onnecting this wandering son and
daughter of the Earth with the sons and daughters of the Love-Star.

The throng fell back a little and two figures, apparently male and
female, came to Zaidie and held out their right hands and began
addressing her in perfectly harmonised song, which, though utterly
unintelligible to her in the sense of speech, expressed sentiments which
could not possibly be mistaken, as there was a faint suggestion of the
old English song running through the little song-speech that they made,
and both Zaidie and her husband rightly concluded that it was intended
to convey a welcome to the strangers from beyond the cloud-veil.

And then the strangest of all possible conversations began. Redgrave,
who had no more notion of music than a walrus, perforce kept silence. In
fact, he noticed with a certain displeasure which vanished speedily with
a musical, and half-malicious little laugh from Zaidie, that when he
spoke the Bird-Folk drew back a little and looked in something like
astonishment at him; but Zaidie was already in touch with them, and half
by song and half by signs she very soon gave them an idea of what they
were and where they had come from. Her husband afterwards told her that
it was the best piece of operatic acting he had ever seen, and,
considering all the circumstances, this was very possibly true.

In the end the two who had come to give her what seemed to be the formal
greeting, were invited into the _Astronef_. They went on board without
the slightest sign of mistrust and with only an expression of mild
wonder on their beautiful and strangely childlike faces.

Then, while the other doors were being closed, Zaidie stood at the open
one above the gangway and made signs showing that they were going up
beyond the clouds and then down into the valley, and as she made the
signs she sang through the scale, her voice rising and falling in
harmony with her gestures. The Bird-Folk understood her instantly, and
as the door closed and the _Astronef_ rose from the ground, a thousand
wings were outspread and presently hundreds of beautiful soaring forms
were circling about the Navigator of the Stars.

"Don't they look lovely!" said Zaidie. "I wonder what they would think
if they could see us flying above New York or London or Paris with an
escort like this. I suppose they're going to show us the way. Perhaps
they have a city down there. Suppose you were to go and get a bottle of
champagne and see