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.

I remember seeing him there on hands and knees, and then the liquor I
had had would not be denied. In vain I drew my hands across my
drooping eyelids, in vain I tried to master my knees that knocked
together. The spell of the love-drink that Heru, blushing, had held to
my lips was on me. Its soft, overwhelming influence rose like a
prismatic fog between me and my enemy, everything again became hazy and
dreamlike, and feebly calling on Heru, my chin dropped upon my chest,
my limbs relaxed, and I slipped down in drowsy oblivion before my rival.

CHAPTER VIII

They must have carried me, still under the influence of wine fumes, to
the chamber where I slept that night, for when I woke the following
morning my surroundings were familiar enough, though a glorious maze of
uncertainties rocked to and fro in my mind.

Was it a real feast we had shared in overnight, or only a quaint dream?
Was Heru real or only a lovely fancy? And those hairy ruffians of whom
a horrible vision danced before my waking eyes, were they fancy too?
No, my wrists still ached with the strain of the tussle, the quaint,
sad wine taste was still on my lips--it was all real enough, I decided,
starting up in bed; and if it was real where was the little princess?
What had they done with her? Surely they had not given her to the
ape-men--cowards though they were they could not have been cowards
enough for that. And as I wondered a keen, bright picture of the
hapless maid as I saw her last blossomed before my mind's eye, the
ambassadors on either 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 heroe