Page:Lieut Gullivar Jones - His Vacation - Edwin Arnold (1905).djvu/290

 weed turns when the tide changes, so characteristic of Martian society. It was dusk, a lovely soft velvet dusk, but not dark yet, and I said to a yellow-robed fairy at my side.

"Whither away, comrade? It is not eight bells yet; surely we are not going to be put to bed so early as this?"

"No," said that smiling individual, "it is the princess; we are going to listen to Princess Heru in the palace square. She reads the globe on the terrace again to-night, to see if omens are propitious for her marriage. She must marry, and you know the ceremony has been unavoidably postponed so far."

"Unavoidably postponed?" Yes, Heaven wotted I was aware of the fact. And was Heru going to marry black Hath in such a hurry? and after all I had done for her? It was scarcely decent, and I tried to rouse myself to rage over it, but somehow the seductive Martian contentment with any fate was getting into my veins. I was not yet altogether sunk in their slothful acceptance of the inevitable, but there was not the slightest doubt the hot red blood in me was turning to vapid stuff such as did duty for the article in their veins. I mustered up a half-hearted frown at this unwelcome intelligence, turning with it on my face towards the slave girl; but she had slipped away into the throng, so the frown evaporated, and shrugging my shoulders I said to myself, "What does it