Abruptly, however, he ceased to laugh. He stood alone in the chamber. The locked door had opened to his captive bride. She had passed into the hall.
He followed. Nearer animal instincts than ever in his past, his tall form bent until he ran on toes and finger-tips. Through the private hallway he raced after her—along the central corridor of the palace into the throne-room.
The great auditorium was dark, except for the jewel-voltage of the altered Mephistophelian coat-of-arms. With intent to point its full significance, the All-Man headed off his quarry from doors and windows and drove her toward the dais. There he seized the back-waving banner of her hair and dragged her up the steps. With his free hand he gestured upward.
“Your artistry is unexcelled, Queen Dolores—your sense of fitness finer than mine own. That you should lead me here is a right royal inspiration.”
Further excited by her struggles, he laughed the louder. Sinking on one knee, he again crowded over her.
“You have taught me and I have learned. No longer do I ask. I take. Lo, at this touch of you, resistant, I feel—I feel! Your life—at this taste of them—a-ah, almost do I taste! At last, fiend-houri—at last—at last—our eternal moment has begun.”
As he held her head to the step, Dolores saw that the horns which a few minutes before had been neatly trimmed, were showing through his hair. Not daring to face the compelling power which had made possible this phenomenon, she shifted her gaze, first to the escutcheon, then quickly to the dome.
“If only I knew you, God!”
“That name in my presence again?” Irony followed the Belialic snarl. “Why hang back for an introduction if you believe the Great-I-Am stronger than I? It wouldn’t be the first time total stranger had rescued damsel in distress. Why not ask Him, little heathen? It will do no harm to ask.”
Unloosening his hand from her hair, he jerked her to her feet. Dolores, not knowing what next he might will, backed to the wall. There, with eyes and arms uplifted, she acted in earnest upon his mocking advice.