Innes nodded. The explanation seemed reasonable. "Very well," he said, "lead the way."
His warriors advanced. Soon they were in contact with the warriors of the other party, and these offered them food. They seemed to wish to make friends. They moved among the warriors of the Imperial Guard, handing out food, passing rough jokes. They seemed much interested in the muskets, which they took in their hands and examined interestedly. Soon all the muskets of the Imperial Guard were in the hands of these friendly warriors, and four or five of them surrounded each member of the Guard.
HODON HAD TAKEN A short cut. He and O-aa had come over a hill through a forest, and now they halted at the edge of the forest and looked down into the little valley below. In the valley were hundreds of warriors. Hodon's keen eyes picked out David Innes among them; they saw the muskets of the musketeers. Hodon was puzzled. He knew that most of those warriors were the warriors of Fash of Suvi, but there was no battle. The men appeared to be mingling in peace and friendship.
"I cannot understand it," he said. He was thinking out loud.
"I can," said O-aa.
"What do you understand?" asked Hodon. "Tell me in a few words without any genealogical notes."
O-aa bridled. "My brother—" she began.
"Oh, bother your brother!" cried Hodon. "Tell me what you think you understand. You can tell me while we are walking down there to join David Innes."
"You would be fool enough to do that," the girl sneered.
"What do you mean?"
"That is one of Fash's tricks. Wait and see. If you go down, you will soon be back in the prison cave—if they do not kill you instead; which would be good riddance."
She had scarcely ceased speaking, when the leader of the friendly warriors voiced a war whoop and, with several of his men, leaped upon David Innes and bore him to the ground. At the signal, the rest of the friendly warriors leaped upon the members of the Imperial Guard whom they had surrounded. There was some resistance, but it was futile. A few men were killed and a number wounded, but the outcome was inevitable. Inside of five minutes the survivors of the Imperial Guard had their hands tied behind their backs.
Then Fash came from behind a bush were he had been hiding and confronted David Innes. "You call yourself Emperor," he said with a sneer. "You would like to be Emperor of all Pellucidar. You are too stupid. It is Fash who should be Emperor."
"You may have something there," said David Innes, "at least for the time being. What do you intend doing with us?"
"Those of your men who will promise to obey me shall live; I will kill the others."
"For every one of my men you kill, five Suvians shall die."
"You talk big, but you can do nothing. You are through, David Innes. You should have stayed in that other world you are said to have come from. It does not pay to come to Pellucidar and meddle. As for you, I do not know. Perhaps I shall kill you; perhaps I shall hold you and trade you for ships and guns. Now that I am also king of Kali, I can make use of ships with which to conquer the rest of Pellucidar. Now I am Emperor! I shall build a city on the shore of the Lural Az and all Pellucidar shall soon know who is Emperor."
"You have a big mouth," said Innes. "Perhaps you are digging your grave with it."
"I have a big fist, too," growled Fash, and with that, he knocked David Innes down.
At word from Fash, a couple of warriors yanked Innes to his feet. He stood there, the blood running from his mouth. A shout of anger rose from the men of the Guard.
David Innes looked straight into the shifty eyes of Fash, the king of Suvi. "You had better kill me, Fash," he said, "before you unbind my wrists."
Hodon looked on in consternation. There was nothing that he could do. He moved back into the forest, lest some of Fash's warriors see him. Not that they could have caught him, but he did not wish them to know that their act had been witnessed by a friend of David Innes.
"You were right," he said to O-aa. "It was a trick of Fash's."
"I am always right," said O-aa. "It used to make my brother very angry."
"I can well understand that," said Hodon.
"My brother—"
"Yes, yes," said Hodon; "but haven't you any other relatives than a brother and a mother's father?"
"Yes, indeed," cried O-aa. "I have a sister. She is very beautiful. All the women in my mother's family have always been very beautiful. They say my mother's sister was the most beautiful woman in Pellucidar. I look just like her."
"So you have a mother's sister!" exclaimed Hodon. "The family tree is growing. I suppose that will give you something more to talk about."
"That is a peculiar thing about the women of my family," said O-aa; "they seldom talk, but when they do—"
"They never stop," said Hodon, sadly.
"I could talk if I had some one of intelligence to listen to me," said O-aa.
IV
THE GAS BAG of Perry's balloon filled rapidly. It billowed upon the ground and grew larger. It rose above its basket. The eyes of the Sarians grew wide in astonishment. It grew fat stretching its envelope. It tugged at the guy ropes.
Perry shut off the gas. There were tears on the old man's cheeks as he stood there fondling the great thing with his eyes.
"It is a success!" he murmured. "The very first time it is a success."
Dian the Beautiful came and slipped her arm through his. "It is wonderful, Abner," she said; "but what is it for?"
"It is a balloon, my dear," explained Perry. "It will take people up into the air."
"What for?" asked Dian the Beautiful.
Perry cleared his throat. "Well, my dear, for many reasons."
"Yes?" inquired Dian. "What, for instance?"
"Come, come," said Perry; "you wouldn't understand."
"How could they get down again?" she asked.
"You see that big rope? It is attached to the bottom of the basket. The other end of the rope passes around the drum of this windlass we have built. After the balloon has ascended as high as we wish it to we turn the windlass and pull it down."
"Why would anyone wish to go up there?" asked Dian. "There is nothing up there but air and we have plenty of air down here."
"Just think of all the country you could see from way up there," said Perry. "You could see all the way to the Lural Az. With my binoculars, you might see all the way to Amoz."
"Could I see David, if he were coming back?"
"You could see his ships on the Lural Az a long way off," said Perry, "and you could see a large body of marching men almost as far as Greenwich ."
"I shall go up in your balloon, Perry," said Dian the Beautiful. "Go and let your bi-bi-whatever you called them, that I may look through them and see if David is returning. I have slept many times and we have had no word from him since his messenger came summoning Ghak."
"I think that we had better test it first," said Perry. "There might be something wrong with it. There have been isolated instances where some of my inventions have not functioned entirely satisfactorily upon their initial trial."
"Yes," agreed Dian the Beautiful.
"I shall put a bag of earth of more than twice your weight in the basket, send it up, and haul it down. That should prove an entirely adequate test."
"Yes," said Dian, "and please hurry."
"You are sure you are not afraid to go up?" asked Perry.
"When was a woman of Sari ever afraid?" demanded Dian.
HODON RETRACED HIS steps to the summit of the cliff above Kali. He had a plan, but it all depended upon Fash's imprisoning David Innes in the cave on the upper ledge of the village.
Just before he reached the summit of the cliff, he stopped and told O-aa to remain hidden among some bushes. "And do not talk!" he commanded.
"Why?" asked O-aa. "Who are you to tell me that I cannot talk?"
"Never mind about that," said Hodon, "and don't start telling me about any of your relations. They make me sick, just remember this: if you talk, one of the warriors on guard may h
ear you and then there will be an investigation. And remember one more thing: if you talk before I come back here, I'll cut your throat. Can you remember that?"
"Wait until my brother—"
"Shut up!" snapped Hodon and walked away toward the top of the cliff.
As he neared it he got down on his belly and crawled. He wormed his way forward like an Apache Indian; and like an Apache Indian he carried a little bush in one hand. When he was quite close to the cliff edge, he held the little bush in front of his face and advanced but an inch at a time. At last he could peer over the edge and down upon the village of Kali . Once in position he did not move. He waited, waited with the infinite patience of primitive man.
He thought of David Innes, for whom he would have gladly laid down his life. He thought of O-aa and he smiled. She had spirit and the Sarians liked women with spirit. Also she was undeniably beautiful. The fact that she knew it detracted nothing from her charm. She would have been a fool if she hadn't known it, and a hypocrite if she had pretended that she did not know that she was beautiful. It was true that she talked too much, but a talkative woman was better than a sullen one.
Hodon thought that O-aa might be very desirable but he knew that she was not for him—she had too frankly emphasized her dislike of him. However one sometimes took a mate against her will. He would give the matter thought. One trouble with that was that David Innes did not approve of the old-fashioned method of knocking a lady over the head with a club and dragging her off to one's cave. He had made very strict laws on the subject. Now no man could take a mate without the girl's consent.
As these thoughts were passing through his mind, he saw warriors approaching the village. They kept coming into view from an opening in the forest. Yes, it was the Suvians with their prisoners. He saw David Innes walking with his head up, just as he always walked in paths of peace or paths of war. No one ever saw David Innes' chin on his chest. Hodon was very proud of him.
There was a brief halt at the foot of the cliff, and then some of the prisoners were herded toward the cliff and up the ladders. Would David Innes be one of these? So much depended on it that Hodon felt his heart beating a little faster.
All the prisoners could not be accommodated in the prison cave on the upper ledge. Some of them would have to be confined elsewhere or destroyed. Hodon was sure that no member of the Imperial Guard would accept Fash's offer and prove a traitor to the Empire.
Yes! At last here came David Innes! The guards were particularly cruel to him. They prodded him with spears as he climbed the rickety ladders. They had removed the bonds from his wrists, but they had seen that he was at a safe distance from Fash before they did so.
Up and up he climbed. At last he was on the topmost ladder. Inwardly, Hodon whooped for joy. Now there was a chance. Of course his plan was full of bugs, but there was one chance in a hundred that it might succeed —one wild chance.
Just one little hour of night would have simplified things greatly but Hodon knew nothing of night. From the day of his birth he had known only one long, endless day, with the stationary sun hanging perpetually at zenith. Whatever he did now, as always, would have to be done in broad daylight among a people who had no set hours for sleeping; so that at least a half of them could be depended upon to be awake and watchful at all times.
He watched until he saw David Innes enter the prison cave; then he crawled back to O-aa. She was fast asleep! How lovely she looked. Her slim, brown body was almost naked, revealing the perfection of its contours. Hodon knelt beside her. For a moment he forgot David Innes, duty, honor. He seized O-aa and lifted her in his arms. He pressed his lips to hers. She awakened with a start. With the speed and viciousness of a cat, she struck—she struck him once across the mouth with her hand, and then her dagger sprang from its sheath.
Hodon leaped quickly back, but not quite quickly enough; the basalt blade ripped a six-inch slash in his chest. Hodon grinned.
"Well done," he said. "Some day you are going to be my mate, and I shall be very proud of you."
"I would as soon mate with a jalok," she said.
"You will mate with me of your own free will," said Hodon, "and now come and help me."
V
"YOU THINK you understand perfectly what you are to do?" asked Hodon a few minutes later, after carefully explaining his plan to O-aa.
"You are bleeding," said O-aa.
"It is nothing but a flesh wound," said Hodon.
"Let me get some leaves and stop it."
"Later," said Hodon. "You are sure you understand?"
"Why did you want to kiss me?" asked O-aa. "Was it just because I am so beautiful?"
"If I tell you, will you answer my question?"
"Yes," said O-aa.
"I think it was just because you are O-aa," said Hodon.
O-aa sighed. "I understand all that I am to do," she said. "Let us commence."
Together they gathered several large and small pieces of sandstone from a weathered outcropping, and inched them up to the very edge of the cliff. One very large piece was directly over the ladder which led to the next ledge below; others were above the mouth of the prison cave.
When this was accomplished, Hodon went into the forest and cut several long lianas and dragged them close to the cliff; then he fastened an end of each of them to trees which grew a few yards back.
"Now!" he whispered to O-aa.
"Do not think," she said, "because I have helped you and have not slipped my dagger between your ribs, that I do not hate you. Wait until my brother—"
"Yes," said Hodon. "After we have finished this you may tell me all about your brother. You will have earned the right. You have been splendid, O-aa. You will make a wonderful mate."
"I shall make a wonderful mate," agreed O-aa, "but not for you."
"Come on," said Hodon, "and keep your mouth shut—if you can."
She gave him a venomous look, but she followed him toward the edge of the cliff. Hodon looked over to be sure that everything was as he hoped it would be. He nodded his head at O-aa, and grinned.
He pushed the great stone nearer the edge, and O-aa did the same with some of her smaller ones. She watched Hodon very closely, and when she saw him pushing his over the edge, she stood up and hurled one of hers down.
The big stone struck the two guards squatting at the top of the ladder, carrying them and the ladder crashing down from ledge to ledge, carrying other ladders with them.
Hodon ran to the rocks that O-aa was hurling down, and O-aa ran to the lianas and dropped them over the edge. Hodon was calling David Innes by name. One of the other two guards had been hit and had fallen over the cliff; then David Innes and some of the other prisoners ran from the cave.
Only one guard opposed them. Neither O-aa or Hodon had been able to strike him with a rock. David Innes rushed him, and the guard met him on the narrow ledge with his short spear. As he lunged at Innes, the latter seized the weapon and struggled to wrench it from the Suvian's grasp. The two men wrestled for the weapon on the brink of eternity. At any moment either of them might be precipitated to the foot of the cliff. The other prisoners seemed too stunned or too anxious to escape to go to Innes' assistance, but not Hodon. Sensing the danger to his chief, he slid down one of the lianas and ran to Innes' side. With a single blow he knocked the Suvian over the edge of the cliff; then he pointed to the lianas.
"Hurry!" he said. "They are already starting up the canyon to climb the cliff and head us off."
Each on a different liana, the two men clambered to the summit. Already most of the Kalians had disappeared into the forest. Innes had been the only Sarian confined on the upper ledge. Oose had not run away. He and another Kalian were talking with O-aa. Oose's companion was a squat, bearded fellow with a most unprepossessing countenance. He looked like a throwback to a Neanderthal type. As Hodon and Innes approached the three, they heard O-aa say, "I will not!"
"Yes, you will," snapped Oose. "I am your father and your king. You will do as I tell yo
u. Blug is a mighty hunter, a mighty fighter. He will make a fine mate. He has a large cave and three other women to lighten your labors."
O-aa stamped a sandalled foot. "I tell you I will not. I would just as soon mate with a Sagoth."
Now, the Sagoths are those half human gorilla men who did the strong arm work for the Mahars, the reptiles who dominated Pellucidar before David Innes drove them away—at least away from that portion of the inner world of which he was Emperor. O-aa could scarcely have voiced a more comprehensive insult.
Blug growled angrily. "Enough!" he said. "I take her." He reached for O-aa, but Hodon stepped between them and struck Blug's hand away.
"You do not take her," he said. "O-aa chooses her own mate."
Blug, being more or less of an inarticulate low-brow, with a short temper, replied to words with action. He swung a terrific blow at Hodon that might well have felled a bos, had there been a bos there and had the blow landed; but there was no bos and the blow did not land. Hodon ducked under it, picked Blug up and hurled him heavily to the ground.
Blug was surprised and so was Oose, for Hodon looked like no match for the massive Blug. Hodon's muscles rolled smoothly beneath his bronzed skin—deceptively. They had great strength and they possessed agility. Blug had only strength; but he had courage, too—the courage of stupidity. He scrambled to his feet and charged Hodon-charged like a wild bull. And this time Hodon struck him full in the mouth and dropped him in his tracks.
"Enough of this!" snapped David Innes. "If you stand here fighting, we shall all be captured."
"Enough," said Oose to Blug.
"I shall kill him later, then," said Blug.
"What—again?" asked Hodon. He looked about him.
"Where is O-aa?" he asked.
O-aa had fled. While the two men fought, she had run away. Maybe she thought, as Blug and Oose had thought, that Blug would easily kill Hodon.
"I did not see her go," said Oose. "When I find her, I shall beat her and give her to Blug."
"Not if I'm around," said Hodon.
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