On Mercury, a leader. But here on Earth, so strangely fantastic! Her crimson-feathered wings were folded now as she stood among us. They arched from her shoulder blades, with their flexible feathered tips just clearing the ground behind her. She wore silky fabric, gray-blue trousers bound at her ankles; sandals encased her bare feet. A silken gray-blue scarf was wound about her waist, crossing in front, covering her breast and shoulders, crossing again between the wings behind and descending to her waist.

"Angry, Jack?"

"Well-" I found it difficult to be angry; yet she should not have gone out.

We sat down to discuss the voyage to Mercury in the Cube. Guy sat with his arm about Tama. It was no secret that they were in love. They were to be married as Tama wanted, on Mercury, in her native Hill City, at the end of this forthcoming trip.

"I am glad," said Tama. "It seemed so long, waiting here." The elfin look was gone from her now. With her thoughts back on Mercury she was Tama of the Light Country, a leader.

She met my gaze.

"It is not that I do not like your Earth, Jack. But you know I am worried about things in the Hill City. My girls, the winged virgins as you call them. Jimmy, tell me just what Dr. Grenfell says. We go, surely?"

"Sure thing!" said Jimmy.

Late into that night and most of the next morning we discussed it; then Jimmy had to leave.

"See you in a week," he told us. "I'll come up and fly you down to Trenton." We stood beside his tiny dragon to see him take off. If we had only known under what terrifying stress of circumstances we next were to see him! The remainder of that memorable day passed without incident. Jimmy left )ust before noon. That evening we all retired early. Our log-cabin bungalow was a rambling, manyroomed structure. Rowena and I had a bedroom off the living room. Toh and Guy slept in another room; Tama occupied a room alone. And Eliza, the housekeeper, had a bedroom nearby.