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Updated: June 9, 2025
Miela and I were now bound securely hand and foot, and Miela's wings were lashed to her body. Thus rendered entirely helpless, we were laid together in a corner. From the talk that followed Miela gathered that Baar and his men were expecting the arrival of others.
The woman, who was now the only occupant of the room with us, shuffled about, clearing away the meal. I tried desperately to work my hands loose; I even tried with my teeth to gnaw Miela's bonds, but without success. Every moment counted, if we were to do anything to save the king. I wondered again where Lua was perhaps in another part of the house here, bound as we were.
The girl flew away to get her friends and the platform, which had been left in the garden of Miela's home. I planned to start openly from the castle roof; there was now no need of maintaining secrecy. The disappearance of Lua was alarming. Equally so was the possible danger into which Mercer might have blundered. In Lua's case there did not seem much I could do personally at that moment.
Under Miela's direction Mercer and I shoved the boat out into the stream. I need not go into details regarding the propelling mechanism of this craft. Miela explained it hastily to me as we got under way. It used a form of the light-ray from a sort of strange battery. The intense heat of the ray generated a great pressure of superheated steam in a thick metal cylinder underneath the keel.
The old councilor, who had been standing by, dazed, came slowly forward at Miela's call. The king's councilor! And all the others were like him. The king was dead, and here was the little prince huddled in his mother's arm! Realization had been slow in coming, but now it broke upon me like a great light. I flung the bludgeon away from me, and stood erect.
The wind of our forward flight whistled past my ears; Miela's directions to the girls rose shrill above it. I caught a glimpse of the darting lights of the boat ahead. Then, when we were hardly more than six hundred feet away, Mercer's light picked it up. I saw the little lurid red circle it made as it struck the boat's canopy top, and roved along it end to end.
I had already manufactured, at Miela's suggestion, a number of shields for our girls to carry while in flight. These consisted of the fabric in very light, almost diaphanous, form, hung upon a flexible frame of very thin strips of bamboo. It was some twelve feet broad across the top, narrowing rapidly into a long fluttering tail like a kite. There was nothing rigid about this shield.
But I cannot go into it now with you. You see," he added hastily, as though he feared to hurt my feelings, "the scientific men of Mercury some of them objected to Miela's coming, on the ground that the inhabitants of the earth, obtaining from her a knowledge that would enable them to voyage through space, might take advantage of that knowledge to undertake an invasion of Mercury.
This I attributed to the greater density of the air I was breathing. In five minutes I was back at Miela's side, panting heavily. "If I can ever get so I breathe right " I said. She nodded. "A very little time, I think." I sat down for a moment to recover my breath.
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