She had made every preparation, and soon she swam before us, laughing with excitement and delight. I gasped. For the first time, I saw her usually up-flowing hair bound down to her shapely head, coiled and braided, and with a garland of tiny marine flowers in it. A new, close-fitting suit, with a girdle. And anklets of dull green, which by contrast made her smooth skin shine like polished pink marble.
“You like me, my Nemo?” she laughed. And she eyed me sidewise through lowered lashes—as though I were not her mate, but only one who wished to be.
Then we started. The streets—more brightly lighted than usual—were bedecked with flowers. The light slanting down through the water from overhead lent queer grotesque shadows to the figures swimming beneath them. The crowd was all moving toward the palace. Marinoid men and girls—gaudily dressed; the girls, I noticed, all more scantily robed than upon less festive occasions. In couples and little groups, they swam along. The water rang with the gay voices of the girls. A cart passed us—a sleigh driven by a swimming animal—the equipage of one of the King’s advisers. But its owner was not in it now. It was loaded with Marinoid girls; as they swept past, one of them leaned out and tossed a garland of seaweed over my head, laughing at me provocatively.
We three—Caan, Nona and I—swam slowly onward. The eve of warfare! No one would have believed it who swam the gay streets of Rax that night! And yet—a figure lurked here and there. The Marinog half breeds! From doorways of houses dark, with the shades all closed, from rooftops, tangles of street vegetation, they hovered, motionless. Or swam furtively, close along the walls of cross-streets.
I could feel their eyes upon me. At one corner we passed a giant half-breed man. He stood on the street-bottom, motionless, and he did not move to make way for us. I passed quite close to him; and I could sense that his figure stiffened, tensed. I looked back. . . . He was staring after me, grim, inscrutable, sinister. . . .
The palace, and the water before it, were jammed. Glaring green water. Lights everywhere. Crowds of gaudy figures. . . . Laughing girls, alert to their sex. . . . Confusion . . . gaiety everywhere. . . .
I followed Caan, keeping Nona close beside me. On the palace roof we came to rest, near a sort of throne erected at the parapet—a throne on which the King and Queen were sitting.
Atar joined us. “Will you eat now? Food is there waiting.”
He smiled at my Nona, kneeling before her. And she bent down and touched his head with her cheek, Marinoid fashion.