| 128 | 129 | 130 | 131 | 132 |
| 1 | 50 | 99 | 149 | 198 |
|
www.freeclassicebooks.com
She turned her great, deep eyes up to his and in them was a little of reproach.
"You did not guess," she asked, "that it was my lips alone and not my heart that
denied you? O-Tar had ordered that I die, more because I was a companion of
Ghek than because of any evidence against me, and so I knew that if I
acknowledged you as one of us, you would be slain, too."
"
"
"
It was to save me, then?" he cried, his face suddenly lighting.
It was to save my brave panthan," she said in a low voice.
Tara of Helium," said the warrior, dropping to one knee, "your words are as food
to my hungry heart," and he took her fingers in his and pressed them to his lips.
Gently she raised him to his feet. "You need not tell me, kneeling," she said,
softly.
Her hand was still in his as he rose and they were very close, and the man was
still flushed with the contact of her body since he had carried her from the throne
room of O-Tar. He felt his heart pounding in his breast and the hot blood surging
through his veins as he looked at her beautiful face, with its downcast eyes and
the half-parted lips that he would have given a kingdom to possess, and then he
swept her to him and as he crushed her against his breast his lips smothered
hers with kisses.
But only for an instant. Like a tigress the girl turned upon him, striking him, and
thrusting him away. She stepped back, her head high and her eyes flashing fire.
"
You would dare?" she cried. "You would dare thus defile a princess of Helium?"
His eyes met hers squarely and there was no shame and no remorse in them.
Yes, I would dare," he said. "I would dare love Tara of Helium; but I would not
"
dare defile her or any woman with kisses that were not prompted by love of her
alone." He stepped closer to her and laid his hands upon her shoulders. "Look
into my eyes, daughter of The Warlord," he said, "and tell me that you do not wish
the love of Turan, the panthan."
"I do not wish your love," she cried, pulling away. "I hate you!" and then turning
away she bent her head into the hollow of her arm, and wept.
The man took a step toward her as though to comfort her when he was arrested
by the sound of a crackling laugh behind him. Wheeling about, he discovered a
strange figure of a man standing in a doorway. It was one of those rarities
occasionally to be seen upon Barsoom--an old man with the signs of age upon
him. Bent and wrinkled, he had more the appearance of a mummy than a man.
130
Page
Quick Jump
|