THE WOMAN'S ANSWER
Hours later Croft looked from the windows of his room. The evening had
been spent in a far more formal fashion than the late afternoon. Lakkon
had come in. He had welcomed his guest. Naia had gone to her rooms to
dress for the evening meal. They had dined. Over the meal Croft had
described again his plans, to the flattering attention of his host.
Naia had lingered with them for a time, now and then meeting Croft's
glance with a smile of her crimson lips before she had gone to her room.
Now as he leaned from his window he found all the garden beneath him,
the mountain valley, the lake flooded in the light of the Palosian
moons. The night called to him, and his heart was too full, his brain
too busy with thought, to feel the spell of sleep. Drawing back he
left his apartment, passed down the balcony corridor to the small door
giving onto the garden stair and ran quickly down.
The breath of flowering shrubs was about him. Light and shadow filled
the place with a quiet beauty. Choosing a path which ran off before him
he strolled along. So by degrees he approached the white walls of the
garden bath, doubly white now in the night. And having approached them
he paused. The sound of a gentle splashing came from within.
Croft smiled. Another had felt the call of the outside world beside
himself, and surely he felt that he knew who that one was. "Princess,"
he called softly, from beside the entrance screen.
"Aye." The word came as soft as his own and was followed by a gentle
laugh. "Wait, Jasor of Nodhur." There came a louder sound of movement,
followed by a silence, and then: "And now my lord you may come."
Croft passed the screen. The maiden stood before him. Her hair was
coiled about her head. Her shoulder and arms showed glistening in the
moonlight from the moisture of her skin.
"Naia," said the man.
"My lord." She smiled.
"Nay--call me Jasor at least," he returned.
"Jasor," said she.
They were alone--a man and a maid. The white walls of the bath shut
them in from all prying eyes. The pool lay silvered by the moonlight
beneath them.
And suddenly, Croft reached out toward her and swept her into his arms.
That bold spirit which was his brooked no longer delay. He drew her to
him. His arms sensed the lithe coolness of her figure as its dampness
struck through the single garment, hastily donned at his call. So he
held her and sensed all her maddening presence. "Mine!" he cried,
pressing her close in the circle of his arms. "Mine! Woman whom Zitu
himself has made for me."
"Hush." Her hand fell over his lips, and he felt her tremble. "Jasor,
how knew you I was here?"
"I knew not until the night called me into the garden and I heard the
sound of the water," he replied. "Then your presence told me of itself
and I spoke your name."
There was a stone seat at one end of the pool. She led him there and
seated herself at his side. "You are bold," she said, speaking quickly.
"Jasor, I came here to think--as I have thought ever since we spoke
together today."
"And having thought, will you give me my answer now?"
She lifted her eyes, dark in the silver night. "Can you truly do those
things you spoke of?" she questioned him again as she had questioned
before.
"Do you doubt it?" he questioned in reply.
"Nay, I think not. You would do all you say--for me?"
"All and more, for you, or to save you a sorrow," Croft said.
"Think you," said she, "that Kyphallos of Aphur is aught to me?"
"No," Croft laughed. "I know you hate him, Princess--name him the beast
he is."
"You know much," she said in response and her voice was vibrant with
a tone he had never heard her use before. "Yet things there may be
you know not of. Listen, my lord. My lips touched not the wine in the
silver goblet the night of the betrothal-feast."
"Naia!" Croft came to his feet.
Naia of Aphur rose also. Her eyes were stars in the night. She stood
before him a slender, swaying shape. She put forth her hands. "My eyes
looked into yours above the goblet," she said softly, still in that
strange new tone. "They forbade my lips to drink. Hence, Jasor, this is
my answer--I am yours can you win me in time."
And now she came into his arms of her own volition. Croft found her
upon his breast, clinging to him with her slender hands, looking up
into his face. Some way his face sank to meet hers. Some way his mouth
found her lips.
Then she had torn her mouth away. "Zitu, what have I done?" she cried.
"No maid of Aphur may touch the lips of a man not of her blood, unless
she is his bride. But--but--this thing is stronger than I. Days span
the time since I have known you, yet Zitu knows it seems I have known
you always--have waited for you to come, and knew it not, until that
night when your glance met mine and told me I was yours. Jasor of
Nodhur, you _must_ save me--win me--now."
"Aye, I shall win you." Once more Croft claimed her lips and she did
not resist. A mad exaltation filled him. He had won--Naia of Aphur. She
lay in his arms. She had given him more than a maid of her race had any
right to give according to convention's code. No question then but that
her heart which beat so wildly against his breast, beat with the pulse
of love. He had won--and he would win, not only this, but all that she
could give.
"Swear it," she panted when once more her lips were free. "O Zitu,
swear I shall be wholly yours. Think you I could yield to Kyphallos
now? Nay--I had rather die."
"I swear," said Croft. "And tomorrow I shall return to Himyra and my
work."
"Tomorrow." Disappointment rang in her tones. "When I have counted each
day until you should come."
"Himyra is not far in the car already made," Croft said ignoring her
ingenuous confession. "I shall come to you again--aye, again and
again."
"Yet must we be discreet," Naia exclaimed. "You must come--I _must_ see
you--but we must keep this secret in our hearts. Did Lakkon dream that
Naia had dared to break her spoken pledge--" She paused. A tremor shook
her as she leaned against him with his arm about her waist.
* * * * *
"You must return to your room," he urged. "Fear not. Yet when you pray,
ask of Zitu that he give me speed and knowledge in my work. And should
you not see or hear from me for a time, be sure that all I do is for
you, that you are ever in my thoughts."
"As you will be in mine." Once more she turned to face him. "Yet before
I go in now, my lord, give me again your lips."
"Beloved!" Croft held her a final moment and saw her depart.
Himself he lingered by the pool. His soul was on fire. He had won!
Naia of Aphur in her soul was his. The soft warmth of her lips still
lingered upon his own. Aye, he had won--her surrender to himself. That
final kiss showed how complete that surrender was. So complete was it,
that she had over-stepped all the code of her nation and caste in order
to give it expression, had placed herself where, should her act be
learned, she would stand before her people disgraced.
Nor was his love less than hers. It was a great love, which had brought
him to this time--so great, so all compelling, he felt now that even in
his student days in India it had drawn him in a strange, subconscious
fashion not then understood--so great that for it he had dared the
unknown, to find the feminine complement of his spirit, whom tonight he
had held within his arms.
No mere lure of the flesh was his divine passion, which had drawn him
and fired him now to a resolution to work, work for it and it alone,
until he had won not only Naia's love, but Naia as well. She had said
the thing was stronger than herself. Croft knew it was stronger than
himself as he sat beside the moonlit pool. It was one of those great
loves, which have made history before this and will again. Hence
tomorrow he would go back to Himyra, and there he would work and plan.
And, thought Croft, he must spy upon Cathur's prince, in the way only
he could compass so far as he knew. Kyphallos must be in Scira now,
unless he had gone back to Anthra. Kyphallos must be watched. There was
that trip to Niera he had promised Kalamita to make. Would he tell her
what had occurred in Himyra? And if so, what would Zollaria's Magnet
of white flesh do? That she felt any emotion for Kyphallos other than
as a pawn to her hand, Croft did not believe. He knew her type, and
frankly he believed her an agent of her nation set to ensnare the heir
of Cathur and further Zollaria's plans. He nodded his head and rose.
He would find this Cathurian prince and see what he did, and where at
present he was.
Quickly he went back to his own apartment and laid himself on the
couch. Naia he fancied was lying so even now in that room where Azil
lifted his carved white wings beside her mirror pool. He smiled. Some
day he promised his heart, his empty arms, they should not lie apart,
but together, on a moonlit Palosian night.
Then he put all that out of his mind and fixed its full power on his
task. Swifty that conscious entity which was the real man flitted
across the Central Sea, and found itself in the palace of Scythys,
the Cathurian king. About it he prowled, invisible and unseen by the
nodding palace guards. And in it he found no sign of Scythys's son.
Once more he flitted free. To Abbu he went and found the monk asleep
in a room of the Scira pyramid. And from there he flashed to Anthra,
and found the gilded galley of the fickle youth tied up in the harbor
basin, and Kyphallos lost in dalliance with a slender and beautiful
dancer. He turned away with disgust; yet not before he learned that
Kyphallos went to Niera tomorrow, as he had promised Kalamita he would
do more than a month before.
* * * * *
Back to his chamber and the body of Jasor of Nodhur went Croft. At
least now he was satisfied that he could watch Kyphallos and mark his
every move. Then let Kyphallos beware. He gave a final glance to the
moon-flooded night and slept.
And in the morning he entered the motor and ran back to Himyra before
the heat of the day. Work--work. That was to be his motto for the
golden days to come. But first he must again return to earth.
That day, therefore, he spent in coaching Robur toward keeping the
work moving on the engines. Also he requested that he have a great
shop erected beyond the one they were using to expedite the work, and
drew for him the plans for a sort of dock, wherein motors might be
installed in a number of ships.
"Why give these to me?" Robur asked after Croft had explained.
"Since, that tonight, Rob, I shall fall into the sleep of which I have
told you," Croft replied.
"Zitu! You feel it upon you?" Robur half started back.
"Yes."
"And it will last for how long a time?"
"I know not," said Croft. "It shall endure until I am possessed of the
next means for making Aphur strong. Do you remember your promise to
guard my body well?"
"It shall be well guarded, my strange friend," Robur promised again.
Yet that night a sudden panic seized upon Croft. What, he asked
himself, if some unknown peril should threaten Naia while he was
studying munition-making on earth? He considered that for a time,
before he saw a way around. And then he sought out Gaya, and finding
her alone as luck would have it, explained to her as he had explained
to Robur before the nature of his coming sleep.
She heard him wide-eyed, and before she could break forth in comment
Croft went on. "But Gaya, wife of my friend, should any peril or danger
threaten Naia, daughter of Lakkon, the cousin of your lord, and I be
still asleep--come quickly to me and bend to whisper, 'Naia needs you'
and I promise I shall awake."
Gaya gave him a wide-eyed, startled glance. "Her name will rouse you
from this sleep of deathlike seeming?" she exclaimed.
"Aye," Croft smiled. Gaya's expression had told him in a flash that she
understood. "Wife of my friend, I think her name might wake me from
death itself."
"Jasor!" Gaya cried. "My lord--can this thing be?"
"That my heart lies at her pink-nailed feet?" Croft retorted. "Aye."
"Yet is she pledged to Cathur." Gaya grew swiftly pale. "Jasor, my
good lord--and you love her, speak not concerning it to any other save
myself. I swear by Zitu to keep your words in my heart. Do you control
your tongue."
Croft smiled into her troubled face again. "My tongue I may control,"
he declared. "But my heart can I not curb in its mad passion for the
maid, nor make it less rebel against this plighted troth."
"Robur approves not of it, nor I," Gaya told him softly. "Love brought
Milidhur and Aphur together. But--this--this is of--of other design."
And suddenly she knit her well-formed brows. "Jasor," said she speaking
very quickly; "you are strong--you have thoughts above other men, and
something tells me the maid would lie happy in your arms."
Croft sprang to his feet. "You would approve it, Gaya, my sweet
friend?" he exclaimed with flashing eyes.
"I am a woman," she replied in almost breathless fashion. "Naia loathes
this Cathurian prince."
"And a cycle lies before us, ere he claims her for his own," Croft
smiled.
"What mean you?" Gaya half rose. Her hand lifted to her breast.
"Nay." Croft shook his head. "I cannot tell you. Yet, as you say, I
am strong, and I shall make Aphur and Tamarizia strong as myself and
stronger a thousand fold. Remember, therefore, the words I have told
you to speak, and say them close in my ear, in case any need should
arise."