s was on him.

CHAPTER VII

_The Deluge_

Few of the Sons of God and none of the Nepthalim, save Damis, could
match the brute strength of the Viceroy. As Damis rushed, Glavour
sidestepped and caught the Nepthalim's arm in a bone-crushing grasp.
Damis made no effort to break the grip, but with his free hand he
gripped the wrist of Glavour's crippled arm. With a quick effort he
twisted it and the Viceroy gave a shriek of pain as the newly knit bone
gave way and his arm fell, dangling and useless. Damis caught his sound
arm in a powerful grip and twisted slowly on his wrist. Gradually
Glavour's fingers relaxed and Damis' arm was free. His hands shot up and
gripped Glavour about the throat just in time to shut off the cry for
help which was forming on his thick lips. The two giants strove silently
for mastery in the struggle which meant life for the victor and death
for the vanquished. The expression in Damis' eyes was one of confident
mastery, but the face of the Jovian showed something that was strangely
akin to fear. Even when he was whole, Glavour had found that his
strength was no match for the power that lay in Damis' graceful limbs.
With one of the Viceroy's arms useless, the issue was a foregone
conclusion.

Glavour's face gradually grew purple and his eyes started out of their
sockets. His tongue protruded horribly from his opened jaws. He grew
weaker until it was only Damis' grip which kept him from falling to the
ground. Then Damis broke his silence and spoke slowly and distinctly
into the dying Viceroy's ears.

* * * * *

"I was loyal to you, Glavour," he said, "despite your brutality and
sensuality which sickened me, until you strove to add to your already
crowded seraglio the maiden whom I had chosen. As a Nepthalim, you
thought I had no right which you need respect and I would tamely submit
to whatever you chose to do. You forgot that in my veins run the best
blood of Earth and the proudest blood of Jupiter. Hortan was a Mildash
of Jupiter, a rank to which you could never aspire. I restricted your
efforts and proved to you a thing which I long have known, that, man to
man, I am your superior.

"Even then you might have won back my loyalty had I not learned how my
father and my mother came to their death. It has always been given out
that they went to Jupiter on a summons from Tubain, but I know the
truth. They died under the knife of a cowardly assas