Page:Weird Tales Volume 9 Number 5 (1927-05).djvu/117

 villain though he was, that worthy-found that Lathendra Lepraylya was quite his match and more than his match, as, indeed, was Drorathusa. Against the queen he was powerless to take any repressive measure; but the case was very different with regard to Drorathusa. He could act in this way, and he did.

She was sent to a distant, lonely, forsaken place on the very outskirts of the empire. According to all accounts, that spot is really a terrible one. Drorathusa was, in fact, in exile—though Brendaldoombro did not like to hear anyone call it that. But almost everybody did or regarded it as such, and there were murmurs, not only amongst the Droman people, but even amongst those priestesses, and priests whom the old villain had counted upon to applaud his every word and act.

Nor did time still those murmurs. On the contrary, they grew louder, more persistent. Brendaldoombro was learning that it is one thing to send a person into exile and quite another to banish that person from the popular esteem. Nor did he stop at banishment; he had recourse to the assassin's dagger and the arts of the poisoner. But, in all these attempts upon the life of Drorathusa, he was thwarted by the agents of the queen. Lepraylya knew her opponent, and she had at once taken measures to safeguard the life of the exiled priestess, who held as high a place in the esteem of her sovereign as she did in the hearts of the people.

How strange it seems to be writing of things like these in this the Twentieth Century, the Golden Age of Science. But, as I believe I have already remarked, Science hasn't discovered everything yet. This is a stranger, a more wonderful, a more mysterious old globe than even Science herself dreams it to be.

When our acquisition of the language became a real one, we began to learn something of the science of Drome and to impart a knowledge of the wonderful science of our own world. Never shall I forget the amazement of the queen and those learned men of Drome when Rhodes brought his mathematics into play. Problems that only a Droman Archimedes could solve, and that only after much labor (what with their awful notation) Rhodes solved, presto—just like that! So unwieldy was the system of notation employed by these Hypogeans that not even their greatest mathematicians had been able to do more than roughly approximate pi.

When Rhodes proceeded to the solution of trigonometrical problems, their amazement knew no bounds. And when he explained to them that all they had to do to become masters of such problems was to discard their cumbersome notation and adopt the simple numerals used by ourselves—well, I do actually believe that that was the straw that broke the back of Brendaldoombro's ! For (strange though it may seem to a world that is more interested in moonshine than it is in science) that brought over to our side every learned man in Drome and a majority of the people themselves. Nor should I forget the priests and priestesses. Your average Droman is much interested in all things of a scientific nature, and no one more so than the true priest or priestess—though there are, of course, some lamentable exceptions.

Yes, clearly we were men and not demons, else never would we have brought such wonders as these to offer them as gifts to the Dromans. But old Brendaldoombro had his answer ready.

"Instead," said he, "that proves they are not men; only devils could be such wizards!"

I have often wondered what dark thoughts would have passed through