I don't know the lay of the land over there. Anina does.
You do what she tells you."

"You bet I will," he agreed enthusiastically. "Some kid--that little girl.
We get along fine. She understands everything I say to her already. I'll
have her talking English like a streak by the time you see her again."

We had removed the cords from our prisoners' ankles. I motioned them to
get out of the boat. We crowded Tao's men on the platform. They were
surprised, and some of them alarmed, when they saw how we proposed to
transport them over the water. Miela silenced their protests, and soon we
had them all seated on the platform, with Mercer at the rear end facing
them.

The fifty girls grasped the platform handles. Another moment and they were
in the air, with Mercer waving good-by to us vigorously.

Miela and I, left alone, watched them silently as they dwindled to a speck
in the haze of the sky.

We were about to start back when we saw a girl coming toward us, flying
low over the water. One of those we had directed to patrol the coast,
Miela said when she came closer. She saw us, and came down on the beach.

The two girls spoke together hurriedly.

"Tao's men in the Water City have caused great disturbance, Alan," Miela
said to me.

"Where's the Water City?"

"Near the Great City--across the marshlands. We must get back. And when
Anina and our friend Ollie have returned we must go to the Water City. It
is very bad there, she said."

Our trip back to the Great City was without unusual incident. We followed
the main route at the best speed we could make.

"We shall tell our king, of course, about this disturbance," said Miela.
"Perhaps he will think there is something he can do. But I fear greatly
that unless he appeals directly to the people, and they are with him--"

"He's an old man," I said, "and all his councilors are old. They're not
fit to rule at such a time as this. Suppose he were to die--what would
happen? Who would be king then?"

"A little prince there is--a mere child. And there is our queen--a younger
woman, only married to our king these few years. His first queen died."

I questioned Miela concerning her government. It was, I soon learned, an
autocracy in theory. But of later years the king's advanced age, and his
equally old councilors whom he refused to change, had resulted in a
vacillating policy of administration, which now, I could see plainly, left
the government little or no real power.