With the sound of a caught-in sob, a gesture hungry in its passion, she gathered him to her, bent her face above him, rocking him gently with a swaying of her slender figure as one groping baby hand crept up and dug itself into the soft substance of her gown. Turning with him to the girl of Mazzeria, whom Croft now sensed for the first time as having followed from the palace--dogging faithfully her mistress's footsteps to the last. Ga, the Mother--the Virgin--the Madonna, bending in tender brooding above the infant--pressing it in loving rapture against the greater bulk of the form that had given it birth. From that sight Croft turned away his misted eyes to find those of Kalamita fixed on him in a stare of well-nigh insane hatred. She had struggled free from Gor, and, despite the pain of her burns, which in their blindly, upflung course, had spared not even the once beautiful mask of her face, was standing there before him. And, as their glances met, her tightly held lips parted. "Thou--thou," she mouthed; "thou Mouthpiece of Zitu--thou man of ice and fire--thou wrecker of the plans of Kalamita--thou man like not to any man before thee--by all the fiends of the foul pit of the underworld I curse thee--may they torture thy spirit--and that of her whom I have kept for Zitrans from thee, and bring sickness and loathsome disease on the child. May its flesh rot and its bones grow hollow like blasted reeds--may Adita cause thy mate to shrivel quickly--may she cease to please thee, and yet cling to thee--denying thee the pleasure she herself no longer gives. May Bel visit his wrath upon thee for the sacrilege thou hast shown him. I, Kalamita--" "Peace." The captain of the guard laid hold upon her. "Thy pleasure with this woman, O Helmor?" And Helmor eyeing her, answered, "Nay--nothing. That she who has turned the minds of men with her beauty should stand thus now before them, were punishment indeed. Release her--let her go her ways." "Thy fault--thou Mouthpiece. The curse of Kalamita on thee!" Once more she wheeled on Jason. "Nay--curse no more," he told her. "Once thou didst challenge Adita to blast thy fairness and thou did not accomplish thy ends against me. And now it is in my mind that thy fickle goddess has taken thee at thy word." "Aye, peace!" said Helmor. "Get thee to thy palace, woman." For a moment Kalamita drew herself up before him, and then, flinging clenched hands above her tawny head in an impotent gesture, she turned to Gor standing stolidly waiting, and leaning her weight against him, went with him into the night. * * * * * And that is all, as Croft would say, I suppose--since when he described Naia's winning to me at the time of the Mazzerian War he brought his narrative to a close with their marriage, until I demanded that the end of the war itself be told.