by Earl
“Out hunting birds, no doubt, since there aren’t any rats for him,” suggested her father pointedly. Helena left for the kitchen for more bacon, warning her fiance with a glance not to keep up the trivial argument.
Scott sighed and said nothing. Why let Dr. Bolton make his stay up here unpleasant? The elderly scientist had always been cold and scientific in attitude, and with age had become irritable. He was sharp-featured, wore pince-nez, and a goatee. It was his yearly custom to spend the spring and summer months in this isolated region, filling out his notes on biological research done in the city.
Helena, was sweet, on the other hand. She made up for her father. Scott allowed himself to glow. There would be quiet tramps in the woods with her; views from the higher knolls. A communion with nature and with the sense of mysterious things that lay over this wild land. Scott was the opposite of the scientist, in nature. He hoped to write a book up here.
His thoughts were interrupted by a sharp scream. It was from Helena, in the kitchen.
Scott dashed there. Helena was standing in the further doorway, looking down on the steps leading to the cellar of the old, ramshackle house.
“What is it, Helena? What—”
Scott, beside her, followed her pointing finger. The big, lean cat—Tommy—lay on the third step, dead. Clotted blood soaked its tan-mottled fur. Scott stepped down, kneeled, and raised the head by one ear. The throat was torn out. Scott stared, looking closer. Torn out? It almost looked as though—but no, that must be sheer imagination.
Who or what would cut a cat’s throat?
“So it is a rat!” Dr. Bolton’s voice was enraged, at this collapse of his previous stand. “And a big one, to get Tommy like that. Well, I’ll get him! Helena, where are those rat-traps? No, never mind, I’ll find them myself. Get out you two. Get out.”
They left the fuming man, realizing his raw temper had been salted by the incident.
SCOTT enjoyed the hike he and Helena took. Hand in hand they struggled up a bald peak and looked down over rolling hills that faded into dim distance. It was quiet, sylvan, and again—mysterious.
“Who knows what queer things lie hidden beyond the sight of mortal man?” Scott mused, half smiling at himself.
“Washington Irving found that sort of inspiration here,” agreed the girl, in their mutual mood. “The Headless Horseman, Rip Van Winkle, the ghost crew of Hendrik Hudson—”
They laughed, then, and ran down the hill. They made a day of it, munching on sandwiches Helena had brought. When they returned to the isolated house, Dr. Bolton was gruffly pleasant. Before bedtime he pointed out the three rat-traps he had placed in strategic places, baited with raw bacon. They were the spring type, effective against uneducated country rats.
“I’ll get him!” the scientist muttered, as though it were his only purpose in life.
Scott was awakened from a sound sleep by the pistol-like snap of a trap, in the middle of the night. He smiled at the thought of what Dr. Bolton’s triumph would be, in the morning, and turned on his other side. But he was awakened again by a snap, a few minutes later. And then a third. All three traps had Sprung. Three rats? Strange, in such quick succession. But Scott was too tired to puzzle over that.
In the morning, Dr. Bolton appeared at the breakfast table with a frown over his sharp features.
Not noticing, Scott asked: “How many rats were caught—three?”
“Three?” The scientist’s goatee fairly bristled. “None! And I don’t appreciate the humor of this, Paul Scott!”
He thrust out a torn bit of brown wrapping paper. Scott read the three scrawly words: “Can’t catch me!”
“I found it in the third sprung trap,” raged Dr. Bolton. “You deliberately sneaked down in the middle of the night, Scott—”
“Dad!” Helena’s tone was shocked. “You can’t believe Paul did it—”
“Then who did?” snapped Dr. Bolton. “An intelligent rat that writes notes?”
Scott and the girl looked at each other, wonderingly.
“It must have been an intruder,” Helena stammered uncertainly. “A—a tramp!”
“With the doors locked, and no ground floor windows open?” Dr. Bolton glared at Scott. “I won’t have a practical joker in my house! Helen will drive you to the station. You can catch the next train at—”
With studied calm, he reached for his vest-pocket watch. His face grew apoplectic, after he had fumbled a moment.
“It’s gone! My gold watch!”
CHAPTER II
Battle in the Moonlight
YOUNG ATHO looked down over the slope from his concealed vantage. Bright moonlight shafted down between the tall trees. The merrymakers gamboled over the grassy space, chatting and laughing and dancing. He knew them all, of course, the young people around his age of twenty summers. It was the full Moon Festival, gayest of them all.
His eyes lighted. There was lovely Elva, fairest of the girls. She danced in a direct, argent beam from above. He white, downy robe flowed about her shapely limbs. Her long, night-black hair streamed as she whirled with a grace no wild creature could match. Yes, she was lovely and perfect. Atho’s pulses throbbed.
Then he frowned a little. He saw Koro. He was sitting there, hugging his knees, gazing raptly at the pirouetting figure. Was she dancing for him? Atho hated the thought.
Then he glowed within. He had waited for the right moment, the height of the merriment. Now was the time . . .
He sprang up, in full view, in a sharp moonbeam that lime-lighted him as though on a stage. Once aloft, he shouted.
“Eyoooo!”
His young clarion voice carried down the wind, startling the merrymakers. The dancing stopped and a hundred faces turned toward him. Some of the more timid darted for shadows, for one never knew what danger lurked in the wild. Several of the young men leaped for their bows and spears.
Then one call came back, in recognition. “It’s Atho! He’s returned. Eyooo, Atho!”
They all knew him then. “Come down, Atho! Eyoo, Atho! What have you brought?” It was a mixed chorus.
Atho leaped high into the air, in pure exuberance, reversing his heels about one another a half dozen times before he landed. Then he yelled back:
“I have come back. And I have brought with me a great prize!”
“What is it? Let us see, Atho!”
The crowd now streamed up the slope toward him. Atho folded his arms, head held high, waiting till they had gathered in a semi-circle before him. He waited a little longer till Elva had struggled to the front, eagerly. Her dark, wondrous eyes met his, and only then did Atho move. Again he leaped high, his strong lithe body a study of animal grace.
“Show us, Atho! Please, Atho—” They were craning their necks, trying to see into the thicket behind him.
Atho strode to it and stooped, knowing all eyes were on him. He turned around with a burden in His arms. He set it at his feet, leaning it against his thigh. It was huge and round, almost half as high as he was. Both sides were flat and smoothly metallic, reflecting the moonlight in a burnished golden blaze.
“It is of gold!” said an excited voice from the group.
“But what is it?” queried another.
Atho waved a hand for attention, as the murmurs grew. Holding with one hand the large handle with which it was equipped, he pressed with his other fist on a protruding knob. Some of the girls shrieked as one whole side of the object fell away, on a hinge. Revealed was a shiny glass dial, and behind it black numbers on a circular white plate, with two metal hands slowly moving around. And they noticed now, in the hush that came over them, that the large object made a beating sound, like a machine.
“It is what the Big People call a ‘gold watch’,” Atho informed them, using the alien accent and words. “It tells them the time, perhaps more accurately than our sun-dials.”
Atho stood proudly. Their admiration was for him as well as the amazing prize. He had carried that great, ponderous thing on his back for miles and
miles.
No mean feat, for Atho of the Little Folk was just six inches high.
“WHERE did you find it?”
“How did you get it?”
“How did you dare take such a great thing from the Big People?”
“Tell us the story, Atho!”
Atho’s chest expanded and his eyes sparkled with achievement.
“It was easy. I went to the house that sits alone beyond Bald Mountain. There were three Big People in it. And a clawed-one; they call it a ‘cat.’ It is a fierce, quick beast. It can see in the dark, like we can. It stalked me the first night, as I looked for something worthy to take. It pounced at me once. It was almost as quick as I, but I ran and hid. in a garment on a chair. The cat could not wind me, because of the garment’s man-odor. The man must have heard. He lighted a torch, looking, then went back to sleep, breathing in the roaring way they do. Thus I escaped an encounter with the cat at that time, but when I left my hiding, it stalked me again.”
A child of nature, Atho was demonstrating with pantomine. He went around in a circle on all fours, lifting his hands and his feet carefully, to represent the cat.
“I saw I would have to deal with the cat, or give up my venture. It had stalked me to a dark place on steps leading down. I crouched low, against the wood. When it sensed me, its tail switched, and it leaped. I could barely see its monstrous claws sweeping toward for there was little light. But I was ready. With a lightning stroke, I hurled my lance into its throat. While it clawed at the spear, I darted close and cut its throat open with my flint axe.”
Atho made a violent arm motion, with an invisible axe.
“It died quickly, and the cat’s death was a mystery to the Big People, in the morning. I heard their rumbling speech. They spoke of traps. During that day, scouting around, I saw what I wanted—the gold watch, in the older man’s garment. I got it at night, when he had undressed. Then, before I left, I sprang the three traps with the butt of my spear! They made noises like thunder, but they caught only the wind! The Big Ones thought they were trapping a brainless creature called a rat!”
At this, the Little Folk laughed. And then, as though at a cue, they chorused out:
“The Big Ones are clumsy and witless,
We are so clever and spry,
They never will, never will catch us,
Not to the day we die!”
It was an age-old chant, born in a dim past. It was a chant of pathetic defiance, for the Little Folk lived in the shadow of a world dominated by the Big Ones. It was a chant of time-worn frustration, a rune of pitiful pride, never rendered to the Big Ones’ ears.
ATHO had drunk to the full of the moment. It was not often that one of the young men returned from a jaunt among the habitations of the Big Ones with such a remarkable prize.
But all the while Atho had watched Elva. Her reaction seemed strangely aloof. Almost, her eyes seemed to scorn him. He had hoped to move her most. He had, in fact, fulfilled his dangerous mission only to enlarge himself in her regard.
Yet there she stood, indifferently. Beside her, darkfaced Koro looked on sulkily. Atho well knew that he begrudged the triumph of the gold watch. Koro had long been his rival for the affections of Elva, since she had entered womanhood.
Atho felt a sickening drop in his elation. In the time of his absence, had Koro perhaps swung the scales in his own favor? But no. The ribbon of bethrothal did not gleam in Elva’s silk-black hair. She was still free. And Atho felt a quick upsurge of spirit. He had yet one more thing to tell. Surely it would stir her from that calm.
He held up his hand.
“I did one other thing,” he spoke. “In one of the traps I left a message, written on a piece of their own writing skin, with one of their own writing sticks. I wrote—’can’t catch me!”
Atho waited with a pleased anticipation for the roar of delight from his audience. But it did not come. Instead, there was a concert of gasps.
“But that is against the First Law!” said one voice. It was Koro, who had stepped forward. “The First Law says we must have no direct traffic with the Big People!”
Atho was taken aback.
“The message was not a communication,” he objected. “Nor did I reveal myself. I did not violate the First Law.”
“The Elders might think otherwise!” Koro replied pointedly.
The eyes of the two young men clashed. Atho trembled. He had often felt he must fight Koro. But he relaxed. It was the Second Law never to fight among themselves.
“Let us not tell the Elders!” rang out a voice from the group. “Atho meant no wrong!”
The thought struck instant reception. “We will not tell the Elders! We will keep it a secret! Atho is daring and brave! Let us all dance!”
Joining hands like happy children, they formed a huge ring around Atho as he hoisted the gold watch to his shoulders and strode down the slope. Beyond the ring, those with reed-flutes and three-stringed lyres resumed their music-making. There was no thought of rhythm or melody. It was free, wild, Pan-like, yet unconsciously harmonious. A human ear would have found the pipings and flutings strangely sweet and soothing, in tune with nature.
Atho deposited his burden at the end of the glade, among a heap of other articles spirited away from the Big People. Rings, strings of beads, silver coins, pins, needles, even a box of matches lay there. Atho noticed with pride that his gold watch stood out among them, both in size and resplendence.
They were thieves, the Little Folk, but only in principle. It was not the thought of wealth, which meant nothing to them. It was the thrill of outwitting the Big Ones, slipping their most prized baubles from under their very noses, as children love to hide things from their elders.
Atho turned now and sought Elva, after putting down his weapons. The ring had broken up in separate cavorting groups. Other girls danced across his path, invitingly, but Atho smilingly brushed them aside. He would dance only with Elva tonight. He saw her at last, standing at the edge of the glade, conversing with the ever-present Koro.
She turned quickly at his approach, her eyes full upon him, and Atho hoped it meant she had been waiting for him to seek her out. Koro turned, frowning.
Their eyes clashed again.
“Well, Atho the mighty!” greeted Koro with the mockery of envy. “Let us hear more of your boasting. Perhaps, in your modesty, you did not tell of a Big One you slew!”
“With your tongue as a sharper weapon than my spear, I might have,” retorted Atho. To Elva he said, more softly: “I would like to converse with you—alone.”
“Alone?” Elva drawled. “But there is much dancing going on. Why miss any of it?”
Atho didn’t know if she was serious or teasing. “Just for a minute or two,” he said.
“Elva is about to dance with me,” Koro asserted, grasping the girl’s hand possessively.
She jerked it free. “I do not like that, Koro!” she flared. “And I will converse with you, Atho—alone.”
Koro fell back at the sudden rebuff. Grinning, Atho led the girl away, under the shadow of a fern which loomed like a tree. The music and sound of light, shuffling feet faded into the background of forest silence.
ATHO stood awkwardly silent for a moment, leaning against a toadstool. Though in the eyes of the Big Ones Atho might seem tiny and insignificant, he was, in proportion, a miniature Hercules. Great wide shoulders and a broad chest narrowed down to the flat waist of an athletic body. The arms and legs rippled with smooth, deceptive muscles. He was bare except for a light, spider-silk shirt, and trunks of moleskin upheld by a belt of snake-hide.
His features were regular and weather-tanned. Keen blue eyes peered beneath a mane of nut-brown hair cut low. His rugged jaw and straight lips spoke of one who had never blanched before danger. Yet now, before the beauteous Elva, he seemed to have lost even the courage to speak.
“Did you miss me while I was gone?” he asked finally.
“We all missed you,” the girl said, plucking a blade of grass
and twining it about her arm.
“You are cool to me, Elva,” Atho grunted. “I brought the gold watch back only for you!”
“I cannot use it!” Elva’s laughter tinkled. “And as Koro said, you are quite a braggart about it!”
“But I do not mean to be,” protested Atho. “Elva, you are unfair. You know the exploit is as much a pleasure to all of us, as to I who accomplished it. We all enjoy such a coup against the Big People—”
“Yes, I know.” The girl was suddenly serious. “Those Big Ones are frightful, aren’t they, Atho?
I’ve never seen one. What sort of monsters are they?”
“Monsters?” Atho, who had been among them more than once, was thoughtful. “No, not monsters, Elva. We were told that as children so that we would be properly afraid of being seen by them. They are much like us, only twelve times as tall and bigger. They are like us in other things. They eat and laugh and dance and—love!”
Elva’s eyes were round in wonder. She had many misconceptions of the Big People. “You mean they can be tender toward one another?”
Atho nodded solemnly.
“Yes, that I know, for I saw two of them, man and woman, together. They sat at the summit of Bald Mountain. I had gone out to hunt, as I did not like their strange food, some of which I tried. They sat arm in arm, and the man whispered to the girl—” Sudden inspiration lanced in Atho’s mind. “He said to the girl that she was the loveliest creature in all the universe. The ‘universe’ is their word meaning all the worlds beyond the sky, if there are such. But he was wrong. For you, Elva—you are the loveliest creature in all the universe!”
Elva blushed. She stood in a pattern of intermittent moonlight streaming down through the fern fronds. With her black, moon-gilded hair, warm brown eyes, and slim rounded figure, she was close to being that ultimate paragon, at least in Atho’s eyes.
Atho felt that now the moment of moments had arrived. His arms slipped about her. She was rigid for a moment, then yielded to the embrace. She turned her face up, like a beautiful flower, and her rosy lips were an invitation . . .