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Rolls said: "Understand that failure spells final failure for the failer. I know the girl: if you attack her, she fights; and if, as usual, she wins, she gives you time to sigh one last prayer: it's woe to the conquered there, look. What follows? That we shouldn't stake all upon one throw. And we shouldn't try it on without experiment first. Let's rehearse the whole fakement."

"And if the rehearsal fails," Cobby said, "the play never comes off."

"Yes," answered Rolls, "if we are not all in the rehearsal. So let Macray and me go forward alone, get into the sigodhlo, ascertain what's what, and come back to you before we all pitch into it together. If we two come to grief, there'll be still you left."

Rolls' and Macray's glances lingered together, while Cobby flushed a little, saying: "But why am I being put up in cotton wool?"

"Because yours is the most valuable life," Rolls quietly answered.

"Yes"—from Cobby—"but I am deliberately on an adventure, risking that life: I cannot permit you and Macray to incur greater——"