He backed against the wall, and began to use his arms like a windmill, pushing the crickets and pigmies around like chaff. It seemed to the onlookers as if flesh and blood could not battle in this manner. With his pale blue eyes flashing fire, his long, shaggy hair whirled back over the crown of his head, and his heavy red beard twisting from right to left with each movement of his head, he looked like a fiend.
Epworth, Joan and Billy, and the girl called Moawha, by the queen, were bound and placed with their backs to the wall, and still Toplinsky fought. If his strength held out it seemed as if he would be able to stand off a nation of crickets.
“Hold!”
The command came from the queen, and was accompanied by a cricket chirp. Instantly her cohorts ceased fighting, and Toplinsky, smiling as if in the face of death, extended his hand, jerked a toga off of one of the pigmies, and wiped the blood from his forehead where he had been hit by a spear.
Pushing aside the crickets and soldiers Carza strode fearlessly up to the giant, and stopped to gaze into his face fascinated.
“You are a great fighter,” she said abruptly.
“I am,” Toplinsky agreed without modesty. “I am the greatest fighter you ever saw, or ever will see.”
“Bend your head,” she commanded.
With a smile that displayed his huge teeth disagreeably Toplinsky obeyed. The queen took the cloth from his hands, cleaned the blood from his face, and thrust the bloody rag into her waist band.
“I have been looking for a man of mighty valor—a man like you. Yes, you have been the search of my life. Come! Together we will go far. You will aid me in destroying my enemies, and increase my power over the whole world.”