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Chapter 9

Victory! She was here, a slave to these black conquerors. Once more I started

toward her, but better judgment held me back--I could do nothing to help her

other than by stealth. Could I even accomplish aught by this means? I did not

know. It seemed beyond the pale of possibility, and yet I should try.

"And you will not bend the knee to me?" continued Menelek, after she had

spoken. Victory shook her head in a most decided negation.

"You shall be my first choice, then," said the emperor. "I like your spirit, for the

breaking of it will add to my pleasure in you, and never fear but that it shall be

broken--this very night. Take her to my apartments," and he motioned to an

officer at his side.

I was surprised to see Victory follow the man off in apparent quiet submission. I

tried to follow, that I might be near her against some opportunity to speak with

her or assist in her escape. But, after I had followed them from the throne room,

through several other apartments, and down a long corridor, I found my further

progress barred by a soldier who stood guard before a doorway through which the

officer conducted Victory.

Almost immediately the officer reappeared and started back in the direction of the

throne room. I had been hiding in a doorway after the guard had turned me

back, having taken refuge there while his back was turned, and, as the officer

approached me, I withdrew into the room beyond, which was in darkness. There

I remained for a long time, watching the sentry before the door of the room in

which Victory was a prisoner, and awaiting some favorable circumstance which

would give me entry to her.

I have not attempted to fully describe my sensations at the moment I recognized

Victory, because, I can assure you, they were entirely indescribable. I should

never have imagined that the sight of any human being could affect me as had

this unexpected discovery of Victory in the same room in which I was, while I had

thought of her for weeks either as dead, or at best hundreds of miles to the west,

and as irretrievably lost to me as though she were, in truth, dead.

I was filled with a strange, mad impulse to be near her. It was not enough merely

to assist her, or protect her--I desired to touch her--to take her in my arms. I was

astounded at myself. Another thing puzzled me--it was my incomprehensible

feeling of elation since I had again seen her. With a fate worse than death staring

her in the face, and with the knowledge that I should probably die defending her

The Lost Continent