Nemone sat up very straight. Her eyes flashed. "I should have you
killed!" she cried. Tarzan said nothing. He just kept his eyes on hers.
She could not tell whether or not he was laughing at her. Finally she
sank back on her pillows with a gesture of resignation. "What is the
use?" she demanded. "You probably would not let me get any satisfaction
from killing you anyway, and by this time I should be accustomed to
being affronted."
"What you are not accustomed to is hearing the truth. Everyone is
afraid of you. The reason you are interested in me is because I am not.
It might do you good to hear the truth more often."
"For instance?"
"I am not going to undertake the thankless job of regenerating
royalty," Tarzan assured her with a laugh.
"Let us stop quarreling. Nemone forgives you."
"I do not quarrel," said Tarzan; "only the weak and the wrong quarrel."
"Now answer my question. Are you a lion man in your own country?"
"I am a noble," replied the ape-man, "but I can tell you that that
means little; a ditch digger may become a noble if he control enough
votes, or a rich brewer if he subscribe a large amount of money to the
political party in power."
"And which were you," demanded Nemone, "a ditch digger or a rich
brewer?"
"Neither," laughed Tarzan.
"Then why are you a noble?" insisted the Queen.
"For even less reason than either of those," admitted the ape-man. "I
am a noble through no merit of my own but by an accident of birth; my
family for many generations has been noble."
"Ah!" exclaimed Nemone. "It is just as I thought; you _are_ a lion man!"
"And what of it?" demanded Tarzan.
"It simplifies matters," she explained, but she did not amplify the
explanation nor did Tarzan either understand or inquire as to its
implication. As a matter of fact he was not greatly interested in the
subject.
Nemone extended a hand and laid it on his, a soft, warm hand that
trembled just a little. "I am going to give you your freedom," she
said, "but on one condition."
"And what is that?" asked the ape-man.
"That you remain here, that you do not try to leave Onthar--or me."
Her voice was eager and just a little husky, as though she spoke under
suppressed emotion.
Tarzan remained silent. He would not promise, and so he did not speak.
He realized, too, how easy it would be to remain if Nemone bid one do
so. She fascinated him; she seemed to exercise a subtle influence,
mysterious, hypnotic; yet he was determined to make no promise.
"I will make you a noble of Cathne," whispered Nemone. She was sitting
erect now, her face close to Tarzan's. He could feel the warmth of her
body close to his; the aura of some exotic scent was in his nostrils;
her fingers closed upon his arm with a fierceness that hurt. "I will
have made for you helmets of gold and habergeons of ivory, the most
magnificent in Cathne; I will give you lions, fifty, a hundred; you
shall be the richest, the most powerful noble of my court!"
The lord of the jungle felt weak beneath the spell of her burning eyes.
"I do not want _such_ things," he said.
Her soft arm crept up about his neck. A tender light, that was new to
them, welled in the eyes of Nemone, the Queen of Cathne. "Tarzan!" she
whispered.
And then a door at the far end of the chamber opened and a negress
entered. She had been very tall, but now she was old and bent; her
scraggly wool was scant and white. Her withered lips were twisted into
something that might have been either a snarl or a grin, revealing
her toothless gums. She stood in the doorway leaning upon a staff and
shaking her head, an ancient, palsied hag.
At the interruption Nemone straightened and looked around. The
expression that had transformed and softened her countenance was swept
away by a sudden wave of rage, inarticulate but no less terrible.
The old hag tapped upon the floor with her staff; her head nodded
ceaselessly like that of some grotesque and horrible doll, and her lips
were still contorted in what Tarzan realized now was no smile but a
hideous snarl. "Come!" she cackled. "Come! Come! Come!"
Nemone sprang to her feet and faced the woman. "M'duze!" she screamed.
"I could kill you! I could tear you to pieces! Get out of here!"
But the old woman only tapped with her staff and cackled, "Come! Come!
Come!"
Slowly Nemone approached her. As one drawn by an invisible and
irresistible power the Queen crossed the chamber, the old hag stepped
aside, and the Queen passed on through the doorway into the darkness
of a corridor beyond. The old woman turned her eyes upon Tarzan, and,
snarling, backed through the doorway after Nemone. Noiselessly the door
closed behind them.
Tarzan had arisen as Nemone arose. For an instant he hesitated and then
took a step toward the doorway in pursuit of the Queen and the old hag;
then he heard a door open and a step behind him, and turned to see the
noble who had ushered him into Nemone's presence standing just within
the threshold.
"You may return to the quarters of Gemnon," announced the noble
politely.
Tarzan shook himself as might a lion; he drew a palm across his eyes
as one whose vision has been clouded by a mist; then he drew a deep
sigh and moved toward the doorway as the noble stepped aside to let him
pass, but whether it was a sigh of relief or regret, who may say?
As the lord of the jungle passed out of the chamber, Belthar sprang to
the ends of his chains with a thunderous roar.