he glorious Sun of Venus
came up. A new day. And even though the air was warm, within Elza was
ashiver.

"It is very wonderful to me, my Elza, this being alone with you."

He sat beside her, gazing at her with his calm, impenetrable eyes. It
was near noon of that day following their escape from the Water
Festival. They had flown possibly two thousand miles. The Sun had risen,
but after a time--since their enormous speed and change of latitude had
affected the angle at which they viewed it--the Sun now was hanging
almost level, not far above the horizon.

Beneath the platform--a mile below now--lay a tumbled waste of naked
crags. The borders of the Cold Country! Tarrano's stronghold! The
birthplace of his dreams of universal conquest.

Elza was staring downward. A barren waste. Rocks bare of verdure. Grey,
with red ore staining them. A desolation of empty rock, with grey flat
shadows. And far ahead, the broken, serrated ranks of mountains with
rocky peaks, white-hooded with the snow upon their summits. The Cold
Country. Bleak; forbidding.

This brittle air was cold; yet Elza and Tarrano were warm. Before the
platform, a ray darted--a low-powered ray of a type that was to be so
great a factor in the warfare into which we were all so soon to be
plunged. It heated the air, so that the platform rushed always through a
wind that was balmy.

"What did you say?" Elza looked up to meet Tarrano's steady gaze.

"I said it is wonderful to be thus alone with you, my Elza."

"Oh." She looked away.

He persisted; but his voice was gentle and earnest. "Soon we will be at
my home, Lady Elza. And now--there are some things I would like to say
while I have the opportunity.... You will listen?"

"Yes," she said; and tried to keep from him the trembling within her.
"I'll listen, of course."

He nodded. "Thank you.... My Elza, you have heard me talk of conquering
the world. My dream--my destiny. It will come to pass, of course. Yet--"
A smile pulled at his lips. "Do you know, my Elza, what you and I are
doing now?"

She stared, and he did not wait for her to answer.

"We're making my first retreat. I wonder if you can realize how I feel,
having to admit that? Tarrano in retreat!... Our escape from Venia?
Pouf! That was a jest. I was there on Earth merely to get you, and the
Brende model. I had no thought of conquering the Earth just then. I
accomplished my two purposes--and left.... It was not a retreat, merely
a planned dep