第81章

"You have rested well," he smiled, "I can see.The hand-maiden bade me call you.You are to eat with her in her garden."Down long corridors we trod and out upon a gardened terrace as beautiful as any of those of Yolara's city; bow-ered, blossoming, fragrant, set high upon the cliffs beside the domed castle.A table, as of milky jade, was spread at one corner, but the Golden Girl was not there.A little path ran on and up, hemmed in by the mass of verdure.I looked at it longingly; Rador saw the glance, interpreted it, and led me up the stepped sharp slope into a rock embrasure.

Here I was above the foliage, and everywhere the view was clear.Below me stretched the incredible bridge, with the frog people hurrying back and forth upon it.A pinnacle at my side hid the abyss.My eyes followed the cavern ledge.

Above it the rock rose bare, but at the ends of the semi-circular strand a luxuriant vegetation began, stretching from the crimson shores back into far distances.Of browns and reds and yellows, like an autumn forest, was the foliage, with here and there patches of dark-green, as of conifers.

Five miles or more, on each side, the forests swept, and then were lost to sight in the haze.

I turned and faced an immensity of crimson waters, un-broken, a true sea, if ever there was one.A breeze blew--the first real wind I had encountered in the hidden places;under it the surface, that had been as molten lacquer, rippled and dimpled.Little waves broke with a spray of rose-pearls and rubies.The giant Medusae drifted--stately, luminous kaleidoscopic elfin moons.

Far down, peeping around a jutting tower of the cliff, I saw dipping with the motion of the waves a floating garden.The flowers, too, were luminous--indeed sparkling--gleaming brilliants of scarlet and vermilions lighter than the flood on which they lay, mauves and odd shades of reddish-blue.

They gleamed and shone like a little lake of jewels.

Rador broke in upon my musings.

"Lakla comes! Let us go down."

It was a shy Lakla who came slowly around the end of the path and, blushing furiously, held her hands out to Larry.

And the Irishman took them, placed them over his heart, kissed them with a tenderness that had been lacking in the half-mocking, half-fierce caresses he had given the priestess.

She blushed deeper, holding out the tapering fingers--then pressed them to her own heart.

"I like the touch of your lips, Larry," she whispered.

"They warm me here"--she pressed her heart again--"and they send little sparkles of light through me." Her brows tilted perplexedly, accenting the nuance of diablerie, deli-cate and fascinating, that they cast upon the flower face.

"Do you?" whispered the O'Keefe fervently."Do you, Lakla?" He bent toward her.She caught the amused glance of Rador; drew herself aside half-haughtily.

"Rador," she said, "is it not time that you and the strong one, Olaf, were setting forth?""Truly it is, handmaiden," he answered respectfully enough--yet with a current of laughter under his words.

"But as you know the strong one, Olaf, wished to see his friends here before we were gone--and he comes even now,"he added, glancing down the pathway, along which came striding the Norseman.

As he faced us I saw that a transformation had been wrought in him.Gone was the pitiful seeking, and gone too the just as pitiful hope.The set face softened as he looked at the Golden Girl and bowed low to her.He thrust a hand to O'Keefe and to me.

"There is to be battle," he said."I go with Rador to call the armies of these frog people.As for me--Lakla has spoken.There is no hope for--for mine Helma in life, but there is hope that we destroy the Shining Devil and give _mine_ Helma peace.And with that I am well content, _ja!_ Well content!" He gripped our hands again."We will fight!" he muttered."_Ja!_ And I will have vengeance!" The sternness returned; and with a salute Rador and he were gone.

Two great tears rolled from the golden eyes of Lakla.

"Not even the Silent Ones can heal those the Shining One has taken," she said."He asked me--and it was better that I tell him.It is part of the Three's--PUNISHMENT--but of that you will soon learn," she went on hurriedly."Ask me no questions now of the Silent Ones.I thought it better for Olaf to go with Rador, to busy himself, to give his mind other than sorrow upon which to feed."Up the path came five of the frog-women, bearing plat-ters and ewers.Their bracelets and anklets of jewels were tinkling; their middles covered with short kirtles of woven cloth studded with the sparkling ornaments.

And here let me say that if I have given the impression that the _Akka_ are simply magnified frogs, I regret it.Frog-like they are, and hence my phrase for them--but as unlike the frog, as we know it, as man is unlike the chimpanzee.

Springing, I hazard, from the stegocephalia, the ancestor of the frogs, these batrachians followed a different line of evo-lution and acquired the upright position just as man did his from the four-footed folk.

The great staring eyes, the shape of the muzzle were frog-like, but the highly developed brain had set upon the head and shape of it vital differences.The forehead, for instance, was not low, flat, and retreating--its frontal arch was well defined.The head was, in a sense, shapely, and with the females the great horny carapace that stood over it like a fantastic helmet was much modified, as were the spurs that were so formidable in the male; colouration was different also.The torso was upright; the legs a little bent, giving them their crouching gait--but I wander from my subject.1*1 The _Akka_ are viviparous.The female produces progeny at five-year intervals, never more than two at a time.They are monogamous, like certain of our own _Ranidae_.Pending my monograph upon what little I had time to learn of their interesting habits and customs, the curious will find instruction and entertainment in Brandes and Schven-ichen's _Brutpfleige der Schwanzlosen Bat rachier_, p.395; and Lilian V.