At first she did not recognize
him, but when she did, instinctively she stepped back.
"Lieutenant Obergatz!" she cried. "Can it be you?"
"It can. It is," replied the German. "I am a strange sight, no doubt;
but still it is I, Erich Obergatz. And you? You have changed too,
is it not?"
He was looking at her naked limbs and her golden breastplates, the
loin cloth of jato-hide, the harness and ornaments that constitute
the apparel of a Ho-don woman--the things that Lu-don had dressed
her in as his passion for her grew. Not Ko-tan's daughter, even,
had finer trappings.
"But why are you here?" Jane insisted. "I had thought you safely
among civilized men by this time, if you still lived."
"Gott!" he exclaimed. "I do not know why I continue to live. I
have prayed to die and yet I cling to life. There is no hope. We
are doomed to remain in this horrible land until we die. The bog!
The frightful bog! I have searched its shores for a place to cross
until I have entirely circled the hideous country. Easily enough
we entered; but the rains have come since and now no living man
could pass that slough of slimy mud and hungry reptiles. Have I not
tried it! And the beasts that roam this accursed land. They hunt
me by day and by night."
"But how have you escaped them?" she asked.
"I do not know," he replied gloomily.
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