Chapter XVI: Xenora of Lothar

I went back to the beautiful sleeping girl, and sat down again in my rapt contemplation of the quiet charm of her face. She was breathing quite normally, and the face bore a slight smile of pleasure. Suddenly she moved, and the eyelids were raised. Clear violet eyes looked straight into mine--they were those eyes that have haunted me always.

"Melvin Dane!" she breathed in a voice that was low and musical and wholly delicious. She knew me! She spoke my name! Truly, it was the Green Girl! She was aware of the meeting of our minds upon the ether! "My chieftain of dreams!"

From beneath the light covers she reached a slender rounded arm, white, with just a hint of green tan. I took her hand in my own, feeling a strange thrill at the touch. After a moment of hesitation, when I struggled fiercely with that thrill, relaxing to it briefly, I put her hand quickly to my lips, and then released it.

I did not feel capable of speech. For all the hours since we had found the girl, I had been undergoing a storm of emotions--alternate joy and despair. Now, when the Green Girl actually smiled upon me, I forgot all my old dreams of how I would cross oceans and voyage through space to take her in my arms. I sat still, with a curious lump in my throat, in incredulous joy, not daring even to surrender to the delicious thrill of her touch.

She laughed softly and questioned, "From whence did you come, chieftain of my dreams, or am I dreaming still?"

"It's no dream," I began awkwardly. "Though I can hardly feel that it isn't. I came from a land above the red sky. I have always dreamed of you! And now I find you real--living! What is your name? Do you have people?"

"I am Xenora. My father was the last prince of the old city of Lothar. My people now are few."

"You spoke my name! You already knew it?"

"Yes, Melvin Dane, I have dreamed of you since I was a child. Even now, before I awoke, I had a curious dream of you--I thought you were coming to me through the sky in a ship of fire." The poor girl had raised herself on her elbow. Now she lay back on the pillows again as if she were very weak.

"So you have known me always, too!"

"Since one day when I was a child. The old lost city was my playground, and even when I was very small I wandered alone through the great palaces of old Lothar, dreaming of the ancient time when her warriors were great. One day I found a strange machine in a ruined tower room. Curious sounds came out of it when I put it to my ears. And then came the vision of you--of the white prince of my dreams. Day after day I slipped back, to dream of you. But even when I could go back no longer, you still came to me in dreams."

"But now they are dreams no longer! You are mine!" I exulted.

I thought there was something wistful in her smile, a hint of sadness in her sparkling violet eyes. "Yes," she breathed, "even for a little time, it is real. A little time, before the end."

She rose a little, resting on her elbow. I took her hand again. How slender and small it was! She still smiled, a little wanly.

"Don't speak of the end!" I said, unconsciously lapsing into the strange tongue in which I had so often conversed with her. "I have found you. You are safe. The flying thing is dead!"

For a moment there was frank admiration in her violet eyes that went oddly to my head. "You killed it! You are like the great warriors of old!"

"Hardly," I demurred with painful honesty. "I did nothing except push down a little pin."

"But the Lunak, the flying thing, is not what I fear. It had taken me from a fate that was far worse. It was carrying me from the power of the Lord of Flame!"

Her eyes dilated as she pronounced the words, as if they were a curse of fatal horror. For a moment she seemed to struggle fiercely with some terrible fear. She sank back rigid and unconscious to the couch. I sprang to her and lifted her in my arms. I started to call Sam, but in a moment her body relaxed, and her breathing was resumed, though she did not open her eyes.

Still, I felt no haste to put her down. I brought her a little closer to my heart, and my lips were very close indeed to hers when suddenly her violet eyes opened wide. I almost dropped her in my speechless confusion, and I felt myself turning red. Embarrassed more than I care to say, I hurriedly departed for the galley.

I found Sam whistling cheerfully and busy making apple pies for dinner. I have known several men who called themselves scientists, but Sam is the only one of them who had mastered the science of cooking. He used to say that if he were going to be hanged, he would want to cook and eat his dinner first.

"What did you do with the little--reptile-plant?" I asked.

"Oh, Alexander's gone to bed," he said lightly, pointing to a ventilated cardboard box on the shelves. "But how are you coming on with your specimen?" he questioned with a grin.

"Xenora seems--er--recovering very well. Perhaps you had better see her. She might think--that I----"

As Sam, with an understanding nod, walked toward the cabin door, I climbed out on deck, to think about it all. The great trees still whispered a little in the hot south wind, which was laden with the unfamiliar fragrance of the great purple flowers. The rich green grass moved in long waves before it. The red glare still beat down with a torrid intensity. I gazed up the vast slope of purple and green, to the blue cliffs in the distant north, and wondered about what the girl had told me--and about what she thought of me now. I cursed myself for my impulsive action.

A city of ruined palaces! A fallen race that had had a science great enough to build a radio machine--if such it was--which she had found and over which our minds had met! And a thing more terrible, and the flying plants! What had she meant by the words, "The Lord of Flame," the mere utterance of which had overwhelmed her with horror?

Then I thought again of the metal bands and frame we had cut from her body, and of the strange burns upon her skin. What was it that had caused them? Did all of that link up with the menace that threatened the earth? That might even now be doing its work?