The Mouthpiece of Zitu

by J. U. Giesy

As he came forth five minutes later, she flung the ball with a truly feminine overhead gesture to where her cousin stood. "Zitu, my cousin!" she teased with a flash of milk-white teeth between the twin crimson portals of her mouth. "You throw wider of the mark, and still more wide. To me it seems that you lack that which you speak of in Jason's words as 'control.' Thy ambition to be a pitcher stands in sorry case."

And then she caught sight of Jason himself and broke off, while across her lovely face there stole a flush as soft as the dawning Sirian light—a flush as beautiful as that on the bosom of rising Aurora, Croft thought. She was panting somewhat, perhaps from her exertions, perhaps from an inward emotion as she turned toward him and held out a tapering hand. "Hai, Jason!" Her red lips changed the object of their speaking, and her blue eyes met his fully. "It is morning—and—I see you again."

"And I thee," said Croft as he touched her fingers—"fairer, more beautiful and altogether lovelier than the dawn itself. Thy voice awaked me and told me I was late for our play with the ball."

But his blood was singing, his pulses pounding. The thrust of his heart was a visible beating at the base of his stalwart throat. For her words had been but a paraphrase of that promise he had spoken to the soul of her he had held the past night in his arms. And more than any others she might have spoken, they told him that at last, as a waking woman, she began to understand.

Yet he gave no further sign, and Naia herself seemed contented with that one brief interchange. "Aye, teach him, instruct him, and thou canst. He is willing, but he accomplishes little with a vast amount of work to himself and my feet and hands."

And Jason laughed with a wonderful exultation coursing through him as he took the ball from Robur, who had approached.

Thereafter for a half-hour he instructed, and Naia retrieved the Aphurian's wild heaves and pitches, until by degrees Robur gained the partial mastery of a simple inward curve; and Naia, her face dewed with a fine moisture from her part of the practice, protested against any more that morning, declaring instead for a bath, and moving toward the pool, loosening her garment on the shoulder as she walked.

It fell from her, leaving her in the Tamarizian costume employed by her sex when both men and women bathed—a sort of harness about the back and shoulders—thin, glinting chains of metal supporting gem-incrusted shields above the breast—a girdle at the waist to fasten about her hips, a gold and purple covering, not unlike a pair of trunks. Croft was acquainted with the fashion, but never before had he seen Naia so revealed. He caught his breath with an audible inhalation, and became aware that Robur smiled.

"Go," he suggested as he moved to join Naia in the sun-kissed water. "Tell Bela to ask Gaya for a garment, and join us in the pool."

Croft nodded. He hastened away. He found Gaya's maid, and once with the trunklike article she produced, lost no time in putting it on and returning to the court where Naia and Robur were now contesting in the water, with choking word and laugh. In a clean dive, he cut its surface, shot across the full width of the pool, and came up at Naia's side.