floating, waited for help.

It came only too quickly. The gallant Martians, when they saw the
princess saved, came swiftly down upon us. Over the lapping of the water
in my ears I heard their sigh--like cries of admiration and surprise,
the rattle of spray on the canoe sides mingled with the splash of oars,
the flitting shadows of their prows were all about us, and in less time
than it takes to write we were hauled aboard, revived, and taken to
Hath's barge. Again the prince's lips were on my fingertips; again the
flutes and music struck up; and as I squeezed the water out of my hair,
and tried to keep my eyes off the outline of Heru, whose loveliness shone
through her damp, clinging, pink robe, as if that robe were but a gauzy
fancy, I vaguely heard Hath saying wondrous things of my gallantry, and,
what was more to the purpose, asking me to come with him and stay that
night at the palace.




CHAPTER IV

They lodged me like a prince in a tributary country that first night.
I was tired. 'Twas a stiff stage I had come the day before, and they
gave me a couch whose ethereal softness seemed to close like the wings
of a bird as I plunged at its touch into fathomless slumbers. But the
next day had hardly broken when I was awake, and, stretching my limbs
upon the piled silk of a legless bed upon the floor, found myself in a
great chamber with a purple tapestry across the entrance, and a square
arch leading to a flat terrace outside.