Daughter of the Sun: A Tale of AdventureGregory, Jackson
Science
Daughter of the Sun: A Tale of Adventure
Gregory, Jackson
Adventure stories; Fantasy fiction; Science fiction; Western stories
Then Zoraida rose and went from one of the glasses to another, turning
them a little to right or left, adjusting painstakingly, seeming to
read the meaning of some fine lines scratched in the stone floor. Her
eyes were like a mad woman's. She herself moved her chair, shoving it
from the rug to the bare floor, careful that each supporting crystal
sphere rested exactly upon a chosen spot. Her retainer handed her a
small stool; she placed it and, since it was near the spot where he
stood, Kendric made out the four crosses where the four legs were to
go. Then Zoraida went swiftly back to her chair.
As she sat down she called again sharply to the squat brute who served
her. His broad ugly teeth showed white in his animal grin; he ran
across the room and swept back the curtains draping the wall. They
were laced to rings along the upper edge and the rings ran on a long
rod. As they were whipped back they disclosed no ordinary wall but a
great expanse of mirror extending from floor to ceiling, from corner to
corner. When two other walls were exposed they too resolved themselves
into clearly reflecting surfaces.
"Clap-trap again," muttered Kendric, beginning to feel a strange dread
in his heart and growing angry with it and determined that Zoraida
should not guess.
"Be seated," commanded Zoraida sternly. "If you would see what
amusement is being offered a friend of yours!"
One by one the lamps were being put out by the hasty hand of the fellow
whom Kendric began to long to strangle; he could hear a low guttural
gurgling sort of noise rising from the thick throat, issuing from the
monstrous mouth. Zoraida did not appear to hear but sat rigid,
waiting. At last, when all but one opaque shaded lamp were
extinguished and the room was cast into shadowy gloom, Kendric,
impelled by environment, a curious dread and perhaps the will of
Zoraida, sat down on the stool.
"Clap-trap, you say!" scoffed Zoraida. "Watch the first mirror!"
At first the mirror reflected nothing save the shadowy room and a
vague, half-seen line of other mirrors. But while Kendric watched
there came a swift change. Somewhere a lamp had been lighted--several
lamps, for there was a brilliant light. He saw reflected what appeared
to be a small room with a door in one wall. He saw the door open and a
man come in; it was either the man who just now had obeyed Zoraida's
commands or his twin-fellow. The man began hooking together what
appeared to be several frames of steel bars. Working swiftly he shaped
them into a steel cage hardly larger than to accommodate a man
standing. Kendric's heart leaped and then stood still. He remembered
words which Juanita, terrified by idle threat from him, had spoken.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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