"Wait. Until dawn, or perhaps later. Anyway, until you've had time to
think. Then I shall give you a last chance. After that, I shall kill
you."
She was smiling when he replaced the gag, and her eyes did not waver.
The hours passed. Darkness into dawn, and then into full daylight.
Winters sat unmoving, his head bowed over his knees. Fand's eyes were
closed, and it seemed that she slept.
The garden woke to life with the sun, and all around the dense thicket
Winters heard the padding footsteps and the growling of the beasts
of Shanga. The things in the shallow lake cried out, and their musky
taint soured the wind. Winters shivered like a man with fever and his
brooding eyes were haunted.
After a while Jill came. Animal-like she had found him, animal-like she
came, slipping without sound through the brush. She would have cried
out at the sight of Fand, but he silenced her. She crouched beside him,
watching him. She was afraid of him and yet she could not stay away. He
stroked her shoulder. It was soft and strong and trembling under his
hand. Her gaze was doe-like, full of sadness and a bewildered yearning.
Winters' face became as bleak and pitiless as the barren stars that
watch from outer space.
The time grew very short. Jill began to look upward toward the prisms.
Winters sensed in her a growing nervousness.
He shook Fand. She opened her eyes and looked at him, and he knew what
her answer would be before he asked the question.
"Well?"
She shook her head.
For the first time, Winters smiled. "I have decided," he said, "not to
kill you after all."
What he did after that was done quickly and efficiently, and there was
no one to see but Jill and Fand. Jill did not understand, the heiress
of the Kings of Valkis understood too well.
People began to drift into the amphitheatre. Martians, coming to see
a show, coming to learn contempt and loathing for the men of Earth.
Winters watched them. He was still smiling.
Suddenly he turned to Jill. When he rose a few minutes later, scratched
and panting, she was securely bound with strips torn from the bonds of
Fand. This time she would not bathe so helplessly in the fire of Shanga.
The Martians gathered. Kor Hal came into the royal box, bringing the
old woman, who leaned on his arm.
The gong sounded.
V
Once again, Winters watched the gathering of the beasts of Shanga.
Hidden in the thicket, beyond the reach of the rays, he saw the hairy
bodies rush and jostle toward the central clearing. He saw the shining
of their drugged eyes. He heard them moan and whimper, and all over the
garden the mouthing whisper went--_Shanga! Shanga!_
Jill writhed and thrashed in the agony of her desire, her cries muffled
by the wad of silk he had thrust into her mouth. Winters could not bear
to look at her. He knew how she was suffering. He was suffering himself.
He saw that Kor Hal was leaning forward over the edge of the wall,
searching the garden. He knew what the Martian was looking for.
The last notes of the gong rang out. A silence fell on the clearing.
Hairy anthropoid, shambling brute that ran on all fours, nameless
creatures beyond the ape, crawling thing with wet and shining
scales--all silent, all waiting.
The prisms began to glow. The beautiful wicked fire of Shanga filled
the air. Burk Winters set his hand between his teeth and bit until the
blood ran.
It seemed to him that he could hear a faint thin screaming, rising out
of the flowering shrubs by the lake. Low, tough-stemmed shrubs that lay
under the full rays of the prisms.
_Shanga! Shanga!_
He had to go, into the clearing, into the fiery light. He could not
stand it. He must feel again the burning touch on his flesh, the
madness and the joy. He could not stay away.
In desperation he flung himself down beside Jill and clung to her,
shuddering in torment.
He heard Kor Hal's voice, calling his name.
He steadied himself and rose, stepping out into the full sight of
the royal box. The Martians ranged on either side watched him with
interest, turning their attention momentarily from the orgy of the
beasts of Shanga.