept over the boat, drenching them thoroughly.
That was all she knew, except that this house was the headquarters of Tao's emissaries, who, it appeared, were now allied with Baar and his party. Anina whispered all this to Mercer when her mother had finished. "Let's get out of here," said Mercer.
They had rummaged the boat thoroughly, but evidently the men had taken all their supplies ashore with them, for nothing was in the boat. "We'll have to dope out some way to get something to eat," said Mercer. They came upon the sharp bend in the river Anina had indicated.
"It is Anina's thought that they will all go, for they fear this earth-man much and all would go to make sure of him." I could not feel it was right for us to let Anina do so daring a thing, and Mercer agreed with me heartily. But Anina insisted, with a fire in her eyes and flushed cheeks that contrasted strangely with her usually gentle demeanor.
The idea came to Mercer then to steal the boat and escape with it. If he could do that, the enemies would have to return to the Lone City on foot, and the threatened invasion of the Light Country would thus be postponed for a time at least. Meanwhile, with the boat he could hasten back to me with news of the coming invasion. These thoughts were running through his head while Anina was talking.
He could see now how fortunate a circumstance it was that we had set the men free. He would not have stumbled upon this other party, and the invasion of the Light Country would have begun, had we not released them. He talked enthusiastically about what we were to do next, and Anina listened, saying very little, but following his words with eager attention.
She lisped the words in her soft, sweet voice, haltingly, like a little child. Then she turned to Miela and poured out a torrent of her native language. Mercer stared at her in undisguised admiration. As Miela explained it, Anina proposed that she go into Tao's house alone, and decoy his men down to the boat where we could capture them. "But how will she get them there?" I exclaimed.
Mercer and I spent the afternoon building the platform on which to carry Tao's men a framework with fifty handles instead of twenty. Miela and Anina disappeared for the whole afternoon. I did not know what they were doing at the time; later I found out Anina was devoting it to learning English. During the evening meal we planned it all.
A moment more and the boat slid beneath the building into semidarkness. Anina shut the power off and stood up. The floor of the house was just above her head. In front of her, near the center of the building, she saw the side walls of an inner inclosure some twenty feet square. These walls came down to the surface, making a room like a basement to the dwelling.
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