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Updated: June 6, 2025
They must have carried me, still under the influence of wine fumes, to the chamber where I slept that night, for when I woke the following morning my surroundings were familiar enough, though a glorious maze of uncertainties rocked to and fro in my mind. Was it a real feast we had shared in overnight, or only a quaint dream? Was Heru real or only a lovely fancy?
I was almost overcome for a minute; then, pulling myself together, strode forward fiercely, and, speaking so that all could hear me, cried, "Base king, who neither knows the capacities of a spirit nor has learned as yet to dread its anger, see! your commission is executed in a thought, just as your punishment might be. Heru, come here."
Then a strange thing happened. Heru, who had been crouching in a tremulous heap by the tripod, rose stealthily and passed her hands a few times across the sphere. Colour and picture vanished at her touch like breath from a mirror. Again all was clear and pellucid. "Now," said my companion, "now listen!
Where was poor Heru? Where pink-shouldered An? Where those wild men who had taken the princess from us? Lastly, but not least, where was I? All the first stars of the Martian sky were strange to me, and my boat whirling round and round on the current confused what little geography I might otherwise have retained.
"Good morning, most singular-looking vagrant from the Unknown," answered the monarch. "In what way can I be of service to you? "I have come about that girl," I said, nodding to where Heru lay blossoming in the hot gloom like some night-flowering bud.
Poor Heru dropped in a limp and lovely heap at that dire threat, while I am bound to say I felt somewhat uncomfortable, not unnaturally when all the circumstances are considered, but contented myself with remarking, with as much bravado as could be managed, "And now to the errand, Ar-hap. What can I do for your majesty?"
"Not I, a hapless maid sent into this land of horrors, to bear ignominy and stripes, to eat coarse food and do coarse work, the miserable plaything of some brute in semi-human form, with but the one consolation of dying early as we tribute-women always die. Poor comrade in exile, I only know her as yet by sympathy." "What if I said it was Heru, the princess?"
Meanwhile, we have set you a place at the table-head near Princess Heru, and tonight you dip and have your chance like all of them; may luck send you a rosy bride, and save her from Ar-hap." "Ay, now I remember; An told me of this before; Ar-hap is the sovereign with whom your people have a little difference, and shares unbidden in the free distribution of brides to-night.
They melted away, a trifle more silently perhaps than usual, when I shattered the magic globe, but with their invariable indifference, and having handed the reviving Heru over to some women who led her away, apparently already half forgetful of the things that had just happened, I was left alone on the palace steps, not even An beside me, and only the shadow of a passerby now and then to break the solitude.
With the new morning came fresh energy and a spasm of conscience as I thought of poor Heru and the shabby sort of rescuer I was to lie about with these pretty triflers while she remained in peril.
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