Page:Lieut Gullivar Jones - His Vacation - Edwin Arnold (1905).djvu/123

 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 heroes is nothing, and had hardly got into them when there came the patter of light feet without and a Martian, in a hurry for once, with half a dozen others behind him, swept aside the curtains of my doorway.

They peeped and peered all about the room, then one said, "Is Princess Heru with you, sir?"

"No," I answered roughly; "saints alive, man, do you think I would have you tumbling in here over each other's heels if she were?"

"Then it must indeed have been Heru," he said, speaking in an awed voice to his fellows, "whom we saw carried down to the harbour at daybreak by yonder woodmen," and the pink upon their pretty cheeks faded to nothing at the suggestion.

"What!" I roared, "Heru taken from the palace by a handful of men and none of you infernal rascals—none of you white-livered abortions lifted a hand to save her—curse on you a thousand times. Out of my way, you churls!" and snatching up coat and hat and sword I rushed furiously down the long, marble stairs just as the short Martian night was giving place to lavender-coloured light of morning. I found my way somehow down the deserted corridors where