Page:Weird Tales volume 11 number 02.pdf/75

Rh were crooning sweet melodies, songs of love and enchantment. As Lee Goona turned, he beheld a gorgeous golden girl, a China girl of surpassing beauty, dressed in a single garment of sheer silk that was drawn tightly about her. It, too, was golden, and it emphasized the glorious perfection of her slender body. Jimber Jawn stood over her. He was breathing heavily.

"Dance!" Jimber Jawn cried tensely. "Dance!"

Lee Goona walked over and squatted down on the deck beside Jimber Jawn. Here was drama—gorgeous, romantic drama fit for kings.

The slender girl gazed about her in bewilderment as though in that rabid throng she sought one face that held a ray of hope for her. And it so happened that her eyes met those of Lee Goona and stayed for a fractional minute. His expression had not changed, but a message had been flashed between them. Call it telepathy or what you will, it was enough. A bit of the strained expression left her face. She even smiled slightly, a smile that was all for Lee Goona, showing teeth more even and white than Ceylonese pearls.

And then she danced, danced as no girl ever danced before. Her gorgeous, golden, glowing body swayed in the breeze like a young elm. A suggestion of sandalwood sweetened the air. She was wooing Lee Goona through her dancing. She was weaving a golden web of ecstasy about him from which there was no escape. Through her dancing she was imploring him to save her.

No artist ever painted a picture more wondrous, more vivid than that black ship with the golden sails against the deep blue sky. The sheen of the orange moon upon the purple sea made a fantasy of it. And above all in perfection and glory that perfect golden girl, dancing. Every line of her slender figure was poetry more rare than the verses of Tai-Ta-mien.

Some time later Lee Goona sat in the stem of the ship. Absolute quietude reigned on board, unbroken save by the soft swish of the water against the sides of the ship and the occasional sighing of the wind against the sails. The moon was very low in the west. It was dipping into the sea beyond the far horizon. Only half of it still showed. It arched like a golden-orange doorway that led to realms of witchery. His head throbbed. His brow was flaming. If only he could plunge into the cool soft stillness of the purple sea! What mattered that oblivion might follow? He would be willing to be sucked down to the ocean's depths by death if only for the joy of floundering for a moment in the clear, cool water. He had to exert every effort not to slip overboard. That night romance had wrapped itself about his soul. It was a night of perfume, of hushed music and rare love. He could not bear the thought of going down into that foul, reeking cabin, putrid with vermin and beasts of men. He wished to remain on deck to dream. Who was this gorgeous, golden girl who had so suddenly appeared upon the ship? He remembered that he had been locked in the hold for hours. When he climbed back on deck there had been pools of blood about, and there had been blood, too, about the mouths of many of the seamen. Evidently there had been a fight, a fight for possession of that glorious golden girl. One glance at her had kindled the blood in Lee Goona like old wine. Naught remained to him now but to rescue that girl, to carry her off to some jewel-like coral isle where he could spend his days in poetry and his nights watching her dance in the moonlight upon the coral beach. His thoughts were wild and mad, though no madder than life itself had grown to be. Nothing real existed any