When Alice saw that it was Llysanorh' standing on the threshold of her room she experienced at once great disappointment and overwhelming relief. The second space flyer was not driven by Ralph, but she was at least safe from Fernand.
"Oh," she cried with a sob of relief, "I am so glad it is you, Llysanorh'! I have been so frightened."
He made no answer, but regarded her with enormous eyes in which burned a somber flame.
"You are going to take me off this horrible flyer, aren't you, Llysanorh'? You won't leave me here alone with that—that beast, will you?"
He shook his head soberly, and extended one hand to her.
"Come," he said briefly.
She put her own hand confidently in his, and he led her down the stairs, and past the laboratory. She shrank back as she saw Fernand's bound and motionless form.
"Is he—dead?" she whispered.
"No," said Llysanorh', leading her to the connecting tube. He helped her through with gentle hands, and in a moment she found herself in the other flyer. Taking her hand again in his, Llysanorh' led her to a luxuriously furnished room.
[Pg 189]
"Stay here until I come back," he said. "I won't be long."
He turned to go but she, catching his sleeve, detained him.
"Are you going to—to kill him?" she asked.
"Perhaps. I haven't decided yet," he replied, unsmiling. And then, gripping her shoulders with startlingly sudden emotion, "Has he harmed you?"
"No, no," she said, frightened, "he just tried to terrify me, that was all."
He released her, and strode to the door.
"I won't kill him," he said, and for the first time he smiled, but in that smile there was no mirth. "I shall let him live, that he may pray for the death I have denied him."
And he was gone.
Presently Alice heard him disconnecting the two machines, and a moment later she knew that Llysanorh's flyer was moving. A half hour passed and still she was left alone. Beyond the vibration of the machinery there was no sound to indicate that she was not absolutely alone on the flyer.
Feeling a little panicky she finally left the room and made her way through a corridor. Several doors that she opened led into rooms even more luxurious and splendid than the one she had left.
So this was the space flyer owned by the Martian of which there had been so much gossip. Stories she had heard before of its spaciousness and magnificence came back to her.
It was like the palace of the Beast in the ancient fairy story, where Beauty had wandered for hours through[Pg 190] room after room filled with new marvels. Alice smiled whimsically at the thought. She was "Beauty," she reflected, and Llysanorh'—yes, he made a very good "Beast." Her buoyant spirits were rapidly recovering from the strain of her imprisonment.
Finally, she tried one more door, and entered a wonderful laboratory fully equipped.
And at the farther end, seated before a low table sat the Martian, his head resting on his folded arms. His whole attitude suggested hopeless desolation. He looked very lonely and remote, and somehow, to her, very pathetic.
She stood, hesitating, uncertain of whether to advance or retreat. Finally she spoke his name softly. At her voice he raised his head and stared at her. And she saw that his face was lined and furrowed as if with some terrible strain, but his eyes were steady with resolve.
"How serious you look," she said, coming into the middle of the room. "You seem so worried and anxious, Llysanorh'. Has something gone wrong with the flyer? And what did you do with Fernand and his machine?"
"I left him recovering from the effects of the drug," he said, in a forced and unnatural voice which betrayed, even more than his expression, the disturbed state of his mind. "And nothing is wrong with the flyer. It is I—I with whom everything is wrong."
"Oh, surely it can't be as bad as you think," said the girl, her quick sympathies aroused by his obvious misery. "Would it make you feel any better to tell me? We have always been such good friends, Llysanorh', and I might be able to help you."
"Later, perhaps, later," he said, and then with an effort, "can you make yourself comfortable here for a few days,[Pg 191] do you think? I brought the maid with me. You will find her waiting in your rooms for you. I don't think she will give you any trouble."
"Oh, yes, I surely can," she replied. "It is lovely here. I have heard so much of this flyer. Why haven't you shown it to father and me before? The rooms are like those of a fairy palace. Tell me, Llysanorh', will it be long before we get back to Earth? Everyone"—she had been about to say Ralph, but checked herself—"everyone will be so worried about me."
"We are never going back to Earth," he said.
"Never going—wh............