ontinued, "For teaching English very fine. How are
you enjoying our hospitality, I ask again?"

Tyndall was stuck on Arrill and he knew it. There was no need to cook
his own goose by being deliberately offensive. "I appreciate the
hospitality of Arrill, I express my thanks for the consideration of my
hosts but--if I may ask a question?"

"Yes?"

"What, in the wisdom of the Dheb Rhal, is the reason for
my--er--detainment?"

"To answer that, Tyn-Dall, I must tell you something of the past of
Ahhreel, and of her destiny." At these words, the other Arrillians in
the room drew closer, and the Rhal motioned them to a couch at his feet
and nodded toward Tyndall, requesting that he join them. Tyndall noticed
that the others were gazing up into the old man's face with an
expression of raptness, even of reverence. He knew that the Rhal did not
possess an especially exalted position politically, even though he was
head of the city. He guessed therefore that the Rhal must be the
religious ruler of Arrill as well.

The Rhal began, intoning the words as though he were reciting a ritual,
"There was a time, many thousands of Khreelas ago, when the kingdom of
Ahhreel was not one small city, as you see it now, but a mighty empire,
girdling the world in her vastness. But the people of Ahhreel had become
evil in their ways, and her cities were black with sin. It was then that
Xheev himself left his kingdom in paradise and appeared to the people of
Ahhreel, and he told them that he was displeased, and that bad times
would fall upon Ahhreel, and that her people would dwindle in number,
and became exceedingly few, and the jungle would reclaim her emptied
cities. One city, and only one, would survive and prosper, and the
people of that city would be given the chance to redeem Ahhreel, and
remove the heavy hand of Xheev's terrible punishment.

"All this came to pass, and in the dark Khreelas that followed, all of
Ahhreel vanished except this city. Now, for many, many thousands of
Khreelas, the people of this city have striven to redeem Ahhreel by
obeying the sacred laws of Xheev.

"Xheev had promised that when the punishment was ended, he would send a
sign, and his sign would be that a great silver shell should fall from
the heavens, and within would be Xheev's own emissary, who must wed the
ranking priestess of Xheev, establishing again the rapport between the
kingdom of paradise and the world of Ahhreel."

When the Rhal had finished