It was so in Georg and Maida's case, back there in the Mountain Station on Earth. Telepathy was the explanation of Georg's mysterious actions as he stood there before the sending mirrors, crossed the room in confusion, and like one in a dream leaped from the window to be seized by Tarrano's spies. Maida had been abducted a moment before. Georg's brain became aware of it. Her danger, the appeal she sent to him.
So it now seemed to be from Elza to me. Georg, out of bed now beside me, urged me to greater efforts of concentration, that I might understand what message Elza was sending.
_"Elza! Elza dear! Where are you? What is it?"_
I murmured the words to myself as with all my power, I thought them over and over, flinging out the thoughts like radio waves into the night. Mysterious vibrations! In an instant, from here--everywhere in the universe. Who knows their character? Their speed? The speed of light a laggard perhaps beside the flash of a thought! Waves of my thoughts, speeding through the night, with only one receiving station in all the universe! Would Elza's brain capture them?
_"Elza dear! Where are you? What is it?"_
It was very clear. The words rang in my head. But always only those two. And then at last--it may have been an hour later--other words:
_"Death! The black cloud of death! You can see it coming! See it coming! Death! To you Jac! To all of you in the city!"_
We rushed to the casement. The broad lagoon before the palace lay like a mirror tinted red and purple. Beyond it, palms and the outlines of houses lay dark against the star-strewn sky.
But out there, over the city, in the distance a dark patch obscured the stars. We watched it breathless. A dark patch which soon took shape. A cloud! A black cloud--unnatural of aspect somehow--a rolling, low-lying black cloud. Growing larger; spreading out side-wise; sweeping toward the city on a wind which had not reached us.
_"Jac! Jac dear! Danger! Death to all the city!"_
Elza's words were still beating in my brain. Soundless words of terror and warning!
_"Death, Jac! Death to all the city! The black cloud of death!"_
A silence. His hand touched her white shoulder. "Wake up, Lady Elza. It is I--Tarrano."
Elza opened her eyes, struggling to confused wakefulness. The white walls of her sleeping room in Tarrano's palace of the City of Ice were stained with the dim red radiance of her night light. She opened her eyes to meet Tarrano's inscrutable face as he bent over her couch; became conscious of his low, insistent, "Wake up, Lady Elza;" and his fingers half caressing the filmy scarf that covered her shoulders.