Hearts of Three 44

Hearts of Three 44

He wiped the sweat from his face and trembled while he slowly recovered

himself. Meanwhile she gazed upon him curiously, without fear.

 

“You are a woman of evil,” he snarled at her, still shaking with rage,

“a witch that traffics with the powers of darkness and all devilish

things. Yet are you woman, born of woman, and therefore mortal. The

weakness of mortality and of woman is yours, wherefore I give you now

your choice of two things. Either you shall be thrown into the whirl of

water and perish, or ...”

 

“Or?” she prompted.

 

“Or....” He paused, licked his dry lips, and burst forth. “No! By the

Mother of God, I am not afraid. Or marry me this day, which is the other

choice.”

 

“You would marry me for me? Or for the treasure?”

 

“For the treasure,” he admitted brazenly.

 

“But it is written in the Book of Life that I shall marry Francis,” she

objected.

 

“Then will we rewrite that page in the Book of Life.”

 

“As if it could be done!” she laughed.

 

“Then will I prove your mortality there in the whirl, whither I shall

fling you as you flung the flowers.”

 

Truly intrepid Torres was for the time—intrepid because of the ancient

drink that burned in his blood and brain, and because he was master of

the situation. Also, like a true Latin-American, he loved a scene

wherein he could strut and elocute.

 

Yet she startled him by emitting a hiss similar to the Latin way of

calling a servitor. He regarded her suspiciously, glanced at the doorway

to the sleeping chamber, then returned his gaze to her.

 

Like a ghost, seeing it only vaguely out of the corner of his eye, the

great white hound erupted through the doorway. Startled again, Torres

involuntarily stepped to the side. But his foot failed to come to rest

on the emptiness of air it encountered, and the weight of his body

toppled him down off the platform into the water. Even as he fell and

screamed his despair, he saw the hound in mid-air leaping after him.

 

Swimmer that he was, Torres was like a straw in the grip of the current;

and the Lady Who Dreams, gazing down upon him fascinated from the edge

of the platform, saw him disappear, and the hound after him, into the

heart of the whirlpool from which there was no return.

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER XX

 

 

Long the Lady Who Dreams gazed down at the playing waters. At last, with

a sighed “My poor dog,” she arose. The passing of Torres had meant

nothing to her. Accustomed from girlhood to exercise the high powers of

life and death over her semi-savage and degenerate people, human life,

per se, had no sacredness to her. If life were good and lovely, then,

naturally, it was the right thing to let it live. But if life were evil,

ugly, and dangerous to other lives, then the thing was to let it die or

make it die. Thus, to her, Torres had been an episode——unpleasant, but

quickly over. But it was too bad about the dog.

 

Clapping her hands loudly as she entered her chamber, to summon one of

her women, she made sure that the lid of the jewel chest was raised. To

the woman she gave a command, and herself returned to the platform, from

where she could look into the room unobserved.

 

A few minutes later, guided by the woman, Francis entered the chamber

and was left alone. He was not in a happy mood. Fine as had been his

giving up of Leoncia, he got no pleasure from the deed. Nor was there

any pleasure in looking forward to marrying the strange lady who ruled

over the Lost Souls and resided in this weird lake-dwelling. Unlike

Torres, however, she did not arouse in him fear or animosity. Quite to

the contrary, Francis’ feeling toward her was largely that of pity. He

could not help but be impressed by the tragic pathos of the ripe and

lovely woman desperately seeking love and a mate, despite her imperious

and cavalier methods.

 

At a glance he recognized the room for what it was, and idly wondered if

he were already considered the bridegroom, sans discussion, sans

acquiescence, sans ceremony. In his brown study, the chest scarcely

caught his attention. The Queen, watching, saw him evidently waiting for

her, and, after a few minutes, walk over to the chest. He gathered up a

handful of the gems, dropped them one by one carelessly back as if they

had been so many marbles, and turned and strolled over to examine the

leopard skins on her couch. Next, he sat down upon it, oblivious equally

of couch or treasure. All of which was provocative of such delight to

the Queen that she could no longer with-strain herself to mere spying.

Entering the room and greeting him, she laughed:

 

“Was Senor Torres a liar?”

 

“_Was?_” Francis queried, for the need of saying something, as he arose

before her.

 

“He no longer is,” she assured him. “Which is neither here nor there,”

she hastened on as Francis began to betray interest in the matter of

Torres’ end. “He is gone, and it is well that he is gone, for he can

never come back. But he did lie, didn’t he?”

 

“Undoubtedly,” Francis replied. “He is a confounded liar.”

 

He could not help noticing the way her face fell when he so heartily

agreed with her concerning Torres’ veracity.

 

“What did he say?” Francis questioned.

 

“That he was the one selected to marry me.”

 

“A liar,” Francis commented dryly.

 

“Next he said that you were the selected one—which was also a lie,” her

voice trailed off.

 

Francis shook his head.

 

The involuntary cry of joy the Queen uttered touched his heart to such

tenderness of pity that almost did he put his arms around her to soothe

her. She waited for him to speak.

 

“I am the one to marry you,” he went on steadily. “You are very

beautiful. When shall we be married?”

 

The wild joy in her face was such that he swore to himself that never

would he willingly mar that face with marks of sorrow. She might be

ruler over the Lost Souls, with the wealth of Ind and with supernatural

powers of mirror-gazing; but most poignantly she appealed to him as a

lonely and naïve woman, overspilling of love and totally unversed in

love.

 

“And I shall tell you of another lie this Torres animal told to me,” she

burst forth exultantly. “He told me that you were rich, and that, before

you married me, you desired to know what wealth was mine. He told me you

had sent him to inquire into what riches I possessed. This I know was a

lie. You are not marrying me for that!”—with a scornful gesture at the

jewel chest.

 

Francis shook his head.

 

“You are marrying me for myself,” she rushed on in triumph.

 

“For yourself,” Francis could not help but lie.

 

And then he beheld an amazing thing. The Queen, this Queen who was the

sheerest autocrat, who said come here and go there, who dismissed the

death of Torres with its mere announcement, and who selected her royal

spouse without so much as consulting his prenuptial wishes, this Queen

began to blush. Up her neck, flooding her face to her ears and forehead,

welled the pink tide of maidenly modesty and embarrassment. And such

sight of faltering made Francis likewise falter. He knew not what to do,

and felt a warmth of blood rising under the sun-tan of his own face.

Never, he thought, had there been a man-and-woman situation like it in

all the history of men and women. The mutual embarrassment of the pair

of them was appalling, and to save his life he could not have summoned a

jot of initiative. Thus, the Queen was compelled to speak first.

 

“And now,” she said, blushing still more furiously, “you must make love

to me.”

 

Francis strove to speak, but his lips were so dry that he licked them

and succeeded only in stammering incoherently.

 

“I never have been loved,” the Queen continued bravely. “The affairs of

my people are not love. My people are animals without reason. But we,

you and I, are man and woman. There must be wooing, and tenderness——that

much I have learned from my Mirror of the World. But I am unskilled. I

know not how. But you, from out of the great world, must surely know. I

wait. You must love me.”

 

She sank down upon the couch, drawing Francis beside her, and true to

her word, proceeded to wait. While he, bidden to love at command, was

paralyzed by the preposterous impossibility of so obeying.

 

“Am I not beautiful?” the Queen queried after another pause. “Are not

your arms as mad to be about me as I am mad to have them about me? Never

have a man’s lips touched my lips. What is a kiss like——on the lips, I

mean? Your lips on my hand were ecstasy. You kissed then, not alone my

hand, but my soul. My heart was there, throbbing against the press of

your lips. Did you not feel it?”

 

* * * * *

 

“And so,” she was saying, half an hour later, as they sat on the couch

hand in hand, “I have told you the little I know of myself. I do not

know the past, except what I have been told of it. The present I see

clearly in my Mirror of the World. The future I can likewise see, but

vaguely; nor can I always understand what I see. I was born here. So was

my mother, and her mother. How it chanced is that always into the life