Xenora of Lothar
I went back to the beautiful sleeping girl, and sat down again in my
rapt contemplation of the quiet charm of her face. She was breathing
quite normally, and the face bore a slight smile of pleasure. Suddenly
she moved, and the eyelids were raised. Clear violet eyes looked
straight into mine--they were those eyes that have haunted me always.
"Melvin Dane!" she breathed in a voice that was low and musical and
wholly delicious. She knew me! She spoke my name! Truly, it was the
Green Girl! She was aware of the meeting of our minds upon the ether!
"My chieftain of dreams!"
From beneath the light covers she reached a slender rounded arm, white,
with just a hint of green tan. I took her hand in my own, feeling a
strange thrill at the touch. After a moment of hesitation, when I
struggled fiercely with that thrill, relaxing to it briefly, I put her
hand quickly to my lips, and then released it.
I did not feel capable of speech. For all the hours since we had found
the girl, I had been undergoing a storm of emotions--alternate joy and
despair. Now, when the Green Girl actually smiled upon me, I forgot all
my old dreams of how I would cross oceans and voyage through space to
take her in my arms. I sat still, with a curious lump in my throat, in
incredulous joy, not daring even to surrender to the delicious thrill
of her touch.
She laughed softly and questioned, "From whence did you come, chieftain
of my dreams, or am I dreaming still?"
"It's no dream," I began awkwardly. "Though I can hardly feel that it
isn't. I came from a land above the red sky. I have always dreamed of
you! And now I find you real--living! What is your name? Do you have
people?"
"I am Xenora. My father was the last prince of the old city of Lothar.
My people now are few."
"You spoke my name! You already knew it?"
"Yes, Melvin Dane, I have dreamed of you since I was a child. Even now,
before I awoke, I had a curious dream of you--I thought you were coming
to me through the sky in a ship of fire." The poor girl had raised
herself on her elbow. Now she lay back on the pillows again as if she
were very weak.
"So you have known me always, too!"
"Since one day when I was a child. The old lost city was my playground,
and even when I was very small I wandered alone through the great
palaces of old Lothar, dreaming of the ancient time when her warriors
were great. One day I found a strange machine in a ruined tower room.
Curious sounds came out of it when I put it to my ears. And then came
the vision of you--of the white prince of my dreams. Day after day I
slipped back, to dream of you. But even when I could go back no longer,
you still came to me in dreams."
"But now they are dreams no longer! You are mine!" I exulted.
I thought there was something wistful in her smile, a hint of sadness
in her sparkling violet eyes. "Yes," she breathed, "even for a little
time, it is real. A little time, before the end."
She rose a little, resting on her elbow. I took her hand again. How
slender and small it was! She still smiled, a little wanly.
"Don't speak of the end!" I said, unconsciously lapsing into the
strange tongue in which I had so often conversed with her. "I have
found you. You are safe. The flying thing is dead!"
For a moment there was frank admiration in her violet eyes that went
oddly to my head. "You killed it! You are like the great warriors of
old!"
"Hardly," I demurred with painful honesty. "I did nothing except push
down a little pin."
"But the Lunak, the flying thing, is not what I fear. It had taken me
from a fate that was far worse. It was carrying me from the power of
the Lord of Flame!"
Her eyes dilated as she pronounced the words, as if they were a curse
of fatal horror. For a moment she seemed to struggle fiercely with
some terrible fear. She sank back rigid and unconscious to the couch.
I sprang to her and lifted her in my arms. I started to call Sam, but
in a moment her body relaxed, and her breathing was resumed, though she
did not open her eyes.
Still, I felt no haste to put her down. I brought her a little closer
to my heart, and my lips were very close indeed to hers when suddenly
her violet eyes opened wide. I almost dropped her in my speechless
confusion, and I felt myself turning red. Embarrassed more than I care
to say, I hurriedly departed for the galley.
I found Sam whistling cheerfully and busy making apple pies for dinner.
I have known several men who called themselves scientists, but Sam is
the only one of them who had mastered the science of cooking. He used
to say that if he were going to be hanged, he would want to cook and
eat his dinner first.
"What did you do with the little--reptile-plant?" I asked.
"Oh, Alexander's gone to bed," he said lightly, pointing to a
ventilated cardboard box on the shelves. "But how are you coming on
with your specimen?" he questioned with a grin.
"Xenora seems--er--recovering very well. Perhaps you had better see
her. She might think--that I----"
As Sam, with an understanding nod, walked toward the cabin door, I
climbed out on deck, to think about it all. The great trees still
whispered a little in the hot south wind, which was laden with the
unfamiliar fragrance of the great purple flowers. The rich green grass
moved in long waves before it. The red glare still beat down with a
torrid intensity. I gazed up the vast slope of purple and green, to the
blue cliffs in the distant north, and wondered about what the girl had
told me--and about what she thought of me now. I cursed myself for my
impulsive action.
A city of ruined palaces! A fallen race that had had a science great
enough to build a radio machine--if such it was--which she had found
and over which our minds had met! And a thing more terrible, and the
flying plants! What had she meant by the words, "The Lord of Flame,"
the mere utterance of which had overwhelmed her with horror?
Then I thought again of the metal bands and frame we had cut from her
body, and of the strange burns upon her skin. What was it that had
caused them? Did all of that link up with the menace that threatened
the earth? That might even now be doing its work?