While two of the guards were busied about the raft, preparatory to departure, Marjorie, free for the moment, strolled over toward a clump of tall, azure spikes blooming in serene isolation by the edge of a black pool. Vartan also spied the flower, but his geologist's eye roved instantly to the jet black pool mirroring all the blue of heaven.
"Oil!" he shouted.
"Delphinium Brassei!" she cried, plucking one of the perfect spires.
Ali watched the antics of his companions with aloof reserve. Nevertheless his eyes betrayed more than a passing curiosity as Marjorie, bearing her priceless trophy, preceded him onto the barge.
"Fossils, oil, delphiniums, all at one swoop," Vartan triumphed. "They can boil us in oil now, for all I care. My 'preposterous hypothesis' is proved."
"Hadn't you better take your shovelful of dirt while you can get it?" she suggested.
"No hurry. There will be acres more of Brassey's larkspurs farther on, or I'm all wrong."
"You can't tell," she demurred "If we see more, you can throw away what you have."
"Safety first?" he laughed. "Very well. To keep the peace, I'll get the plant, roots and all, with ten pounds of the dirt in which it grows."
From the unresisting cyclops he reclaimed his ice pick and started toward the azure clump. The burning eye followed him curiously, intently. Vartan began loosening the soil with his pick, unconscious that his every movement was being watched minutely. He had just got down on his knees to scoop out the dirt around the roots with his hands, when Marjorie called a sharp warning. She thought the gorilla-like cyclops was about to tear Vartan to pieces.
Nothing of the kind. The cyclops heaved the pick far out into the river, grasped Vartan's shoulder in one muscular hand, and half pushed, half tossed him aboard the raft. All were aboard now, except the cyclops. Wading after the raft, he shoved it off with all his strength, leaped awkwardly aboard, grasped his huge clumsy paddle, and started rowing vigorously with the rest of the deaf mutes.
CHAPTER 14
STRIPPED
Their progress down the broad, oily river was uneventful till the late afternoon shadows crept out from the base of the western wall, and almost visibly as they watched, night stole upon the valley. The five ungainly deaf mutes paid not the slightest attention to their prisoners. Escape was impossible; the guards mechanically concentrated on their task of keeping the raft in the main current far from either shore. Occasionally Vartan and his companions caught glimpses of human beings laboring in the flowery meadows, but what soil they tilled or what crops they cultivated remained matters of conjecture.
Within ten minutes it would be dark in the sector of the valley through which they were now passing. The cyclops, who seemed to be the captain of the guard, raised his paddle once from the water as a signal to the others. Instantly the raft changed direction, and slanted toward a grove of huge crimson trees on the right bank. A maze of gnarled and knotted roots grew far out into the stream, but the five paddlers guided their unwieldy craft unerringly through the tortuous channels to the mooring place.
Their approach had been noted. Half a dozen human beings, deformed like the five of the guard, but less hideously, made fast the raft to a straddling root, and helped both the guards and their prisoners ashore. By brief but expressive dumb show, the guards made the shore men understand where and how the prisoners had had been captured. The disposition of the prisoners for the night was also settled in the same expeditious manner. Words could not have conveyed as much in as short a time. The raft men followed the cyclops into the grove; three of the shore men took charge of the prisoners and led them away in the opposite direction.
All this took place in eerie silence. Vartan was about to make some remarks to hearten the others when, to his astonishment, their three new guards began talking with voluble animation among themselves. They had conversed by dumb show with the raft men, because the latter had no other means of human communication; they themselves, although obviously abnormal, could at least speak and hear.
"Follow what they say," Vartan commanded sharply.
Ali was automatically doing his best. Vartan's outburst of speech seemed to astonish the three guards as greatly as their own had him. Stopping abruptly, they peered into the faces of their captives. Under the dense foliage of the grove the last of the light was just about gone. Nevertheless the three guards persisted in attempting to scrutinize their prisoners, and even ran curiously deformed fingers over what, to them, were inhumanly abnormal faces. The logic of their actions was clear enough. To these misshapen, hirsute creatures, it was inconceivable that Marjorie, at any rate, with her clear, hairless face and hands could be human. Vartan and Ali, on account of their straight arms and legs were also suspect. That such monstrosities as these three were, should be gifted with speech, the distinctive mark of the higher castes in the valley, passed the comprehension of the guards.
"What did they say?" Vartan demanded of Ali.
"They do not talk a language," Ali replied in baffled disgust.
"Then what do they talk?"
"Sounds."
"In other words, you're up a tree, Ali. Brathwaites' guaranteed you as a first rate, all round interpreter for any part of Asia except Tibet. We're nowhere near Tibet. What's the matter with you?"
Ali muttered an apology as his guard hustled him off ahead of the others. Marjorie found herself behind with Vartan.
"Do you think," she asked in a low tone, "that Ali is as ignorant as he pretends?"
"Still suspecting?" Vartan laughed.
"These deformities must be Asiatics, whatever else they are," she persisted.
"Obviously," Vartan rejoined. "We are still in Asia."
"Brathwaites' told me Ali could get the drift of practically any Asiatic dialect except Tibetan."
, 'Well," Vartan retorted with an air of finality, "until you find some stronger basis for your suspicions of poor old Ali, I'm going to trust him. Any man who can come down a precipice in the dark as Ali did last night, is a good sort. What are our freak friends going to do with us now? I see a light through the trees."
The intentions of the guards were honorable. Emerging from the gloomy grove, they crossed a small meadow to a high dirt bank, evidently part of an old earthquake fault line, against which a smokeless jet of almost white flame shone steadily in the clear night air.
"Does it strike you that we have lost all our baggage?" Vartan asked as they approached the fire.
"It does. Now I shan't be able to keep up appearances any longer. I'll be a wreck tomorrow morning."
In spite of their banter and apparent indifference to what the immediate future might bring forth, both Vartan and Marjorie were profoundly disturbed. The very patience and orderly conduct of their captors was alarming. Creatures who could respect the discipline of an absent authority as these evidently did, must be strongly governed. What would their chief think of uninvited visitors? Nothing pleasant, probably.
"We shall be warm enough without our blankets," Vartan prophesied, as they approached the jet of white fire. "As I guessed, natural gas. No wonder. From all the geology of this valley there must be a fair sized ocean of oil under it. What's up? Supper?"
It was. One of the guards was told to keep an eye on the prisoners, while the other two went foraging in the meadow. Their foray was short. In about three minutes they returned with a dozen large fleshy tubers like enormous blue potatoes, which they had rooted up from the marshier ground some yards from the jet. There were six to be fed; to the prisoners the supply of blue roots seemed sufficient for at least fifteen able bodied men.
The roots were skilfully roasted by one of the guards, who turned them constantly on the red hot clay at the very edge of the jet. As the roasting reached its critical stage, the two idle guards offered the cook excited advice. Some culinary disaster was evidently about to happen. As usual, too many cooks spoiled the dinner. With a deafening report the overcooked blue 'potatoes' exploded simultaneously into enormous balls of white f
luff, which were reduced to charcoal before the chagrined cook could salvage them. As a penalty for his carelessness, he was sent off alone to forage for a fresh supply.
When he returned, Vartan put out a hand, gesturing that he would like to examine one of the roots. The cook goodnaturedly gave him one. It was as large as a small pumpkin, and as heavy as two full grown fresh coconuts. What looked like a coarse blue skin proved on inspection to be a thick, tough shell. With the aid of his clasp knife, Vartan succeeded in cutting out a small triangle. The meat of the strange nut was creamy white and of a starchy texture. Marjorie looked on in fascinated silence.
"Another botanical impossibility," she said, as he handed her a sample. She was about to taste the white meat, when one of the guards, with an exclamation of alarm, knocked it from her hand. His graphic pantomime, better than his excited protests, made it plain that the root, uncooked, was deadly poison, whatever might be its virtues when roasted.
This time the cooking proceeded without mishap. At the critical moment, the cook rolled the dozen 'potatoes' free of the hearth. Then, with hands that seemed insensible to heat, he picked them up one by one and dropped them about three feet onto the baked clay. The shells burst, and the luscious baked meat puffed out, as light as newly fallen snow.
The cook, with a grotesque show of hospitality, offered Vartan the first huge handful.
"Don't eat it!" Marjorie admonished sharply. "This may be their way of getting rid of us."
Vartan, however, did not hesitate. Accepting instantly, he stuffed his mouth with the proffered delicacy.
"Not half bad," he remarked approvingly. "A cross between fish and chicken, but a trifle too sweet." He smiled delightedly at the cook, who returned the smile, and presented him with two of the three foot balls of fluff for his own. "Never show a man that you distrust him when he makes a friendly advance," he counselled Marjorie. "Otherwise you make an enemy for life."
"But you may be poisoned," she protested.
"Not if I know anything about human nature. If this stuff is poisonous, would they need two cubic yards of it to put us out of the way? Why did that guard knock the raw piece out of your hand? See," he exclaimed triumphantly, "the cook is cramming the stuff into his own mouth without waiting to serve the others. I'm the guest of honor."
The guards fell to eagerly, not to say gluttonously. Half a ball apiece satisfied the prisoners, who were only too glad to donate their surplus of the cloying stuff to the insatiable cook.
Supper finished at last, Vartan put his theories of friendship to an immediate test.
"I'm going to ask the cook to fetch our packs," he announced. "He will."
Vartan was not deceived in his estimate of the cook's good nature. The ungainly fellow followed with the closest attention what Vartan expressed quite easily in dumb show. After a few words with his companions, who seemed to assent, he clumped off alone in the direction of the river. Twenty minutes later he was back, accompanied by the muscular cyclops, who unconcernedly carried the three packs about his massive neck. Having deposited his cargo on the hard clay by the fire, the cyclops made off straight for the river, his head turned at right angles to his body, to give him the full advantage of his misplaced eye in the dark.
On inspecting the packs, the three found that nothing had been touched. Again Vartan and Marjorie experienced a chill of apprehension. So much care bespoke an iron discipline somewhere and a rigid tyrant to enforce it. While they unrolled their sleeping bags, the guard looked on in silent astonishment. When finally Vartan slipped into his, and ordered Ali and Marjorie to do likewise, silence gave way to exclamations of incredulity.
"Better sleep while you can," Vartan advised. "We may need all the wits we have tomorrow. These fellows won't dare to touch us. Goodnight."
"Goodnight," they replied, and Marjorie added that she would not sleep a wink.
"You'll sleep like a doll," he assured her, and she did. While two of the guards curled up by the fire, the third took the first watch. Waking shortly after midnight, Vartan saw the man then on duty rouse a sleeper to take his turn. Vartan closed his eyes with a smile. He was amused at what Marjorie would probably say if he told her his true emotions at that moment. "I'm sleeping as soundly as a man who is to be hanged at sunrise," he thought, as he dropped off again into a dreamless sleep.
Whether or not the prisoners were to be executed, the guards believed in an early start. They were on their way shortly before the sun shot up behind the razor edge of the eastern wall. Somewhat dismayed, the prisoners understood now why their guards had eaten such an enormous supper. It was clear that breakfast to them was an unknown meal. As the day wore on, it appeared that lunch also was an undreamed mystery to these hairy, hulking monsters. Like healthy dogs they ate but once a day.
At first the prisoners carried their own packs. The guards seemed to doubt the etiquette of this, for they argued long among themselves, pointing frequently to the toiling prisoners who were panting to keep pace. But, concluding that as Vartan had been so concerned about his precious baggage the previous evening, the prisoners had best be left to handle it themselves, they abstained from offering assistance. After a three hours' gruelling march, however, without a single breathing spell, Marjorie and Ali began to show signs of distress. They were instantly relieved of their packs. The third guard then took charge of Vartan's, over the latter's half-hearted protest.
"Hold on a minute, old fellow," Vartan said as the hulking creature swung the pack onto one shoulder, "I have an inspiration." Recovering the pack for a few moments, he extracted half a dozen cubes of condensed rations. These he shared with Marjorie and Ali, finally offering one to the guard. The latter took the preferred nourishment doubtfully, smelled it critically, and passed it to his friends for inspection. The food contained, among other ingredients, a high concentration of beef extract. The verdict of the guards was unfavorable. With obvious protestations of goodwill, they declined to sample this strange, evil smelling food. One even hinted, by unmistakable acting, that the prisoners were guilty of cannibalism.
This strange reaction to an almost universal human food, made Vartan realize with a shock one singular feature of the flowery paradise through which they were passing. Nowhere had they seen cattle of any kind; the sole vertebrate beings in the valley were human. Clouds of iridescent butterflies rose from the vast beds of exotic, lily-like flowers through which they waded knee-deep, and myriads of beetles, of all sizes from the tiniest to great lumbering green giants the size of cucumbers, scurried away under, foot at their advance through the lush grass, but not once did they rouse so much as a field mouse. Nor at any time did they spy a bird hovering over this birds' natural heaven. The valley was civilized enough otherwise. Innumerable well-built bridges over the tracery of tributaries to the main river attested the engineering skill of the inhabitants.
Marjorie also had noticed the lack of vertebrate animals. She had also observed another peculiarity of the valley which Vartan, not being a specialist in botany, had overlooked.
"Do these blue lilies strike you as strange?" she asked.
He examined them critically. "Now that you speak of it, they do seem rather fantastic. What's the matter with them?"
"I don't know exactly," she confessed. "But even an amateur could see at a glance that they are all askew botanically. Do you like them?"
"Not much," he admitted. "Still, I should, I suppose. The shade of blue is pleasing enough, and the silver edging of the petals should make this variety somewhat of a rarity, I imagine. Still, the whole effect is not what it should be."
"Repulsive?" she queried.
"Exactly. Like our guards. They are no better than bad parodies of human beings."
"Careful," she admonished, lowering her voice. "They may understand your meaning although they can't follow the words. You expressed my feelings about these lilies exactly. They are just like our poor guards – strong, vigorous flowers, but hopelessly deformed. And the same is true of every one of the hundred
s of different varieties I have noticed so far. This valley," she continued with an uneasy laugh, "is like a madman's dream of a garden."
"Know enough botany to account for it?" Vartan quizzed.
"Only what I picked up in the six years I was at Brassey House, and that is hardly sufficient." Again she lowered her voice. "Send Ali ahead a bit; the guards won't object. I want to tell you something."
"Ali," Vartan called, "step out, and see how fast these fellows can go with our packs." When Ali was out of earshot, he turned to Marjorie. "Yes?"
"I meant to tell you that day when I read the last of Mr. Brassey's charge to us," she began. "But somehow it didn't seem appropriate at the time, and I couldn't. You remember that all the plants grown from the seeds James Brassey sent back were sterile?"
"Certainly," Vartan asserted.
"And no doubt you were surprised," she continued. "Or if you were not, you should have been."
"Why?" he demanded.
"Because you have been trained as a paleontologist. What would you say if you found a race of animals incapable of propagating themselves?"
"That's easy. I would conclude that I hadn't discovered their method of reproducing their kind – by eggs, division, or what not. Brassey's sterile flowers didn't astonish me. His laboratory men simply failed to find the right conditions under which the seeds will be fertilized."
"They tested every conceivable guess. At least so Mr. Brassey told me. No, Mr. Vartan, the cause of that sterility lies deeper. And, seeing these acres upon acres of deformed flowers, I begin to understand what the laboratory men said. They told Mr. Brassey he was on the wrong track."
"A matter of soil?" Vartan suggested.
"Perhaps. At any rate, they declared that all of those plants grown from James Brassey's seeds were not true plants at all, as any scientific botanist understands what is meant by plants. The very structure and functions of the cells were different in several important details from those of any known plants. In some ways, they said, those barren flowers were half way between plants and animals."
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