"Yes," said the enjoy, more interestedly than he had spoken yet, "it
will do; the tribute is accepted--for Ar-hap, my master!" And taking
shrinking Heru by the wrist, and laying a heavy hand upon her shoulder,
he was about to lead her up the hall.

I was sober enough then. I was on foot in an instant, and before all the
glittering company, before those simpering girls and pale Martian youths,
who sat mumbling their fingers, too frightened to lift their eyes from off
their half-finished dinners, I sprang at the envoy. I struck him with my
clenched fist on the side of his bullet head, and he let go of Heru, who
slipped insensible from his hairy chest like a white cloud slipping down
the slopes of a hill at sunrise, and turned on me with a snort of rage.
We stared at each other for a minute, and then I felt the wine fumes
roaring in my head; I rushed at him and closed. It was like embracing
a mountain bull, and he responded with a hug that made my ribs crackle.
For a minute we were locked together like that, swinging here and there,
and then getting a hand loose, I belaboured him so unmercifully that
he put his head down, and that was what I wanted. I got a new hold of
him as we staggered and plunged, roaring the while like the wild beasts
we were, the teeth chattering in the Martian heads as they watched us,
and then, exerting all my strength, lifted him fairly from his feet and
with supreme effort swung him up, shoulder high, and with a mighty heave
hurled him across the tables, flung that ambassador, whom no Martian
dared look upon, crashing and sprawling through the gold and silver of
the feast, whirled him round with such a splendid send that bench and
trestle, tankards and flagons, chairs and cloths and candelabras all
went down into thundering chaos with him, and the envoy only stayed when
his sacred person came to harbour amongst the westral odds and ends,
the soiled linen, and dirty platters of our wedding feast.