Tarrano was evidently in a mood of high good humor.
"You welcome me prettily, Tara." She had flung her arms about him. "Tara, my dear is----"
"Master--you come but in time. They are working the Brende instrument. Already they have----"
"They? Who?" He frowned. His words were hard and cold as the ice-blocks around him.
"Woolff. And the son of Cretar. Many of them--using it now!"
Tarrano drew Elza with him. Tara led the way. Through glowing white hallways, an arcade; down steps and an incline--to burst at last through a tunnel-like passage into a room.
A room littered with apparatus. A dozen men were about. Men scantily dressed in this interior heat. Short, squat men of the Cold Country; flat-nosed, heavy faces; hair long to the base of the neck. In a corner stood the Brende instrument, fully erected. A light from it seemed penetrating the bared chest of a man who was at that moment standing in its curative rays.
He whom Tarrano called Cretar, took a step forward.
"Making yourselves immortal?" The anger had left Tarrano's voice; irony was there instead.
"Master--yes! Yes! We did! Forgive us, Master."
The man before the instrument had retreated from it. Elza saw now that all the men were shrinking back in terror. All save Cretar, who had fallen tremblingly to his knees. Yet Tarrano showed no anger. He laughed.
"I would not hurt you, Cretar! Get up, man! I am not angry--not even annoyed. Why, your skin is turning orange. See the mottles!"
On the flesh of all the men--save the one who had been checked in the act of using the instrument--a bright orange mottling was apparent. Cretar exclaimed:
"The immunity to all diseases, master. It is itself a disease--harmless--and it combats every other." He laughed a little wildly. "We cannot get sick now. We cannot die--we are immortal. Come, Master--let us make you so!"
Tarrano whispered: "You see, Lady Elza? The orange spots! These men of medicine here have used the Brende secret to its full. Immune from disease!"
"Let us treat _you_, Master. This immortality----"
On Cretar's face was a triumphant smile, but in his eyes lay a terror. The man who had not been treated stood against the wall watching with interest and curiosity. But the others! They crouched; wary; alert eyes like animals at bay.