Part 61 (1/2)
”Then it can't be much of a secret.”
”Oh! You think?” He opened his big childish eyes at her and nodded his head solemnly. ”This secret has been with me thousands and thousands of miles. Every time I shot off my gun, every day I went 'tramp, tramp'
through the forest walking on snakes, every time I fought for my life I had this secret of mine to live with.”
”You had better not tell it then; it may lose its interest.”
”I want it to interest you.”
”It does,” said Charlotte, ”very much.”
”Huh! You do not know what it is.”
”That is why; it is much more interesting not to know.”
”Ah, you are playing at me! But what I go to tell you is no joke.”
”I was not laughing,” she said.
”No; only 'chatter, chatter'!”
”You know where I have been?” he continued.
”I know the continent.”
”Yes;--you are right; that is all anybody knows about it. Well, inside of it there is a country as big as this Jingalo of yours; and it belongs really to n.o.body. I have been all over it.”
”The people are very savage, are they not?”
”Savage?--oh, no. They are very fierce and proud, and strong; they are also the most wonderful artists. You call that to be a savage?”
”Artists?”
”Yes; look at that.”
As he spoke he drew up his sleeve almost to the elbow, exposing a sunburnt arm, smooth, fine of texture, and enormously muscular. Over its brawny mold, with scaly convolutions elaborately tattooed, writhed a dragon in bright indigo.
”Oh, how beautiful!” exclaimed the Princess. Marveling at the clear intricacy of its detail, she stooped to examine it more closely.
Prince Fritz turned his arm this way and that, displaying it. He snapped his fingers: flick went each separate muscle, the dragon became alive.
”What do you think?” he inquired, smiling with childish vanity and the delight of feeling upon his skin the warmth of her breath.
”It is very beautiful,” she murmured again, her admiration divided between the scaly dragon's wings and the splendidly molded limb.
”I have them far more beautiful upon my legs,” said the Prince.
”Dragons?”
”Yes; but oh! quite different; more--how do you say?--'bloodthirsty' you call it? Here and here”--he went on, indicating the locality--”I have two. One of them is climbing up and the other is climbing down; and they are both biting on my knee-cap with their teeth--like mad.”
”They must be quite wonderful.”