1. Disaster - Page 2

with our lives and what we had on, and that was all; but we were very happy. I didn't want to spoil it by questioning the future. But, really, we had a great many questions to ask of the future; and Duare presently raised one quite innocently enough.

"Where are we going?" she asked.

"To look for Vepaja," I told her. "I am going to try to take you home."

She shook her head. "No, we can't go there."

"But that is the one place you have been longing to go ever since you were kidnaped by the klangan," I reminded her.

"But not now, Carson. My father, the jong, would have you destroyed. We have spoken of love to one another, and no man may speak of love to the daughter of the jong of Vepaja before she is twenty. You know that well enough."

"I certainly should," I teased her; "you have told me often enough."

"I did it for your own safety, but nevertheless I always liked to hear you say it," she admitted.

"From the first?" I asked.

"From the first. I have loved you from the first, Carson."

"You are an adept at dissimulation. I thought you hated me; and yet, sometimes I wondered."

"And because I love you, you must never fall into the hands of my father."

"But where can we go, Duare? Do you know a single spot in all this world where we should be safe? There is none; and in Vepaja you, at least, will be safe. I shall have to take the chance of winning your father over."

"It could never be done," she declared. "The unwritten law that decrees this thing is as old as the ancient empire of Vepaja. You have told me of the gods and goddesses of the religions of your world. In Vepaja the royal family occupies a similar position in the minds and hearts of the people, and this is especially true of the virgin daughter of a jong--she is absolutely sacrosanct. To look at her is an offense; to speak to her is a crime punishable by death."

"It's a crazy law," I snapped. "Where would you be now, had I abided by its dictates?--dead. I should think your father would feel some obligation toward me."

"As a father, he would; but not as a jong."

"And I suppose he is a jong first," I said, a little bitterly.

"Yes, he is a jong first; and so we may not return to Vepaja," she said with finality.

What an ironical trick Fate had played upon me. With many opportunities in two worlds to pick a girl for me to fall in love with, she had ended up by choosing a goddess. It was tough, yet I wouldn't have had it otherwise. To have loved Duare, and to know that she loved me, was better than a lifetime with any other woman.

Duare's decision that we must not return to Vepaja had