United States or Italy ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
I did not understand then the meaning of Matai Shang's rage or Phaidor's pleasure, but I knew that neither boded good for me. A moment later I was upon the backs of the yellow men, and as the red men of Helium saw me above the shoulders of their antagonists a great shout rang through the corridor, and for a moment drowned the noise of battle. "For the Prince of Helium!" they cried.
Bein' as how any o' us might be in Jim's boots mos' any day, reckon we'll have to turn him loose?" Shang's pathetic appeal for Jim's life clearly won outright more than half the jury, but there were several who, while their sympathies were with Jim, "'lowed they'd have to bring a verdic' accordin' to the evidence."
Instead I took a firm grasp upon the rail with my left hand and drew my dagger. I should at least die as I had lived fighting. As Thurid came opposite the cabin's doorway a new element projected itself into the grim tragedy of the air that was being enacted upon the deck of Matai Shang's disabled flier. It was Phaidor.
I saw the ugly gleam in Matai Shang's evil eyes as Dejah Thoris narrated all that had passed between Thurid and herself, and when she came to that part which dealt with my interference with the dator of the First Born her gratitude was quite apparent, though I could see by her eyes that something puzzled her strangely.
But finally I reached a point where my fingers could just clutch the sill of the lowest window, and I was on the point of breathing a sigh of relief when the sound of voices came to me from above through the open window. "He can never solve the secret of that lock." The voice was Matai Shang's.
And, by the way, in the dark days that came to ranchmen in 1885, Jim, risen to be a well-known and powerful banker in City, furnished the ready money necessary to save Shang's imperilled fortune; and when at length he heard that Shang was at death's door, Jim found the time to leave his large affairs and come all the way up from to Llano to bid his old friend farewell.
Two or three jurors who were too much fuddled with drink to saddle and mount were quickly captured. The rest escaped. Of course, the court was outraged and indignant, but it was powerless. So Jim was released, thanks to Shang's diplomacy and eloquence.
Matai Shang's reference to the hangar and the fliers indicated that my destination lay nothing short of the roof of the tower, and toward this seemingly distant goal I set my face. The most difficult and dangerous part of the journey was accomplished at last, and it was with relief that I felt my fingers close about the lowest of the stone cylinders.
Word Of The Day