Golden Blood by Jack Williamson Read Free Book Online Page A

tongues.”
    “You don’t mean he’d torture a woman!”
    “You don’t know him.”
    Price said decisively, “I’m going to see her.”
    “Better leave her alone,” Garth advised, in the same expressionless voice. “Joao will be irritated if you interrupt his amusement. We can’t afford to have any trouble.”
    Without answering, Price strode away toward de Castro’s tent, a small, hot flame of anger in his heart.
     
    A little group of men, whites and Arabs, were gathered in front of the tent. The captured white camel was tied down, near by. Ali was proudly displaying his share of the loot— abha of soft white wool, kamis and cherchis of fine-woven silk, and a thin, golden dagger, whose temper, he was declaring excitedly, was good as any steel. Nur, with gestures and elaborate pantomime, was telling the story of the chase, of the fierceness with which the girl had fought, baring his side to show a skin wound he had received from the yellow dagger.
    Kanja stood aside, delightedly fondling the newly won binoculars, grinning with childish pleasure as he peered through them, first from one end of the tubes and then the other.
    Price strode through the group to where the Eurasian stood at the lifted flap of the tent, his swarthy, pock-marked face evil with lust. Beside him was his henchman, Pasic, a Montenegrin, who had been mate of the Iñez, Joao’s schooner. Black, hairy, powerful as a bull, he deserved his usual appellation, “Black Ape.”
    “I’d like,” Price said, “to see your prisoner, de Castro.”
    “D’ bitch, she ess mine,” the little Macanese muttered, rather belligerently, in his awkward English.
    A moment he stood in front of Price, but his shifty, furtive, oblique eyes fell before Price’s stern blue ones. He stepped aside.
    The girl lay upon the rough shale beneath the tent. Most of the clothing had been stripped from her—being part of Ali’s loot—and her wrists and slender ankles were trussed with rough halter-ropes of camel’s hair. Price had known she must be attractive, to tempt the Eurasian to part with his prized binoculars. But her loveliness astonished him.
    Young, she was; no more, he guessed, than nineteen. The skin of her fresh, smooth body was whiter than his own . Even the oval face was not deeply tanned; she must, he thought, have worn a veil.
    Bound as the girl was, she could not rise. But as Price peered into the tent she twisted into a half-upright position and glared at him in regal rage. Framed in disordered brown hair, her face was delicately strong, red-lipped. Dark her eyes were, violet-blue, and quite devoid of fear.
    Without stopping to analyze his emotions—which was a thing he seldom did—Price knew at once that he could not leave her in the hands of the Macanese. And he realized at the same time that Joao would make trouble, rather than lose her.
    He started impulsively into the tent, to loosen her ropes. She flung her half-bare body at him, grazed his hand with strong, flashing teeth.
    De Castro seized his arm, jerked him from the tent before he could resist. Dark, slanted eyes were snapping with jealous passion.
    “ She ess mine!” he hissed. “Damn you, keep ’way!”
    “De Castro,” Price said, “I want you to turn her loose.”
    The thin yellow hands of the Eurasian trembled.
    “Turn ’er loose?” he screamed. “Turn ’er loose, when I geeve for ’er my ver’ fine binoc’lar? D’ hell!”
    “That’s all right. I’ll pay you for the glasses. Or even give you mine, if you want.”
    “I want ’er, not d’ dam’ binoc’lar!”
    “I’ll give you five hundred dollars—”
    “D’ hell! What ess money, ’ere?”
    “Listen, de Castro,” Price said, a new note of authority in his voice. He realized that mild measures had been a mistake. “I’m head of this expedition. I order you to untie that girl.”
    “Dios!” the Eurasian screamed, shaking in a fit of passion.
    “Then I’ll do it, for you.”
    Price started into the