The Skylark of Space by E. E. Smith (books like beach read .TXT) 📕

had seasoned the dishes before him. Nalboon tasted the pepper cautiously and smiled in delight, half-emptying the shaker upon his plate. He then sprinkled a few grains of salt into his palm, stared at them with an expression of doubting amazement, and after a few rapid sentences poured them into a dish held by an officer who had sprung to his side. The officer studied them closely, then carefully washed his chief’s hand. Nalboon turned to Seaton, plainly asking for the saltcellar.

“Sure, old top. Keep ’em both, there’s lots more where those came from,” as he produced several more sets in the same mysterious way and handed them to Crane, who in turn passed them to the others.

The meal progressed merrily, with much conversation in the sign-language between the two parties. It was evident that Nalboon, usually stern and reticent, was in an unusually pleasant mood. The viands, though of peculiar flavor, were in the main pleasing to the palates of the Earthly visitors.

“This fruit salad, or whatever it is, is divine,” remarked Dorothy, after an experimental bite. “May we eat as much as we like, or had we better just eat a little?”

“Go as far as you like,” returned her lover. “I wouldn’t recommend it, as a steady diet, as I imagine everything contains copper and other heavy metals in noticeable amounts, and probably considerable arsenic, but for a few days it can’t very well hurt us much.”

After the meal, Nalboon bade them a ceremonious farewell, and they were escorted to a series of five connecting rooms by the royal usher, escorted by an entire company of soldiers, who mounted guard outside the doors. Gathered in one room, they discussed sleeping arrangements. The girls insisted that they would sleep together, and that the men should occupy the rooms at either side. As the girls turned away, the four slaves followed.

“We don’t want these people, and I can’t make them go away!” cried Dorothy.

“I don’t want them, either,” replied Seaton, “but if we chase them out they’ll get their heads chopped off. You girls take the women and we’ll take the men.”

Seaton waved all the women into the girls’ room, but they paused irresolutely. One of them went up to the man wearing the metal belt, evidently their leader, and spoke to him rapidly as she threw her arms around his neck. He shook his head, motioning toward Seaton several times as he spoke to her reassuringly. With his arm about her tenderly, he led her to the door, the other women following. Crane and DuQuesne having gone to their rooms with their attendants, the man wearing the belt drew the blinds and turned to assist Seaton in taking off his clothes.

“I never had a valet before, but go as far as you like if it pleases you,” remarked Seaton, as he began to throw off his clothes. A multitude of small articles fell from their hiding-places in his garments as he removed them. Almost stripped, Seaton stretched vigorously, the muscles writhing and rippling in great ridges under the satin skin of his broad back and mighty arms and shoulders as he filled his capacious lungs and twisted about, working off the stiffness caused by the days of comparative confinement.

The four slaves stared in open-mouthed astonishment at this display of muscular development and conversed among themselves as they gathered up Seaton’s discarded clothing. Their leader picked up a saltshaker, a couple of silver knives and forks, and some other articles, and turned to Seaton, apparently asking permission to do something with them. Seaton nodded assent carelessly and turned to his bed. As he did so, he heard a slight clank of arms in the hall as the guard was changed, and lifting the blind a trifle he saw that guards were stationed outside as well. As he went to bed, he wondered whether the guards were guards of honor or jailers; whether he and his party were honored guests or prisoners.

Three of the slaves, at a word from their chief, threw themselves upon the floor and slept, but he himself did not rest. Opening the apparently solid metal belt, he took out a great number of small tools, many tiny instruments, and several spools of insulated wire. He then took the articles Seaton had given him, taking great pains not to spill a single grain of salt, and set to work. Hour after hour he labored, a strange, exceedingly complex instrument taking form under his clever fingers.

XIV Nalboon Unmasked

After a long, sound sleep, Seaton awoke and sprang out of bed. No sooner had he started to shave, however, than one of the slaves touched his arm, motioning him into a reclining chair and showing him a keen blade, long and slightly curved. Seaton lay down and the slave shaved him with a rapidity and smoothness he had never before experienced, so wonderfully sharp was the peculiar razor. After Seaton had dressed, the barber started to shave the chief slave, without any preliminary treatment save rubbing his face with a perfumed oil.

“Hold on a minute,” interjected Seaton, who was watching the process with interest, “here’s something that helps a lot.” He lathered the face with his brush and the man looked up in surprised pleasure as his stiff beard was swept away without a sound.

Seaton called to the others and soon the party was assembled in his room, all dressed very lightly, because of the unrelieved and unvarying heat, which was constant at one hundred degrees. A gong sounded, and one of the slaves opened the door, ushering in a party of servants bearing a table, ready set. During the meal, Seaton was greatly surprised at hearing Dorothy carrying on a halting conversation, with one of the women standing behind her.

“I knew that you were a language shark, Dottie, with five or six different ones to your credit, but I didn’t suppose you could learn to talk this stuff in one day.”

“I can’t,” she replied,