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“I–I am safe. I can command them; I can make them know my power, and I shall. The Flame will have much to feed upon in the days which are to come, I promise you. But my beloved would not be safe; at this moment I cannot protect him. So I have brought him back. I–I know he … but I will not be weak. I am Liane!”

* * * * *

She faced Hendricks, who had stood there like a graven image, watching her. Her arms went about his neck; her lips sought his.

“My beloved!” she whispered. “Liane was but a woman, after all. Darling! Good-by!” She kissed him again, and hurried to the door.

“One more thing!” she cried. “I must master them myself. I must show them I–I, Liane–am ruler here. You promise? You promise me you will not interfere; that you will do nothing?”

“But–“

Liane interrupted me before I could put my objections into words.

“Promise!” she commanded. “There are hundreds, thousands of them! You cannot slay them all–and if you did, there would be more. I can bend them to my will; they know my power. Promise, or there will be many deaths upon your hands!”

“I promise,” I said.

“And you–all of you?” she demanded, sweeping Correy and Kincaide with her eyes.

“Commander Hanson speaks for us all,” nodded Kincaide.

With a last glance at Hendricks, whose eyes had never left her for an instant, she was gone.

Hendricks uttered a long, quivering sigh. His face, as he turned to us, was ghastly white.

“She’s gone,” he muttered. “Forever.”

“That’s exceedingly unfortunate, sir, for you,” I replied crisply. “As soon as it’s perfectly safe, we’ll see to it that you depart also.”

The sting of my words apparently did not touch him.

“You don’t understand,” he said dully. “I know what you think, and I do not blame you. She came back; you know that.

“‘You are coming with me,’ she said. ‘I care for you. I want you. You are coming with me, at once.’ I told her I was not; that I loved her, but that I could not, would not, go.

“She opened a port and showed me one of her countrymen, standing not far away, watching the ship. He held something in his hand.

“‘He has one of your hand bombs,’ she told me. ‘I found it while I was hidden and took it with me when I left. If you do not come with me, he will throw it against the ship, destroy it, and those within it.’

“There was nothing else for me to do. She permitted me to explain no more than I did in the note I left. I pleaded with her; did all I could. Finally I persuaded her to give you the word she did, there before the great flame.

“She brought me back here at the risk of her own life, and, what is even more precious to her, her power. In–in her own way, she loves me….”

* * * * *

It was an amazing story; a second or two passed before any of us could speak. And then words came, fast and joyous; our friend, our trusted fellow-officer had come back to us! I felt as though a great black cloud had slid from across the sun.

And then, above our voices, rose a great mutter of sound. We glanced at one another, wonderingly. Hendricks was the first to make a move.

“That’s the mob!” he said, darting toward the door. We followed him swiftly to the exit of the ship, through the air-lock, out into the open.

Hendricks had spoken the truth. Liane was walking, very slowly and deliberately, her head flung back proudly, toward the city. Coming toward her, like a great ragged wave, was a mighty mass of humanity, led by capering old men–undoubtedly the lesser priests, who had turned against her.