United States or China ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Astok bent close and whispered into the other's ear. The suggestion of a smile crossed the cruel features of Vas Kor. He realized the power that lay within his grasp. He should be a jed at least. "And how may I help you, my Prince?" asked the older man suavely. "I cannot kill her," said Astok. "Issus! I cannot do it! When she turns those eyes upon me my heart becomes water."
An instant later it had stopped, and as he brought his car to a halt, he saw the two men disappear through one of the exits of the corridor beyond. The morning of the second day of her incarceration in the east tower of the palace of Astok, Prince of Dusar, found Thuvia of Ptarth waiting in dull apathy the coming of the assassin.
HE must pay the penalty; and who better than Vas Kor could lead the Prince of Helium to Astok of Dusar? Faintly out of the night there came to Carthoris's ears the purring of a distant motor. He scanned the heavens.
Slowly Astok withdrew from the presence of his father. With white face and shaking limbs he made his way to his own palace. As he crossed the courtyard his glance chanced to wander to the great east tower looming high against the azure of the sky. At sight of it beads of sweat broke out upon his brow. Issus! No other hand than his could be trusted to do the horrid thing.
As the warship, bearing Astok back to the court of his father, turned toward the west, Thuvia of Ptarth, sitting upon the same bench where the Prince of Dusar had affronted her, watched the twinkling lights of the craft growing smaller in the distance. Beside her, in the brilliant light of the nearer moon, sat Carthoris.
She had been stolen by emissaries of the Dusarian prince Carthoris of Helium had had nothing to do with it. Nor did Astok deny the charge when she accused him. He only smiled and pleaded his love for her. "I would sooner mate with a white ape!" she cried, when he would have urged his suit. Astok glowered sullenly upon her.
At present I am Dwar of the Road for this district." Carthoris was very glad that he had not disclosed his identity, for though he had no idea of anything that had transpired since he had left Helium, or that Astok was at the bottom of all his misfortunes, he well knew that the Dusarian had no love for him, and that he could hope for no assistance within the dominions of Dusar.
"Good," said Astok, and a half-hour more found him rising above Dusar in his swiftest flier. The face of Carthoris of Helium gave no token of the emotions that convulsed him inwardly as he heard from the lips of Hal Vas that Helium was at war with Dusar, and that fate had thrown him into the service of the enemy.
But before they had passed half across the royal garden to where Astok of Dusar still held the struggling girl in his grasp, another figure sprang from a cluster of dense foliage that half hid a golden fountain close at hand. A tall, straight youth he was, with black hair and keen grey eyes; broad of shoulder and narrow of hip; a clean-limbed fighting man.
It should have been for ever the secret of Nutus and Astok, for upon it rested the safety of a throne. With that knowledge any man could wrest from the Jeddak of Dusar whatever he listed. But Astok was afraid, and he wanted from this older man the suggestion of an alternative. He went on. "I am to kill her," he whispered, looking fearfully around.
Word Of The Day