and fled? I loved you! Yet how could I have known how mighty a lord you are?"
Her fragrance shook him; the softness of her against his breath closed his throat.
"Sharane!" he murmured. "Sharane!"
His lips sought hers and clung; mad wine of life raced through his veins; in the sweet fire of her mouth memory of all save this moment was burned away.
"I—give myself—to you!" she sighed.
He remembered...
"You give nothing, Sharane," he answered her. "I—take!" He lifted her in his arms; he strode through the rosy cabin's door; shut it with thrust of foot and hurled down its bar.
Sigurd, Trygg's son, came and sat at the threshold of the rosy cabin. He polished the black priest's sword, chanting low some ancient bridal lay.
Upon the black deck Gigi and Zubran moved, casting the bodies of the slain into the sea; ending the pain of those not yet dead; casting them then after the others.
One dove and then another fluttered down from the balcony of the little blossoming trees. The Viking watched them, still chanting. Quick after the first dropped others, twain upon twain. They cooed and bent inquisitive heads; they billed and murmured. They formed a half ring before the cabin's closed door.
The white breasted doves—red beaked, vermilion footed; the murmuring, the wooing, the caressing doves—they set their snowy seal upon the way to Kenton and Sharane.
The doves of Ishtar wedded them!
Part III
XIV
THE BLACK PRIEST STRIKES
"Dear lord of mine—Kenton" whispered Sharane. "I think that even you do not know how greatly I love you!" They sat within the rosy cabin, her head upon his breast. It was a new Kenton who looked down upon the lovely face upturned to his. All that had been modern had fallen from him. He had gained in height, and brown as his face was the broad chest bared by open tunic. His blue eyes were clear and fearless, filled with a laughing recklessness; touched, too, with half-fierce ruthlessness. Above the elbow of his left arm was a wide bracelet of thin gold, graven with symbols Sharane had cut there. Upon his feet were sandals that Sharane had embellished with woven Babylonian charms—to keep his feet upon a path of love that led to her and her alone.
How long had it been since that battle with the black priest, he wondered, as he drew her closer to him. Eternities it seemed—and but yesterday! How long?
He could not know—in that timeless world where eternities and yesterdays were as one.
And whether yester-moment or eternities ago, he had ceased to care!
On and on they had sailed. And ever as they slipped through the azure seas, memory of that other life of his had dwindled and sunk beneath the horizon of consciousness, as the land sinks behind the watcher on an outward bound ship. He thought of it, when at all, with a numbing fear that he might be thrust back into it again—that old life of his.
Away from the ship! Away from Sharane—never to return!
On and on they had sailed. The black cabin, swept clean of evil, housed now the Viking, Gigi and the Persian. Sigurd or Gigi handled the two great oars that, fastened to each side of the stern, steered the ship. Sometimes, in fair weather, maids of Sharane took their place at the rudder bars. The Viking had found an anvil in the hold under the black cabin; had made a forge and on it hammered out swords. One he had made for Gigi, full nine feet long, that the dwarf legged giant handled like a wand. Better, though, Gigi liked the mace that Sigurd had also made for him—long as the sword, with huge bronze ball studded with nails at its end. Zubran clung to his scimitar. But the Viking labored at his forge, beating out lighter brands for Sharane's warrior maids. He made them shields and taught them to use both sword and shield as they had been used on his dragons in the old Viking days.
Part fruit of that instruction, sword play with Sigurd, wrestling with Gigi, fencing with his own blade against the scimitar of Zubran, was Kenton now.
All this Gigi had encouraged.
"No safety while Klaneth lives!" he would croak. "Make the ship strong."
"We have done with Klaneth!" Kenton had said, a little boastfully.
"Not so," Gigi had answered. "He will come with many men. Sooner or later the black priest will come."
There had been recent confirmation of this. Soon after his battle Kenton had taken one of the blacks, a Nubian, and set him in Zachel's seat. But this had made them short one slave at the oars. They had met a ship, hailed it, and demanded an oarsman. Its captain had given them one—fearfully, quickly, and had sped away.
"He did not know that Klaneth was no longer here," chuckled Gigi.
But not long after this they had met another ship. Its captain would not halt when hailed and they had been forced to pursue and to fight. It was a small vessel, easily overhauled and easily captured. And that same captain had told them, sullenly, that Klaneth was at Emakhtila, High Priest of a temple of Nergal there, and one of the council of the House of Nergal in the temple of the Seven Zones. And more, the black priest was high in favor with one he called the Lord of the Two Deaths—the ruler, so they gathered, of Emakhtila.
Klaneth, said the captain, had sent forth word that the Ship of Ishtar was no longer to be feared, that it now held neither Nergal nor Ishtar but only men and women, It was to be sunk when met, but its men and women were to be saved. For them he offered a reward.
"And had my boat been but a little bigger and my men more, I would have claimed that reward," he had ended, bluntly.
They took what they wanted from him and let him go. But as the ship drew away, he shouted to them to take what joy of life they could at once, since Klaneth on a great ship and with many men was searching for them and their shift was apt to be short!
"Ho-ho!" grunted Gigi, and—"Oh-ho! Klaneth searches for us, does he? Well, I warned you he would, Wolf. What now?"
"Make for one of the isles, pick our vantage ground and let him come," answered Kenton. "We can build a fort, raise defenses. Better chance we would have against him than on the ship—if it be true that he pursues us in a great vessel with many soldiers."
They had found Kenton's word good, and they were sailing toward such an isle, Sigurd at the helm, Gigi and the Persian and the women of Sharane on watch, alert.
"Yea—dear lord of me—even you do not know how greatly I love you," whispered Sharane again, eyes worshipping, arms fettering his neck. His lips clung to hers. Even in the sweet fire of their touch he marvelled, blind to his own renaissance, at this changed Sharane— Love's changeling since that time he had carried her within her bower, disdaining her as gift, taking her by right of his two strong arms.
Swift memories shook him; of Sharane—conquered; of some unearthly wonder that had flamed over the shrine and with fingers of pure fire had woven his soul with hers in threads of flaming ecstasies!
"Tell me, lord of me—how much you love me," she murmured, languorously.
There came a shout from
