“Love is immortal: Lamara said it, and I know it!”
“I know nothing of immortality,” Zarga replied, with a touch of scorn. “But whatever it be, I would not, if I were a man, wish to give the woman I loved to another during this life of earth!”
Jack’s face flushed. “We can both die!” he said.
“Love wants life, not death!” the girl exclaimed. “Love has a body as well as a soul! Do you know that, while we sat here, Torpeon is with her? An hour of trance is his hour of possession! And how long will a woman love a man who stays inactive while she is in his rival’s arms? Women love the possessor!”
He stood up, tense and trembling. The thought of his promise to Lamara fought with the passions that Zarga had aroused. But if Zarga’s view were right, Lamara would withdraw her warning. What should he do?
Zarga seemed to read his mind. “It’s not for a girl such as I to tell a lover what to do to save the woman he loves,” she said. “But I warn you, if you touch her, Torpeon will exert his whole power to keep her. And don’t think you can baffle him again as you did once! He will come with his legions behind him!”
Love, jealousy, and the pride of a man’s valor against his foe, were temptations too strong: and at that moment Miriam stirred in her trance, her eyelids quivered and her lips moved. There came a muffled whisper.
“Jack—beloved—drive him away—save me—take me!”
She relapsed into immobility.
He was strung to the high pitch now. With love and wrath at once tingling through his nerves, he stooped to take Miriam in his arms: that mark—a kiss would obliterate it!