"Who cares what they think about it?" I said. "We've found her. That's all that matters!"
Xenora sat down eagerly. I found joy in watching her eat. She manipulated her unfamiliar fork with instinctive culture, and seemed to like Sam's viands immensely. And she ate with the restrained eagerness of one who has not touched food for some time. What misfortunes had the brave girl been through?
Presently, when she was somewhat satisfied, Sam began questioning her in an effort to find out something of the strange world about us. "Where do your people live?" he began.
"Once Lothar was an empire that girdled the central sea. But many lifetimes ago the evil power of Mutron arose, and our people were conquered by the slaves of the Lord of Flame. Now there are but a handful of my race, living in the forests by the northern cliffs. And even they are taken to serve the Lord of Flame——"
"The Lord of Flame! What is that?" Sam cried in amazement.
"It is a dreadful thing—a serpent of green fire that dwells in the violet mists of the chasm of Xath," she said hastily. "But let us not speak of it. No man speaks of the Lord of Flame, for it hears—stay! Oh, horror! Do you not—feel it?"
And indeed, at her words, I felt a strange and alien thrill, as if the revealing searchlight of some dreadful power had been suddenly thrown upon me, as if some strange wind of fear had blown upon my soul. I shivered involuntarily, and crouched closer to the others, trying to drive the horror from my mind.
"God!" Sam breathed hoarsely. "What can we be up against?"
In a moment the girl went hurriedly on, as though to change our thoughts to other things. "Many sleeps ago I was taken by the men of Mutron, and put in the power of Xath. They sent me on a ship to fight the Lunaks. We fell in with a vast number of them, and they brought the vessel down. The fire-crystal was torn from my back in the wreck, and I was free. I ran for the trees, but the Lunak caught me. And that was the last I knew, until I woke, from my dream of—of——"
She turned to me with a little smile, as if such weirdly incredible adventures were to be taken as a matter of course. I could not speak for the pity and horror that were mingled with my admiration for her courage. But I could, and did, reach under the table and take her hand. Thereafter each of us contrived—after a fashion—to eat with one hand.