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Terror flooded Elza; that time she had always feared, had come. Yet she had the presence of mind to smile, drawing away from him and sitting up, with the fur bed-covering pulled to her chin. "Tarrano? Why " He straightened, and into his expression came apology. "I frightened you, Lady Elza? I'm sorry. I would not do that for all the worlds." Her terror receded.
We drew up to a stone landing-place. "The palace of the Princess Maida," Wolfgar whispered. But I had no time to question him. Attendants appeared. A queer mixture. Incongruous men of science, armed with belts of instruments. They greeted Tarrano humbly; escorted him away. Other attendants. Natives of the city, in the flowing, bright-colored robes we had seen everywhere.
In a few moments more, I knew the numbness would reach my heart. Tarrano had not moved, save that single step side-wise to avoid my onslaught. As I stood there now with my face like fire and my brain whirling with the blood congested in it, I heard his quiet voice: "Do not fear, Lady Elza. This Jac Hallen as I promised you is quite safe with me."
Tarrano refused the cushions; he placed Elza deferentially upon them, and spread food and drink and sweet-meats before her. Near them sat Georg and Maida. I would have sat between Elza and Georg, but Tarrano pulled me away from them. "You are wanted below." He said it very softly, for my ears alone; but through his mask I could see his eyes blazing at me.
A barge was awaiting us a broad flat vessel with gaudy trappings. A score of attendants lined its sides, each with a pole to thrust it through the shallow water. And on its high-raised stern, beneath a canopy was a couch upon which Tarrano reclined, with us of his party at his feet. A royal barge, queerly ancient, barbaric reminding me of the flat, motionless pictures of Earth's early history.
It seemed somehow ominous, this lack of action from Tarrano; and when the leader of our line a tower vehicle rose sharply to scale the jagged peaks of the Divide, the flare of a hostile electronic bomb rising came almost as a relief. From the instrument room forewarned an instant by the hiss of our microphones I saw the bomb start upward.
During the trip Tarrano sat calm, half reclining on his couch sat watching with his keen expressionless eyes the applause of the multitude. It was, I think, and I believe he felt it also, the height of his career up to that time this triumphant entry into the greatest city of Venus. He did not speak, just sat watching and listening, with a half smile of triumph pulling at his mouth.
With all the power of her mind she was thinking her warning to me, praying that it might reach me. "Single-handed, Lady Elza. You shall see now how, single-handed, I make impossible any attack upon Tarrano." In her abstraction Elza had almost forgotten herself and Tarrano; his voice reached her his voice grim and with a gloating, sinister triumph in it. He was bending to the ground.
We heard the hum of it; and when we went up there, the first thing we saw was a mirror tuned in readiness for us to view the garden we had just left. This strange Tarrano, giving Georg the visible proof that he would keep his word and not harm Elza. We could see in this mirror the image of the scene down there Elza and Tarrano talking. But could not hear the words those were denied us.
And with sinking heart I had listened, for it did not seem to me that any maiden could resist so dominant a man as this. But I had made no comment, nor had Georg. Elza had seemed unwilling to discuss it, had flushed when her brother's eyes had keenly searched her face. And she flushed now, but Tarrano dismissed the subject with a gesture.
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