The golden amazon's excitement died. Her voice lost its challenging note and became softer, throatier, more insinuating. She stirred nearer him, and the silk rustled languid invitation. The warmth of her body touched his own, hip and thigh, and the scent of her hair was a titillation to his nostrils.
"But, say, my Lord," she whispered, "do not even the gods look with favor upon those who please them?"
The warning bell was clamoring brassily now. It rose and fell with the pound of Ramey's pulse. His temples hammered, his lips were parched, and forgotten now were Sugriva and Dr. Aiken, Red, the O'Briens, all those who had accompanied him into this strange adventure.
Even the mist-blue eyes of Sheila Aiken were a far memory, colorless and without warmth.
He choked, "It is ... true ... that even a god might look with longing upon ... one like you, Lady Rakshasi."
And she was closer still, the warmth of her tempting-near, her sleek, golden body yielding to his own, her breath upon his lips.
"Thou and I, if I delight thee, my Lord," she whispered. "Together might we raise Videlia into the power and glory which is rightly its own. With thy mighty arm, and with the strong Bow of Rudra, we will sweep all others before us. Nor shall we stand alone. For, lo—there is even my brother Ravana, whose heart sickens with hunger for the goddess Sheilacita who is in thy train."
Now the warning bell, which had become a faint tolling whisper almost submerged beneath the waves that engulfed Ramey Winters, burst suddenly into full, reverberant cry! With one shrugging movement he had thrust the tawny temptress from him and was on his feet.
"What!" he cried. "Ravana—and Sheila? You mean he dares—" His brow flamed with a sudden, red rage; anger that was darker still with the realization of the trap into which he had almost let his senses betray him. "No, Rakshasi! That cannot be! Sheila belongs to me! No other man—"