How proudly and yet how marvelously she stood beside me.
23
38
I saw that she had picked a talender on the hill, and that she had placed it in her hair.
23
39
I shook my head.
23
40
Though the full force of my will drove me to the mountains, though in the mountains the priest-kings waited for me, I could not yet go.
23
41
It was unthinkable that I should take this girl into the Sardar to be destroyed as I would be destroyed, that I should devastate this young life so recently initiated into the glories of the senses, which had just awakened into the victories of life and feeling.
23
42
What could I balance against her—my honor, my thirst for vengeance, my curiosity, my frustration, my fury? I put my arm about her shoulder and led her down from the hillock.
23
43
She looked at me questioningly.
How proudly and yet how marvelously she stood beside me.
I saw that she had picked a talender on the hill, and that she had placed it in her hair.
I shook my head.
Though the full force of my will drove me to the mountains, though in the mountains the priest-kings waited for me, I could not yet go.
It was unthinkable that I should take this girl into the Sardar to be destroyed as I would be destroyed, that I should devastate this young life so recently initiated into the glories of the senses, which had just awakened into the victories of life and feeling.
What could I balance against her—my honor, my thirst for vengeance, my curiosity, my frustration, my fury? I put my arm about her shoulder and led her down from the hillock.
She looked at me questioningly.
- (Outlaw of Gor, Chapter )