United States or Saint Vincent and the Grenadines ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"From the Great City they seem to come. Perhaps it is Anina." Our hopes were soon dispelled, for Anina was not one of them; they were three of the girls we had directed to patrol the seacoast. When they neared us Miela flew off the platform and joined them. They circled about for a time, flying close together, then Miela left them and returned to me, while they hovered overhead.
His fingers closed over the little cylinder and the hand holding it. He bent it inward, twisting the man's wrist. His thumb fumbled for the little button Anina had described. There was a tiny puff of light; the man's body wavered, then fell forward inert. Mercer climbed into the boat. He looked back. Anina was pulling herself up over the stern. A long pole lay across the seats.
As a matter of fact, he really was more curious just to see it than anything else. But there was another reason that urged him on. Both he and Anina were hungry. They had eaten very little since leaving the Great City the night before; and now that it was again evening, they were famished.
"It's wonderful. But it's it's so sad and and sort of weird isn't it?" "That is love, my mother says. Love is sad." Mercer's heart was beating fast. "Is it always sad, Anina? I don't think so do you?" There was no trace of coquetry in her eyes; she sighed tremulously. "I do not know about love. But what I feel here" she put her hand on her breast "I do not understand, Ollie.
The storm had now entirely passed, leaving the daylight unusually bright and a fresh coolness in the air. The sea was still rough, although not alarmingly so, and the boat made comparatively slow progress. It was two hours or more to Mercer it seemed a whole day before they were nearing the bayous. Anina was sitting by his side in the center of the boat. Lua was steering.
And then as he was about to begin telling her what was in his mind Mercer suddenly remembered that they were still heading toward the Light Country, every moment getting farther away from Tao's men, whose homeward journey he must head off some way. "We must go back, Anina back where we came from at once. Tell them now! Then I'll tell you why."
The workers had returned from the terraces; there were few moving about the city. Occasionally a girl would dart up from one of the houses and wing her way to another, but beyond that there were no signs of activity. Anina took command of the boat now, slowing it down and heading for the nearest of the houses, which were hardly more than quarter of a mile away.
She put the boat nearly to full speed, and as they swept past a house nearly collided with a punt that was crossing behind it. Mercer's nerves were still shaken. He handed Anina the light-ray cylinder. "Here take it, Anina. I don't want the cursed thing. Shoot it up into the air. Somebody might try and stop us. That'll scare them. Careful you don't hit anything!"
He put out his hand awkwardly and touched hers. "Do you, Anina?" he whispered. Her little figure swayed toward him. She half turned, and in her shining eyes he saw the light that needs no words to make its meaning clear. The timidity that so often before had restrained him was swept away; he took her abruptly into his arms, kissing her hair, her eyes, her lips.
He felt his way forward among them toward the bottom of the steps. He heard the moan again, and now he saw the outlines of a human figure lying against the farther wall. Anina was close behind him. "There's somebody over there," he whispered. "Hurt or sick, maybe." They crept forward. It was a woman, bound hand and foot and gagged. Mercer bent over and tore the cloth from her face.
Word Of The Day