side holding her wrists, and she shrinking from them in horror while her
poor, white face turned to me for rescue in desperate pleading--oh! I
must find her at all costs; and leaping from bed I snatched up those
trousers without which the best of heroes is nothing, and had hardly got
into them when there came the patter of light feet without and a Martian,
in a hurry for once, with half a dozen others behind him, swept aside
the curtains of my doorway.

They peeped and peered all about the room, then one said, "Is Princess
Heru with you, sir?"

"No," I answered roughly. "Saints alive, man, do you think I would have
you tumbling in here over each other's heels if she were?"

"Then it must indeed have been Heru," he said, speaking in an awed voice
to his fellows, "whom we saw carried down to the harbour at daybreak by
yonder woodmen," and the pink upon their pretty cheeks faded to nothing
at the suggestion.

"What!" I roared, "Heru taken from the palace by a handful of men
and none of you infernal rascals--none of you white-livered abortions
lifted a hand to save her--curse on you a thousand times. Out of my
way, you churls!" And snatching up coat and hat and sword I rushed
furiously down the long, marble stairs just as the short Martian night
was giving place to lavender-coloured light of morning. I found my
way somehow down the deserted corridors where the air was heavy with
aromatic vapours; I flew by curtained niches and chambers where amongst
mounds of half-withered flowers the Martian lovers were slowly waking.
Down into the banquethall I sped, and there in the twilight was the litter
of the feast still about--gold cups and silver, broken bread and meat, the