"Ga befriend her. Zitu befriend me. Azil have compassion upon us both!" he cried before he laid her on the couch of wine-red wood.
For a long moment after he had straightened, he stood gazing down upon her. The sun streaming into the room through the glass of an embrasure struck out the golden design of the wings and cross upon his breast. It sparkled, shimmered, as it rose and fell with his breathing. But it was no more golden, no more shimmering than the flood of golden hair about Naia of Aphur's head. Nor was Croft's robe more blue in its jewel-wrought folds than the limpid eyes beneath her fallen, long-lashed lids.
Of a sudden Croft's own eyes fired with purpose. He drew a sharp, deep breath. Naia of Aphur was his no longer. But—as Mouthpiece of Zitu—all men must obey his mandates; there would be no exception; not even the high priest himself, and—if he were to be cheated of the major object for which he had labored, to attain which he had finally broken the last bond between himself and earth—then let all men beware. He turned away to go in search of Zud.
CHAPTER VI
CROFT DECIDES
And, now, despite all these things, despite the scene in the room of the Gayana, the shock of surprise attendant upon his waking—the first startled comprehension of what had happened wearing off ever so slightly, Croft's future course became to him more clear.
Since the commanding part remained to him yet, it was his to command, not to question or advise. He stalked across the sunlighted vastness of the region of the Gayanas where the chatter of the maidens sank to silence as he passed, bade the vestal who had taken him to Naia send some of the women to attend her and passed through the silver door.
Stern of lip, utterly composed in outward seeming once more, giving no outward sign of the tempest of black despair, of heart-sick and baffled yearning which raged within him, he made his way down three of the angling flights of the pyramid stairs and flung back into its masonry sockets the high priest's door.
Never perhaps in the history of the nation has so unceremonious an entrance of those chambers in the sacred structure been made. Yet Croft had deliberately planned on the effect and a quiver of satisfaction filled him, as Zud, seated at a table of the wine-red wood so much used for furnishings in Tamarizia, refreshing himself with some cakes of beaten grain and wine, and fruit, glanced up sharply with an expression of surprised resentment and then started to his feet.