The lord of the jungle felt weak beneath the spell of her burning eyes. "I do not want such things," he said.
Her soft arm crept up about his neck. A tender light, that was new to them, welled in the eyes of Nemone, the Queen of Cathne. "Tarzan!" she whispered.
And then a door at the far end of the chamber opened and a negress entered. She had been very tall, but now she was old and bent; her scraggly wool was scant and white. Her withered lips were twisted into something that might have been either a snarl or a grin, revealing her toothless gums. She stood in the doorway leaning upon a staff and shaking her head, an ancient, palsied hag.
At the interruption Nemone straightened and looked around. The expression that had transformed and softened her countenance was swept away by a sudden wave of rage, inarticulate but no less terrible.
The old hag tapped upon the floor with her staff; her head nodded ceaselessly like that of some grotesque and horrible doll, and her lips were still contorted in what Tarzan realized now was no smile but a hideous snarl. "Come!" she cackled. "Come! Come! Come!"
Nemone sprang to her feet and faced the woman. "M'duzei" she screamed. "I could kill you! I could tear you to pieces! Get out of here!"
But the old woman only tapped with her staff and cackled, "Come! Come! Come!"
Slowly Nemone approached her. As one drawn by an invisible and irresistible power the Queen crossed the chamber, the old hag stepped aside, and the Queen passed on through the doorway into the darkness of a corridor beyond. The old woman turned her eyes upon Tarzan, and, snarling, backed through the doorway after Nemone. Noiselessly the door closed behind them.
Tarzan had arisen as Nemone arose. For an instant he hesitated and then took a step toward the doorway in pursuit of the Queen and the old hag; then he heard a door open and a step behind him, and turned to see the noble who had ushered him into Nemone's presence standing just within the threshold.
"You may return to the quarters of Gemnon," announced the noble politely.
Tarzan shook himself as might a lion; he drew a palm across his eyes as one whose vision has been clouded by a mist; then he drew a deep sigh and moved toward the doorway as the noble stepped aside to let him pass, but whether it was a sigh of relief or regret, who may say?