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Updated: June 3, 2025
Elza gazed around her fearsomely. The air was heavy, oppressive. Redolent with the perfume of wild flowers and the smell of mouldering, steaming soil. "All in good time. Lady Elza," Tarrano repeated. "You will know where we are presently; we are closer to human habitation than you would think." Elza's heart pounded. As they were descending she had noticed a glow of light in the sky ahead.
He had never crossed Elza's mind from that time, until today she saw and recognized him. When they were alone, still without moving from his seat, he signed her to come to him, to sit on the carpet of grass at his feet. She was frightened, but she would not show it. He made no move to touch her; he gazed down to meet her upturned, fascinated stare, still with his gentle, whimsical smile.
It was a very small incident, but in view of what was transpiring, it gave me a shock nevertheless. For Elza's maid was a Venus girl! Spy in the House The insulated room was small, with a dome-shaped ceiling, no windows, and but one small, heavy door through which we entered, closing it carefully behind us. "At last," Dr. Brende exclaimed. "Now we can talk freely." But I was not satisfied.
Momentarily I saw them clearer; metallic cylinders in bony fingers, and a metal mechanism of flight encasing, yet not touching the ribs. "Jac! Why don't our rays " As though to answer Elza's unfinished question, one of our towers turned a disintegrating ray upon them. A narrow pencil-point of light, barely visible in this flat daylight.
Irksome, worried days of semi-imprisonment; and through them, Tarrano's attitude toward her was unchanged. She saw little of him; he seemed very busy, though to what end, and what his activities, she could not learn. Within the palace, half as guard, half as maid-servant, Tara was generally Elza's only companion.
Terror surged within Elza's heart. "Tarrano!" "Elza dear my Elza " "Tarrano!" She fought with him. "Tarrano, do you dare I tell you " The frightened pleading of a woman at bay. And then abruptly he cast her off. His laugh was grim. "What a fool I am! Tarrano the weakling!" He leaped from the couch and began pacing the room. "Tarrano the weakling! To what depths has Tarrano fallen!"
"Well, then," she said, blushing deeply, "go, then. Procure my Elza's release, bring her home, and then " "And then?" he asked, as she hesitated. "Then you shall receive at the hands of the priest a bride who loves you, loves you with infinite tenderness," she said, in a low voice. He uttered a cry of joy, and folded her to his heart. But she disengaged herself gently.
He checked his words, and started forward. But Dr. Brende was with him, and in doubt what to do I followed with Elza. We entered the nearest building, into a low, dim room, with doors on the sides. In the silence I seemed to hear my heart pounding my ribs. Elza's face was pale and perturbed, but she smiled very courageously at me. "Wait!" said Georg. "You wait here."
Close by Elza, partially behind her, I saw something small, no taller than Elza's waist. A naked thing of sleek, glistening skin. The monstrosity of a human child; a bulging head, wavering upon a neck incapable of supporting it; a thick round body; twisted, misshapen limbs. A face ... human? It made my gorge rise with its gruesome suggestion of humanity.
Eliza had received this afternoon another letter from her friend; with a melancholy smile she read Elza's description of her domestic happiness, and her eyes had unconsciously filled with tears which rolled slowly down her pale cheeks. She dried them quickly, but her mother, who sat opposite her near the lamp and seemed to be busily sewing, had already seen them.
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