The Lost Continent by Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne (e novels to read .txt) 📗

that splendid leap her feet must have dangled a man-height and a half above the pavement.

I say it was prodigious, but then the spur was more than the ordinary, and the woman herself was far out of the common both in thews and intelligence; and the end of the leap left her with five fingers lodged in the sill of the arrow-slit from which I watched. Even then she must have slipped back if she had been left to herself, for the sill sloped, and the stone was finely smooth; but I shot out my hand and gripped hers by the wrist, and instantly she clambered up with both knees on the sills, and her fingers twined round to grip my wrist in her turn.

And now you will suppose she gushed out prayers and promises, thinking only of safety and enlargement. There was nothing of this. With savage panting wordlessness she took fresh grip on the sharpened bone with her spare hand, and lunged with it desperately through the arrow-slit. With the hand that clutched mine she drew me towards her, so as to give the blows the surer chance, and so unprepared was I for such an attack, and with such fierce suddenness did she deliver it, that the first blow was near giving me my quietus. But I grappled with the poor frantic creature as gently as might be—the stone of the wall separating us always—and stripped her of her weapon, and held her firmly captive till she might calm herself.

“That was an ungrateful blow,” I said. “But for my hand you’d have slipped and be the sport of a tiger’s paw this minute.”

“Oh, I must kill some one,” she panted, “before I am killed myself.”

“There will be time enough to think upon that some other day; but for now you are far enough off meeting further harm.”

“You are lying to me. You will throw me to the beasts as soon as I loose my grip. I know your kind: you will not be robbed of your sport.”

“I will go so far as to prove myself to you,” said I, and called out for the warder who had tended the doors below. “Bid those tigers be tethered on a shorter chain,” I ordered, “and then go yourself outside into the circus, and help this lady delicately to the ground.”

The word was passed and these things were done; and I too came out into the circus and joined the woman, who stood waiting under the moonlight. But the others who had seen these doings were by no means suited at the change of plan. One of the great stone valves of the farther door opened hurriedly, and a man strode out, armed and flushed. “By all the Gods!” he shouted. “Who comes between me and my pastime?”

I stepped quietly to the advance. “I fear, sir,” I said, “that you must launch your anger against me. By accident I gave that woman sanctuary, and I had not heart to toss her back to your beasts.”

His fingers began to snap against his hilt.

“You have come to the wrong market here with your qualms. I am captain here, and my word carries, subject only to Phorenice’s nod. Do you hear that? Do you know too that I can have you tossed to those striped gate-keepers of mine for meddling in here without an invitation?” He looked at me sharp enough, but saw plainly that I was a stranger. “But perhaps you carry a name, my man, which warrants your impertinence?”

“Deucalion is my poor name,” I said, “but I cannot expect you will know it. I am but newly landed here, sir, and when I left Atlantis some score of years back, a very different man to you held guard over these gates.” He had his forehead on my feet by this time. “I had it from the Empress this night that she will to-morrow make a new sorting of this kingdom’s dignities. Perhaps there is some recommendation you would wish me to lay before her in return for your courtesies?”

“My lord,” said the man, “if you wish it, I can have a turn with those cave-tigers myself now, and you can look on from behind the walls and see them tear me.”

“Why tell me what is no news?”

“I wish to remind my lord of his power; I wish to beg of his clemency.”

“You showed your power to these poor prisoners; but from what remains here to be seen, few of them have tasted much of your clemency.”

“The orders were,” said the captain of the gate, as though he thought a word might be said here for his defence, “the orders were, my lord, that the tigers should be kept fierce and accustomed to killing.”

“Then, if you have obeyed orders, let me be the last to chide you. But it is my pleasure that this woman be respited, and I wish now to question her.”

The man got to his feet again with obvious relief, though still bowing low.

“Then if my lord will honour me by sitting in my room that overlooks the outer gate, the favour will never be forgotten.”

“Show the way,” I said, and took the woman by the fingers, leading her gently. At the two ends of the circus the tigers prowled about on short chains, growling and muttering.

We passed through the door into the thickness of the outer wall, and the captain of the gate led us into his private chamber, a snug enough box overlooking the plain beyond the city. He lit a torch from his lamp and thrust it into a bracket on the wall, and bowing deeply and walking backwards, left us alone, closing the door in place behind him. He was an industrious fellow, this captain, to judge from the spoil with which his chamber was packed. There could have come very few traders in through that gate below without his levying a private tribute; and so, judging that most of his goods had been unlawfully come by, I had little qualm at making a selection. It was not decent that the woman, being an Atlantean, should go bereft of the dignity of clothes, as though she were a mere savage from Europe; and so I sought about amongst the captain’s spoil for garments that would be befitting.

But, as I busied myself in this search for raiment, rummaging amongst the heaps and bales, with a hand and eye little skilled in such business, I heard a sound behind which caused me to turn my head, and there was the woman with a dagger she had picked from the floor, in the act of drawing it from the sheath.

She caught my eye and drew the weapon clear, but seeing that I made no advance towards her, or move to protect myself, waited where she was, and presently was took with a shuddering.

“Your designs seem somewhat of a riddle,” I said. “At first you wished to kill me from motives which you explained, and which I quite understood. It lay in my power next to confer some small benefit upon you, in consequence of which you are here, and not—shall we say?—yonder in the circus. Why you should desire now to kill the only man here who can set you completely free, and beyond these walls, is a thing it would gratify me much to learn. I say nothing of the trifle of ingratitude. Gratitude and ingratitude are of little weight