by Anthology
The thing uttered a plaintive cry, ignoring the damage its tail had caused. The sound was like that of a bleat, a thousand times multiplied. It peered ceaselessly around, seeming to feel trapped by the tall buildings about it, but it was too stupid to retrace its steps for escape. Somebody screamed in the distance as police cars and fire engines reached the spot where the first thing swayed and peered and moved in quest of escape.
Two other things, smaller than the first, came lumbering after it. Like it, they had monstrotis bodies and d~sproportionately tiny heads. One of them blundered stupidly into a hook-and-ladder truck. Truèk and beast went down, and the beast bleated like the first.
Then some fool began to shoot. Other fools joined in. Steel-jacketed bullets poured into the mountains of reptilian flesh. Police sub-machine guns raked the monsters. Those guns were held by men of great daring, who could not help noting the utter stupidity of the things out of the great swamp which had appeared where Inman Park used to be.
The bullets stung. They hurt. The three beasts bleated and tried bewilderedly and very clumsily to escape. The largest tried to climb a five-story building, and brought it down in sheer wreckage.
Before the last of them was dead, or rather, before it ceased to move its great limbs, because the tail moved jerkily for a long time and its heart was still beating spasmodically when loaded on a city dump cart next day, before the last of them was dead they had made sheer chaos of three blocks of business buildings in the heart of Atlanta, had killed seventeen men, and the best testimony is that they made not one attempt to fight. Their whole and only thought was to escape. The destruction they wrought and the deaths they caused were due to their clumsiness and stupidity.
IX
The leading horses floundered horribly. They sank to their fetlocks in something soft and very spongy. Bertha Ketterling squawked in terror as her mount’s motion changed.
Blake said crisply in the blackness, “It feels like plowed ground. Better use the light again, Professor Minott.”
The sky behind them glowed redly. The forest fire still trailed them. For miles of front, now, it shot up sparks and flame and a harsh red glare which illumined the clouds of its own smoke.
The flashlight stabbed at the earth. The ground was plowed. It was softened by the hands of men. Minott kept the light on as little gasps of thankfulness arose.
Then he said sardonically, “Do you know what this crop is? It’s lentils. Are lentils grown in Virginia? Perhaps! We’ll see what sort of men these may happen to be.”
He swung to follow the line of the furrows.
Tom Hunter said miserably: “If that’s plowed ground, it’s a damn shallow furrow. A one-horse plowed throw up more dirt than that.”
A light glowed palely in the distance. Every person in the party saw it at the same instant. As if by instinct, the head of every horse swerved for it.
“We’ll want to be careful,” said Blake quietly. “These may be Chinese, too.”
The light was all of a mile distant. They moved over the plowed ground cautiously.
Suddenly the hoofs of Lucy Blair’s horse rang on stone. The noise was startlingly loud. Other horses, following hers, clattered thunderously. Minott flashed down the light again. Dressed stone. Cut stone. A roadway built of dressed-stone blocks, some six or eight feet wide. Then one of the horses shivered and snorted. It pranced agitatedly, edging away from something on the road. Minott swept the flashlight beam along the narrow way.
“The only race,” he said dryly, “that ever built roads like this was the Romans. They made their military roads like this. But they didn’t discover America that we know of.”
The beam touched something dark. It came back and steadied. One of the girls uttered a stilled exclamation. The beam showed dead men. One was a man with a shield and sword and a helmet such as the soldiers of ancient Rome are pictured as having worn. He was dead. Half his head had been blown off. Lying on top of him there was a man in a curious gray uniform. He had died of a sword wound.
The beam searched around. More bodies. Many Roman-accoutered figures. Four or five men in what looked remarkably like the uniform that might be worn by soldiers of the Confederate Army, if a Confederate Army could be supposed to exist.
“There’s been fighting,” said Blake composedly. “I guess somebody from the Confederacy, that time path, say started to explore what must have seemed a damned strange happening. And these Romans, if they are Romans, jumped them.”
Something came shambling through the darkness. Minott threw the flash beam upon it. It was human, yes. But it was three parts naked, and it was chained, and it had been beaten horribly, and there were great sores upon its body from other beatings. It was bony and emaciated. The insensate ferocity of sheer despair marked it. It was brutalized by its sufferings until it was just human, barely human, and nothing more.
It squinted at the light, too dull of comprehension to be afraid.
Then Minott spoke, and at his words it groveled in the dirt. Minott spoke harshly, in half-forgotten Latin, and, the groveling figure mumbled words which had been barbarous Latin to begin with, and through its bruised lips were still further mutilated.
“It’s a slave,” said Minott coldly. “Strange men, Confederates, I suppose caine from the north today. They fought and killed some of the guards at this estate. This slave denies it, but I imagine he was heading north in hopes of escaping to them. When you think of it, I suppose we’re not the only explorers to be caught out of our own time path by some shift or another.”
He growled at the slave and rode on, still headed for the distant light.
“What-what are you going to do?” asked Maida faintly. “Go on to the villa yonder and ask questions,” said Minott dryly. “If Confederates hold it, we’ll be well received. If they don’t, we’ll still manage to earn a welcome. I intend to camp along a time fault and cross over whenever a time shift brings a Norse settlement in sight. Consquently, I want exact news of places where they’ve been seen, if such news is to be had.”
Maida Haynes pressed close to Blake. He put a reassuring hand on her arm as the horses trudged on over
the soft ground. The firelight behind them grew brighter. Occasional resinous, coniferous trees flared upward and threw fugitive red glows upon the riding figures. But gradually the glare grew steadier and Stronger. The white walls of a rambling stucco house became visible out buildings barns. A monstrous structure which looked startlingly like a barracks.
It was a farm, an estate, a Roman villa transplanted to the very edge of a wilderness. It was, Blake remembered vaguely, like a picture he had once seen of a Roman villa in England, restored to look as it had been before Rome withdrew her legions from Britain and left the island to savagery and darkness. There were small mounds of curing hay about them, through which the horses picked their way. Blake suddenly wrinkled his nostrils suspiciously. He sniffed.
Maida pressed close to him. Her ups formed words. Lucy Blair rode close to Minott, glancing up at him from time to time. Harris rode beside Bertha Ketterling, and Bertha sat her horse as if she were saddle sore. Tom Hunter clung close to Minott as if for protection, leaving Janet Thompson to look out for herself.
“Jerry,” said Maida, “What-what do you think?”
“I don’t like it,” admitted Blake in a low tone. “But we’ve got to tag along. I think I smell—”
Then a sudden swarm of figures leaped at the horses-wild figures, naked figures, sweaty and reeking and almost maniacal figures, some of whom clanked chains as they leaped. A voice bellowed orders at them from a distance, and a whip cracked ominously.
Before the struggle ended, there were just two shots fired. Blake fired them both and wheeled about. Then a horse streaked away, and Bertha Ketterling was bawling plaintively, and Tom Hunter babbled hysterically, and Harris swore with a complete lack of his customary air of apology.
Minott seemed to be buried under a mass of foul bodies like the rest, but he rasped at his captors i
n an authoritative tone. They fell away from him, cringing as if by instinct. And then torches appeared suddenly and slaves appeared in their light-slaves of every possible degree of filth and degradation, of every possible racial mixture, but unanimous in a desperate abjectness before their master amid the torchbearers.
He was a short, fat man, in an only slightly modified toga. He drew it close about his body as the torchbearers held their flares close to the captives. The torchlight showed the captives, to be sure, but also it showed the puffy, self-indulgent, and invincibly cruel features of the man who owned these slaves and the villa. By his pose and the orders he gave in a curiously corrupt Latin, he showed that he considered he owned the captives, too.
X
The deputy from Aisne-le-Sur decided that it had been very wise indeed for him to walk in the fresh air. Paris at night is stimulating. That curious attack of vertigo had come of too much champagne. The fresh air had dispelled the fumes. But it was odd that he did not know exactly where he was, though he knew his Paris well.
These streets were strange. The houses were unlike any that he remembered ever having seen before. In the light of the street lamps, and they were unusual, too there was a certain unfamiliar quality about their architecture. He puzzled over it, trying to identify the peculiar flair these houses showed.
He became impatient. After all, it was necessary for him to return home sometime, even though his wife. The deputy from Aisne-le-Sur shrugged. Then he saw bright lights ahead. He hastened his steps. A magnificent mansion, brilliantly illuminated.
The clattering of many hoofs. A cavalry escort, forming up before the house. A pale young man emerged, escorted by a tall, fat man who kissed his hand as if in an ecstasy of admiration. Dismounted cavalrymen formed a lane from the gateway to the car. Two young officers followed the pale young man, ablaze with decorations. The deputy from Aisne-le-Sur noted subconsciously that he did not recognize their uniforms. The car door was open and waiting. There was some oddity about the car, but the deputy could not see clearly just what it was. There was much clicking of heels steel blades at salute. The pale young man patiently allowed the fat man to kiss his hand again. He entered the car. The two bemedaled young officers climbed in after him. The car rolled away. Instantly, the cavalry escort clattered with it, before it, behind it, all around it.
The fat man stood on the sidewalk, beaming and rubbing his hands together. The dismounted cavalrymen swung to their saddles and trotted briskly after the others.
The deputy from Aisne-le-Sur stared blankly. He saw another pedestrian, halted like himself to regard the spectacle. He was disturbed by the-fact that this pedestrian was clothed in a fashion as perturbingly unfamiliar as these houses and the spectacle he had witnessed.
“Pardon, m’sieu’,” said the deputy from Aisne-le-Sur, “I do not recognize my surroundings. Would you tell me—”
“The house,” said the other caustically, “is the hotel of Monsieur le Duc de Montigny. Is it possible that in 1935 one does not know of Monsieur le Duc? Or more especially of Madame la Duchesse, and what she is and where she lives?”
The deputy from Aisne-le-Sur blinked. “Montigny? Montigny? No,” he admitted. “And the young man of the car, whose hand was kissed by—”
“Kissed by Monsieur le Duc?” The stranger stared frankly. “Mon dieu! Where have you come from that you do not recognize Louis the Twentieth? He has but departed from a visit to madame his mistress.”
“Louis-Louis the Twentieth!” stammered the deputy from Aisne-le-Sur. “I-I-do not understand!”
“Fool!” said the stranger impatiently. “That was the king of France, who succeeded his father as a child of ten and has been free of the regency for but six months and already ruins France!”
The long-distance operator plugged in with a shaking hand. “Number please . . . I am sorry, sir, but we are unable to connect you with Camden . . . The lines are down . . . Very sorry, sir.” She plugged in another line. “Hello . . . I am sorry, sir, but we are unable to connect you with Jenkintown. The lines are down. Very sorry, sir.”
Another call buzzed and lighted up.
“Hello . . . I am sorry, sir. We are unable to connect you with Dover. The lines are down . . .” Her hands worked automatically. “Hello . . . I am sorry, but we are unable to connect you with New York. The lines are down . . . No, sir. We cannot route it by Atlantic City. The lines are down . . . Yes, sir, I know the telegraph companies cannot guarantee delivery. No, sir, we cannot reach Pittsburgh, either, to get a message through . . .” Her voice quivered. “No, sir, the lines are down to Scranton . . . And Harrisburg, too. Yes, sir . . . I am sorry, but we cannot get a message of any sort out of Philadelphia in any direction . . . We have tried to arrange communication by radio, but no calls are answered . . .
She covered her face with her hands for an instant. Then she plugged in and made a call herself:
“Minnie! Haven’t they heard anything? . . . Not anything? . . . What? They phoned for more police?
The-the operator out there says there’s fighting? She hears a lot of shooting? What is it, Minnie? Don’t they even know? . . . They-they’re using the armored cars from the banks to fight with, too? But what are they fighting? What? . . . My folks are out there, Minnie! My folks are out there!”
The doorway of the slave barracks closed and great bars slammed against its outer side. Reeking, foul, unbreathable air closed about them like a wave. Then a babbling of voices all about. The clanking of chains. The rustling of straw, as if animals moved. Some one screeched, howled above the others. He began to garn the ascendancy. There was almost some attention paid to him, though a minor babbling continued all about.
Maida said in a strained voice: “I-I can catch a word here and there. He’s telling these other slaves how we were captured. It’s Latin, of sorts.”
Bertha Ketterling squalled suddenly, in the absolute dark. “Somebody touched me!” she bawled. “A man!”
A voice spoke humorously, somewhere near. There was laughter. It was the howled laughter of animals. Slaves were animals, according to the Roman notion. A rustling noise, as if in the noisomefreedom of their barracks the utterly brutalized slaves drew nearer to the newcomers. There could be sport with new-captured folk, not yet degraded to their final status.
Lucy Blair cried out in a stifled fashion. There was a sharp, incisive crack. Somebody fell. More laughter.
“I knocked him out!” snapped Minott. “Harris! Hunter! Feel around for something we can use as clubs! These slaves intend to haze us, and in their own den there’s no attempt to control them. Even if they kill us’ they’ll only be whipped for it. And the women will—”
Something, snarling, leaped for him in the darkness. The authoritative tone of Minott’s voice was hateful. A yapping sound arose. Other figures closed in. Reduced to the status of animals, the slaves, of the Romans behaved as beasts when locked in their monster kennel. The newcomers were hateful if only because they had been freemen, not slaves. The women were clean and they were frightened and they were prey. Chains clanked ominously. Foul breaths tainted the air. The reek of utter depravity, of human beings brought lower than beasts, filled the air. It was utterly dark.
Bertha Ketterling began to blubber noisily. There was the sudden savage sound of a blow meeting flesh. Then pandemonium and battle, and the sudden terrified screams of Lucy Blair. The panting of men who fought. The sound of blows. A man howled. Another shrieked curses. A woman screamed shrilly.
Bang! Bang! Bang-bang! Shots outside, a veritable fusifiade of them. Running feet. Shouts. The bars at the doorway fell. The great doors opened, and men stood in the opeung with whips and torches, bellowing for the slaves to come out and attack something yet unknown. They were being called from their kennel like dogs. Four of the whip men came inside, flogging the slaves out, while the sound of shots continued. The slaves shrank away, or bounded howling for the open air. But there were three of them who would never shrink or cringe again.
Minott and Harris stood embattled in a corner of the slave shed. Lucy Blair, her hair disheveled, crouched behind Minott, who held a heavy beam in desperate readiness for further battle. Harris, likewise, held a clumsy club. With torchlight upon him, his air of savage defiance turned to one of quaint apology for the dead slave at his feet. And Hunter and two of the girls competed in stark panic for a position behind him. Maida Haynes, dead white, stood backed against a wall, a jagged fragment of gnawed bone held dagger wise.
The whips lashed out at them. Voices snarled at them. The whips again. Minott struck out furiously, a huge welt across his face. And revolvers cracked at the great door. Blake stood there, a revolver in each hand, his eyes blazing. A. torchbearer dropped, and the torches flared smokily in the foul mud of the flooring.
“All right,” said Blake fiercely. “Come on out!”
Hunter was the first to reach him, babbling and gasping. There was sheer uproar all about. A huge grain shed roared upward in flames. Figures rushed crazily all about it. From the flames came another explosion, then two, then three more.
“Horses over here by the stables,” said Blake, his face white aid very deadly indeed. “They haven’t unsaddled them. The stable slaves haven’t figured out the cinches yet. I put some revolver bullets in the straw when I set fire to that grain shed. They’re going off from time to time.”
A figure with whip and dagger raced around an outbuilding and confronted them. Blake shot him down.
Minott said hoarsely: “Give me a revolver, Blake! I want to—”
“Horses first!” snapped Blake.
They raced into a courtyard. Two shots. The slaves fled, howling. Out of the courtyard, bent low in the saddle. They swept close to the villa itself. On a little raised terrace before it, a stout man in an only slightly modified toga raged. A slave groveled before him. He kicked the abject figure and strode out, shouting commands in, a voice that cracked with fury. The horses loomed up and he shookhis fists at the riders, purple with wrath, incapable of fear-because of his beastly rage.