Chick ventured this question: 

“My coming was foretold by the Rhamda Avec, I understand.  Is this in accord with the words of the Jarados?”

The Rhamda looked up expectantly and spoke with evident anxiety.

“Can you tell me anything about the Jarados?”

“Let us forgo that,” side-stepped Watson.  “Possibly I can tell you much that you would like to know.  What I want to know is, just how well prepared you are to receive me?”

“Then you come from the Jarados!”

“Perhaps.”

“What do you know about him?”

“This:  someone should have preceded me!  The fact and the substance-you were to have it inside three days!  It has been several hundred times the space allotted!  Is it not so?”

The Rhamda’s eyes were pin-pointed with eagerness.

“Then it is true!  You are from the Jarados!  You know the great Rhamda Avec—­you have seen him!”

“I have,” declared Watson.

“In the other world?  You can remember?”

“Yes,” again committing himself.  “I have seen Avec—­in another world.  But tell me, before we go on I would have an answer to my question:  did anyone precede me?”

“No.”

Watson was nonplussed, but he concealed the fact.

“Are you sure?”

“Quite, my dear sir.  The Spot of Life was watched continually from the moment the Rhamda left us.”

“You mean, he and the Nervina?”

“Quite so; she followed him after an interval of a few hours.”

“I know.  But you say that no one came out ahead of me.  Who was it that guarded this—­this Spot of Life?  The Rhamdas?”

“They and the Bars.”

“Ah!  And who are the Bars?”

“The military priesthood.  They are the Mahovisal, and of the Temple of the Bell.  They are led by the great Bar Senestro.”

“And there were times when these Bars, led by this Senestro, held guard over the Spot of Life?” To this Geos nodded; and Watson went on:  “And who is this great Senestro?”

“He is the chief of the Bars, and a prince of D’Hartia.  He is the affianced of the two queens, the Aradna and the Nervina.”

“The two of them?”

Whereupon Watson learned something rather peculiar.  It seemed that the princes of D’Hartia had always married the queens.  This Senestro had had a brother, but he died.  And in such an event it was the iron custom that the surviving brother marry both queens.  It had happened only once before in all history; but the precedent was unbreakable.

“Then, there is nothing against it?”

“Nothing; except, perhaps the prophecy of the Jarados.  We now know—­the whole world knows—­that we are fast approaching the Day of Life.”

“Of course; the Day of Life.”  Watson decided upon another chance shot.  “It has to do with the marriage of the two queens!”

“You do know!” cried the Rhamda joyously.  “Tell me!”