Then I dived rapidly to the inner court where I had last seen Woola,
and to my immense relief found the faithful beast still there.
The twelve great banths lay in the doorways of their lairs, eyeing
him and growling ominously, but they had not disobeyed Thuvia's
injunction; and I thanked the fate that had made her their keeper
within the Golden Cliffs, and endowed her with the kind and
sympathetic nature that had won the loyalty and affection of these
fierce beasts for her.
Woola leaped in frantic joy when he discovered me; and as the flier
touched the pavement of the court for a brief instant he bounded
to the deck beside me, and in the bearlike manifestation of his
exuberant happiness all but caused me to wreck the vessel against
the courtyard's rocky wall.
Amid the angry shouting of thern guardsmen we rose high above the
last fortress of the Holy Therns, and then raced straight toward
the northeast and Kaol, the destination which I had heard from the
lips of Matai Shang.
Far ahead, a tiny speck in the distance, I made out another flier
late in the afternoon. It could be none other than that which bore
my lost love and my enemies.
I had gained considerably on the craft by night; and then, knowing
that they must have sighted me and would show no lights after
dark, I set my destination compass upon her--that wonderful little
Martian mechanism which, once attuned to the object of destination,
points away toward it, irrespective of every change in its location.
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