person there, indeed none were anywhere near my height save the nobly proportioned Elonie herself. And I was more sinewy, and darker, as if of another race entirely. Timid memories struggled somewhere within me, as if knocking at the closed doors of my consciousness. Somewhere, somehow in the past, things had happened that might explain so much, make my present position clearer to me.

Gederr was following close behind, muttering something to Doriza. Then he pressed on beyond me, and mounted a sort of dais or platform.

"You of Dondromogon!" he called, and such was his voice, or perhaps the acoustic properties of that hemispheric room, that all could hear him easily. "Have you not heard rumors of a great happening? The ancient legend of a mighty leader to come among us—"

"Yandro!" cried a deep-voiced fellow in the front belt of listeners. His eyes were on me, studying, questioning.

"Yes, Yandro, champion of our cause, sent by the First Comers themselves!" That was Elonie, and with a hand on my elbow she urged me up on the platform beside Gederr.

Applause burst out, some of it a little drunken, but quite hearty and honest. "Yandro!" cried the deep-voiced man again, and others took it up: "Yandro! Yandro!" Whatever my own doubts, they had none.

Gederr held up an authoritative hand for silence. "He came from far in space and time, and one look will assure you of his leadership. The time for deliverance is at hand, men and women of Dondromogon! We trust in mighty Yandro!"

There was louder applause, in the midst of which Gederr sidled close. "Speak to them," he mumbled in my ear.

Like him, I lifted a hand for silence. It came, and I eyed my audience, as I sought for words to speak.

The first thought that came was that, if Elonie were right and these people were the selected best of the race, then Dondromogon was decadently peopled. Not only were they smallish and mostly frail, but few had a distinguished or aggressive cast of countenance. The Council members had been wise-seeming, perhaps, but even they had not struck me as healthy types. To one side stood Doriza, militarily at attention, blue eyes fast upon me—she was a notable exception, compact and strong and healthy of body and mind, and at the same time quite as feminine as the more flashy and languorous Elonie just beside my platform. Through the rear ranks of listeners moved old white-bearded Sporr, who had much 

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