by Unknown
"No! Long habit makes me show respect for these myths, and adhere to the customs of our cult, but I do not believe. I think our race gained immunity for the Serpent's ravages, not through a compact with Quetzalcoatl, but because our builders were intelligent enough to erect the castle up here on the plateau, where Quetzalcoatl could not reach them. To tell the truth, I think the whole cult is false and wrong, and I wish Quetzalcoatl were dead and gone from the world!"
Kirby smiled. In spite of Naida's reverence for certain features of the cult, he had long suspected that her true feelings were those she had just expressed. And he was glad for this new bond of understanding between them. He glanced at her with understanding and perfect trust.
"Naida, since we have talked so frankly, there is one more thing which I must bring out."
She looked up at him.
"What is it?"
"The Duca."
* * * * *
She drew closer, her perfumed body brushing his, her great eyes caressing him.
"Naida, I am afraid of the man."
"And so am I!" she confessed suddenly.
"It has all been too easy," Kirby said in a slow voice. "There is no doubt whatever that our possession of the cylinder of gold has had great influence on the Duca, and yet--"
He paused, taking her hand.
"And yet," she went on for him, "you do not believe he would have conceded what he has, unless he intends to make trouble?"
Kirby nodded twice, emphatically.
"Well, you have trained all of us to use the rifles."
He smiled gravely at her understanding.
"Yes, I have. And your skill, and that of the others, with the rifles, will always help us. Yet even so--"
Closer still she drew now, and there was sadness in her eyes.
"I think I see," she said in a voice which choked. "When do you think he will make a move to start trouble?"
Kirby hesitated, then drew a long breath.
"To-day!"
"On--on the day of our union?" Naida echoed in dismay. "Can you tell where or how he will strike at us?"
Kirby shook his head.
"There are a hundred things he could do. Naida, I--I--Well, somehow I am afraid of the ceremony this afternoon--the wedding ceremony!"
* * * * *
He felt a little shiver go through her, and would have taken her in his arms, save that a gay cry rang in the garden then.
"Naida, Naida!" It was her cousin, Nini, a bronze-haired youngster as elfin and Pucklike as her name. "I thought we should never find you! Do you realize this is your wedding day, and that you're acting as if there was nothing to be done?"
Nini darted a mocking glance at Kirby, who grinned.
"Do come, Naida!" cried another girl. "Your gown is ready, and we want you to ourselves for awhile."
Other girls joined them, some singing and some carrying an obligato on the sweet, flutelike instruments which Kirby had first heard as he hung in the throat of the geyser. In front of them all, Kirby laughed and kissed Naida on the forehead. But as he took leave of her thus, he whispered:
"We must not let our guard relax for a second this afternoon. And I think there is a more definite precaution which I will take, besides."
CHAPTER IX
Some hours later, Kirby smiled with tight-lipped satisfaction at thought of that precaution which he had taken. What it was only he, Nini, Ivana, and three other girls knew, which secrecy pleased him as much as the precautionary measure itself.
Seated alone in a dimly-lighted, thick-walled cell of the ancient temple in which the dual ceremony of wedding and coronation would take place, he was waiting for the moment when the festivities would begin. Thus far the Duca had done nothing. Yet Kirby's uneasiness would not leave him, and he continued to be thankful that, if trouble should start, the Duca might not find as many trumps in his hand as he expected.
A couple of hours after Kirby had left Naida and the other girls in the garden, all had begun the two-mile journey from the castle to the small plateau on which stood this temple, where the ceremony would be held. Now, while Kirby waited alone, the Duca and his caciques had gone to another wing of the temple. Naida, attended by her bridesmaids, had been assigned to a cell of their own, and the rest of the girls were waiting in the nave of the temple. Unable to attend the walk from their plateau to this, the old people of the race had remained in their crystal houses.
With ten minutes more to wait, Kirby rose from a bench on which he had been seated, and began to pace his cell. It was this archaic pile of stone, he finally decided, which was causing his depression. Unlike the bright and cheerful castle, this place, older than any other building in the realm, was squat, thick-walled, and gloomy. Here, in the dusky cells which lined labyrinthine corridors, the early generations of the race had found protection from outside dangers. All of which was all right, Kirby thought, but just the same he wished he had insisted upon being wedded in the brilliant and cheerful amphitheatre.
* * * * *
But presently he stopped pacing and faced the door of his cell. Then he breathed a sigh of relief.
From down the twisting corridors which wound out to the central nave, stole the high sweetness of soprano voices, the whisper of flutes, and the mellow resonance of little gongs of jade and gold. It was the signal for which he had waited.
It had been the Duca's instructions that he should come out into the temple when the music began, and meet Naida there. Both would advance to the altar, and when they were in place, the Duca would come to them. Kirby, therefore, after a glance at the blue trousers and tunic of tanager scarlet which the girls had made for him, opened the door of his cell, and stepped out.
In a moment he traversed the windings of the corridor, and halted under a flat arch at one side of the temple nave.
As he paused so, to await the appearance of Naida and her bridesmaids under a similar arch directly across the temple, he held his breath. Not even nymphs could be as graceful as were the twenty-six girls who were performing the dance of Life Immortal, which tradition decreed should be given before the ceremony by which, in this realm, two souls were wedded. The flash of rainbow gowns was like the swirling of light in a sky at dawning. The music of voices, flutes, and the little gongs of jade, would have stirred the souls of the dead.
If only the confounded sense of approaching disaster would leave him, Kirby thought grimly, this would be a magnificent moment. As it was, he turned his eyes away from the girls, and began to examine the temple.
Just as Naida had told him the case would be, he found both sides of the nave surrounded by arches similar to the one under which he was standing. Everywhere, dim and tortuous corridors led to cells like the one he had just left. Then, in one end of the nave, loomed a closed door from behind which the Duca and caciques would appear when the couple to be wedded were in place, before the altar.
The altar itself, a rectangular mass of some jadelike stone, stood at a distance of perhaps twenty paces in front of the closed door. On top of the greenish stones, resting on a cushion of some crimson material, flashed the crown which would be used at the coronation. Kirby's eyes widened as he beheld a single rose-cut diamond two inches in diameter, mounted in an exquisitely simple bandeau of wrought gold. But, a moment later, even the crown which would be his--if nothing happened--seemed only a bauble compared to the other prize which he had won in this world beneath the world.
Naida!
* * * * *
He realized that the dance was ended, the music stilled, and that the rainbow garbed girls had formed a double line in the center of the temple. Suddenly his heart beat fast, and for just a moment, as he dared look full and deeply at Naida, and she smiled back at him across the distance, he even forgot to be depressed.
But even as he advanced to meet her, his uneasiness returned.
Now the girls were singing again, their voices raised in a triumphant chorale as beautiful as Naida's face with its warm red lips and smiling eyes, as be
autiful as her wedding gown that might have been woven, in its filminess, of mist from the sea. The bridesmaids, silent, their lovely faces alight, paused. But Naida came on.
From her floated to Kirby a fragrance more overwhelming than even the perfume of the geyser. Presently he felt her hand on his arm, and at last they stood side by side. Now again, his premonition of evil left him for a flash; but again it returned.
"I love you," he whispered.
"I love you."
"But I am still afraid."
Naida's smile faded.
"And I too. Oh, I've been terribly afraid! We will keep our guard!"
"Yes."
* * * * *
In front of them, on the altar, the crown diamond winked and shimmered in a dim light. The swelling chorus of triumph, in which the bridesmaids had joined now, made the whole temple ring. Slowly, while Naida moved easily beside him, Kirby began to march to the altar.
Then it was done, and they were halted. After both of them had given a lingering glance at the crown whose diamond shimmered now within their reach, they raised their eyes to the closed door behind the altar.
The thing was swinging open. An inch it moved, two inches.
Kirby waited, never taking his eyes away from the widening crack. With a crashing final volume of sound, the chorus swept magnificently to its climax. Then the door was flung wide.
Still Kirby stood stiffly before the altar, with Naida drawn up splendidly beside him. After two seconds, however, he moved.
Duca and caciques were not standing in the corridor.
In the semi-darkness, the only figures visible there were squatting, grotesque things whose bodies were covered with whitish hair and whose leathery faces were disfigured by gashes of mouths filled with enormous teeth.
A feeling of standing face to face with final disaster, turned Kirby sick. As he jerked back from the altar, sweeping a paralyzed Naida with him, the ape-men let out gibbering howls, half-human. With gigantic, hopping strides, the foremost rank of the creatures swung forward, straight into the temple.
CHAPTER X
Kirby, already falling back toward the other girls, caught Naida up in his arms, and ran.
"Nini!" he bellowed. "Ivana! Get the rifles!"
While the two whom he had ordered sprang to a corridor, and four others followed, Kirby fell in with the others and dropped Naida on her feet. Sick as he was, there was still a ray of hope, because the hard-headed precaution he had taken against treachery this morning was to have Nini and Ivana bring the rifles here and hide them.
The first of the ape-men, snarling, laughing, had hopped beyond the altar, and the yellow foam of madness was slavering from his jaws. Over his shoulder he howled some jargon which made his hairy legion struggle to catch up with him.
"Have you got any puff balls?" Kirby snapped at Naida.
She shook her head numbly, just as Nini and Ivana swung forward with the Mannlichers.
"No. But you had sense enough to bring the rifles! Oh, what does it mean?"
"The Duca has sold himself out to the ape-man! He was helpless against us, and has brought them to destroy us for him. Here, Ivana, give me a rifle! Everyone for herself!"
The next moment he had a Mannlicher at his shoulder.
* * * * *
As the thing kicked, an ape who would have reached him in two more jumps crashed over with his heart torn out, the temple echoed with sound which threatened to rip its solid walls apart, and bright flashes at Kirby's right and left told him that other rifles were getting under way.
He fired again, twice more, slaughtering an ape with each shot. The five other rifles were creating havoc.
Blocked by a dozen torn and bleeding bodies on the floor, the reenforcements which still poured from the corridor, began to mill around amongst themselves, and the forward charge slowed down. All the panic which had sent the ape-men scuttling from the beach at their first experience of gunfire, seemed ready to break loose again now.
Kirby felt it was good enough for the work of a minute.
"Get into line as I showed you how!" he shouted. "Rifles in the front rank, the others behind them. We're all right now! Keep firing!"
"Keep behind me!" he ordered Naida, still unarmed.
Then he placed a shell in the chest of one brute who was broader and heavier than the others--a leader--and saw that he had increased the demoralization; and from the hastily-formed front rank a volley leaped hot and jagged.
Then the rout which had threatened broke loose. As eight ape-men slumped into blubbering, bleeding heaps, the milling remainder of the horde turned, and in a fighting, scrambling frenzy attempted to get back to the corridor.
Kirby let his triumph take the form of thoughts about what he would do to the Duca when that personage could be rounded up.
"Follow after them!" he ordered. "Don't stop until we have located the Duca. He is the one we must settle--"
* * * * *
But he never finished.
As he himself, holding fire for a second, prepared to follow up the retreat, he found himself confronted by the utterly unexpected.
A voice unquestionably the Duca's began to shout orders at the ape-men from somewhere down the corridor! And, riot or no riot, the tones of that voice seemed to inspire the creatures with more fear than the rifle fire.
So suddenly the change came, that by the time Kirby flung his rifle again to his shoulder, the crazy retreat had been halted, and as he fired again, the ape-men swung in their tracks and began to charge!
There was no time to guess by what power the Duca had turned the tables. There was not even time for orders. Kirby fired twice, knowing that the ape-men had been infused with some spirit which would bring them on in spite of rifle fire.
Naida, unarmed, cried out behind him, and he shoved his gun at her.
"Take it!"
He had just inserted a new clip. He handed her others.
"Fire for your lives!" he shouted to the girls.
"But you!" Naida gasped. "You are unarmed!"
"I'll be all right."
On the floor lay a jagged, hand-chipped knife of obsidion which had fallen as some ape died. Kirby grabbed it.
* * * * *
In another second the flood of ape-men had burst in all its fury over him. Crashing, thundering shots were dinning in his ears, animal death screams and the Valkyrie battle cries of the girls filled the temple. He could not tell how many of the apes were fighting him. As a cave-man's club whizzed past his head, he drove his knife once, and yanked it dripping from hairy, yielding flesh to plunge it again. A sudden side-step carried him away from another assailant. He dropped the knife to snatch the gigantic club of one of the creatures he had killed.
Quicker in every movement than the ape-men, he laid on, right and left, with such power that blood spurted in a dozen places, and heads were split open on every side. And because of his speed, the frantic, clumsy blows and knife thrusts which were directed at him proved harmless.
A terrific drive which smashed a snarling face into pulp, left Kirby free for a second, and he emerged from the first round of battle ready to cut in and help the girls. But then he saw that he had gotten separated from the main body.
"Naida!" he called. "Naida!"
A series of shots answered him, and as several apes fell, a gap was opened through which he saw her conducting a well ordered retreat of all the girls toward the dark corridors surrounding the temple. Again Kirby fell to with his club, swinging, hacking, fighting with his whole strength to catch up. He made headway, and hope began to come again. The ape-men would not kill, or even harm, the girls. What they wanted was to carry them off. If he and Naida together could get their party rounded up in the corridors, the chances were good.
"Naida!" he shouted again. "Coming!"
Battering down an ape in front of him, he jumped up on the corpse, and saw that already the vanguard of girls had reached the first sheltering corridor. Naida had been cut off from the others by eigh
t or ten apes. But even so her fire made her mistress of the situation, and she seemed all right.
It was just as Kirby started to jump down from the corpse that he saw something which put another complexion on the matter, and left him frozen where he was.
* * * * *
Behind Naida, directly in the path in which her slavering aggressors were slowly forcing her, a huge stone slab in the temple floor had begun to tilt up as if it were a trapdoor raised by an invisible hand. Within the yawning opening, Kirby caught a glimpse of stone steps winding down into blackness.
In a flash he saw that it was Naida, and her alone, that the ape-men were after. The Duca's determination was to capture her, and it was the presence of this trapdoor, making capture possible, which had brought on the second charge of the apes.
A scream, high and wild, from Naida released Kirby from his trance of horror. He leaped off the corpse, and smashed a suddenly presented skull like an egg shell. Momentarily he saw Naida, too terrified to fire, staring at the open trapdoor. Kirby felled two apes and felt their blood on his arms.
"Ivana!" he yelled. "Help Naida, for God's sake!"
An answering shout, not from Ivana alone but from many girls, encouraged him, and he swung his club with a speed and force which would let nothing stand before him. But then another scream from Naida rang in his ears.
"Naida!" he shouted. "It's all right! We're coming!"
He knew, though, that it wasn't all right. Fighting like a maniac, he opened another lane down which he glimpsed her. Fighting still, in a last terrific effort to force his way down the lane to her side, he saw the black opening gape at her feet; and, as Naida screamed again, a dozen hairy arms reached it at once, twisted the empty rifle out of her hands, and lifted her shining body as if it had been a feather.
Shouts and murderous fire were coming from the other girls, and Kirby swung his club as never before. But even as he fell upon the last two or three apes which kept him away from Naida, those who had snatched her, bolted down the steps.
Kirby was left with the memory of Naida's great eyes fixed upon his, fear-filled, beseeching his protection. In a second, the ponderous trapdoor crashed into place, and she was gone.