which will have to be left to your invention, or the kindness of such as you. I am here on a hare-brained errand, playing knight-errant in a way that shocks my common sense. But since the matter has gone so far I will see it through, or die in the attempt. Your bully lord shall either give me Heru, stock, lock, and block, or hang me from a yard-arm. But I would rather have the lady. Come, you will help me; and, as a beginning, if she is in yonder shanty get me speech with her."
Poor Si's eyes dilated at the peril of the suggestion, and I saw the sluggish Martian nature at war against her better feelings. But presently the latter conquered. "I will try," she said. "What matter a few stripes more or less?" pointing to her rosy shoulders where red scars crisscross upon one another showed how the Martian girls fared in Ar-hap's palace when their novelty wore off. "I will try to help you; and if they kill me for it—why, that will not matter much." And forthwith in that blazing forenoon under the flickering shadow of the trees we put our heads together to see what we might do for Heru.
It was not much for the moment. Try what we would that afternoon, I could not persuade those who had charge of the princess to let me even approach her place of imprisonment, but Si, as a woman, was more successful, actually seeing
