Page:Weird Tales Volume 30 Number 02 (1937-08).djvu/78

she had finished her meal would she hear me. Then, bidding the black to withdraw, Hatshepsut's lovely daughter made her way to the tiny balcony, the delicate sleeping-robe fluttering in the morning wind.

"And now what is this so very urgent matter you would tell your darling?" I had followed her to the small gallery.

"Zola," I cried. "He knows everything!"

The Princess of Egypt yawned lazily.

"I was talking to him in the garden just now. He knows of last night's ride—spoke of the missing blacks. Everything will be told to Karamour. The fiend will stop at nothing. He wishes me to share Barakoff's fate, and"—my voice lowered to a whisper—"and he knows about us!"

I had expected a frightened gasp at the words.

"And what if he does?" she answered in a slow, irate tone. "Is it anything that should frighten you? Besides, you seem to forget that the Prince does not return till tomorrow night, and the plane that takes us north arrives at dusk. What does the anger of the Pharaoh matter with us a thousand miles away? Let him rage and storm! Anger and wrath can be felt but little while we laugh amid the joys and gayeties of Paris.

"And now let us change the boring subject. The hours are few and much remains to be done before sundown. Forget, then, the stupid Frenchman and think only of the future. Departure in the last rays of the setting Ra means escape and security by dawn."

"But Karamour," I insisted, "he will follow."

"It matters little if he does. He will be at a loss where he must search. The blacks all fear me. They would not tell him, even if they knew."

"They may not," I answered, "but Zola——"

Atma turned her wondrous face smilingly as her arms encircled my neck.

"Your mind is still filled with the gloom of the tomb," she cried, laughing. "Surely you have need of Atma's warm caresses to bring it once more to the sunshine. Forget, now, those needless worries. Undreamed-of wealth, the nearness of your darling, and escape is but a matter of hours.

"As to your Frenchman," she added, "I have never cared for that dark fiend either. Always annoyed by his too polite poise, I have come to distrust him as well. Often I have thought that it would be best if he were to disappear. Yes, perhaps it is best that I asked him to accompany me."

I stared at her.

"You what!"

"I have asked him to go walking with me this morning at ten. Surely there is nothing so wonderful about that. Why—why, you are jealous!" she cried. "Hawks of Horus! I see the green-eyed god within your eyes.

"What a child!" she continued. "A fearless man of the new world who descends to lonely vaults of gloom, leads a mutiny at sea, defies the Pharaoh himself—and yet but a little child! Ah, suspicious one, you should know by now to trust your Atma. You should not ask, but only obey the commands of your darling. Go now to the courtyard and follow the black giant." She pushed me smilingly toward the door.

"But Zola," I protested; "will he come?"

"And the Princess of Egypt in the scantiest of apparel? Have no fear on that score. A million sharpened swords could not keep him from me."