CHAPTER XIX

_Night of Turmoil_

Drake hurried with Ahlma and Alt from the ship. It was a scene of wild confusion as the frightened crowd milled over the moonlit field. In the distance the figure of the running Togaro loomed, a huge dark shape towering over the landscape. This little world was visibly convex: the horizon was very close. Drake could see Togaro bounding along the road which followed the lakeshore, beyond the city outskirts. His giant figure sank lower until presently it was gone below the horizon.

The crowd, which had been watching the giant, redoubled its confusion. Men and women were here; even a few children were held aloft to keep from being trampled. The near-by throng surged upon Drake.

Alt gasped, "They saw a man hanging to Togaro. Very small."

"Frank!"

"Move--back--" Alt began in English, then burst into a flood of his native language.

The crowd was pressing close upon them. Drake had all he could do to protect Ahlma from the roughly surging people. They were all about Alt's size--men bare-headed and barelegged, with jackets long to the knee, flaring like a skirt; women, some of them dressed like the men, but with hair bound on their heads, or young girls with longer skirts and flowing hair.

Drake, who wore the native costume, with a band about his forehead to hold his hair from his eyes, stood head and shoulders above the crowd. He held an arm about Ahlma, and struggled to force his way across the field. His instinct had been to take the enlarging drug and follow Togaro. But that was not practical. Togaro, always able to be the larger, could have turned upon him. And with Dianne in Togaro's arms--and now myself, so tiny, clinging to him--Drake realized that any combat would only kill us both.

"Ahlma, we must get over to the field-house."

"Yes, Drake."

"See the officials. There should be some one here to meet us."

The crowd had seen the ship descending and had gathered. The officials were here. Drake saw a line of the native police guarding the ship, and at the little field-house there were others.

Alt said, "There is Jain." He called to the official, a huge black-coated fellow. Drake knew him; and he spoke English.

Drake said to Ahlma, "Everyone's frightened. Give way there!"

But the crowd was more than frightened. Menacing, Drake abruptly realized, as two men roughly plucked at him.

"The drugs!" Ahlma gasped. "They want the drugs."

Jain came wading forward, bellowing with the voice of authority which now the crowd began to obey.

Drake called, "I don't want to hurt them." He was far stronger than any of these people, and he was armed, both with the drugs and the weapons I had brought. But this was a crowd of Dianne's people.

Drake had lived among them for a year; he knew them well, and they knew him. They were an excitable people; in a panic of terror now at the sight of the giant Togaro. Drake had no wish to do anything to excite them further.

He shouted with what he hoped would be reassuring words. Alt shouted in his own language. They forced their way forward.

The mob presently began dispersing. Jain led Drake into the field-house, a small building of metallic blocks. Other officials were here. There was a hurried consultation.

Then a conveyance arrived--a long, low wagon on rollers, with a covered top and a line of small animals to pull it. They climbed aboard and rumbled off through the city streets to the palace of Dianne.

I never saw, except with fleeting glimpses, this Shore City, as its name might be translated into English; nor Dianne's palace, nor any of her loyal people, the Mitans, as the nation was called.

To Drake it was all familiar. He had attained a position of authority. The ruling class--those who were born with the crescent patch on their foreheads--had accepted him as one of them. Dianne, headstrong little ruler, had insisted upon going in the flyer when Alt was sent out into largeness. Now, in spite of Drake's efforts to guard her, she had been taken by Togaro.

Jain was very solemn. "The council will blame you, Drake."

They could not blame Drake more than he blamed himself. Yet, from that moment Togaro held Dianne in his arms there was nothing Drake could have done.

And nothing now that he could think of to do. He sat immersed in gloomy thoughts. For all his year among these people it was still a strange world to him. He said suddenly: "Jain, that was my brother clinging to Togaro. We've got to find where they went."

Jain was solemn, but there was an excited triumph upon him. For months now the Togarites had kept hidden in smallness. Their headquarters--the place where they kept their interplanetary ship--could not be found. The Mitans had searched. Thousands of organized searchers were scattered everywhere throughout the land. For months no Togarite giant had ever appeared.

But now Togaro's arrival would disclose where his followers lurked.

"We will get the news at the palace, Drake. We'll know now--and we will organize an army, with the drugs and your weapons, and go after them, Drake. We will get them now!"

It was a ride of no more than ten minutes. The narrow city streets were lined with low houses, all built of metallic blocks. There were few lights, for the night was cloudless and the brilliant moon bathed everything with silver.

The city was in a turmoil. Crowds thronged the streets, milling and shoving and shouting.

The cart nosed its way along. The identity of its occupants was known. Drake often heard his name shouted. The crowd opened for the cart, but closed in behind, and followed it.

They wound up a hill, and entered the tree-shrouded gardens of the palace. It was a scene of almost normal earthly beauty, with paths and flowers, and low-stunted trees, heavy with redolent blossoms, all shining in the white moonlight, with a gentle warm nightbreeze from the lake.

The palace was a long building some forty feet in height, overgrown with climbing plants like some ancient castle of earth. Two stories, and a queer dome roof like the crown of a helmet surmounted by a needle-spire. There was a single broad doorway up a short flight of stone steps. The lower windows at the ground level were barred. But overhead was a broad balcony with a metal railing, with open doors and windows giving access to the second floor rooms.

The palace faced the garden on this side, and on the other stood sheer upon the brink of a cliff--a perpendicular rocky wall, a hundred feet down, at the bottom of which the waters of the lake lapped on a narrow rocky beach.

As the cart rumbled across the garden, Drake caught a glimpse of the lake beyond the corner of the building. A moonlit spread of placid water, sharply convex. At the near horizon a green island loomed in the moonlight. The cart stopped, and they hurried into the palace.

The garden behind them was jammed with the arriving mob. A silent, gathering throng. Ominously silent.