River-of-Perfumes-Chapter-02

She was. Tou Dac moved fast. Within two hours, Barrett saw commotion at the water-gate of the palace along the River of Perfumes. Paper lanterns bobbed agitatedly. An illuminated orchid, rose-violet and pale yellow, came floating swiftly upstream. An enormous orchid of silk on a sampan it was, with its purple tongue curving over from astern as a sunshade and canopy. The swift thumps of its oar betokened haste.

Barrett called his boys and hastened to the wharf. The Annamese rower jumped out and looped a rope around a cleat. Within the orchid, the heart of the lotus, was a couch in a riot of silken pillows, and on it lay a glittering little court beauty. She scarcely breathed. Her eyes were closed, and the pallor of death had driven all the rose from her cheeks. Barrett gasped at her sheer beauty, then signed to his men to carry her quickly. The sampan man squatted for a long wait.

On the operating table, the hospital boys quickly divested her of her blaze of jewel-encrusted embroidery, then her filmy under-silks. Their sponges began bathing her with powerful alcohol. Barrett gasped again. Never had he seen a more perfect woman’s form. She was made for love.

Her intense glossy blue-black hair was brushed back tight from a round, smooth forehead, giving an aspect of innocence and girlishness. Her nose was piquant, saucy. Her mouth was a red flower in which one would bury one’s lips as in a rose. And her eyes—they now drooped, closed, under downy lashes of black, arched over with thin pencil-bows of black brows—but they would be opals of brown and red fire when they opened.

“Oh, you little beauty,” Barrett breathed, his heart hammering. He sought and found, just under her knee above the shapely turn of her calf, the two red pin-pricks of the cobra. He made two sharp incisions that welled blood, then sucked the venom out and spat it away. That draining was only preliminary; the venom was already through her blood, paralyzing every nerve. Barrett drove in the sharp hypodermic needle above the wound and pressed steadily on the serum plunger. A second hypodermic under the curve of her left breast to protect the heart. A third injected in the smooth curve of her right thigh where it swept into the slender dip of her waist. Then he stood and waited.

Slowly, miraculously, her quick, tight respiration lengthened. The paralyzed muscles relaxed. A faint glow of rose appeared in her palms, her breasts, her feet. The pale ivory skin took on richness, the soft glow of health.

“Enough with the alcohol,” he said.

They wrung out the sponges, gathered basins, and left. Barrett braced himself for the recovery.

They were all charming in a physical way, but it took charm plus intelligence to enchant an educated white man. Her eyes alone could tell him if there was intelligence. Most were pretty little animals without a thought beyond finery, the seduction of men, the delights of food. Barrett could understand that this girl would drive men mad with her perfections, so far as they went. Good enough for Orientals; they demanded nothing more. He wondered if this one would act differently. No—she wouldn’t have a chance with what he was about to give her.

Her eyelids fluttered. Barrett had ready a beaker of strong vital solution that flooded all the important organs, whipping them into intense activity and setting the heart pounding furiously to restore circulation. Gently he parted her flower lips and made her swallow the dose.

She stirred presently, moving her whole body slightly to a more comfortable position. Then her eyes opened. They studied him a moment. They were rich with intelligence, humor, keenness. A pretty wrinkle of puzzlement appeared on her brow. Then they changed swiftly to glowing fires of passion. Her arms opened to receive him.

“Love me, O man! Love me! Love me!” she panted hungrily and reached up to take him.

Barrett eluded her. No… He had made a bargain of sorts with Tou Dac. She was for Tou Dac if he had courage and ingenuity enough to carry out her abduction. He must refrain. He was on fire himself, but he shook his head and tried to raise a warning hand.

Quick as a leopard, she snatched at it, dragged him down upon her. She would not be denied. Fierce, lithe, strong, she enveloped him, locked him fast. Her arms twined around his neck, her legs curled about his, and she pulled him into the warm, soft cradle of her body. Her lips found his, hungry and demanding, and he felt the urgent press of her breasts against his chest. Her skin was silk and flame beneath his fingers, and the scent of her—frangipani and lotus and something deeper, muskier, purely female—drove thought from his mind. He surrendered to the exquisite madness of her embrace, and for a long moment there was nothing in the world but the two of them, tangled together in the heart of the lotus, her soft moans and his ragged breathing the only sounds.