Involuntarily I started forward. Whether there was an appeal for succor in those eyes I do not know, but at least they aroused within me instantly, that natural instinct of a human male to protect the weak. And so it was that I was a little behind her and to her right, when she was halted before Ga-va-go.
The savage Va-gas’ chieftain eyed her coldly, while from all sides there arose cries of “Give us flesh! Give us flesh! We are hungry!” to which Ga-va-go paid not the slightest attention.
“From whence come you, U-ga?” he demanded. Her head was high, and she eyed him with cold dignity as she replied, “From Laythe.”
The No-van raised his brows. “Ah,” he breathed, “from Laythe. The flesh of the women from Laythe is good,” and he licked his thin lips.
The girl narrowed her eyes, and tilted her chin a bit higher. “Rympth!” she ejaculated, disgustedly.
As rympth is the name of the four-legged snake of Va-nah, the inner lunar world, and considered the lowest and most disgusting of created things, she could not well have applied a more opprobrious epithet to the No-van chieftain, but if it had been her intent to affront him, his expression gave no indication that she had succeeded.
“Your name?” he asked.
“Nah-ee-lah,” she replied.
“Nah-ee-lah,” he repeated, “Ah, you are the daughter of Sagroth, Jemadar of Laythe.”
She nodded in indifferent affirmation, as though aught he might say was a matter of perfect indifference to her.