“Kaweeka” she repeated over and over again, and at last he understood. It was her name!
Then he rose and went to the door and called “Kaweeka” and the woman smiled and nodded and tapped her heel on the ground to signify her delight.
Suddenly she rose and stood beside him, and putting her arms about him, planted a very English kiss full upon his mouth. Alan who had never flirted, never cared for any girl, when he was in England, felt his pulses leap and a wild thrill pass through him at the touch of her lips. Then a sense of shame came over him. What was she? Why, hardly human. If he succeeded in getting to the upper world again, and took her with him, scientists would want to cage her as a newly discovered animal! Could he wed her?—marriage?—love?—passion?—he knew too well which sense she had aroused when her lips touched his.
He drew away from her in loathing, and a hard light came into her eyes as she imperiously put her lips up to his. Her fascination was undeniable, but there was something unholy, almost unclean, about her; and although passion shook him from head to foot, he turned away and walked to the other side of the apartment.
But Kaweeka followed him. She twined her arms about his neck and drew his head against her breast, and he felt the wild throbbing of a heart next to his. “Kaweeka,” he cried, “Kaweeka.” And he drew her to him still closer, forgetting all else but that a warm living thing was lying in his arms, and that thing a woman.
Suddenly Kaweeka disengaged herself, and with a low laugh intimated to Alan that she wished him to follow her. She led the way through a long corridor, up a flight of wide and softly carpeted stairs to a room on the second floor. It was a wonderful apartment, unlike anything he had ever seen, and even as he looked about him, he heard a low chuckle, and Kaweeka disappeared through the door, fastening it behind her.
Alan drew a breath of relief. The air seemed purer for her absence, and he looked round him curiously. Low divans furnished the room, and on a wonderful table of crystal was food and wine. He was hungry and faint from his experience in the temple, and he fell to on the repast that had been provided and felt the better for it.
In one corner of the room stood a large jar of bright yellow porcelain, and it was filled with blue, green, yellow and purple fungi—flowers they could not be called—but as fungi they were almost beautiful. Their stems were long and bare of leaf, and the flower bloomed at the very top. Some of the “flowers” were almost like poppy heads, others like variegated mushrooms—while one or two blooms at least reminded Alan most forcibly of the pretty pink seaweed he had admired when on a holiday at Rozel in Jersey. The vividness of colouring made a wonderful effect against the purple background and if his position had not been so hopeless, he would have thoroughly enjoyed his strange adventure.
There were no windows in the room—at least not what the world above would understand by the word—but there was an opening overlooking the narrow causeway that served to let in light and air. There was no shutter to it, only heavy purple draperies hung at either side, which could be drawn across if privacy was desired.
In two corners of the room were tall braziers, and Alan touched the large switch that protruded from them. Instantly the room was flooded with the soft, purple light that seemed to exude from the trees; and Alan felt that his first conjecture was right—the trees possessed some natural light which the natives had learnt to control, and which they ran along the branches much in the same way that we run electricity along cables. At any rate the result was very pleasing, and the light possessed none of the glare that is characteristic of electricity.