Life on other planets -- Fiction; Mars (Planet) -- Fiction; Science fiction
"We have arrived in U-Gor," he said. "Here I shall set you at liberty,
but first give me the strange thing that rendered you invisible in my
palace."
The cloak of invisibility! How had he learned of that? Who could have
told him? There seemed but one explanation, but every fiber of my
being shrank even from considering it. I had rolled it up into a small
ball and tucked it into the bottom of my pocket pouch, its sheer silk
permitting it to be compressed into a very small space. He took the gag
from my mouth.
"When you return to your palace at Jahar," I said, "look upon the floor
beneath the window in the apartment that was occupied by Sanoma Tora.
If you find it there you are welcome to it. As far as I am concerned it
has served its purpose well."
"Why did you leave it there?" he demanded.
"I was in a great hurry when I quit the palace and accidents will
happen." I will admit that my lie may not have been very clever, but
neither was Tul Axtar and he was deceived by it.
Grumbling, he opened one of the keel hatches and very unceremoniously
dropped me through it. Fortunately the ship lay close to the ground
and I was not injured. Next he lowered Tavia to my side, and then he,
himself, descended to the ground. Stooping, he cut the bonds that
secured Tavia's wrists.
"I shall keep the other," he said. "She pleases," and somehow I knew
that he meant Phao. "This one looks like a man and I swear that she
would be as easy to subdue as a she-banth. I know the type. I shall
leave her with you." It was evident that he had not recognized Tavia as
one of the former occupants of the women's quarters in his palace and I
was glad that he had not.
He re-entered the Jhama, but before he closed the hatch he spoke to
us again. "I shall drop your weapons when we are where you cannot use
them against me and you may thank the future Jeddara of Jahar for the
clemency I have shown you!"
Slowly the Jhama rose. Tavia was removing the cords from her ankles and
when she was free she came and fell to work upon the bonds that secured
me, but I was too dazed, too crushed by the blow that had been struck
me to realize any other fact than that Sanoma Tora, the woman I loved,
had betrayed me, for I fully realized now what any one but a fool would
have guessed before--that Tul Axtar had bribed her to set him free by
the promise that he would make her Jeddara of Jahar.
Well, her ambition would be fulfilled, but at what a hideous cost.
Never, if she lived for a thousand years could she look upon herself or
her act with aught but contempt and loathing, unless she was far more
degraded than I could possibly believe. No; she would suffer, of that I
was sure; but that thought gave me no pleasure. I loved her and I could
not even now wish her unhappiness.
As I sat there on the ground, my head bowed in misery, I felt a soft
arm steal about my shoulders and a tender voice spoke close to my ear.
"My poor Hadron!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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