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the High Baron’s grasp. Yet when at length he spoke - Bel-ka-Trazet stooping close to catch the words - he whispered,
    ‘It can be only as God wills, my lord. The matter is great -greater, even, than your hot knife.’ The beads clas hed in the doorway. Without relin quishing his hold the Baron peered over his shoulder into the gloom beyond the lamp. Zelda’s voice said,
    ‘My lord, there are messengers from the Tuginda. She would speak with you urg ently , she says. She requests that you go to Quiso tonight.’
    Bel-ka-Trazet drew in his breath with a hiss and stood straight, shaking off Kelderek, who fell his length and lay without moving. The knife slipped from the High Baron’s hand and stuck in the floor, transfixing a fragment of some greasy rubbish, which began to smoulder with an evil smell. He stooped quickly, recovered the knife and trod out the fragment. Then he said quietly ,
    ‘To Quiso, tonight? What can this mean? God protect us! Are you sure?’
    ‘Yes, my lord. Would you speak yourself with the girls who brought the message?’
    ‘Yes - no, let it be. She would not send such a message unless -Go and tell Ankray and Faron to get a canoe ready. And see that this man is put aboard.’
    ‘This man, my lord?’
    ‘Put aboard.’
    The bead curtain clashed once more as the High Baron passed through it, across the Sindrad and out among the trees beyond. Zelda, hurrying across to the servants’ quarters, could sec in the light of the quarter moon the conical shape of the great fur cloak striding impati ently up and down the shore.
    5 To Quiso by Night
    Kelderek knelt in the bow, now peering into the speckled gloom ahead, now shutting his eyes and dropping his chin on his chest in a fresh spasm of fear. At his back the enormous Ankray, Bel-ka- Trazet ‘s servant and bodyguard, sat silent as the canoe drifted with the current along the south bank of the Telthearna . From time to time Ankray’s paddle would drop to arrest or change their course, and at the sound Kelderek started as though the loud stir of the water were about to reveal them to enemies in the dark. Since giving the order to set out Bel-ka-Trazet had said not a word, sitting hunched in the narrow stern, hands clasped about his knees. More than once, as the paddles fell, the swirl and seethe of bubbles alarmed some nearby creature, and Kelderek jerked his head towards the clatter of wings, the splash of a dive or the crackle of undergrowth on the bank. Biting his lip and clutching at the side of the canoe, he tried to recall that these were nothing but birds and animals with which he was familiar - that by day he would recognize each one. Yet beyond these noises of flight he was listening always for another, more terrible sound and dreading the second appearance of that animal to whom, as he believed, the miles of jungle and river presented no obstacle. And again, shrinking from this, his mind confronted dismally another life-long fear - the fear of the island for which they were bound. Why had the Baron been summoned thither and what had that summons to do with the news which he himself had refused to tell?
    They had already travelled a long way beneath the trees overhanging the water, when the servants evid ently recognized some landmark. The left paddle dropped once more and the canoe checked, turning towards the centre of the river. Upstream, a few faint lights on Ortelga were just visible, while to their right, far out in the darkness, there now appeared another light, high up; a flickering, red glow that vanished and re-emerged as they moved on. The servants were working now, driving the canoe across the stream while the current, flowing more strongly at this distance from the bank, carried them down. Kelderek could sense in those behind him a growing uneasiness. The paddlers’ rhythm became short and broken. The bow struck against something floating in the dark, and at the jolt Bel -ka-Trazet grunted sharply, like a man on edge. ‘My