Page:Weird Tales volume 30 number 04.djvu/82

466 "not because we need your help—easily can we overcome Dordona—but because we do not want you against us, strangers, with your strange, powerful weapons. And for reward for joining us," the Red king added, "you shall drink the waters of the Lake of Life with us. You will become immortal, strangers, as we will."

black eyes Bashed with strange light, his fist clenched tight, his voice pregnant with emotion.

"To be immortal—think what that will mean! To stride the world undying, generation after generation, feared and worshipped by the races that continue to die! By the sun, once I have drunk those waters of undying life, I will go forth from this prisoned land, will rule——"

He stopped abruptly, glancing at Clark with narrowed eyes. Then he continued in a smooth, lower tone.

"But what is your answer, stranger, now that you know the situation? Do you join forces with us to attack Dordona?"

Clark hesitated. A strong instinct told him not to commit himself.

"I think we will join you," he said slowly, "but before I give my word on it, I must speak with my followers. If we do join you, our reward is to be as much of the shining waters as we wish to take."

"Has that Dordonan wench Lurain tried to turn you against me?" Thargo asked suspiciously. "Has she endeavored to make you an ally of her doomed people?"

"She tried to kill me, but an hour ago," Clark said tartly. "There's no danger of my becoming her ally."

Yet it seemed to him that smoldering suspicion persisted in Thargo's eyes. Then the Red king laughed and exclaimed:

"But we will talk further of this in the morning. We neglect the feast."

He raised his big hand in a signal. From an alcove suddenly thrummed music, weird harmonies of plucked strings. It throbbed louder, wilder, and a score of supple girls in shimmering veils rushed lightly to the center of the torchlit hall.

They began to dance in the space between the tables, swaying, whirling and undulating to the barbaric rush of the music, their white limbs gleaming through the gossamer of the swirling veils.

"Whoopee!" shouted Mike Shinn happily over the wild music, from down the table. "This is better than a night-club."

"Don't bother me, Mike," drawled Link Wilson, his tanned reckless face bending toward a laughing girl beside him. "I'm doin' right fine in sign-language with this muchacha."

"I'll say this beats that damned jungle, anyway," Clark heard Blacky Cain saying with a rasping chuckle.

But Lieutenant Morrow sat drinking and staring moodily, with bitter eyes, at the whirling, weaving girls.

"You do not drink, lord from outside?" a soft voice reproached Clark. It was Yala, the sister of Thargo, bending toward him, her slender white fingers extending a goblet of the black, thick wine. "Is our wine then so poor beside that of the outside world?"

Clark took the goblet, tasted the liquor. It was heady stuff, potent, strangely scented. Yala's languorous eyes approved as he drained the cup. An alert servant refilled it from a flagon.

"Aye, drink all!" boomed Thargo's powerful voice over the music. "Drink to the day that is almost here, the day when we of K'Lamm win at last to the shining waters that will make us all undying."

"To the day!" shouted the excited, half-intoxicated feasters, draining the